For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been watching a lot of anime.  Some of it I have mentioned like Fairy Tail, Naruto, and My Hero Academia.  I’ve been watching these series with my son.  They’re fairly big ones too.  By myself, I have tried out a few obscure and smaller ones.  At least, I’d never heard of them before except for one that I don’t think I’ll review.  That one is fairly adult and I went looking out of curiosity because I’d seen so many people say that there was a good story beneath the nudity and sexual innuendos . . . It was okay, but the adult stuff really overshadowed what could have been a fun story.  Oh well.

By the way, I did run into a strange pattern of most of these shows being labeled MA because there was adult themes.  I read the descriptions, which were more adventure and fantasy.  Next thing I know, there’s nudity and harems turning up.  That or nearly every female character was endowed to ridiculous proportions.  Always was that one girl with a small bust too.  Thankfully, most of these spent more time with the story, which overshadowed the adult part.  Still, I know many will have an opinion there, so much of what I’m going to talk about isn’t for them.

Blood Lad

I grabbed this one because it was only 10 episodes long and it mentioned vampires.  The main character ended up have the first name of Charlie, but whatever.  Basically, he is a vampire who runs one of the areas of the Demon World.  A human girl turns up in his territory and he’s attracted to her . . . blood.  Unfortunately, she gets eaten and turned into a ghost before he can do it.  So, he swears that he will bring her back to life . . . in order to have her as a snack.  I liked this series because it had colorful characters that you got a feel for even within the short run time.  Don’t think there will be a second season considering it’s from 2013 though.  Oh, and Charlie is obsessed with manga, especially Dragonball Z.

How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

Another one that I grabbed randomly on Hulu.  After getting really bored with Overlord, I was avoiding this one.  It’s another story where a person from Earth gets pulled into a video game to become their avatar.  Diablo is summoned to the world by two girls who try to enslave him as one does with summons.  The spell backfires and they get bound to him through collars, but he doesn’t order them around at all.  Only to be nice to each other because he doesn’t see them as property.  He still publicly claims they are because the guy is playing into his character of Diablo the Demon Lord who is the strongest character around.  This is similar to Overlord where very few things are a threat, but Diablo has two big differences that hooked.  One is that he seems to have genuine trouble with some of the fights.  The other is that his true personality is that of a severe introvert, so his inner voice is constantly freaking out when in public.  He says the wrong things at time and gets visibly awkward.  There was a lot of sex-based stuff (no actual acts or full nudity shown) that I didn’t expect.  It got really silly at times, but the story and main character were enough to get me through the 12 episodes.

Chivalry of a Failed Knight

It’s a world where some people are able to summon weapons and they become warriors known as Blazers.  He is considered the ‘Worst One’ because he has no magic and only a simple strength enhancing ability.  She is a princess with incredible power.  They are made roommates, he walks in on her changing, they duel, and he shows that he is stronger the rating system would lead you to believe.  Big warning here is that he has a little sister that wants to sleep with him, which nearly made me quit.  Her transgender best friend kept me going because it was really nicely done in my opinion.  They make mention of Alice’s identity and then she’s treated like every other character.  Now, the story is divided into a few sections through the 12 episodes.  The romance between the two leads is fairly fast-paced and took more screen time than I expected.  Thought it would be all about the battles, but most of those were really fast.  I can only think of 5 fights that took up most of an episode.  The rest were a minute or two.  The payoff for sticking with this series was also the dark twist near the end.  The male lead’s past comes back with a vengeance and it was fairly brutal.  Not a bad one that I would like to see a sequel to.

Arifureta

This is one that I just finished and it’s another ‘people from Earth being taken to another world’.  This time, a class of kids is summoned to be holy warriors.  Don’t worry.  We don’t really follow that path.  The main character is weak, but tries to help in the big dungeon, but they’re attacked.  During the escape, he is betrayed by a teammate and sent falling to the bottom of the monster-infested labyrinth.  He finds holy water to keep himself alive and eats the monsters to become stronger.  Always makes friends with a vampire girl who he falls in love with . . . I think.  The main character was nice and kind at first, but then he snaps when struggling to survive.  Not crazy, but he goes cold.  All he wants is to return to Earth and doesn’t care about fighting for the gods.  Anyone in his way is an enemy and he’s able to use his original transmutation abilities to create guns, a jeep, a motorcycle, and a vast array of magi-tech items too.  There were times I thought he was too cruel and callous, but that’s because of my own nature.  The writing of a hero who doesn’t give two shits about anyone outside of his circle and being cold-hearted was really good.  Yes, there is the harem side of things and sexual stuff.  I will say that I was happy to see the female lead was the fairly normal proportioned one this time.  Supposed to be a second season of this at some point and I am looking forward to it.  The monster CGI was a little weird and off-putting at times.

Cells at Work

This one isn’t sexual at all.  I watched it all two weeks ago to see if it would work for my son because it’s oddly educational.  Yes, there is a lot of blood when the neutrophils (white blood cells) kill germs and bacteria.  It’s cartoonish levels at times and it doesn’t take away from the story.  Every episode involves a new threat to the body like influenza (episode 3), abrasions (episode 2), and a cancer one.  Here’s the real catch.  None of the characters are named beyond their role.  Red Blood Cell, White Blood Cell, Killer T Cell, Macrophage, and the rest only use their roles as identities.  The narrator and their actions explain their purpose in the body.  Every disease, injury, and effect that is used gets a narrative that tells the audience what is going on.  I read that it’s so good that some colleges put the series on the syllabus for Pre-Med.  My son is enjoying it so far.  A lot isn’t sticking in his head, but he’s getting some of it.

And that’s what I’ve got so far.  Don’t know how many anime fans I have following this blog.  Many aren’t into the stuff that I’m describing too.  Now to figure out what I should watch next.  I only have Netflix and Hulu to work with.  Guess we’ll see what’s on the list.