Jeoffrey

The second season of Hilda is just as charming (especially the world it is set in and its inhabitants) as the first, although it is perhaps a little less imaginative when it comes to the subject matter. It takes on classic fantasy themes such as playing around with time. The supporting characters are given more screen time which means the character development has vastly improved since the first season, and so they are now more important to many of the stories. The main female protagonist is still great, and as for the new characters, well, let us just say the show got its own Gilderoy Lockhart... Then again, it was an experience that I enjoyed from the opening to the very end. Now, concerning the end of the last episode, I am very intrigued to see what happens next... 8.3/10.

Hilda is a really charming TV show with a very likable, imaginative world full of all sorts of mysterious creatures. I think it is just an excellent show about fantastic (yet not only) beasts (and where to find them). The atmosphere is mostly very pleasant, sometimes even suspenseful. However, it always manages to be intriguing at least. A lot of the characters, especially the magical ones, are very memorable and everyone will probably have their favorite. What I personally found a bit weaker were the human characters, where I think the only character that really caught my attention in the first season was indeed the inquisitive main female protagonist. However, after saying that, this is otherwise a really enjoyable experience and I am looking forward to the second season in the autumn. 8.2/10

This is pretty much a long prologue to the MMORPG smartphone app. If you are interested in playing Magatsu Wahrheit, then this anime series is worth a watch, because it is about what happened from the beginning (hence the word Zuerst which means first in German) and it even supposedly puts a lot of things from the game in perspective, so you are not going to feel like the very first mission is kind of out of context. If, like me, you had no idea about the MMORPG smartphone app, then you will probably think this is a pretty mediocre, occasionally interesting anime series that does not really even have any atmosphere and does not really sell itself. The story is pretty well thought out even though it does not really hold any excitement or surprise for the audience. The soundtrack is below average and, except for the last episode, does not really contribute anything of worth to the overall experience. The animation sometimes looks quite pretty (such as the scenes when "the light came on"), however, at other times you can see that there is room for improvement in terms of fluidity and movement, for example. The monsters are not scary, and the plot twists do not leave a lasting impression. The characters are also quite insipid and uninspired, and when I started to find them at least a little bit interesting (like with Elfriede or Conrad), the screenwriters seemed to have always made sure they had put something in the story to kill any fascination I may have had. I did not find the central duo entertaining, as one is an insipid nice guy and the other is a coward "looking for his balls", which just does nothing for me... I might have even been interested in how the story continues if it were not in this format (and I hardly play smartphone games at all), so I am going to stop at the prologue, and I am not going to award this more than 4.5/10.

Onyx Equinox would get full marks from me if the jaguar-like character was voiced by Christopher Judge and so I could fully enjoy another BOY simulator! As it is, if you watch it in English, it seems like he keeps calling Izel BOY mainly so that the audience understands (mainly due to the poorly chosen English voice actor for Izel) that he is really a boy and not a girl! Also, it would not have been so jarring if it were all a bit more relaxed and the basic story were not just a typical heroic journey going from one place to another completing various tasks (with the transitions and jumps being really really fast)... It all follows the usual formula where the hero has to take some friends along for the ride, because they can rarely do anything on their own, and if they fall on their face, which will happen a lot with the lowest of the low, well someone has to be there to pick them up off the ground. However, I do think the setting is really great, I do not know any shows set in the Aztec Empire and the fact that most of the songs are sung in the original Aztec language is another great bonus, and I found the whole thing undeniably charming. Another thing I am incredibly impressed by is how gory it is. Violence in TV shows, movies or even games has its limits. For example, if I take an ordinary video game like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and decide to wipe out an entire village, I am never going to quite succeed because there are certain things that are sort of forbidden in that particular video game. Onyx Equinox does not have any restrictions of this kind. It is raw, gritty and uncompromising. There are a lot of grievous injuries, severed limbs, and various severed body parts (including entrails) everywhere. On the other hand, I only grew to like the main protagonist after quite a while, and he only made a good impression on me around the ninth episode (well, near the end). I also found that the story started to get really interesting around the same time, however, until then it was more of a regular, yet very visually attractive bore-fest. What the hell was that at the end of the first season? Well, it was not quite what I was expecting, the bad-death-romance and problem solving were very Eric Cartman-style, and the fight scene was very chaotic and messy. However, despite all that I still found the second season quite intriguing. 6.5/10.

Somehow, I am not convinced that season two of The Irregular at Magic High School is anything groundbreaking or particularly interesting. In fact, I found the whole of The Irregular at Magic High School: Visitor Arc to be just another small (albeit incredibly long-winded) diversion for the main male protagonist and his crew. I think it is a shame that I did not find it very interesting. I found it lacked suspense and also had no real twists. Sure, maybe some of the events shown in this season will be seen to have an impact in future episodes, and this season will eventually get its due, however, it is just that I cannot see that at the moment... I have to say that I also did not find this season very entertaining. I still like the main male protagonist who is going around solving one problem after another with coolness and calm, and in extreme situations he manages to always dig deep and pull off another incredible spell. He is also still undeniably charismatic and I can kind of see what all those girls see in him. However, what does this show have besides a good protagonist? There are a couple of new characters, not much of a storyline, some decent action scenes... However, that is just not enough to make this show more than just average! I think the second season is quite mediocre. 5.5/10.

The new Pixar movie is certainly a very imaginative movie, with very good thought-provoking subject matter, which even provides acceptable answers to questions like "What is the meaning of life?". I really like the soundtrack, especially the jazz music and Trent Reznor's contributions (and you can tell it is him!), so I am definitely satisfied with that aspect. The animation is also excellent (albeit so very Pixar...). This is definitely quite a substantial movie in terms of subject matter, which is food for thought, however, for some reason, I did not enjoy this movie as much this time around as I just did not leave with that unforgettable feeling the Pixar studio's best animated movies left me with. Despite that, however, I am still awarding Soul a strong four stars, 8.4/10.

Jun Maeda has delivered what I expected from him and did not disappoint me. Do you think the beginning was pointless? If you are familiar with the emphasis in Maeda's work, then you are not going to think it was pointless (if you are not familiar, then you need to go to Wikipedia and read up on it in plain English...), and in the end, everything came together and made sense in my opinion. Yes, it probably has a very unremarkable beginning and is one of the author's more ordinary stories. Do you think that the main female protagonist was irritating and hyperactive? Well, her being extremely irritating and hyperactive throughout the season was essential to the story and contrasted beautifully with the final storyline. Of course, in my defense, I have had a thing for spirited girls in robes since A Certain Magical Index, however, that is beside the point... From a rather understated beginning, full of everyday and extraordinary things, we slowly get to the big reveal, and there is a perhaps very hurried escalation, predictable heartache, and then the bittersweet ending, where the author tries to show what really matters to him, and what he was going for. I thought it all worked out pretty well, although I was not as moved by the heart-wrenching ending as in other Maeda's work (because it was quite predictable this time), however, I think the poignancy and final catharsis came through. So even though it was probably the most unexceptional, and maybe the weakest of Maeda’s works, as I wrote at the beginning, it did not disappoint me and I think it did what it set out to do. Also, the animation and soundtrack were very nice. 8/10.

I was left completely satisfied with the third season of Is the Order a Rabbit? I had spent a lot of very lovely Saturday afternoons with a cup of hot cocoa and this incredibly enjoyable and heart-warming show. Bloom means to blossom, and so this season is all about the big and small changes that the characters experience, and keeping them moving forward and evolving. I mean, you could say that this season is a little bit more complex than season one and two, because it is a lot about a person blossoming, and about how they change in small ways. Fortunately, the best thing about the show has not changed, so everything is colorful, adorable, and sometimes even quite amusing. I have nothing to complain about, as I am still really into this anime series. 9.2/10.

If there were a TV series made out of the content of this movie, then, according to established Japanese stereotypes, what happens in this movie would be, in my humble opinion, a plot of the second season. The movie skips the initial bonding between the two main characters and dives straight into their relationship with all its joys and sorrows. There are some classic scenes, and anyone who has seen a romantic GL anime before can easily picture the individual episodes of an imaginary anime series. Even so, the writers have managed to beautifully weave the themes together in this limited format, bringing to the fore the main issue and then resolving it quickly and pleasantly, i.e. the pacing is absolutely impeccable. Thanks to the two main female protagonists and their relationship with each other being the main focus, everything is so endearing. It is full of blushing and rainbow colors, little misunderstandings - once again, this is a classic and well-executed high school romance anime. On the other hand, I would have liked more, I would have liked the whole story and a much deeper analysis of the situations they find themselves in and their emotions so that I could follow them and digest it more because that is what a strange combination of a romantic and a pragmatist like me seems to really get into. Anyway, it was a very enjoyable movie with simple pastel-colored animation and an absolutely gorgeous soundtrack, plus, lovely characters... It just flew by... 8.4/10.

Oh yeah, thanks to you, gentlemen, I now really do not know what else I could possibly write about this anime series. I read one, a second, and even a third review and I just had to nod my head and think - Yeah, that's true!. The world it is set in is excellent, engaging, and has a lot of potential. The beginning is great, it definitely has some style and the drive the title promises. However, from the moment the characters get on the train, there are moments where I have to raise my eyebrows and think to myself that half the stuff that happens from here on out is absolute bullshit that could probably make me really depressed. The pacing is unnecessarily fast, the character development is really sloppy, the development of the interesting aspects of the stories is severely truncated. True, that's pretty true... Sometimes it is visually pleasing though, the last two episodes literally explode with color and movement. The whole thing has some drive, so it still somehow managed to engage me and I sometimes looked forward to what was going to happen next. However, I was also worried about what they were going to absurdly overdo or stupidly mess up again. That is also true! So, what am I supposed to contribute? I have read all the reviews and agree with everything that has been said already by others, and in the end, it is mostly an exceptional load of wasted potential and I think that it is a mediocre anime series that has some pretty good stuff, some pretty bad stuff and a lot of other stuff in between... I am off to play elsewhere, my review is pointless. 5/10.