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Jan 21, 2026
Skip the first episode, seriously. I had actually dropped this anime partway through episode 1, and only came back after reading a review telling me to skip it.
Turns out I was missing out on what might be the best rags-to-riches arc in anime. The direction, storytelling, tone, dialogue, and character development is flawless in the first portion of the season. Episodes 2-14 are genuinely 10/10. The elevator scene was particularly memorable.
But after this arc is completed, there is a considerable drop in the quality of direction and animation. There wasn't as much suspense as the story unraveled and the world fell apart. The
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plot becomes a bit linear and unbelievable; less focus is given to the characters that made the first portion of the anime so good. Instead, the show steers more into action, and they toss in a pretty annoying character, Mika, who doesn't provide much.
The ending is solid though.
Overall, solid 8. Could have been a 9 if Mika's character was improved, and a 10 if the direction stayed consistent.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 17, 2026
Brutal; both in terms of the gore and the drop in quality barely a third of the way through the season.
As every other review has pointed out, the beginning is decent; the situation is unique, the characters seem engaging, and the art is pretty good too. Unfortunately it completely loses the sauce around the 4th episode. What could have been an interesting commentary on privatized prisons, corruption, and apathy turned into... a short-lived superpower tournament arc?... and then a rushed and poorly written resistance plot?
The tournament arc was genuinely offensive how bad it was; it sidelined the plot without making up for it with
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good action or character building. This is around where Ganta develops into a tremendously awful and annoying character with zero redeeming qualities except persistence... which makes him more laughably unbearable to have on-screen for more than 10 seconds. Speaking of, the forced romance between him and Hummingbird was hard to watch. With all the gore and explicit content in this show... why is the MC written to be so incredibly immature?
Moving on to the resistance arc... actually I don't even want to get into that mess; the direction here is awful, even worse than the tournament arc. The scenes are so disjointed; nothing here works as a believable story. Moreover, the cast quadruples in size, backstories are hashed together - which serve more as obvious death flags - before they are immediately eliminated without any emotional connection being formed.
The only thing keeping me watching was Shino and the head of security lady, what a diva.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Jan 10, 2026
I am having trouble approaching this review; this is certainly one of the most unique anime out there in terms of its art, direction, and dialogue. So do yourself a favor and watch the show, you can tell some passion went into the project. One thing, just don't binge it; the 50 minute episodes are dialogue heavy and can feel long at times; critics seem to have been off-put by this. I mean this show aired monthly originally. Aside: I love the narrator announcing the closure of each episode, very nostalgic.
My attempt to write my thoughts out:
The plot is super linear which evokes a sort
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of fairytale like progression which seemingly existed solely to carry the characters along their path of development. Ultimately, this show is charater-driven, their progression and their dialogues are the real story. On that note, the main duo might be my favorite "couple" in anime. Their banter is genuinely entertaining and funny, especially towards the end as their personalities develop.
Katanagatari commits the storytelling crime of tell-don't-show... but makes it work; it may be the historical-fantasy setting that makes the storytelling style feel more like a recounting of a legend. It was odd at first, but when it clicked you would realize that the long and drawn-out dialogue is absolutely central to the style and character-focus of the anime. It is reminiscent of monogatari.
Although I must concede, a few of the character arcs were less interesting, namely the sister and the Maniwa; they also had pretty goofy character designs.
Also, though intentional, the "don't-show" would sometimes go too far, as in with the Sabi fight which was hyped and then skipped; I only learned afterwards that this was intended as joke by the author. Still... damn. This "don't-show" sometimes came across as low-effort, but alas my perception of good animation is warped as of the last few years.
Eventually though, the animation in Katanagatri grows on you, and it sets in that a lot of effort is put into regular interactions instead of the fights, especially the main duo which "humanizes" them. Togemi had an awesome character design.
Man and the ending had some kick too; I was wavering between a 7 or 8 until the last 2 episodes. This gets a solid 9 for bringing out those sort of emotions from me. This is a special anime
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 3, 2026
This anime was unintentionally funny to me, almost satirical, which is not a good sign given this was not intended.
There are a few things this show does well. One was the main love interests; I was invested - they must have done an okay job here. I also found the mother-son relationship touching. Overall, the show had a good number of sweet moments, unfortunately they are often immediately ruined by some hilariously unrealistic and overdramatic interaction.
First of all, that height difference would put him on a watchlist. Second, the art-style and direction is painfully bland; most of the budget seems to have been
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spent animating hair in the wind; actually, the funniest gag in this show was the wind picking up whenever something moderately intimate is said; it started to crack me up around the 10th time. Another funny gag was the never-ending apologies and unnecessary formalities; is took up about 20% of the show; silver-haired girl needs to get a grip (but also I empathize). Another hilarious moment was when that short friend beat-up 8 guys off-camera... Also what is up with those guys always trying to assault people; it felt like this was just intended to make MC look cool. Finally, my last gripe: sorry, but being nice is not an interesting personality trait, only a basic requirement; please stop apologizing/being modest and be funnier or something. The anime would often do this awesome trick where they animate the characters laughing/having fun but just play music over it; man I want to hear the banter! The dialogue lacks personality!
I have all this to say, yet I still enjoyed the show, albeit skipping through a few apology scenes. Initially I would have given this a 7, but after more thought it is more deserving of a 5; it is perfectly avera- ohh my god this got an 8.6 what in the world? Apparently this is the best romance anime??
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 30, 2025
This show is pretty slay. Not sure whether the plot or the characters are more absurd. Very entertaining overall.
The real MC is Jabami. Suzui is a pushover that seemingly exists only to demonstrate her craze and influence. The cast is so female dominated I can't help but interpret the gambling as some allegory to liberation. Also the show is pretty homosexuel if I'm ngl. Pretty taboo themes for anime. Its refreshing to see this in a medium which often feels dominated by neet male authors that don't seem to connect/understand much of society.
There are some faults though. In just 12 episodes it started to
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feel a bit repetitive. Maybe more focus on character development instead of constantly gambling would have been nice? And lowkey the MC guy didn't need to exist, he kinda just became an annoyance. The quality seemed to drop after episode 8 as well. Episode 9 was particularly poor; I really hate idol culture Im sorry; are fans really like that? Its possible they were making a point on pressures enforced on women/idols to keep up impressions - the gambling is their liberation? I may be looking too far into things but this is how I enjoy shows.
I would give it a 9 if it held on to the sauce from episodes 1-8. Overall the show is good, I will settle for a 7
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 27, 2025
I thought I was too old for shonen but I had lots of fun watching this.It is exactly what you would expect... but with a bit more polish and style. I also personally resonated with the premise of fixing, caring, and cherishing certain items (e.g., my kitchenware, bike, shoes, furniture).
The art and direction is very stylish, and the animation is top notch. For three, the characters are hella dripped out, the action is cool, and even the chill scenes are smoothly animated. Most notably, the visual storytelling is creative and impactful (e.g., Amo flashbacks, various hallucinations, more that I cant think of rn); the anime
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medium is being used well.
The characters are fun and engaging; you warm up to them throughout the season (with a few exceptions). This could have been a problem since the cast was so massive, but they did a great job fleshing out the more relevant characters while (moslty) avoiding too much exposition/lore dumping and a stagnant plot.
I also appreciated the MC more than I would have expected. Instead of going the Asta or Natsu route, he demonstrated a lot more emotional development and maturity, learning from his mistakes and superiors. Actually there were a few pretty good bits of advice dropped here and there that would have hit as a 14-y/o.
Now for the bad.
This is still a shonen, and it suffers from all the common tropes: the characters wear their emotions on their sleeves, lots of power of friendship moments, many long drawn out fight scenes with long interspersed monologues, obvious things are plainly stated, and lots of... shouting. The attempts at humor were often pretty bad too. There was also the "required" mini-arc of the MC having power dysfunction. Man I disliked this part of Aot.
While the animation was hard, there is a problem with power scaling. From the get-go, the characters are already moving like DBZ characters, generating massive explosions from their fists, and surviving hits that should vaporize them. This is cool, but it makes it hard to gauge strength. How is Mr. dreadhead still kicking lmao.
There were also a few weaker episodes around the early-mid point and towards the end. The monologues would get on my nerves, and some characters really should have died lol. My rating was constantly fluctuating between 4 and 9.
Ill give it an 7.5 and round it to an 8
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 25, 2025
As much as I wanted to like this show, I couldn't get over some glaring issues with the plot/storytelling and the characters. Ill start with the good though.
I liked the episodic storyline in the early parts of the season, that was a good way to introduce the main characters and the world. The world building was great and involved many competing parties and a cool magic system. Many episodes were genuinely touching; I think some characters were developed well enough to generate some emotional connection (i.e., old ugly guy, british guy, cat, police woman). They also were not scared of killing off important characters. The
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direction was great for some scenes; some shots were creative, and there were some pretty dope aura-farming moments.
Now for the bad.
Really, the story meandered and stumbled around for a number of episodes before finally flopping in the last two. There were a number of times where key information was glossed over, and things were left unexplained; there were many vague un-explicative references to the past and moments like "oh we didn't tell you so you wouldn't get involved". Now this would be a fine way to build mystery, however... the payoff sucks!!! Are we going to pretend like the nonsense science jargon from the scientist closes all the holes in the story? Everything ends well and the contractors and humans live in harmony?? Also the unarmed police woman affirming to the pandora boss that she has recorded proof against him after he had just killed his colleague, like bruh. This whole section was genuinely so lazy, but I guess the whole plot needs fixing at that point.
The majority of the show is our main guy Mr. Edge McCooldude taking orders without question from some invisible "syndicate" which is conveniently contacted through Mr. Plotdevice McOlduglyguy, and then jumping around and appearing at the most convenient time to tazer some baddie, then repeat. Sometimes this worked, but sometimes not; especially when the art style and characters were often bland.
Finally when we are introduced to the main antagonists another issue arises; they are bland too. Its as if they forgot that we actually need context and dialogue to understand the characters and their motives. I felt zero emotion towards February and her troupe (which are all picked off as effortlessly as they were introduced) despite how important they are supposed to be. Why did they make February the center of such a high-stake plot if she is such an aloof character? Also was it ever a question that McCooldude would side with them?
Also the detective duo? Why are they in the story? They weren't funny. Added to the list of shallow and pointless characters. Just remove them and use the newfound screen-time to tell the story better.
Anyways, it felt like a slog, but I definitely enjoyed parts of it. The quality seemed to vary greatly between episodes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Dec 14, 2025
I haven’t enjoyed an anime like this since watching Lain last year. This show is the whole package: artful, thoughtful, and gripping. This is what more anime should strive try to be; taking full advantage of the medium to create genuine art. It’s a shame we’ve accepted the modern anime trend of flat storytelling, formulaic plots, and painfully un-stylized visuals; I guess this is most profitable for studios.
That said, I’m not surprised by the mixed reviews. Some of the middle episodes are fairly out there and distract from the main plot. Also I can see how the lack of a “cool” self-insert MC to
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create emotional buy-in might also be an obstacle to enjoyment. But for me these are not issues; I was never bored watching this.
Instead, this anime doesn't shy away from abstraction and presents a cast of deeply flawed characters, each a slave to something (except Pino, I suppose). Re-l Mayer, in particular, stands out as the best-written female character in anime imo.
The storytelling is incredible. You’re often lulled into what feels like a confusing but stimulating acid trip, only for everything to fall into place by the end of the episode. I love that the world-building is done organically rather than dumped at the start. There’s a real thrill in being lost, in having to interpret meaning without it being spoon-fed. The quiet, silent moments are especially effective. This anime respects the often forgotten rule of show-don’t-tell.
This is one of the very few anime I can recommend without hesitation to my entourage.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Dec 9, 2025
First 5 episodes were almost unbearable, but Im glad I stuck it through. The latter half of this season compares in quality to season 1. The pacing, dialogue, animation, and music gets a huge boost around the 8th episode or so. It was so good I stopped fast-forwarding and actually enjoyed it.
Honestly, it just seems like the budget wasn't there for the first arc; powerpoint animation, filler, and an hour worth of useless reaction shots. The white tiger siblings and the red bird guy took up so much screen time and caused the plot to stagnate. They are poorly written characters that didn't need to
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be included considering how huge the cast already is; tbh there are a couple characters that should be deleted.
Anyways:
1st half gets a 3/10
2nd half gets a 8.5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 25, 2025
Objectively, this anime deserves no more than a 6; maybe a 7 if you discount the huge amount of fan service. But I cannot deny I was invested through all the 10 last episodes, hence the 8.
I was expecting more psychological horror, something like Lain, maybe thats what was intended, but it was much the opposite. Is it crazy to describe something as a "lighthearted" gorefest? It is riddled with nonsense interactions and actions to move the plot forwards, and many scenes I felt were much less impactful than they could have been. Yet it was still good, and I think it was the characters
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that pulled me through. All the best scenes were of the main cast fostering a family and accepting each other, and watching the "dangerous" weapons that are the Diclonius are able to live in peace; their violence is only spurned out of oppression.
My main interpretation was the exploitation of women or minority groups, and the prejudice and double standards they are held to; say violent outbursts are blamed on their inherent being and not their systemic subjugation that might cause such outbursts. But then this is almost counteracted by the fanservice... maybe I should drop this to a 7.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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