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Nov 26, 2025
This show is an isekai power fantasy that starts off somewhat interesting and quickly devolves into an uninspired checklist for all the annoying tropes that fall under the isekai/power fantasy/harem umbrella.
The real kicker is that the first few episodes are actually kind of interesting; the power system has potential, the main character isn't the strongest by default, it seems like the story could go in an interesting direction, and the rapid-fire vignette storytelling format seems like it might be done well. Unfortunately, those first few episodes are just a device for lulling you into watching the most uninspired harem garbage
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you've ever seen.
The show doesn't waste much time in transitioning to the new format--the main character goes from "strong but needs to work for victory" to "literally unbeatable + leading a harem of pretty much every woman he encounters" in record time, and the storytelling format manages to get even choppier as you just jump between "aura" and harem fawning moments. The characters have about as much depth as a puddle, and we end up with a pure distillation of power fantasy wish fulfillment with rock-bottom appeal and a grating storytelling format.
To sum it all up: don't even give the first few episodes the chance to fool you into watching more. This show is not worth anyone's time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Nov 17, 2025
Lord of Mysteries is a thrilling, enigmatic Victorian occult isekai that nails the titular mystery, action, animation, worldbuilding, and an intriguingly interesting power system. The voices are also great at hitting that Victorian spirit in the dub.
The premise is that--while doing a ritual for good luck--a guy accidentally sends himself to a Victorian era world where the occult is real. It has a really interesting power system that the main character engages in as a sort of magic detective. Aside from the cults they need to track down and creatively deal with, one of the big complicating factors is that delving into the enigmatic magicks
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of the world oftentimes runs the risk of exposing one's mind to eldritch gods and cognitohazards.
This show is probably my favorite non-parody isekai, and it masterfully handles both its own gimmicks and the genre as a whole. Despite the main character catching on quickly, this show is not a power fantasy. Beyond the great execution of its premise, LoM (or LotM if you go by the name of the source material) does a great job of handling themes such as duty, belonging, ambition, and loss.
If you're in the mood for an isekai or a Victorian fantasy, I highly recommend this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Nov 4, 2025
This season has been a huge letdown. The great animation of previous seasons is nowhere to be seen, and so many corners have been cut that it has turned into a circle. Some highlights (lowlights?) include:
-PNG drag of Garou "sliding" down a hill in lieu of animating it.
-Random genderswap mid-fight for one of the characters, because the animators couldn't be arsed to spend 2 minutes reading the part or even looking at a character profile of what they were animating.
-Animation that feels like it has less frames than a manga.
-Copypasting design details where they don't make sense for fight moves (aka
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putting blue over everything Garou does, when it should only be blue for one of the techniques).
The story itself is still good, but the delivery device is utterly disappointing; it seems that Bandai was banking on OPM's popularity getting them views, allowing them to spend the bare minimum on making the product. OPM Season 3 is something that would be considered mid in an amateur animation class.
You'd honestly be better off just reading the manga, but you can still get the story (albeit with all the fidelity of a Cliffnotes summary) through watching this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Oct 20, 2025
TL;DR:
If you're here looking for an action-packed show that will dazzle you with its musical score, this show's not for you.
If you're open to a more emotionally complicated exploration of a character trying to follow his dreams while navigating a peculiar, twisted world in a life that's been turned upside down, then I think you'll enjoy this one.
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SI-VIS is a show that doesn't quite live up to the expectations written on the tin, but it still dives into a poignant, interesting story that--preliminarily, at least--is well worth watching if you can make it past the first episode.
If
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you go in expecting something akin to similarly-marketed "action musical" media like KPop Demon Hunters or Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song, I fear that you'll be disappointed. The first episode of SI-VIS is, to put it lightly, not an effective hook. Aside from like 2 seconds in the whole episode, the audio mixing leaves the music feeling like an afterthought, with the music muffled and significantly more quiet than literally anything else happening, even when the performance looks front-and-center on the screen. Suffice it to say, that's not ideal for a music anime. Moreover, the characters don't come off as anything special, and you spend a lot of time with them without getting to know much of anything about them. The animation's good, but not amazing; the fights won't wow you, but it's not going to detract from everything else.
But once you get to the subsequent episodes, however, it feels like a completely different story--a story about dreams, remembrance, and being true to yourself. The music still feels like an afterthought, but the story and themes come together nicely in a way that leaves me looking forward to more.
And that brings me to the "Mixed Feelings" rating for this preliminary review:
If you're here looking for an action-packed show that will dazzle you with its musical score, this show's not for you.
If you're open to a more emotionally complicated exploration of a character trying to follow his dreams while navigating a peculiar, twisted world in a life that's been turned upside down, then I think you'll enjoy this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Oct 10, 2025
As far as adaptations go, Season 2 of Solo Leveling does an ok job of translating the webtoon to the anime format. The realization of the big ticket fights via animation is great, but the anime does a poor job of adapting the LitRPG aspects of the story to the screen; additionally, it doesn't improve upon any of the original mediums' flaws (such as one-dimensional side characters who get power crept into irrelevancy before we've even seen them do anything). As a result, you end up with a generic power fantasy that quickly loses its steam at a slightly faster rate than the webtoon did;
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once the protagonist--who, by this point in the story, has all the personality and character development of wet cardboard--is the de facto strongest and never faces any more challenges at a fairly early point in the season, the stakes are shot and it becomes difficult to care about this as anything more than a "junk food" filler anime with great animation for some fights (keyword "some" because a number of them are either offscreened or full of jump cuts).
Rather than attempt to fix the flaws of the original as it is translated to a new medium, this anime unfortunately accentuates the webtoon/manwha's flaws. It still makes for a moderately fun watch, but don't go into it expecting much more than a few flashy visuals and a mediocre power fantasy.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Oct 7, 2025
To Be Hero X is a brilliantly-executed ensemble cast story with an interesting premise, stellar animation, and a great mix of stories that are heart-wrenching, hopeful, and convergent in a braided timeline told in an anthology format.
Where to begin? In the very first 5 minutes, TBHX throws us headfirst into the volatility of a world where heroes are not just given power by the populace's belief in them, but shaped by it. The show doesn't shy away from all the consequences and themes that this entails, and it does a marvelous job in exploring those themes and consequences. The narrative engages in a
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deft timeweave that expertly brings together the large cast of characters, epitomizes the raw power of a well done "show don't tell," and each arc does an excellent job of creating a compelling story that stands strong on its own while becoming even more fulfilling as part of the larger whole. This also leads to a lot of rewatch value, as what seemed like background fluff turns out to be intricately-placed details that further enrich the narrative.
But that's just the storytelling; arguably an even more stand-out quality of TBHX is the animation and music. TBHX blends 2D and 3D animation in a way that goes far beyond just flavor, and all the animation styles are wonderfully executed. It then goes a step beyond that with music and sound design, intertwining weighty sound effects and music with the narrative (each of the 10 focal heroes has their own song, and all are wonderfully done).
Basically, unless you're the type of person who is allergic to decentralized ensemble cast stories, this is a must-watch. If you don't want to commit to a full episode, I'd recommend checking out the ~4-5 minute concept movie that billibilli put out for the show.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Aug 17, 2025
This show starts off strong, with an interesting setting ripe for all manner of interesting themes and characters. Unfortunately, the content and execution struggle to live up to that potential, and I lost interest rather quickly. The pacing faces struggles with exposition dumps more jarring than hitting speed bumps on a highway, a whole lot more telling than showing, and the insertion of humor that breaks the flow while rarely eliciting a laugh. The action and animation are overall fine, but the CG stands out in a bad way.
I will emphasize that this show isn't necessarily bad in comparison
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to many others out there, but it feels rather average and aimed at a decidedly younger demographic than the previews, art, and first two episodes might imply--ie there comes to be way too much runtime dedicated to over the top toilet humor, a fair dosage of "baby's first lesson in empathy" exchanges that you would expect from something like Bluey, etc.
Suffice it to say, after 3 episodes I don't think I'm the target audience and there isn't enough else there to make me want to watch more.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 29, 2025
This anime has a lot of potentially interesting elements--great animated action/parkour sequences, an overarching apocalypse plot with spy thriller elements, good sound design, and potentially interesting character examinations--but it tries to do too much without giving individual elements the attention they deserve. The result is a show that just feels half-baked. The "impending apocalypse" plot feels like window dressing that never gets the attention it deserves until the finale (people are supposedly weeks to days from dropping dead en masse, yet we almost never feel any sense of urgency from the characters of the show, main or background), the action sequences feel both shoehorned in
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and detached from the plot, and very few of those aforementioned action sequences have real bearing on the story.
To some degree, the story seemed to be gunning for a "The real treasure was the friends we made along the way" ending, but the problem with that is that the characters' relationships never delved much deeper than the surface. We don't get time to ruminate on the cultural explorations, to marinate in the existential ponderings, or to get to know more than a few bullet points about the characters. Instead, we get a well-animated action sequence almost every episode, but the rest of the show comes across as a delivery device for these action sequences rather than the action sequences feeling like a natural consequence of the story. When new sources of action sequences are introduced (for example: the assassin plot), they don't feel like an integral element of the story, they feel like an impromptu excuse to write flashy fight scenes.
I was hoping for the finale to blow my socks off and change my mind, but it ended up being an ending that felt handwavey and undeserved; the answers to the show's mysteries didn't carry the weight of "Aha!" moment revelations, they came across as hastily-tied loose ends.
I think the real issue is that the tone, plot, and pacing aren't well-meshed. Cowboy Bebop works so well because the tone--one of laid back, adventurous whimsy--matches the episodic format of a free spirit space cowboy bouncing across the galaxy while doing different jobs and grappling with people from him and his crew's past. Trying to carry that same tone into a 13 episode spy-thriller-ish plot about an impending apocalypse is...well, it's certainly a choice.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Apr 12, 2025
Moonrise is a show that knocks the animation out of the park, but it immensely struggles with everything else.
First off, the good:
From an in medias res opening to reel you in, to the somewhat poetic ending, the animation--as per the usual Wit standard--never fails to be fast-paced, smooth, and stellar. The fight scenes are brought to life with vibrant visuals and interesting, dynamic powers. The cast of named and unique characters carries a lot of potential with cool designs, standout personalities, and interesting abilities.
Unfortunately, that's about the extent of the good.
The biggest problem with this anime is
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the pacing. You'll find yourself jumping back and forth in time from one episode to the next, but it's not the deft timeweave you might see in something like Westworld or Your Name. To illustrate it with a (vague enough to be spoiler free) microcosm that epitomizes Moonrise's problem: early on, a moment occurs to establish the story's stakes, but we (1) only get to know the character in question after the moment has occurred, and (2) never get any more stakes-anchoring moments for the remaining 14ish episodes. In another case, a mystery is unveiled before the suspense has had time to germinate, then we're left with no real mysteries for the rest of the show. The pacing starts to actually improve towards the middle of the show, with us finally getting to know the characters we keep seeing, but as you reach the final stretch it becomes a choppy mess of rushed plot points amid timeskips once again. Instances like these don't just make the supposedly-pivotal moments feel flat and underdeveloped, they deflate the tension while also establishing an early standard that the show consistently fails to meet.
The story also spends far too much time devolving into a so-called "idiot plot" before trying to--in the final stretch of the last episode--speedrun character development, being sequel-bait, being a tragedy, and delivering a happy ending...all within a fraction of the time that it deserves. Most of these rushed elements undermine the others, causing none of them to land as intended. You can clearly tell that the show is trying to set up powerful emotional payoffs, but, because of the aforementioned issues, they all end up falling flat. The runtime is, unfortunately, sorely misallocated for the themes that Moonrise tries to achieve.
If you're looking for a turn-your-brain-off action flick with crisp animation and brilliant visuals, you'll love Moonrise. If you come expecting anything beyond that, you'll find a high-potential show that leaves you disappointed in its mediocrity.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 23, 2025
By weaving charming characters together in situations that naturally elicit comedy, this anime positions itself as one of my favorite comedy anime thus far--and it does so while largely avoiding the more uncomfortable anime tropes that many comedies rely on (or rely on satirizing).
If you want a show that can simultaneously leave you roaring with laughter while filling the empty void in your soul with unquenchably cute wholesomeness every episode, this is a must-watch; it blends the spy/action thriller genre with slice-of-life family shenanigans in a way that works shockingly well. This anime is one that I won't hesitate to recommend
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to all anime watchers, whether one is new to the medium or a seasoned veteran, a jaded degenerate or a bright-eyed innocent.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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