As we know, theme and amusement parks can give you the time of your life. But what if the enjoyment you have actually saves another person’s life? Thus is the idea behind “Amagi Brilliant Park”.

Seiya Kanie is a good looking, perfectionist boy (that guy dead center) who is forced by the mysterious Isuzu Sento (the red coat to his left) to visit an amusement park named Amagi Brilliant Park, which is in serious difficulties and about to be closed forever. Forced is right. Seldom do you start a romantic comedy anime with having a blunderbuss shoved in your face and ‘asked’ to come along on a date. Are things really that tough in schools in getting a guy?

The park is actually staffed by refugees from a magical realm called Maple Land, and the park is a facility for harvesting magical energy from visitors while they’re having fun. As such, the park is the only way the refugees can maintain their existence in the human realm. Yup, those characters that look like they are in costumes are not costumes, but real magical creatures. Even the Elementarios (those fairies to the left and back three rows) are, well, real fairies as we imagine them to be.

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OK, I KNEW this was a horror series, but I was drawn to “Tokyo Ghoul”, as you get tired of the vampire – werewolf – zombie nexus and I wanted to try something new, although they do play fast and loose with the mythology (which begs the question: can a myth be factually incorrect?) So, let’s set the history of ghouls. A true ghoul eats the corpses of the human dead, thus hanging around graveyards and the like. They might be akin to a politician. However, some ghouls are not beyond helping people become dead, so they can dine. Talk about a moveable feast!

So, we are in Tokyo (which helps for a show named “Tokyo Ghoul”). Let us meet Ken Kaneki, that young male youth up there. Things are going well for him: he’s in college, he’s found a rockin’ place to hang out and he meets this fabulous girl, Rize Kamishiro, that far-right woman. Now, not only is she out of Kaneki’s league, it isn’t even the same sport, but he is intrigued, as she wants him over for dinner. Yup, she’s a ghoul and has her eyes (and teeth) set on Kaneki. As she is busily killing him at a construction site, a hoist of I-beams snaps free from its hook and comes crashing down upon them.

A doctor just happened to be travelling by, comes across these two really messed-up people and thinks “We have the technology. We can rebuild him.” Taken to the hospital in critical condition, he transplants from Rize those important organs that weren’t crushed under several tons of steel into Kaneki. He lives! The operation was a success. No, it wasn’t. After recovering, Kaneki discovers that the operation transformed him into a half-ghoul, and just like them, he must consume human flesh to survive. (more…)

This is another show that started off with a good idea and then did nothing with it. It suffered from the first problem, in what is the name of the crfapping show? The search has it come up as “When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace” (“Inō-Batoru wa Nichijō-kei no Naka de”), but it is also known in Japan as “Inou Battle Within Everyday Life” and “Inou-Battle in the Usually Daze.”

We are in Senkō High School’s Literature Club, who is reading “Hunger Game” or “Divergent” or “Fifty Shades of Gray”. The story focuses on its five members (from right to left) who are: Tomoyo Kanzaki, Hatoko Kushikawa, Jurai Andō, Chifuyu Himeki and Sayumi Takanashi. They have all developed superpowers from a strange and bizarre incident. These superpowers (such as they are) have now become a part of their everyday lives, as they battle against others wielding similar powers.

The sixth person, Mirei Kudō, is not part of the club, but the Student Council president, who also has obtained these powers. It’s just that the powers seem a bit limited. Slow down time or manipulate the basic elements or create matter or space. Then, once they figure out how to use these powers, they…………do nothing with them. They have a hard time understanding these powers anyway, but what do you do with them? There was an old “Saturday Night Live” sketch, “The Interesting Four”, superheroes with marginal powers, like Weather Woman, who can raise or lower the temperature in a room by 17 degrees. These folks are kind of like that. (more…)

Now, when “Chaika – The Coffin Princess” came to its conclusion, I knew a second season was in the offing, as the main plot wasn’t resolved. Well, the second season “Chaika – The Coffin Princess; Avenging Battle” does just that, but this is the third series I have encountered this year with a 10-episode second season. Oh, and a revelation uncovered from the first season is completely buried under for this run.

Well, our heroes (left to right) Toru Acura, Chaika Trabant and Akari Acura are still hunting for the remains of the Emperor Gaz, who ruled the land with an iron cudgel and people were glad he was turned into shish kabobs, as he was really, really evil, worse than an IRS auditor. Adding to their consternation, Red Chaika is ALSO hunting for body parts as well and can seemingly get to them faster than White Chaika is able to. Their goals are still the same: a decent burial for Daddy-san.

Plus, we still have the Kliemann Agency, the government-sponsored group, also in active pursuit of them, with the intent to capture and stop this foolishness. Remember, the body parts still carry strong and dangerous magical powers and if we bring them all together, it’s Armageddon, or at least Fresno in the fall. A new sojourn, added to the rather capacious list of Things To Do, is to find Gaz’s Fortune, which is on a mysterious island that no one knows about, as it is hidden and mysterious (although we can find it; it’s just takes two episodes to do that). The show heads to a conclusion that I had not predicted, as we were all unaware of the Black Chaika (and we learn the full history about that as well). (more…)

This is another of those ‘move-in’ animes, but done with a lot more interest and characters. “Invaders of the Rokujyōma!?” (“Rokujōma no Shinryakusha!?”, “Invaders of the Six-Tatami Mat Room!?”) starts off with Kōtarō Satomi (can you find the studly stud?). He decided that he wanted to live on his own when he began high school, and chose Room 106 of Corona House because it was cheap. (Dude, beware of room rents that are way too low. He’s paying 5000 yen a month! Look what happened!) Unfortunately, Kōtarō soon discovers that numerous otherworldly and supernatural girls also want his room for various reasons of their own. Well, he isn’t going to give it up ($50 a month? You can’t even get a storage shed for that!), and the ladies equally aren’t about to back down. As a result, Kōtarō and the girls find themselves forced to live together as they try to settle just who ends up with the room.

Let us meet all of the players, eh? From left to right:

Theiamillis Gre Fortorthe. Called Theia or Tulip, she is an intergalactic alien princess from planet Fortorthe. She must capture the room and subdue Kōtarō to prove her worthiness as a successor to the throne.
Shizuka Kasagi. She is the landlady of Corona house and had all the participants sign a contract regarding the room competition.
Yurika Nijino. She is a genuine magical girl, but a bit clumsy. The room contains high levels of magical power that she needs.
Kotaro. (more…)

Art is funny, in that you look at something and have absolutely no idea what it means or is supposed to say. Sure, it may look cute or beautiful or intriguing, but, eventually, it does nothing for you and you walk away from the whole thing. “Glasslip” is an anime like that for me. It purported to be something else, but dissolved into a rather convoluted mess and I gave up on the story.

Let us go back to the beginning, as you start at the start. Although, for this show, you could start at the end and it would make the same caliber of sense.

Tōko Fukami‘s family runs a glass-working business in a small seaside town named Hinodehama (that’s in the Fukui Prefecture, if you are keeping notes). She (that’s her in the seven o’clock position) hangs out with her four best friends:

Yukinari Imi (one o’clock)
Yanagi Takayama (two o’clock)
Sachi Nagamiya (five o’clock)
Hiro Shirosaki (six o’clock) (more…)

“Jinsei” (“Human”, although the subtitle is “La Bonne Vie” and why it is in French, you’ve got me) is initially closer aligned with “Medaka Box”, but without a lot of the over-the-top histrionics that did undercut that show.

Congratulations, you are back in school! You are enrolled in the Journalism Club, and, as a reward, have been tapped to take care of the Life Counseling section. Here, you will put out a suggestion box, where the students give you their problems and hope that you can come up with a solution. Leading the section is Yūki Akamatsu (the guy up there). Initially, you do not wish to take on the task, as you are a bit of a social misfit and do not think you can give good advice. Not to worry, as we have three other girls (and eventually a fourth) that will help you in your Newspaper Quest. They are (left to right):

Ikumi Suzuki. She comes from the sports club and is bursting with energy.
Yuki
Rino Endō. Representing the science club, she has more of a nuts-and-bolts approach to things.
Fumi Kujō. Literature club. She has a good mind but overthinks things.
Not pictured is Emi Murakami, who will come from the arts club. (more…)

This is an entry in the ever-increasing popularity of the school-magic show. You have seen it with “The Familiar of Zero”, “Blade Dance”, Magic Craft Works” and “A Certain Magical Index”. So, what makes “The Irregular at Magic High School” that different? Well in one aspect, it isn’t that different, as we cannot decide on the title (Mahōka Kōkō no Rettōsei, “The Poor Performing Student of a Magic High School”), but ‘poor’ is a very poor choice of words, but this is revealed during the run of the show. Also, rather than being a magic show with a school setting, it is a school show with a magic background.

It is the future (almost the end of this century). Magic is an established fact, has been for about 100 years and many countries train those with magical ability to, eventually, become soldiers to defend the country. In Japan, there are nine Magic High Schools. I do not know if the numbers mean anything, but we focus on First High School. Ah, but we use magic differently, in that we don’t going around, proclaiming “Accio!” or “Deletrius” or “Hakuna Matata!” Rather than casting spells with chants or other traditional forms of spell casting, mages use a Casting Assistant Device, better known as a CAD. The bad thing is the device looks like an iPhone6. (more…)

My initial concern about “D-Fragments” (or ‘D-Frag!”) is that it was another of those hostage shows, in the fact that the main character is bullyragged into joining a club that he’d rather not join. The story focuses on a pseudo-connected series of sketches as delinquent student Kenji Kazama (hot and sweaty up there) is forced into joining his school’s struggling “Game Creation Club” by its members, a quartet of crazy women with their own eccentricities that drive him crazy. As he attempts to distance himself from the club, the more he seems to run into not only his fellow club members, but others from his school who drive him insane to different degrees.

As you can see, he makes Member Number 5 and thus the club is saved from extinction, especially since it is a spite club, but more on that later. The members are (this time, right to left from Kazama):

Takao, she is the source for all of the boob jokes and the president of the real Game Creation Club
Sakura Mizukami, called’ Water’ as her answer to all problems is to pour water on it
Roka Shibasaki, president of the club, she is ‘darkness’ as she puts a bag over people’s heads
Chitose Karasuyama, student council president, she is ‘earth’ as she throws dirt at them
Minami Ōsawa, the teacher adviser, the room is a place for her to sleep

The actual fifth member of the club, Hachi Shiō, is more of a lurker. (more…)

There is a classic trope in Hollywood pictures, where some rube from the country comes to the Big City to make it big, only to get fleeced and greased. That is the initial concept behind “Akami ga Kill!” (“Akami Slashes!”).

In this land, Tatsumi leaves his poverty-stricken village, with his two friends, in order to join the army in the Capitol, makes lots of money and help save the village. Along the way, he is separated from his companions and gets to the Capitol all alone….where he is promptly swindled out of all his money. Destitute, a rich family takes him in for the night, to help him get back on his feet. However, this house is attacked by members of the assassination group Night Raid, who proceed to kill most of the people.

In trying to defend them, Tatsumi realizes that his hosts not only take in lost souls from the streets, but torture them to death, including his two friends, whom he frees, but cannot rescue. Angered, Tatsumi kills his hosts and joins Night Raid to dispense some harsh justice. (more…)