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If I had to describe this seies in few words, it would be: A power fantasy by proxy and a shojo reverse harem.

If you are into that, this series might be for you. Sadly, the first episodes of the series give a different impresion than it might be a deep political drama mixed with a coming of age story, a hot spice of romantic triangle and 3D characters; but that comes off the table around episode 6.

Quickly, the series devolves into a shallow "go gather, one by one, 4 ultrapowerful bishounen that will be your aid" and Yona does because she was told to, not ... because she has expressed to overtake once more kingdom. Once she finds the bishounens, they follow her without much trouble in the way and even some big wasted potential.
When they find the second bishounen, there is big emotional baggage and great mystery surrounding his story in his village, but it doesn't get explored, nor his powers or why he really got shunned; it had the pieces to make a great arc but just fell flat.
There is also many call offs than the last king was a pretty crappy one, but also isn't explored in depth or is made aside pretty quickly even when it comes into question latter in the series.
Also, the series is full of "comedy moments" or "chibi faces" than dull out even more the dramatic moment. For me it had way to more of what I was willing to digest, but there is a also some opinion in the forums than there weren't enough of those moments to make it more palettable.

I began this series because CBR repeatedly promoted it in top series because of its drama and else; but it doesn't deliver. And even if I found it entertaining to watch, it didn't doubled down on what I had expected from it.

In conclusion: watch if you are into shoujo, and like watching a girl be saved or help multiple times by a bishounen cast, with no real romance in-between.
Don't watch if you are expecting a drama and political thrills.

I'm writting this review to balance out the big amount of good reviews because I want to dust off some of that sugar coat fans have overflown on this anime.

Just managed to watch 5 episodes, and I didn't found any of the depth in it to make me wanna watch more. Animation is pretty bland, games are kinda hard to follow and the big plays don't pack any punch. Characters are pretty meh, the coach is the one you'll see more, but don't really do much to stand out, I don't think any character has chance to get you hooked.

Now, all I said isn't the ... heaviest punch this series tries to deliver: the real-like tactics of a soccer team instructor... and at least in the first five episodes, they don't deliver; and it's mostly because you don't feel like we learned something new or the inner workings of team tactics nor they seem like a clearly part of clearly winning formula. There is a set up, but it doesn't feel like there is a payoff, even after the first big game (episode 5) where the animation flow becomes janky.

I like soccer, I like seinen anime, I came to this anime after watching and loving Ao Ashi, which is said to be kinda similar, but I just didn't see the appeal on this one, or it just didn't age well.

The movie starts with an all new scenes from the past, around 35 minutes, which is one third of the movie, and all else is a puzzle comprised of the old episodes, and I really mean that: a puzzle. It takes effort to blew nostalgia away, and this movie did come out of his way to dirt my love for the series, but this movie did it.

Who is this movie for? Newcommers are totally out of question, since the story is totally incomprehensible and even old time fans might be lost by the change of facts and overabundance of text exposition, which many many times ... it doesn't even provide important information or something to make sense out of anything. Ok, how about we add another layer of crap on top of all this? The movie scrambles the timeline of scenes at a screeching pace. Goes back and fort for completely no reasonable motives: just take for example episode 1 is cut to pieces and spit back in clips that show the last scenes first and the first scenes later, like the movie Memento, but way crappier and with out any of the music you'll love from the original series.

I thought hey learned something from, the also crappy, pocketful of rainbows movie...

Went into this series with out knowing much aside from some few soundless clips and knowing it was highly praised. Still, I don't feel I hyped this series at any point.

.::Story::.
It is pretty scattered in between gratuitous sex and gore scenes in a secret and then not so secret war between humans and devils, you might need to pay attention to connect the dots when it isn't clearly stated, still don't expect a reward for doing so, as the story is weak, there is little character development aside from the classic exposition dump from the final episode.
The world wants to feel like our world, but ... its pretty hard to draw parallels when there is so much inconsistency in its characters and developments. At some point Ryu (second MC) shoots an automatic weapon at broad daylight, and no one bats an eye, not even the christian and loving Miku, who is the main girl questions why Akira (MC), a decent boy and goodhearted boy, wants to hang out with him... oh wait, he is his childhood friend, so its fine *sarcasm*.
At some other time, a lot of people have publicly died and the world is a complete chaos and some people (closely related to those events) is just moving forward with their life, like its not the end of the world.

The story has many shock value moments, but you might want to unplug your brain to fully enjoy them. As I said, there are many nagging lack of common sense that undermine some of those moments.

.::Characters::.
Akira (MC): he cries and cares for others, he gets a big change by episode 2, becoming a bad boy because he just becomes half devil... and for most of the series he remains the same up to the last episode when he gets a minor bump. He has a complete lack of agency for 8/10 episodes.

Ryu (2° MC): he is complete garbage as character for 9 episodes and at episode 10 gets an exposition dump developing his character which... was actually kinda good, but doesn't save how flat he felt all the other episodes.

Miku (Main girl): she is mostly, just there to be carried by the plot, and to run with a real suave animation.

.::Animation::.
The animation is really fluid, at the cost of having no shades and reusing like hell the clunky looking devil-running animation which makes nice contrast with the suave human running animation. Aside from that, there isnt much stand out moments, the gore is ok, the sex scenes lack punch. But everything is serviceable enough for a good time for anyone wanting some mindless violence and shock value moments.

.::Music::.
It's serviceable most of the time. The rap segments are dope.

.::Overall::.
I would only recommend it to people that don't care much about good characters, dialogue, world development, or message of the series, and are interested in some dark aspects of human kind (lust and gore). Personally, I didn't like it and felt it was kinda a waste of time, and just finished because my brother liked it. By episode 2-3, I knew this wouldn't fly for me, if you feel the same, even by ep1, just drop it.

.::The premise::.
The set up is actually pretty neat. A world under the threat of some monsters called earless fought back by some famous dudes called players based on actual musicians fighting on their mechas which are actually their amps. Episode 1 starts with the Echo finding a mysterious girl (Myuu or µ) which is an unknown player and also she doesn't have any memory. Now Echo has to travel the world trying to know who she really else all while they meet up with other players.

Sadly, it just doesn't deliver what you might expect as the music undertone is severely missing almost in every aspect.

.::Characters::.
Echo ... is most of time an interesting character and Myuu is pretty likable girl; their development as a couple is heavily hinted from the start and their dynamic feels great in episode 1 and 2... but then every episode insist in splits them in different ways, to the point where they spent entire episodes on their own. In the end, you feel like you didn't spend enough time with them (together) to be impactful for the obvious climax
Players just share some little homage to their counterparts in their name or design. Most of their designs are pretty unique, but most of them are just bland in personality or just appear as part of the next stepping stone in pointing the MC into the right direction. Jimi which is main figure in the series is the one who suffers the most from this by not living to be the legend the series makes him to be.

.::Sound::.
The soundtrack is just OK which is sad for a music based series, there seems to be a main music theme for the series but it's very underused. The neat part is that every ending video has a new song with an unique video featuring scenes from the same episode in a net way. I saw every ending, but not a single song stuck with me or felt particularly good aside from the opening song and video which is great.

.::Story::.
The story is pretty linear and most episodes have a self-concluding sub-arcs, but only some arcs rise above average. Since the world building is pretty bad, is hard to care, and most of things resolve by shouting harder, by having random stuff happen or just cause. In a nutshell, the story doesn't feel like it has something to tell, nor it makes use of the music thematic.

.::Animation::.
Most of time is above average, the opening and endings animations are a banger, the CG is ok.

.::CONCLUSION::.
Episodes 1 - 8 were pretty serviceable for me, it entertained just enough to keep watching, but episodes 9 to 12 it takes a nosedive with nonsense, focusing on less interesting characters and by doing random BS to keep the story going, making me reflect on why did I even spent time watching this.

It might not be awful, but it'ss not a good mecha series, it's not a good music anime, it's doesn't feel like good shonen material and doesn't deliver a compelling couple dynamic.

I watched the anime, it was an easy watch, but was intrigued to know the anime had an original ending and even more to know the manga had already ended sometime after. So I dived into the manga... to find out it it barely manages to be above average.

Anyway, this is my review for the whole manga:

.::Story::.
The goal from the protagonist from the very start is pretty clear, and it stays sharp focused on it till the end: destroy the evil empire. At first its very entertaining, but as it goes on, it feels pretty stale as there aren't much surprises in this department. ... The world building is also pretty choppy. As for the battle systems, the gimmick for this manga series are Teigus, which have all kind of powers that grant the user whatever BS the chapter needs, and overall are pretty formulaic with little thought: new enemy appears with a new Teigu, they battle, then they show some random power up or hidden ability we never heard of, it things gets interesting the second player might show some random power up/hidden ability and someone is dead.
And thats something else, characters do die in the manga, all the time, and also new characters are added from time to time to keep things fresh, which can be good or bad or both.

.::Characters::.
Most characters are darn right flat, why? evil guys are evil just for the sake of being evil, good guys will be good guys because cliches reasons. Most of them end the same way they start or are given subtle developments: mostly Tatsumi... which isn't the titular hero, and also Wave, who is his rival late in the series, Akame which is actually the titular hero doesn't really stand out aside from her design.
The most flawed character might be the biggest boss: Esdeath, she is powerful for the sake of being powerful, it grows so flawed, than her powers just become a plot device on itself, but not only that, she is also insanely fast, strong and witted and all that because... reasons. She had some glimpses of character development, but were quickly discarded.

.::Artwork::.
This might be the strongest suit coming from this manga. Battles are really well drawn, and you can follow the action pretty easily. Almost every character is pretty unique in design and is easy to have a favorite or favorites in that regard. The gore is well presented with out going all the way to a seinen level.

.::Overall entertainment::.
Despite all this, the manga can be a good time, it's fast paced has good artwork, dialogues are simple enough to read fast but not simple enough to be dumb. There are some ships here and there and they actually go through with it. It might overstate its welcome with 15 volumes, but any more than that and it would have reeked of it's stale formula in storytelling.

Back in 200X, this was in the same section as Berserk and other acclaimed seinen series, but I never got into it. Now this pop out on nowhere in Netflix, it must be sure the time to try it out.

I can only say it is a product of it's time with visuals from this time. The main character is the OverPowered bad ass you used to see in that time. He is strong for the sake of begin strong. The co-protagonist Yoko fares worse, being very inconsistent. At times she is totally useless and other times seems very dependable. Lucien, which is the kid side ... from the MC, is even worse. He is 14 but acts as a 3 year old, with zero agency; he is just there as gimmick prison for the MC.
Every other secondary character might as well be a cartoon board cut.

The strongest aspect from this series, and I take its the strongest in the manga, are the visuals. For nowadays standards, it's only serviceable at most.

The story is really weak, name characters, character development, goals, even the most simple of all: the dialogues are the weakest I've seen in a while, they don't provide anything to the plot and only add minutes to the episode. The series also tries some comedy but falls flat on the delivery.

Still, if you want to unplug your mind for a while, and enjoy some mindless OK action and OK fanservice I'd say it can be somewhat enjoyable, even more if you play it a 1.5x its normal speed.

Sakugan first episode sets up a grand adventure full of danger and mysteries with a really clear goal: find a place that appears in one of the MC dreams, all while dealing with the father-daughter of the MCs.

While the gist of their relationship remains sort of there during the whole series, everything else dies after episode 2. The monsters become a joke and just a background threat with no mention of the anomaly they were in episodes 1. The death-level danger gets replaced with cartoon-like violence. As for the mysteries of the world, the series sidelines that by instead focusing on the human cities, while ... new mysteries are thrown-in later on, they are also vaguely hinted minutes after making mention of them.

There is some character development, but it doesn't really feel organic as it feels rushed. There is some big reveals in the final episode, but we also don't get any conclusion to any of that, and by that time we get a second season, I'm sure almost nobody won't care enough.

Overall, the series is kinda enjoyable as an adventure of the week episode, but there is much better series out there than this one.

Well, I watched it weekly since it started and I just can't grasp for who is this series other than morally dubious persons or those who want to fantasize with an awful scenario, because it doesn’t feel like romance, nor does it feel like a fatherhood story nor a coming of age drama.

Aside from Yoshida not doing anything sexual to Sayu and giving her shelter (which is legally bad), he never does much else for her as a father figure, nor you see how difficult could be to have a teenage girl living with a grown man on a day to day basis. Even ... in the last episode, where she does something that could be seen as totally despicable on behalf of both, he doesn’t advise her as the adult he should be.

Supporting characters are a joke, as they just push the idea of a relationship between the main characters despite the different age, despite all the consequences it could derive given the situation. Other than that, they only exist to have an episode in which they talk to Sayu and she ends re-affirming she will become a better person, which by the way, is the formula for the first half of the series to the point it gets old fast and real redundant.
The dialogs most of the time feel empty, or feel as repeated ideas, and there isn’t no dynamism in the scenes as most of the time they are just sitting still while talking.

It has fanservice here and there pretty scattered, but it’s on top of an awful premise since the anime also tries to sell its drama as something serious, which in turn helps destroy any moral advice the series could address aside from the unrealism it falls into in its last arc.

The animation feels barely ok, with some things feeling pretty off, or just lacking motion. The sound its ok most of the time, since it’s not memorable but also isn’t annoying.

Bottomline. If you don’t hide you like to treat other woman as objects and like to daydream as their hero, this might be for you. Otherwise, you can do better with your time.