Anime Review: Nisekoi

I apologize for not updating my blog frequently. If you have been following me, you might have noticed that my university is trying its hardest to keep me busy. Because of that, I haven't been watching anime lately. But now my seriously-packed timetable is beginning to subside a little as finals is quick approaching - a calm before the storm. So I did what I do best: watching anime.

Pika pika Chitoge :3

Title: Nisekoi (Fake Love)

Genre: Romantic comedy

What is it about: Mainly about a guy forced to be in a relationship with a girl in order to stop a war from breaking out, though both of them hate each other. Then things became a little more complicated (and annoying).

My review: Nao Toyama is back once again as Karen Kujo- I mean Kirisaki Chitoge, a half-American half-Japanese blonde girl who speaks English with Japanese accent. Well, to be fair to her she did improve a lot since Kiniro Mosaic. I applaud her for even trying to speak in English. It's actually pretty entertaining. Also, the two amazing Kanas has return as well: Kana Hanazawa and Kana Asumi, alongside their kawaii-ness. To be honest, I haven't actually finished watching this anime. I currently stopped at episode 16 out of 20 and quite frankly I've pretty much lost most of my motivations to continue. I wouldn't even have made it this far if it wasn't for the fact that Nao Toyama and Kana Hanazawa is voicing two of the main characters in this anime.

Make no mistake however, I didn't necessarily hate this anime. I just thought it could be much better than it is. I will be addressing the problems with Nisekoi in a bit,  but first let me tell you why I liked this anime. In fact, I really love this anime after watching the first few episodes. Nisekoi has got the most awesome first episode ever, one that actually made me ROFLMAO. This anime opens by showing off the main character, Raku Ichijo's cooking skills which is very impressive and fun to watch but you'll never get to see it ever again. He is actually the son of a yakuza that for an organized criminal society is pretty non-threatening. Then we are introduced to Chitoge Kirisaki, daughter of a rival yakuza group who after an unfortunate misadventure, came to hate Raku. Finally at then ending of the same episode, both of them are forced to be couples. Their reaction to that are totally priceless!

This anime is funny and dramatic at the same time. I really liked where it is going and I kind of expected the anime to take a turn to become a tearjerker instead. I don't know why, but I think that would be cool. I always loved funny yet meaningful anime. However, to my disappointment, such is not the case and the anime is beginning to abandon its mission as one long major storyline, but instead focusing on small meaningless humour and a side story which doesn't make much sense. There's no more drama, just the anime's failing attempts to make you laugh which results in too much repetition of events and too much cliche. The main-character-in-deep-shit-in-the-hot-spring-after-some-idiot-swap-the-gender-sign cliche, I've seen that many times. There was a time in the beginning of the series where the two got so pissed off that they had a huge argument and Raku actually yelled at Chitoge. Well, those days are over and I really miss it. What we've got instead is the introduction of more and more characters that we don't give a damn so that Nisekoi can be a mindless harem anime.

The storyline is also became weird after the first few episodes. Instead of focusing on the yakuza brawl or the accidental couple, Nisekoi chose to focus on the small side story where the Raku made a promise to a girl 10 years ago to marry her. He couldn't remember who she was or how she looked like. All he know is he has a pendant with a lock and the girl he made the promise to holds the key to that lock. What's weirder is that the girl whom he made the promise to might actually be Raku's classmate and crush, Onodera because she had in possession of a key. Onodera also remembered only that she made a promise with a guy 10 years ago but don't know who he is and how he looked like. She only know she has a key. As if the storyline is not weird enough, more candidates of the mysterious Raku's promised girl are introduced including Chitoge. Same sh*t, Chitoge only remembered she made a promise 10 years ago but doesn't remember bla bla bla. She had another different-looking key. Oh, suddenly everybody knew everybody in this anime one way or another. To everybody's annoyance, yet another girl is introduced to potentially be the girl in question because she had yet another key. Damn, what's with this anime and keys?!

The main storyline which is interesting, dramatic, funny and fun to watch pretty much died at this point. What we get to see instead is the characters' stupidity in countless misunderstandings. Yes, I get it that Raku has a crush on Onodera. When they are together, they are excited. I get it. But this anime is really trying to over-exaggerate stuff by showing us scenes that are pretty much pointless and intended solely  to make you laugh. It worked at first, but after showing the same crap like a billion times, I'm getting real tired of it. Also, it is plainly obvious that Raku likes Onodera and Onodera likes Raku. Just bloody confess already! They had so many opportunities to do so, yet the anime is busy trying to show us how excited or nervous they are before some stupid stuff happen and they lost the chance to confess. And the cycle goes on and on. There is really nothing left to see anymore.

I don't know, but I'm feeling really sad watching this anime. It's an anime that I really liked, an anime that I actually recommended to my friend after watching a few episodes. Then it had to go and disappoint me. How very disappointing indeed. I hope the next few episodes would be a bit better at least. Hmm... Maybe I should watch Kiniro Mosaic to cheer myself up a bit. Karen Kujo anyone?

Rating: 6/10

Anime review: Black Rock Shooter (Anime)

Title: Black Rock Shooter

Year: 2012 (The anime)

What is it about: Girls fighting and going crazy in the most awesome way.

My review: There's Black Rock Shooter (BRS) game, then there's the anime including an OVA, and they are completely different from each other. In the game, BRS (and White Rock Shooter) is voiced by Maaya Sakamoto. Surprising. In the anime, BRS is voiced by, guess who, Kana Hanazawa! This is even more surprising because Kana Hanazawa isn't the type who voice in these kind of anime. But in this anime, you'll definitely be amazed by what Kana can do.

That is one reason why people actually watch this anime. You get to see Kana Hanazawa doing stuffs she usually doesn't, which turns out to be very badass. BRS is a killing machine, and there are lots of other killing machines too. This anime is where you get to see the most awesome catfights ever! Yes. In this anime, you hardly see any males. You see only girls fight each other with machines designed to kill, yet they don't die. So, these fights go on and on for 8 whole episodes.

Even so, this anime actually centers around two entirely different worlds. One of which is the human world where you see the everyday school girls. The other is where the girls' alter ego fights each other to the death (but then again, they don't die). This anime tries to link both worlds together with a storyline from the human world to explain what's going on with all the fighting in the other world. Sounds complicated? It is. Other than enjoying all the fight scenes in this anime, you will not get a single thing of what's going on. Worst, the explanation begins at around episode 6. Even so, it'll still keep you scratching your head.

In conclusion, this anime is just weird. If you don't enjoy mindless fighting, you will most probably get bored even at the beginning of this anime, unless you are a die-hard Kana Hanazawa fan. Even so, I really did not notice it was Kana who voiced BRS and also Mato whom BRS is her other self.

Rating (out of 10): 4

Anime review: Moshidora

Title: Moshidora (the acronym for Moshi Koukou Yakyuu no Joshi Manager ga Drucker no "Management" wo Yondara). This is certainly a competent contender for the anime with the longest title in the world!

Year: 2011

What is it about: A girl, who is unconsciously gifted with creativity, patience, and spirit mistakenly bought a book entitled "Management" by Peter F. Drucker which describes the management of a business company. Watch as she derive the fundamental principles from Management and apply them to managing a high school baseball team. I swear this is pretty damn cool! XD

My review: I just love a decent anime with a character voiced by Hanazawa Kana, and this anime is one of Kana at her best. In case you don't know who Hanazawa is, she voiced Kanade a.k.a. Angel or Tenshi in Angel Beats. Starring also are Hikasa Yoko who voiced Mio in K-ON, and also Tsuda Kenjiro who voiced Kaiba in Yu-Gi-Oh!. This is indeed rather surprising in terms of the characters in this anime.

Anyway, I had but one thing in mind when it comes to this anime: Perfect. This has got to be my favorite anime of all times. In many anime which are in my list of very nice anime, there will be at least something, just one tiny particular part, which just kills it. In this, however, I could not find any.

For a 10-episode anime, this anime is really appealing with its blend of creativity and drama. Until now, I really had no knowledge whatsoever about baseball. I don't know how it works, what are the objectives and so on. Even so, I find this anime very interesting. I am truly amazed by how a young girl is able to apply the principles in Management, principles to manage business companies and definitely not baseball, to manage a baseball club. I had personally glanced through Drucker's Management (I can tell you it's one heck of a thick book) and I could hardly understand anything.

That's what Minami, the main character, thought in the first place. It's dense. Fortunately she does have what it takes to decipher Management's contents. And it didn't take long before she could figure out how whatever she is reading could possibly save a baseball club from falling apart, and eventually take the team to what they called Nationals, sort of like an Olympic sports event for baseball in Japan.

The characters in this anime are quite well-designed, with each individual have their own personalities. The ratio of boys to girls in this anime is about 3 to 1, but (to all guys :P) don't give up on this anime just yet. You will definitely love those characters very much. Often the entire team works together really well, and every character plays a critical part in the development of their sports team. This includes Yuuki, a friend of Minami, who is hospitalized in the entire series. 

And what is a good anime without conflict? Once a while, characters does get into misunderstandings with each other adn conflict arises. But in this anime, these conflicts are resolved in a different way rather what you would normally expect in this kind of sports anime: guys punching and/or screaming at each other. Mind you, there are such scenes in the anime but it's all under control, so no worries. In fact, the characters in this anime are highly tolerant and friendly (Of course, they are Japanese after all), and they are great team-players. Most conflicts, though not many in this anime, are resolved through reason, rather than violence.

In terms of logic, this anime is quite well-researched. And whoever wrote the story of this anime did a good job in bringing in situations where Drucker's principles can be applied to not only save the team, but to bring improvement to them. Speaking of creativity, the coach of the baseball team devised a strategy (called the "No bunt, no ball" strategy) that apparently is very effective in consideration of not only the opponents, but environmental factors as well. If you know how to play baseball, maybe you should give this strategy a try. In this anime though, this strategy does not work immediately. In fact, the first time this strategy was implemented, the team loses badly to the opponent. But that is exactly how it should be. It's an experiment after all. In the end, after constant refinement throughout the series, this strategy has proven work. Much like the case of Thomas Edison (Google him).

If this anime is anything, it's a tearjerker. A very good one at that. As such, I advise you watch this anime alone. Towards the anime, you will receive a great surprise that I don't quite know how to describe. Unlike many anime where the final episode is a complete letdown, this anime has a truly amazing one. You won't expect who the 'hero' who saved the team at the last minute turn out to be. This anime is also worth watching with your headsets on, because the soundtrack in this anime is just amazing. Not just the opening and ending theme, but the background music as well. In fact, I have a folder in my mp3 player dedicated to just Moshidora's BGM itself.

In conclusion, this anime is a must-watch. This is one anime where you can actually learn something. I have to admit. This anime is, at the very least, live-changing.

Also I had been wondering, what if Minami happens to pick up Sun Tzu's The Art of War? :D

Rating (out of 10): 10