note: Im LA Why does EVERY military-esque anime movie LA comes across always knows how to do anime movies correctly!..well to LA's standards anyways.
Kantai Collection's anime series was iffy but not outright horrible for the most part, being either too unfocused with it's comedically overbloated slice of life episodes to being confused in terms of plot direction as well as it's CGI not up to snuff...however LA still liked Kantai Collection's anime series for two reasons.....Kongou and the anime's "attempt" in trying world building for a web browser game anime adaptation.
So what's Kantai Collection's movie about?...after the events of the anime series, the Fleet Girls hear an eerie voice in Ironbottom Island and within this island starts spreading corroding discolored waters, thus the Fleet Girls must figure out what or who and how to stop this, with Fubuki being mysteriously linked to all this.
Kantai Collection's movie right from the offset ticked many of LA's boxes of how to do an anime movie correctly, from now upgraded and far more detailed animation to the mere fact that this movie makes callbacks to the anime that becomes one of the primary focus to this movie. Best yet is that the movie manages to redeem what world building the anime series did especially when concerning the odd "hope" or "fate" that appeared in the anime series as well as the Abyssal Vessels themselves are looked upon.
Kantai Collection's movie character focus are towards three characters, Fubuki, Mutsuki and Kaga for the most part. Kaga's focus helps immensely with world building of this movie, Mutsuki helps with the emotional side of the movie especially when one character who we thought sunk in the anime series comes back and this brings in Mutsuki's emotional clutch to the movie. Fubuki helps with the goal-orientated plotline for this movie mainly to do with Ironbottom Island and the voice that keeps calling out to her. To be fair this format of having three simultaneous plotliines linked to three characters is good for plot progression.
For the minor characters, they are essentially supporting characters and the MANY MANY characters have a chance to shine as well as bringing us tension if some of our favourite characters might sink or kicks Abyssal butt. LA's favourite character from Kantai Collection easily goes to Kongou (she's in LA's Favourite characters!) however she has a shorter screentime which LA gets, the movie is much more serious, plot focused and intense than the anime series so LA could see her screentime slimmed down, HOWEVER Yamato (LA's second favourite character in the series) got a bit more of the spotlight from this movie and her being badass so LA is completely ok with that.
Kantai Collection's movie does imply something with it's Abyssal Vessel and Fleet Girls lore and the world building this movie implemented and by the finale of the movie goes full lotus eating machine on us. Nonetheless Kantai Collection's anime series hinted at this but the movie outright brings this up and makes an interesting notion of the Abyssal Vessels from the web browser games and just the notion of "enemies" in general have, the movie basically saying that the enemies we fight are not just a targets or points, they too have a goal not just as an enemy but as a "character" and they are more tragic characters than the "evil enemies we have to fight just..because" which is easily manifested in Fubuki's end goal "villain" though they leave this notion up in the air by the end of this movie however LA thinks that's the point, character-wise and sequel-wise.
The animation once again done by diomedea as LA mentioned is definitely a step above from the anime series, from really detailed and consistent animation with diomedea finally doing many of the naval battle skirmishes beautifully and gloriously fluid and action-heavy, best yet is that the CGI is now integrated to it's traditional animation, though sometimes the CGI are shown at times but not as blatant as the anime series. Either way, LA can see that diomedea step up their game for this movie and it god damn shows.
Now voice acting...Jesus who to start?...Yuka Iguchi as Kaga, Rina Hidaka as Mutsuki and Sumire Uesaka as Fubuki were great however here comes the most obvious MVP of Kantai Collection's movie...Ayane Sakura voicing SIX characters, they being Jintsuu, Mutsu, Nagato, Naka, Sendai and Shimakaze all with differing accents and voices. Though Ayane Sakura takes the easy MVP seiyuu for this movie, LA's favourite voice actor for this movie however would actually go to Rina Hidaka however if only because she goes into more of the emotional range her characters goes through helped. LA just wished Kongou had more screentime...then LA could had easily put Nao Touyama in LA's favourite voice actor in this movie.
So yeah, if it isn't blindingly obvious, Kantai Collection's Movie is another breath of fresh air when it comes to anime movies for LA, having this movie tie back to the anime series as well as focus on plot points brought up from the anime series and give us an original story in the process, NO anime movie-only character schthick, no recapping wasting time instead this movie getting straight to the action and as such progressing the plot forward instead of being a one-off instance (with it's world building and character development) and the most obvious reason being that the movie outdid the anime series in many differing aspects from the plot to characters all under 90 minutes, all this is seriously how you get into LA's best standards in making an anime movie and Kantai Collection's movie succeeded impressively.
If this is the plot and character direction the Kantai Collection media is going, then LA will be quite interested in how Kantai Collection Zoku-hen will lead to...
Note: Im LA Ever wondered if Studio Trigger's anime worlds were ever connected?
Uchuu Patrol Luluco is an anime short about the titular Luluco voiced by M.A.O wanting to be a normal highschool girl where she lives Ogikubo is an alien-filled city making things very abnormal.
For the first few seasons (what?) Uchuu Patrol Luluco establishes Luluco and the Space Patrol cast most especially ΑΩ Nova voiced by Junya Enoki, Luluco's love interest and Midori voiced by Maymi Shintani, a classmate of Luluco, all while paying some homages to Trigger's and by extension Gainax's works. But later on, it outright pays homages and makes cameos' of Trigger's other works(like Kill la Kill, Little Witch Academia, Inferno Cop and hell even Sex and Violence with Machspeed) through Luluco and the gang looking for Ogikubo in space (don't ask) and them finding these worlds in the process. The final season culminates into Luluco's character development and hidden lore about her to what she REALLY is in a meta-aspect while paying homage to Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gurren Lagann.
So what does LA mean by "seasons", well Uchuu Patrol Luluco is formatted with 5 seasons spanning 13 episodes each with 7 minutes.
The animation by Trigger is what is expected from Trigger, the only attention to detail is that the majority of animation has the same stylings of the anime's they are paying homages (to be expected from ex-Gainax to Trigger animators). Uchuu Patrol Luluco's animation is bombastic to say the very least and LA loves it if that isn't obvious.
The voice acting is just as bombastic, even with a 7 minute timespan, the majority of the cast talks quickly but that only adds to the bombastity of this anime short's nature. M.A.O does great as Luluco and Mayumi Shintani who voices Midori does the extremely snarky character which is Mayumi's forte. LA's favourite voice actor would go easily to M.A.O without a doubt but nonetheless the voice cast is bombastically great.
If there were any shortcomings to Uchuu Patrol Luluco it would be that due to how quickly things come and go every episode, with the exception to Luluco and ΑΩ Nova, the rest of the characters are glance over and are just tagged for the ride or are meant to be cameos and nothing more, but this is Uchuu Patrol LULUCO so LA can give this anime short some grace.
Uchuu Patrol Luluco is undeniably a massive love letter to Trigger and Gainax fans as well as Trigger itself paying homage to it's previous works all packaged into a 13 episode anime short and can attract in any Trigger/Gainax fan and bring in that nostalgia of watching the shows made by Trigger and this one anime short tying in Trigger's shows into one nice medium. Uchuu Patrol Luluco may be an anime "short", but it brought something BIG as Trigger's bombastic nature and crazy storytelling Trigger's original works are known for.
note: I'm LA "One last note but this is just LA, but LA would of thought that changing the focus from Poppin' Party to ANY of the other bands could have made this anime a bit better... " - LA's BanG Dream! review HUZZA!!...LA gets a speck of hope from this OVA!
BanG Dream's OVA is your typical beach episode with an all girl's cast, in which Popping Party goes to the beach due to Saaya not having been there for a while and so they go to the beach with the typical cute girl hijinks. But a subplot comes in in the form of Roselia, another band who's been familiar with them since the anime series in which their leader, Yukina Minato voiced by Aina Aiba has a bit of writer's block for their new song, so they head to the beach to calm their situation and you know where these two plot threads link.
This OVA is "ok" for LA for the most part and considering this is a beach episode yes, there is girls in bikini fanservice (it's XEBEC what did you expect?), but even with that it did LA a solid by actually showing us other band's other than Popping Party and their predicaments as a band (albeit little) and heck even Roselia's interactions with Popping Party members were "interesting" to say the very least, and if your wondering, LA's favourite Roselia member would easily be Ako Udagawa voiced by Megu Sakuragawa.
Popping Party were the framework for this OVA, but Roselia stole the show...is the best way to put it.
Animation-wise once again animated by the aforementioned Xebec, well even for an OVA, BanG Dream! can't escape the derpy animation and it shows up rather blatantly here as well. The "concert" animation was almost similar to the anime series' quality of using full CGI but it felt that Xebec had improved on this slightly...the key word being "slightly".
Voice acting and singing wise, the concert song was an improvement in LA's opinion and a way of saying it's trying to be it's own thing for once (as in, the song felt like it was MEANT to be in this OVA, not just tacked in because it needs to reach a cliche quota) and the majority of the voice work was decent enough and hey Uzuki Shimamura even got a solo singing part!
Before LA wraps this review up, LA would probably need to make an addendum to what LA thinks about BanG Dream! franchise as a whole as LA talked about this in LA's BanG Dream! anime series review, LA still thinks it's trying to be desperate and trying to follow a trend to be popular, "cliched" however is different when thinking about the other bands in BanG Dream! (every band EXCEPT Popping Party) and at least it's mobile rhythm game it has up is probably one of the more decent installments in it's franchise.
As for this OVA, it was a slight step up from the anime series even for a beach episode and cute girls fanservice moe fluff and clearly shown to LA at least that looking into the other bands other than Popping Party is a more interesting venture to look into for the BanG Dream! franchise.
"What does she even see in him?" is an obvious statement LA would place on the main couple of Junichi Hashiba and Yukana Yame.
Hajimete no Gal is a rather strange romance anime for LA to look at, as it has fanservice and it flaunts it without a care, yet the anime also acts as a harem with a supporting cast of characters helping our main couple here, YET it does almost everything in it's power to make it as cringy and awkward as possible.
So let's start with the flaws and there's a bit to unpack, let's start with Junichi's 3 useless friends of Shinpei, Keigo and urghhh Minoru. These three characters reminds LA ALOT of Green Green's main protagonist's friends but alot less intense except one. These three character ruin, make things worse for Junichi, are useless, plot forced fanservice and are the ones essentially the kick start Junichi and Yukana's relationship yeah seriously. The most annoying character for Summer 2017 (yeah not just this anime) would go to the extremely creepy Minoru for OBVIOUS reasoning LA won't bring up here. So LA said this was a supporting harem and the other love interests for Junichi of Yui Kashii voiced by Ayana Taketatsu who's one of the most popular girls in the school but hides a secret and Nene Fujinoki voiced by Yui Ogura the backbreakingly Eiken-like loli of the harem who just happened to be childhood friends of Junichi comes into the mix and to be fair both characters are interesting, mainly because of Yui's character development about looking at Junichi in a differing light throughout the series and Nene's attempts of being a gal and kinda failing are interesting quirks to them HOWEVER since they are a supporting cast it's to be expected what's gonna happen to them with them cheering on the sidelines and the occasional emotional support when drama appears (which it does). LA won't say this is a horrible flaw but an expected intentional one.
Hajimete no Gal's strength's may be sparse but nonetheless, let's start with Junichi and Yukana's relationship, by the best it's puppy love in which both sides are naive about being in love and they both show it, it's actually one of the purest things in this anime and it's kinda adorable when they get their moments. What's more is that Junichi as much of a perverted white knight character he is, he's STILL one of most interesting characters in the anime if not because of his naive romantic puppy love relationship with Yukana. Yukana also has this, mainly because she's one of those character like in Oshiete Galko-chan! where appearance can be deceiving and her personality is not limited to being a gal and nothing more and again this is emphasized with her relationship with Junichi. Compounding this is that LA actually found the main couple of an anime series to be more interesting than the beta couple or other supporting characters and whether this was intentional through the useless best friends of Junichi or the harem members of Junichi to be supportive of Yukana's relationship, although this felt rather intentional it's a strength nonetheless. Lastly, Ranko Honojou voiced by Eri Kitamura is probably the MVP of this anime series as she does most of the heavy lifting in helping the main couple's relationship, though her ulterior motive is that she wants to protect Yukana but nonetheless she's the most reliable character in this anime.
The animation by NAZ has moments of being decent with the rather "exotic" character designs and bland looking backgrounding. Though NAZ isn't without it's derpy animation and it appears alot in this anime especially the finale. The character designs if anything is the only thing to talk about as a strength. Lastly this anime's censorship is "different" to say the least but doesn't cover enough but easily tells us what's going on under the smoke and mirrors censorship anyways...it's "meh".
On speaking of censorship, the fanservice in this anime is rampant from Junichi's lusty fantasies to beach episodes to cosplays and *ahem* erotic reading and Nene. The fanservice "varies" to say the least, at worst cringy and awkward as hell, at best...it's "trying".
The voice work in this anime is decent enough though LA would point out that Yukana Yame's voice actor Yuki Nagaku is being diverse by playing this role as LA really didn't expect Ichigo Moesaki to voice a gal-like pure maiden character but all the power to her to actually pull it off. Eri Kitamura has been eerily typecasted as the tough yet rather perverted girl characters but still did great in this anime and this statement can be said for Yui Ogura and Ayana Taketatsu and their respective character traits (almost like the point of them being in their role were to be stereotyped yet parodied at the same time).
So to actually answer the question LA said at the start of this anime review of "What does she even see in him?" comes at the thought that both characters are naive characters towards being in a relationship yet both of them wanting to progress and see to it that both of them are happy with each other and seriously in all honesty this is probably Hajimete no Gal's best strengths however is largely detrimented by it's useless male supporting characters and it's awkward attempts at humor and fanservice barring more screentime between our main couple, sure LA can compliment the finale it brought for our main couple after a rather annoying misunderstanding and self-deprecation by Junichi's part and Yukana for not being upfront about the situation which leads to some genuine attempts of romance but it was little too late and to little in general with all the awkward and cringy humor LA had to endure to get to that point.
Hajimete no Gal is "meh" by the end of it but it had the potential of being a much better romance if it wasn't trying to make awkward cringy humor all the time and actually gave more screentime to our main couple.
note: Im LA All the resets Misora does can't stop from LA disliking this anime...
Sakurada Reset is an exercise in patience and pointlessness in LA's eyes.
LA has ALOT to unpack so let's start with it's...
Flaws which it has alot of. Sakurada Reset PRIDES itself on giving us static images and bland deadpan monotoned characters through it's 24 episode screentime, what's worse it that these two elements makes this anime much longer than it's suppose to and sure LA isn't expecting EVERY anime to be shounen-esque especially from a premise like a town filled with superpowered humans and the Bureau governing and suppressing their inhabitants powers but keeping this atmosphere 24/7 won't help the experience of having dead air and slow traction in plotlines to occur and be dealt without as much as a sense of urgency. IT'S AN ANIME ABOUT SUPERPOWERED HUMANS AND A GOVERNING BODY SUPPRESSING THEM, HOW IS THIS NOT FUN???.
The deadpanned monotoness of this anime are easily manifested in the majority of the cast but especially in the form of our main characters Kei Asai voiced by Kaito Ishikawa who has the power of remembering everything and Misora Haruki voiced by Kana Hanazawa who has the resetting powers (before people starts, LA GETS why they are monotoned considering their situation the both of them are in, the fact that both characters have a strong sense of justice and doesn't want people to be hurt and protect them but at the expense of themselves not to mention the Bureau looming around them, but just because LA "gets it" doesn't justify why these MAIN characters are extremely dull on ALL fronts as a result) and it's even worse when this comes into the romance angle of this anime and it is damn forced how they play this out. The fact that these two characters really don't display much to any emotion is one thing, but as LA watched Sakurada Reset, LA just found the romance between these two to be not only forced but plot-driven in Kei's part to the point LA only saw Kei using Misora as nothing but a plot device and nothing more, his ulterior motives in using Misora came into the romantic angle and failed miserably (not only because both characters display no emotion and are pretty static, both in relationship but also the anime's atmosphere outright kills any notion of a romance angle for LA).
Aside from the romantic angle, Kei also has some other plot-driven problems about him, mainly because of his beliefs of not hurting people at any cost but at the expense of his own sacrifice which becomes annoying as that is one of his defining traits and one of the reasons why people think he's a saint or a hero and it's compounded by the fact that due to Misora's resetting powers and Kei's own powers, he resolves ALL problems rather quickly, sure you can defend this by saying well duhh because of the Misora's powers, but Kei's finds some rather TOO convenient ways to resolve things and quickly LA mind you.
Let's see what else, ohh how about the fact that many of the static imagery this anime does display actually hurts it's rare action scenes it has, due to how subdued and lacking in the animation department Sakurada Reset is, even the animation especially the action falters to a slow crawl of heavy action. This also affects the superpowered humans and their abilities as well making their abilities rather dull as interesting as they are at times.
Voice acting also gets crippled by the atmosphere of this anime thus the majority of the characters are either deadpanned or rarely way to excitable. The biggest victim of this anime being Kana Hanazawa due to her robotic way of talking sounds like Kana isn't even caring how she sounds and just doing her basic deadpan Kanade Tachibana vocals only without the effort, it's not Kana Hanazawa's fault it's her character's traits but nonetheless.
So was there ANYTHING LA found enjoyable in Sakurada Reset?, well LA did found for the most part the superpowers element at the very least interesting, even better when Kei found ways to mix other powers together to do something out of this world but this only goes so far but that a bit later. Sumire Soma is LA's ray of hope for this anime, why?...because she's one of the ONLY characters to actually emote in this anime and be different from the majority of the cast, she also shakes things up and allows some of the plotlines to have a modicum of interest and hell Sumire's voice actor Aoi Yuuki is LA's favourite voice actor in this anime hands down, but alas...there's also some problems with Sumire but that also a bit later. Lastly is that the final arc did try to do something Kei giving him a bit of character development and showing us what his true goal is but ummm yeah the finale also has some problems...let's start addressing them shall we?
First the superpowers were interesting and LA quite liked it when they "stacked" with one another making for some interesting results, what LA didn't like towards all this is that Kei manipulates and uses them without a second thought because of his plot-driven nature, it made the entire superpowers albeit interesting lose steam extremely quickly by being extremely convenient to Kei as a whole and nothing more than that (not to mention Sakurada Reset DOES NOT throw us bone when we have to remember what EVERY side characters or one off characters' powers were), also this leads into the Bureau as they do a pretty horrible job at managing powers even in secret by NOT doing anything or using blatantly abuse of power and even allowing a highschool kid to do most of the work for them and expect him to abide by their rules, because of this, it cripples the basic premise of Sakurada Reset to be even interesting.
Second is that Sumire Soma is in this dumb love triangle and SHE'S the one goading Kei and Misora to be together when it's clearly obvious that Sumire likes Kei and LA sees this, supernatural politics aside, Sumire's character is downplayed because of this albeit she's one of the most unpredictable character in this anime and reasonings are reasonably justified in some situations but still LA utterly hated the stilted dumb love triangle Sumire got herself into.
Thirdly is the final arc that LA made LA question this anime's point in pointlessness when it came to the "big" dilemma in this anime and the villain of this anime in question. LA is going into spoilers but LA doesn't care because the villains reasoning was pathetically annoying, but yeah, his plan was to remove every ability in Sakurada because his father wanted to, thus the villain wanted to make his father's wish come true. The pointlessness of this entire ordeal comes from the fact that "so what if people loses their abilities?", why does Kei even care about it?...for his romance with Misora, that's a laugh, as for having abilities or not has a grey morality to it's proceedings as to how they are used but Kei ALWAYS tries to be on the "right side" even if the villain he faces ALSO wants the same thing just using differing methods. So again...does it matter if Sakurada has no abilities anymore or not?...Kei seems to think so, but LA doesn't. Pointless really. (Also you can defend that this is around the time that Kei gains a bit of character development thus is NOT pointless but no...he stays pretty static just with his sense of justice cranked up to an eleven and that he "loves" Misora which again is a moot point for LA).
LASTLY, yes there's more, the dialogue in this anime is utterly pretentious as LA came to realize, with every character spurting out that Kei is a saint or a hero in the most blunt way possible or wondering what this feeling is like to the morality of having abilities or not or even the act of existing comes up. So yeah compounding the dead air atmosphere and deadpanned characters, the lack of action and superpowers glanced over to many of the problems EASILY being resolve by our all mighty janitor Kei...can YOU SEE how boring this anime gets and at 24 episodes at that.
Ohh one more thing this anime review has been sponsored by KitKat, Have a Break, have a Ki- WHAT DOES KITKAT HAVE TO DO WITH RESETTING AND A TOWN FILLED WITH SUPERPOWERED HUMANS. Ohh and yes Kei even says the slogan of KitKat and even shows a KitKat without any change to it's name or product. Can you TELL KitKat sponsored this anime somehow. Think this KitKat tangent came outta nowhere, well the anime does it in the same manner and expect you to NOT break immersion, it does.
What the hell is Sakurada Reset?...
Sakurada Reset is probably one thee worst anime of Spring 2017 for LA and as much as LA has seen some pretty horrible animes but this anime is "intentionally boring" at best and being intentionally boring is hardly a compliment. Being boring is a typical anime cardinal sin, but an anime INTENTIONALLY doing this is another thing altogether, as in this felt like David Productions wanted a break from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and this was a perfect way to put in as little effort as possible. Sakurada Reset also has the honor of the anime of wasting LA's time for being pointless, not since Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo "Shounen Tanteidan" yori has done this to LA.
Sakurada Reset is boring, it's pointless, it's pretentious and is a waste of your time, time Misora can't reset for the life of her.
note: Im LA Creation is a unique process of the ability of us humans to be able to make something out of nothing, from huge fictional worlds and even more human-like characters if need be. Re:Creators sees what happens if creations created for various sorts of media interacted with our real world.
To be completely honest here, LA was hooked onto Re:Creators from the very first episode, from the mere concept of having anime or game characters interact with the real world was fascinating and as a sorta reverse "transported into fantasy world" concept that was refreshing to say the very least, what's more is that LA loves meta-narratives and this anime is all about it!
But before you take this review like LA is an outright fanboy of this anime, LA does see what some detractors see from this anime though not completely.
For one, LA gets that Re:Creators can be an extremely dialogue exposition heavy story for people to get behind, with episodes DEDICATED to explaining the concept of a certain rules by our exposition fairy Meteora Österreich voiced by Inori Minase (who is actually the tutorial guide character so that makes sense, it's in her nature to explain) for the new anime/game characters living in the real world and this can easily detract people wanting more action instead. To this flaw's defence and LA agrees with this to a certain degree but LA thinks this had to be done intentionally as to place rules for this anime (and not but that a bit later...) so that this anime itself wouldn't lose it's plot and go into chaotic writing it would have gotten into.
Next are certain characters flaws that would have irritated some people. The biggest one being Sota, our main narrative focus protagonist. Sota voiced by Saiki Yamashita is your ordinary high school student however he subtly has links to our main villain of this anime Gunpuku no Himegami. The problem with Sota is that although he has baggage and guilt that doesn't allow him to act through the majority of this anime, he comes off as a coward running away from his problems (and nearly getting people killed in the process) however LA does sees that his guilt and baggage to be interesting for a main character and how he interlaces into the plot (albeit rather late in the game). Next is Gunpuku no Himegami voiced by Aki Toyosaki, who is an almost GOD TIER villain considering her powers and her goal is a rather typical one (one of world destruction through elaborate means). However be it LA's bias that LA LOVED this mysterious main villain of the series not only for her badassness and overpowered nature but her mysteriousness is what kept LA's interest, HOWEVER with the finale did downplay her though LA would talk about that later.
Now for probably one of the most important flaw LA would need to talk about and that is the notion of characters being stereotypical characters from certain animes, such as Selesia Upitiria voiced by Mikako Komatsu as the tsundere-ish character you see in light novels to Yuuya Mirokuji voiced by Kenichi Suzumura as the typical rival character with a loose temper, Mamika Kirameki voiced by Rie Murakawa as the typical magical girl and Alicetaria February voiced by Yoko Hisaka as the tragic hero you see in dark fantasy manga's. However with the "rules" of this anime, the "stereotypical" notion of most of these characters are largely changed by the end of it and they become their own person outside of their anime/game origin.
So about placing rules into this anime then not, that comes in the form of Magane Chikujouin voiced by Maaya Sakamoto who utilizes lies as her powers thus able to "contradict" certain rules of this anime at times, she being unpredictable and wanting to cause chaos in the world "because she wants to" makes her also interesting though by the second half of the anime, it's entirely focused on taking down Gunpuku no Himegami makes her limelight dim significantly (though the times she did appear, she DID cause a HEAP of chaos, internally to the majority of the characters and to Sota even), in essence, she's Meteora's order to her chaos. Now does LA think that just having a character that is able to contradict certain rules of this anime make it a pass?...well no, she's not a god....Gunpuku no Himegami is, LA can see her get away with some situations especially when it concerned the chaos of internal relations of certain characters (Alicetaria to Meteora especially) but also the final climax but she too is restricted by some rules in comparison to Gunpuku no Himegami...she's a secondary villain and she KNOWS it.
The animation by TROYCA was done great, sure sometimes the animation dipped at times but when they needed to bring their all (as in fight scenes) it was greatly done. However the more dialogue heavy scenes had sometimes dip in quality...still consistent for the majority of the time. LA loved the exotic character designs and yes for the many fight scenes they did great in animating it (LA just wished some of the fights lasted longer which could be a flaw in itself but LA thinks the anime intentionally went with the Fate/Zero plot formatting for cool down periods for the animation).
Voice acting was actually decent, from Inori Minase's deadpanned yet slightly inflected tone (which gets snarkier down the line) to Yoko Hikasa voicing a badass character with a tragic backstory (she Hitome Nabatame now?) but what caught LA offguard was Sora Amamiya voicing Rui Kanoya the MALE mecha guy of the series. As for LA's favourite voice actor in this anime, it would go quite easily to Aki Toyosaki as Gunpuku no Himegami, sure it's her playing against the type character let alone voicing an outright villainous character but this role clearly showed that Aki can go crazy with villain roles and DO THEM GREAT (albeit the tactical badass villain more or less). Overall, this voice cast is great with what LA presumes that the voice cast was intentional in both stereotyping and playing against the type for a reason.
So on speaking of Gunpuku no Himegami, the finale. ALOT of people would be saying it's an anticlimax and yes LA agrees with this, however considering the MANY implications with anime has with the rules of this anime AS well as Gunpuku no Himegami having reality warping god like powers and FATE going against her, LA presents the question of "what other way was there?", yes the finale downplays Gunpuku no Himegami though develops her in the process of what she TRULY was suppose to be but at the cost of a good climax to this anime finale, but again "what other path could she have done to save the situation?". This finale may be anticlimactic, however considering that before that we had a HUGE fight and the "fighting" wasn't the point but Gunpuku no Himegami herself (and by extension Sota)...LA can let this anticlimax go and accept it as in.
Due to how seeped in nature Re:Creators is in it's meta-narrative and LA just loving this concept, Re:Creators likes to play with this concept from the aforementioned notion of stereotypical characters changing while they are in the real world, genre savviness from certain characters to how audience acceptance is not just feedback for the in-universe creators but works into the anime in differing ways to shape the final arc of Re:Creators and even a recap episode where Meteora is VERY tongue and cheek, snarky as hell and uhhh "reimagining" recapping the events halfway through the anime. The meta-narrative does go deeper when it comes to Gunpuku no Himegami where her mere existence is due to this and the preparations towards beating her is essentially a crossover in-universe fight against her within the narrative to the in-universe audience that their watching a Special Anime Crossover.
Re:Creators' theming of creation does come up alot (it's in the name of course it would), complimenting the fact of the process of creation no matter what it is, meaning that having the passion and the drive to create stories, characters and heck LA might lump reviews in there can be for the better not just for yourself, but to other people who see your creations and them in turn get inspired to do the same.
Re:Creators isn't a perfect show, far from it, it has it's multitude of problems from plot progression and character flaws, but concept-wise was an interesting look and a refreshing take as to what happens when anime and game characters interact with the real world and the implications it has. This even being an original anime directed by Ei Aoki (of Fate/Zero and Aldnoah.Zero fame) and Rei Hirose (of Black Lagoon fame) being the original creator and character designer of Re:Creators and even Hiroyuki Sawano doing the music composition for this anime tells alot of what they wanted to do with this anime...
Make Last Action Hero: The Anime.
Joking aside, Re:Creators was a blast to watch even in it's slowest and low moments and with it's concept of anime characters living in the real world was a refreshing take on the "transported to another world" setting that's over-saturating the genre. Re:Creators may have it's flaws but what anime doesn't have flaws? Having a Creation being perfect defeats the point, the creation having flaws gives room for them to grow to be an even better Creations as such in the case of Re:Creators.
note I'm LA Well...at least it's better than Schoolgirl Strikers...barely.
So, LA doesn't need to tell you that these kind of mobile game adaptation with a huge roster of cute girls is somewhat hit or miss for LA, from Ange Vierge to Schoolgirl Strikers. Where does Battle Girl High School anime adaptation lie?...well before that...
LA has actually played the mobile game for a time HOWEVER LA will try not be bias with LA's experience in playing the game with this anime adaptation.
So Battle Girl High School's plot is the typical stuff we see in these kind of anime adaptations of mobile games especially when it has a huge roster of cute girls in the mix, as in monster killings and slice of life moment intertwined with typical cute girl doing cute things tropes. In terms of plot format, the early episodes of the anime was a good sign for LA, from emphasizing the battles of defeating the monsters called Irous as well as the teamwork many of the students of Hoshimori had while defeating them. The best addition to this would be Misaki voiced by Rie Takahashi causing a divide in the class of Hoshimori to her stoic and uncaring nature towards her new classmates. Later on however, the anime goes into slice of life filler territory before bringing the plot back up with Misaki as the emphasis. What LA thought about the quick change in plot will be a bit later...
However where LA thinks Battle Girl High School exceeds or at very the least tries is in the character department. With 19 characters including Misaki int this mix, you'd think that this would be impossible and yes it is, however Battle Girl High School at the very least tries to give these characters stable personalities with some characters getting more of the limelight than the others. From Nozomi Amano voiced by Nao Touyama being the fashionista of the class, Yuri Himukai voiced by Sumire Uesaka being a stickler for justice and her being the head of the student morals committee to Kokomi Asahina voiced by Hitomi Harada being the shrinking violet. But probably the characters who have the most screentime and bit more development to their personalities were Renge Serizawa voiced by Yoshino Nanjo being the perverse yuri fan and this comes up during one of the slice of life filler episodes, Sadone voiced by Aoi Yuuki who has an inferiority complex and thinks she's useless due to Misaki and the idol duo of Kanon Kougami voiced by Kaede Hondo and Shiho Kunieda voiced by Shino Shimoji having their own episode with a concert. But the major character who pretty much gets character development in this anime would easily go to Misaki the mysterious transfer student. Why?...because her personality changes while she's with the Hoshimori class from the being the stoic loner to caring about her classmates by the end of it and it's hinted multiple times in the anime that something is up with her which actually ties into the final arc of the anime, if anything LA thinks that MISAKI is the main character of this anime not Miki Hoshitsuki voiced by Aya Suzaki who's supposedly the default leader of the class. Besides Misaki being LA's favourite character due to plot and being the most developed member of Hoshimori, in terms of the Hoshimori students in general, LA playing the game LA actually liked Renge at first but the anime changed that by giving that title to Nozomi Amano voiced by Nao Touyama because Nao Touyama shut up and Urara Hasumi voiced by Maaya Uchida because of her ecstatic nature and love of idols in the anime.
So what did LA actually think about the quick change of pace the anime had taken from being a rather playful yet serious early episodes to being outright slice of life filler episodes?...well yeah they were slice of life filler episodes mainly comprising of concerts, Freaky Friday flips and summer holiday episodes but where LA still sees merit in these episodes are trying to bring out the personalities of the 18 students of Hoshimori while subtly giving hints to Misaki at the same time with the occasional Irous fights inbetween. It definitely gets better once Misaki gets into focus and the final arc that tackles the "final boss" of this anime and brings Misaki's development full circle.
In terms of animation done by Silver Link is ok at best, the animation dips at times this includes the fighting but LA can see at the very least they tried to animate it competently. Character designs are ok as well though it falls under the "same face" syndrome though to be fair the mobile game had this to. The only characters LA only remembered after finishing this anime were Renge, Urara, Misaki and Miki if that is anything to go by. The animation does dip into derpy territory at times and it does seep into the fight scenes as well but nonetheless the animation done by Silver Link is ok at best but nothing to rage or praise.
In terms of voice acting, the voice cast is decent and LA didn't really have any annoyances besides Kokomi Asahina's voice actor Hitomi Harada (but that's just LA as LA just doesn't like shy extremely soft toned characters), but Misaki's voice actor Rie Takahashi probably got top billing for LA, right next to Renge's voice actor Yoshino Nanjo for her perverse vocals and Urara's voice actor Maaya Uchida for nearly sounding like Ranko Kanzaki, also LA knows this isn't credited but LA is soo sure that the major villain of this anime is voiced by Shizuka Ito, if so she really hams up her regal villain vocals for this role!.
So uhh remember the start of this review?...*ahem* "Well...at least it's better than Schoolgirl Strikers...barely." Yeah LA believes Battle Girl High School is marginally better than Schoolgirl Strikers and LA just wants to talk about how at the very least Battle Girl High School tries where Schoolgirl Strikers didn't. For one, characters in Battle Girl High School are developed better to the point of LA "remembering" some of these characters, not all, but some. In Schoolgirl Strikers, LA couldn't remember ANY of the characters in the anime not even the MAIN GROUP of characters. Where LA thinks why LA remembers some of the characters in Battle Girl High School more than Schoolgirl Strikers is that Battle Girl High School during it's slice of life filler episodes actually emphasized the personality of some of the characters and put them in "zany or weird situations", where in Schoolgirl Strikers the characters personalities is put in the background and the "zany or weird situations" in the foreground making their characters even more of a blank slate. Second is that Battle Girl High School's character roster is slightly smaller than Schoolgirl Strikers 20+ characters and even though LA said that Battle Girl High School suffers from "same face syndrome" at the very least the characters have enough diversity in their designs for LA to know that they are different characters, due to how Schoolgirl Strikers characters have soo many characters they blend in together at times (and some of the many characters also have similar personalities making differentiating them even more difficult). Third is that Battle Girl High School at the very least have the sense of urgency in their monster fights in order to protect their school as well as their comrades when they get in trouble by the Irous and brings emphasis to "invading monsters" where LA sees Schoolgirl Strikers urgency in defeating their monsters as something like have a 1 minute battle with monsters then let's have tea for the rest of the episode and even at that LA thought they gave up in the urgency of defeating monsters not even by the halfway point of their anime. Finally is that Battle Girl High School brings in a subtle mysterious plotline in the form of Misaki throughout the entire anime and her being the focus by the final arc was put in great emphasis developing her character in the process...something similar is done with Schoolgirl Strikers with Tsubame Miyama however her mysteriousness isn't brought up until the final 2 episodes of their anime and it's just as rushed and hardly develops her due to how quickly and rushed they put her in. Battle Girl High School still however makes some of the same mistakes Schoolgirl Strikers did (bulk of the anime being filler, the majority of cute girls not emphasized enough and the finale) but at the very least Battle Girl High School tried to do better than fluff around unlike Schoolgirl Strikers.
The final arc of Battle Girl High School brings in all the subtle hints to Misaki shown throughout the anime to conclude Misaki's development as a character and although the final battle of this anime pretty much results in "friendship power for the win", LA can actually gets behind this one sure it's an eleventh hour out of nowhere powerup but it does wring in the entire friendship scthick Miki had throughout the anime and again emphasized Misaki's growth as a character opening up to her friends to defeat the villain of the series.
Battle Girl High School isn't by any means a great or even good anime adaptation of a mobile game, LA likes Ange Vierge more for trying something different whereas Schoolgirl Strikers to LA didn't even try. However Battle Girl High School "tries" at the very least, it has similar trappings to the now tired mobile game anime adaptations with cute girls formula but if anything it tries especially with it's characters with Misaki essentially saving the anime BARELY.
Will LA ever go back to playing Battle Girl High School?, no, but even then this adaptation is still acceptable for LA to barely like it because it tried to make the entire mobile game anime adaptations with cute girls give a more sincere enhancement to it's genre with this kind of adaptation.
