Yuukoku no Moriarty (2020)

Moriarty the Patriot.

I always liked the character of Professor Moriarty, seeing a whole show with him being the main character made me very happy! In addition, I love the Victorian setting of London; buildings, people and the technology of that era and this anime delivers, in both the first and second season. 

These might be considered spoilers but, they really crammed everything about the UK in this show. From Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Jack the Ripper, to the creation of the MI6.

Anyways, here are my screenshots:

Miss Hudson..

Bond...

Overall Rating: 9.5/10.

Cuteness Rating: 2/10.

Materials I found looking up various stuff about the world of Sherlock Holmes:

• Sherlockian.net
  
• Wikipedia: Sherlock Holmes.
  
• Sherlock Holmes Museum.

Kingdom (2012)

Well well well. I started watching this anime out of curiosity, what I found was a surprisingly fun and engaging anime! with a twist involving a lot of tears. So far I have watched only the first season and I'm not sure if I'm going to watch the second season anytime soon.

While I'm watching this anime I noticed that some subtitles didn't match what the characters were saying. It got me pretty confused, as I would hear a character call a name and the subtitle just wrote a whole different name! 

This series be it anime, manga or novel is based on a historical story from China. Originally the people were Chinese and had Chinese names but, the ones telling the story are Japanese! While I never read the manga for this series, I understood quickly that the problem with my subtitles weren't due to negligence or malice from the people doing the fansubs. Rather, it was a pretty controversial problem amongst the Kingdom fans. As I understand, the whole work is made with Japanese names for Japanese consumers. Some fans of the series refuse to use the Japanese names; as the story is about historical Chinese characters with Chinese names, and that explained the difference in what the voice actors were saying and the subtitles.

I totally understand where these people are coming from but, personally I couldn't keep up with each character having two names and the name that I would read being something like "Piao" and hearing "Hyou" I simply couldn't handle it, so I opted for different subtitles that wrote the Japanese names, not because I disliked the original Chinese names but, because the audio and subtitle discrepancy as I mentioned earlier.

There are a lot of reading material for this particular topic, away from the plot of the story. So I would say it's ok to check them out without fear of spoilers:

• r/Kingdom Chinese vs Japanese names, and how this affects Kingdom's popularity
  
• Retired Kingdom manga translators "Turnip Farmers": A Note on Naming.
  
• Spreadsheets of character names.
  
• Wikipedia - Hanyu Pinyin
  

LasTame (2023)

 In a market filled with Isekais, none of them made me tear up as much as this one did.

Higeki no Genkyou to Naru Saikyou Gedou Last Boss Joou wa Tami no Tame ni Tsukushimasu LasTame for short. Or The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior. I wouldn't blame you if you rolled your eyes after reading the name, because I did too. But with that said, the story is your run-of-the-mill reincarnation into a game world. 

The main appeal comes from learning that Pride; the female main character, is originally so cruel and despicable and after remembering she was reincarnated, she turned into the most kind and empathetic person imaginable. After all, she knows what her character's main role in the game is to be the ultimate villain and because of that she can foresee her future as doomed, so she tries to steer away from her bad ending so to speak. It is an anime about drama and the interactions between characters, with a lot of talking and in our case reading. 

It is these character interactions that made me tear up and even after being finished with the anime I returned to episode#9 with a box of tissues in hand, it's that good. The visceral emotions in the 'interrogation' scene were so gut-wrenching and heart-aching that I had to give it one more viewing. Safe to say tears were shed, phenomenal scene and anime. 

I don't expect most people to get that sentimental from the events of that episode or even the whole anime for that matter but, it struck me personally.

Also, the creator(s) must have a thing for feet, I bet. There are two separate occasions were Pride's feet were kissed (even licked!?). I don't get the appeal towards feet personally but, I guess the context makes it acceptable somehow..

Now, in terms of cuteness.. it is conveyed by the emotions in the scenes rather than the visuals but, there is cuteness nonetheless. Like these chibi animations at the ending.

Precious little Tiara..

I really wish to see a second season of this in the near future.

Cuteness Rating: 7/10.

Overall Rating: 10/10.