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tl;dr: A death battle anime purely about the battles, but with pretty good battles.

This anime has the standard battle game premise that involves a group of people being given supernatural powers, and then forced to fight each other in a systematic fashion with a variety of different rules and match types. As far as this season gets, absolutely no background has been provided on who’s running things or what their goals is. There’s not even a hint of mystery or foreshadowing. It doesn’t seem to touch the subject at all. As such, the plot is centered entirely on the fights themselves.

The protagonist, Akira Shiroyanagi, has ... an ability that’s a bit unique, though what it is and the specifics of how it work could be considered spoilers so I’ll be vague about it. It’s an ability that requires mind games and manipulating his opponents to use effectively. Akira is the logical type that’s always thinking ahead and trying to predict what his opponents are thinking and how they’ll react to him, so he ends up acclimating to his power rather quickly and uses it quite effectively. This anime also has a pretty strong emphasis on characters keeping powers hidden or mispresenting them in order to trick their opponent, so it fits into the broader dynamics pretty well.

Akira has somewhat of a character arc that starts with him being pretty cold and treating everything like a game but he eventually comes to care about his allies. This character arc is significantly advanced through his budding relationship with a girl named Yuuri. Yuuri and a lot of other characters also get some background that helps explain their personality and motivations. Still, none of any of this is all that strong. There’s not all that much depth to anyone. There are characters that you’ll probably find likable because they’re cool, funny, or easy to empathize with. But I didn’t feel anyone was all that well written.

The anime starts off with 1v1 matches. This part is interesting due to how Akira is still figuring out how his power works and has to experiment in the middle of actual battles, and also because this is the point where his ability to use his power is most limited. After that it transitions into a large scale group conflict. Having an ally he can trust removes a significant number of the limitations on his ability and the need for psyching out his opponent and such, which makes things much simpler for him for a bit. But the anime writes around that by separating him from said ally, and thus it goes back to him having to use mind games and well thought out plans to achieve victory.

These battles aren’t amazingly well written. However, the variety of powers and the fast pacing is enough to keep things pretty interesting from beginning to end. It overall flows really well and though there aren’t any major twists, it’s good at handling the smaller ones. Also, while there is a lot of death and it can certainly be serious at times, there’s a surprising amount of comedy, especially early on. So all in all it was a pretty fun ride. The ending obviously gets nowhere near the ending to the full story, but it ends an arc while also showing off a lot of interesting elements in where the story will go in the future. Thus, I was pretty satisfied with it.

The art and animation were decent enough for the most part, though never really good. The biggest exception to that was the ‘final boss battle’ so to speak, which very heavily involves really bad 3DCG and was jarringly awful looking. The character designs were solid enough. The OP and ED were both pretty solid in terms of the songs and visuals. The soundtrack was also decent.

tl;dr: An anime that’s overall pretty rough, but has a single unexpected core aspect that’s pretty amazing.

This anime is one that starts as one thing, but ends as something completely different. The first half or so of the anime is centered around the hero, Leo Demonheart wanting to join the Demon Queen, Echidna’s, army. The demons were going through a tough time and could certainly use the help. However, Leo’s the one that put them in such dire straights in the first place so Echidna rejects him. However, he’s still adamant about joining so he ends up working out a deal with the generals that ... work under her. From there, he basically goes around helping out each of the generals learn some sort of management technique to help them better serve as leaders within the Demon Army. These range from the importance of delegating tasks to how to hold an effective interview. As such, this half of the anime is basically an educational show about best business practices set in a medieval fantasy like setting. It’s not all that well written though. None of the characters are all that interesting, and overall it just felt kind of dull. The lessons don’t feel all that valuable either from the point of view of a viewer.

The second part transitions to something much more complex and also somewhat dark. It’s hard to explain without going into spoilers territory, but it’s heavily centered around the existential crisis of an immortal living weapon. And it goes hard on that. It goes in detail into his mindset and how it changed over time and what led to that change. It does a really effective job of conveying his emotions, the pain and loneliness he was feeling, and why that led him to take the actions he was taking. Things get really intense and it’s enough to really pull you in and get you invested in where the story is going to go. It was pretty impressive.

With that said, there were also a lot of issues. The second part really doesn’t flow well off the first part. It feels pretty tonally and thematically inconsistent. This part would work a lot better if the viewer had more investment in the character’s outside of the protagonist, but ultimately the only character that felt interesting and worth getting invested in was the protagonist and the rest of the cast still feels pretty flat and boring. Also, the way everything ended up getting resolved felt too easy, especially after all the build up. It felt somewhat like a return to how things were in the first part of the anime. It was pretty underwhelming. Thus even though I was fine with the broader elements of the ending, I can’t say I was totally satisfied with it. I’m also very unsure about whether I want to continue it, because if it’s more like the first part I’ll pass, but I would definitely be more interested in more like the second part.

The art and animation can certainly be rough at times but overall were decent enough. The character designs I thought were overall pretty weak though. The OP was great in terms of the song and visuals, and fit incredibly well. The EDs were also really interesting and reflected the change in the show really well. The soundtrack was also pretty good and fit well, especially during the more intense parts.

tl;dr: An anime with ups and downs when it comes to it’s games and an overarching plot that while interesting hasn’t quite delivered so far.

This anime is about high stakes games that test friendships. An individual can enter themselves and their friend group into the Tomodachi Game, where they can play various games that give them the chance to pay off their existing debt, gain far more debt, or offload the debt to one of their friends. But because this involves such high sums of money, it inevitably results in friendships being put through a trial by fire and often not surviving the ordeal. The ... protagonist, Yuuichi, and four of his friends are pulled into such a game, and though he thought they were close friends, it turns out he knew them far less than he thought. Though I suppose that’s only fair, as they knew him even less and he turned out to be more extreme than any of them could have imagined.

This is a standard high stakes game story. It’s not a death game but the money involved is high enough that everyone is taking it very seriously, to the point that outside the games murders do seem to have taken place. Over the course of the anime, four games are played. There are two short games that take up a single episode each at the beginning and end of the season, but the majority of the anime is composed of two long games that take up five episodes each. The first game was essentially a throw away game that served as an introduction to things but didn’t have all that much to it.

The second game is where things really got moving. And unfortunately it was pretty bad. It’s not really possible to fully discuss my issues with it without going into spoilers, but to put it simply it didn’t really work. It tried to show Yuuichi using the mechanics of the game to his advantage, but most of the ‘tricks’ so to speak didn’t actually do anything and what actually mattered was completely glossed over. It also doesn’t help that the pacing here was too slow. This game put a heavy emphasis on creating a game with a good amount of complexity that could be exploited, but in the end it kind of fell apart and felt badly designed and written.

The third game and fourth games were a major step up thankfully. The games themselves in these were incredibly simple to the point that it was a given that everyone involved fully understood everything about them and thus no trick centered around the rules themselves could be surprising. As such, the focus was on Yuuichi manipulating others through mind games and social tricks within the confines of the rules. This is written significantly better than the logical tricks in the second game, and as a result the anime overall makes much more sense and in general makes the games much more fun to watch. Though I do still feel the pacing on the third game was slower than it should have been.

There is an overarching plot centered around character’s pasts and their prior connections to the Tomodachi Game. As far as this season gets, it only feels like one character’s past has been properly shown, though I suppose even that could just be a misdirect. Everyone else is still a mystery, including the protagonist Yuuichi. We’ve gotten a lot of tidbits that suggest a lot about him, though not enough to have a good picture of who he really is yet. Still, what we do see of him is enough to make him likable. He’s crazy as hell but definitely seems to be good at heart… probably.

With the rest it’s a lot harder to find them likable or to get invested in them because it doesn’t really feel like you’re seeing enough of who they truly are. There does seem to be some character and relationship development, but as with everything else, it’s hard to tell at this point how much of it was real. This season ends at a cliffhanger far from any proper conclusion and thus most everything is left entirely up in the air. I suppose that’s a bit of an unsatisfying ending, but an unavoidable one.

The art and animation were okay. There were issues at times but nothing too glaring. The character designs were decent, but overall I think they were too simple. The OP and ED were solid enough in terms of the song and visuals. The soundtrack was fine.

tl;dr: A sequel season that’s unfortunately pretty much exactly like it’s prequel.

I wasn’t all that fond of the first season of Peter Grill, so the only reason I ended up watching this second season was morbidly curiosity in this trainwreck. To some degree I suppose I was hoping that this season would be better. That there had to be some reason that a second season was made despite negative reception to the first. Unfortunately, these hopes came to naught. This season is just as bad as the first, and the only reason it scored better than the first is that those with sense seemed to ... have dropped it.

Just like with the first season, this is a series of 12 half length episodes centered around how despite wanting to remain loyal to his fiancé, Peter Grill is unable to resist the charms of those that are fiercely pursuing him with the goal of siring children with the strongest man alive. There’s really not that much more to the show. There are three new girls added into the mix, but the dynamic is exactly the same as last time. The comedy is also very similar, being primarily sexual humor with the majority of it being centered around how lustful the girls are and how pathetic Peter is in response. The little plot there is is so generic and half assed it’s not really worth discussing. I suppose the season ends on a pretty positive note, but it’s clear that it’s one that isn’t going to stick so it’s hard to be all that satisfied with it.

The art and animation are not very good. There are some good character designs, but this season there are some really awful ones too. As such, this really isn’t an anime I would watch for the ecchi which is really the only thing it could have going for it. The OP and ED were decent enough in terms of songs and visuals. The same artist as the first season does the ED, though the song isn’t as bizarrely good as the first season. The soundtrack isn’t really worth mentioning.

tl;dr: A sequel season that has a bunch of smaller but still great stories, though it does so at the expense of any progress in any overarching plot lines or character/relationship development in the main couple.

The second season of Kyokou Suiri, AKA In/Spectre, continues to follow Kotoko and Kuro as they deal with various affairs involving both humans and supernatural entities. Seeing how the first season ended with a battle of wits between Kotoko and Rikka, I had assumed that in this season Rikka would continue to mastermind various incidents and Kotoko would continue to face off against her in resolving them. However, this isn’t ... the case at all. Let alone serving as the antagonist of an arc, Rikka barely barely shows up in this season at all. She has enough presence to remind viewers that she exists, but she isn’t really important at all.

As such, all of the arcs this season are pretty limited in scope and aren’t really contributing to any sort of overarching story. They’re also in general pretty short, ranging from one to four episodes, which is far from the Steel Lady arc that took up pretty much the entire first season. The arcs this season are a lot simpler than the Steel Lady arc, but overall I found them just as interesting. Every arc in the anime involves Kotoko using her wits and knowledge of the supernatural to figure out the exact nature of whatever supernatural problem is occurring and then dealing with it.

The most interesting part of this as in the previous season isn’t the actual solving of mysteries, which is overtly straight forward most of the time. Rather, the most interesting part is Kotoko weaving stories that are far from what actually happened but are completely believable to those she tells. This isn’t an anime about a detective solving mysteries, it’s an anime about a liar fooling her marks. She has good reasons for doing so and there isn’t any maliciousness involved whatsoever so it’s entertaining and fascinating, even when you like the people being lied to and tricked.

On that note, this season had a lot of great side characters. For example, Masayuki and Yuki-Onna were just really likable and thus it was really satisfying to see them get solid character and relationship development. And as another example, the Otonashis had interesting backgrounds and motivations so it was interesting to see all that get fleshed out. These all felt like one off characters and I doubt we’ll see them at all in any future arcs. But their presence still made it easy to get invested in their respective arcs which made the anime overall much more enjoyable.

Unfortunately, the main character’s didn’t fair so well. Kotoko and Kuro didn’t really have any development whatsoever. They have zero character growth, and while Kotoko’s unique personality is enough to keep her interesting, Kuro seems to be getting kind of stale. There are comments made in passing by Kotoko that imply that their relationship certainly is progressing off screen, but this wasn’t focused on in the anime at all. To be honest, the two of them felt less like they were written as actual people, and more so just their functions in the plot, which is making it a lot harder to stay invested in them as characters. This doesn’t matter much this season as the writing doesn’t seem to be asking the viewer to care about them all that much, however it will likely be a detriment to future arcs where the narrative shifts to focusing on Kotoko and Kuro themselves.

The art and animation were solid enough. The character designs were decent but nothing particularly memorable. The OP and ED were also reasonably solid in terms of the song and visuals. The soundtrack was also fine but didn’t really stand out.

tl;dr: An anime with a really solid hook but that doesn’t really have enough to keep things interesting.

This is an anime about a boy named Kou that finds middle school too troublesome to have to deal with so he quits school and starts wandering around at night. There he encounters a girl named Nazuna who shows him how fun and freeing the night can be. However, she turns out to be a vampire who finds Kou’s blood especially delicious. And thus Kou decides that he wants her to turn him into a vampire too. The thing is, that a requirement for a vampire to turn ... someone into one of their kin, is for that someone to be in love with them. Thus, Kou and Nazuna begin hanging out at night with Kou doing his best to fall in love with Nazuna, even though he’s not quite sure what love is exactly.

This anime is one that will immediately dazzle you. The visual spectacle of the shining and glittering city will probably be enough to wow you. And on top of that Nazuna’s unconstrained way of life and Kou’s excitement at becoming a part of it will probably pull you in. The two have a pretty interesting dynamic. At one point it’s described as supply and demand, and while the specifics of how that’s used aren’t quite right in the grand scheme of things, the term itself is kind of true. They both need something new and exciting in their lives and each of them is providing the other a freshness to each other that is knocking them out of their everyday boredom. They have a lot of fun, and due to them being pretty hilarious its quite fun to watch as well.

Similarly, the two get involved with the stories of various others that live in the night. These range quite a bit, from being about a childhood friend of Kou, to Nazuna’s fellow vampire, to a random overworked salary woman. But in each of those stories, something similar happens. They knock something new and fresh into their old and boring lives. These stories are simple and don’t work too well if you think too much about them or put them under too heavy scrutiny. But in the context of the anime they can be downright exhilarating and pretty much always really amusing.

However, while these issues aren’t much of a problem when it comes to shorter side stories, these issues apply equally to the overarching story centered around Kou and Nazuna. And there the issues are far from easy to overlook. Kou and Nazuna each have a character arc going, but in the grand scheme of things, neither is all that interesting. Each of the two have a lot of presence when they explode into the story. But as things progress and they progress as character’s, it doesn’t really feel like they have that much to them. And then it starts feeling like the anime overall doesn’t really either.

At one point in the anime it’s brought up that the night starts becoming a lot less interesting once the feeling of freshness goes away and that that feeling of freshness doesn’t last long. That’s the general feeling I got towards the overarching story of this anime. It has a very unique feel that’s enough to draw you in. But even with the new elements that are introduced, eventually it just didn’t really feel like there was enough to keep things engaging. The ending was as solid as I would expect and I liked how it was brining things full circle in a way, though in a way that kind of drove home how the charm of the series was fading.

The art and animation are pretty solid. As mentioned, the scenery is fantastic and incredibly impressive. However, the art style for character’s, as well as character designs in general didn’t really impress me much. The OP and ED both had great songs and visuals. The soundtrack was great too, with the repeated insert song working really well with the atmosphere of the anime.

tl;dr: An anime with a really fun cast that combines isekai and reverse isekai for hilarious results.

Isekai Ojisan is about a guy that was isekai’d as a teen but came back seventeen years later and began living with his nephew, Takafumi. This anime has two interconnected stories. The first is on Earth. This involves Uncle, Takafumi, and Takafumi’s childhood friend Sumika essentially just hanging out. There’s not really any sort of plot here at all. It’s just a lot of comedy. The comedy generally falls under three categories. The first is the use of magic in bizarre or unexpected ways. The second is Uncle having ... no clue how modern society works and being shocked by what seem to be simple things. And the third is Uncle being over obsessed with SEGA. There’s comedy outside of those as well though, such as Sumika having a massive crush on Takafumi but him being dense about it, though it’s nowhere near as prominent as the aforementioned three.

The second story involves Uncle using magic to show Takafumi and Sumika his various adventures in the world he had been sent to, Gran Bahamal. There’s quite a lot going on here. There are four main characters: Uncle, Elf, Mabel, and Alicia. Uncle is on a journey to find a way back to Earth, though due to his looks most everyone in Gran Bahamal see him as an orc at first glance which makes things quite difficult. The girl simply known as Elf is stalking Uncle because she’s in love with him but she’s a tsundere so he doesn’t understand her at all. She also seems to be searching for magical artifacts and has some royal background or something, but that isn’t that important yet. Mabel is a girl who is also in love with Uncle, but she is overall a very low effort person that doesn’t really want to do anything so she somewhat pursues him when he pops up in front of her, but doesn’t actually try to follow him or anything like that. For the most part, she just does her best to live while doing as little work as possible. And lastly, Alicia is an adventurer that was suddenly given the title of Hero that she’s trying to live up to. She also seems somewhat attracted to Uncle, though nothing much has happened as far as the anime gets.

It may sound like there’s actually an overarching plot here, but in practice not really. There are plot threads and in hindsight it does seem like some progress was made on them. However, it doesn’t really feel like that while watching the anime. It mostly just feels like a bunch of random comedic events in another world. And in terms of that, it’s excellent. It makes good use of deconstructing and breaking isekai tropes while also throwing in a bunch of other random nonsense. But what really helps is that it makes incredibly good use of the two worlds aspect to have ongoing commentary from the three back on Earth. It’s constantly showing their reactions to what’s been shown, with Uncle often completely misunderstanding what happened much to Takafumi and Sumika’s chagrin. The events they watch unfold in Gran Bahamal also often end up serving as the impetus for hijinks they get back to on Earth. This is an anime centered around character focused comedy, and this unique arrangement allows for two very different character dynamics with one building incredibly well off the other. The end result is that both dynamics are really fun, and all six of the main characters across both of the worlds are pretty likable and fun to watch.

The art and animation are really good. The art has a pretty unique style that has a more drawing like look to it than most anime these days. The character and monster designs were also pretty solid. The animation is also surprisingly good, especially for the action. There’s also some fun visual humor, such as Mabel’s facial expressions. The OP was fantastic with a great song and very SEGA visuals. The ED was also decent in both song and visuals. The soundtrack was also solid.

tl;dr: An anime with an overpowered jerk protagonist that’s fun to watch screwing with people, though the low production values do hinder things.

Mobseka is an anime where a guy who absolutely hates otome games gets reincarnated into the one he was just forced into playing. Furthermore, he gets reincarnated as just a mob character named Leon. In visual novels, a mob character is essentially an unnamed background character who has little to no relevance to the overall narrative. And seeing as he’s been reincarnated into not just any otome game, but an incredibly generic one heavy on all the standard tropes, attending high school as ... a male mob character is quite difficult. Thankfully, his knowledge of the game makes things much easier, especially his knowledge of a highly advanced ship from an ancient civilization.

This anime requires some knowledge of otome games, but not that much to be honest, which makes sense as this is targeted at guys who generally don’t play otome games. Everything you need to know is explained reasonably well. There’s some small details that it skips over, but they’re not that important. Furthermore, as the story advances it deviates further and further from the plot of the original otome game and thus the otome game aspect increasingly matters less and less. On the other hand, it leans a lot more heavily on fantasy and sci-fi tropes. It’s a mish mash of a bunch of very disjointed elements so overall the world makes no sense. However, that’s very much intentional and it pokes fun at it pretty often. Still, ultimately this means that there’s not really much of an overarching plot either and the major plot events that do occur are pretty much just random.

Rather than plot, the anime is heavily focused on characters. Particularly the main trio of Leon, Angelica, and Olivia. Leon has an awful awful awful personality, but that’s what makes him a great protagonist. I would still consider him a good person, but he’s in general really bitter and cynical and can be really mean to people he doesn’t like. He’s overpowered through cheats, and he knows he’s overpowered through cheats, but he still exploits them for all they’re worth. I’m sure he’ll definitely be off putting to some, but I found it hilarious how he acts like an asshole and makes everyone hate him but in the end there’s nothing they can do about it.

His ability to connect to others is awful though. Most everyone hates him, but there are some that can still see his good aspects and try to get closer to him, most prominently Angelica and Olivia. However, he has no idea how to handle that and ends up pushing them away. With most protagonists like that, they quickly get character development such that they overcome this issue, however with Leon that doesn’t seem to have really happened at all yet. He has a good amount of relationship development with Angelica and Olivia, but it’s mainly due to luck and the two of them pushing toward him anyway even when he pushes them away. This makes him seem somewhat lame, but overall fits his character well.

It also makes Angelica and Olivia look a lot better and they both come out as pretty amazing characters. Olivia was the protagonist of the otome game, while Angelica was the villainess. In the game they were enemies, but due to various circumstances in this world they end up as best friends. There are various barriers in place beyond the standard otome tropes, such as Olivia being a commoner and Angelica initially being a high ranking and pretty harsh noble, but they have a pretty good relationship arc where they work through that and come out with a very well fleshed out bond. To be honest, the two of them have better chemistry with each other than they do with Leon.

There are a number of other prominent side characters too. The most prominent are Marie and the heroes of the otome game the world is based on. Marie is a girl that was also reincarnated into the world as a mob character, though she’s trying to use her knowledge of the game to replace Olivia as the protagonist. And for the most part she seems to be pretty successful as she’s on the harem route with all five of the heroes of the otome game in love with her. Every single one of these heroes is immensely annoying. But that’s what makes it so enjoyable when Leon crushes them. In the arcs after that, a few of them surprisingly actually get some character growth and I suppose it’s pushing towards making them more likable characters. But as of the end of the anime, they’re still really annoying and it’s satisfying to watch them lose to Leon.

The art and animation are unfortunately not so great. Like it starts out okay, but as things progress it’s clear it’s barely being held together. There are points where it straight up uses a slideshow instead of actual animation. The action too ends up pretty terrible. This is the type of anime that’s best aspects can still mostly shine through despite these issues, but it’s still disappointing. Character designs and designs in general for the most part are pretty great. It makes pretty good use of the mismatched world. The OP and ED are both pretty solid in terms of the songs and visuals. The soundtrack is not particularly memorable.

tl;dr: A sequel that drops some of it’s predecessor’s charms but that is overall a vast improvement.

The first season of Arifureta had a story that was definitely an acquired taste. Like many other isekai’s it featured an overpowered protagonist and leaned hard on him being overpowered. But what made Arifureta somewhat unique was that Hajime was really edgy. Like really really edgy. There was not even attempt at trying to make his edginess seem deep or anything like that. He just straight up oozed chuuni edginess. While that’s something I am totally into and should enjoy, unfortunately the anime was still a complete trainwreck. It ... was just terribly made in pretty much every way.

This season is very different from the first season. For one, it actually feels competently made. The production values are definitely improved. But just as importantly, the pacing isn’t awful and it flows pretty well. It’s much easier to understand this one, which is important because this season focuses far less on showing Hajime being overpowered and edgy, and puts more effort into pushing forward the narrative. That’s not to say Hajime isn’t overpowered and edgy anymore. He definitely still is, though Myu and Kaori have made him mellow out somewhat. But the main things is that it no longer feels like him being edgy and overpowered is the core draw compared to the plot or character arcs.

Plot wise things are moving forward, albeit slowly. The first season had a lot of world building, but it didn’t really feel like much was happening in terms of the overarching conflict against the Demons or God. This season got things moving on both fronts, though at the same time it ended at a point where Hajime wasn’t yet able to resolve anything fully, which was pretty unsatisfying. Character wise, the only character that got proper character development was Kaori who had a pretty decent arc. The rest of the heroines got some light development here and there, but nothing too major. Still, the overall dynamic of the group is great and a lot of fun to watch so holistically they feel like a pretty solid cast that I’m looking forward to seeing more of.

The art and animation as mentioned are noticeably improved. There’s still some bad CG enemies from time to time, but nothing egregious like the first season. This time I was able to properly appreciate the art style and found that I like it quite a lot. The character designs are also overall really great. The OP is pretty solid in terms of songs and visuals. Not as memorable as the first season’s though. The ED has a good song but the visuals were just okay. The soundtrack was really good and stood out quite a lot.

tl;dr: An anime with a pretty weak middle but a pretty amusing opening arc and pretty interesting ending arc.

This anime is initially about a Demon Lord named Varvatos that was lonely because he was so powerful that he was feared by everyone around him. Thus, he killed himself so he could reincarnate as someone new and then make friends. He reincarnated as Ard Meteor with all his memories and powers intact. However, even while doing his best not to stand out and keep his true powers hidden he still has a lot of trouble making friends. Primarily because he’s a dumbass.

This anime’s premise is a ... lot like Maou Gakuin, but Ard is nothing like Anos. The anime starts off with Ard as a kid in the process of growing up. He still has all his powers and memories, but he has the maturity of a little kid. On top of that he’s overtly desperate to make friends. This makes him off putting to the other kids and the only friend he can make is Ireena, an elf girl that’s similarly shunned by the rest. Though it still takes quite a bit of effort. This arc is pretty amusing because it’s pretty funny how bizarre of a personality Ard has and how overpowered Ard is while still being stupid is pretty amusing.

The following arcs don’t fare so well. They take place at Laville National Academy of Magic where Ard and Ireena become students. There’s a succubus named Ginny that also joins them, and the three of them are the main cast for the rest of the anime. Both Ireena and Ginny get character arcs where they go through some character growth. The friendship between the two is also developed decently. As such, the two can seem pretty likable at times.

However Ard and his relationship with the two was handled pretty badly. There’s supposed to be a harem dynamic there, but it really doesn’t feel like it. Rather, how Ireena and Ginny interact with Ard and each other when it comes to Ard is bizarrely irritating. It’s more like an annoying love triangle as the two are constantly yelling at each other and fighting over him. There’s significantly much more of that than any meaningful relationship development with Ard or even just romantic fluff. There are other girls that surround Ard as well, but the only ones that seem to be romantically interested in him are minor characters. So in terms of the harem aspect this anime is pretty weak.

The plot of these school arcs is also pretty lacking. There’s various school related stuff that happens, such as tournaments or the school festival. These are decent enough. However, there’s also an overarching plot involving demons and such, which is pretty terrible. It’s incredibly generic but the world building is incredibly lacking so it doesn’t make much sense. It’s mostly just a bunch of random events without much cohesiveness or any sense of flow. The magic system especially feels pretty nonsensical, so the action is pretty bad too. As a result Ard being overpowered isn’t all that satisfying either. Thus, things can get pretty dull and it’s hard to get too invested in things.

The final arc I felt was a pretty big improvement. It still faces the same issues as previous arcs in terms of the world building being lacking and the pair of Ireena and Ginny being kind of annoying. However, the focus of the arc, and the arc overall, is very different from previous arcs. The characters focused on are more likable. And the themes it chooses to explore are pretty interesting, such as helping people for their sake versus helping them for your own sake or how different experiences can turn the same person into different people. The writing still has a lot of issues and there’s a lot that isn’t properly explained or that’s full of holes. Still, all in all I found the arc interesting enough to be enjoyable and was decently satisfied with the ending.

The art and animation aren’t all that great. The character designs were really nice though. There’s some ecchi though not enough for it to be a selling point for the anime. The OP was pretty great in terms of the song and visuals, though it blatantly spoils a pretty important plot twist. The ED was also pretty good in terms of the song and visuals. The soundtrack also had some pretty great tracks.