Lucky☆Star is my most recently dropped anime. Out of the 24 episodes I dropped it partway through episode 8 because I just couldn’t bring myself to care about anything that was happening in it.
It’s a slice of life comedy about four girls in school (apparently they’re all 17 and in high school although you wouldn’t guess that from their looks). If you’ve ever seen the anime Yuru Yuri, Lucky☆Star is basically the same thing, but much, much worse.
While watching Yuru Yuri, I was thoroughly entertained, but Lucky☆Star is so boring I couldn’t deal with it any more.
For example, there are many points at which a character says something (that isn’t funny), then there’s a pause for a few seconds, and then another character responds with something equally as not funny or changes the subject entirely. It’s slow and they don’t know how to properly set up jokes.
I think part of the issue is that the manga is a 4-panel and so it really would work better as an anime short than a full length series. Every minute or so, the topic of discussion changes to something I equally don’t care about. If it was just a three-minute episode, I wouldn’t mind as much.
Also, at the end of each episode is a segment called Lucky Channel, which doesn’t really have much to do with the rest of the series and even has different characters. This could have been what they put the credits over, but it’s not. There’s a full credit run afterwards.
Characters
Konata Izumi is the best of the four main characters, and appears to be the fan favorite, but even she tends to be a predictable character. We know she’s going to mention food, say something to annoy Kagami, and mention games or anime. This alone wouldn’t be bad, but nothing she says is really ever relevant.
Kagami Hiiragi is the tsundere character which you can tell because of her twin tails, something that’s pointed out by Konata. She’s tends to be, or at least is seen as, aggressive which contrasts with the personality of her sister. She typically argues with Konata.
Tsukasa Hiiragi is the twin sister of Kagami and tends to be quiet and polite. That sentence basically sums up her entire existence so there isn’t much more to say about her.
Miyuki Takara is by far the worst character. Sure, Tsukasa is basically a talking piece of background, but Miyuki is even more boring. Literally every time Miyuki opens her mouth I was immediately bored and started looking at my phone for entertainment instead.
Her entire character is there so the other girls, usually Konata, can ask her some question nobody cares about, and then she monologues a response as if she were a dictionary. She’s kind of like the characterization of a “fact of the week,” but if the fact was general knowledge or something so obscure nobody cares.
Konata Izumi
Conclusion
Lucky☆Star is a 3/10 and finishing the series wasn’t worth my time. Maybe one day I’ll put it on in the background while I’m doing other things so I can say I “watched” the whole thing, but it’ll basically just be background noise.
While I don’t like this anime, there is one thing it has going for it, and that’s references. I can’t say I’ve noticed any other anime referencing Lucky☆Star, although I’m sure Yuru Yuri has, but what I mean is that this series includes a lot of references to others.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya appears to be the most referenced anime in this series, but in the few episodes I watched I also noticed a Cromartie High School reference, and an Initial D reference (which was the best one). If references to other series is better than your series’ original content, that should tell you something.
Moribito is the story of Balsa, a lone, traveling spearwoman, who is contracted to protect the prince of the Imperial Family. The assassination of the prince was ordered by the Emperor himself because the prince has a water spirit inside of him and it is believed if the spirit were to die, then the drought that has been plaguing the land will end.
Balsa happens to be in the Imperial capital at the time and is contracted by the prince’s mother to take him with her on her travels and protect him from the Emperor’s assassins. She agrees to protect the prince because she is on a journey to save eight lives as penance for eight lives that were taken that she feels responsible for.
Characters
Balsa, the protagonist of the series, is a highly skilled warrior who uses a spear. She’s originally from a faraway land but traveled to the empire as a child with a guardian of her own. Although she is a master warrior, she tends not to wield her spear with the intent to kill, but rather incapacitate her opponents.
Chagum is the second prince of the empire. He has a water spirit, or demon, inside of him which the empire believes needs to be killed in order to prevent a drought. Over the course of his journey with Balsa, he learns about the world and life in general from her and becomes attached to her over time.
Two of the supporting characters are Tanda and Torogai. Tanda is a doctor and essentially a shaman in training under Torogai, an old shaman woman who lives in the mountains. These two often help Balsa when she comes to them with injuries sustained from fights. Torogai is also able to communicate with the spirit world.
The final characters I’ll mention are Touya and Saya, two orphans who become acquaintances with Balsa after they hide her in their hut. These two don’t really do anything else important that I can remember, but they’re around.
Balsa fighting
Conclusion
Moribito is basically the correct way to write a story based on a traveling spearwoman. When compared to Koihime Musou, it’s obvious that this is the better of the two. They also both came out in 2007 so the difference in quality isn’t due to one of these anime being newer than the other.
That said, I ended up giving Moribito a 5/10 although it probably deserves a 6. However, it’s been so long since I’ve watched it that we’ll just trust my past self and stick with the 5.
Despite this rating, I did enjoy the series, especially when it delved into Balsa’s past and her reasons for not fighting to kill. There were also some other parts of the anime that dealt with her intent to kill, or lack thereof, which I found to be the best parts, but I won’t spoil that subject any further.
Well, it’s finally time to take a look at one of my favorite anime, Naruto: Shippuden, and this is going to be a long one. This is the second series in what I’ll call the Naruto Trilogy which includes Naruto, Naruto: Shippuden, and Boruto: Naruto Next Generations.
The way I see it, the 220 episodes of the original series were just the prequel and the 500 episodes which make up Shippuden is the real story. While the Naruto series as a whole gets a lot of hate, it does actually include some of the best fighting scenes in shounen anime. I won’t be going through some of the basics of the series so if you’re looking for that then check out my review of the original series here.
Shippuden takes place a couple of years after the end of the original series with Naruto and Jiraiya’s return to the Leaf Village. The rogue ninja organization known as the Akatsuki has begun to make their move on the various lands and their goal is to capture all of the tailed beasts and use them to rule the world so there will be no more war.
There are also two new members of Team 7 introduced who I won’t talk about too much, but these are Sai, Sasuke’s replacement, and Captain Yamato, Kakashi’s replacement.
From here on out I’ll do a summary-style review in which I’ll talk about things in chronological(ish) order so that does mean there will be spoilers, but let’s face it, anyone who cares about watching through Shippuden either already has or already knows what happens.
**Spoilers Ahead**
Pain’s Akatsuki
The first portion of the series is about the Akatsuki, lead by Pain, capturing all of the tailed beasts. This starts with the capture of Gaara, jinchuriki of the One Tail. This arc is the start of my girl Sakura‘s redemption. We all know Sakura was the most useless member of Team 7, and she always will be unfortunately, but she actually begins to have a purpose in Shippuden and she will be a key feature of this review.
Ok, so now that I mentioned the very beginning of the series, let’s fast forward to around episode 175. Pain attacks the hidden leave village in order to capture Naruto and the Nine Tails; and when I say Pain, I mean Pain and Konan. Technically only two members of the Akatsuki vs. the entire Leaf Village (other than Naruto) and the Leaf Village loses.
Then Naruto comes back and we get the infamous Naruto vs. Pain fight which has an extremely exaggerated art style, potentially as a way to show the sheer power of the fight between the two. Ignoring the art style and animation, the fight against pain is where many people believe the series should have ended, and generally I agree other than all of the amazing things we get scattered throughout the next 325 episodes.
Oh, also Pain kills Jiraiya (spoilers). Pain, along with Konan and Yahiko, were originally students of Jiraiya who he took in when they were orphaned by the second shinobi war. After the war, these three formed the Akatsuki as an organization to end war.
It’s also worth mentioning that Pain has eyes known as the Rinnegan, essentially the final form of visual jutsu which the Sage of Six Paths had. Because of this, Pain is able to use the Six Paths technique to control six proxy bodies each with their own specialized jutsu.
So Pain is defeated by Naruto, sort of. Really he just kills himself and brings back everyone in the leaf village who died during his assault. This leaves a strange void because we had learned that Pain is actually just a pseudonym for Nagato Uzumaki, that’s right, Naruto’s relative, but this apparently doesn’t matter and has no effect on the series whatsoever.
Jiraiya during his fight against the Six Paths of Pain in the Hidden Rain Village
Madara’s Akatsuki
Now that Pain is out of the way, Tobi, a pseudo-member of the Akatsuki up until this point, reveals himself as Madara Uchiha, one of the founding members of the leaf village who fought against the first Hokage.
Not only does he reveal himself as Madara, but he also decides to declare war on the entire ninja world, which forces the five large nations to band together to form an alliance.
We also learn that Pain was just the pawn of Madara and the real reason for gathering all of the tailed beast was so that Madara could become the jinchuriki of the ten tails and use a jutsu to put everyone in the world into a dream-like state.
Back to Sakura for a second, she’s now a fully-fledged medical ninja who is actually useful and the leader of the medical corp for the Allied Shinobi Forces.
Obito’s Akatsuki?
Plot twist, that Madara I was just talking about wasn’t actually Madara, it was Obito Uchiha. We learn this when the actual Madara is resurrected during the 4th Shinobi war which is goes on for about 200+ episodes.
But who’s Obito Uchiha?
He’s Kakashi’s old teammate who everyone thought died during the third shinobi war. It’s his Sharingan that Kakashi has in his left eye. But why would Obito want to destroy the world and put everyone into a dream? Because the girl he had a crush on died, of course.
Potential best-girl Rin was implanted with the Three Tails and rather than taking it back to the Leaf Village where it could go on a rampage and destroy everything, she opted to take her own life by using Kakashi as the weapon. As Kakashi uses his Chidori to attack the ninja chasing them, Rin jumps in front of him and is pierced through the chest by Kakashi’s hand.
If Rin had only survived longer, she probably would have been my favorite character over Sakura, but instead she’s just runner-up best-girl.
Kakashi Hatake kills Rin Nohara
Madara’s Akatsuki again?
What’s this? Another plot twist? It turns out that while Pain was Obito’s pawn, Obito was also Madara’s pawn. However, Madara’s goal is the same as Obito’s, but without his crush being killed by Kakashi.
Black Zetsu’s Akatsuki?
The plot twists yet again, Black Zetsu, a character nobody really cared about before actually kills Madara with ease after the Allied Shinobi Force failed to. Turns out that Madara wasn’t actually the creator of Black Zetsu like he thought, he was actually the pawn of Black Zetsu. The list of pawns keeps growing!
Kaguya’s Akatsuki, final answer
About a minute later we get the “final” plot twist which is that there’s an alien lady named Kaguya, who is the creator of all chakra, and everything that has happened since her sealing in the distant past was set up by Black Zetsu to bring her back. Kaguya has two Byakugan eyes and one Sharinnegan.
In the end, it takes the three main members of Team 7 (Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura) to take down Kaguya. Yes, Sakura helped because she’s a team player.
Kakashi Hatake vs. Obito Uchiha
The Adventures of Sasuke
For most of Shippuden, Sasuke is off doing his own thing. He’s considered a rogue ninja with no village affiliation.
As we know from the original Naruto series, Sasuke’s driving force is his desire to kill his older brother, Itachi, who became a member of the Akatsuki after killing the rest of the Uchiha clan. Well, Sasuke finally succeeds in killing Itachi and in the end gains the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan from it.
However, before he kills his brother he creates a squad of his own called Hebi. After the death of Itachi he changes the name of the squad to Taka. However, I’ll be referring to this squad as the Goon Squad.
The Goon Squad is led by Sasuke, but the other members are Suigetsu, one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, Jugo, a member of the clan the curse mark originated from, and Karin, a member of the Uzumaki clan like Naruto and Nagato. Sasuke met all of these members while working with Orochimaru, who he killed by the way.
So after Sasuke kills Itachi, he learns from Obito that Itachi was actually faithful to the Hidden Leaf Village the whole time and he actually massacred the Uchiha clan in order to preserve peace in the village. Sasuke, now angry with the Leaf Village for treating his heroic brother as a criminal decides to join the Akatsuki and destroy the Leaf.
Sasuke attacks the Five-Kage Summit, injuring the Raikage, and Killing Danzou, the then sixth Hokage. The fact that Sasuke could defeat Orochimaru, Itachi, and Danzou shows just how powerful he’s become.
Eventually, during the fourth shinobi war, specifically after the real Madara is revived, Sasuke decides that he’s going to help stop the world from being destroyed because it’s what Itachi would have wanted. Also by this point Sasuke has revived Orochimaru, who then joined the Goon Squad, and forced him to reanimate the four dead Hokage.
The Final Battle
Now the reason I mentioned Sasuke’s adventures is because after the defeat of Kaguya by the original members of Team 7, Sasuke decides that he wants to become Hokage and so must fight Naruto to the death. I haven’t mentioned our titular character much so far, but all you need to know is that by this point Naruto is very strong as well.
Naruto is now a Toad Sage, the jinchuriki of not only the Nine Tails, but portions of all the other eight tailed beasts, and he gained half of the power of the Sage of Six Paths. Sasuke, on the other hand, has an Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan in one eye and a Sharinnegan in the other due to receiving the other half of the Sage of Six Paths’ power.
Along with the fight between Kakashi and Obito, this final fight between Naruto and Sasuke is one of the best in the series. The fight ends in a draw with each of them losing an arm, but honestly I think Sasuke could have killed Naruto if he really wanted to.
Naruto Uzumaki vs. Sasuke Uchiha
Eyes, Eyes, Eyes
Something you may notice while watching Shippuden is that the show is no longer really about Naruto’s adventures like the original series was. Instead, the driving force behind much of the plot is the stealing of eyes. Sounds strange, huh? Well let’s break it down.
In the original series we’re introduced to two different eye jutsu, the Sharingan and the Byakugan. The Byakugan is technically considered to be stronger than the Sharingan, but it doesn’t matter much because the Hyuga clan places a seal on their members which seals their eyes after they die so they can’t be stolen. Although we do meet one non Hyuga clan member with a Byakugan in Shippuden, like how Kakashi has a Sharingan.
Anyway, the Sharingan is a visual jutsu which has many different levels to it. There is the regular Sharingan which has between one and three tomoe which signifies how complete it is. Once the Sharingan is in its complete form, it can then be upgraded to a Mangekyo Sharingan by witnessing an extremely traumatic event, which is also how it first materializes.
So for Sasuke, his Sharingan was triggered when Itachi massacred the Uchiha clan, and then he awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan when Itachi died. These Mangekyo Sharingan are the real prizes that people want to steal because each person’s Mangekyo Sharingan has a special ability and a unique pattern to match.
Itachi could use Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi, Sasuke can use Amaterasu and another ability which allows him to freely control the Amaterasu flames, Shisui’s eyes had a mind-control type ability, and Obito/Kakashi are able to use Kamui to open up other dimensions. So because of these powerful abilities, the Mangekyo Sharingan eyes are highly prized and many people want to steal them for themselves.
However, the Sharingan can “go even further beyond” in the words of Goku from the Dragon Ball series. The Mangekyo Sharingan wear out with use and eventually blind the user. By the time Itachi died he couldn’t even recognize Sasuke’s face, but there is a fix for this, the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. This ability is gained by implanting the Mangekyo from one person into another who is compatible. Sasuke gains this ability by implanting Itachi’s eyes.
But that’s not all! The Rinnegan is also technically an upgraded version of the Sharingan which is activated if someone who has the Eternal Mangekyo also has DNA from the Senju clan, of which the first Hokage was a member.
So as an Uzumaki, how did Nagato get the Rinnegan? Well those were actually Madara’s eyes and were implanted into Nagato by Obito for safekeeping. Madara was able to awaken his Rinnegan at the end of his natural life by implanting some of the first Hokage’s DNA into his body.
Sasuke awakens an upgraded version of the Rinnegan, known as the Sharinnegan, in one eye by gaining half of the Sage of Six Paths’ chakra.
Because of how powerful these visual jutsu are, we constantly see people stealing the eyes of others throughout the Shippuden series. Danzou has an entire arm of implanted Sharingan and after he stole one of Shisui’s eyes, Shisui gave the other to Itachi before killing himself. You may also recall from the original series that Orochimaru wanted Sasuke for his eyes.
Conclusion
So after all of this, what should you take away? Naruto Shippuden is a really good anime and you should watch it. Sure, there’s a lot of filler mixed in there too, but if you’re really against filler then you can always use a viewing guide to avoid it.
You may have also noticed some of DoubleSama’s patented unpopular anime opinions such as that I actually like Sakura and Sasuke unlike most of the anime community.
Sakura is the hopeless romantic who turns into a real character. She’s the primary medical ninja for the Leaf Village and she can fight too. She also has pink hair so that’s a plus.
Sasuke I like for different reasons. Give a character a katana and lightning abilities and I’m bound to think they’re awesome. I’ve said before that I love a good anime sword fight and it’s no surprise I like lightning abilities considering Sailor Jupiter from Sailor Moon was my first best-girl.
Overall I give Naruto: Shippuden an 8/10. It vastly improves on the original series and continues to grow the characters we already came to know and love.
Well today I felt like writing about Gurren Lagann so here you go! Gurren Lagann is probably my favorite anime in the mecha genre, although this isn’t a genre I typically watch.
The general plot of the anime is that Simon and Kamina live in an underground village and one day the ceiling caves in due to the fight between a girl named Yoko and a giant mech. Simon and Kamina decide to go with Yoko to the surface where they are met with a desolate landscape in which the last remnants of human society are fighting for their lives against giant mechs controlled by beings called the Anti-Spirals.
I think the main things I like about this anime are the art style and the over-the-topness of it all. Everything in the show is turned up to 11 and is continuously getting bigger and more extreme as the show progresses. The art style tends to reflect this at times where it ceases to be “clean” animation and the use of random lines and high contrast colors emphasizes the, as I said before, over-the-topness.
Gurren Lagann
Characters
Simon is the main protagonist of the anime as well as the worst of the main characters. He’s afraid of everything and always seems to be relying on those around him rather than doing things himself. Even in the latter half of the show when he finally “finds himself” he’s still overshadowed by the larger than life persona of Kamina.
Kamina is the true hero of the show and the founder of Team Gurren. I often find that the main character isn’t the true hero and Gurren Lagann is no exception. I want to say that Kamina is everyone’s favorite character, but I’m sure there are some who say he isn’t just so they can be different.
Honestly, he’s a pretty one-dimensional character, but that’s part of his charm. He does whatever he wants and doesn’t know the meaning of the word “impossible.”
Yoko is the female lead as far as I’m concerned. You could make the argument that there’s another character who is more of a female lead, but Yoko was there from the beginning so she’s the one that matters.
Like Simon and Kamina she too was originally from an underground village, but she had been living on the surface for some time before meeting them. Unlike Simon and Kamina who use mechs to fight, Yoko uses a sniper rifle.
**Spoilers Ahead**
Complaints
So I’m just going to start with possibly the biggest spoiler of this review which is that our beloved Kamina dies in episode 9 out of 27 if I’m not mistaken. Not only does this remove the best character in the series, but it leaves a void which never really gets filled.
Don’t get me wrong, Kamina’s death was a great scene and I think it was what he would have wanted if he were watching an anime about himself. Going all out until the end is definitely the Kamina way to do things. Really, my main issue is what comes after.
It takes what seems like a very long time for the other characters to get over Kamina’s death. Sure, maybe they wanted to be realistic, but it sucks the fun out of watching the show for too many episodes when everyone is moping around instead of being over-the-top.
Then, even after everyone seems to have recovered, all they do is think about what Kamina would do if he were in every situation they find themselves in. None of them have minds or wills of their own, it’s just constantly flashing back to Kamina and what he would have done if he were still around.
I mentioned that even once Simon “finds himself” he’s still overshadowed by Kamina and this is exactly what I meant. He becomes a bootleg version of Kamina which could never be as good as the original.
I could say more about how the way in which the loss of Kamina was dealt with negatively impacted the rest of the show, but I’ll end my rant there. The next issue I have has to do with one of the things I liked about the show, the over-the-topness.
This feature of the show always being more extreme than it was one minute ago was fun for the beginning half, but there was some point at which it lost its charm. I think it was after they defeated lord Genome.
Lord Genome was set up as the main antagonist and his defeat could have been the end of the show, but instead they pressed on and everything continued to get even bigger (literally). It started with mechs the size of houses and ended with mechs the size of galaxies; or at the very least, solar systems. It’s been a while since I’ve watched it.
Conclusion
As I mentioned at the beginning, Gurren Lagann is probably my favorite anime in the mecha genre. Even though I think the show drops off to an extent after the first third, I still give it an 8/10. It’s exciting, colorful, and has one of the best characters to ever grace anime.
I’ll start off by saying that School Days is a bad anime which has become infamous for the ending scenes. Some people may claim that the ending redeems the whole show, but those people would be wrong.
The main character’s name is Makoto and he falls in love with a girl named Kotonoha after seeing her on a train. He later becomes friends with another girl named Sekai who helps him out by introducing him to Kotonoha.
I’ll leave my plot summary at that for now so as to avoid spoilers for any masochists who want to watch this anime.
The characters are all terrible; except for Kotonoha that is. She’s the only redeemable one, but just barely. All the other characters are terrible people and you can’t help but root against them.
Sekai and Itou (left) and Kotonoha (right)
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
Ending
I don’t think you can really say much about School Days without talking about how it ends since that’s the most (in)famous part. Fortunately for you I forced myself to watch the anime so you don’t have to.
So the show ends up with both Makoto and Sekai dead.
To understand why, let’s go back to before the final scenes. Makoto is introduced to Kotonoha by Sekai, as stated before, and then he starts to date her. That’s all fine, except that Makoto is literally the worst.
He then proceeds to cheat on Kotonoha with every other girl in the school, starting with Sekai. Poor Kotonoha, suspects his cheating, but doesn’t want to believe it’s true. She also gets bullied by all the other girls because high schoolers are brutal.
So this brings us to the ending. It’s been a while so things are a little fuzzy, but I’ll do my best to recount it.
Sekai ends up stabbing Makoto because technically he was cheating on her too. Kotonoha then finds Makoto’s body and decapitates him because she’s literally crazy.
Next, Kotonoha confronts Sekai with Makoto’s head in a bag, and promptly kills her too because Sekai had claimed she was pregnant with Makoto’s child. Upon checking, Kotonoha finds that Sekai wasn’t pregnant after all.
The final scene is Kotonoha laying on a boat holding Makoto’s head.
I know, it’s a terrible ending. The only thing that really made sense is that Kotonoha is crazy because we watched her slowly become more and more broken as the anime progressed.
As I mentioned at the start, some people think that this ending redeems the show because they hated Makoto and so they think he finally got what he deserves. I, however, felt that the ending was rushed and made little sense. Sure, Makoto was terrible, but so was everyone else.
Conclusion
As I stated earlier, School Days is a bad anime. That said, it’s not the worst anime I’ve watched. I gave it a 3/10 because much of it is generic high school anime drama, but with terrible characters.
For anyone who wants to skip the series and just watch the ending unfold, it can be viewedhere.
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