It's a travesty I didn't review this earlier.
In an undisclosed location of Tokyo exists a restaurant that serves Western cuisine known as Nekoya, normally just a regular restaurant but on Saturday, the restaurant is closed to normal patrons and the door starts appearing randomly in front of select people in the Fantasy world.
Joined by the demon girl Aletta and the dragon god of destruction Kuro as waitresses, the Restaurant master serves the best of Western food to the many fantasy creatures that inhabit the other world.
With a host of reoccurring narratives of the many cast members, an impressive world is built, each food is chosen carefully to pair with the character eating it to build up their personal story, bit by bit you learn more about the existence of the restaurant and why it connects to the other world, every little detail including the fantasy world's alternative names for certain foods adds character to the anime.
The calming atmosphere of each episode allows for pleasant viewing each time, even the dub manages to give a good performance.
It's an exceptional anime that takes the entire subject of food and creates a world far greater than the sum of it's parts.
Final Verdict: An exceptional anime that can build a world better than triple A anime, more than worthy of a top ten place.
This is what High Guardian Spice should've been.
On the land of Naral Island, an endless battle rages between the demom lord and the Hero's party led by Yulia, for generations an endless death and rebirth has seen the battle repeat for the last 998 generations, after a spell goes wrong, the 999th reincarnation sees the Demon Lord reincarnate at a point in time before the Hero's party started at the Academy, with generations of knowledge under her belt, Demon Lord Mao decides to teach the Hero's party adventuring to avoid the fate of being slain for the final time; the latest reincarnation of the heroes are far from perfect themselves backed by an obsessed princess.
Endro, short for End Roll, a term used for ending a video game, showcases four cute girls with a cute teacher and a ditzy princess, it's traditional cute anime that never takes itself very seriously, twelve episodes is just enough for the characters not to out stay their welcome although the princess Rona can be a bit much, an anime with such cute characters doesn't warrant a good dub so it's best viewed as a sub.
This is what High Guardian Spice should've been, a clean cute story of cute characters doing cute things, there's not much to work with but it never needed it, the characters are all charming enough to drive the paper thin narrative and still be fun.
Final Verdict: A silly cute story of amateur adventurers in a world that never takes itself too seriously, what it lacks in plot it makes up in character.
A legacy that didn't live up to the original.
An intergalactic sports tournament for women will decide the fate of the Solar System with the winner being declared the Cosmo Queen with the planet they represent gaining control of the solar system.
Kanata Akehoshi grows up to become an athlete with dreams of emulating her grandmother's achievements and the hope of helping Eva, a young girl she met in her youth, with rivals from all walks of life, Kanata will have her work cut out for her to take the title especially with conspiracies, sabotage, amnesia and terrorism to deal with.
This is a difficult show to really get into especially when this is a very loose sequel to the original, heavily implied and confirmed that Kanata's grandmother is Akari Kanzaki the lead from the original 90s anime, but while the 90s anime is very silly with minor hints of a semi serious plot, Restart is a mostly serious plot with minor hints of comedy.
The plot takes itself way too seriously with elements more suited to Gundam like the civil war on the Moon and even having Jeff as a charismatic detective does little to take away from the fact that this anime is a needless melodramatic mess that takes away the sporting side of this anime, it's a slog to get through.
Not seen the dub but prefer the sub.
Final Verdict: It's a poor sequel to an anime that has it's foundations in being a comedy so without it, it's just a melodramatic mess way out of it's narrative depth.
This will be an interesting anime to review.
In the four Isekai worlds of Konosuba, Saga of Tanya the Evil, Re:Zero and Overlord, a mysterious button sends the casts of all these anime to a school setting, with no way back until they show that they can live a school life, the colourful cast unite in many of the typical scenarios associated with a school comedy.
A series like this is what's known as an SD omake, or super deformed omake referring to the cute designs of a normally vibrant mostly serious cast of characters.
The original quartet is later joined by the Shield Hero and the Overpowered Hero from season 2 onwards.
The combination of casts mix surprisingly well with the Isekai'd protagonists trading stories of how they ended up in their worlds, other than Konosuba and maybe the Overpowered Hero the other shows are more straightforward originally, Tanya the Evil is probably even more serious, so bringing them all into a comedy world does give you a unique perspective of each world's cast.
Surprisingly it's Tanya the Evil that comes out as the breakout character from the show which will probably make that actual anime harder to watch.
I won't rate the dub as I've not seen all these shows separately to offer that perspective.
Final Verdict: Not much to say really, it's just a gag comedy that passes the time between bigger anime.
I can see why this series resonated with so many Otaku.
Wakana Gojo loves Hina Dolls, he makes them with his grandfather in a workshop but he becomes very reclusive after an incident when he was child when a young girl scolded him for liking such a feminine interest.
In a home economics classroom, social gyaru Marin Kitagawa finds out that Gojo can sew and asks him if he would make her a cosplay of Marin's favourite character Shizuku from a H-Game, after tireless work, Gojo succeeds in making the cosplay beginning a beautiful relationship between himself and Marin.
I've always hated how this anime begins with the little girl being a little bitch as I don't think Gojo ever needed to be put in that scenario to become a recluse when not having parents would've been enough, needless to say, when the anime gets underway proper, we are treated to one of the best love stories in recent anime history, it says alot about how much we've moved on from tsunderes when we can have our leading lady be equally as goofy as the lead male and have a relationship that's actually believable, Marin is a little too good at being the ideal waifu but at no point did I feel the story had to pull gimmicks to push forward.
Not seen the dub but I suspect if the dialogue is anything to go by from Marin there would be alot of moments where American terms would be used to give her a more exaggerated Gyaru personality, I still prefer sub.
Final Verdict: A beautiful love story that progresses like how a proper relationship should, with Marin being far too good a character to be believed at times but it never pulls gimmicks to push the story making all the lewd moments look all the more wholesome.
