Honey and Clover Anime Review

HONEY & CLOVER SCORE: 10.0

INTRODUCTION & SYNOPSIS

Honey & Clover is a slice of life (comedy/drama/romance) anime with characters that over time unveil their inner feelings and backgrounds, peaking your interest to hear more about the next character until it all finally comes full circle to create a masterpiece. If you want to laugh, to cry, to root for something, and above all else, to feel something, Honey & Clover is the anime for you.

Our story begins in a College for the Arts in Tokyo, where a boy who is trying to find his way in life, Yuta, resides on campus with his two roommates, the zany and mysterious Shinobou and the reliable and persistent Takumi. One day, their favorite professor Shuji brings a family friend to the Art School to get her out of the countryside to explore her brilliant artistic tallent. Her name is Hagu. Instantly, Yuta and Shinobou fall for her creating a little bit of a love triangle as the story rolls out; more characters are introduced to create even more fun, drama, and romantic webs. The story follows the group of friends from freshman year to graduation as they grow together and become who they are going to be.

PROS

This anime is amazing at portraying life, and that’s its stand-out quality throughout. From start to finish, the characters share moments and make memories together in a realistic fashion that creates a genuine feel to the anime. It’s this sincerity that made me so invested in the characters dilemmas and in their hearts. Speaking of, the characters are brilliant. All of them blend together perfectly to make for a funny, smart, and earnest cast. My favorite characters were Shuji and Shinobu. Shuji is the most selfless and genuine character I have ever seen in an anime. The way he cares for Hagu, and takes her in so that she can go to school in the city and develop her talents is amazing. He cares about all of the characters, and acts as a voice of reason as they try to find their way in life.  Shinobu, in great contrast, is the most over the top, hilarious, yet mysterious characters I have ever seen in an anime. For pretty much the entire anime we have absolutely no idea what he does for a living, but he is super loaded (sort of like Barney in How I Met your Mother). He disappears for weeks at a time and comes back with tons of cash in his pockets, dead tired, and passes out. It’s truly comical to see him try and make money off of anything he can and all of his wacky antics. On the flip side, how he acts around Hagu is much different and it’s really intriguing to see that as well.

While the characters were all amazing, what carries this anime for me are the stories and how they weave together. I loved how each character’s background was fully fleshed out, so we get to understand why they are the way they are. The anime even had excellent timing; knowing the order of which stories to reveal when, building in intrigue and saving the juiciest details for last. Speaking of, the ending. The ending blew my mind, and I didn’t expect it at all. I did not see these two characters ending up together at any time throughout, but when it happened, it all became clear. It was so beautiful and well done, yet in a realistic way. I loved that Honey & Clover stayed true to its tone throughout the entire anime. Many anime of this genre will completely change the tone at the end of the series and come out of left field in a bad way, or the ending will be all too predictable. On the contrary, I never knew what was going to happen in Honey & Clover and stayed interested the whole time. The characters remained true to their core and I can’t say enough good things about it.

Additionally, the animation was welcoming and artistic as you would expect for an anime set place in an art school; they really nailed the changes in animation for dramatic and comedic moments. I also thoroughly enjoyed the musical score of this anime, it was kind of indie and that fit the tone just right. I’ve never heard that style of music in an anime, so it really stood out to me.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I didn’t have any serious or minor cons for this anime. I became enthralled in the story and it ended perfectly.  I’m sorry I couldn’t say too much about the storyline, but it would spoil the experience for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. I would recommend anyone go watch it, especially if you are college age, I guarantee it will speak to you as it includes themes that people at this age go through of unrequited love, being lost in life, and more. Honey & Clover is a 10 out of 10; I highly recommend you check it out!

Watched on: dubs2go.net

Kaichou wa Maid-Sama! Anime Review

KAICHOU WA MAID-SAMA! SCORE: 8.5

INTRODUCTION & SYNOPSIS

Maid-Sama! is an adorable, funny, and romantic shoujo rom/com anime that I thoroughly enjoyed. While watching a sweet and dynamic relationship kindle, we explore maid cafes, high school life, and interesting characters in comedic fashion.

We start out at Seika High. Once an all-boys high school, Seika has recently become co-ed; however, boys still mainly run the school until Misaki becomes student body president! Misaki is ruthless against the boys and protects the minority population of girls, while trying to boost the female admission numbers for Seika. All of the boys believe she is a manly ball-buster until one day three trouble-makers find out Misaki's secret... She works at a Maid Cafe! Maid Cafe's are a place where girls are dressed as cute maids to greet and serve their "masters" drinks and food - very out of character for the Misaki they know. One of the popular boys at Seika, Takumi Usui, finds out her secret too, but rather than exposing her, Usui keeps her to himself by regularly visiting the cafe and developing a relationship with her.

PROS

Starting off with the obvious, Maid-Sama! had great animation and unique character designs; animated in a natural shoujo style with a welcoming feel inviting you in to enjoy the world of Maid-Sama! I loved the anime's use of chibi versus detailed animation styles to create comedic and serious moments; this worked brilliantly. The musical score was also well done and be-fitting of the anime. The ending themes really stood out to me as I enjoyed them both. 

Not only did the characters look good, but they all had unique traits and lively personalities that created a dynamic and hilarious cast. The three boys from Misaki's high school that know she works at a Maid Cafe and visit her frequently were super entertaining to watch, and I loved how they would fawn over and fight for Miaski's attention; I also loved how anytime they could get their hands on money they would spend it all right away at the Maid Cafe. My other favorite side character was Aoi. Aoi is the owner of the Maid Cafe's nephew who cross-dresses as a girl; she is internet famous as a beautiful lolly and idolized by many unknowing male characters for comedic effect. Finally for characters, the most important part, our two leads: Misaki and Usui. They nailed it. Their relationship was dynamic, funny, intimate, and a perfect contrast. Usui is smooth and loyal always staying by Misaki's side even through her tsundere ways. Misaki is rough and constantly in denial of her feelings, yet truly cares for her "Stupid Usui!" I completely bought their relationship and got so excited at every moment they shared.

Lastly, my personal favorite thing about this anime is it's underlying theme and setting. I didn't know much about maid cafes until I saw this, and it's a really unique and cool concept that just doesn't exist in the West. I love when I can learn interesting things about Japanese culture from anime, and Maid-Sama! does this well. 

CONS

I have a few cons for this anime, but they aren't too bad as it nailed all of the major criteria for a good rom/com. First, I have a small personal gripe about one of the animated quirks they would do for comedic effect: sweating when nervous. For some reason, the way the sweat was drawn it looked like the character had lots of pimples or an uneven face, and it just bothered me. Next, one of the episodes had nothing to do with anything. One episode towards the latter half of the show was super unrelated and unnecessary - you'll know what I mean when you see it. Lastly for cons, I just wish I could have seen a continuation of episodes with Misaki and Usui actually together. Just like many romance anime, we don't even see them kiss until the last episode and then it's over. I enjoyed the slow build of their romance, but I'd like more episodes to kind of see more of the pay off. 

Okay, I lied, there is one more thing. This didn't really bother me too much, but I could see it bothering a fair few. Towards the very end of the series, a character from Misaki's childhood is introduced to create a melodramatic and unnecessary love triangle. The reason I don't mind it is because I feel like it helps Misaki realize how she feels, but one could argue the anime would be better without it as the ending is quite obvious from episode one.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Kaichou wa Maid-Sama! maid me laugh out loud and say "awweee how cute" the whole way through. I would definitely recommend it to any rom/com fan. Because I truly enjoyed this show - I give Maid-Sama an 8.5 out of 10! The flaws that existed just didn't bother me/ didn't detract from the show, and I think anyone with a heart would find the relationship sweet as pie! 

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Watched on: Dubs2go.com

Golden Time Anime Review

GOLDEN TIME SCORE: 8.75

INTRODUCTION & SYNOPSIS

Golden Time is a highly enjoyable romance anime with comedic elements set on a college campus in Tokyo. Tada Banri is the main protagonist who moves to Tokyo after dealing with an accident that caused him to lose all of his memories from that point prior. On his first day he meets another male freshman student, Mitsuo, who he seems to have a lot of common interest with; however, as they start to bond and become friends a limo pulls up on the side of the street – out pops Kaga Koko with a bouquet of roses. She struts up to Tada’s new-found friend, repeatedly slaps him with the roses, and walks away. Leaving Mitsuo on the floor crying out in angst, and our lead character, Tada, love-stuck and in awe of the beautiful Koko. &So our story begins…

Throughout the series Tada and his group of friends go on different misadventures and form/break/grow relationships with one another. As this goes on, our main character Tada consistently struggles with the resurfacing of old memories as he tries to live a new life free of the restraints of the past. This is the overlying plot-point that is focused on; he has an internal battle – should he take this chance of losing his memories to invent a new person, or try to become who he used to be once more? This turmoil is manifested into his two love interests for the series Koko (representing the present) and Linda (representing the past), which are surprisingly both quite likable. The first time I watched the series I wanted him to be with Linda and didn’t really like Koko, and the second time I actually much preferred Koko - she is now one of my top favorite female anime characters. 

PROS

What Golden Time handles most excellently throughout the series is character development. Many a time have I seen a decent slice-of-life series that just fails massively in character development; each character is the same from beginning to end. That is not the case here, in Golden Time most every character (even side characters) are different people from episode 1 to episode 24 which speaks volumes for how well they developed. 

Another pro is that all of the characters are really enjoyable. They brought the show to life and made for an entertaining story. The side characters were also a lot more involved than in other romance animes. Some of my favorites were Nana, Tada’s rock star neighbor, and 2-D-Kun the nice bring-everyone-together kind of guy. I really loved seeing them grow and have the “college experience.” It’s actually kind of rare to see an anime set in college (normally being high school/middle school), so seeing them try to pick a club to join, survive nights with crazy college partiers, and live on their own was just plain fun to watch! 

Golden Time cracked the mold of standard romance animes and took some risks which I appreciated. The one that stood out to me was that there were two female characters that weren’t interested in our male lead Tada, yet still get good screen time and date other guys in the group. Other guys in the show can actually get girlfriends, and don’t just serve as comic-relief props, which was a nice change of pace. While they did follow some stereo-typical romance anime tropes such as the classic “beach vacation” episode, it kept things pretty original and was a breath of fresh air for me. 

Lastly, the ending theme for the first season was on-point! I really enjoyed it, and wish it was longer than 1.5 minutes. Character designs were all very good in my opinion as well. 

CONS

I really did enjoy this show, but it still has a couple of cons and annoyances in my book. First off, Tada and Mitsuo ("Yana") didn’t seem to be that close to me and they didn’t have enough friendship-building scenes for me to feel like they were authentic friends. This in turn made most scenes they did have together seem a little forced. Mitsuo doesn't really develop much either. 2-D-Kun on the other hand seemed to be the more natural friend and I wish he would have gotten a little more screen time. It interested me right away when we found out that he has given up on 3-D girls and wants to be known as 2-D-Kun; what is the backstory to that? 

Additionally, the show can get unnecessarily dramatic at times. I think the anime could have benefited from a more lighthearted tone in certain scenes. In particular, Kaga gets into a car accident at one point, and the way her father reacts is too over the top for the situation. Also, one of the characters cuts her hair short towards the end of the series, and she has her own kind of drama surrounding that, which I felt was really unnecessary.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Golden Time is an anime I would definitely recommend to a friend – guy or girl and all ages can enjoy. Even though it’s light and fun a lot of times, it still has weight and depth that you remember. This lead me to give Golden Time the score of 8.75 – an anime definitely worth watching!

Watched on: www.dubs2go.net (free source)

Chobits Anime Review

CHOBITS SCORE: 8.75

INTRODUCTION & SYNOPSIS

Chobits is an anime which I may be partially biased too, but I will try to review it as critically as possible. It is one of the first animes I saw a few years ago and it’s what really got me interested in the anime community. Prior too, I had never seen anything like it, and I think it still holds true that this is a really unique anime. Anyway enough with the set-up, let’s get to the review shall we…

The main protagonist for Chobits is a slightly dim-witted, but truly kind-hearted young man by the name of Hedeki. Being a farmer from the Japanese countryside, his world is turned upside down when he moves to Tokyo to enter prep-school for University and tries to get by in this new technologically advanced world. While this world doesn’t have flying cars or anything, it does have “Persa-coms.” Persacoms are walking, talking, and living computers that are indistinguishable from real-life humans (if it weren’t for their cute persacom ears). It’s with this major plot-point that this anime tackles the Sci-Fi phenomenon known as “technological singularity,” in which artificial intelligence becomes on par with that of human intelligence and if in the shape/form of a human body is virtually indistinguishable from humans. Despite this, the anime is surprisingly not all too Sci-Fi focused, and centers more on the fluffy romantic comedy/ slice-of-life elements. However, it is this point of the plot that makes the anime most interesting. Hedeki (being a poor farmer) can’t afford a persacom, although he expresses his want for one abundantly when he is first introduced. Luckily for him, he so happens to stumble upon an adorable looking persacom that was discarded in an alley way, so he thanks his lucky stars and takes her home. This persacom however, is different and special. Her name is “Chi” as this is the only word she can say, and because of this Hedeki thinks she must be broken and takes her to the child persacom genius to be examined. Thus, it is discovered that Chi may be one of the mysterious Chobits series one of the most intricate and powerful persacoms of all time. The mystery unfolds slowly at first then rapidly at the end when we discover the truth behind the Chobits series persacoms.

PROS

Throughout the series we get to see how the existence of persacoms effect human relationships in the world, and both the positives and negatives that come from that. I thoroughly enjoyed this aspect of the anime and the side stories that went with it. In particular the side story about the prep-school teacher and her husband with the decay of their relationship due to persacoms, and the story of the bakery owner who married a persacom who lost her memory. Both were very emotional and ensued great character development for these side-characters. Which brings me to my next pro, the characters. Near all of the characters were really like-able and very well-developed with great backstories that made me resonate with all of their dilemmas.

Another great factor about Chobits is its mystery surrounding the main character Chi. Chi is so darn cute and like-able as a character, and the power she has to emote with saying so little really helps her character develop. The mystery of where she came from and whether or not she is from this “Chobits” series of super powerful persacoms really kept me sucked in the whole way through. I wanted to figure out what was going on and the way all of the characters tie in to the ending was perfect. I think the ending was really nailed.

Lastly, I think the animation and music was really cute and serene and ahead of it’s time for when it was originally released. The opening theme is probably one of my favorite opening themes of all time for an anime.

CONS

I don’t have too many negative points for this anime, but there are a few. Firstly, our main protagonist kind of bothered me. While the fact that he was dumb and from the country made for some funny situations, I think the story would have been more interesting if they had made the genius character older and have him have been the one to find Chi and figure her out; this would have made things more interesting in my personal opinion. Some of the things he didn’t understand would kind of irk me and it prevented us from learning more about persacoms since he knew so little himself. I can get past this though, what bothered me more about his character was his weakness for hot girls and the over-done caught with dirty magazines joke. I feel like the whole pervert act is better thrown in as a side-character trait or not at all. They could have gone there once, but it felt like it was brought up every other episode. Another character that bothered me was the shop owner’s daughter who always flirted with Hedeki calling him “senpaiiii.” I just didn’t feel her dilemma and it’s probably a personal gripe, but she just irritated me a little. This last one is definitely a personal gripe, but I wish they added a male persacom as one of the more prominent side-characters or something. It would have been interesting to at least have a side-story dealing with this.

FINAL THOUGHTS

All in all, I really enjoyed Chobits. I think it is a unique series with thoroughly interesting concepts. None of the cons I mentioned took away from the story or ruined it in any way for me, so that’s why I give this series an 8.75 out of 10. It is definitely worth watching and probably even owning. I have watched it through more than once and would definitely recommend it. If you have seen Chobits and are looking for something similar in the persacom element I would recommend Plastic Memories.


WATCHED ON: Dubs2go.net (free source)