Below are listed the site’s completed reviews, arranged by letter grade and then alphabetically.
Dusk Maiden of Amnesia: A+
Summary: A great ghost story woven with a great romantic comedy.
Best Aspects: Treatment and handling of the supernatural, ability to depict a full range of emotion.
Downsides: Some mild ecchi humor? Also, the manga hasn’t been localized to English!
Haibane Renmei: A+
Summary: Daily lives of angel girls in a mysterious town.
Best Aspects: The depths of the characters and their exploration.
Downsides: The show is methodical to the point where you could call it slow, if that’s not your style.
Madoka Magica: A+
Summary: Genre-transforming avant-garde magical girl show. Being magical girl is suffering.
Best Aspects: Inspired visuals and mature but not excessive storyline
Downsides: Sometimes inaccessible visuals, and a possible overflow of despair
Made in Abyss: A+
Summary: Cute kids try to get to the bottom of a dangerous (super)natural wonder. Nature-documentary style unfriendliness ensues.
Best Aspects: Manages multiple emotional and story aspects at high aptitude.
Downsides: Not for the faint of heart.
The Promised Neverland (S1): A+
Summary: Orphan kids must try to escape their home before being devoured by demons.
Best Aspects: Tense drama and horror with excellent pacing.
Downsides: TENSE. Horror.
Robotics;Notes: A+
Summary: Childhood friends try to build a giant robot and stumble into trying to foil a global conspiracy on the way.
Best Aspects: Lovable characters and good emotional writing
Downsides: A largely sedate pace and sometimes difficult-to-follow antagonist
Shakugan no Shana Final: A+
Summary: Continuing from Shakugan no Shana Second, the writers ditch the pretext of masquerade urban fantasy, ditch the needless puttering around school, and give us a straight-up epic with the old main character of the villain–and it’s awesome.
Best Aspects: The action, and also the emotional growth of the characters and the complexity of their conflict
Downsides: The pace the show runs at can be exhausting
Dorohedoro: A
Summary: Amnesiac man with lizard head tries to find out why. Much bloodshed ensues.
Best Aspects: Builds understanding and develops character in a very alien setting.
Downsides: If you’re not up for a whole lot of ‘what the hell?’, you’re not up for this show.
Eureka Seven: A
Summary: A fifty-episode epic of love, mecha, and surfing; it makes more sense than it sounds.
Best Aspects: The slow-burn character development and world-building
Downsides: At times, can be too operatic for its own good
The Future Diary: A
Summary: A bloodsoaked character study of the damaged and deranged.
Best Aspects: Yuno Gasai.
Downsides: Yukiteru Amano.
Kaguya-Sama: Love is War: A
Summary: The geniuses’ battle of love and brains, and by “geniuses” I mean “eccentric prideful high school students,” and by “battle” I mean “melodramatic comedy skits.”
Best Aspects: High-energy comedy with a lot of surprising heart.
Downsides: Because the vignettes are short, it’s not afraid to bomb a joke.
Shakugan no Shana: A
Summary: Urban fantasy action about a girl who fights monsters who eat human existence and the half-real boy she “absolutely doesn’t” have a crush on.
Best Aspects: The action
Downsides: The characters can be hard to connect with at this stage
Black Rock Shooter: A-
Summary: Girl gets drawn into a surreal situation where avatars of emotional pain fight to the death.
Best Aspects: The visuals, including both the choraeography and the use of color.
Downsides: The plot doesn’t necessarily make that much sense; it’s more of an emotional experience.
Cardcaptor Sakura: A-
Summary: Classical magical girl show about a grade school girl who has to collect magic cards while sorting out her love life.
Best Aspects: This is a pleasant show. It’s very comforting to watch.
Downsides: When the show tries to go for stakes, it’s hard to believe.
Chivalry of a Failed Knight: A-
Summary: Romance between the best and worst students of a poorly explained generic urban fantasy battle school.
Best Aspects: The relationships between the characters (both romantic and non-romantic).
Downsides: The setting is extremely generic and never explained.
Deca-dence: A-
Summary: In a world where humanity is pushed to the brink by the constant onslaught of giant monsters…it’s really all an MMO for robots, where a couple of broken people struggle to change their world.
Best Aspects: The lean, effective pacing.
Downsides: Fitting as much plot into as few episodes as the show did cost some emotional and/or character arcs dearly.
Girl in Twilight: A-
Summary: A somewhat rough presentation for some of the biggest and best ideas.
Best Aspects: Character development and high concept.
Downsides: The first episodes are arguably terrible.
Knights of Sidonia: A-
Summary: Spacefaring military scifi wherein future humanity is hunted by biological horrors.
Best Aspects: Space battles and a future that integrates science and technology.
Downsides: The first six episodes.
KonoSuba: A-
Summary: A hilarious parody of every isikei harem; 8-Bit Theater in anime form.
Best Aspects: The characters are all crazy, providing tons of opportunity for good humor.
Downsides: The characters are largely terrible people and can be hard to watch due to awkward scenarios at times.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: A-
Summary: Local occult-obsessed teenage girl is literally God…and also ignorant of this fact.
Best Aspects: The ideas and approaches to blending the supernatural with the realistic.
Downsides: The Endless Eight; might descend too far into moe for some.
Neon Genesis Evangeleon: A-
Summary: Young boy reluctantly fights monsters called Angels using a bio-mecha. He makes friends despite being a complete sourpuss before everything is swallowed by intrigue and esoteric symbolism.
Best Aspects: The action and mystery.
Downsides: The “we ran out of budget” ending.
Noein: A-
Summary: Come for the quantum timelines shenanigans, stay for the character drama.
Best Aspects: The way the characters are handled as people.
Downsides: The inconsistent animation.
Planet With: A-
Summary: A good message story for kids, and downright crazy mecha show for adults.
Best Aspects: Its treatment of its subject matter, message, and philosophy.
Downsides: The first few episodes.
RahXephon: A-
Summary: It’s not exactly Evangelion, but it does also have an emotionally unstable teen piloting a giant robot to fight oddly esoteric enemies.
Best Aspects: The use of symbolism and visual storytelling is legitimately good.
Downsides: When you really think about it, the story goes nowhere.
SSSS Gridman: A-
Summary: Kid with magic giant robot fights kaiju down an existential rabbit hole of warped reality and metafiction.
Best Aspects: Akane Shinjo.
Downsides: This is not a normal universe with normal rules and could be hard to relate to.
Toradoroa!: A-
Summary: High school students try to play matchmaker and end up matched with each other.
Best Aspects: The romance really is well done and the comedy manages to stay funny.
Downsides: It’s not free of awkward moments, and sometimes the getting there hurts.
Ancient Magus’ Bride: B+
Summary: Supernaturally sensitive girl sells herself as a slave; bought by ancient inhuman sorcerer to be his wife. Yes, seriously.
Best Aspects: The art is gorgeous and strongly evokes the fantasy.
Downsides: The relationship is really messed up, if you think about it.
Beatless: B+
Summary: Boy meets hypercapable rogue robot girl.
Best Aspects: The science fiction, and how the show addresses the impact of future technology on human lives.
Downsides: The human characters, especially the lead, are a little dull.
Blackfox: B+
Summary: Near-future action movie with a grab bag of cool things (ninjas, robots, psychics…).
Best Aspects: The action.
Downsides: Missing the second half of the story.
Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Bladeworks: B+
Summary: Urban fantasy action where historical and mythical figures are summoned to do battle over the Holy Grail. (It’s much more complicated than that.)
Best Aspects: The fighting looks good, and is paced and choreographed very well.
Downsides: The fantasy is unnecessarily overcomplicated to the extreme.
Gargantia on the Verduous Planet: B+
Summary: Sci-fi child soldier and his mecha crash land on Earth, learn to live.
Best Aspects: The main setting is very nicely explored.
Downsides: The final arc kind of comes out of nowhere.
Restaurant to Another World: B+
Summary: Fantasy folk eat at a magic restaurant from modern Earth.
Best Aspects: The food. Seriously, don’t watch this if you’re hungry.
Downsides: There’s not much plot?
Shakugan no Shana Second: B+
Summary: Continuing adventures from Shakugan no Shana wherein the male MC tries to make himself a little less useless
Best Aspects: The action in the second half of the season
Downsides: The pacing in the first half of the season
Sailor Moon Crystal: B+
Summary: “Ordinary” girl discovers she is to be a magical hero and also is a Moon Princess, etc, etc. Her and her friends fight many enemies who seem to like to follow similar patterns.
Best Aspects: Successfully maintains a sweeping, operatic tone.
Downsides: The stories can sometimes feel surprisingly rushed.
Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle: B+
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin.
Best Aspects: Loony-Toons-esque energetic and ridiculous comedy.
Downsides: Essentially plotless, and sometimes repetitive in its jokes.
Tower of God: B+
Summary: Reaching for the girl he cares about, a boy is drawn into a world within a gigantic tower, facing deadly trials to ascend.
Best Aspects: The action is usually on point.
Downsides: The pacing is odd, meaning episodes can go by incredibly fast.
Unbreakable Machine Doll: B+
Summary: Victorian-esque battle school fantasy where a boy uses his overpowered Yandere robot zombie to enter both school and a tournament, seeking revenge and ending up with a harem.
Best Aspects: The action.
Downsides: I’m a patient and tolerant person, but there’s probably too much repeated shtick.
Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches: B+
Summary: Boy discovers that he can body-swap with a kiss, and then a host of other mysterious powers held by “witches” in his school.
Best Aspects: How the animation makes it clear which character is in which body.
Downsides: A potentially awkward concept that might not live up to the ‘witch’ theme.
Alderamin in the Sky: B
Summary: Period fantasy where a lazy genius gets roped into being a military commander.
Best Aspects: The handling of a “genius” main character and making drama of strategic warfare.
Downsides: A somewhat meandering story that ends right when it’s getting started.
Another: B
Summary: Kill-’em-all-one-by-one ghost story.
Best Aspects: The atmosphere.
Downsides: The characters fall prey to every classic horror genre’s idiot move.
Brynhildr in the Darkness: B
Summary: Genius boy falls in with a group of escaped witches as evil mad scientists try to hunt them down. Death, despair, and horror at every turn.
Best Aspects: Smart characters and creative use of powers.
Downsides: The ending’s a hit-and-run.
Darling in the Franxx: B
Summary: Kids fight giant monsters in giant robots in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world. This summary is inadequate.
Best Aspects: The cast is amazing and well-constructed, particularly but not exclusively Zero Two.
Downsides: The show is a roller coaster, and that means it has some very precipitous plunges.
Full Metal Panic: B
Summary: Military boy with no social skills becomes the bodyguard for a top-tier Tsundere who doesn’t know she has superpowers.
Best Aspects: The military action.
Downsides: The schizophrenic tone and focus.
Love, Chuunibyou, and Other Delusions: B
Summary: “Recovered” chuuni is suckered into more antics by cute chuuni girl. Romance ensues.
Best Aspects: The relationship between the characters, particularly as representative of their age group.
Downsides: Possibly hard to relate to if you’ve never been or known someone in the chuuni bracket.
Mekakucity Actors: B
Summary: Boy emerges from NEET-dom for the first time in years and runs into other teens with mysterious powers trying to figure out why, mostly through lots of flashbacks.
Best Aspects: While perhaps not as much as other entries in the franchise, the characters really are amazing.
Downsides: The storytelling is very scattered and sometimes backwards. You do need supplemental material to “get” some of it.
Trinity Seven: B
Summary: In order to save his cousin, a boy becomes a wizard and befriends a harem of seven powerful wizard girls.
Best Aspects: Excellent balence between heavy ecchi, comedy, action, and even drama.
Downsides: VERY heavy ecchi, if you’re not into that.
Witch Craft Works: B
Summary: Normal boy discovers he’s the MacGuffin for a world of witches, including the most popular girl in school, which mostly results in colorful eccentrics trying to kidnap him while his invincible witch girlfriend protects him.
Best Aspects: It’s high-energy comedy and never takes itself too seriously.
Downsides: It’s hard to take anything in this show seriously, even when it wants you to.
Yuki Yuna Is a Hero: B
Summary: A group of girls are recruited to save the world from weird CGI nemeses. The situation is much darker and more dire than it seems at first.
Best Aspects: The slice-of-life material, both happy and sad, is legitimately good.
Downsides: The magical girl battles and otherworldly visuals don’t quite hold up to its predecessors in the genre.
A.I.C.O. Incarnation: B-
Summary: Girl is taken on a harrowing journey through lands afflicted by evil goop as only she can stop the evil goop. Meanwhile, conspiracies dogpile each other to little effect.
Best Aspects: The main characters are handled all right.
Downsides: The choreography tries, but there’s only so good action scenes can be when all your enemies are goop.
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: B-
Summary: Submarine weapon and crew try to get weapon from point A to point B, picking up most of the ship-girls they fight with as allies along the way.
Best Aspects: Handling of AI/nonhuman intelligence.
Downsides: The human characters are like watching paint dry.
Chaos;Head: B-
Summary: Kids hallucinate things that become real because they believe in it, end up fighting a corporate villain who wants to use a machine with that power to take over the world.
Best Aspects: The emotions and experiences of a literally insane character are done rather well.
Downsides: As one might expect, the show is kind of scattered and unfocused.
The World Is Still Beautiful: B-
Summary: Princess who controls wind and weather gets an arranged marriage to a young emperor. Romance ensues.
Best Aspects: The relationship is built in a way that is very natural and honest.
Downsides: The show can come off more as a series of vignettes than an actual narrative.
Blend S: Pass
Summary: Girl with scary eyes starts working at a character cafe.
Best Aspects: The show is overall mellow and inoffensive.
Downsides: Some of the jokes can get old.
Flying Witch: Pass
Summary: Off-brand Kiki’s Delivery Service: The Anime.
Best Aspects: It’s comfy.
Downsides: It’s just comfy.
Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka: Pass
Summary: The surviving magical girls from an interdimesional war now fight crime, with lots of gore and sexualized torture scenes to show for it.
Best Aspects: Surprisingly, the main character and one of the secondary antagonists are fairly well-done character studies.
Downsides: Did I mention this is an exploitation show? I feel like I might not have emphasized that enough.
Actually, I Am: C+
Summary: Boy finds out the girl he has a crush on is a ditzy vampire. Moving on, it turns out that pretty much all his friends (at least the female ones) have some sort of supernatural secret.
Best Aspects: It goes all the way with its zany humor without neglecting character.
Downsides: Overplays the ecchi-harem material compared to its strength.
Anti-Magic Academy: C+
Summary: Battle school show where kids train to hunt criminal magic-users in a modern/futuristic setting.
Best Aspects: The handling and development of the secondary characters/harem members.
Downsides: Its skeleton is just a formulaic harem battle school show.
Familiar of Zero: C+
Summary: Normal boy is summoned into fantasy world as a tsundere wizard girl’s familiar.
Best Aspects: It actually tries to depict something of a living, breathing fantasy world.
Downsides: The comedy can already be a little uncomfortable and/or stale.
Granblue Fantasy: C+
Summary: Rural boy who dreams of more finds a mysterious waif and sets out on a journey to protect her and save the world. Yes, it is that stock.
Best Aspects: The visuals are very nice, and the design of the actual world at least somewhat creative.
Downsides: The story is stock, the characters are stock, and even the setting isn’t unique. Come on, you’ve seen this a million times.
Helpful Fox Senko-san: C+
Summary: 800-year-old loli kitsune shows up to try to make a salaryman’s life less miserable.
Best Aspects: It works. This is a very comforting show.
Downsides: It really is just fluff.
In/Spectre: C+
Summary: Odd couple of an immortal man and a woman made into the “goddess of wisdom” for spirits solve mysterious cases – mostly one to do with a particular violent ghost.
Best Aspects: The way it handles the mystery aspects, particularly manufacturing a truth.
Downsides: The story was not very cinematic to begin with and the faithful adaptation did it no favors.
Magical Sempai: C+
Summary: Girl attempts to form magic tricks, and fails, a lot. In ecchi ways.
Best Aspects: The speed of the humor.
Downsides: Enough of the jokes don’t land that annoyance sometimes mixes with entertainment.
Quintessential Quintuplets: C+
Summary: Boy gets a job tutoring five cute redheads, most of whom are highly resistant to the idea at first.
Best Aspects: In a show about pretty much nothing but the girls, it does at least develop the girls fairly well.
Downsides: The show is more or less complete fluff without actually being that light.
RWBY (Seasons 1-3): C+
Summary: What happens when Texans try to make a battle school anime “based” on classic fairy tales.
Best Aspects: The action choreography is truly excellent.
Downsides: This is more or less an amateur passion project and it shows, especially in terms of the animation budget.
Aria the Scarlet Ammo: C
Summary: Descendants of public domain fictional characters, who have somehow inherited their ancestors’ abilities, deal with mildly supernatural crime and law enforcement.
Best Aspects: There are some nice set piece conflicts–chase scenes, cat and mouse games, the like.
Downsides: This show spends most of its time, especially downtime, on the awkward side of generic.
Gleipneir: C
Summary: A boy who can turn into a mascot costume monster ends up teamed up with a sensual, sociopathic girl as they investigate missing persons and a deadly scavenger hunt for alien coins. (It’s weird.)
Best Aspects: Some deep development of some deeply screwed-up characters.
Downsides: The fanservice is heavy as lead. Some of it is good. Much more is freaky as hell. Be forewarned of this.
Record of Lodoss War: C
Summary: They filmed a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
Best Aspects: This is a passion project, and it shows.
Downsides: Their vision exceeded their budget, and it shows.
The Vision of Escaflowne: C
Summary: A girl is brought to a fantasy world menaced by evil emperor Isaac Newton. Epic quests and mecha action ensue.
Best Aspects: The creativity and imagination in the setting, and to a lesser extent the plot.
Downsides: The story, and especially the pacing, are both messes.
Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs: C
Summary: Overpowered main character exorcist moves in with cute ghost and tons of other cute girls.
Best Aspects: Some of the girls are done all right.
Downsides: Yuna’s bit gets old fast and is done to death.
AnoHana: C-
Summary: Shut-in NEET starts seeing ghost of his elementary school crush, gets the band back together to grant her wish
Best Aspects: The scenes with just the teens
Downsides: Menma
Azur Lane the Animation: C-
Summary: World War II ships, as girls, fight each other and also the not-explained nemesis they were supposed to be fighting in the first place.
Best Aspects: If you’re a fan of the game, it’s fun to see some of these characters moving around. If not, the fanservice is on point and the action could be worse.
Downsides: The plot makes no sense, and not in a good way, and the animation often falters.
Clockwork Planet: C-
Summary: In a world made entirely of clockwork (just go with it), a kid with super hearing repairs an overpowered gynoid and gets drawn into a global conspiracy.
Best Aspects: It’s fun, unpretentious light action and the main character and robots have some sweet scenes.
Downsides: The action is lame, the plot is absurd, and most of the characters are pretty one-noted.
Demonbane: C-
Summary: Mechas. Lovecraft. Explosions. Shouting!
Best Aspects: If you’re a fan of Lovecraft, the references are actually really great. Otherwise, the action is decent and the show knows better than to take itself seriously.
Downsides: D-D-deus Machina?!
In Search of the Lost Future: C-
Summary: A time loop to prevent a girl from getting hit by a bus that forgets it’s a time loop to prevent a girl getting hit by a bus.
Best Aspects: It was actually interesting to see the “bad” future.
Downsides: The emotions around the ending are badly botched.
Kiznaiver: C-
Summary: A Trigger story about how people learn to empathize with each other by sharing their “physical” pain.
Best Aspects: It has a couple really great scenes.
Downsides: It makes its point about not being able to empathize with a character who can’t feel any pain.
Warlords of Sigdrifa: C-
Summary: Norse myth themes + period flying ace stunts + Cute girl Slice of Life + Evangelion-style “hold the line against alien monsters” plot material = ???
Best Aspects: The stunt flying is well done, when the show focuses on it.
Downsides: The show has no idea what to do with its disparate components.
Guilty Crown: D+
(Audio Commentary Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7)
Summary: Rebels against reprehensible occupation government get wrapped up in some crap about magic space rocks, remaking humanity, genetic science, etc.
Worst Aspects: The show really does just keep making a ton of small to medium mistakes. Worst is that it skips important character arc beats.
Upsides: It’s very pretty, and the action is good.
Kaze no Stigma: D
Summary: Formerly powerless exile returns to show his fire-wielding family who’s boss and gets roped into helping them.
Worst Aspects: Kazuma–how inconsistent he is as a character.
Upsides: It looks nice, and I guess the action is decent, most of the time.
Revisions: D
Summary: Shibuya is dragged into the ruined wasteland future, where a wholly unlikeable twat of a main character must protect it from evil future cyborgs with the help of his “friends” who mostly and reasonably hate him, and the time agent he may have a crush on, who also kind of reasonably hates him.
Worst Aspects: Did I mention the main character is a twat? Because he is. Every time he’s on screen, you want to punch him out just for breathing.
Upsides: The opening. Also, the last few episodes, when the show finally gets done with the main character being a twat.
Star Driver: D
Summary: A very pretty but deeply flawed attempt to apply the Sailor Moon formula to the mecha genre.
Worst Aspects: The story makes no sense, the action has no stakes, and the characters, especially the female lead, are dull as dishwater.
Upsides: It’s very pretty to look at and has some amazing incidental music.
Shangri-La: D-
Summary: Most of a environmentalist cyberpunk revolution story stitched together with spare parts from three or four other stories.
Worst Aspects: Every plotline either comes out of nowhere, goes nowhere, isn’t germane to anything else, or some combination of the three.
Upsides: There is one good plot. It’s not germane to anything else, and it’s not the main plot, but it is good.
Xuan Yuan Sword Luminary: D-
Summary: Magic, tech, and rebellion in fantasy ancient China.
Worst Aspects: Loads of useless characters and a downright insulting ending.
Upsides: It had a lot of potential, and because of that delivered some good scenes. Also, the opening’s good.
Elfin Lied: F
Summary: Brain-damaged murderous monster girl hangs out with a couple of idiots who never catch on that there’s a plot. People repeatedly try to kidnap her, some of them turn into ketchup stains, and nothing gets accomplished.
Worst Aspects: The appeal to gore is exactly as ineffectual as it is excessive. And the leads constantly miss the plot. And…
Upsides: No.
Familiar of Zero: Knight of the Twin Moons: F
Summary: After the previous entry, Louise abandons all likeability as we fight a useless war.
Worst Aspects: Louise. Everything about her. Everything associated with her.
Upsides: Colbert, Agnes, and Henrietta.
Hundred: F (Audio Commentary: Episodes 1-3 4-6 7-9 10-12)
Summary: Laziest imaginable execution of using superpowers to fight alien monsters.
Worst Aspects: This show is so utterly lazy.
Upsides: This show is too lazy to really get angry at.
Magical Girl Raising Project: F
Summary: A bunch of magical girls are put in a death game by a mascot who really wants to be both Monobear and Kyuubey. Depressingly, that’s really all there is to it.
Worst Aspects: Hollow kills and a phenomenally useless main character.
Upsides: The various powers they give the magical girls are fairly interesting and well-applied.
Omamori Himari: F
Summary: Normal boy finds out he’s the heir to badass with the arrival of his harem starter pack, a catgirl demon with a crush, and promptly decides to be Shakugan no Shana’s unbearably lame cousin.
Worst Aspects: You would be hard-pressed to find a sloppier harem.
Upsides: Kuesu is cool until she’s robbed of all personality. To a lesser extent, this can apply to some of the other harem members, as well.