My Hero Academia

Shonen Jump's new front running anime has already made the halls of fame with a massive fan following, its own global conventions, and a couple of box office friendly movies. My Hero Academia is an instant classic that follows all shonen tropes the usual viewer loves, with an added spice of social commentary that makes us reflect on more than just the plot outcomes. The anime balances light and heavy elements well to create an action packed, adventurous show full of tasteful plot points and comedy. Not to mention, it does really well on character building and has some of this years most compelling protagonists. I think watching MHA is like making a new best friend, it gives you a happy and safe feeling, even though there are times when it can be annoying and steals your french fries (maybe that's just my friends).

The story is set in a world where a majority of the population is born with a quirk or a power. Society has reformed as a result of these abilities and new jobs have come into existence, a prominent one being professional super hero. We start by following Young Midoriya who was born quirk-less, but desperately wants to become a hero. On a faithful day he inherits a power called 'One For All' from the worlds greatest hero, All Might, who sees potential in Midoriya's future. From there he joins the world's top hero training academy UA High and is paired up with all kinds of aspiring heroes, each with their own backstories and intentions. He even comes face to face with his childhood bully Bakugo who has more to him than meets the eye. This is the story of how a class of ambitious yet problematic heroes face the world's toughest generation of villains, especially when they learn that not everything in the real world is black and white. 

My issue with MHA is that it was intentionally made to appeal to masses and become mainstream. Because of this you see many cliché shonen tropes and filler arcs that can offset an otherwise serious storyline. That being said, this is still one of my favorite shonen anime and it's a must watch for you.

     

My Personal Ratings Are:

Story: 4/5
Character Development: 4/5
Dialogue: 4/5
Music: 3/5 
Enjoyment: 5/5 

Overall Recommendation: 20% Delaware Smash! 

Catch MHA on Hulu, Netflix and Crunchyroll across different regions. 

Jujutsu Kaisen

Jujutsu Kaisen is, without a doubt, a bridge that shows us the way to the future of anime. This action Shonen series has visuals so stunning, you'll want to re watch every frame out of disbelief. With this plus Attack on Titan's final season, the production house - MAPPA basically knocked it out of the park. While the show's story itself isn't mind-blowingly special, the anime gets full points for execution and direction. You'll be so engaged by battle sequences, every droplet of sweat from a character's face becomes noticeable. Watching Jujutsu Kaisen is like watching a talented street artist spray graffiti on the wall, it just gives you an innate sense of satisfaction and amusement.   

The plot focuses on athletically gifted Yuji Itadori who inadvertently stumbles upon the hidden world of curses and supernatural phenomenon through an incident at school. To save his friends from danger, he gets himself cursed and obtains special powers, but also becomes a threat to all of humanity. In order to control his abilities, Yuji is enrolled into a school that teaches cursed techniques and is full of odd specimens. There's an interesting angle about the internal politics in the school that sway to and away from supporting Yuji across different levels of hierarchy. Jujutsu Kaisen does a great job in getting us involved with characters, battles and plot outcomes. The thrill of this anime stems from over powered character clashes, vibrant visuals and good old fashioned shonen sentimentality. 

The only negative I find with this anime is its slow story progression. I feel like episodes are too short and don't cover as much ground as I would have liked, but that being said, you can't rush great potentially long running anime.



My personal ratings are: 

Story: 3/5
Character Development: 4/5
Dialogue: 5/5
Music: 5/5
Enjoyment: 5/5 

Overall recommendation: One of sukunas fingers  

Jujutsu Kaisen in on Neflix Japan and on Crunchyroll in other regions, use a VPN to watch!

Jigoku Shojo

         

Jigoku Shojo or Hell Girl is an extremely compelling horror anime that never fails to send a chill down the viewer's spine. This horror thriller seems very docile and slow paced at first, but always gets you in the end because of its vivid dark imagery and portrayal of twisted human minds. The story is broken into many seemingly unrelated arcs that are all individually and suspensefully brought to culmination in a repetitive yet intriguing manner. I'll explain this plot device more below.

The story follows an urban legend of a cursed website. According to rumors, if someone holds a real grudge against another person, they can visit this website at midnight and request the 'Hell Girl', Enma Ai to kill their enemies. Here's where it gets interesting- if Enma and her associates from hell believe the grudge is strong enough, they will appear in front of the website user and hand them a black doll with a red string around its neck. If the string is removed, the grudge will be realized and any person the doll's owner chooses will be tortured and instantly dragged down to hell. The consequence is that the doll owner will also give up their soul and be sent to hell when they naturally die. The choice of using this double edged sword is what makes most of the show juicy. Hell Girl will explore the dark depths of human psyche and show what it takes to push a person to their limit. Each story arc is short and will get you ambivalent about the respective doll owners who range from petty and selfish individuals to helpless and victimized ones. This eerie plot bolstered by its creepy art style and sound track makes for a great pick if you love horror as a genre. 

Hell Girl does have a main overarching plot, but spends a lot of time on individual stories of people's grudges. Now because each story is unique, story progression can get a little disjointed. Think of this as a horror novel with many creepy chapters and a big finale, but you can only appreciate the finale if you put up with all the precursory chapters, some of which can be dry or monotonous. I for one, recommend sticking till the end.  



My personal ratings are: 

Story: 3/5
Character Development: 2/5
Dialogue: 3/5
Music: 3/5
Enjoyment: 4/5

Overall Recommendation: When One Soul is Cursed, Two Graves Are Dug

Irodoku: The world in Colors

Irodoku is a slice of life, shojo anime with one short season of thirteen episodes. It's a sweet and cute show that isn't very plot intensive, but rather focuses on the sentiment behind its story progression. Watching Irodoku feels like staring at a cuddly teddy bear- it's attractive to look at, and makes you feel warm for a second, but you'll get bored if you keep looking. While I still do recommend giving it a watch, don't let it become your primary anime, it works better as something to fall back on when you need a break from everything else. 

The story of Irodoku follows a high school girl called Hitomi and is set in Japan 2078. It's well known that the world has rare individuals who are able to perform magic, Hitomi's family is full of such mages. Hitomi is colorblind and very introverted, she does not try to make friends and has some deep rooted abandonment issues because of her childhood. Determined to broaden Hitomis' perspective, her grandmother, Kohaku casts a spell on her and sends her 60 years into the past. In the past, Hitomi meets teenage Kohaku and now attends school with her as a transfer student, whilst trying to figure out how to return to the future. The story then explores how this extremely closed of girl manages to join an arts and photography club and makes genuine friends. She opens her heart to new experiences also falls in love for the first time. It's also interesting to see how she initially hates magic, but now begins to enjoy using it because it gives her a chance to see colors and make others happy. But as reality catches up, we must ask, what happens when she returns to the future?     

What I dislike about Irodoku, apart from its snails pace on story progression, is that it completely disregards any laws of time travel. There are no consequences or paradoxes that should be created by her actions in the past, which I find really illogical. They also have a great start to building characters, but don't really pull through in making them interesting enough to support the plot. In the end, just watch this anime for its 'feel good' factor, it does not have much else going for it. 

      

My personal ratings are:

Story: 2/5
Character Development: 3/5
Dialogue: 2/5
Music: 3/5 
Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall recommendation: A Monochromatic Photograph 

Irodoku is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.  

The Disastrous life of Saiki K.

Saiki K. is a slapstick shonen comedy anime that's all about the laughs. The show is full of unrestrained nonsensical humor that is guaranteed to put you through a fit of laughter. Saiki K is basically the anime equivalent of a fart bomb or a whoopy cushion, it's the most base form of comedy, but still undeniably effective and funny. Be prepared for unexpected gags, fast paced comedic dialogue, constant breaking of the fourth wall (something I'm guilty of too) and unapologetic jokes at the expense of other mainstream anime. Saiki K is a great way to shut off your mind and let laughter therapy take you to a happy place. 

The anime is basically one long commentary on the life of its protagonist, Kusuo Saiki. I mean an actual commentary as we're always hearing the inner working of his mind throughout each episode. He's basically a boy born with psychic abilities and god tier levels of power. Saiki does not see himself as gifted because his powers come with many burdens and restrictions. He is good at heart and wants nothing but to be an ordinary high schooler and to be left alone. Unfortunately the world keeps introducing chaotic people into his life who always create impossibly messy scenarios, forcing him to use his powers while still trying to hide them from others. Nothing makes sense here, but it's all ridiculously funny and spoofs various anime cliches to make great content for seasoned anime watchers. I think of this one as an instant classic, it's great to binge with friends as well.    

The thing about this anime is...there's no real story. With the absence of an overarching plot, Saiki K becomes almost mindless, especially because it goes on for four seasons counting specials. Even though this is intentional, and works well for most viewers, I feel like a small main story line would give a little more direction to this otherwise brilliant comedy.     



My personal ratings are:

Story: 1/5
Character Development: 2/5
Dialogue: 4/5
Music: 3/5
Enjoyment: 5/5    

Overall Recommendation: Yare Yare 

All seasons of The Disastrous life of Saiki K. are on Netflix, you can use a VPN if not in your region. 

Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation

          Also called 'A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako's Feet' or 'Sakurako-san No Ashimoto Ni Wa Shitai Ga Umatteiru', this anime is an unusual one. It's a slow paced murder mystery and crime drama that focuses on the story told by the bones of different victims. It's an interesting and unique premise for a crime anime and has pretty intelligent plot points, however the approach will be a hit or miss for most viewers. If you don't enjoy the very first episode, don't bother continuing or expect it to pick up later because the anime will follow the same methodology, pace and vibe throughout. 

The story follows an ostentologist (bone analyst) called Sakurako and a high school boy named Shoutaro who eventually becomes her assistant as he's intrigued by her intelligence. We will be shown different crimes being solved by Sakurako, applying logical deductions to the analysis of a victim's bones and also peek into her personal psychology. She's a basic Sherlock Homes styled character with the only difference that she's female and looks just at bones as a crime solving instrument. An interesting angle added is that of Shoutaro's impression of Sakurako, who can't decide if she's a good person or an evil mastermind. The first half of Beautiful Bones has no overarching main plot, it just builds on characters and focuses on solving individual incidents which are still enjoying to watch. The second half picks up on a main plot but leaves the heavy lifting to a potential season two.  

It's funny that this anime is about bones because that's what you'll be reduced to by the time you reach the climax of any episode. This anime, while intriguing, follows a methodology to crime solving that is too lackluster and fails to hold a viewer's attention for too long. You'll find yourself casually checking your phone and glancing away so many times that you'll miss many explanations, but you won't even care as long as you get to see the story progress. Like I said before, it's going to be a hit or a miss. 

         
My personal ratings are:

Story: 2/5
Character Development: 3/5
Dialogue: 3/5
Music: 3/5
Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall Recommendation: One Broken Femur  

This anime is available on Netflix and amazon under the name 'A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako's Feet'.

Shokugeki no Soma

Shokugeki no Soma or Food Wars is a shonen anime series about the culinary world. It brings a lot of color to this otherwise sparsely explored genre and is a must watch for you anime food lovers! This mouth watering and brilliant show has a great balance of exciting plot points, vibrant visuals and entertaining characters. It also does a great job in involving comedic elements so that it's not just an intense food anime with no other focus. Although Food Wars sounds like an innocent cooking anime, beware as it's very ecchi (suggestive sexual content). And I mean overtly ecchi moments, that can be off-putting. Since this is a culinary show let me put it this way: think of Food Wars as an Oreo Milkshake. You're blending milk, oreos, chocolate, ice cream...but bam someone throws a handful of broccoli in there! The un-necessary ecchi hits just like that broccoli (at least for me), but the rest is so on point.

The plot of Food Wars is not complicated. We follow the story of Yukihira Soma, a chef at his own family diner. Soma has no formal cooking accolades or fancy training but is an undeniably amazing cook. One day his father sends him to a prestigious cooking academy called Totsuki where only elite chefs can survive. Soma decides that he will outperform everyone at this academy but is up for quite a challenge. You get to see really entertaining story arcs about how Soma and his friends train to become better and how the existing egotistical chefs challenge them, only to realize they aren't ordinary chefs. All viewers get pulled into an expertly crafted culinary universe that's fairly educational and full of heated cook-offs. The show is also full of motivational content and unexpected reveals. My favorite aspect is that Soma has no special abilities, he gets his victories through sheer hard work and practice. A quote said by Soma's dad really gets me pumped, "people tend to dislike Soma because he wins but isn't special. Recognizing him means, realizing your own shortcomings and lack of determination."

While I have mentioned the shows ecchi natured drawbacks, I do also want to point out that the format of cooking battle after cooking battle can get tiresome. Food Wars will explain the science behind every chef's cooking, which is great, but can also cause an information overload if you're binge watching. 

    

My personal ratings are:

Story: 3/5
Character Development: 5/5
Dialogue: 4/5
Music: 4/5 
Enjoyment: 4/5

Overall recommendation: One Yukihira special. Glad you liked it! 

Shokugeki no Soma/ Food Wars can be streamed on Netflix or on Crunchyroll based on your region. You can use a VPN to watch on either platform.