Jeoffrey

Let us imagine the great Czech chef Jirka Babica has arrived at a prestigious culinary school to show all the snobs there how to cook properly, and for cheap, to show that even the most ordinary food could taste divine when well-prepared and well-cooked. Moreover, he wanted to prove that no situation is really lost and that if he does not happen to have an onion, he could just as well improvise and throw an orange in there because, well, that also begins with O. I guess anyone could imagine how that would have turned out... Fortunately, Yukihiro Souma is not as much of an abject culinary amateur as Jirka Babica, and so he did not practice his culinary skills by fiddling around with recipes and crazy experiments on live TV. He actually trained under the careful supervision of his father, who is probably akin to being something like Gordon Ramsay's older brother, judging by the culinary delights he serves up. Of course, quite often the main male protagonist was also drawn to various insane combinations and forms that probably no sane person would have thought up. After all, it is always good to try out new things and find out how a woman’s face looks when she has just eaten some food that made her feel like she had just been fucked in quite a hardcore way by an octopus. Because these mistakes occur the main male protagonist is able to hone his style to such a standard that when tasting his food, women's panties get wet and men are ejaculating through sheer pleasure, and now he is on a hard journey to do what Jirka has never been able to do in his life, to earn the respect of real chefs. I for one have to say that, unlike Babica's on-screen delicacies, this show was very easy to watch and cooking has never looked so fun and exciting. 9/10.

Not so long ago, I was convinced that I would never encounter a more ideological mess and a bunch of nonsense than I experienced with the Vatican Miracle Examiner anime series. Then I watched this and I realized I had been wrong! If it was just a harmless science-fiction movie that combined religious ideologies and conspiracy theories and did it cleverly, then I would have probably been very happy. However, something tells me that Happy Science, the company responsible for this movie, is absolutely serious about all of this, that they are treating this as their religious agitprop. So come and get brainwashed by Mr. Okawa's visions of aliens watching us, Reptilians infiltrating all the important government departments, and putting computer chips in people's heads to control them and force them to do their will. Could there finally be an explanation as to why and who votes for Czech politician Andrej Babis?!? Because the lizard-people could be anyone, they could be Andrej Babis or even the other Czech politician Tomio Okamura or Donald Trump, yes you Donald, get down off the chandelier, I can see you... Evil aliens (Reptilians) and good aliens (in many different forms) are hidden in plain sight everywhere you look, you just do not want to know what Mr. Okawa has inside his fridge, and I guess Satan (or whatever it was in the post-credits scene) is coming for us at the end?!?? May the gods save us all! Although those will probably be Reptilians too, or rather just Mr. Okawa and his wife?!? Are you getting lost and confused by all this? It is just a crying shame that it was not better filmed, the dialogues were not at least a little better written, the main protagonists were not more interesting and the whole thing was not just a massive joke. As it is, it is just an ideological mess and a bunch of nonsense that I was certainly not convinced by, and I think that if Mr. Okawa had given all his money to charity instead of making not only this movie but also the follow-up, which is also the beginning (the first part) of an entirely different trilogy (well, good grief...), he would have done the world a much greater service... 1.5/10.

I think that the Bones Inc. animation studio basically smashed it with the best of the spring 2016 releases. Both of its new anime series impressed me, and I thought that even Concrete Revolutio had significantly improved in it's second season. In other words, as I watch more and more anime series I am starting to hanker more after originality, and so far I have found every production by the Bones Inc. studio really original in its own way. Sure, some may have a similar subject matter, however, they are usually diametrically opposed in their treatment of it, and so I find it quite difficult to compare them to each other. Moreover, this originality is really most evident in the characters, the narrative, and also in the animation. In addition to this aspect of being original, many of the studio's productions have another thing in common. They are usually very playful and when watching them, you get that rather pleasant feeling of "expecting the unexpected", and you can really get into it. Summing it up, I am starting to believe more and more that the Bones Inc. producers are genuinely really into anime, and with every new anime series they seem to be coming up with more and more new ideas. Plus, I am also personally really into it. I really like it when I can watch something that I am constantly finding surprising, and it does not have to have a massive plot twist, however, perhaps it just has an interesting end to some dialogue like an unexpected funny punchline, an expression on the face of one of the characters that I have never seen before, or how a character is going to behave, and other similar small details that make me feel like it is not so predictable. Bungo Stray Dogs has all of these aforementioned features, and I really enjoy watching it because I can have some idea where the plot is heading, even though I cannot really know for sure. Plus, I can only guess what the main characters, and especially Dazai, who is quite a strange character, are capable of. You can add to that the really very interesting conclusion to the first season featuring two very distinct characters (the leader of the Port Mafia and the leader of the Guild). All indications are that we are going to get dragged into an insane war between three very powerful sides in the second season, so I am really looking forward to future episodes... To sum up this show is very original, quite funny, playful, and enjoyable. 8/10.

There is nice music featuring some infectious rhymes (it took me a while to recognize this song from Singin' in the Rain - my bad), and a nice (tap) dance number, however, most importantly it also features the cutest ghost of all time (sorry Casper)! 7/10.

Overall this is a really dumb movie, and the quality of the animation itself is really very poor. However, because the main female protagonist is so adorable, and because I laughed so hard, I am going to award this movie three stars. Now every time I am about to squash a bug with the sole of my shoe, I am at least going to think about it, and I might even consider not squashing it and singing "Let the bug live!" instead.

Despite other teachers being driven to give up and quit, the Great Teacher Koro has now arrived to attempt to help this class of students with their problems. His methods are as unorthodox as his outward appearance is, and also as diverse as his super-powers and the problems of the individual students. Plus, the students have an interesting incentive in the form of a large reward if they manage to assassinate their teacher... Because I started watching this anime series already pre-prepared by having watched the 2013 OVA, I had a fairly good idea how it would turn out. However, I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised. This is because besides the features I expected such as the relatively interesting characters, the mediocre yet tolerable animation, and the passable soundtrack, plus the quite interesting and original (even though we can ask how and in what way...) storyline, there was much more to this show. Therefore, I can say that it is a funny and sometimes quite educational show. Koro-sensei even gradually managed to convince me that he is a really good teacher, and so this meant I awarded more two stars than I awarded the first OVA. So all in all, I am now quite satisfied and I am looking forward to the second season because there were a lot of questions tantalizingly left unanswered. 8/10.

This installment has a really amazing atmosphere. It is not afraid to be gory, and all in all it manages to capture the sense of oppression the characters are experiencing in their particular world. The narrative is really good and has some interesting twists. You, therefore, can become very easily intrigued as to what Eren is going to find in the basement, and what the titans are really like. It really does a great job in making it easy to get hooked on this show very quickly. If I throw in two very good and atmospheric openings, which manage to grab the audience’s attention from the get-go, and a lot of action scenes that keep the audience glued to the screen, then I would really have to say that this is a superb production. I can therefore easily understand what all the show's aficionados (and there are a lot of them) see in it, and I could probably stretch to awarding it five stars, even though the animation lets the side down and I did not find it very impressive, however... I cannot praise to high heavens a production where I find most of the characters incredibly irritating. I have never seen a greater hysterical character than Eren, and his perpetual emotional outbursts made me afraid he would burst a blood vessel. Armin on the other hand was a flamboyant crybaby, a boy who was more effeminate than a woman, and the fact that he was very smart was in no way a redeeming characteristic. Then, that particular thing was balanced out by Mikasa who, regardless of the fact she is a girl, has the biggest balls of everyone in the entire show. Even though she reminded me of my favorite anime girl, Rukia from Bleach, that determination and toughness were still enough to put off a guy like me from falling under her spell. I did think that Levi could have become my favorite character because at first he did not seem too bad and I was happy that finally, a badass like him had turned up. However, when I saw that he was kicking like a girl, and we were shown his passion for cleaning, my interest in him rapidly waned... Well, that left me with only Jean, “Potato Girl” Sasha, and Erwin who ended up as my favorite characters, which is just not enough. Therefore, you have to now accept that I am not going to award this season five stars, although I am looking forward to the second season. 7.5/10.

Did I not review the first season of Sword Art Online (SAO)? I need to fix that immediately! I am, however, going to be brief because so much has already been said and written about this anime series already, so there is probably no point in overdoing it. I am simply going to share a few of my impressions, with some minor spoilers of course. I do not doubt that many people have already seen SAO. When SAO first came out, I lapped up every episode, and at first, believed it should clearly be awarded five stars (10/10). Well, during the episode when Kirirto and Asuna decided to get a lake house and Yui showed up, that was the moment when I suddenly lost interest... At that point, I deducted a point (9/10), and even the other suspenseful events were not able to rekindle my initial interest in this show. When Alfheim and Kirito's sister arrived, my enthusiasm again rapidly declined, this time by at least three points, or rather three and a half (5.5/10). In the end, I thought the slightly above average rating was redeemed in this part mainly by the fact that Oberon appeared, a character whom I hated more than anything, as this is obviously a good thing for a bad guy... Summing it up and looking at it as a whole I thought it had a great start and then unfortunately tailed off, and so it had a much weaker conclusion. I am now, therefore, reaching an average of about 7.7/10. That is it really (a bunch of numbers that do not really say anything, even though if you wanted, you could maybe make a graph out of them...).

So, is this a Japanese attempt at comic book superheroes, with a narrative concerning a young boy and the essence of heroism, as he has no powers and virtually no chance of becoming a superhero in a world where everyone has powers? The show is very predictable, the way it is heading is also quite obvious because they just gave it away at the end of the second episode. On the other hand, it is quite entertaining and also gets pretty emotional. I really enjoyed both the sad and happy experiences of the main male protagonist (although I understand anyone who says it sucks because the main male protagonist just cried his way through the entire first half of the season). The style of the animation is a bit "retro", and I like it. It is basically a classic shonen anime series, centered around fight scenes, which are really especially good in the second half of the season. I have basically now got a good idea of what superhero comics would have looked like if they had been made by a Japanese dude, and that does not seem like such a terrible thing. Sure, you cannot compare it to the Marvel or DC universes, however, I personally enjoyed this show, because it has that sense of playfulness the Japanese are good at, is suitably over-the-top and the emotional side is handled in a good way... Perhaps this show is "designed for five-year-old Japanese kids", although after thinking about it for a long time (since JackStrange advised me to do that), I finally realized that I just cannot escape that pleasant feeling I get from watching it. I am going to go even further and even declare that I probably enjoyed this show the most out of all the spring 2016 releases. What does that say about me? I guess it mostly says that I can enjoy the simplicity of this show as, despite the fact I am a thirty-something adult man, I am really just a big kid at heart... On the other hand, I feel fine and happy with myself (I have a job, no debts, and I do what I want) and I had that same fine feeling and contentment from watching "My Hero Academia". 8.3/10.

This show is absolutely brilliant! All the characters are great, including the main male protagonist, and his range of different expressions is just awesome, and there was no one that I did not like. The fight scenes are really pumped, plus the soundtrack is awesome and the narrative is jam-packed with cool ideas. In addition, it is also very funny!!! I should add that it has a great finále, even though I was worried about a certain fight scene (in other words "when one punch is not enough"), despite the fact that at the same time I was probably looking forward to it the most. I can say the guys from the Madhouse animation studio have smashed it yet again. The post-credits scene itself is really very good too, and so I have to say that I have just seen the perfect show - something I have not been able to say for a long time! 10/10.