Kakegurui is one of the nicer surprises to come out of the summer season. The art direction is great, the dialogue is brilliant, and watching our protagonists deal with the slew of cheats and tricks their opponents throw at them never ceases to entertain. It is an engaging, thrilling show that I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who’s interested in the premise of after-school high-stakes gambling clubs and the associated chicanery that happens within.

Before we get to work here, I want to slip in this disclaimer. If you’ve read any of my previous articles about this movie, you’d be well within your rights to think that I’m not the most objective person to review this. On the runup to this film’s release, I advocated for its conceptual merits extensively and have showed signs that I’m really hoping for this movie to be good. We call this confirmation bias, and that can be a dangerous thing in critique, as it can cause critics to judge something more or less harshly because we kinda get a kick out of being right about things.

So last week I reviewed an anime show as per usual, and this week I started binging on Tekken 7 again. I think this is a good time to talk about anime fighters. If you read this blog regularly, then you can probably think of one or two titles off the top of your head: Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Under Night In-birth Exe:Late, some of the Touhou series, Marvel vs. Capcom, BlazBlue, Skullgirls and Guilty Gear are among the more prolific ones, even though there are hundreds of titles in the genre.

There’s a very good reason you don’t see me review harem shows on this website. This probably has a ton to do with my tastes personally - well, actually I know it does - but after three years or so of literary analysis classes, I have this itch in the back of my head that goes off whenever I watch something. I always feel like I need to pick things apart and look for meaning in about every show I review.

Oh don’t look at me like that, reader. It’s been a really slow week for me. I’m currently in Colorado Springs and the wifi I’m using utterly refuses to cooperate with Crunchyroll for some dumb reason. And this especially irking seeing as how the summer season is currently upon us in full force, so saying that I’m prepared for it would be like tossing a bedsheet over my head and saying I’m prepared for thermonuclear warfare.

In memory of Chester Bennington (1976-2017) For those keeping score at home, this will be the third consecutive show I’ve reviewed that’s not a standalone series and instead a second season for an already existing one. Not that I’m complaining at any rate, because I’d much rather have a good sequel to something I like than a newer series that makes me want to put a flamethrower to it, but I have to admit I’m feeling just a bit weary.

“Wow, SnYves, you really took your time getting around to talking about this one, didn’t you? This story’s so old now it’s being looked at by archaeology undergrads; why are you even bothering at this point?” Reader, I’m writing about this because the trailer has cemented my thoughts that us rationally minded, optimistic patrons of anime, who are not ready to crap on an adaptation because it’s not the thing we like, are a dwindling minority.

(Forgive the subtitle; I had to get that out of my system before we started. Also, I’m freely going to be talking about Season 1 spoilers in this review, so avert your eyes if you haven’t seen this show yet and want to keep it fresh.) Maybe it’s just me, but we’ve been getting a ton of sequels to popular shows so far this year. I mean, by this point I probably have enough material to where I could maybe devote this review time to an editorial on “sequelitis” and why new shows in 2017 have to work really hard to get noticed in my opinion.

My Hero Academia made its debut in the spring of last year and sought to answer the age old question of, “What would happen if Sky High was an anime instead of a forgettable Disney original film?” In the show’s universe, roughly 80% of the world’s population is born with some sort of supernatural ability called a Quirk, which can range anywhere from explosive punches to levitation to temperature manipulation and just about any other superpower you can think of.

Happy Wednesday everybody! As promised, here’s the second half of my essential anime list that I started week before last. If, for some reason, you’re reading this without having seen the first half, then might I suggest you check that out here before continuing on. And again, just remember that this is my personal list and these shows are appearing in no particular order. Away we go. 10. One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100