Anime Review: Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend/Heroine

Here's another surprise series that took my heart and flew away with it (in no less than 12 episodes + 1 fanservice ep).  Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend (Saekano in short), is a harem anime series of the meta sort, requiring a bit of level up before being able to really get into the series.

As it is, I feel like I'm missing 20% of the in-jokes mentioned, and there seem to be a lot of things lost in translation (culturally specific stuff).  But despite that, the only thing I can say about this series is that IT IS TOO DAMN SHORT.

Personally, I do feel that this series is a cross between  Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai (or Haganai) and The World God Only Knows.  Both are harem type animes, and both are well worth your time watching.  In Saekano, you get the generic high school protagonist who is the love interest of just about every interesting girl out there, who joins/forms a club/blog that eventually helps the group/circle develop their relationship/infatuation with the main guy.

The anime is quite self-aware, often mocking it's own use of over-used tropes, breaking the fourth wall (well, maybe 3.5) several times.  I liked these breaks, and the story, simple as it is, moves along as the main focus is always about character interaction and development.

The first half of the series is pretty devoid of fanservice (upskirts, pantyshots, strategically placed/misplaced camera angles), but the latter third is rife with it.  The 13th episode (or episode 00) is pretty much a fanservice episode and, while I'm not complaining, I'd like to consider myself (slightly) above such antics (right).

The art and animation is top notch, reminding me of the Monogatari series with its use of different coloured lines, but without the overly stylised (and distracting) stuffing, though they did have their share of head-tilts.

If you like harem anime, bump this up your queue (if you haven't seen the series yet, that is, it's in a lot of must watch lists, near the top 5 usually).  I've half a mind to rewatch it since it is really too short.

Verdict: 5/5 Must Watch Immediately!

Details:
Title: Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend/Heroine
Genre: Harem Anime, Slice of Life
Date Aired: January 8, 2015 – March 26, 2015
Number of Episodes: 13

Anime Review: Brynhildr in the Darkness

I'm not quite sure what made me dislike watching this series; maybe it's the irregular pacing, which involves action heavy scenes and time-stopping conversations in-between.  Or perhaps it's the amount of fan service they put in, and then having the plot being rushed to make up for the time spent in hot springs or in the beach.  It's just like setting an appointment with someone and finding them arriving either too early, too late but never on time -- the series is just too... jarring for me, pacing-wise.

This might be a minor quibble, if the positives outweighed the negatives.  Unfortunately, it's the other way around -- the pacing, the plot-holes, the characters being too 2D.  Or perhaps given the number of excellent anime out there (which I'm watching alongside this series: the To-Aru series or the Chunibyo series, to name a few) makes Brynhildr in the Darkness feels something short of acceptable.

Well, to tell you a bit about the series: it's basically a harem anime, where the harem members are super-powered witches created for the usual power-hungry reasons by a bunch of literally faceless men.  The powers are your typical fare, consisting of destruction to time manipulation and the like.  I found these powers and their limitations to be interesting enough, and the how's and the why's are also the main reason why I slogged through 13 episodes worth of mediocrity.

The characters are typical harem fare as well, and while they're nicely designed and animated, I found the sheer amount of fan service to be distracting (not in a good way).  The back-story is meh and the lead character is your typical overly sensitive busy-body that would pass as the 'ideal' for these kinds of setups (either that or the nice but perverted lead).

At best, I'd call this series average.  But unless you have absolutely nothing else to watch: skip it and go for a series that's more worth your time.

Verdict: 2/5 Don't go for it unless you've no other choices, and there are a lot of good choices out there.

TL;DR:
+ Interesting Premise
+ Nice looking art.  I do like Miss Neko and her moles
+ I love the both OP's.  I did not skip them (which I normally do) for most of the 13 episodes
- Poor pacing
- Predictable story
- Too much service
+/- Bad enough we see too much service, we get steam and flashes of light to boot
- Characters are meh

Details:
Genre: Harem, Sci-Fi
Episodes: 13
Aired: April to June, 2014