Anime Hajime Review: Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran

Series Synopsis

Ran Tsukikage (voiced by Reiko Yasuhara) is a wandering samurai; or as she would say, a beautiful drifter. She's on a journey across Japan with no particular goal in mind. Quiet, and a tad cold, Ran has little interest in the events, lives, and politics of the people she meets; aside from a good bottle of sake. Yet, whenever someone is in trouble or when some wrong has been committed, she will go out of her way to help.

Although preferring to be left alone, Ran is an unbeatable swordswoman and any fight she is dragged into is over in seconds. A complete catch-22 since her skills with a katana are the reason why she can never be left alone. 

To make matters a little more troubling, and a lot more of a headache, Ran meets a highly talented, as well loud, energetic, and slightly dimwitted martial artist named Myao (voiced by Akemi Okamura). While their personalities clash and they never see eye to eye, the two make for an incredible fighting team and Ran does appreciate Myao for her wallet…er, personality.

Traveling from town to town looking for their next meal, or drink whichever, the two women always uncover some sort of villainy. And despite a desire to the contrary, Ran will always step in to show the strength of the beautiful drifting samurai.

Anime Hajime Review: Ghost Stories

Series Synopsis

As a child, Kayako Kamiyama (voiced by Kotono Mitsuishi) exorcised the many ghosts haunting her school. Since then, twenty years have gone by and sadly Kayako has passed on, leaving behind her two young children, Satsuki (voiced by Tomoko Kawakami) and Keiichirou (voiced by Kurumi Mamiya).

The siblings move to their mother’s hometown to attend the same school she once did. Over the decades, the old schoolhouse that Kayako did battle in has become abandoned, but rumor is it remains exceedingly haunted.

On her first day, Satsuki meets Hajime Aoyama (voiced by Takako Honda), Momoko Koigakubo (voiced by Kumi Sakuma), and Reo Kakinoki (voiced by Makoto Tsumura), and they all get dragged into the eerie building after Keiichirou loses his pet cat Kaya, who he brought along because he felt lonely.

Inside the dark, decrepit walls of the schoolhouse, it turns out that the rumored hauntings are indeed true. Instantly the kids are pursued by the terrifying spirit known as Amanojaku (voiced by Ryusei Nakao). Their plight seems hopeless until Satsuki discovers an old diary containing instructions on how to put the powerful spirit to sleep. The kids successfully stop the raging demon, but with his

Anime Hajime Review: Oneechan ga Kita

Series Synopsis

Tomoya’s (voiced by Aimi Terakawa) father has gotten remarried and with that came a weird older sister named Ichika (voiced by Juri Nagatsuma).

A reserved and soft spoken person, Tomoya’s low key life suddenly gets a lot more frustrating because Ichika has always wanted a sibling and thus she instantly falls in love with her new younger brother. Already with a loud and outgoing personality, she fawns over Tomoya night and day; much to his chagrin.

Things would be rough enough if it were only limited to home, but Ichika has a nasty habit of showing up whenever she suspects, whether true or not, Tomoya might be in trouble; or God forbid, talking with another girl. It’s a handful and it does make living an average life quite difficult.

Despite his best efforts, Tomoya is never able to escape his sister’s watch or good intentions. However, it has been only him and his father since his mother died, so the new constant excitement provided by Ichika is much more comforting than the usual silence.

Series Positives

Short and sweet and roughly thirty minutes to complete.

Anime Hajime Review: Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai

Series Synopsis

There's a rumor going around the prestigious Shiomi Academy. Looking out for the students and their happiness is a mysterious, and some might even say omnipresent guardian known as the Shepard.

***

Preferring to be off by himself, Kyotaro Kakei (voiced by Junji Majima) is the sole active member of Shiomi Academy’s Library Club; an arrangement he prefers since it has given him a quiet place to read. Although tending to stay out of people’s business, Kyotaro has always had a keen intuition, almost to the point of predicting the future. One day, he foresees a sudden train derailment that will result in the death of one of his fellow students.

Sure enough, an accident does occur, but Kyotaro’s actions saved the life of Tsugumi Shirasaki (voiced by Madoka Yonezawa). Later that day, Tsugumi heads over to the library to thank Kyotaro and asks him to join her project that will make people happy. Normally, such a thing wouldn’t interest Kyotaro, but he takes up the challenge after receiving a message from the Shepard.

His once peaceful reading room now gone, Kyotaro becomes a central figure in Tsugumi’s mission to better Shiomi Academy. Along the way, their group continues to grow larger and larger, and their

Anime Hajime Review: Haibane Renmei

Series Synopsis

The town of Gile is surrounded by a massive wall that no one is permitted to cross. It is said that the walls exist to protect the mysterious Haibane; beings with wings on their backs and a halo over their head. Who the Haibane are and where they come from is unknown, but the people of Gile faithfully look after them with a smile.

Each Haibane is born from a large cocoon with no memories of who they previously were, not even their name. The only thing they can recall is the dream they had when they were asleep inside. Although not rare, the arrival of a cocoon isn’t an everyday occurrence and it has been a couple years since the last.

Suddenly, one is discovered and from it emerges a young girl (voiced by Ryo Hirohashi). The news spreads fast and the Old Home, the main residence of the Haibane, is quickly filled with excitement. The older occupants do what they can to make sure their new arrival is comfortable, but one there's one, Reki (voiced by Junko Noda), who takes it upon herself to mentor the girl, who is given the name Rakka.

Though a little disoriented by her ordeal, Rakka quickly bonds with Reki and the other residents of Old Home. However, the loss of her memories is a heavy weight to bare. Along with that, she cannot

Anime Hajime Review: Level E

Series Synopsis

The Earth is currently populated with thousands of aliens from all over the universe and more come every single day. Ranging from peaceful to hostile, countless extraterrestrial species have taken up residence and have assimilated within the native population. And everyone knows about it, except for the human.

Earthling and baseball prodigy, Yukitaka Tsutsui (voiced by Yoshimasa Hosoya), moves into his new apartment to attend high school. However, waiting inside is a tall, blonde haired man (voiced by Daisuke Namikawa) claiming to be an alien who has crashed landed and has lost his memories.

While Yukitaka instantly finds this uninvited guest infuriating, he begrudgingly starts to help when government men and other alien races begin hunting the stranded man down.

Along the way, it is learned that the man is actually the prince of the highly influential planet, Dogra, and should anything happen to him it would risk war on an intergalactic scale.

The situation quickly beings to spiral out of control and it all seems hopeless; except it isn’t, because it’s all bull s@#$.

The man’s true name is Baka Ki El Dogra, who

Anime Hajime Review: Yamishibai Season 3

Series Synopsis

Round three.

The mysterious masked man has been replaced with a small boy calling over his friends to look at the drawings in his notebook. What sorts of chilling things will we see from the mind of this child?

Lend it to Me

A man is on his way home when he passes a public bath he has never seen before. On a whim he decides to use the facilities and appears to be the only customer. However from the women’s side, someone begins asking to borrow a few items. Slowly, the requests start to become much stranger.

Tunnel

Two friends get lost on a road trip and come across a tunnel that is not on their map. Because they're running out of gas, they chance it. Unfortunately, their car runs out in the darkness.

Rat

Moving into a new apartment, a young wife gets scared after seeing a rat and is bit by one that night. Unsure if she can handle the pests, her husband goes on a business trip. She then learns

Anime Hajime Review: Blue Drop

Series Synopsis

Mari Wakatake (voiced by Akiko Yajima) is the lone survivor of a mysterious disaster that complete wiped out the small island she was from. Making matters difficult, she has no memories from before or of the event. Five years have passed and Mari is transferring into the prestigious girl’s school, Kaiho Academy; a transition she isn’t thrilled about and makes no effort hiding her distain.

Mari’s first interactions with her fellow students are strained, but there's one girl who seems to always strike a nerve; Hagino Senkoji (voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro).

Despite the two starting off on the wrong foot, Mari and Hagino cannot help but feel some kind of connection between them. Things then start to go from complicated to other worldly when Mari discovers Hagino isn’t quite who she claims.

It turns out that Hagino is the commander of the alien battleship Blue, and was part of a reconnaissance mission for an incoming invasion. Yet Hagino has seemingly turned against her comrades and is doing whatever she can to protect the Earth; a decision that was a direct result of the tragedy on Mari’s home island.

The two girls struggle to open up to their friends and each other, but that cannot deny their feelings

Anime Ichiban: LofZOdyssey's Top 10 Anime Comedies

Criteria

I do try to review a wide mix of genres. There’s nothing, short of hentai, that I’m not willing to talk about. I want to get the dramas, I want to get the horrors, I want get the romances, the mysteries, mechs, and whatever else there is.

However, I feel it’s undeniable to see that comedies are the shows I’m most drawn too.

Now I’m talking about straight comedies where that's the main point. Other shows might have comedic elements, but are predominantly something else. I have laughed at jokes in series that I still classify as incredibly grim and heavy. But that’s not what we’re looking at here.

We’re focusing on the shows that are out to make you laugh. These are the shows that are extremely lighthearted and do not take themselves that seriously. Does that mean that these anime have nothing but hilarity? Not necessarily. A few of these entries do have occasional somber or touching moments, but they never break the silly, fun atmosphere that’s created.

There were a lot of candidates to narrow down and some, actually most, of the shows on this list aren't ones that I have reviewed on this site. However, you can assume that they all have my full recommendation.