I'm back... maybe?

It's been a while since I posted here hasn't it.  Recently I've been thinking of giving this another shot, who knows why, so I guess I thought I should make this post.  I don't know what I'm going to be doing on here now, probably not anything like episodic reviews, just going to keep doing those on my youtube.  I might post the scripts of my full series reviews though.  The posts on here will probably just be somewhat random anime and manga related writing.  Maybe some rants?  We'll just have to see.  So I guess I'll see you next time?

Aoharu x Machinegun episode 12 review

What they say:

The story follows high school student Hotaru Tachibana, a girl disguised as a boy. Through strange circumstances she finds herself drawn into the world of survival games by a host, Masamune Matsuoka. The two form a team with ero-manga artist Tohru Yukimura and aim to be the best in Japan

The Review:

Many a show end in a way that you don’t realize they ended. I didn’t realize there was not another episode of this show until a couple of days after watching it. Aoharu x Machine gun is not a bad show, and this was not a bad episode, but when shows like this end like this, it leaves much to be desired. This episode continues from where the last ended, with Hotaru issuing a challenge to Matsuoka. If Hotaru win’s she wants Matsuoka to say something. The bulk of this episode was revolved around the battles between Hotaru and Matsuoka. As the two face of at the survival games arena, with Hotaru failing horribly, we see some of Matsuoka’s struggles. Most of his development in this episode is based on a quote. He says there are two types of people in this world, “those who let go, and those who are let go of.” We see how Matsuoka has been let go of multiple times, by his old teammates, and his mother, who left him when he was young. All of this is nice depth to his character, but it feels a little rushed to put it all at the end of this show. Matsuoka’s character has always been one of the weaker points of this show, and it really struggles with not giving all the details. We know he was betrayed by Midori, which caused him to start on the path that he’s on, but never really find out what happened.

At the end of the day Hotaru gives a speech about how she won’t give up the title of Toy Gun Gun’s third member to anybody else, and acts very differently then normal. They have a final final showdown which ends in Hotaru running towards Matsuoka. This is paired with some sweet music and a shot of people from his past leaving Matsuoka and Hotaru running happily towards him. It’s one of the best done scenes of the show. Matsuoka starts crying and Hotaru hugs him. Hotaru “wins” and they stop playing. She tells him to say the thing she wanted to say. That thing is what he told her when they first met. With that, Hotaru rejoins Toy Gun Gun and at the end of the day it’s shown that Matsuoka is developing feelings for Hotaru, which confuses him. The whole team is now back together, ready to defeat Hoshishiro. We see them the next day, Hotaru says to herself that she’ll tell them today. We see the three of them smiling. And then the show is over. You can’t help but feel disappointed. I’m fine with ending it with a rematch between Hotaru and Matsuoka, but I’d much rather have an ending where the reunited team faces Hoshishiro again. There’s so much more to be desired from this ending. We’ve been building up for most of the series that Hotaru would reveal to the others that she’s a girl, and that never happened. Some shows that end like this get second seasons that kind of make up for there sloppy endings. Hopefully this one can as well.

Summary:

Aoharu x Machinegun is a decent show that has a poor ending. This episode was entertaining and was one of the more interesting ones but is hurt by having to be a finale. If you were a big Hotaru x Matsuoka shipper, you might enjoy this episode more then most, but for the most part it doesn’t do much in any sort of conclusion. I hope this show gets a second season.

Grade: B-

Anime Review | Assassination Classroom

When an currently ongoing shonen manga gets an anime adaption you have to worry, will this anime end? Will it end well? This is a thought I had when I watched Assassination Classroom. This was a worry I had especially as a fan of the source material. Luckily this show did not have some of the problems some similar shows have.

Plot: Assassination Classroom is a coming of age story. The plot revolves around Class E at Kunugigaoka junior high, a class of failures who society has given up on. They are a group of kids with no self confidence. This all changes when 70% of the moon disappears, and a tentacle monster comes to their classroom, claiming to be the one that destroyed the moon, at they have been assigned by the government to kill him. He is also there new teacher, Korosensei. After this the plot is mostly formulaic, with most episodes focusing on an assassination, or test, until the series reaches its final arc. Each different assassination allows one of the student assassins to get the spotlight for the episode. One complaint I would have about how the manga was adapted into anime form is the pacing, specifically in the middle part of the show. I would split the plot into three parts, the first eight episodes, mostly served as an introduction to the story. Episodes 9 through 16, which are made out of different character/test focused arcs, and episodes 17 through 22, which is the Island Vacation arc. In the middle part of the series, they had to adapt many arcs into single episodes. Some fit quite well, Like the transfer student introduction arcs. But some went much to fast for me, specifically the Takaoka arc, which crammed 5 chapters of story into 20 minutes. The way the show ended with the island arc was quite nice, it was a good stopping point. This was made even better by the fact that a second season was already confirmed.

Characters: Assassination Classroom has a lot of characters, a whole class full at that. Shows with large casts usually suffer from one dimensional characters. Assassination Classroom is somewhat hit or miss with this. Its main characters get most of the development, leaving the others with some sort of trait, and maybe some back story. But even if some of them are quite one dimensional, they are still quite enjoyable. The main character of Assassination Classroom is somewhat up to debate. Some might say it is Nagisa, but some might say it is Korosensei. Personally I think Nagisa is the main characters, as it is mostly through his eyes that we see the show. The main supporting cast consists of Karma, the delinquent. Karasuma sensei, a government agent working as their gym teacher, and Bitch sensei, a professional Assassin, who works as their English teacher. Then there is the rest of the supporting cast, I can’t name them all, but I’ll try to mention the ones that are of note. There is Kayano, Nagisa’s friend. Okuda, who is good at science. Okajima, the pervert. Sugino, the baseball player. Nakamura, who teases Nagisa when Karma isn’t around. Terasaka, the bully. Fuwa, who loves shonen manga, and Chiba and Hayami, the snipers.

Animation and Sound: The animation for Assassination Classroom is done by studio Lerche, and they do quite a good job. The art style is very colorful, which fits the style very well, the colors are somewhat dull at times, but they characters are very smooth compared to the manga, where the art could be quite rough at the beginning. The voice acting was ok, with a couple of stand out performances. Jun Fukuyama does a great Korosensei, Mai Fuchigami is good at Nagisa, Nobuhiko Okamoto does a great job as Karma and Saki Fujita is quite a fit for Ritsu. I have only seen a couple of episodes of the Dub, so I can’t really judge it, but from what I heard, Sonny Strait was a fantastic Korosensei. The music in the background was unmemorable, although I have only ever found a couple shows music memorable, the ones that come to mind are Hunter x Hunter and Gatchaman Crowds. The openings and ending are a different story though. The second opening is really quite a catchy song, and the ending is quite beautiful as well.

Conclusion: Assassination Classroom was a series that a really enjoyed watching, it had a good mix of comedy and action that not many shows can pull off. I can only complain that they skipped a couple arcs from the manga. Watching the characters grow over the series is something that is quite enjoyable, even if you have to wait to see some of the fruits of the growth until the next season comes out. After everything I have said, I give Assassination Classroom a definite recommendation, and a 7.5 out of 10. You can find Assassination Classroom on Funimation.com. 

Video Version of this review

Welcome to My Blog!

Hello anybody reading this, I am TheHoennHippo.  I am starting this blog as something of a companion to my Youtube channel, where I post anime and manga reviews.  I decided to make this blog because I have recently started making more scripts.  I plan to post links to all my reviews that I post on my channel on to this blog, so it can be used as an archive.  I have recently started to do some written reviews on my channel as well, which I had wanted to do for a long time.  I have at least 5 or so unreleased reviews that I just gave up on.  When I post one of those, I will post the script on here, for people who would rather read then watch.  From now on scripts will probably be posted before the actual video, as the script might be done days before the video.  There may also be scripts that never become a video review.  Aside from reviews, I will do other anime and manga related writing in the future.  One thing I will definitely do are some more opinion pieces and top lists, mostly about Shonen Jump anime and manga, like Hunter x Hunter and Bleach.  I already have ideas for some things to say.  Things like discussion, rant or theory posts could happen.  Mostly I just want a place to use writing to say what a usually use speaking for.  I hope you follow this blog.