The First Lesson: Review an Anime: Akatsuki no Yona

Reviewing an anime as a whole? I'm so excited!

Akatsuki no Yona (Yona of the Dawn)
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Adventure
Seasons: 1
OVA: 3 
Watched in Sub or Dub?: Both

Why am I reviewing this anime first? 

Simple really... it's my favorite anime

The tutorial (I mean ratings):
Story: 8/10
Animation: 9.5/10
Characters: 9/10
Music: 9/10
Overall: 9/10

      As much as I would like to give this anime a 100%, it's be pretty difficult to learn anything if I didn't cover the good and the bad.
      First part of the lesson please... The music, it's beautiful to listen to, and while it adds to the story in nice ways, it's not overbearing and instead adds to the emotional appeal that this anime has. The opening is personally better than the ending music, but both are pretty, and comparing to other's from different anime's, they are just right for the tone.

Moving on...
       The story itself starts off kind of slow, and I assumed that it would be purely made of cliches and the like, but as the story unfolds and gives hints, I found myself more and more intrigued. The story has a nice blend of humor that breaks up the seriousness of the main situation without totally destroying built-up tension. I won't spoil the story, but since I've read the manga (and the upcoming chapters as well), I am aware that should they make a season 2, it can only make the story that much better.

Next point...
        The animation is simply beautiful in this anime. The fight scenes are all superb, and the vibrant colors and dark colors they use to contrast one another is very clever. The animation really has no flaws, and the character design very closely resembles the manga, in a good way.

Now, my favorite section...
       The characters: what can I say? I loved them all. Hak and Yona are both amazing characters, who have goals and feelings and shortcomings that make them so human and amazing at the same time. Yona isn't completely helpless, and while she doesn't magically become the toughest person in the group, she utilizes the strengths and skills that she does have, and develops more along the way. She learns, and then uses what she learned to better herself, and others. Anime does have a lot of interesting female characters, but some anime also have female characters that are useless, and never serve a purpose until the last episode, so I found and find Yona to be a refreshing character.
       Hak, who is the main male character in this story, is also fairly unique in my opinion. Yes, he is super strong and can seem too strong at times, but it's consistent, and he doesn't magically get stronger than was shown previously. I like that he's not the stoic strong character, who's only purpose is to be Yona's bodyguard. Instead he has emotions, and he's smart, but is also funny. He's a three-dimensional character, just as Yona and the other main cast.
      I'm not going to cover all of the characters in depth, but I'll give my general opinion for rest of the group. The dragon element to Yona's other companions is really intriguing and lends some interesting character arcs that are individual to each one, and although Yoon is not one of the warriors, he contributes in his own way, and I like that the other characters don't pressure him to be big and tough, but instead he goes through doubts himself and comes to his own conclusions about how he can contribute. The only negative I'd have for the anime is the underdevelopment of Soo-won, who appears to be the main antagonist, but ends up not really getting much airtime on the why he (spoiler for first episode) killed Yona's Father and wanted to kill her and ascend the throne.
    Side tutorial: The harem... doesn't really make that much sense to me as a tag, considering other harem anime I've seen, other than it being a little weird that Yona has a group a males following her around, it doesn't really do much as a "harem" anime.

     Overall, this anime can be a bit slow at times, but the action, characters, and animation more than make up for it's shortcomings. If it wasn't obvious, I highly recommend this anime for anybody interested in an amazing anime.

Hope you found this review helpful, but if not, let me know what I can add or take away that would make it helpful. 🙈
I'd also love to hear what you think of this anime (or manga), and if you have any recommendations for other anime.
Question: Who is your favorite character?
                Do you prefer sub or dub?
My answers: I love Shin-ah, and the subtitled version

Stepping into the Wardrobe

Shall we begin then?

Today's review: Haikyuu!! Season 3 episode 10

Genre: Sports

English-subtitled only

I'll review the series as a whole later, but I thought this would be a cool place to start.

Story: 9/10

Characters: 9/10

Animation: 10/10

Music: 9/10

This is such a unique sports anime that brings so much life to the genre. The characters are all unique, have motivations and aspirations, and are fun to watch. They all want to win, and by this episode, while I was certainly still rooting for Karasuno, I could feel and empathize with Shiratorizawa. The emotions ran high, and the ending to the last set was not a disappointment. While Hinata seems to be the main protagonist, with Kageyama a close second, the episode managed to give a multitude of characters their time to shine, and also set-up the next arc for season 4 (has is been confirmed yet? I'll have to check). Great ending to the season, and a beautiful addition to the sports genre and anime as a whole. 

Coach Ukai's voice actor Kazunari Tanaka will be missed, and I hope to become used to Hisao Agawa's Ukai in the future.

That's all I have for right now, but I'll be posting the next step of the journey soon!

P.S: Let me know if you got the title reference😉

Packing for the Journey

This is just a small list of things you need to know about how I'll operate:

1. I watch both sub and dub anime's, and like and dislike both about equally, but I will establish which I watched the anime in.
2. I don't ship boy-boy relationships, nor girl-girl romances, and prefer more of a brotherly(or sisterly), and best friend relationship.
3. I'm not a fan of the horror or sci-fi genre, so you won't find anime with those genres talked about too much.
4. There are a few ecchi anime's that I've seen, and I like a few of them, but I will never review the ecchi as good or a necessary part of the anime.
5. If I haven't seen most of the anime( complete or almost complete), I probably won't include them in any of my "Top" postings to be fair to those anime.
6. Unless otherwise stated, none of the pictures or videos posted on this site belong to me.

For now, that should suffice, and I hope you continue on this journey with me, dear fellow explorers.

The Journey Begins

    Hello all! Welcome! This blog will cover my exploits into the anime world, and the thoughts I've had along the way, and what I gathered from travelling there. Or, in plain English, reviews of anime I've seen, will watch, and looking forward to in the future. The entries following this one will also cover Top favs of whatever topic I feel like. I'm not expecting everyone to be happy with my personal lists, but nonetheless I would appreciate comments to tell me why, and breed discussions rather than arguments, or simply "you're wrong," as the base.

    Moving on, I began this journey about a year ago now, and I certainly never expected to keep going back or moving forward. I'm in college now, but when I was young I loved watching cartoons, and although I didn't know it, sometimes they were anime with the English dubbed, like Naruto and Digimon, and I really enjoyed them. Flash forward to a year ago, and I still didn't understand what the difference between manga and anime, and anime and cartoon was. I started off quite randomly, by watching an English subtitled anime called Akatsuki no Yona (still my favorite), and a few months later, I found Fairy Tail (the dub), and shared my newfound medium with my siblings, who like me, enjoyed watching them. Flash forward one more time, and here I am, with about 100 anime under my belt (albeit not all of them were watched all the way through). I know I've only just scratched the surface, so have patience and come along with me on this adventure!