(Good) Trapito

Movie in one sentence:
No matter how nice you are, you'll end up alone with your feet covered in soil.

Movie in more sentences:
A lonely, living scarecrow gets taken away from his empty environment by a bird he protected during a heavy storm. When the bird takes his new, slightly depressed friend to go see a wise owl with his problems, they get assigned to have an adventure together with the purpose of showing the scarecrow the wonders of life and to develop a sense of imagination.

I watched this alot when I was a child, and I'm happy I have it on tape. Youtube has the movie, but only in Dutch and its original language. So not English, if it ever existed.

The movie never failed to entertain me, even today, the songs are unforgettable, but I cannot say for sure if older people -watching it for the first time- will have the same opinion. This is a piece of nostalgia from my part. Never mind that there isn't a version out there for multiple nationalities to enjoy.

One thing that did always bother me as a child was the ending. Out of nowhere, the scarecrow gets dumped by his friend for some random bird lady, and since he doesn't come back after he has children, we can assume the bird left him standing for a long time. What a dick.

(Bad) The Sea Prince and The Fire Child

Movie in one sentence:
Underwater Peter Pan gets pussy whipped by a fairy.

Movie in more sentences:
The realms of water and fire have long been divided after their leaders got turned against each other thanks to a jealous wind lord, but the prince of water and princess of fire find each other and fall in love. They hope to find a place where they can escape their judgemental caretakers and live in peace.

 

Amazingly nice animation and cute art style, but that's where my compliments end.

The story is alright, but the rushed romance dictated by this overly eager girl who doesn't get called a "princess" in the movie's title for some reason is something Disney would be jealous of. The water prince didn't stand a chance against this chick, he definitely wasn't the one wearing the pants in the relationship. He looked pressured into it. The princess looked sweet and kind, and he looked smitten, but I didn't think they were a good match.

The ending was a clear metaphor for death, so I wonder if the guy thought it was worth it.

Also, why is the sea prince red and furry and the fire princess blue and smooth? They messed up the character designs, yo

(Average) Soul Eater

Series in one sentence:
The one character you love and the romances you want to see are completely absent.

Series in more sentences:
Death has set up a special school for students who want to become "soul hunters" and rid the world of evil beings who try to eat the souls of innocent people. The students plan to use the evil they've defeated to turn their living fighting tools into a "death scythe"; a weapon worthy for Death to use.

We follow the life of three different teams, who end up fighting the biggest threats the world has encountered so far.

When I originally started this article, I gave it the rating "good", but that was before I was halfway through the series.

It left me disappointed. The relationships between the characters seemed very wobbly; one moment they're bff's, having dinner together and ready to die for each other, but in the next they're snarling and fighting. Especially the characters Black Star and Maka are loose cannons that the series describes as the ones with perfect loyalty, like they're the heroes everyone should strive to be like, even though these two continuously scold their friends whenever they're in an angsty mood created by their own non-existent problems and overdramatic worries.

The series starts off with the introduction of the coolest character ever, Soul, but there's so little of him in the entirety of the series, he was an episode away from being a side character. The later introduced Black Star got way more development than him.
The first episode portrayed Soul as cocky and cool, but he quickly functioned as the voice of reason in his friends' moments of insanity -a role that Black Star's partner was also given- and I wouldn't have minded this change if the anime had invested any time in Soul's character development. Nothing was revealed about his past, personality, likes, dislikes, or anything that would make him human and interesting. Soul was often "just there", and I can only assume that the manga reveals more about him, but since we're dealing with a series that has this character's name in the title, you'd think he'd be on the foreground of things, no matter the media output.

Still, it was nice seeing him on screen, he's one of the few people in the show who keeps a cool head and stays polite, even after being sneered at by his so-called best friend. Which is always.
The further you get into the series, the less you believe these two to have much of a friendship at all, which is a tremendous failure of the anime's creators. They're supposed to be a tight fighting duo, the point is that they need to trust each other in order to succeed, but Maka makes that very hard for Soul. She is one of the biggest pieces of shit and her reactions towards people and events hardly ever makes sense. And as if that's not enough, she turns into a lazy sulking crybaby further on in the series.
Your willingness to like her has pretty much disappeared at that point. Much like your willingness to ship her with Soul. Don't deny it, I know you've tried, but why even waste your time doing this, she obviously has a boner for Crona, the only character in the series she's actually nice to.

The ending was an insult to injury, they basically borrowed it from a Care Bear episode. In the final battle, Maka was close to receiving an epic reveal, something that would've made her shitty character somewhat cool again, but it didn't even last for 5 seconds. She was back to her old lame self without much explanation given to what the fuck even happened.
Her almost-reveal proved to have been such a waste of animation, she managed to defeat the villain in the most laughable way possible, without her gift making a return. Laughable, not because the method is bad, but because the person who was claimed to be "the ultimate representation" of this method is bad;

Maka was put on a pedestal as the embodiment of "bravery", and this made her win the battle somehow.
I had to agree with the villain's words, which was literally this: "I don't get it. Why do you (her friends) have so much faith in her? She's weak! She isn't special! She's nothing more than a human! What is bravery?"

Maka is the worst fighter and person in the world, nothing she did throughout the series impressed me, yet she's the ultimate braveheart? This personality trait that every single character in the show exhibits? But unlike Maka, they are strong, nice, intelligent, and actually get things done? Even she claimed that all people are brave -which isn't true, idiot- but at least she acknowledges she's indeed nothing special.

The ending battle also made me realise something about the fighting scenes in general, and that's that the fighters who were first announced as incredibly talented and strong got easily defeated when necessary for the story, every time again.
For example, here you had Death successfully blocking all the villain's attacks, but then he gets nearly killed by a blast he effortlessly deflected twice already. The same thing with these kids who were fighting the villain. They couldn't land a single scratch on him, then suddenly, they destroy him, but then they're lying knocked out on the ground again. This is a lazy way to create tension in an action scene.

Perhaps the series would've worked better if there wasn't a main plot. The episodes and scenes where they fooled around were more entertaining than the ones that progressed the story. The characters appeared fun and relaxed in those.

I hoped to had found another gem left ignored for all these years, but Soul Eater never gave me what I wanted to see most, so I'd rather forget I ever watched this and move on.

(Good) Tokyo Ghoul

NOTE: Watched season 1
 
Series in one sentence:
Someone with a lame haircut and a boring personality is the main character of an anime.

Series in more sentences:
A boy gets jumped by a humanoid demon, called a ghoul, and barely survives it thanks to a planned attack targeted at said ghoul. Both are taken to a hospital, where she's used as his organ donor for an experiment.

He wakes up a half-ghoul and all the problems that come with it.

Intriguing. Not only did it show how humans experience these creatures, but also the struggles the ghouls have to go through in order not be a nuisance. You'd expect monsters to just be monsters, but they have real concerns.

A less exciting part of the series was the friendship between the main character and this one ghoul girl he supposedly hangs out with all the time. The show implies they've spent alot of time together, but their relationship didn't look that tight to me. He treats her nicely, but I didn't see the same level of respect returned to him, yet the scenes and dialogue concerning these two pretend they're good friends.. or something. It's hard to explain.

Anyway, not sure what else to say. I never got around to the second season; I watched this show long before it came out, so I'd have to watch it again just to refresh my memory some more. But season 1 did feel like an introduction to something greater, so maybe I should go through the effort of watching the rest someday. The ending was pretty awesome.

(Average+) Golden Boy

Series in one sentence:
We follow around a perverted genius who isn't smart enough to actually use his talents to give himself a better life.

Series in more sentences:
A young man who loves to learn goes off to do all kinds of jobs, and appears to be so perfect at everything he does, he manages to swoon his icy female bosses after the fact.

One of those animes I've watched way back in the time.
I wonder what made me keep on watching, as the amount of perversion coming from the main character is absurd, I did not care for it. It sometimes was downright disgusting. I think this show would've worked fine without him being so painfully perverted, but it is what it is.

Even so, the series deserves the laughs it gets, and the English version has a voice actor who's not afraid to sound as ridiculous as possible. The episodes have a clear storyline and "irony" is the keyword, but don't bother watching if you're underage or a prude.

(Average) Rizelmine

Series in one sentence:
A boy has to bang a stranger or else she'll stay a midget.

Series in more sentences:
A scientifically engineered girl moves into the home of a boy as ordered by the state, who must fall for her, so that the experience of love will help her physically grow up. The problem is that he only falls for older women and is not eager to marry someone he just met. Who is 12 years old.

A series I watched years and years ago. I'm almost afraid to review it, as I remember it vaguely. I understood little of the plot and my young age might've been the reason for that, though it's difficult to say at this point.

I never understood what the series meant when it talked about this girl "needing love in order to grow", and it all just sounded weird to me. I still don't get why Rizel was made to begin with. What's her purpose, and why did this laboratory make her tears explosive? She seems like a dangerous, if not random creation.
Maybe it all made more sense than I remember it to be, but I don't care much for revisiting this show. I have enough other things to watch, so please, do give this a try if the overall story appeals to you.

It does have a fairly good intro, I find that rare for an anime. No offense, but I'm tired of all these Japanese pop songs that sound alike, it doesn't give the anime a distinctive opening.
Rizelmine did this well, the intro is what stayed with me for all these years.

(Good) Attack on Titan

NOTE: I watched this series in English

Series in one sentence:
A boy with no talent or strength is lucky to have a hidden power to save his ass.

Series in more sentences:
In a world where giant, mysterious humanoids roam the earth and eat people, a young boy is determined to join the army and fight against these creatures.

Regretfully, I've only watched season 1. I know, slow, but the later seasons aren't available to me. Crunchyroll has a pretty strict availability license when it concerns highly sought-after shows.

Anyway, I was never sure what to think of Attack on Titan. Images and references used to pop up on the internet all the time and were hard to miss, but I was never motivated to check it out, since it looked painfully silly to me. But after watching it, the setting made it work.
Still, I'm more amazed that the series' biggest climax, the main character's power, was never spoiled to me. I was surprised to be.. surprised. I expected a generic war cartoon without much else going on.

Even so, the enemy at the end was rather lame. I don't know if I had mentally fallen asleep at some point, but I'm pretty sure this particular character wasn't of any importance before the climax, nor did the main character have any kind of relationship with them; which is why I didn't understand his hesitation to kick their ass.
Speaking of which, a big flaw the main character has is that he always needs to get motivated in order to get up and do something. For a boy who claims to be motivated, and should be, that doesn't make sense.

Other than that, awesomely creepy and interesting series, not much else to complain about. Watch the English version if you can, it's well done.

(Bad) Future Diary

Series in one sentence:
A whiny kid has a seriously bad case of Stockholm syndrome.

Series in more sentences:
A group of people, who usually write a journal of some kind in their spare time, are chosen by God to participate in a killing match. The last one standing will become God of the new world, after the current god and world die. All contestants get special hints on their cell phone based on the type of journal they used to write.
One of the contestants is an especially gifted fighter, which is a good thing for her love interest, who is undoubtedly the weakest player in the game.

It's been forever since I watched this series, so I hope the things I'm going to mention will be correct, because I never want to watch this again.

I'm not sure where to start. I guess the plot is awesome and the execution was decent as well, but the first thing that bothered me was the main character, Yuki. He is an amazingly whiny little boy who is hard to like, let alone love, which is why the obsessive love from his stalker, Yuno, doesn't make any sense to me. Their backstory doesn't really explain why she likes him the way she does.

Anyway, this girl -with two too many ponytails- is actually rather awesome during battle. She's a skilled fighter who's only goal is to protect Yuki, which would've been an endearing trait if we were dealing with any other anime but Future Diary. At some point it reaches this uncomfortable chapter where Yuno does some very psychopathic things to her crush, which is why his eventual love and years of mourning over her struck me as odd. The girl is crazy and doesn't hide it, why does he love her?
Yuki spends a good time sitting paralyzed and tied up on a chair, as her prisoner, yet he still fights and sheds tears over her later on. It angers me, because the series wants this; it thinks it created a good love story, but it's just sick and nonsensical.

This is the main reason I despise this series. Do not dare to ask me to cheer for these two insanity cases, Future Diary.

(Average+) Dog & Scissors

Series in one sentence:
A show that expects you to laugh when a dog gets abused.

Series in more sentences:
A boy obsessed with books ends up getting shot in the face by a robber while protecting an absent-minded girl. As he doesn't want to die before he's read the last book of his favourite series, he gets reincarnated as a dog by unknown forces. 
He gets recognized and adopted by the girl he protected that day, who happens to be his favourite writer, but soon he discovers that being her pet is far from a dream.

It could've been a sweet and clever story, but it isn't. The hints of bestiality alone made sure of that.

The girl is a complete psychopath who walks around with a pair of scissors in her pocket in case she has to abuse someone. And that's always. While she would be some kind of villain in any other surreal anime, here she's treated as a normal human being with slight issues. The show is in love with the running joke that the dog comments on the girl's flat chest and she attacks him with her scissors over it, and it has not made me smile once.
Not only is she a terrible human being, the dog boy is also a special kind of crazy. His book obsession is creepy and he's one of those "I'm not interested in 3D/real life girls"-characters the Japanese love to write for their animes.
Just what the Hell, what healthy boy prefers fake girls over a beautiful real life girl, period? There's another character like this in a series I reviewed, Danganronpa. It's dumb.

But well, I rated this anime to be "average+" instead of "bad", as the general plot isn't bad at all. I was fairly entertained. The concept of this boy turning into a dog is interesting, but it's a shame it's ruined by all these otherworldly characters and events. This boy turning into a dog is all the weirdness we needed, why the random battle scenes?

The series abruptly ends as well and there's no sign of a second season coming. I was left unsatisfied.

(Bad) Coppelion

Note: Watched the first 3 episodes

Series in one sentence:
Good for practising your yawning.

Series in more sentences:
Three scientifically engineered girls trained for one purpose go look around a radioactive city for survivors to rescue. I can't give it more sentences than that.

I wish I had the patience to watch more of this and give it a proper review, as I don't have the reassurance that the series gets any worse after the few episodes I've watched.

The first episode was slow, but made me curious enough to keep on watching, until the second episode blew it by inserting this overdramatic scene I really didn't care for. Out of nowhere, the "leader" of the three girls starts bawling her eyes out for these people she doesn't even know, and if I was supposed to do the same thing, I guess I missed the memo.
The third episode was downright boring, I couldn't even finish this one, I had better things to do.

Anyone is welcome to watch this show themselves and convince me wrong. If something interesting actually happens, I'm willing to pick up the series again.

(Good) Inu X Boku SS

NOTE: I watched this series in English

Series in one sentence:
I get a private stalker to drive me to school.

Series in more sentences:
A sassy demon girl from a prestige family moves to a special apartment for highly valued demons and gets assigned a slavish bodyguard she never asked for.

Soap opera in anime form. But while it feels like cheap fanfiction, it worked for me.

It has a story only an emotional teenage girl with raging hormones could appreciate, yet I loved it enough to buy it on DVD after shamelessly watching it on an illegal phone app. Don't call the police on me, this is long ago, I'm a (mostly) reformed criminal.

It only has a few episodes, and I have yet to figure out my feelings on that. I would've liked more, but I don't think the manga series is something fellow fans would like to see animated in full, as it has no happy ending. (UPDATE: wait, now it kinda does? That's what you get when you review something you've watched years ago.)
The show keeps things cheery and cute, even with the introduction of a man-hating lesbian pedophile, an SM sex addict, and the clear insinuation that the bodyguard was once a soulless male prostitute.. But honestly, this is all standard anime stuff.

The bodyguard character, Sōshi, annoyed me a little in the beginning. His watery eyes and continuous rambling about how he's a dog and not worthy of anything was unnecessary, but I guess it always stopped before it made me uncomfortable. At the end of the series, I understood his behaviour to some degree.
I would've liked for the girl, Ririchiyo, to have been more distant and mean, but the series puts great focus on the relationship with her bodyguard and her inner struggles to socialize, and that's enough. It's these two characters you're the most eager to see on screen.
The English dub was good as well, I liked the voice actors and preferred the English confession scene over the Japanese one. Fight me.
 
Now, I can't say these type of animes are on the same level as Attack on Titan or Elfen Lied, but it did something rare I wished more shows did; which is getting to the point. It never lost its focus or pushed it aside by distracting viewers with an abundance of filler episodes, except for one time. The romance between Ririchiyo and Sōshi was all that mattered.

Yes. The actually really inappropriate romance between a 15 year old girl and a 22 year old man. I don't care that Japan has a lower age of consent, in some places that's 8, and I dearly hope people won't casually cheer on a love story from one of those communities, fictional or otherwise. Inu X Boku truly didn't need this age gap in order for the story to work, so why on Earth..?

Something else that could've been left out was the demon aspect, it was hardly of any importance to the story. Every one of these characters could've been a normal human being, just replace the few episodes that included a demon attack with something else. But maybe the fault of this was the studio's decision to only cover the first chapter of the comic.

So, well, as you can conclude, not a flawless show, but I didn't start off my review claiming it was. This is like a big sugary cake with some unnecessary ingredients sprinkled on, but if you like sugar, eating this thing will leave you with a big satisfied smile.
And hey, if weird stuff like Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey can find an audience, then this objectively better series can too.

(Bad) Danganronpa

Series in one sentence:
Japan forgets how normal human beings look like.

Series in more sentences:
A boy gets invited over to an exclusive school, but ends up locked inside with a handful of other students. They're told by a mysterious Teddy bear demon they need to kill another student unnoticed if they want to leave, but not without attending a trial first, where they have to point out the murderer. They have to choose correctly, or else consequences.

It sounds like Saw with a hint of Ace Attorney, but it disappoints. It's already hard to take this anime seriously with all the ridiculous character designs it offers. The most normal-looking character is the main one. It took me a while to figure out the large man in the skirt, who was a girl, and the girl who's actually a boy, because Japan.

The lame conclusion of the series is what did it, though. I'm still not sure what the big reveal was exactly, but that's probably because I was too bored to care at that point. Things had turned less serious and thrilling by the time it neared the end.

It had the formula to do something exciting and great, but blew it by inserting this otherworldly nonsense.

(Average) Blood Lad

Series in one sentence:
Twilight done slightly better, but not much.

Series in more sentences:
A teenage vampiric mob boss with an obsession for humans and human merchandise gets notified a real human being is walking around lost in the demon world, thus captures her right away. But the girl ends up getting killed not long after their meeting and turns into a living ghost thanks to the demon world's influence. The vampire decides to help her find a way to become alive again.

The first episode was promising, but the moment the girl died, the vampire's interest in her died, and my excitement with it. Her death turned him insultingly indifferent. I understand the reason given for it, but it doesn't make the relationship between these two entertaining, by any means.

The reason why the vampire, Staz, wanted to bring her back to life was confusing and the series refused to give an explanation. Did he help out because he planned to eat her, or did he honestly grow fond of her?
If the latter, I didn't feel it.
Even the girl announced not to know what to do with the guy when she comes back to life, and if both characters have this lacklustre mentality, what's the viewer supposed to think? Do we want these characters to be together? I stopped rooting for them after the girl died, since we only had Staz to push this relationship forward, and he lost all care. The girl pretty much never showed interest in him to begin with.

These characters don't even do anything with each other when they're together, they're always interacting or responding to other characters. Staz laments to himself a few times, but it's never about how badly he wants to marry his short-lived crush. Having all of this said, don't expect any romantic scenes with these two. You only get it from this other character who's lusting after the girl and another one going after Staz, but this asexual vampire acts equally nonchalant around her.

I don't understand what the series tried to accomplish or what story it wanted to tell.

The ending was a let-down and felt like the beginning of a second season that never came. If the manga has more to offer, why are animators wasting their time making these half-finished TV shows?
I'm disappointed that Blood Lad didn't have much to offer in the end. Staz seemed like a cool character.

(Good) Axe Cop

Series in one sentence:
Helluva drug.

Series in more sentences:
A police officer finds an axe one day and proclaims himself a superhero. And then he is a superhero, because he proclaimed it. Together with his partner, Flute Cop, he solves all kinds of random problems with random solutions.

I don't know what I was thinking when I started watching this series, but I am very thankful for that decision. It's hard to talk about this show, it's all over the place, and that's not strange when the original writer was a 5 year old child.

It's impossible to regret watching this, go do it.

(Good) Kill la Kill

Series in one sentence:
Soft porn.

Series in more sentences:
A girl wants to find her father's murderer and knows that the answers lie at the high school building towering over the poor city of Tokyo Bay. With half a pair of giant scissors and a lewd living costume that enhances her strength, she fights whoever blocks her path to the truth.

Is it the weird story that appeals to me or everything else? Definitely everything else.

The animation, the dialogue, the main character's friend, it's all gold. The first half-naked appearance of the main character made me feel uncomfortable (in most animes things can only go downhill from there on), but you get used to the perversion. The anime's excuse for it was good enough for me, I suppose.

The action scenes were fast and entertaining, and the overall movements of the characters fun to see. It looked like a mix of anime and Western animation.

Still, Kill la Kill is not for everyone. I very much doubt it that the comedy makes up for the kinky clothing, especially if that kind of thing distracts you. By all means, skip this if that's the case.

(Bad) Drawn Together

NOTE: Watched season 1 in full and a few episodes from the second season

Series in one sentence: 
Watch different cartoon characters act like annoying whores for your supposed enjoyment.

Series in more sentences:
A bunch of cartoon characters spend their days inside a mansion, in front of hidden cameras. Basically a Big Brother parody.

I really tried to sit through this, but stopped halfway the second season. I couldn't take it anymore. I deleted all the episodes I had already downloaded and moved on to watch something actually entertaining.
Sometimes the first season of a show is there to steer it into its preferred direction, and I wanted to give this a chance, but it all just seemed to get worse. The Big Brother formula already disgusts me, and I felt the same kind of annoyance for this cartoon. It has an interesting concept, but didn't execute it properly;

Here we have all these characters, parodying an existing fictional character, but weren't even parodied right. The only one who acts like the character it's based off is the Disney princess, as for the Link knock-off in the first few episodes, but then they made him homosexual and he never refers to his inspired character again.

The superhero character only had one Superman backstory reference, but acts like an annoying whore the rest of the time, the Spongebob character was uninteresting since day one and then suddenly acts like an annoying whore, the Betty Boop character has this weird theme going on where she's considered fat, is always the villain, and is in overall an annoying whore, the random fox lady is the definition of a whore, and the internet pig was solely made to act like an annoying whore. So basically, all these characters are the internet pig, no matter what type of cartoon they're supposed to represent.
Pikachu is pretty much the only character who doesn't annoy me every time he's on screen.

I feel absolutely nothing for these characters or the random disgusting scenes that go nowhere. The show isn't funny enough for me to tolerate it.

(Good) Blue Exorcist

Series in one sentence:
A super-funny, hot guy is somehow the loser.

Series in more sentences:
A teenage boy who's skipped more days of school than he attended discovers he's the son of Satan. After his adoptive father is killed by the king of Hell, he decides to follow the same career path he and his superior twin brother took; to become an exorcist and kill Satan once and for all.

It's fine to root for Satan's baby if he's a funny guy. Pretty sure that's in the Bible.

Cool action scenes and nice characters, no one was "just a bully" put there to barricade the hero's efforts. It's so easy to do in fiction.
But at the same time, I was disappointed by the near-romance that didn't go anywhere, Satan's careless demeanour towards the children he had with a woman he -so far I understood- loved, and the unsatisfying ending in general. After the climax, there was nothing that tied the whole thing together.

They did release a series after this one that's more or less a second season that plays off in between certain episodes of the original, but it's a whole new story and doesn't really fix or address the above points.

But well, this anime has one of the most emotional moments of any show I've watched so far. The scene with the cat demon never fails to make me cry, and if a show can make me care for a character that's had little to no screen time, that's a good show.

If you like demons, fighting, and charming characters, this one's for you.

(Average) Sword Art Online

NOTE: Watched season 1 only

Series in one sentence:
A guy risks his life over a girl he has no chemistry with.

Series in more sentences:
Thousands of people get trapped in a virtual reality MMORPG game and are told that when they die in-game, they'll die in real life. A young boy who had the luck of being the game's BETA tester knows the way, but almost feels forced to risk his neck for other players because of this fact.
Eventually he falls in love and does everything for the sake of a girl he once met on the first day of their imprisonment.

This could've been a romantic masterpiece, but the series portrays the relationships the main character has with the people around him with laziness and haste.

The main character, Kazuto, introduces himself as a lonely hero who does not bother to keep contact with the friendly players he meets along the way, but at the same time, feels and fights for every single loser he comes across, which confused me. I was honestly hoping for this kid to be an asshole. We don't have enough asshole main characters.

The fact this boy is able to treat any person he just met like he has known them for years doesn't make his relationship with his girlfriend, Asuna, that special. Not to mention there are huge gaps between their initial meetings. Whenever they met, they did nothing that implied they felt anything for each other. I actually felt more chemistry between the other girls Kazuto met along the way, who were charming and had a distinct personality, while Asuna is, dare I say, bland like a piece of dry bread.
She started out alright; and used to be a common noob impressed by Kazuto's skills, until she returns to the series as a strong and serious leader of a guild. Sure, alright, but then why does she turn into a little girl again that needs to be saved by her hero, or does she cry like a baby when she saves Kazuto from something? She was all over the place.

And after this mess, out of nowhere, Kazuto and Asuna fall in love.

The problem with this series is that it wants to keep on going, which is why nearly every episode introduces a new group or person, and in that same episode they make Kazuto immediately care for these people, but then make him run off again before the episode ends. It's like they wanted to cram as many events as possible into the first season, which leaves us with this rushed series that makes huge jumps in time, without establishing any relationships you should care for.
When the series announced to me "2 years later", I could only think "What happened in those 2 years?". These 2 years could've been 2 seasons and could've given us a slow but proper build-up to Kazuto and Asuna's relationship.

I already cared little for the story the moment the rushed romance got introduced, but when these people then started crying for a self-aware software child who for no reason calls them her parents -and they've also only known for a day- I was officially tired of the melodrama.
Every relationship in this series was mentally exhausting and meaningless.

The series barely saved itself thanks to the last few episodes of the season. The moment Kazuto's little sister (niece, actually) entered the story, things started becoming slightly interesting, even though the "villain" in this part of the series is inhumanly cruel and I'm not really fond of Japan's obsession with niece and nephew romance stories. Still, it inserted some drama I actually cared for. I almost wanted this series to be about this brother and sister playing this game behind each other's back, and then discovering who they are when they've already fallen in love. It would've made for better drama. Inappropriate, but still better.

Besides all this, there was one other thing that bothered me about the series, and that's that the all the gamers portrayed were way too serious. The series didn't really parody online gamers and the behaviour they're notorious for.

Where are all the nerds with zits and sweaty foreheads? Where are all the people yelling "lol" every second of the day, the people who troll others by tea-bagging them while they're knocked out, the people who chase girls around and call them a bitch when they ignore them? Where are the Spanish players who refuse to speak English, or Japanese in this case? Why are there so many old men playing this game? Why are there so many insanely beautiful girls playing this game? What's with all these crazy people who desire to be a villain and like to kill others for no good reason? I understand that after months of being trapped, people either turn bitter or accept this world to be theirs and set up systems similar to the one in the real world, but come on.
Even when the plot switches over to this new virtual game, one where no one dies, all the players in it act like it's a big deal. Who does that in a game?

The series only shows the widely hated "roleplaying gamer", a gamer that is least common of all. I can accept it from the first game, but the one in the later episodes has no excuse. It's just a regular game with no risks.
It would've been more interesting if Kazuto was the only one in it who acted serious, and the other players would roll their eyes at this traumatized child and go of grinding while talking about some movie they've watched earlier that day.

So many missed opportunities.