(Average+) Platinum End

Series in one sentence:
Let us hold a long conversation before we attack.

Series in more sentences:
A young man loses the will to live, but is saved in time by an angel, who grants him a set of powers to pursue happiness with -which unknowingly turns him into a candidate for the world's next new god.

Just wanting to be happy, Kakehashi accumulates a group of allies to help him stop the candidates that pose a threat, earning him some followers who believe he should become god.
When a publicly respected man shows himself to be a candidate, but also threatens Kakehashi's chance to a normal life, fighting no longer seems to be the solution.

There are many "god candidates fighting each other"-animes out there, it truly is its own genre. And I like them.

What I liked less was the main character. Kakehashi is a criminally boring boy with a ham-fisted sad backstory -supposedly explaining his aggressive moral compass- and has a love interest that matches his personality. I'm baffled that these two where the main heroes of the story, any other character would've been a better option.

The premise that only suicidal people are worthy of becoming a deity, no matter how annoying and degenerate they are, I didn't follow. Why is a god allowed to be awful? It won't benefit the world of the living or the angels serving them.
Why not give random people powers, and the moment they misuse them, they fall dead. It doesn't always have to be a battle and it would still make for an interesting plot.

Sometimes the anime goes by so fast that I fail to pick up on what's being said or how a character got where they got. One example I can think of is the first antagonist's "friend", who merely looks at the bandaging around his head and immediately, without doubting a second, knows he's Metropolisman. How on Earth, this kid is the best detective in the world!
At the same time, the show progressed very slowly, I think purposely so. Like, a big event would happen, but then the entire episode just lingers on it, turning an exciting situation into a drag.

The second-half "antagonist" I liked less. I don't understand his reasoning for not wanting a god to exist, as he seems very nihilistic. What does it matter if you believe nothing to matter; and the world will come to an end eventually, anyway? This man and his dialogue were working hard to bring forth some kind of logic, but I wasn't seeing it.

The last episode was a collection of clips that refused to be clear about the main message.. or rather, nothing uttered impressed me.
The ending was surprising. So much was not clarified, like who is Nasse, and why was she so adamant on helping the most boring man in anime history?

Watch this show if you want, I'm sure it will hold your attention fine enough, but expect a consistent slowdown during action scenes, a boring romance, to get preached at by a scientist with autism, and suffer a contrived message about existence.

(Good) Kotaro Lives Alone

Series in one sentence:
Looks like comedy, hits like depression.

Series in more sentences:
A fearless, optimistic toddler with an affinity for medieval culture shows up in an apartment complex and introduces himself to his neighbours. Three residents learn many things about his past as they try to aid the child too young to be living alone.

What a surprisingly sad ride, only occasionally ruined by characters who don't even know the whole situation telling an abuse victim that his abusers definitely loved him.

I thought this show was going to be silly and star this overly mature toddler who surpasses the intellect of every adult he meets, but not so. Kotaro's "mature" speech is copied from a bad cartoon, and though he knows how to take care of himself in terms of cooking, shopping, and cleaning, he has undeveloped logic. I was happy with that, I don't like smarter-than-thou kids in fiction.

I also entertained the possibility that the early hinted at abuse was a misunderstanding, since the tissue eating bit was really random and foreign to me.

Kotaro's situation is explained in bits and pieces, and every time you learn something about his past, it's saddening. At the same time, it's difficult to say what exactly transpired and who is to blame. I'm inclined to call the mother the perpetrator, but Kotaro/the show says out loud that the father is the monster. The visuals don't match the claims, and that by itself makes for an interesting mystery, but I wished it solved itself at the end of the series, because I'm too dumb to live and I still don't know why the abuse took place in the first place and how it fits in with the happy family moments Kotaro also brings up.

The overall setting of the series is the biggest problem I have with it, though. How is a 4-year-old able to live on his own, whilst authority figures -like the lawyer firm handing out his mother's life insurance- know of it? Why hasn't anyone called the police? Couldn't someone have brought up a semi-plausible explanation?

Why not say the child ran away and is legitimately trying to stay off the radar. Don't have him admit to strangers he lives alone, change the title of the anime.
I also thought Kotaro was too social. Pretty much every character that shows up half an episode wins his affection. I would've liked his relationship with his neighbour to be the focus, and perhaps a female resident to be the subconscious "replacement" of a mother.

The last three episodes or so were a mess. One of the main girl characters is thrown out of the story for no good reason, whereafter a slew of random faces and sad stories just come and go. It feels like the creators had so much more they wanted to tell, but were not promised a second season, so it's all carelessly thrown together at the last minute.
Alot of the story is also progressed through nosy women loudly gossiping on the street, which is an anime cliché that needs to die.

Nevertheless, a touching anime. Would watch another season, if it ever were to come.