Shanks Reviews Stuff

Mostly stream-of-consciousness first impression reviews of new anime, but also occasional proper reviews of finished anime or whatever else we feel like reviewing

[shanksreviewsr]

what to read on manga plus today (24 Feb 26)

this time psyren is crossed out because they dropped the entire series all at once but because it is a complete series it can't be read for free so I'm not going to bother with it and you don't need to, either

bones has apparently selected marriagetoxin to be their newest shonen slop money printer to replace my hero academia which is a good choice because marriagetoxin is better than my hero academia was when my hero academia was good. I also recently learned that mizuki yoda was the artist for my beloved and forever dearly missed ne0;lation, which is neat (for me, the only person on earth who still remembers or cares about ne0;lation)

class of brains and the trembling right hand are both series with Problems and I will probably end up writing either full reviews or essays about them at some point or another

it's pretty neat that there are two blatantly scp-inspired series on manga plus but while ghost fixers just kind of uses the scp stuff to do fairly generic shonen battle stuff, the creepy and freaky does not and is much better for it. the english title sucks, though

today's 11 page oneshot is cute and one of the few ones I could see expanded into a full series

i don't need to say anything about chainsaw man. it's chainsaw man

[shanksreviewsr]

what to read on manga plus today (23 Feb 26)

today is one of those days where everything is good so it was really, really hard to decide what to circle and what not to. the new one would be better if they'd bothered to translate or at least explain the name puns, though

[shanksreviewsr]

what to read on manga plus today (22 Feb 26)

someone hertz gets an x because it fucking sucks. the whole thing is based around these kids sending one liners to a radio show and not once has one of them ever been funny. it's almost definitely at least mostly a translation issue but knowing that doesn't make it less of a chore to have to read every week

it is me. I am the someone who hertz

[shanksreviewsr]

what to read on manga plus today (21 Feb 26)

girl meets rock is excellent and will never be animated because they only perform covers

[shanksreviewsr]

what to read on manga plus today (20 Feb 26)

today's one of those days where I'm caught up on and enjoy (more or less) everything but recommending all of them would defeat the whole point of this thing

[shanksreviewsr]

what to read on manga plus today (19 Feb 26)

those 11 page oneshots are a fine enough idea but very few have managed to actually make good use of the limited space. today's is one of the ones actively hurt by it bc it doesn't have enough time to really build the horror/mystery and as a result the final twist comes off more like a punchline, which might be on purpose but I'm not sure

[shanksreviewsr]

i havent been keeping up with seasonal anime lately but i have started reading everything on manga plus every day so here are the ones updated today you should read

note that just bc something isn't circled doesn't mean i dont like it. i actually like all of these except so you weren't into me and genikasuri. the ones i circled are just the really really good ones.

[booty-uprooter]

what's the best game of 2025 that i actually played

Piczle Cross: Rune Factory

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma

Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game

Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar

Voting ended onJan 1

[booty-uprooter]

Top 5 2025 Games I Actually Played

5. Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game: every time I played tales of the shire I found myself thinking 'this is fine, but I could be playing lotro instead' and would stop playing after about an hour and play lotro instead. overall it was fine but it also felt like only part of a game. it probably would've been better as a mobile game that was just the cooking minigame

4. Piczle Cross: Rune Factory: I could've sworn this game did not come out in 2025 but who am I to argue with the list on wikipedia I scrolled through in search of games I remember playing this year. Anyway, this game got me through a lot of withdrawal periods from multiple substances this year but did not quite motivate me to actually finish rf5

3. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time: This game was fun and I enjoyed what I played of it but I didn't finish it. I definitely appreciated that it's slightly less chatty than the 3ds game but fantasy life in general has a problem that there's so much different stuff to do that I can't focus on anything and end up getting burnt out before I can actually get very far in the plot

2. Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma: I'm in a minority of probably just me in that rf4 is not my favorite rune factory game because I absolutely fucking despised what they did to the farming in rf3 and rf4 did not do enough to fix the fundamental issue that a more complicated farming system in a game that is only half a farming sim and doing so in a way that more or less completely divorces it from the dungeon crawler half when they were previously pretty well integrated is not a good thing so while one could argue that they simplified the farming in guardians of azuma maybe a bit too much and still did not address the issue of the farming part being totally separate from the dungeon part to the point where you kind of don't even need to do it at all, that's still better than it being overly complicated even though you still can't even fucking make rune factories anymore and anyway to bring this comedically long and rambly runon sentence of a review to an end I liked guardians of azuma a whole heck of a lot (it's in the top 3 with rune factory frontier and rf2) but haven't really gotten back into it enough to do any of the endgame stuff they added later

1. Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar: I really hate the original grand bazaar. It is my least favorite bokumono game that isn't one of the puzzle game spinoffs. As a result, my expectations for the remake/reimagining were not high. Happily, however, story of seasons: grand bazaar is one of the best games in the series (possibly even the best since yasuhiro wada left, though trio of towns is still pretty damn good). I've sunk probably a good 500 or so hours into that game so far and while I don't play it as much as I did when it first came out I'm still having fun when I do play it

[shanksreviewsr]

Spring 2025 First Impressions Digest

GREAT:

A Ninja and an Assassin Under One Roof:

rest your cheek on her tiddy

Anne Shirley: excellent adaption of well-loved classic novel i've never read

Apocalypse Hotel: it's like if the good part of wall-e was a slice of life anime

Can A Boy-Girl Friendship Survive?: yeah, but this show doesn't think so

KOWLOON GENERIC ROMANCE: sci-fi mystery about nostalgia set in a place that used to exist but doesn't anymore

Lazarus: it's directed by shinichiro watanabe

Witch Watch: excellent adaptation of a really good manga

GOOD:

Food for the Soul: cute women doing cute things club anime but it occurred to me after i finished up my first impressions that the whole episode the main character goes on and on about how she's afraid of trying new things but the episode opens with her trying a new thing

mono:

FLUFFY FLUFFY

Once Upon A Witch's Death: fun main character with clear motivation that might be a bit too shmaltzy for some people

Summer Pockets: it's an adaptation of a key visual novel that gives you everything you'd expect from an adaptation of a key visual novel

Yaiba: Samurai Legend: very old school shonen in both the good and bad ways

ZatsuTabi: wish i could go to japan

OKAY:

Catch Me At the Ballpark:

if youre going to translate a loan word you could at least not do it wrong

The Brilliant Healer's New Life in the Shadows: at least Our Hero doesn't condone slavery

Teogonia: would be good if the production was better

GOOD BAD:

I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire!: absolute garbage and hates women but at least the shithead main character gets reincarnated to gundam instead of dragon quest for once

Please Put Them On, Takamine-san:

yes bra

Yandere Dark Elf: it's about a dark elf who is yandere

BAD BAD:

#COMPASS2.0: fuck off with your hashtag in the title

The Beginning After the End:

if your 2 year old has only just learned to walk and can only vocalize without babbling or talking you should consult your pediatrician

The Dinner Table Detective: not even mamoru miyano can make me care about a rote mystery with a detective who commits the mortal sin of being an actual cop

The Gorilla God's Go-To Girl: just watch witch watch

The Shiunji Family Children: it could be good bad if it was less well made

The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside By My Fiancé and Sold to Another Kingdom: boring collection of oversaturated webcomic tropes

The Unaware Atelier Meister: boring collection of oversaturated anime tropes

I STARTED TO WATCH THIS ONE BUT DROPPED IT AFTER 2 MINUTES BECAUSE THE SHOTABAIT ONE'S PUBESCENT SCREECHING WAS MORE THAN I COULD TOLERATE

Classic★Stars: ugh

[shanksreviewsr]

Spring 2025 First Impressions Part 8/8

Teogonia: when the op ended and the first thing i was greeted with was one stiffly animated dude talking to another stiffly animated dude, i started to have a bad feeling about this premier. 'at best,' thought i, 'this will turn out to be a decent episode hampered by poor production quality.' it's not the worst production in history (the characters managed to stay on model, at least), but the premier is one of those times where the anime is supposed to show off it's best quality animation, and if the best they can manage is 'halfway through the 4th season of a toei anime' quality, things are not going well. ultimately, however, the story and characters are the most important element and this one isn't bad. i'm not sure why it needed to be an isekai if Our Hero doesn't really remember being isekai'd, since theyre not a convenient fish out of water who can have things explained at them for the benefit of the audience, and it loses the escapist element of some average (or below average) dude getting to abandon this world for a more magical one where they can get all the money and bitches cruelly denied them by their lack of personality or talent or willingness to develop personality or talent. there are elements that could be really shitty if theyre intended to be played straight, but since this is just the first episode there's plenty of room for them not to be. anyway, this was a decent premier hampered by poor production quality. it manages to clear the admittedly low bar of establishing a setting and a conflict and a cast of characters with clear motivations. check it out if you have some extra time to kill, but it might be better to wait to see how things shake out on the production front, or just check out the source material.

mono:

lepsan 🫵

i was fully ready to write this off as a cute girls doing cute things anime with slightly-higher-than-usual production values, idiot gay children, and multiple characters with chunky eyebrows. something that is fun and worth checking out, but maybe not when i already have 3 other anime to watch on saturdays. but then we got some cat cam action so i guess i'm gonna have one more

Food for the Soul: this is also a cute girls doing cute things anime, but it bears the unique distinction of being about college girls instead of high schoolers, which is nice. no cat cam, though, so while i recommend checking it out, i probably won't be sticking with it

[shanksreviewsr]

Spring 2025 First Impressions Part 7/?

The Shiunji Family Children: something that made osomatsu-san so good was how it nailed the experience of having a lot of siblings. this anime does not do that. i never once believed these characters were related to each other, which makes the mid-episode 'twist' that they aren't the least shocking twist in the history of twists. the anime almost could have been more interesting without it if, again, they actually bothered to write them as actual siblings. it's just a generic harem anime where sometimes the characters are like 'by the way we're totally siblings 100% for sure' right up until they find out they aren't and it immediately becomes a question of who gets to jump on the main character's dick first. the decent production values and attempts at some interesting directorial choices kinda just make the thing worse by trying to make it better, so instead of being so bad it's good it's just so lame it's boring

Apocalypse Hotel: there's a manga that just started a few weeks ago on jump plus called maison and the man-eating apartment that is set in an apartment building displaced from time, because outside it's one second until the end of the universe. it's a really cool and creepy concept, and has almost nothing to do with this anime. a better point of comparison would probably be the good parts of wall-e, what with the focus on the futility of robots continuing to carry out their programmed routines in the absence of anyone to benefit from them. anyway, this was a good episode. so good that i don't really have much else to say about it except check it out.

A Ninja and an Assassin Under One Roof: i really hope the retro-style opening sequence isn't this anime's only foray into playing with animation styles. it's always fun when anime do stuff like that.

it's fun when it does stuff like this too

speaking of jump plus manga that have almost nothing to do with these anime but i keep being reminded of, machi and oboro. that one actually has a bit more similarities since theyre both comedies that co-star idiot ninja. it's a lot of fun, and so is this. check it out if you like your lighthearted comedies a bit grisly

[shanksreviewsr]

Spring 2025 First Impressions Part 6/?

ZatsuTabi: this is the kind of iyashikei anime that usually airs during the winter, which i hope is not indicative of any kind of production problems, especially because i quite enjoyed this. if you ever wanted a version of yurucamp that was either solely focused on shimarin or featured characters who were old enough and had the resources to travel further than the area around mt. fuji, you'll likely love the hell out of this. even if you don't and just want something cozy to chill with for half an hour each week, this'll do it

Summer Pockets:

kitty!

i like how Our Hero keeps trying to act like a tortured poet only for everyone around him to be like '......................k.' it's very funny, and goes a long way toward endearing me to a show i probably otherwise wouldve found to be just kinda fine. it is, at it's core, a harem show about a sad boy who gets turned into a happy boy by 3-5 archetypal girlthings wanting to jump on his dick, but it's willingness to poke some non-meanspirited fun at it's main character for being kind of a pretentious dork (which he is) keeps things fairly light. if you're not into visual novel adaptations this won't change your mind, but it's worth checking out if it seems like the kind of thing you might be into

#COMPASS2.0: not a good sign when a profound feeling of intense boredom hits you less than two minutes into an episode. there's nothing about the characters, setting, or premise that's interesting enough to make up for the fact that i simply do not find anything engaging about battle royale video games. if your hobbies include watching fortnite streams you might get something out of this, but then again maybe not. it really is just watching cartoon characters play a video game for 30 minutes. you might be better served just going to twitch

[shanksreviewsr]

Spring 2025 First Impressions Part 5/?

Witch Watch: ive been reading this manga since it premiered and while it's never been one of my favorites, it's a consistently enjoyable little romcom with a fun cast (including the most autistic character in jump), good gags, and occasional moments where the manga-ka loses his damn mind over his workload. as such, ive been looking forward to this anime since it was announced. i am incredibly pleased with it. it nails the tone of the manga perfectly, the comedic timing is impeccable, and the cast is pretty good. the wrong voice actors could easily make morihito come off as too dull or nico come off as too grating, but ryouta suzuki and rina kawaguchi do a good job. definitely check this out if you like things that are fun

The Gorilla God's Go-To Girl:

why would that be the power of the mole god. moles can't see that well even when they have eyes. wouldn't a cat god be more likely to give you the ability to see in the dark and a mole god like. give you the power to dig really fast or something. i don't think the person who came up with this concept thought it through very well. C-

just watch witch watch

Yandere Dark Elf: it's called 'yandere dark elf'. if you'd be interested in watching an anime called 'yandere dark elf', you'd be interested in watching this anime, which is called 'yandere dark elf'. i'm only covering this one to fill out more space between witch watch and lazarus. though it occurs to me that it's kinda funny how we keep getting anime about isekai protagonists after their adventure ends, as if actual isekai ever fucking end

Lazarus: it is unlikely the be the biggest surprise of the season that the shinichiro watanabe anime is good in all the ways shinichiro watanabe anime are always good. i ended up watching this one dubbed because it was mislabeled on the totally legitimate website i watched it on, but it barely struggled to hold my attention, which is miraculous. definitely check this one out

[shanksreviewsr]

Spring 2025 First Impressions Part 4/?

Anne Shirley: not only have i never read anne of green gables, ive somehow managed to completely avoid all knowledge of it aside from the name, despite it being one of those classics that i think you're supposed to read in school. i have a vague impression of it being kinda overly twee/pwecious/inspiration porny, but that impression could well be a mistaken one. i have also never watched the anime this is a remake of. so basically, i watched this episode about as blindly as anyone could. i enjoyed it immensely. i can see how being forced to read it could make one dislike the thing, and hyperverbal protagonists like anne aren't for everyone, but i found her charming. the art style and animation are also very nice. i can't compare it to the original anime since, again, i never saw it, but this one is shaping up to be a delight

KOWLOON GENERIC ROMANCE:

ive seen this before, but do people not typically take the time to dig the seeds out of the watermelon slice before biting into it, or is it just anime characters

two excellent premiers in a row is just. it's so nice, y'all. i wanna just bask in it for a few minutes. this was a good episode. the backgrounds are nice, the characters are nice (i mean, kudo isn't nice; he's an asshole, but he's comes off as someone who's being an asshole on purpose for Reasons so i'll allow it), it sets up a lot of interesting mysteries that i'm sure i'll have fun trying to figure out each week (provided i don't decide to read ahead in the manga, which i very well might). watch this anime.

Yaiba: Samurai Legend:

w....why?

this was a fun premier with a very nostalgic old-school shonen vibe, which should not be surprising considering it's based on a manga that predates detective conan. i really like that they didn't try to 'update' the character designs like a lot of these throwback anime have been doing. i may or may not continue it but i do recommend checking it out if you either have netflix or aren't opposed to a bit of piracy

The Dinner Table Detective: i'm not sure why this premier felt the need to start with a montage that felt like a recap of a previous episode that doesn't exist, nor am i a fan of the boy band-ass opening song. i did watch this while eating dinner, which is fun. i had nachos. anyway, nothing ruins a detective faster than making them an actual cop (columbo and harry dubois being notable exceptions). having a sidekick voiced by mamoru miyano helps, but not enough. ultimately, however, the most important thing for a mystery series is the quality of the mystery and this one is not the best. the murderer and their motive are easy to guess even without the extremely obvious clues (and, most damning of all, i don't actually care if my guess is correct enough to watch the second episode), and while the sneaky butler dropping hints was fun, ron kamonohashi already did the gimmick of the actual detective giving his deduction to the cop to pretend they solved the case, and did it a lot better. on top of that, the tone and pacing are all over the place. in short, this anime is

[shanksreviewsr]

Spring 2025 First Impressions Part 3/?

The Unaware Atelier Meister:

'.........like at least once per anime season'

i somehow missed this premier bc there was nothing about the key vis or title that registered to me as it being an actual premier. it brings absolutely nothing new to the 'kicked out of the hero's party even though im secretly way stronger than any of those losers so now im gonna show em all while i get all the money and bitches' subgenre, so of course there's a simuldub (which i didn't listen to. i need subtitles to actually focus on these things). free writing tip: constantly lampshading how tired your premise is doesn't make your premise any less tired

The Brilliant Healer's New Life in the Shadows: i have to give this one some slight props for putting in the modicum of effort required to introduce its cast somewhat organically and establish their personalities and relationships to each other by showing how they interact instead of having the narrator go 'this is lynga. she's a wolf(?) girl who acts like a dog'. the brief action scene was also pretty decently animated. i almost could have liked this, but i found the central duo (at least to this episode) of zenos and lily dull and grating respectively, and i only really like iyashikei fantasy when it's in video game form anyway. i don't feel like my time with it was a complete waste and if you're into no-stakes fantasy you might enjoy this, but i won't be watching any more

Can A Boy-Girl Friendship Survive?:

i fuckin wish this was an anime about friendship between a gay guy and an aromantic girl but we all know that it is not

ive never seen when harry met sally but ive absorbed enough through cultural osmosis to know it asks pretty much the same question as this anime and comes up with what will almost certainly be the same answer ('nope!'). so, i guess if you ever wanted a version of when harry met sally that's 3 times as long and about cartoon teenagers instead of adults, this is the anime for you. for my part, i found the characters and humor charming enough that i might give it at least a few more episodes, barring an influx of better shit next friday

[shanksreviewsr]

Spring 2025 First Impressions Digest Part 2 of ?

The Beginning After the End: the beginning of this premier was boring as fuck and so was the middle and ending as well. the one highlight was the 'we have linkin park at home' opening song, and that's all very, very sad for an anime that has bomber jets in it

BRING BACK THE AEROPLANES

Please Put Them On, Takamine-san: for like the first half of this anime i was convinced i would end up not liking it. i dont find drawings of teenage t&a either titillating or offensive so the most stimulating aspect of it was trying to think of how many other characters ive seen with the exact same bad haircut as our boring viewpoint character who by his own admission is less interesting than a table. then takamine actually got to start being a character and it turned the whole thing around. she's very much an archetypal character, but the archetype she is is so different from the archetype i thought she was going to be that it served as a bit of a mid-episode twist that was a lot of fun. i probably won't watch anymore of this, but i do recommend checking it out if you're curious

The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside By My Fiancé and Sold to Another Kingdom: i had a moment of 'wait, did i read the webtoon this is based on before?' before i pushed play or even confirmed that it's based on a webtoon because this is one of the only 3 webtoon plots. either way, i did not read this one. i'm not about to run out and track it down, either, because this premier was boring. it may be of interest if you want to see a combination of every single webtoon trope (except reincarnation and dungeon portals) rolled into one incredibly dull package, but otherwise just skip it.

[shanksreviewsr]

Spring 2025 First Impressions Digest Part 1 of ?

I'm the Evil Lord of An Intergalactic Empire!: good news for people who love bad anime! not since the various works of the light novel author miku has there been an isekai that is such a shameless cope. at least this one is gundam instead of dragon quest, which i guess is a nice change

Catch Me At the Ballpark!: this the epitome of the sort of premier i tend to describe as 'profoundly fine'--it does exactly what it sets out to do and not a single thing more. check it out if you want a 'cute girl teases loser dude' show that sometimes shows a second or two of baseball

unauthorized beast

Once Upon A Witch's Death: i love a premier that wastes zero time establishing its central conflict and main character and then jumps right into the thick of things. doing that is pretty much the entire purpose of a first episode, but sometimes they instead decide to waste everyone's time recounting how the main character's bitch wife cheated on him with his asshole boss and that's why he's decided to ruin a completely different world with his army of sex toys. anyway, this is the first really good premier of the season. check it out