Hello everyone, Justin here and welcome to the Otaku Mind. As you all know I’ve written 200 blogs, yeah~ buddy. While it’s true I technically haven’t reviewed 200 animes that still doesn’t take away from the fact that I’ve written 200 reviews which is quite impressive. Just like you guys have become fans of my reviews so too have I. Every now and then I go back and read them to get a good laugh, get some fresh new ideas, or just something to do for fun. As I do this I often find myself asking which reviews are my favorites? Which reviews did I enjoy writing the most and felt was my best work? Now don’t get me wrong, I like all of my reviews but there are some I feel are better than others and showcase my comedic talent as well as my writing skills. That’s why for this Otaku Mind I’m going to name my top 11 favorite reviews that I’ve currently done. These are the reviews I enjoyed writing and they’re the reviews I feel showcase my talent as a writer. Why top 11? Because even when I’m not in character I still like to go one step beyond. Let’s celebrate by looking at the reviews that made me, me. These are my top 11 favorite reviews.
#11. My top 11 lists
Okay I’m cheating with this one but still my top 11 lists are fan favorites and they technically count as opinions. The top 11 lists have always been looked at as a way for me to write on a more personal level. Share my thoughts about this particular subject and why I like this. These reviews have always been fun for me to write and have even opened up the doors for arcs. These reviews are usually the ones that get the most hits from people and I enjoy writing them so much that I decided to make the top 11 hottest anime girl list a tradition on the show. Always fun and helping me share my opinion on a more personal level, the top 11 lists are some of my favorite reviews and I always look forward to doing them.
#10. H.O.T.D
This remains to be the quickest review I ever wrote today. I marathon the entire show in one day and finished writing my review for the show in that same day. Usually it takes me about 3-4 days to write a regular review which is like 12 or 13 episodes and if it’s a movie that’s usually a day in a half. So the fact that I was able to write this review in one day just proves how excited I was to write this review for the anime. I love it when an anime gives me plenty to work with and that’s what H.O.T.D gave me. It takes the zombie apocalypse setting seriously but at the same time it has its moments when it’s funny and delivers on the fanservice. It’s a series that had the perfect bland of comedy, horror, action, drama, and fanservice and that’s what made it such a fun anime to write about. I was able to make fun of the whole zombie clichés we see in movies like the one boyfriend not carrying a weapon and the fanservice jokes. My two favorite jokes from this review was the boobatrix breakdown because it truly is ridiculous and funny at the same time and my other favorite joke was my banter with Isis about whether or not Takashi and Saeko did it in the temple and she’s like why aren’t you this focus in your other work. Another joke I like was near the end of the review where I was making fun of Steven Foster’s obsessive use of the f-word and taking a subtle jab at him. Fun review, fun anime, and was one of the first reviews I got really excited to do.
#9. Summer Wars
When I decided to review Summer Wars I had just recently started getting into Mamoru Hosoda’s work. I was familiar with some of his work such as the Digimon movies and the One Piece movie but I finally got to see some of his better work (i.e The Girl who Leapt Through Time) and see why everyone was praising this guy so much. Summer Wars is definitely one of his best works even if it is the Digimon movie done correctly but it was still a movie I enjoyed reviewing. I loved the atmosphere of this movie. The family members are hands the best part as whenever I see them I see my own family in a few of them. In fact, I honestly wish the whole Love Machine thing didn’t happened and we just focused on the family as that’s where the heart of the story is. I loved my reaction of finding out that Natsuki projected the image of her douchebag uncle onto Kenji. Words cannot describe how shocked I was when this part came on but I did my best to put my initial reaction into the review. But I digress, this was a review I enjoyed doing not only for its atmosphere but also for its idea of trying to bring a sense of order to the Internet. The concept is actually pretty good. We would have to tweak it here and there but other than that I would welcome the idea of Oz and with virtual reality hitting the market this idea might not be too far off from video games. Who knows, maybe down the line XBox and Playstation will create their own version of Oz for their system where players can interact with each other from anywhere in the world and hopefully down the line Nintendo will jump on that boat as well as I think they would benefit from it the most.
#8. Samurai Champloo
One of my favorite animes of all time. I know a lot of people prefer Cowboy Bebop over Samurai Champloo but I honestly like Champloo over Bebop and I think my love for Champloo translated well into my reviews. Like I said before when an anime gives me so much to work with I feel that’s when my writing style and comedic humor really starts to shine through and these reviews give me plenty to work with. Not only is the concept for this anime good but I was able to tackle jokes on the hip-hop side and feudal japan side as well as talk about some serious issues like the prostitute episode or the hidden Christians episode and present them in a way that was both entertaining but at the same time educational without really forcing it down your throats or making you uncomfortable as you read it. I don’t particularly have a favorite joke or moment in this review, it’s just a review that I felt was on point information and comedy wise and a review I enjoyed writing and coming back to read from time to time.
#7. DanMachi
I always enjoy doing reviews with the rest of the cast of Project Nitsuj. I love creating different dialog for them and watching them interact off each other. This review was a big risk for me because this was the first time I ever used 3 people to review an anime instead of 2 so I knew each one had to have different views. I decided to have Nitsuj look at it from a reviewer’s standpoint, Isis would look at it from a casual viewer standpoint, and Yin-Yang would look at it from a more serious and deeper perspective than Isis and Nitsuj. I did this because in the end they each represent my thoughts on the anime as a whole. I like it but at the same time it’s one of those animes that makes a number of mistakes that can’t be overlooked and I wanted to show all aspects of my thoughts with this anime. On top of that I did enjoy the banter between Nitsuj, Isis and Yin-Yang as they made Nitsuj go through the whole review without making any dirty jokes or sexual jokes. I guess I just wanted to show you guys that while I’m good at dirty humor I don’t necessarily need it to write a review, I can write a review with just my wits and fun characters. That’s what makes me like this review so much. I took a lot of risk with it and they all paid off as I was able to make a really good and enjoyable review.
#6. Sailor Moon Crystal
I originally had plans to review this anime at the end of the year but when I found out the new season would be airing in the spring that plan got scrapped and I had to push the review up. I couldn’t do March because I had already set up plans for that month’s reviews, so I had no choice but to review the anime in February. Luckily, I was prepared for this anime because I had laid out the ground work in my brain on what I wanted to do and say. As far as reviews go this review was probably the one I prepared for the most because Sailor Moon held a special place in my heart. Like I’ve said before I used to watch Toonami all the time back in the day and the first two animes I remember watching was DBZ and Sailor Moon and while Sailor Moon was geared toward the female audience I still respected the show because one it was one of the first animes I watched and two, just like boys had DBZ that got them into anime, girls had Sailor Moon that got them into anime so I felt that Sailor Moon deserved the same amount of respect and praise like DBZ and when this below average anime came out I knew I had to step up my game for this review and I did. Another fun fact about this review was that this was actually the review I sent to the administer at AniRecs which got be hired on the site. At the time I felt this was my best work as it showcased my best writing, jokes, and thoughts about the anime. My favorite joke was the Moonlight Knight bit. I was a big fan of the Sailor Moon abriged series done by Megami33 and one of my favorite jokes from the series was Moonlight Knight with the whole buddi buddi buddi thing. When I started writing this review I knew that I had to add that joke into the review but an opportunity just never showed up until Tuxedo Mask started gaining powers from his knights and I was like now’s my chance to use that joke. I was excited too because I was about to give up. This was a fun review, I enjoyed writing it, I liked my jokes and comments, I got to use the buddi buddi buddi joke, and it helped open new doors for me.
#5. Kill la Kill
I consider year 3 to be my best year review wise. Year 1 was me trying to find my style of writing, year 2 was me perfecting and sharpening that style of writing I chose to go with, and year 3 was when I mastered my style and put it on display for everyone to see. Also, year 3 probably has the most hits I’ve ever gotten. I feel that every review I wrote that year was a hit in some way. Anyway, going into year 3 I knew how I wanted to start and end the year, reviewing Kill la Kill and Attack on Titan. Since Attack on Titan was considered the bigger of the two and Kill la Kill was still fresh in my mind, I decided to start with Kill la Kill and to make the review more entertaining I decided to bring Shizuku into the mix. Again, I love watching the characters I create interact and work off each other. I think out of all the AI girls Isis and Shizuku are the ones who work off of Nitsuj the best because one understands Nitsuj’s insane way of thinking and the other one is so insane herself that she makes Nitsuj look normal. It was fun using Shizuku in this review as she just felt right at home with this review and Nitsuj following her throughout the review while also getting his sly comments and humor in was a lot of fun as well. It’s one of the best collaborations I’ve done with the characters and it’s one of the funniest collaborations I’ve done with the characters.
#4. Attack on Titan
Yes, it was a close tie between this review and Kill la Kill. Pretty much the same reasons why I liked my Kill la Kill review can be said about this anime. The interactions between Nitsuj and Isis is great. It’s a platonic relationship but I still make you think these two could wind up together. What makes this review slightly higher than Kill la Kill for me is that the jokes in this review are a lot funnier than Kill la Kill. This review allowed me to use Stan Lee’s joke from The Simpsons. You know, that one episode where Bart creates a web comic of Homer and Stan Lee makes a guest appearance where he hangs out in the comic book store doing all kinds of funny stuff. In his final scene he tries to turn into the Hulk and it’s my favorite joke in the entire series. If you wanted to know where I got the I’m the titan joke from I got it from The Simpsons and it’s basically a parody of Stan Lee’s I’m the Hulk bit. On top of the jokes being funnier I feel that the interactions between Nitsuj and Isis are better too because they got history with each other. Isis has been with Nitsuj since the beginning so there’s that bond they have with each other. While Nitsuj has a bond with the other AI girls the bond he shares with Isis is slightly higher as they’ve been through thick and thin with each other and can trust that the other will have their back no matter what.
#3. Shinmai Maou no Testament
This is probably the ecchiest anime I’ve reviewed so far on the show and it’s the best use of the Jack Brothers so far. Up until this point I was kind of unsure of what to do with the Jack Bros. I had these two guys who were like the walking perverted embodiments of Bevis and Butthead and I had no idea how to get these guys over in the show. So as I’m sitting down and writing the review for Shinmai I came up with the joke of Nitsuj getting a nosebleed at all the fanservice going on but I felt that it wouldn’t fit with his character since in the past he’s seen ecchi anime a number of times and didn’t get a nosebleed so why should this time be any different? That’s when it hit me, the Jack Bros. I would use this review to create their characters as these guys who were great mages but at the same time were perverts who got nosebleeds easily and would serve as the comic relief characters. Along with this running joke throughout the review which is another one of my favorite jokes, this anime gave me plenty to work with which I was a little shocked at first because the last time I reviewed an anime this heavy on fanservice I got a subpar review. But no, I was able to make a good review because not only is the fanservice good but just like To Love Ru, Highschool DxD, and H.O.T.D there’s a good story to work with and characters with a personality to explore. All of this combined with the Jack Bros. and you have a golden review.
#2. School Days
Every now and then you come across something that you just want to destroy. Something that just awakens unspeakable rage within you and you want to do everything in your power to destroy it. That was the mindset I had when I reviewed School Days. To me, this wasn’t a review this was a burial, I wanted to bury this anime to the point that nobody would bother digging it up ever again. I went into this anime ready to destroy everything and everyone involved in the anime and I felt that I succeeded in my task. The writing I felt reflected my anger and hatred for this anime but at the same time was funny and truthful. No matter how you look at this anime you will walk away pissed off about it because the actions of everyone in it are so stupid and nonsensical. This is what I wanted to reflect in my reviews of Negima and Ikkitousen but just couldn’t get up to in those reviews. This one on the other hand, I reached the level of anger and humor perfectly.
And number 1 is. . .
#1. Hidan no Aria
Yes, I’ve gone on record a number of times saying Hidan no Aria is my favorite review and why is that you ask, because it was originally going to be the last review I did. I was originally going to stop after this review because at the time there was just too much going on in my life (i.e work, family, etc.) and I felt I wasn’t really doing that good of a job so I decided I would write one last review on one of my favorite animes and then once everything settled in my life I would possibly return. I really went all out in this review, I took my time with the writing and jokes. If this was going to be my last blog I was going to go out on a high note that everyone would remember. But as I started writing this review I felt a surge of emotion, excitement, creativity, joy, and fun. The same feeling, I felt when I wrote my first review I felt in this review only better. When I finished writing the review and read over it I knew that I wasn’t ready to give up Project Nitsuj and that I wanted to keep on writing. That’s why I feel that this review is not only my best review but my favorite review. This review showed me that I can do this, that I can make this blog mean something to everyone that goes online and reads it, and that I can continue to improve and get better. For many people this blog may be an average one but to me it’s the blog that revitalized me and inspired me to make Project Nitsuj mean something special. Because of this inspiration I’ll always consider this to be my best and favorite work.
Well, guys that’s my list. Which review do you think is my best work, let me know in the comment section below. I hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj as more reviews are set to come for a long time. Thanks again everyone for the support over years and I look forward to entertaining you more.
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