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. '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. Maoyuu ~ problems of modern education

It's sad when an anime turns out to be completely bad and not worth one's time, but it's also sad when it had potential but didn't live up to it.

This is what happens when you try to make a shounen-harem single-season anime series out of a history textbook, even if that history is a fantasy.

The start was almost good, not least because of the funny gap between the seriousness of the main characters' undertaking and their teenage clumsiness.

It also never hurts to have the creators self-conscious of what they do, and once in a century the silly puns and comments typical for ecchi anime sound fun not because they're fun as they are but because they are so intentionally made to be perceived as your typical ecchi comments.

The epic discussion on the fates of the world, philosophical contemplations on good and evil are easily tolerated when punctuated by out-of-the-blue anime-only developments.

The ending by Arai Akino with her ethereal voice, being a nice counterbalance for the generic shounen-anime energetic song with female vocals, also contributed to the fantasy atmosphere.

I even found myself fascinated by how the development of the world is viewed by our main character, Demon King.

However, the further into the story the more the pace of the series is disrupted. It starts when the creators decide to put a whole year of the characters' lives into one episode #3. Then, in the span of 12 episodes we follow, or at least are supposed to be following, several wars and conflicts, both real and economic, developments and deaths of several major poleis, forming of alliances and church dissents, era-changing inventions such as printing and arbalests, all taking place within only several years.

I don't know if the creators meant this anime as a way to attract students not interested in history otherwise, but Maoyuu looks like a perfect ad: hey do you know there's a new version of a history course, this time with boobs and first-rate voice actors.

Maoyuu constantly doubts whether it's a fantasy shounen or a textbook. Where previously shounen characters would be admiring opponents' new techniques, Maoyuu's characters are amazed at...

And when the swaying gets too strong, there's bound to be resonance, which, in its turn it bound to increase the swaying even more. By the last episode, hardly any character gets enough time to be fully presented, new characters and directions appearing even as the last episode is approaching its 20th minute, and the series end up in a peaceful harem interaction while the world's fate stays undecided.

There are cases when I wish a book was made into an anime, but this is the first time I thought I'd be happy if Maoyuu was a proper book rather than a single-season shounen harem.

p. s. Reviving my 'how to learn Japanese' column, I highly recommend to stay away from Maoyuu if you're still in the early stages of learning the language. At least for me, Maoyuu became a source of an infinite despair because of my sheer ignorance of all the Japanese lingo pertaining to economics, politics, warfare and such.

'Otome Youkai Zakuro' ~ justified risk

an anime based on an ongoing manga, created by Hoshino Lily who was specialising in BL, and directed by Chiaki Kon, who is famous for the same thing. the previous works influence my opinion very much and I was not particularly happy to know that two main people responsible for 'Zakuro' have worked on shounen-ai - that meant for me that 'Zakuro' would be overloaded with fanservice for girls

 especially when the original graphics has FOR_GIRLS written all over its 'face'

however, I was mistaken. 'Zakuro' turned out to be pretty decent, tolerable shoujo, even though it is not a masterpiece

story and characters

are typical, if not cliche. at first sight, we have nothing more than
a type widely considered to be tsundere

a shy but deeply feeling girl

and girls with a positive attitude towards everything and inspiring positive feelings into everyone

coupled with a self-confident ikemen

a cool guy

and a young but serious guy

the characters meet for the first time, devote themselves to common cause, get to know each other better, their feelings grow, they reveal some secrets of their past, constantly save each other, at some point the main Heroine turns out to be a greater existence than she seemed, is captured, the company starts off to rescue her, the Heroine obtains her true power and delivers the final blow to the enemy herself
a very, very boring skeleton it must seem. if there are things that can save a poor framework, than all of them were used in 'Zakuro' to compensate for that

first, the right use of the characters types. those types either become a platitude, or are made into believable characters. the latter happened in 'Zakuro', fortunately. we get to see different kinds of behaviour, different kinds of relationships, different kinds of interactions and reactions, and no one seems odd. moreover, 'Zakuro' offers such likeable characters that I could not follow my usual pattern 'choose one character and forget about the rest'. I used to call this feeling a 'respect', but I am not sure if it does not incline towards 'sympathy', or something else. I am trying to say, even if I was not personally a fan of this or that type of character, I 'could not take my eyes off of them'. the 'shoujo' level did not go overboard either
and humour - that last straw that can save anything. monsters who only want to scare but not to hurt

silly actions of characters who were supposed to act cool

'childish granddaddy' type of characters

and adorable, cute, almost useless characters like Mamezou

this balance is not something easily achieved, in my mind
天晴れ！

music

is the second thing which saves 'Zakuro' from being a mediocre 'watch-and-forget' anime. the BGM composer is said to be Sugimoto Masaru. however, if you have a look at the OST booklet, you will see another name - Nanase Hikaru. while Nanase is responsible for many beautiful and bewitching songs, Sugimoto is an unknown figure to me, but I am happy to get to know his works

OST is something I would call an OST masterpiece. everyone has his own principle on how to decide whether an OST is good or bad, but what I appreciate the most is when the composer(s) is/are able to create different kinds of music for different situations, and when the music presents some interest separately, not as a background. oh, and one more criterion - though I have a great respect towards experimental OSTs, I am not in favour of replacing analog instruments with a single synthesizer. 'Zakuro' OST uses classical instruments, and even violin is not violated as usual manages to create symphonic sound

OP theme was what I liked the least, though 'twas not bad. ED themes were much more interesting. I remembered 'Sakura Taisen', 'Ikoku' and some other anime where seiyuus sang theme songs
天晴れ！

voicing

seiyuus of 'Zakuro' are a group of the most popular, famous and demanded ones. just look at this list: Nakahara Mai, Sakurai Takahiro, Hanazawa Kana, Toyosaki Aki, Horie Yui, Hino Satoshi, Kaji Yuuki, Okamoto Nobuhiko, Kondou Takayuki, Komiya Kazue, Ishizumi Akihiko, Tamura Mutsumi, Iguchi Yuka, Tomatsu Haruka, Inoue Kikuko, Kotobuki Minako. I guess creating 'Zakuro' was pretty expensive due to such a list. however, they all coped with their roles so brilliantly that I was absolutely delighted. the main characters' seiyuus were predictably good, but Tomatsu-san  impressed me with an unexpected low voice. the 'old school' Oohara Sayaka and Inoue Kikuko were just as one would expect them to be. the only thing I could wish for is probably Nakahara putting more effort into training how to portray crying 

天晴れ！

graphics
probably some of the pictures were done in a lazy manner, but the extent of laziness was not critical. mostly I liked the bright vivid colours which, independently of whether you admit it or not, always liven up the atmosphere and cheer up the spectators
if only there were more pictures of the city itself... since Meiji, Taisho and Showa are my favourite periods in Japanese history (as well as 19-20 centuries in world history) I wanted to see more views creating the epoch, but I only saw the 'Ministry' itself, Kei's mansion and a few streets

unlike wider perspectives, facial expressions were done very well

which were sometimes contributing to the atmosphere of the moment so that my heart almost skipped a bit

天晴れ！

conclusion

there are anime series that have a strong basis which seems trustworthy from the very beginning. 'Zakuro' was the opposite. however, I have no regrets I risked. right after the start, due to likeable characters, overwhelming music and interesting plot I felt like I finally found the type of anime I was searching for - the one that made me feel like I felt in my early days, when my breath was easily taken away by what was happening on the screen. 13 episodes in one gulp!
天晴れ、天晴れ、天晴れな～！