IMHO. My Villainess quest. "Jishou akuyaku reijiou na kon'yakusha no kansatsu kiroku"

Usually a heroine who discovers she's reborn as a villainess demonstrates one of the two reactions: she either desperately tries to avoid becoming evil, or ignores being called one and goes away to her domain or another country. 

So at first glance,  "An Observation Log of My Fiancee Who Calls Herself a Villainess" is different. She's bravely embracing her destiny to become a villainess. And splendidly fails. 

And it would be absolutely boring if not for the fact that the focus shifts from this plain clumsy-but-cute-because-she's-in-love girl to her prince.

He's not the first lonely-and-bored male character who gets attracted to the blunt girl who explicitly states her feelings. However, he's one of the few, if not the first one, to be followed in such proximity throughout the whole series. 

So yes, 'Observation Log' was kind of surprising. Not in a sence you'd expect, but still.

The rest, however, is nothing outstanding, so labeling this anime 'the best ever' (like some users did on MAL) seems to me something only a very inexperienced otaku would do.

P. S. The language and manner of speaking in this anime are not difficult to understand, but I wouldn't recommend it as a source to learn Japanese because of the genre. Beginners will have hard time understanding the choice of wording in every given situation. 

IMHO. 'Hellsing Ultimate' ~ tonight's a good night?

Children always try to prove they're big enough and shouldn't be treated as little children. Little girls wear their mothers' high-heeled shoes and paint their faces with mothers' red lipstick. Little boys play skirmish games.

And create 'Hellsing Ultimate'.

The more there's blood and violence, the more graphic and explicit it is, the better the ranking. Why, of course! It means you're not watching those cartoons for little children, no! Instead you can proudly say you watch serious stuff for grown-ups. 

Sexy female characters being groped by monsters is also very adult.

Adding gothic orchestral music must help too.

Right?

Wrong.

Real big boys don't need all that. Big boys don't prove. They enjoy good music (especially blues), good wine (even if it's blood), and look like they are lazily playing a game they can stop whenever they please. Even if it's a fight to death.

Imho. How to lose money with Rewarble

First, I have to mention that Rewarble vouchers cost 5 to 10 percent more than their value according to my country's official dollar rate. But that's another story. 

So, you buy a voucher. Then

1. You pay initial card creation fee of 3.5$ + 5.5%
2. You pay 1$ + 5.5% every time you use your voucher to top up your card.
You pay 2.5$ monthly fee for nothing, because you still can't use your card.
You pay 1.5$ more so that you can use your card. It's called activation. So basically to have a normal usable card you pay 4$ a month.
3. You pay 0.3$ for every transaction. 
4. Your activation does not work as soon as you pay for it, so you pay 0.3$ for each unsuccessful attempt several times a day, until your card is manually activated by support team.
Your balance is not shown correctly so you don't know the real amount you have. If you don't have enough to cover your subscription, you're charged 0.3$ for each unsuccessful attempt several times a day. 
5. You run out of money and your card is paused again. So you also lose the money you paid for activation.
6. Or your card gets blocked because of broken partnerships of Rewarble. You create a new card, losing money on card creation fee of 3.5$ + 5.5%. One of those cases was compensated, the other wasn’t.
7. Or your card gets blocked because of ‘suspicious activity’. Even if the only activity was Google play. You create one more card, losing money on card creation fee of 3.5$ + 5.5%. 

Let’s see how much I have to spend, let’s say for 1 year of usage, let’s say with 3 purchases amounting to 25$ every month:

5$ for creating new card (because the initial top-up can’t be less than 25$) twice in one year

2.4$ for topping up 25$ every month

4$ for monthly and activation fees every month

0.3$ for every successful purchase 3 times every month

0.3$ for every unsuccessful purchase which happen 5 to 10 times every month because of failed balance update or activation problems or simply me forgetting to top up and activate

 

So that’s

10$ creation fees

2.4$ x 11 = 26.4$ topping up fees

4$ x 11 = 44$ monthly and activation fees

0.3$ x 3 x 12 = 10.8$ for successful purchases

0.3$ x 5 x 12 = 18$ for unsuccessful purchases in the best case scenario

Which totals to

109.2$ for one year usage ^o^

Some of those charges were on me, some weren’t…

For the same amount of money I could make myself a normal bank card from a foreign bank, but it would last several years and cause less worries. If not for the dire situation we're in, I wish I never used Rewarble. 

IMHO. "Odayaka kizoku" ~ a gentleman's...

What do you do when you realised you've been swept to another world you don't really know? 

You start patting everyone's head of course, touch their cheeks, call them good boys and sleep together holding hands. Not all the time, no. 

But frequently. 

Because it's a gentleman's vacation. A very gentle gentleman. 

Just pure male friendship between brave adventurers. 

If you manage to get past these cringy moments of touchy-feely friendship, you'll get a poorly designed fantasy adventure with a few dungeons and dragons, which could be developed into something interesting if its potential weren't wasted on the sugary sweet and pretty meaningless interactions between the male characters, all of them being just by coincidence young cutesie-wootsie faces.

If you enjoy pretty guys dining, travelling and filling documents together, this is for you. I'm afraid, I don't. 

Give me back my time, please.

P. S. 

The voice actors in this show have pretty good pronounciation, so using this series for listening comprehension might be a good idea if not for the fact that the characters switch between formal and informal speech very often. This inconsistency may bring more confusion than profit, so 'Odayaka' is probably not the best source for learning the language, unless you're already familiar with levels of politeness in Japanese. 

IMHO. Last Exile attempt #3, and Last Exile Fam attempt #1

I've been doing it the wrong way all the time! Epic dramas actually are a source of great fun! 

Frodo leaves his homeland because he's emotionally scarred? Lol! 

Paul Atreides declares he will marry another woman in front of his beloved? Rofl! 

Light learns the real name of L and writes it in the Death note? Funniest moment in the series!

Right, reddit commenters? 

Is it so funny in fact? Or is it that kind of nervious laugh people have when they don't know how to react? 

I was actually wary of watching 'Last Exile' for the 3rd time, but I shouldn't have been. It's no less breathtaking, no less impressive. It has the same depth and scale. Not for a moment was I bored or my attention scattered. Not a single voice actor or soundtrack was out of place. 

Of course, it has its own limitations, especially the last episode, and especially its epilogue, which could become an episode of its own, but works like this - and my keyboard prompt replaces 'works' for 'worlds' - yes, worlds like this are so rare and precious. No recent 'isekai' can offer this. 

And somehow, the more complex and grand-scale the anime is, the more it gets criticised and picked at, even more than questionable titles that obviously have at least 1 dimension less. 

People said the 2nd season isn't as good as the 1st. I was afraid it's not, because people said it's not.

Turns out I was afraid of something different - of seeing life go on after the events of the 1st season.

It was hard to admit it was not the end of the world, but the end of that particularly story.

And when I finally conquered that fear... The first one came to be true. 

Of course, after achieving freedom through all that pain and sacrifice, people from the Last Exile world deserved their right to have fun. It just looks like they're trying to have fun too hard. Like the authors said 'let them go all out now'. 

Tatiana, who refused to become vice-captain of Silvana, suddenly is seen enjoying her own ship. Sophia, always neat and composed, dons a flashy pirate attire. Dio reverts to his childish self and behaves even more childish than before. Instead of Claus and Lavie, who were forced to grow up too soon, we see girls of the same age who aren't even going to grow up despite all the atrocities in front of their eyes. More than that - they casually save the world while enjoying their youth.

Wars look like it's a board game. Warships look like they are from a mobile strategy. 

Is it possible in an anime? Most certainly.

Is it possible in the world of Last Exile? I doubt it.

Instead of Okino lazily humming his 'Cloud age symphony' we have to listen to Maaya Sakamoto trying to make a hit out of her generic j-pop cute song.

The second season was trying too hard. But it's too down to earth both literally and figuratively. 

And I want something different. "If you're going to fly in the sky, I want to be the wings". 

IMHO. 'Frieren'

What happens after the journey ends?

Nothing.

That's why all adventure stories are about journeys, not about ever after. Even if some ever after is described, it's usually only to accentuate the main plot. 

So basically you need to create another journey so that the viewers have... something to view.

And here we have the result - trying to sit on two stools and falling somewhere in the middle. Neither of these two timelines is developed enough to create a fully immersive story. 

The flashbacks to the past journey are so short and out of context that they create little to no atmosphere. Well, if one side of the story is short, the other must be long, right? Nope. The current journey is an RPG-turned-anime involving your usual fighting monsters and/or rivals, with some slice-of-life in-between, but all of this is depicted so poorly I could memorize neither the characters nor the places, despite obvious attempts to create personal or regional differences. Most of the towns and villages leave no impression, and aloof fighters whose only reaction to events is 

don't really add any charm to the story. I didn't recognize a single voice actor apart from Taniyama, nor could I, because they're all new and flat to me. 

The idea of aristocratic villains sipping red wine, or senior mages sipping tea, was probably impressive some decades ago. Special thanks to those who created monsters who can speak and have the concept for victory through deception, but can't understand the word "family". And wear cravat. As if. 

As for jokes about 

and typically Japanese elements in a fantasy world 

I'm amazed how lazy the authors were if they couldn't think of anything else to bring fun into this otherwise gloomy story. 

The animators were clearly trying to keep us busy with finding tiny details in some frames, but it's not like I felt much gratification after doing so. It's not a game of "finding all the cats". 

Pair all this with an entirely forgettable soundtrack and theme songs I couldn't distinguish for the life of me, and you get "Frieren".

Maybe next time if you want to make a game, make a game. Don't make it into an anime, Madhouse. 

IMHO. "The Genius Prince's Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt" or "Tensai ouji"

Every country has a history of brave victories. Be it over a foreign enemy or just a clan or faction inside itself, like it was in Japan.

However, while other countries could boast such noble pretenses as freeing suffering nations, spreding true faiths or helping fellow neighbors, Japanese history books mostly tell how feudal lords scrambled for each other's lands. That's why I can't shake off the feeling that the interest for politics, war strategy and tactics in Japan is just something entirely different. Every second light novel writer in Japan imagines himself to be a talented analytic and creates his own world with his own map and his own Warring States.

The problem is, despite all the European trinkets, names and titles, they still create just another version of Japan and don't even bother to make it believable. 

That's why a woman can attend military academy or become an ambassador, but complains how she can't persuade her brothers to listen to her because she is a woman.

That's why noble ladies wear crop-tops or Japanese school uniforms while princes wear pink jackets. 

That's why, when nobody sees them, they comment on everything in slang that modern school students would use. 

I'm afraid it was supposed to be funny. 

However, you see... That don't impress me much. 

P. S. 

Learning perspective - low

This series is also heavily packed with difficult terminology (which would be written in complex kanji compounds), so I highly recommend to skip this anime as a possible source for studying Japanese, unless your goal is to specifically train in political and warfare vocab. 

IMHO. 'Tokyo salad bowl' ~ free service

Since there are economic problems within Japan, it needs outside workforce, right? So it should be kinder to foreigners, right?

Give your smartphone to anyone who asks for it. 

Interpret for any random person for free. 

Recognise people in a blurred security camera screenshot even though you only saw them briefly in a rear view mirror in your taxi.

And of course, feel free not to show up at your workplace just because you're interested in another incident. 

These are just the first 15 minutes of the first episode, but I feel like I've already watched the whole series.

Maybe, maybe one day Japanese TV-show makers will stop treating viewers as dumb children. 

As for now, you can watch another Japanese fairytale which has nothing to do with reality. 

IMHO. "Joou no kyoushitsu" ~ school days

Force the children to deal with a manipulating, ill-treating teacher, and they immediately develop a Stockholm syndrome!
Give them a cruel commander, and they become a perfect army, full of camaraderie and eagerness to be punished!

Despite what the main character was saying, the "queen"'s attempt to provoke the children was rather unsophisticated. To make them choose the right side you need to show them both, not only the worst one. In fact, the happy end where the children solved their problems and the class became united is rather a miracle than a logical consequence of such treatment. Good for those kids in the drama, but real kids don't cope with bullying on their own, don't become inspired if the see no inspiration, don't build a safe world if they're not brought up in one. And even if Kazumi's mother says her daughter is more adult than she thought, it doesn't make her adult.

Better look out not to become 'another brick in the wall'.

If you want a story about a nonconforming teacher who changed the entire class, go watch Great Teacher Onizuka.

'Good omens' ~ rest in piece

It's clever. It's so clever. Now anyone who says anything against the 2nd season can be instantly blamed as homophobic and ostracized.

However, reducing the discussion to this level is not only an offence to me, because it would mean I can see no further than this, but also a pretty unflattering signal that those who do it cannot see past this fence too. I'm sure the show was supposed to be more beautiful than this. It was supposed to be art.

I could write more, but looks like other people have said enough already, even making the same comparisons and using the same terms I would. So I'll say nothing more.

There are times when words are not necessary.

IMHO. Hikaru Utada ~ could she keep a secret...

https://youtu.be/pKbPKxlh3Yo?si=N24rOicg6eTMcD_y

There should be a limit to how bad a person can sing when he or she is aiming to be a professional artist. False notes, no vocal control, same plaintive melodies only occasionally rescued by unusual approaches of, I assume, different composers. However the most impressive fact for me is that she didn't learn it even after all these years.

'Star Driver' ~ Galactic Pretty Boy

We've already established that the Earth is best saved by Japanese schoolchildren, even if, or rather, especially if they need to pilot gigantic robots brought to Earth by another civilisation and equipped with weapons of mass destruction.

It's also clear that galactic problems are nothing in comparison with the problems people experience in their youth, such as love, friendship, school club activities, applying sunscreen on gilrs' backs...

Actually, the more girls - the better. Let's have more of them introduced in the middle of the story even if nobody saw it coming.

If singing voice actors are engaged, much attention is paid to theme songs, with the characters singing everywhere possible, including not only karaoke, but also beaches, school corridors, bus tops, and who cares where else. My personal suggenstion would be, however, not to make 3 out of 4 important songs just happy cute pop hits, so that you don't have to use the remaining one as your only option to add drama when necessary. My personal wish - start searching for decent opening and ending songs, or the art of anime music will be lost.

The final battle will easily fit one episode, with the decisive fight taking no more than 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the remaining budget. Why not turn on theme songs here again.

And at least one furry animal to accompany the story, remember.

There is something new established by 'Star Driver', though. Seems like you can be a Galactic Pretty Boy even if you're a girl. We live in the modern age, no discrimination, okay?

At least they didn't forget about the humour, that I do admit.

IMHO. 'The Pursuit of Love' ~ seems like love is more elusive than you'd think

One of the two main characters is a whimsical woman who spends her life sincerely searching for love and meaning, and just as sincerely displaying remorse after realising she did not succeed. Time and time again.

The other is a prudent woman who spends her life envying the other, while at the same time disapproving of her, but forgiving her as soon as she shows up. Time and time again.

Their friendship that's described to be so lofty and survive all that happens to them is nothing else but mutual realisation they don't have anyone else. And even though they repeat so many times they love to chat, I can't imagine a single topic they could discuss.

And now that I've managed to write whole 3 paragraphs describing them I'm actually surprised that I squeezed so much out of myself because there's so little I could say. Every other character could be easily described with just one or two words. Only lonely Andrew Scott managed to breathe some life into his character despite how little time he has on screen.

So it puzzles me just where exactly you saw any friendship, any women's point of view, or, to start with, any love in this 'Pursuit of love'.

"Автостопом по галактике" - если хочется момнухнуть

Где-то слева от этой книги - "Алиса в стране чудес", справа - "Космический денди", внутри - забористая клюква, озеро из джина с тоником, а то и тот самый "пангалактический грызлодер". В общем, да? Да. Но осторожно. 

'Saiunkoku monogatari' ~ The story of the Kingdom of colourful clouds

The advantage of long stories is that all characters have enough screen time to develop and show what kind of individuals they are. The problem is that not only the viewers, but the creators themselves become bored and start thinking up one plot twist after another for the sheer sake of twisting the plot.

Still, 'Saiunkoku' is a refreshing example of shoujo genre, because the main female character, despite a huge reverse harem around her, behaves like a normal woman, trying to pursue her career and still unsure about her feelings. Because the characters around her are not the standard set of handsome love-interests, but are just as colourful as the clouds that the country is named for. Because their feelings and relationships are as colourful too.

Because the creators were not afraid to make fun of what could be otherwise awkward.

Because the emperor of the country is comforted by little pandas in the woods when he is feeling down. Because a nobleman makes a flute out of a radish.

Because a loyal friend protects the heroine with bamboo shoots.

This anime may be far from ideal. After all, I spent 2 months watching it, too long for less than 80 episodes, which means I didn't feel like I couldn't wait to watch further.

Still, I'd recommend it to absolutely everyone, because I know I already miss them - the people of the Kingdom of colourful clouds.

IMHO. 'The woman named Fujiko Mine' ~ a woman named Fujiko Mine

What if we take one the most shameless, brazen, dangerous female criminals in anime history and make her unexpectedly broken, lost, lonely and fragile?

What if we make the main characters of  'Lupin III' second to her?

What if we add another character to futher deepen the dramatic side of our series?

What if we introduce one plot twist after another so that our viewers keep getting surprised?

A decadent 'Lupin the Third'. Overboard decadent.

If we do so, we get a show that leaves us with one quesiton: what does Lupin have to do with all of it?

Actually, it looks like he knows just how out of place 'Lupin' as a franchise is in this twist. And no brilliant voice actor can chage this fact.

Like a jedi coming to help Frodo. Like Chaplin singing Chinese opera.

I mean, half the time it's Fujiko being...

And half the time it's all right. Fujiko being Fujiko. And Lupin being Lupin. And everyone else being just themselves.

Wait, she's actually not broken? She claims to always have been herself?

Well, if it were so, we wouldn't have this series.

You can stitch up black and white together. But not if you keep placing them perpendicularly to each other.

IMHO. 'Space Dandy' ~ see you space dandy

If I said that 'Space Dandy' is something from outer space, would it sound like a very cheap pun?

If I didn't, would I ever do it justice?

If the villain's ship did not look the way it does, would 'Space Dandy' be better?

Or would it be better if there weren't those episodes dealing with life and death, 2- and 4-dimensional universes, space and time, love and dreams, other planets and other possibilities?

If you were offered to become a god with no body, live forever and observe the universe, would you agree?

If you met Shinichiro Watanabe in person, would you tell him he needs to stop making these anime series with open endings?

IMHO. 'Kiznaiver' ~ Mazda for Matsuda...

The mission of saving the world is limited to middle or high school students in Japan. After all, it's only during this short period of life that teenagers are allowed to have their 'inner darkness', fall in and out of love for the first time, and behave in a way they want. After that, they're supposed to choose their future profession, enter a university, find a job and become a 'shakaijin' - a 'full-fledged member of society'.
Since it's a given, I wouldn't dream of blaming Japanese anime directors for creating one more anime about schoolchildren. I wouldn't complain that exploring the topic of pain, sharing one's emotions and interdependence could as well involve young people or grown-ups, not students.
However, I have to complain about the way it's done.
A bunch of students are kidnapped, used in a medical experiment without their consent, and ordered what to do by a kuudere gothic loli. They just go along with it, of course, demanding little explanation, because, well, how else do you make a story. The bunch consists of such generic characters and every new development is so predictable that I'm not sure if there isn't a manual called 'how to create a dramatic story about youth' circulating between anime studios in Japan. The characters conveniently wait for a new event to get angry or dissatisfied, and change their mind about things very quickly, because you know, they only have 12 episodes to show it. It's no less surprising how conveniently new aspects of this 'kizuna' interdependence are revealed, one at a time: pain - when it's necessary to explain the concept, frustration - when it's necessary to introduce more drama, mind reading - only when the characters started to get close, to make them realise it's not possible for them to become close. The pain from Hisomu, the secret 7th member, was only relayed to the rest when it was time to find him. No earlier than that. Sad things only happen under the rain and the umbrella is bound to be red. Ts-ts-ts.

Yeah, this is one wonderful 'sharing of pain' concept. All the connected guys felt it when Niko was lightly punching Katsuhira in the head. Still, they commented 'it does not hurt!' when Chidori and Katsuhira fell down from a height of several meters, without any time to brace themselves, on a jumping sheet. Which is of course an absolutely safe and pleasant thing to do.
If this were the only case when the concept of pain was misinterpreted by the creators, I'd understand, but it's impressive how much they managed to ignore the vast range of consequences of taking pain as the subject of research.
Is a good song used for the opening a guarantee that the anime will be good? Seems like not. At least not when the ending theme is less than impressive.
Actually, you know... I'm sorry BOOM BOOM SATELLITES' last song, and a rather listenable soundtrack, too, were wasted on this mediocrity.

Even the attempt to introduce some madness was wasted.

IMHO. Eureka 7 ~ how one realises their age

If only I were 10 years younger... I'd probably say 'Eureka' is the best anime in the world. This colourful futuristic world with different laws of physics, global catastrophe caused by an evil genius approaching, rainbow-like explosion that marks the renewal of the world, important moments emphasised with emotional music, but the best part being the charismatic characters of course... But in fact, nothing new and nothing I've never seen somewhere else.

Flow's usual 'heeeey here we go!!!' kind of opening song, optimistic rap or rock'n'roll, girls and boys whining to a guitar for opening and ending themes... Soundtrack that combines electronic and symphonic pieces... One impressive insert theme turns out to be a famous song I already know, and the other - the only listenable piece in the discography of a since disbanded group.

Young boys who find love and become brave to save the world by sheer willpower. Mysterious girls who will only smile to them. Adults who entrust these hero-boys with the fate of the world and are ready to sacrifice themselves to protect the young generation...

These things could only impress me 10 years ago when I knew much less of what anime can be like.

I mean, when you watch mecha, you don't ask why streets in all cities and even natural caves are wide enough for the giant robots to pass. You also never ask why there's a Japanese-style common bath in an aerial battleship. But you probably retain the right to ask why every new development looks like a convenient way out rather than a natural conclusion. And even all these wonderful colourful things can't hide just how much the creators were swaying between different versions of the ending, thrusting in one major event after another just because they'd changed their mind. In the end, they didn't even have enough screen time to show the future lives of the characters who were in fact the main attraction of the show. I'm sure many fans wanted to see what became of their favourite characters, not just the main couple, but what a disappointment for them.

If I were 10 years younger, I'd probably overlook all these things and give 'Eureka' 10 out of 10 in my exaltation, but 'Eureka' will have to be content with my less rapturous rating of 7. And the biggest part of it is because of these characters, and of course, their brilliant voice actors.

IMHO. 'Michiko to Hatchin' ~ as if you read a good book

'There's not enough jazz anime in this world', said Shinichiro Watanabe one day and decided to make 'Michiko to Hatchin'. 'There's not enough stories about people struggling to survive in a harsh environment', added Shukou Murase. And yes, they invited Sayo Yamamoto, but I guess I know who's the boss here. I don't think you'd ever mistake an anime created by Watanabe with anything else:

or forget about Murase - look at a bookshelf from a library in 'Michiko and Hatchin':

Well, this unlikely-characters-travelling-together trope, this pursuing-a-goal-and-finding-that-the-journey-was-more-important idea, this jazz and r'n'b soundtrack are nothing new. Even inviting cinema actors instead of professional voice actors is a trick we've seen already. But when all of that is so brilliantly done, and, moreover, done in such a way that I can clearly see just how well the creators understand what they're trying to depict... I can't but admit: my hat's off.

To be honest, 'Michiko to Hatchin' is not the case when you sympathise very much with the characters or make favourites. But it's surely the case when you understand them. And it's absolutely the case when you can say, after you finish, that you gained something by watching, just like reading a good book.