Love Is War

Erm... my favourite anime ever?? I'm insane about this actually. When I think about Romcoms, this is my standard. More comedy than romance but when the romance hits it PUNCHES you in the guts

This is one of those slowburns that doesn't bother you how long it drags on, because you always wanna see more of their shenanigans. It's also one of the very very few romance anime that actually got more than one season AND made it to the confession scene, truly such an achievement.

The side characters are also super fun, Ishigami and Hayasaka get their own arcs where their characters develop. For Ishigami he gets to become more social and let go of his past mistakes and fears, and he's incredibly well-meaning and smart, only his inferiority complex and cynical nature hold him back. For Hayasaka, she was feeling jealous and unappreciated by her master and childhood friend, Kaguya. This leads into misunderstandings and a rivalry between the two, that ends with Hayasaka communicating her feelings honestly to Kaguya, and having her workload lessened after fixing their relationship. Both of these arcs also give us prespectives on the main characters through their eyes, too.

All the characters are named after characters from the "Princess Kaguya" monogatari, but even though these names don't align with their roles, don't think they didn't put much thought into the names either! Miyuki Shirogene, for example, is named after the fourth failed suiter, this likely signifies that they were not meant to be together in society's eyes; as Kaguya is from a noble rich family, and Shirogene, as hardworking as he is, will always remain poor in the eyes of Kaguya's family. However, unlike the Miyuki from the story, who abandoned his task at the first sign of difficulty, Shirogene thrives to be Kaguya's equal and won't give up on his persuit so easily. The other characters' personalities are also inspired by their story counterparts: Fujiwara is inspired by the second suitor, so such as he had attempted to trick Princess Kaguya with forgery, Fujiwara tends to cheat pretty often in games. Ishigami's depressed state and the fact that alot of his friends' shenanigans tends to backfire on him in a comedic way, is likely due to the unfortunate comedic death of his story counterpart, where he falls to his death while attempting to grab a shell from a swallow's nest, and ends up with bird poop in his hands....ew

It's clear that there has been alot of thought and effort being put into this series by it's author and illustrator, Aka Akasaka! It's funny how this author managed to create both my favourite anime of all time AND my least favourite anime of all time, I wish to have that range in my writing lmao

SpyXFamily

I know it's popular, but it is FOR A GOOD REASON!! it's hilarious, the character dynamics are silly, the designs are very drawable, *slaps premise* you can extract as much angst or fluff from this bad boy, and when shit gets real the animation FUCKS

I love this series so much, it's even the first (of hopefully more) manga series I've (almost) fully collected! (im missing vol.5 and 13 hehe) that's why it's in both the book and show sections here!

I adore Anya, her actions are believable enough for a child, but not TOO realistic to the point of making her annoying (sorryyy buddy daddies), and she makes every scene she's in inherently funnier, she's also wayyy to smart for a five year old, if she were just a year older I assure you, Loid would have gotten 3 stellas in the first week

SPEAKING OF LOID, I think he's my favourite dad in all of fiction, the way he overthinks everything is hilarious (and relatable), and the way Anya and Yor's combined stupidity breaks his otherwise perfect stocism is just proof that they're the change he needs in his life hehe. It seems that Yor has finally fallen in love with him in the manga, so it's just a matter of time until the realization comes crashing down on him too (because honestly, who could be married to a woman like yor and NOT fall in love?)

The only thing I don't like about this show is the Arabic dub, it really doesn't matter since Arabic dubs usually aren't the best, and I either watch sub or Eng dub anyways, but this one REALLY sucks. they made Anya sound older than both of her parents?? for some reason?? I wish dubs for my language had a littleee more care put into them, tbh

Regardless, this is one of my favourite series by a longshot, any new season or manga volumes coming out, rest ASSURED that I will get my hands on them the second they are translated

SpyXFamily: Code White

This deserved it's own rating because I don't wanna tarnish SxF's name by including this movie in it's review

don't get me wrong, the visuals were insane, there were some cute scenes, it was kind of funny at times, and the whole Yor-Suspecting-Cheating thing is something that I wondered if it would happen since surely Yor notices all those times Loid runs off without any explanations. Also I LOVED seeing overprotective Loid in action when he thought those criminals would hurt his precious daughter, typically we see Yor in that role

but then we spent a good chunk of the movie talking about poop and how anya is holding her poop and then she met with poop buddha in her poop dream world??? that took me out of the movie, I'm sorry. I'm sure I would've found it funnier if it didn't take up so long, I know that's the only way they could've gotten the chocolate she ate but come on

Our Life: Beginning and Always

Our Life is an amazing game with a ton of customization, and believable relationship growth! Very few games can make me cry, let alone cry from happiness , so this is proof of how well-written this game is.

Cove is very close to my heart, I played every variation of this game (except for a full-indifference, I just can't handle him not liking me whoops..) He really feels like an actual person and not a collection of tropes like other dating simulators

Cove isn't the only well-written character here, I also quite like the MC's Sister, Lizzie! I didn't really like her in the Childhood stages, she seemed mean for no reason, but like cove, with time I learned that there are many aspects of her! I especially loved the confrontation about her identity being adopted in the Teenage stage, it's nice to see parts of the game where the MC develops their relationship with someone other than their love interest, and I also think the decision to make both MC and Lizzie adopted is very smart; most dating sims that allow for MC customization dont give them family members, and vice versa so this is a good way to get around it.

I haven't played the DLC, so I have no opnions on Baxter or Derek in a romantic sense, but through the view of Cove's route. Derek was pretty cute and I loved his friendship with Cove and MC, I do find it a little strange that he still makes the promise with MC in crush routes, since he's aware of Cove's feelings by that point. I don't really have any thoughts on Baxter, he doesn't appear much in the free content.

My New Life As A Villainness

I'm really conflicted about this, it's kind of a guilty pleasure. At the time this first came out, there was really nothing out there like it. Very hard to imagine now, since the villainness reverse-harem trope has become as popular as its male isekai harem counterpart

Caterina is really likable as a main character, she's one of the few believable harem MCs because you can defintely understand why the other characters are in love with her

This is also the only harem I've seen that contains LGBTQ characters outside of straight up yuri or yaoi, and those relationships don't feel forced in the slightest! Dare I say, her relationship with the girls are more developed than some of the guys.

My favourite characters are Alan, Sophia and Keith.. Wait! I know what you're thinking! I don't usually like siscon characters, but to me, their relationship in the anime seemed purely platonic, If anything he seemed like a caring and overprotective brother. I don't see platonic relationships being appreciated enough in media in general.

Kind of a spoiler here, but I love how the confrontation with Sirius lead to the connections of the two worlds, you don't see that anymore in isekais.

The Ice Guy and His Cool Colleague

This is a pretty cute rom-com with a beautiful artstyle! it has a yokai aspect to it, but it's never explored much in the anime which I'm sad about.. I think the fact that everyone is chill (heh) with the yokai stuff means its ingrained into their society which i think is pretty interesting

It's pretty flufft and there isn't really any conflict in the story besides small things, so it can come off as a nothing burger for people that like angst and stories with stakes, so I wouldn't really recommend it if you're one of those people

I really like the winter vibes this show gives throughout, I think this is all I can say about it atp

Dweller's Empty Path

Dweller's Empty Path is a cute short gameboy-style rpgmaker game! It was created by Temmie Cheng , which you may know for their work on Undertale, Deltarune, or Soul Beacon!

This is the sequel to Escaped Chasm! There are way more characters and interactions in this one than Escaped Chasm (obviously because yiko isn't a recluse) and the character designs for everyone are very pretty and unique! Some of them even affected my own character designs

This is a very small thing but my favourite thing about this game (other than the cute interactions and illustrations) are the background rpg party characters! I thought it was pretty funny and I hope we see more of them

The story still leaves us some unanswered questions about the world, so I hope we get to see more of it in Temmie's next project! Expect the rating to change if that happens

Witches x Warlocks

Another incredible underrated game! the gameplay is fun, the character interactions are funny and the halloween theme is adorable! it has plenty of customization, too

You play as a witch with a passion for matchmaking, and all the love interests are different types of monsters, 2 male, 1 female and one nonbinary!

I didn't play ALL the routes, just Zero and Damion, and I really loved both! Damion especially! spoilers: I feel like usually frankenstein-inspired characters have insecurities over not being "real humans" or about their general naivity compared to actual humans. I feel like diving into their thoughts into being made up of like a hundred different parts of other people was pretty unique! It's kind of a ship of theseaus sort of thing

FlipFlappers

Have you watched Madoka Magica then thought "man, I wish I could find something just as gay and just as abstract as this" BOY do I have the series for you

I'm genuinely surprised this isn't more popular, the art is amazing and the designs are ethereal and it is VERY GAY. VERY VERY GAY. I really love how Papika and Cocona's relationship develops after the first few episodes

Something cool I noticed about their civilian designs and their magical girl outfits is that they switched hair and eye colors, but made the colors more vivid in the magical girl fits, it's a really cool design choice to me, like it's visually telling you that they complete each other

Their appearance also looks NOTHING like their civilian forms, that's always something I wanted to see more of in magical girl or superhero shows! their outfits also kinda remind me of some old Honkai Impact outfits that I quite liked, I wonder if the creators took any inspiration

Escaped Chasm

Escaped Chasm is a pretty sweet and short psychological horror rpgmaker game! It was created by Temmie Cheng , which you may know for their work on Undertale, Deltarune, and Dweller's Empty Path!

I played this the day it came out, actually! It was the prequel to Dweller's Empty Path, but many of us that played it didn't know that at the time lol :p

The style is really adorable and the animations were just gorgeous, and the overall story seems pretty intriguing however short it was. It does leave us with many unanswered questions that not even DEP answers sadly, but I feel like we'll learn about this world and its inhabitance, and whatever happened to the MC's parents soon enough if Temmie creates more games! When that happens, look forward to the rating here potentially changing

Brand New Animal

BNA is a really visually appealing furry anime by Studio Trigger

Every single scene in this show is wallpaper potential, honestly. The animations are amazing and the enviroments are BEAUTIFUL. What drew me into this show is a clip of Shirou walking down the stairs as the light slowly reveals him going from beastmen to human, it was just so smooth and I still remember it vividly after so long

Honestly, I wish this show got a second season, I would've loved to see more about anima city after the events of the story

ALSO THE YURI HERE IS OFF THE CHARTS

SK8: Infinity

This is the only sports anime I enjoyed ever, and theres more homosexual tendancies than actual sports who figured? When I say this show altered my brain chemistry, I mean it. "Bitches and Bros and Nonbinary Hoes" is apart of my vocabulary now

It's actually so funny, they were put in ACTUAL danger so many times (and I'm not even talking about Adam) and for what? Skateboarding? If we ever get a season 2 (PLEASE) I NEED to see the moms' reaction to all of this, their kids are sneaking off in the middle of the night with these strangely dressed adults, and they're coming back with injuries and traumatic reactions?? WRITERS GET ON IT

Also this has gotta be like, the first anime I've ever seen that got it's manga after the show had already aired, and like manga like anime we're still craving more. I know they've announced more seasons in the future, but with no release date in sight and radio silence eversince, I don't think it would happen sadly.

The disastrous life of Kusou Saiki

This is genuinely one of the funniest satires out there, it's like an abridged fandub of...well, all of the anime of that time! All the characters are based on tropes, but later you learn that some of them are actually twists on their tropes.

I love the way Saiki went from being isolated and disliking of everybody to genuinely caring about his friends and wanting to help them, not out of "removing potential inconveniences" but out of a genuine desire to..well, help his friends! I also like how the process of learning to love his friends platonically didn't also automatically come with a process of learning to love someone romantically too, usually those two come hand in hand and the latter overshadows the former to some extent.

SPOILERS: I really like his arc with Touma Akechi, the switch from the usual comedic vibe to a sudden serious one didn't feel jarring, and we actually get an understanding of his actions throughout the series after seeing how being careless with his secret had affected him and the people he cared for. This show REALLY knows how to move your tears when it needs to

Sasaki and Miyano

What's this fluff fest?! I'm getting diabetes out here??? Anyways, this is one of the first shows I watched DIRECTLY after realizing I was trans (and gay but that comes with the label automatically) so I related a ton to Miyano's struggle coming to terms with his sexuality and being ashamed of his interest in BL and Yaoi

BROOO I love how understanding Sasaki is when it comes to Miya-chan. He never pressures him into anything, he lets him take his time figuring everything out, and he takes interest in his hobbies HES SUCH A CUTIE!! And don't let me get started on the side characters, they're hilarious and also just as gay tbh. They did pique my interest with Hanzawa in the last few episodes, so maybe I'll someday read the manga?

Unlimited Balance: Millionaire Detective

THIS IS SO UNDERRATED Okay, so. this is a comedy/mystery anime following Haru, a middle-class detective living paycheck to paycheck, and Daisuke, a millionaire who thinks he can solve all his problems by throwing money at it, and they make for an amazing duo! I love how their relationship developed over the series going from clashing with each other to basically trusting each other with their life

That's why it came as a shock to me to find out... Haru wasn't in the original Fugou Keiji novel?! (which I plan to read someday) If you ask me, adding Haru to the story was one of the best decisions the producers came up with when making the anime.

This show deals with alot of dark topics, though. But I'd say it potrays the issues well and in a naunced way, it deals with trauma, societal problems, how struggling financially can lead people to do things they don't want to do in order to survive, and in all of those instances you sympathize with the characters and can understand how they got to this point. Everyone here is super well written

The Yakuza's Guide to Babysitting

Dare I say....I actually love this more than Spy X Family....

Kirishima, the scariest demon of the yakuza, has been tasked by the big boss to complete the most important mission of all...hanging out with this kindergartener. And honestly? Peak fiction, give me more of whatever this and sxf is. This should've been the big trend instead of Isekai