First Impressions of 'We without wings'

'In the big city of Yanagihara, the masses of people and buildings make it a bustling place to exist, and yet, people will meet and fall in love here in this city.'

[SPOILERS in the text below, please do not read if you wish to avoid spoilers.]

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I started watching We without wings, I picked it out randomly one day and thought it looked like it could be interesting, so I decided to watch it.
It starts off in the city of Yanagihara and follows the story of 4 main characters, I'd tell you their names but I couldn't remember them if my life depended on it, this show has so many different characters that it's genuinely hard to keep up with who is who. These 4 characters have fairly plain lives, working, hanging out with friends, meeting new people, all these things led me to believe it was going to be a slice of life kinda anime.

Skip forward a few episodes and there's a bit of drama, gang violence in the city and one of the main intervenes and breaks it up, creating a few enemies in the process. Meanwhile the other characters are still going about their day to day lives. In the next episode we see the heroic Hawk preparing to fight an army of goblins and orcs and... Wait what? Did I click on the wrong show? What is even going on? Who are all these new characters? So many questions!

So yeah, that slice of life anime just turned into a cheap fantasy one out of nowhere? Wasn't expecting that.

I won't lie, I stopped watching at that point without giving it a second chance, I felt that the fantasy part came out of nowhere and way too late into the show. I'd gotten used to the realistic aspect of it and the normality of it all, it was a nice change of pace. For the show to go from that to an over the top and childish fantasy world was just too much. Then of course there's the 10 or so characters that get introduced within 1 minute, as if there weren't enough names to not remember already.

Overall I wasn't really happy with this show, one of the few that I'd say I actually disliked. Maybe one day I'll go back and finish the whole show to see if it gets any better but I won't be holding my breath. I wouldn't recommend this show at all. Also sorry that this is kinda short and seems a lil rushed. There's not many interesting things to say about this show in all honesty.


On a side note, I'd like to apologise for the inconsistent posting, I've been preoccupied with work IRL and haven't had much time to get on my pc.

This anime, along with nearly all the others I watch, can be found on crunchyroll, link below:
www.crunchyroll.com

Akame Ga Kill Review

'Under the rule of a tyrannical empire, Tatsumi, a young swordsman, leaves his home to save his poverty stricken village. He meets a girl named Akame, an assassin who was bought, brainwashed and trained to kill by the Empire. Akame is a member of the secret assassin group called “Night Raid” who use special weapons called Teigu. Together, Tatsumi and the members of Night Raid confront the corrupt empire.'

[SPOILERS are going to be within this review, DO NOT READ if you haven't seen the show.]

Akame ga kill is an semi-serious action anime about a group of rebels fighting against a corrupt empire. Tatsumi, the main character, heads to the capital of the empire in order to ask for help to save his village. After he meets Akame, a member of the Night Raid (the rebels against the empire), he learns the truth about the empire and decides to join the Night Raid and fight back.

Personally I enjoyed this anime, it's worth watching just to see the fight scenes alone; the weapons they use are unique which lead to interesting battles that are different every time. Combining that with the fact that the writer clearly doesn't mind killing off the good guys leads to an overall interesting story.
That's not to say that this series is without fault though, the moments that really deserve a serious and sad atmosphere end up being forgotten about by the next episode. One of the main 'good guys' could die and jokes would still be made within the same episode or the beginning of the next. Although some of the deaths were brutal, none of them felt like they carried any weight, at no point did it seem like I was meant to care about that character dying.

Other than the odd exception, the characters in the show weren't anything special, with minimal back story and personalities that weren't very memorable, it's not surprising that I didn't care when they died. Tatsumi, the supposed main character, was killed off out of the blue and literally none of the other characters cared for more than 5 minutes.
On the other hand though I felt that Akame's character was done very well, considering it's a short anime, she had a decent amount of back story and character development. She was the only character that would leave me disappointed if she died.

Overall I'd say it's a good anime if you're a fan of fight scenes and an 'anybody could die' storyline. Personally I'd recommend it unless you take anime as seriously as some people do. The non-interesting characters, the rushed ending and the poorly executed 'sad' scenes never really bothered me, I enjoyed the anime throughout and would look forward to watching the next episode. If I had to give it a rating, I'd rate it 7 out of 10, would watch again.

Thank you for reading and please let me know what you thought of the show and the review.


This anime as well as most of the others I watch can be found on crunchyroll, link below:
www.crunchyroll.com

Mainstream anime?

Within the anime community you'll often find people hating on mainstream anime simply because they're mainstream. These people will often look down on the viewers of these shows and claim their favourite anime is one that's unknown to most.

Being someone that watches all kinds of anime, mainstream included, I get confused as to why they have such strong opinions on something that in reality doesn't affect them at all. If someone enjoys watching something then good for them, as long as it's not harming someone else in the process then what's the problem? Perhaps it's a desire to feel like they're better than others, who knows?

Nearly all mainstream anime are actually good, a good storyline or interesting fight scenes are enough to attract a crowd but it couldn't become mainstream with such a high viewer base if it wasn't good. I'll admit they have flaws, same as any other anime. The insane levels of power driven by emotions alone is often a recurring theme, as well as having a TON of 'filler' episodes that often seem like a waste of time. On the other hand they also have many strong points, perhaps a unique storyline or interesting characters is enough to get people interested but something much more is required for so many people to keep coming back, always asking "what happens next?!" at the end of each episode.

Like I said before, if someone enjoys watching something then good for them, if you enjoy watching something else then that's great too. Just don't start a war over something so small. :)

Thanks for reading.


Nearly all the anime I watch is on crunchyroll.com, link below:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/

First impressions of 'Plastic Memories'

'After failing his college entrance exams, 18 year-old Tsukasa Mizugaki is offered a position at the renowned SAI Corporation due to his father’s connections. SAI Corporation is known for its production and management of androids that possessed human emotions called Giftia. Tsukasa’s position is in the terminal service department where the main job is to recover Giftias that are close to their expiration, a graveyard department in every sense. To make matters worse, Tsukasa is ordered to work with Isla, a female Giftia who is never given any responsibility other than serving tea to co-workers.'

[There will be slight spoilers in the form of describing the basic plot in the following text]

I first saw this anime as a new release on Crunchyroll a couple of weeks ago and although I ignored it for a while, I did think it looked interesting. After finally getting around to watching the first 5 episodes I decided to share my first impressions.

Plastic Memories exceeded my expectations, what I read as the description caught my interest but looking back it doesn't really show off as much as it could. What I was expecting to be a comedy/romance anime between the 2 main characters Tsukasa and Isla turned out to be way more than that. A sad background story is there to make the serious moments that much better but at the same time the comedy parts stop it from being just plain depressing.

I personally really enjoy this anime so far, for me to pick a random newly released anime and for it to be as good as this was a nice change. Although briefly explained in the description of the anime, the main story is actually rather sad. A world where people can own Androids with human emotions that are designed to fill the gaps in people's lives in the form of family or friends that sadly have a predetermined expiration date. 1 Giftia lasts around 8 years before losing it's memories and personality, at which point it has to be shut down. Not everyone is okay with having the people closest to them taken away however and it's Tsukasa and Isla's job to try convince them to let them go.
With half the team being Giftia's you are left to constantly wonder when each of their expiration dates may be, combine that with the sadness of watching family being split apart forever and it really can be quite upsetting. Luckily the clumsiness of Isla and the awkwardness of Tsukasa add enough humour to stop the show from getting too depressing.

Overall I'm really liking this anime and would definitely recommend it.

I watch this anime as well as almost all the others I watch on Crunchyroll, the link is below:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/

Introduction-ish thing

I guess I'll use this first post as a small introduction as well as share my views on anime and the kind of anime I enjoy watching.

I'm a huge anime fan, even though I only started watching anime like a year or 2 ago I can easily say that watching anime is one of my favourite things to do. I'm no die hard fan though, nor am I a critic, I just watch anime for fun and enjoy almost all the ones I watch. Some I'll enjoy more than others granted, but it's very rare for me to watch an anime and actually dislike it.

The kind of anime I've been watching so far is somewhat varied. The first I saw was "Zero no Tsukaima" (familiar of zero). At the time I thought it was amazing; one of the best things I'd ever watched. So much so that I was scared to try find another anime to watch. I'd watched one and it was amazing, what would happen if I couldn't find another good one? Would I start to dislike anime? It was this that caused me to be overly picky when it came to choosing anime and that led to me not watching many at all. Recently though, I've been watching a TON and from all genres and without spending hours looking. Recently I've watched Trinity seven, Unlimited fafnir, Naruto, Fate-Zero and stay-night, Akame ga kill, etc etc. The list goes on.

I personally think that many people either take anime waaaay too seriously OR they're the complete opposite and judge it without trying it. This makes it very difficult to be a casual anime watcher. I don't tell many people I watch it because I'm worried most people will judge me or if there are a few other anime fans in my social circle then I'm worried they'll be one of the super over-the-top anime fans that would look down at me for being some kind of 'filthy casual'.

Anyways, this blog is for me to voice my opinions on anime and maybe make some pseudo reviews as well as talk about anime in general.