(Average) Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san

Series in one sentence:
So many lesbians, but no one to keep.

Series in more sentences:
A dog-like girl with a fitting name who happens to like cats meets up with a cat-like girl who happens to like dogs. They seem like a match made in Heaven, though Inugami's carefree and social butterfly-behaviour often leaves Nekoyama standing in the distance with jealous stares.
But every girl they meet becomes a friend, and in the end, Nekoyama can't say with certainty what it is she expects from Inugami.

Damn, I really gave this a heavy description, the anime isn't this deep.

A short series with a fun set-up, but little to no payoff. There was hardly any focus on the romance between Inugami and Nekoyama, nor could I take it seriously, as Inugami basically likes all and any girl.
I also would've liked to see more dog and cat comparisons throughout the series, as this character detail felt like an afterthought.

I hoped the comedy would be good enough to carry this show, but it isn't. It's basic and sometimes just disgusting, like the scenes that involved licking. They were mercifully short, though, and when they end, you'll forget it ever happened. A blessing.

Anyway, I can't say this is worth anyone's time. There is no story to enjoy, but the episodes are short, so you might as well see this and decide for yourself.

(Average+) 3D Kanojo: Real Girl

Series in one sentence:
Two kids who rarely hang out or speak to each other are supposedly in love.

Series in more sentences:
An introverted, socially inept anime fan suddenly gains the attention of the most beautiful girl in school and agrees to date her for the 6 months she's still in the neighbourhood.
While the two are very different and have little to bond over, they enjoy each others company, even though Tsutsui's social skills makes maintaining a relationship hard and misunderstandings are unavoidable.

What a great story on paper, but as I kept on watching, my tolerance for the direction and characters got tested.

3D Kanojo's major flaw is that the episodes are usually centered around conflict. It's always about characters fighting or getting disappointed with each other, seldom you saw them hang out in pleasant, leisurely settings. If they did, something negative had to transpire prior or afterwards.

Tsutsui was unbearable at times. He kept making the same mistakes and would always refrain from telling his girlfriend/friends what was on his mind, and instead, gave them curt demands not to associate with him anymore without any context.

There was this consistent emotional distance between him and his girlfriend, and the few times they kissed I don't consider a fix. Very often one of them would lament about how long ago it was they last visited each other, so where does this affection they supposedly have for each other come from? When and how did they bond if they hardly hang out?
Only in the girl's last month does Tsutsui put in the effort, which is beyond insulting. He wasted her time every other day by doing nothing, except chase her away because of whatever overdramatic reason was haunting him that week.

Tsutsui's passiveness wouldn't even be bad, if, for example, the story didn't take this "emo otaku" route, but just argued he was autistic. Him being an otaku was a pointless addition to his character and every scene where he talked about wanting to see an anime or buy a video game could've easily been left out or replaced by something else.

 

 

(Average) Wise Man's Grandchild

Series in one sentence:
A boy is constantly yelled at to hide away his enviable magic abilities for truly no reason.

Series in more sentences:
An overworked businessman gets hit in traffic, then reborn in a different world, inhabited by magic and monsters. His parents are killed by a demon, whereafter the baby is found and raised by a celebrated magician, Merlin.

As expected, he teaches his foster grandchild all he knows about magic, but soon finds out Shin is way stronger than is considered normal.

Had a good start, but it completely wasted its own premise. It was so painfully boring at times, I could not watch this in one sitting.

The fact the main character originates from a different world doesn't matter and only comes in the form of maybe 3 throwaway lines.
He used to work for a science textbook publisher, and it's implied this is what makes him understand certain magic spells and perform them better, but he's not a scientist himself, he was just.. what the Hell did he even do. Desktop design?

In any case, Shin is supposed to be an adult man, which the show does not keep in mind. He acted like a regular child during his childhood and is surprisingly stupid for someone who's gone through two childhoods now. It's also a bit odd to have this theoretically very old man getting love-struck by a big-boobed 15-year-old.
I think they should've kept the romance out, it was standard stuff anyway. I never saw him and the girl spend any casual time with each other, they were already in love and their interactions primarily consisted out of heavy blushing.

Throughout the series, characters kept bringing up that Shin should keep his powers a secret and he can't be used for military purposes, but both requests are completely ignored and there are no real consequences for it.
You could say that the lazy demonic villain coming back at the end is the consequence, but why does this guy even care? He already met with Shin's strength, whereafter he retreated and destroyed an entire kingdom without anyone stopping him or even thinking about Shin. He proclaimed his goal had been met and he's got nothing to do now, yet he suddenly decides to mess around with Shin again? Talking about kicking the bees nest.

I didn't like or care for Shin's role as a magic teacher, either. I wanted a more exciting endeavour for this character. Why not have him be discovered and chased around the world by power-hungry maniacs, like the show tried to warn him would happen?
He shouldn't even be able to be a teacher; the other characters always moan not to understand any of his explanations, so how did he manage to teach them at all? The anime doesn't show, his class is just suddenly good.

Speaking of the other characters, there are way too damn many in this thing. I can't stand it when shows do this. You can't have this many characters on screen and make them all interesting, and big surprise, none of them are.

The ending is left open, making this series even less appealing to give a try. It's been 4 years, its Wiki page isn't all that text-heavy, insinuating there's a lack of interest; there'll never be a season 2.

(Good) So I'm a Spider, So What?

Series in one sentence:
That Time I Reincarnated as Another Weak Creature Yet Somehow Became Overpowered.

Series in more sentences:
An entire classroom suddenly falls victim to a freak explosion and are reincarnated inside a different, magical world.

While most of them take on a human form, the class outcast hatches from an egg as a baby spider. Though weak and vulnerable, her determination, love for video games, and curious nature help her strategize a way out of the mazy cave she's born in, and level up in unheard ways.

It was alright. Good enough to earn that good rating, anyway. The first episodes were focussed on the spider's journey to becoming stronger, which was very video gamey; and thus might only interest people who are into RPG's. Like me, I suppose.
But it was nice to see a character work hard at getting better and not instantly succeed every time by default. She had a real struggle to go through.. until the story decided she should get an immortality perk, but alright.

I did get a bit bored whenever it switched over to the human side of the story. It was interesting at parts, but not consistently so. It was also confusing to learn that these scenes were supposedly a huge time skip into the future, while the spider scenes are the past. It took the anime a bit too long to convey that, but perhaps the intention was to give the audience a twist.
It's pretty depressing to imagine the spider has been fighting for her life inside a scary cave for so many years, without losing her sanity. That would normally traumatize and demotivate any normal human being, or rather, I imagine a mousy girl like her would've been. She didn't look like the adventurous stoic type when she was still a human.

The 3D models in this series are distractingly bad and the story could've sped up at times, but I mostly enjoyed it. The spider has more personality than the main character from that other overpowered critter show, even if I'd likely choose to watch that over this again.

Also, if nobody can actually see those kawaii eyeballs on her face, I would've preferred they left them out of her design. She looks better without. But alright, hardly an issue.

(Bad) Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai: The Clouds Gather

Movie in one sentence:
Sexual abuse is par for the course.

Movie in more sentences:
An ex-cop in need of money after being released from jail becomes the bodyguard of a sex-obsessed, homosexual mob boss who seems all too eager to get with him on his first day.

Despite his boss having a routine of leisurely giving himself away to other men, and he himself was left impotent ever since he witnessed his sister's sexual assault, he feels romantically drawn to him and holds a great amount of respect for the character that no one else respects.

Absolute shit. I tried giving it a chance; there were people claiming there was a story worth sitting through, but it was horrid.

Whores make for unrelatable characters and there was not a speck of romance to be found in this. Why did this stale-faced bodyguard like his grumpy slutbag of a boss, even. He's only remarked how "beautiful" he is -no further clarification how so- and other compliments that don't even slightly apply to this character.
There was no chemistry. The last few seconds tried to evoke some kind of emotion and it was laughable.

The mob storylines were boring, didn't even care a little bit, the topic of sexual abuse at the hands of a family member was used twice as cheap character flavour, and everything else in the anime consisted out of cringy, half-hearted sex scenes, so no thanks, never again.
Don't bother giving it a hate watch, it is a true and honest waste of time.