(Average+) The Misfit of Demon King Academy

Series in one sentence:
A super powerful and unbeatable god somehow fails to earn the world's grovelling respect, just because he wasn't born rich.

Series in more sentences:
Tired of fighting with each other, Voldigoad the demon king and Kanon the hero agree to force a period of peace upon the world by separating the races with magic -requiring the demon king's death.
Voldigoad is reborn 2000 years later and wishes to see the fruit of his sacrifice, but instead, discovers history seems to have rewritten itself and someone else is claimed to be the notorious demon king, while no one knows his name. A strange power dynamic also seems to have been set, where pureblooded demons are put under higher regard than anyone else.

It's alright, but the majority of scenes are just a ramble of words that barely explain anything. The most fun moments were the fights where Voldigoad just murders people for the lulz, but his resurrection ability makes it so that there are no stakes in the story. Nothing truly matters, because you know this man will win every endeavour, with his friends waiting at the end of the road, no matter how many blades they get shoved inside their stomach.

The only thing in terms of suspense the anime offers is its drama, which is bad, because it requires you to care about these characters you've only known for one episode.

The villain is comically consumed by hatred, and his backstory hardly shows anything, yet you're expected to sympathize with him as he dies. No thanks.
The end battle itself was also boring. It should've ended after Voldigoad killed himself again, but of course, he had to come back 5 seconds later with another confusingly worded explanation as to how even.

Also, this is one of those series where it claims different races exist, but the vast majority of them look human, or rather, the humans look equally weird and fantastical as the demons. It makes it hard to understand why these groups are fighting at all, and they all use powerful magic as if that's normal, making the reason for their war even more confusing. Chillin' in my 30's had the same problem.

(Good) My Home Hero

Series in one sentence:
Just wear a hat.

Series in more sentences:
A concerned father ends up killing his daughter's violent and trashy boyfriend, but as he's the son of a powerful mob boss, he finds himself in an inescapable situation where he has to lie his way out of being their suspect.

The set-up is a bit lazy. The anime just tells you that the guy loves his family, opposed to being shown this, and you have this otherwise normal girl somehow getting involved with this undeniable piece of shit. But, when that lacklustre intro was done with, I had a great time. This man's wife is a bad bitch.

I didn't care much for the end fight, though. The mob boss presents himself as a strong and intimidating man, but he's a weakling, and his love for his son was basically talked into him. He wasn't an active parent when it mattered, the boy was already a late teenager by the time he finally started caring, and still, he did nothing for him as a parent. He only did the boy favours as a mob boss. I suppose that's on purpose, but if the two never had a bond to begin with, why should I care.

Anyway, yes, this was a fine watch.

(Average+) Sugar Apple Fairy Tale

NOTE: Stopped watching after episode 2 of season 2.

Series in one sentence:
A girl and a fairy fall in love, but only for 3 seconds per episode.

Series in more sentences:
After the death of her mother, Anne vows to follow in her footsteps and even surpass her by becoming a master sugar artisan. She plans to attend the upcoming competition for that much wanted medal, but can't travel the long and dangerous road without a bodyguard.
In a world where fairies are casually enslaved and made to assist humans, she settles on hiring a warrior fairy to escort her.

Though the stoic Challe makes for difficult company, she recognizes the kindness in him and the two agree to keep travelling together when she loses and is forced to extend her journey to success.

Rushed and unexciting story.

I don't like Anne. Her whole personality revolves around making sugar statues, and it's just not interesting to watch someone obsess about a matter that has no real consequences if she were to fail at it. Her mother is already dead, and wanting to symbolically send her soul off to Heaven only after having acquired some job title is not a conflict. I don't care. No one should care. And Anne herself doesn't care, because after all the whining and crying, she doesn't get the medal and then concludes it doesn't matter, as there's always next year.
What the hoot? Well, thanks for that, Sugar Apple Pie Fairly OddParents. Tell me nothing matters without telling me nothing matters.

Anne's mother should've been deadly ill or something. If Anne started this quest to status to save her mother or make her proud before dying, that would've made sense.

The warrior fairy is your typical eyes-closed-and-leaning-against-the-wall character. The speed in which he fell for Anne was really sudden, and every episode is basically the same deal; where the guy hardly speaks, and then a somewhat romantic scene with him and Anne randomly transpires for a few seconds. That's all he was good for. And for getting compliments about his appearance from other characters, even though the series is filled with human men who'd qualify as "beautiful" fairies if you stuck elven ears onto them.
There's a small fairy friend Anne travels with as well, and as is the case with all small variants, he is loud and annoying. Only the human-sized ones have any grace. How convenient for romance.

The heel turn antagonist was funny at the start. Psychopathically random is a good way to describe it. I didn't think Anne was especially nice to him, she downplayed his feelings for her constantly, so really, I thought "Lewl, good on you, weird little boy" as he rode off in his carriage, but he overstayed his welcome immediately.
After going on about wanting to marry Anne and acting so sweet, the sudden poisonous vitriol he exudes the rest of the series felt odd. Why did you want to marry her in the first place if you hate her? Was that an act, and if so, for what purpose?
He should've been a non-murderous rival from the start, it would've made the rest of his story arc make sense, because as of now, I don't even understand why Anne allows him to approach her. Why is this boy not in jail? He tried to get you eaten alive by wolves, fool.

Near the end of the season, the story suddenly reveals that the practise of sugar creation is a gendered profession. That's the conflict now, hope you like it.
Not once was this mentioned in the rest of the series, feels like lazy last-minute drama, but one that would've worked if that were the anime's main conflict since episode 1.
The reason women aren't welcome is because of some Adam and Eve rendition where the woman fell in love with a fairy, though it apparently just concerns a king and queen in a time period where all of humanity already exists.
..So, having that said, why is this one queen deemed the spokeswoman of all women..? I guess we can argue the same thing about the character that is Eve, but really.
This backstory also made me wonder what the point of all the fairy hatred even is. They never seemed to be a threat to the humans and I don't feel like the anime gave a good reason why this war and fairy slave trade came to be. The human king used to be the fairy king's slave, except not really, they were good friends..? Okey? The only "proper" reason people give in the show is basically "Because God said we are cool and fairies are not".

There's so much more they could've done with this. It's said that any living creature that stares down an object may birth a fairy, but I don't think it makes sense for human-like beings to emerge because a deer looked at a berry. Humanity needs a reason for their hatred, so why not change the story that only humans can create fairies, and when that happens, their life span is halved and their lose their soul to that fairy, rendering them unable to enter Heaven? That sounds like a fair reason to dislike the fairy race, or perhaps kill them as an attempt to get your soul back. Or maybe the slave trade emerged because fairies got guilted into serving the humans for existing.
Anything is better than "humans just be evil".

I wasn't planning on watching season 2, because I didn't expect it to give me anything worth my time, but I was presented an interesting cliffhanger. It hinges on the supposedly romantic relationship between Anne and Challe, though, which isn't developed at all. Like I said, every episode only spends a few seconds on it. It's also strange to know they've supposedly travelled together for a year, and their relationship hadn't already developed past to what it was on day 3 of knowing each other.

So then, why should I care that the guy sold his dick so Anne could win an objectively useless award in order to get an arbitrary job title for something she can practise and sell without?
Well, because if anything, I was curious if the anime was going to up the antics and present a real conflict worth following.

And of course it didn't.

Challe gives himself to a young lady who's madly in love with him, but very conveniently hasn't "disgraced his honour" in the days she's locked the man up inside her bedroom. They only kissed once, hugged, and she wanted her head caressed by him as she fell asleep. And listen, I'm kinda happy that this didn't turn into a molestation horror story, but it's very much what my pessimistic mind expected from this show. Season 2 barely started, and Challe has basically already been saved. Riveting.

I'm not watching more of this. I'm sure it'll be fine for some people, but I can't pretend to care for Anne's plight, nor this romance that looks like a list of bullet points getting crossed off.

(Average) Liar, Liar

NOTE: Stopped watching after episode 3.

Series in one sentence:
Come to a fake school where everyone fucks around and no one studies.

Series in more sentences:
Hiroto visits an island with special academies to find a lost childhood friend, but accidentally meets and beats one of the most revered students in a school-approved competition.
In order not to embarrass her, his head master suggests he pretends to be a prestige student himself, pushing him into a life of always having to battle and perform against other students.

An easy premise, but bad choices all around.

It throws this boring, short-lived mystery at you and doesn't even let the boy fight his own battles. His work is done for him every time by this hacker team his school master assigned to him. Why can't he figure it out himself or just be one of those stupidly lucky main characters? This is the least interesting route they could've taken this anime.
It's not like any of these games have anything to do with intelligence, anyway. In fact, they're a waste of time, why are they allowed and deemed important? What does racing and stare contests have to do with education?
The special abilities students can enable are always random shit they pull out of their ass whenever it's convenient. None of the competitions I've seen were exciting because of this alone.

Things got laughably overdramatic in episode 3, and of course, the two girls he just met are already in love with him. Man, I'm just not in the mood for it.