Anime Review Roundup

The pile of unwatched anime just keeps getting higher and higher, even though I’m systematically working my way through them. I actually bought Megalobox over eighteen months ago. It’s only now that I’m getting around to watch it. One day, I’ll start reviewing a ‘new’ show and find that it’s out of print! You can still buy this Megalobox Collector’s Edition though, the 50th anniversary ‘reimagining’ of Ashita no Joe, the classic boxing anime. This one is set in a future world where boxers have cybernetic enhancements, but there’s something quaintly old school about Megalobox. Click on the review to read more.

Next it was the turn of Kamisama Kiss Season 2, which I had double-dipped from DVD to Blu-ray. It’s a reverse harem rom-com with a supernatural and spiritual edge. A schoolgirl gets a position as a goddess in a shrine, and winds up having to deal with all manner of other gods and goddesses, as well as overbearing familiars, and all manner of mysterious beings, not least a rather handsome, if obnoxious fox spirit. Season 1 got its balance between romance and magic just right, but enjoyably though it is, Season 2 can’t quite replicate the same flavour.

Space, the funniest frontier... Stepping away from anime for a bit, I cast my gaze over Star Trek Lower Decks Season 2. The first season proved that Star Trek could be funny and stay true to its core premise at the same time. Season 2 comes and perfects that formula, with 10 episodes that finds the funny side in some tried and trusted Trek tropes, while telling great stories with wonderful characters.

Every anime these days seems to be “lost in a fantasy world” isekai, but there is a whole lot of variety still possible in that genre niche. A few years ago, the anime production line was a lot more restricted. Like Ford’s Model T, you could have any colour as long as it was black. There would be a girl’s school or academy, where the students would train up in some fantasy combat style, magical or technological in nature. And into this school would enter the one male on the planet that could fight in that style. One boy in a girl’s boarding school would quickly gather a harem of all of the usual character clichés, and much combat and saucy antics would ensue. All of these shows were based on light novel series, and all of them pretty much blended into an average morass. Blade Dance of the Elementalers is just another one of them, entertaining enough to be watchable, but forgotten as soon as the end credits rolled.