(Average) The Great Cleric

Series in one sentence:
Drinking liquefied trash would be a more exciting experience.

Series in more sentences:
An overworked, but motivated salaryman is accidentally shot dead by a passing criminal, and reborn in a magical RPG world as an already 15 year old boy.

Not eager to fight the beasts roaming the land, he decides to choose the least dangerous job of healer, without knowing about the corruption that dominates this class. But Luciel vows to become a proper healer, honest and unbiased, quickly making a name for himself.

I like this take on the healer class, but Luciel loafs around in one location for way too long and most scenes are a drag. I hoped for a snappier training sequence and the guy actually leaving town by the second or third episode.
And when you think he's finally done and going on that big journey, he's dragged back into the adventure's guild..! God, move on, Great Cleric, stop the talking and monologuing, new scenery please..!
Episode 7 arrives and this stupid child finally says his farewell to the building he's apparently been kept hostage in for 2 years.. but at his next location has the nerve to remark it's the fucking exact same building in my presence, I'm killing myself!

Luciel is a boring good guy, I just didn't care for his breathy, long-winded rants and utterings of gratitude. He cries for whoever he fails to save, and that's nice and all, but I don't think his drive to become a healer makes sense with his background. It would've if he used to be an actual doctor in his past life -one who's made horrible mistakes that led to his patients' demise, for example.

There are also alot of pretty girl characters in this, because the isekai genre I love so much apparently can't exist without the harem genre I hate so much, and every one of them are even more boring and pointless than Luciel. They're not genuinely being pursued, either, their existence is merely to convey how kind and respected Luciel is. Wholly unnecessary.

(Good) Blue Eye Samurai

Series in one sentence:
Blue Eye Mulan.

Series in more sentences:
Born from a Japanese mother and a British father in a time period that considers half-breeds a disgrace, Mizu grows up with hatred in her heart towards everyone who wronged her, but primarily the white man she's never met and has her awful existence to thank for.
Disguised as a man to ensure full freedom in her male-dominated homeland, she sets out to find all foreigners known to have been in the country around the time of her conception -and kill them.

A praised show, indeed a good show, but the start really made me worry I was going to have to listen to the most awkward dialogue only AI could come up with. The intro just didn't sound right, like it was mistranslated Japanese.
Moments like these kept happening, which made it all the more weird the show had good dialogue in there as well.

Even so, nothing beats the overabundance of nudity. Were these and the sex scenes necessary. I thank the creators very much for preventing me from ever showing off Blue Eye Samurai to my friends and family. Not watching that shit with my little brother and sister.
A pet peeve to some, but I never believed nudity or intercourse to have value in a story. Seldom. Why would you bother, when you have the art of insinuation? You can tell me without showing me. The first sex scene alone is the most embarrassing shit ever: You have these two love birds, engaging in literal seconds of intercourse, while the girl is monologuing to the guy about how cool his revenge quest will be -basically writing a fanfiction while riding dick- and after they're done, they don't even look happy. This moment didn't just give me secondhand embarrassment, but thirdhand as well. And every spicy scene that features a prostitute is literal aids and added less than zero value to the overall story.

The villain wasn't doing it for me, either. A good villain resonates with people in some way, but this guy was a theatrically psychopathic non-human. It was hard to take anything he said seriously, especially when he spouts sentences along the lines of "We British know how to destroy!" and other comments that convey how superiorly evil white people are. Like what. Did 1600s Europeans truly talk like that, because this dialogue and the guy himself seem like a caricature of what extreme leftist think white people believe and act like. That's the best way I can describe him. Needlessly foul creature of a man.
..And also, why is he -an overweight middle-aged man who has been locked up in a building for so many years- faster and stronger than two highly trained fighters? He was kicking Mizu's ass, crazy..

Speaking of, Mizu is cool as shit. Her quest is over the top and misguided, but she's been abused by everyone and hates who she sees in the mirror, so of course she'll lash out and do something as pointless as "kill all foreigners". If they'd told her 40.000 European men were walking Japan at her time of birth, opposed to the just convenient 4, she would've hunted all of them down as well, no sweat. She has nothing else in her life to look forward to than the demise of a stranger she made her scapegoat. I don't recall the story claiming she was born from molestation, so I wonder if there's going to be a plot twist that makes at least one of these sought-after British men not act like Satan reborn.

So, yes, I have my criticisms, I'm begging the writers to insert a sliver of realism in their villains and skip the pointless nudity in future episodes, but they won't, and regardless, I'll be there for season 2.
The animation and art style are a treat, and the general plot not anything complicated, but Blue Eye Samurai did its best to introduce exciting turns, reveals, and fightings scenes to make it more than your standard revenge action series.

(Average) Jujutsu Kaisen

NOTE: Stopped watching after episode 14.

Series in one sentence:
Dangerous demons attack, people die, those responsible care for 2 seconds, then act like they're in a bad comedy flick.

Series in more sentences:
A young boy swallows a cursed talisman from an evil sorcerer, Sukuna, reawakening him inside of him and urging him to destroy all. Nevertheless, Yuji seems able to maintain control over his body, peaking the interest of a jujutsu teacher.

Yuji is tasked to eat all talismans until completion, with the unavoidable end result he has to be killed in order to finally rid the world of Sukuna, but one he accepts if he may join the jujutsu sorcerers and save people from the growing amount of demons and spirits plaguing the neighbourhood.

The fact I stopped around the halfway mark of the season and it took me months to want to come back to it was already a bad omen, and then I turned on episode 14, instantly reminding me why I left.
I couldn't even finish that one, the nail in the coffin for a series I wanted to give another chance, because it gave me a worrying glimpse of how things would (likely) be like further on in the series.

The general story is cool, but nothing transpired the way I expected or wanted it to. Death is shrugged off pretty much instantly. Characters who witnessed someone die act fun and cute with each other the very next scene, and no relationship gets the proper time needed to establish itself and make you as a viewer care about any supposed tragedy hitting them. Not a single character interested me.
Didn't like the overly quirky scenes, not one made me laugh, and the evil wizard the whole story revolves around hardly makes an appearance, while his scenes are the coolest.
Serious situations the show resolves with little to no grace; the way the Yuji is reintroduced to his fellow students who once believed he was dead is embarrassing. I don't want Jujutsu Kaisen to be a comedy, it doesn't do it well. It's the kind of stuff 12-year-olds with TikTok accounts would giggle at, which is good for them, but when you see those fight scenes with the ghastly imagery, it's obviously not meant for a young audience.

Then why. Why is the humor so lame and toddler level.

It was crazy how I'd be sitting there, bored out of my mind, but look down and see that whatever episode I was watching have a 4.9 out of 5 stars Crunchyroll rating. How.
But listen, I know there are people with patience for this kind of nonsense and it could very well be that it resonates better with young teenagers, but my sad ass has seen so much anime.. so damn much anime.. Jujutsu Kaisen is not remarkable or fun to me. And I don't want to wait for it to be. It already should've been.

I wondered what grade to give it, and though "Average+" would be the most fair, I don't recall ever giving such a grade to a series I couldn't finish, so it'd have to be an "Average".

(Average) I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in The Real World, Too

Series in one sentence:
Lookism with a pointless sprinkle of isekai.

Series in more sentences:
Yuuya has been mistreated by his surroundings his entire life over his appearance, but when his grandfather passes away, he's given his old home, where a large door to another, video game-like world is hidden.
Levelling up causes his body to morph in the real world, and when Summer break is over, all suddenly seems to be going well for him.

The story isn't very good. It's hardly a story, rather a series of dramatic events and opportunities for Yuuya to conveniently show off his godlike talents, while he's worshipped by every man and woman who lays eyes on him whilst he does it.
The dialogue is slow and meanders, I had to increase the playback speed to prevent myself from bailing.

It's a shame that Yuuya didn't become ripped through his own efforts by actually working out in the other world. It's always such a cop-out when they make the once ugly hero instantly attractive. I've seen multiple animes that took this route, and only two so far that had a previously overweight character become slim by doing something; this being Romantic Killer and Masamune-kun's Revenge.
Speaking of common routes, I'm surprised they didn't give this chubby boy a stupid voice. If you've seen as much anime I have, you know what I mean. It's an unnecessary, mean habit in Asian animated media.

I'm still confused by how Yuuya didn't know his face had changed after clearly seeing his reflection in the coffee slime monster he killed, but, I like that he didn't take on a fake persona when he returned to school. Sadly, this matters little in the story, as he changes schools and doesn't interact with anyone from his past again. His obviously mentally insane siblings make a return once, but that's it.

The world has been needlessly cruel to this character, to a comically preposterous degree. The anime only works with extremes and that makes it challenging to feel immersed. Yuuya's old school and contacts are unrealistically violent and evil, while his new school and contacts are unrealistically perfect and respectful. According to the anime's own rules, though, if he had looked like his old self, he would've failed to charm his new headmaster or any of the students, and ended up feeling as lonely as before. Yuuya's success; the attention, love, and respect he gets, is thanks to superficial reasons. His face is pretty and he has abs, therefore he is deserving of love. A dubious message, truly.
I fail to understand how he can trust and feel affectionate towards his new friends, because the anime offers no certainty they would've cared about him if he still looked like his old self. And it's sad, because the anime did try to convey at the start that it's persistent kindness that produces results. Yuuya was taught by his grandfather to always help out others, because the idea is that it'd be returned to him one day, and I suppose saving that one girl led to the opportunity of attending a prestige school.. but what else..?
This school is the work of some weird 12-year-old fanfiction writer as well. How does a prestige school allow for their students to bring handheld consoles and are their luxurious lunches only a few dollars? Did this show forget the magical fantasy land is located in Yuuya's house?

Everything revolves around his beauty and it makes me wonder what the point of the isekai element is. Why not make an anime starring a fat boy who works out during the Summer and then gets handed all these things, while the ugly duck syndrome is still dominating his head?
On the other hand, keeping Yuuya the way he was could've opened up real opportunities. What if his love interest indeed didn't care about his appearance, and what if his new classmates weren't so eager to get to know him, but still stayed respectful, allowing for a real friendship to blossom.
Friendships and romances build themselves on character, not looks. Making the highly pursued boy pretty and reminding the viewer how pretty and perfect he is in every scene is distracting and makes every good relationship he shares with a person highly questionable. And again, it surprises me that Yuuya himself isn't questioning it.

This is somewhat of a harem anime as well. A lacklustre one at that. The one girl who should matter in the story makes the least appearances, I forgot she existed every time she showed her face.

The 3D animation during fight scenes was also distracting. If you're not willing to keep the style consistent throughout a series, then why not simplify the character's overly detailed battle gear, or really, don't start a series at all.

(Average+) Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan

Series in one sentence:
Depression, ha ha.

Series in more sentences:
A once optimistic gymnast lives an unfulfilling, lonely life as a children's show host, working in an exhausting environment that exploits its employees.

There's something here, but it just isn't grabbing me. Uramichi's loneliness and listlessness are intriguing subjects, but the show fails to explain why he's doing this job. Out of all jobs out there, why this one? Being on TV isn't like being a desk clerk, it's not accessible to everyone, and this guy is part of something that holds live-action concerts, despite the director claiming their budget is small.

How he's not getting fired is odd as well, as he doesn't hold back and mutters his negativity towards the children he works with, constantly.
The humor in this show is very basic, which is a shame, because a story like this opens up so much. This could've been another Saiki K.

But what it does do well are Uramichi's inner monologues about his life and feelings. Many will relate, which is a tragedy by itself, because the character and the show itself don't give solutions to it. It just sheds a light. Sometimes, you are your problem, and even when you know it, still nothing changes.
To learn about his father was a frightening look into his past life that the anime oddly doesn't linger on, but I guess you don't need to say more than is necessary. The father being excused for what he's done I didn't like, though.

It's like Uramichi was born to fail, but despite his muttering and anger, he does see the good in the little he does have. His desire to see children happy is surprising and overall lovely, since there are so many abused children in the real world who grow up mimicking their parents' tomfoolery, without picking up on themselves doing it, despite remembering so clearly how it saddened them as a child.