Romance

Paradise Kiss is an artistic story about all the fond relationships and memories we forge during our high school/ college years.

The artistic style is fun with lot's of costumes and creative hairstyles but it manages to keep everything down to earth with a slightly subdued colour palette. 

Each main character develops throughout the course of the story while maintaining their own very unique identities. 

The plot line is pretty simple but it tends to be more realistic than many western stories.

Overall Paradise Kiss is a great little anime to watch, but I wouldn't recommend it for pre-teens or younger. I give Paradise Kiss a 4 out of 5.  

Inu X Boku SS is a cute love story with some very strange characters. Although the story and design feels some what minimalist in nature, the characters are so different and interesting that they are really fun to watch.  Being only one season long the only real character development that occurs naturally happens to the central characters.  However, you can see that the characters have to make a real exerted effort to overcome their challenges and doesn't occur over one or two episodes.  

The design is minimalist in nature and often features very strong saturated colors.  The animation is also very clean and polished often showing cute little details like the tapping of a foot under a table to portray a mood.  

The conflicts are both internal character struggles as well as strange monster fights but it all fits within the story and adds to it's overall charm.  

I give Inu X Boku SS a 4 out of 5.

Sukitte Iinayo - Say... I Love You is a very cute romance anime about a very unlikely couple.  All of the characters in the story all develop and transform through their interactions with each other.  The conflicts of the story tend to be both individualized and relationship based.  Throughout the story all of the characters grow through these interactions with each other.  In this way the anime captures a precious aspect of high school life.

The artwork is very beautiful and captures many precious moments and memories of Japanese life during the summer months.

Sukitte Iinayo is a beautiful and charming story that I will give 4.5 out of 5.

Sword Art Online was a very popular anime that ran for two seasons. I don't think the second season was as strong as the first season, but this was the first time I have seen an anime about being trapped in an online virtual world.  I thought SAO did a good job expressing some of the highs and lows of living in the virtual world.

I really liked the art in this series.  Perhaps because it was a virtual world, the designers enjoyed making a variety of unique designs and environments.  The animation is very polished and coloring is super rich and enjoyable.

SAO  does a good job of finishing off it's storyline and wrapping up all of it's loose ends which is great because it doesn't leave you hanging.  Also, the character development is very good in this anime.

The conflicts in season one are more interesting because you don't quite understand why the players become trapped in the world, so the characters and the viewers are on a quest to solve that together.  Season two is less interesting as it doesn't promote any questions but it's still fun to watch.

I would give SAO season 1 a 4.5 out of 5 and season 2 a 4 out of 5.  I believe that children over 8 can watch SAO but I recommend parental guidance.

Uta No Prince Sama is anime made for a young female audience.  It's definitely romantic in nature and was conceptually based off of the Japanese choose your own date video games.  Basically the story is about a young talented girl who captures the hearts of many attractive Japanese Idols.  

As this is a character driven anime there is a lot of focus on character development.  However, as there are a large number of characters and not many episodes, the development of the characters happens very quickly.  

As a newer anime the colours are rich in vibrancy and the animation is clean.  I feel like some of the design elements are inspired by Japanese Print Club*. (*Fancy photo booths found all over Japan that add text or stamps in various colours and styles.)

The conflicts in the story vary as the story progresses from character to character but they all revolve around deepening the relationship with the young female protagonist.

For a relationship drama made for young girls, I think it's well done.

I give Uta No Prince Sama 4 stars out of 5. ;)

Walkure Romanze is a very pretty anime that is surprisingly pervy. The story is easy to follow but has thus far done a good job of character development and relevant conflict resolution.  

The animation is clean and the designs are fun if sometimes a little exotic.  Artistically speaking, I think the colouring really stands out in this anime.   The colourists do a good a really good job of capturing the light through the tree canopy, the colors at sunset and the pink reflection from the cherry blossom trees.

However, as I said, this is a very pervy anime so you have to be prepared to see a lot of girl underwear and cheesy, sexually implied jokes.  

Overall I think Walkure Romanze is starting to paint a good little story and I give it a 3 out of 5 at this time.

Princess Lover is a cute, classic fairy tale type story with a few nice messages for it's viewers.  It was originally created as an 'adult game' but has been successfully translated into other media such as this anime.

The art is rosy, cheerful and animated well.  The colour palate is bright and cheerful throughout the anime.  The plot is easy to follow, even predict, but the cheerful messages and silly character interactions make it fun to watch.

The characters don't develop much, but they each do a little bit.  It is a short little anime though, so considering the storyline, I think the authors did pretty good getting this in as much as they did.

I give Princess Lover a 3 out of 5.