Some spoilers ahead!

Too jostling. They yank the audience around too much. It was like they cut you off every time you start to get a feel for something. (And no, by 'feel' I am not talking about empathy for the offed characters.) It was annoying rather than shocking or tragic. It left you with a hollow feeling and a lack of care for the show.

With regard to the offed characters, how do I put this. . . it was hard to feel for any of them. The fact that they got cut so soon plays a part, but this is also due to how staged and not genuine the events feel. It feels like a cardboard cut-out. Sure, it looks cool from some angles, but you dont get much out of it apart from its role as advertisement.

I dont particularly care that the show seems to have mood swings - one minute cheery and the next dark and tense. The jostling feeling comes from something else, I think.

If you see my rating, dont get me wrong - I like this. :o I find it relaxing.

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Ladd's voice acting was awesome.

It's a good anime to watch as long as you don't think too deeply while watching it.

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Spoilers Ahead

Hmmmm... it was a good anime overall. The term "good" being used loosely. There were interesting parts often enough that you kept on watching. The artwork wasn't horrible, but it wasn't spectacular. It was decent. The fight scenes weren't that interesting, but the lack of flashiness might have made it more realistic. Mebbe can't appreciate a good fight sequence or got too used to action scenes that good scenes don't cut it anymore. Mebbe I'd started falling asleep. (Don't blame the anime for that. It was really late.) The werewolf and junkyard part was interesting though. The last episode's fight scenes were especially nice. I also liked how Jiro's explanation happened during the fight, kind of like a commentary. There were a couple of twists that were welcome, too. Some were almost obvious and plenty of people caught them, and others hadn't been hinted at but fit with the story really well.

A couple of dialogues and decisions didn't make much sense to me. Mebbe it's because the version I watched was the English subbed version and something went wrong during translation. Hmmm if I recall correctly there was a conversation with retarded logic in an early episode and around three more conversations throughout the middle to final episodes. Couldn't see how the characters reached the conclusions they did using the reasoning they did.

Hmmm and also it was a bit strange that Jiro didn't just run off when Kotaro got kidnapped and dragged off to the special zone. For some reason he stood there talking to the Compromiser like she had forced him to stop. It seemed like he just forgot that he cared about Kotaro and that he would go to any lengths to protect him. Seemed like he forgot the enemies were getting farther away and it was no time for a long-winded speech. The Compromiser wasn't armed, she couldn't physically stop him (even if he was tired, he could point the sword at her at least), his brother was in trouble, but he'd stop in his tracks because somebody politely asked him to? (He said he didn't have enough time, but he stayed around- are his words just a load of hot air? Doesn't do much for his character.) Oi, and even after he got an energy reboot, he chooses to stand there explaining away? Maybe he was confident that he could catch up, but he had no guarantee that the enemies wouldn't hurt Kotaro. At some point, somebody told him that his brother wasn't in immediate danger (not sure), but it happened after all his dilly dallying. Out of character moments like this make it seem like some plot events are forced. It's like the characters' personalities get warped to make certain events happen when they logically wouldn't.

Trying to analyze the anime for solid characterization and the dialogues for sound arguments resulted in a headache.

On another note, an example of a plot event that might make no sense but actually worked was during the final episode, when Jiro stopped to talk to the Compromiser while the city was under attack. You'd wonder why on earth he'd stop to give that explanation (that appears like a commentary throughout the next fight) even though the city was a war zone and his help was likely needed. But he'd been dodging telling her the truth for a long time, so a proper explanation was conceivably overdue, and like the Compromiser had claimed (not sure but it sounded like it), the people of the city were pretty strong. And on the off chance that the reasons for chatting didn't add up, he'd just found Kotaro, so his mind might've been functioning oddly out of relief.

This is more on the animation's part but it was strange that Jiro sometimes didn't steam when he logically should have been. For instance, during the underwater fight in the last episode, while he was fighting some dude, there were a few bubbles floating around him, but there wasn't a cloud of steam rising from his body. The story claims that water weakens Jiro, but from the animation it didn't look like it. He hadn't been recently powered up and a scene toward the end of the fight had him steaming like he should have been, so it wasn't as if there was some obvious reason behind the lack of steam effects.

The music was alright.

Spoiler:
One of the scenes near the end was very moving- the part where Diva is about to die and reaches for her children.

After seeing the 'Should you watch: Boku no Pico' Youtube video by Demo, my curiosity got the better of me.

Half of the time I was like 'XD' and uncomfortable. The other half of the time I was thinking of random things, like 'that poor car,' 'that outfit is color coordinated,' 'it must have been fun making the squelching noises for the video,' and other things I'm too shocked to remember.

I discovered that I might be more amoral than I thought I was, which says something since I consider myself true neutral alignment.

I found it difficult to see Pico as a shouta character. I think whenever there was something mildly sexual, my mind kept diverting to 'this is a yaoi character' no matter how many times I strove to see him as childlike. It just wouldn't stick. I think it might be the dissociation going on.

That being said, I think I stomached this better than expected.

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Random-ass note: So while the video played, I was wondering about the weird background music. What the hell? Then I realized I had iTunes on and playing classical music. Wonderful. Now that song is nicknamed the Boku no Pico song. (Furioso and Waltzes in D Minor, Severin Blazer)

I like how you couldn't tell who was going to end up with whom until around episode 47 of 50. I supported more or less all of the pairings hinted at in this series.

It seems they modified/switched up the opening and ending quite a few times. That was nice.

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I liked it. ^^

Made me think a lot. ~

As for the composition, it's not bad, it's thoughtful, but it's aggravating sometimes. But it's only a powerful series that'll get a rise out of somebody huh.

Loved the little details, like the cat's breathing and non-introduced characters coming to watch the game.

It was remarkably easy to digest. I have a bad habit of pausing the video when something more painful/tense/embarrassing/exciting than what I could 'cope' with comes up. I didn't have to pause for this show much. :D

I enjoyed this anime. It wasn't so light-hearted that it lacked for severity, and it wasn't so sombre that it became oppressing. The keen balance between lessons and entertainment shone.



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Spoiler Alert.

A focal heroine of the story seems mary-sue ish at the beginning. She was likely part of the force that drew me away from the anime. When I came back to it, I sat through it long enough to realize that she wasn't a mary sue.

The problematic tripping that seems pointedly endearing - it was causing serious turmoil in reality. It wasn't just a Oops Tee Hee moment used to draw in sympathy. It became central to her character. It wasn't an accessory - it held her down sometimes. It didn't magically disappear whenever it was more convenient for her.

She wasn't constantly the girl everybody liked. They made fun of her, spoke of her in demeaning ways, disliked her perhaps. They - classmates as well as her friends. Sometimes she got lost. Sometimes she got hurt. She didn't know what to do. She didn't have to go through the cycle of -bullied-losingFriends-smilingThroughMisery- for the audience to feel for her. It was potent without the sob story. It was refreshing that even though her friend was by her side in the auditorium while she was picking up crumbs, her friend couldn't reach her. It was nice that the friendship was portrayed as not unbreakable yet not vapor.

The ending felt somewhat conclusive; but the lack of closure left the desire to watch more. Perhaps the lack of closure made the series more powerful. It was uncomfortable that there wasn't a final result; yet it fit in well with the teacher's speech.

Themewise, there was a strand of trust and betrayal. Even though the teacher might not have intended to betray the trust of the students, it developed into betrayal because they believed he was somebody else. The principal was hinted to have had her heart broken before, and it was hinted perhaps that it led to her hating men. The betrayee, unwilling to trust, closes others off. The betrayer, unable to get trusted, deceives. Some amount of trust was needed for the people to prevent further hurt.

The betrayal that the principal worked hard to prevent was inadvertently caused by her refusal to accept the teacher as his male self. Perhaps her suspicion that men cause problems was founded, but perhaps it was her suspicion that led to their problematic behavior.

If she had not put so much pressure onto the boys, perhaps the student wouldn't have pulled a prank with the envelope. If she had accepted the teacher as a male teacher, perhaps he wouldn't have posed as a female teacher. Yet it's unnatural to affix the cause of the problems to her. What good would it do to show how in a world where women oppress men, a woman was at the root of it. Rather than cutting down sexism, it would subtly support it.

Although it might seem obvious to some people that the roles of the sexes could have easily reversed - where men send women to do the work - there was not enough material in the anime that promoted the idea. What to do. Remember the men.

The teacher's choice to remove himself from the school felt right, since it sends the message that what he did was awful as well - not crossdressing specifically but the act of betraying somebody that cared about him. Had he not gone along with the deception, perhaps his students wouldn't have gotten hurt.... Had the student not hidden the envelope, perhaps there wouldn't have been such a big mess. It perhaps seemed that in the story, neither the men nor the women were completely faultless.

It's also interesting that the peeping tom guys were clearly doing activities people wouldn't appreciate. They contrast with the teacher, who makes an effort to not invade people's privacy. It's interesting how the vice principal became a peeping tom, like how the peeping tom guys did at the beginning. Even though she was exposing the teacher's secret, what she did comes off as detestable.

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It was somewhat irksome that the word gender was used in place of the word sex. Perhaps it seemed softer and friendlier, but I don't find it pleasant that a work so heavy with gender role issues would neglect a point of courtesy with regard to gender identity. Certainly it wasn't the point of the anime, but the fact that the anime sided with ItDoesntMatter instead of GenderAndSexAreSeparate was a bit of poor taste. With a story that didn't involve gender bending it might have been seen as a naive slip up, but for a story that was heavy with gender issues and paraded before the gender bender liking community, it was a bit rude.

Tasteful ecchi. Story present. Characters mostly well done.

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After watching a few episodes.

Decent for a harem/ecchi anime so far. A lot of ecchi was portrayed tastefully, seemingly with a moe rather than 'strip everything' angle. The storyline moves with enough consistency to leave little to skip over out of boredom/too-long-didnt-watch/cliche.

A complaint about a character though. Most of the characters were likeable. They were mostly well designed and interesting. However in episode three and continuing to episode four there were a few counts of that-annoying-chick syndrome. It happens so frequently and is so not-endearing in other series that a berserk-button might have developed for it. It happened way less noticeably in this anime, but it was still there.

Spoilers ahead.

Annoying-chick syndrome examples.
When she gets angry at the guy for doing something hentai when in reality he might not have done it, and no matter how people attempt to correct her, she keeps on shouting at the guy for his alleged crime. It's not cute, it's not adorable, it's bitchy. Gtfo of the show. Worse in this case cuz a lot of the chicks were doing it, the person they got the info from was having a go at correcting them, and that person flat out told them "you're wrong" instead of a vague "it's not what you think" or "let me explain" like in a lot of other stories. They kept going. -_-.

Another example. The pinkish haired gal put on tsundere bravado after breaking somebody else's stuff - which might be understandable if it was part of her background story (if she was a princess or high priestess or something of that sort). It wasnt part of her back story, plus she made virtually no impression personality-wise since the start of the show. I'm not sure why she's in the show? Her greatest role so far had been following the main party around and acting as a soundboard for the princess (to make it so that people arent monologue-ing to themselves?)? Anyway, even after getting told by the person that the item was important, and even after the person was crying, she didn't seem apologetic (don't think she apologized) and continued to huff. At this point there is more sympathy for the main antagonists than for her.

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After watching the other episodes.

About the abovementioned character. She seems to less annoying as the series goes on, but she remained a stiff/confused character. There also was no redeeming moment for her, imo.

With regard to the anime. The ecchi was generally meaningful and didnt detract from the story. It was pleasant to see a variety of style and individuality given to the side characters - for instance the old housing ladies. The he-seems-like-a-Koro route for the main character also flowed nicely.

It would have been nice if there were more hints given about certain characters or plot points. In the final episodes, the blonde teacher is revealed to be the redheaded mayday chick who was also the mask fighter in the beginning of the show. There was a connection hint (her and his sickness), but it would have been a stronger reveal if there had been more. The mask fighter and mayday chick connection could have used even more support. The reveals were done in an interesting way, but they could have had more impact. It would have been nice to find out more about the other world earlier on. It was reasonable to find it out later though, since the history was apparently lost. It is somewhat impressive how many details the anime conveyed considering its length; it was pretty dense in information. Put that way, the lacking connection hints thing is not a huge deal.

The bullying-the-koro-guy-about-his-crystal-hunting came off as unnecessary and a joke in poor taste. It reflected badly on the characters that teased him in that manner. It also became unpleasantly repetitive.

The atmosphere of the school was also well-constructed. It had a feeling of home that was sturdy and comforting. The 'this is home' idea didnt come off forced, which was refreshing. It kind of slipped in and warmed the watcher up before they realized it. It was great how early in the show that warm feeling developed.

It was nice that the villains were operated by certain rational motives rather than a desire for evil.

The story moved at a good pace for the most part. The artwork was nice. The character design of the koro dude was nice.

The fighting was usually interesting to watch. (It kind of lagged in appeal toward the final fights.) The fight between the pillars was especially cool.

Started bland, but around halfway through it got better.

Some hints were too obscure to catch onto, i.e. it is hard to determine from the graphics what is going on. The ending felt too contrived.

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I'd rewatch this just to look at the artwork.
The story is interesting, too. It draws you in and by the nth episode, you don't feel like leaving.

Some people commented that the artwork is strange. I was startled by the style of the eyes at first - read too many yaois so got used to the mouth style fast - but got used to it. After a few episodes, it was more an endearing quirk that makes the backgrounds pop out rather than something simply "unusual". Maybe it's because I haven't watched that many mainstream style anime.

I like the ending.

Even if the events in the series weren't perfectly symmetrical, they were well put. How do I put this, the screams of agony weren't exaggerated, so we weren't forced to watch a full minute of shaking screen with somebody's eyeballs going wild. The emphasis felt more real because they allowed themselves to cut to the next scene without force feeding the audience so much repetition that it's in agony too.

I also like how the episodes were titled with lines from the anime. Kept thinking that the titles were pulled at random. "Scroll through the episode, stop at a random scene, and look for a random line, woot. :D " But the lines were usually at the beginning of each episode, so it was a bit much to call it a random lottery. It was nice, though, that the anime didn't make up a name on their own. Hmmm, some mangas title their episodes with what they want people to think went on in the chapter or what was supposed to happen. For instance um, "The great awesome battle! Part n". Oh, was it really that great. Was it really that awesome. I'm glad the anime "let people decide that" for themselves.

Hm, at some point it struck me how much an impact the style of an artwork has on the anime. The realism in this series helped make everything seem so real that people are drawn into story and forget that it's a show instead of reality.

(I kinda decided to try this series for a silly reason. The summary rectangle on the Youtube Funimation page for it caught my eye. When I expanded the explanation, the rectangle was especially pretty. It was a nice dark red with a flickering red border. It wasn't like somebody dimmed the middle rectangle to make the summary easier to read but more like somebody designed the thing deliberately so that it would look really nice when expanded. So checked the summary to see if it interested me and decided to try it out. Kinda like how Masa got picked up. Funny, huh. )

Ah yeah, the music was good. I didn't hear much of it though, since the volume was turned down quite a bit. Probably missed some of the softer background scores. The intro song was catchy enough to make people want to pay attention to it. Not something I'd listen to over and over again though. Mebbe it's a matter of taste.

Misunderstandings and things not properly explained are the flesh of this anime, and they annoyed me. By episode 16 I had enough.

What kind of ending was that?! I gave up on having an OTP, but I was thinking .

Beautiful.

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Spoilers ahead.

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Appreciating the attention to frivolity in the scenes and artwork. Detail that renders the artwork work I'd deem satisfactory. Imo the artwork and lessons got a mite dampened toward the finale. It got run over by action sequences and although there was emotion it's like it got squished. Muddled mayhaps but it's still tasty to the senses.

Liked the rice song.

Not quite sure what I'd think about the overlying meaning. There's enough lessons shaped earlier on to tide the anime over.

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Well developed characters.

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If I'd lower its rating it'd prolly be for lack of strength in the ending and for a near complete but kinda discarded main meaning which'd put a dent in its overall harmony. The animation's a win. It's kind of bringing the excitement of discovery of Ponyo but making it more tangible.

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Well made. Characters explored in depth. Timing of jokes well placed. Inside jokes connect. Most characters well developed. Didn't make me cry if I recall correctly but made my jaw go slack in surprise. Nice animation, thoughtful visual design. Variety. Strays from generics.

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Does get a little gung ho. It's negligible.

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Hated Taiga at first, but she became tolerable. Still disliked her.

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Spoilers Ahead

Meryl seems like the Compromiser from Black Blood Brothers mostly due to her "neutral" position and her role in the story. They also look alike, and the way their characters form through the stories is similar too. Hmmm their personalities aren't far off either.

There's probably a lot of depth to the anime.

Some parts were adorable. Especially when Vash turns chibi.

It doesn't look like Vash kills Knives. Didn't look like Knives intended to kill Vash either considering neither of them hit the vitals even when they had a clear shot. Then again Knives did charge up both super guns and point them at Vash. It's kind of awesome that Vash picked Knives up and toted him away. Main "antagonist" for the anime gets dragged off the set like a kid who had too much fun and fell asleep.

Beautiful images.

beautiful animation
although some people seem to think the story was bad, I didnt think it was that bad

Lots of melodrama. Lots of bravado.
Hard to watch, for the growing inclination to scream "STFU" and toss a shoe at the anime.

Cheesy. Standard cliche fare with some cool moments. Over-villain-izing might induce nausea.

Seems to have potential.

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Spoilers ahead.

Cheesy at times, and many cliches. Plays the storyline somewhat well despite the cliches. However, it villain-izes a bit too much for my taste. Although there are indications that antagonists may be portrayed less like outright villains later, it (if it happens) is progressing too slowly.

There is far too little of interest (atm Goro seems the most appealing out of all the characters, which is super [/nosarcasm]). The nursery school teacher seems about as cliche a character as could be fabricated. Although the pairing of her and Goro's father made logical sense, there was little (or, imo, none) of the emotions that tie a couple together. Ya couldn't feel that they truly liked each other - it was just convenient. On the other hand, Goro was pretty badass with his "yknow, I wouldnt mind having a new mom" comment. Kid's sharp. The dad had a pretty cool moment too, when he rebuked Goro for jumping to conclusions about the new friend. That was a fresh angle (anime-wise) from which to resolve that issue, it seemed.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help that the only American thus far was portrayed like a heartless, selfish jerk. May work for a Japanese audience; won't work as well overseas. (The argument that it might have been intended for a Japanese audience doesn't diffuse any distaste garnered by Americans over his portrayal.)

In agony after two episodes. Well, actually I was in agony from episode 1. Sometimes there seems to be nothing going on but talk talk talk in the least interesting way possible. Had to pause several times, out of disinterest and pain. It might be the case that this anime is one of those hate it or love it anime.

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Watched a bit
Prolly more than what's here
But didn't watch the end
Prolly

Postponing watching this. Would like to finish watching it with my sister when she has time.

Has bad rhythm. Not very engaging.

To enjoy it, "dont think deeply" mentality should be used.

The tentativeness of the feelings of the heroine were relateable though.

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Sometimes puts important information where people easily miss it. No good build up to it if there was build up at all. Information presented extremely briefly. Multiple times noted in first episode.

Does not build up excitement well. Heroine seems to be given special treatment by the anime. (Victimizing her. Poor her, boo hoo.)

Sometimes things dont make sense. For instance - the band aid head putting scene. How is it that she didnt already put the band aids on by the time she ran into him? A bit too contrived. She did just get slapped in a place with mirrors it seemed. If she ran out of band aids would she not have gone to the nurse?