What happens when you watch anime that you don’t feel the need to write a full review about, but you still want to talk about them? You get this collection of mini anime reviews. There’s ten of them here and there’s no theme between any of them. It’s ANIME, isn’t that what you’re here for??
1999-2000
-Jack
A while back I had an interest in watching a handful of different magical girl anime. The original intent was to watch a variety of shows to coincide with my viewing of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. While I did end up watching Madoka (a review which I have been greatly delaying, amongst other write ups I’ve neglected to finish), I only ended up watching one of these supplemental magical girl anime and that was Ojamajo Doremi. On the outset, the show gives the impressions of being aimed at a young female audience, and after having sat through 50+ episodes of the original series followed by a portion of its sequel series, Doremi #, I can indeed say it follows through on being a show for young girls. Surprisingly this has garnered quite a dedicated fan base outside of that demographic and I think the recommendations and inside jokes I’ve seen from the fans had me curious on what exactly was so interesting about it.
For what it’s worth, Ojamajo Doremi is endearing and is full of more charm and humor than I would have expected. A majority of the show focuses on the titular Doremi, alongside her friends Hazuki and Aiko, who have become apprentice witches to help restore the witch, Majorika, to her normal self. Doremi herself is a bit of an oddball female protagonist who is usually more interested in her own wants, but still retains a good hearted nature towards her family and friends. She’ll usually find herself getting into situations to help others or further her witch training, with the show usually following a similar pattern each episode. It’s a cute comedy slice of life with some good writing and surprisingly emotional episodes, at times covering topics not often seen in children’s television. It’s definitely a show I prefer to have on in the background, but there’s a lot to admire about Doremi and a plethora of good content to sit through. Now I just have to put the time into actually sitting through the rest of the series. All things in good time…
Summer 2005
-Capes
This adaptation is genius, pure and simple. I mean, especially by 2005 standards, this is one of those manga-to-anime translations that goes above and beyond to create a timeless cutesy comedy show that is as enjoyable now as it probably was back then. Which, considering this is the studio that did Onegai Twins and DearS right before this, that’s a major accomplishment… The attention to detail is impressive, especially with the show’s audio design. The sound effects match up with the visuals in a surprising realistic way, adding to its peaceful atmosphere without taking away from its comedy bits. This is more of a cutesy show than a comedy in the long run, but it has a good amount of clever laughs keeping things moving. The pacing is far more patient than you’d expect from a show focused around elementary schoolers, but its intricate writing and presentation keeps it from ever getting stale. The characters are great, of course, which is not always a given with shows focused around young characters.
Summer 2005
-Bematt
One of the core concepts of the Shinto religion is the idea that the kami – deities and spirits – reside in all things. Inanimate objects, locations, and even abstract concepts can have deities associated with them. They are woven into the tapestry of the universe itself as a natural entity in a world beyond our own. Kamichu! is a series that revolves around this concept and cleverly transforms it into a coming of age story about a middle school girl who one day spontaneously becomes a god. How this happens is never explained, and it’s because it isn’t necessary. This is ultimately a colorful vehicle to allow the awkward and shy Yurie to go on a journey of self-discovery as she learns to balance her normal life with her responsibilities as a Shinto deity. She also gets to do cool stuff every once in a while like help an alien get back to their home planet while being chased by the military. I’m not kidding, there’s an entire episode dedicated to this.
Kamichu! is really unique as far as original anime go and I did enjoy it quite a bit. What stands out in particular is its atmosphere, which is as down to earth as you can get with a slice-of-life series. Even with the fantastical elements that come with Yurie being a god, the anime has a leisurely pace that takes its time by design. Other than the aforementioned alien episode, most of the events take place in Yurie’s small town which is always filled to the brim with charm and warmth. This is conveyed through its fluid animation, vibrant choice of colors, and comforting music that sells the whole package. This comes at the cost of much of the anime being very dry, which can be a quality to appreciate in its own right. There is very little in the way of exaggeration. Yurie’s transformation into a god and her duties are not treated like a groundbreaking event. Despite seeing all the minor deities mingling in the world through her perspective as a god, this atmosphere stays consistent throughout the entire anime. If you’re looking for something comforting to watch with its own unique spin on things, Kamichu! definitely fits the bill. If you want to watch something stimulating, you’re better off looking somewhere else. There’s an entire episode dedicated to Yurie stubbornly staying underneath the kotatsu all day. That’s how dry it can get.
Spring 2011
-Capes
I don’t have a whole lot of words to say about A-Channel because it’s a simple anime about cute girls. If you like cute anime girls, you’re going to like A-Channel, it’s as simple as that. It’s one of those ‘oh yeah, this exists!’ kind of shows that can easily slip past people’s radars, especially since it came out in 2011 alongside other more ambitious anime projects from other studios. But A-Channel is an adaptation of unquestionable decent quality. You won’t hear any complaints from me about it, but it does little to set itself apart from everyone else aside from its characters and visual design.
This actually reminded me of a show I talked about during the 2022 Fall season, ‘The Little Lies We All Tell’. Both shows have a four-character focus, including 1 glasses girl, 1 cool-headed beauty, 1 loli (I’m sorry Tooru), and 1 airhead. But instead of focusing on pure gags, A-Channel sticks closer to the easygoing pacing of a show like Lucky Star, while sharing similar storytelling elements. Both are filled with cute moments, mostly scenes of the girls hanging out either at school or elsewhere, so if you like one show, you’re going to like the other one, as well. A-Channel doesn’t have close to the same level of masterwork seen in Kyoani’s adaptations (does anyone???), but it has an admirable sense of humor to it that makes it worth watching for fans of the genre.
Winter 2013
-Bematt
You know the deal: An early-2010s light novel adaptation by the acclaimed studio Shaft with Akiyuki Shinbo himself at the helm in the director’s chair. You get head tilts. You get animation style shifts. You get dutch angles and the whole nine yards. But is it good? Well, that depends on your tolerance for whiplash. Comedy and tragedy may be two halves of the same mask, but Sasami-san@Ganbaranai operates both like a light switch rather than blending them together into a nice smoothie. The premise is purposefully misleading; Sasami-san may be a NEET, but she’s also the unwitting vessel for the power of the great god Amaterasu. This entire series is basically a big parody of Shintoism, with Sasami’s bloodline being completely sustained by incest (ironically so, as incest is considered an impurity in the Shinto doctrine). This is why Sasami’s brother has an unhealthy infatuation with her despite the fact that she’s trying to end her family’s tradition once and for all. Assisting her in this task are the three Yagami sisters who were all born from Amaterasu herself. Realizing the burden she incurred by foisting her power onto a human family, Amaterasu decides she wants to make things right and take back her responsibility as a god.
Responsibility is a key theme of Sasami-san, hence the “Ganbaranai” in the title. Sasami-san wants to be a slacker because her family has suffered from a responsibility too great for their shoulders to bear. Amaterasu wants to make things right and reclaim that burden. This premise is solid and the characters are quirky enough that I was able to enjoy it. That being said, about halfway through it goes from being a quirky goofball comedy with theistic elements to being edgy and dramatic in the span of a single episode. I do think the writers manage to address some of the themes well enough, but then it spends the rest of its run bouncing back and forth between the two polarized moods. It’s straight out of the Jun Maeda playbook, but you’re bound to find more substance here than in something like Charlotte. Art and animation wise it’s about on par with the later Hidamari Sketch seasons. The OST is nice but not enough to be memorable beyond the OP song by ZAQ. I think the character designs are decent but some characters are woefully undeveloped. The relationship between Sasami and the android Kagami is the best part of the whole series and almost worth the price of entry on its own. This anime is middle of the road as far as Shaft is concerned, but decent enough that I think it’s worth giving a chance for a couple of episodes before deciding whether to continue or drop it.
Summer 2014
-Capes
Glasslip is a visually beautiful anime with pleasant character designs, good voice acting, and an easygoing atmosphere. It also has the worst screenplay ever written! Go figure P.A. Works get saddled up with another bomb, riding this nuke through production all the way until it struck innocent anime viewers in the fateful year of 2014. It truly is astonishing how easily one flimsy pillar can knock the whole tower over, but Glasslip is living proof of it. Each conversation is disjointed and stiff, and these characters have hardly any personality to be found, let alone believable human emotions. Which, considering the anime is almost purely focused on the small interactions and relationships between each character, it goes to show that these elements are critical if Glasslip wants to be entertaining!
In case it wasn’t clear enough from its vague synopsis, Glasslip is supposed to be a love triangle drama, and an ambitious one at that. I can imagine the director envisioning a patient, poignant writing style to fit with a melancholic atmosphere. One that serves as a compliment to the mostly carefree, subtle tale of students enjoying their lives. But instead we got a 5 hour long test of the viewer’s sanity. Most viewers come out of this story confused, as the tranquil nature of its structure is completely lost in the meaningless dialogue and awkward melodrama. People are not joking when they say that this is an unpleasant show to sit through, but at least it’s a unique kind of bad anime. If you want to truly grasp how badly this project got botched, you have to sit through a few episodes yourself, because there’s nothing else like it.
Winter 2017/Winter 2019
-Bematt
The infamous Hand Shakers and its followup W’z (which is just Hand Shakers S2 with a different name) are well known across the otakusphere for being lurid abominations of clashing colors and nightmarish 3DCG effects superimposed over poorly sequenced battle shounen fights. Combined with studio GoHands’ penchant for off-kilter (and sometimes nauseating) camera work, this original series is a blended cocktail of sludge that would make even the L.A. Beast wince. This may come as a surprise, but I didn’t completely hate it! For the record, I’m like a wine taster for garbage. I find uniquely bad pieces of media to be fascinating in their own right. Better to be interesting than boring, and the scales of good and bad don’t preclude such a thing. Yes, there’s no denying that Hand Shakers looks hideous most of the time. The color scheme is so cluttered that it makes No Game No Life look diverse in comparison. There was no attempt to make the CG elements blend into the animation at all, so they have this uncanny quality where it’s like someone dropped them on top of the cels by accident. The premise is more shallow than an inflatable pool that has a leak in it and exists entirely as an excuse for this series to be entirely battle driven. And don’t get me started on the sound direction. One fight has a poorly ripped version of the Bloodborne visceral attack noise and it’s so loud that it was like an explosion went off in my headphones.
Yet, despite all that, Hand Shakers never bored me with its shamelessly unpleasant presentation. I mean, they named the damn thing Hand Shakers because they didn’t want to call it “Hand Holders” (believe it or not, this is a pretty important plot point). Then, against all odds, its sequel W’z (pronounced like “wise”) was actually a considerable improvement on all fronts. The sound direction isn’t completely trashed, and the visuals are a bit nicer to look at even if the color scheme hasn’t become any less garish. They even brought back characters who got very little screen time and gave them more important roles. For example, the first duo who got defeated in Hand Shakers ended up being the parents of the new main character in W’z which takes place ten years later. It’s clear to me that the team at GoHands did have passion for this story or else they never would’ve put in the effort to make a followup season with such a noticeable quality increase. I’m genuinely glad I watched this because it somehow managed to be both unique and generic in the same breath, and I can’t say that about many anime I’ve watched. Would I recommend it? God no. Unless you’re a trash connoisseur like me, there’s nothing here for you. Leave the dumpster diving to the freaks like me.
Fall 2022
-Capes
Renai Flops, localized as Love Flops in english (wtf is that supposed to mean?), starts out as the dumbest harem ecchi comedy you’ll ever see in your god dang life. The dick jokes are abundant, though it’s admittedly clever enough to make the absurdity of the show’s first half somewhat admirable. However, once you get to the second half of the show, the quality absolutely plummets beyond any hope or expectations. It stops trying to be a fun romcom and tries to spin itself into a suspenseful action thriller drama. Go figure that this is not the show’s strong suit. The second half is a total material recycling snore-fest, and unless you like 20 minute long exposition dumps in your ecchi harem shows, I’d advise dropping this one after finishing episode 6. It’s an unfortunate twist to watch an anime like this go to waste. This anime is fully original material, so there’s really no excuse why they needed to play by the numbers and blow all their effort on a braindead waste of a story. Even though it starts off as a creative comedy, it ends without an ounce of creativity left in its bones.
Winter 2023
-Capes
Did you really think a cute anime girl enthusiast like yours truly wouldn’t enjoy watching the dumb Lucky Star genderswap anime of 2023??? I remember wanting to write a full review for this show at first, but it became clear as more episodes went on that this was not much different from the usual ‘girls hanging out’ anime routine. If you’ve seen any of Kyoani’s popular cutesy adaptations, you know what you’re getting here. Onimai’s spin on the formula is that our main character is actually a guy the entire time, but he’s been transformed into a cute anime girl against his will, through the power of SCIENCE magic. And in an effort to break him out of his NEET lifestyle, he must learn the ‘ins and outs’ of what it’s like to be a girl, what it’s like to hang out with girls, and so on. You get the usual genderswap jokes (Mahiru accidentally goes into the boys bathroom as a girl????) but the delivery is inoffensive. Even if you’re not into crossdressing or other forms of anime gayness, it’s easy to enjoy Onimai as another comfy slice of life show with healthy bits of animation creativity and a pastel color palette.
Summer 2023
-Bematt
An immortal girl whose body has been stolen, a genetically modified human-oni hybrid, and a highly trained maid who wields a rifle walk into a bar. Five minutes later, Sherlock Holmes and the Phantom of the Opera show up. That’s Undead Girl Murder Farce; a supernatural mystery thriller that primarily takes place in 18th century Europe. Directed by Shinichi Omata who helmed the acclaimed adaptation of Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai under A-1 Pictures as well as Studio DEEN’s adaptation of Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, there was a lot of hype going into this one. Omata also did episode directing and storyboard work at Shaft back in the early 2010s, so he’s been around the block. It’s no coincidence that Shaft’s influence is all over this thing, and it’s not hard to see why. As a twist on the detective mystery genre, this is a dialogue heavy series that often has long scenes of characters talking to each other with little in the way of kinetic action. As such, liberties were taken to make the visuals a bit more lively during these stretches, often incorporating the characters in the scene performing actions that aren’t really happening but provide the illusion as such to hold the viewers’ attention. Real bona fide action scenes are few and far between in this series, so they have to get a little creative to keep the visuals stimulating. Is this starting to sound familiar?
Frankly, there are times where this thing is so blatantly pulling from the Monogatari series playbook that it’s impossible to ignore, but it’s a pretty good imitation in its own right. Lapin Track is a newer studio, and as such the animation isn’t always stunning. Despite that, they do a fine job of spicing up the visuals with clever storyboarding. Several episodes were boarded by Omata himself and it really shows. The main trio has a fun dynamic; the half-oni Tsugaru is something of an entertainer who often injects rakugo style humor into his dialogue. The banter between him, his immortal master Aya Rindo, and her faithful maid Shizuku Hasei keeps things lively even when they’re investigating a serious incident. As I mentioned earlier, there are quite a few characters from well known literature such as the Sherlock Holmes short stories and The Phantom of the Opera. Hell, even Aleister Crowley is in this and he was a real person! The mysteries are intriguing, the dialogue is well written, and it has a nice soundtrack to boot. I think the fight sequences are the weakest part of this anime as its strengths lie far more in its mystery crafting and dialogue. It’s cool to see Tsugaru put his half-oni strength to work or Shizuku fighting with her rifle, but that’s not what was keeping me around. This is definitely one of the more underrated seasonal shows I’ve seen this year and it’s worth a watch if you’re into the concept of detective mysteries with a supernatural twist.
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