Bulk Lot Anime Reviews: One Punch Man, Luck & Logic, Actually I Am…

Welcome to the second edition of Bulk Lot Anime Reviews. As before, while some people have the ability and luxury to only review one episode and then the whole series for about 5 or so shows over a three month period, I’m given anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks to review about 3-4 full shows on physical media for the great people over at Madman Entertainment. So here we go again with 3 more shows done in a quicker format since life got in the way once again.

---

Title: One Punch Man 
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Comedy, Parody, Super Power, Supernatural, Seinen
Details: 12 Episodes + 6 OVA Release
Date: June 7, 2017 (Australia)
Languages: English, Japanese
Subtitles: English subtitles
Number of Discs: 2 (DVD) / 2 (Bluray) / 4 (Limited Edition)
Runtime: 300.0 mins (24mins per episode)
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Widescreen Full Height Anamorphic
Distributor: Madman Entertainment (DVD) (Bluray) (Limited Edition)
Special Features: 6 OVAs, Textless Opening & Closing Songs, Cast & Crew Interview
Rating: M: Animated violence

The seemingly ordinary and unimpressive Saitama has a rather unique hobby: being a hero. In order to pursue his childhood dream, he trained relentlessly for three years—and lost all of his hair in the process. Now, Saitama is incredibly powerful, so much so that no enemy is able to defeat him in battle. In fact, all it takes to defeat evildoers with just one punch has led to an unexpected problem—he is no longer able to enjoy the thrill of battling and has become quite bored.

This all changes with the arrival of Genos, a 19-year-old cyborg, who wishes to be Saitama’s disciple after seeing what he is capable of. Genos proposes that the two join the Hero Association in order to become certified heroes that will be recognized for their positive contributions to society, and Saitama, shocked that no one knows who he is, quickly agrees. And thus begins the story of One Punch Man, an action-comedy that follows an eccentric individual who longs to fight strong enemies that can hopefully give him the excitement he once felt and just maybe, he’ll become popular in the process.

Talk about an anime that lives up to the hype. One Punch Man is one of those anime shows that gives you exactly what it promises: A lot of action with very little talking and 30 episode power up sequences. While Saitama does have his own issues when it comes to himself and his strength, he quickly throws that aside when there are people who need saving. The big mystery here is how Saitama got so strong to begin with (Come on, his explanation of “100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, run 10 kilometers every day & no air-conditioner… This has to be some BS added to the anime to keep things mysterious) and also how he lost his hair. Though I think the bigger mystery is how someone so strong and who has defeated so many high level monsters with one punch has escaped the notice of the Hero Association for so many possible years.

But those are just some of the unanswered questions that gives One Punch Man more meaning and intrigue as an anime. There are so many things going on at once with a lot of the characters that you could spend months or years making a series on each one of them and you wouldn’t get all the answers you desire. While this would be something that would hurt a lot of other anime series out there, for One Punch Man it shows that the series is one that you really want to immerse yourself into and just enjoy. Every character involved in the series brings something fresh and interesting to the table from the lowly powered Kamen Rider spoof character Mumen Rider to some of the S-Class Heroes like King (The truth behind King is funny as hell, but I won’t spoil it for you here).

To be honest, One Punch Man is one of those rare anime series that comes along once in a blue moon on backward rotation… It’s that rare. A combination of good characters from minor to major, villains who range from comidcally weak to world threatening, a main character who seems oblivious to being the main character, animation that is good in comedy and full on action, even the dub isn’t that bad either. One Punch Man is a pure 5 Star classic of anime that is going to quickly reach and stay in a lot of people’s top 10 anime of all time lists for a long time to come. A 100% must own in your collection.

---

Title: Luck & Logic: Complete Series 
Genre: Action, Fantasy
Details: 12 Episodes 
Date: June 7, 2017 (Australia)
Languages: English, Japanese
Subtitles: English subtitles
Number of Discs: 2 (DVD)
Runtime: 300.0 mins (24mins per episode)
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Widescreen Full Height Anamorphic
Distributor: Madman Entertainment (DVD)
Special Features: Textless Opening and Closing Songs 
Rating: M: Fantasy themes, animated violence and nudity

In the year L.C. 922, mankind faces an unprecedented crisis. Following the conclusion of a hundred-year war on the mythical world of Tetraheaven, the losing Majins sought a safe haven and invaded the human world Septpia. The government is forced to fight by employing Logicalists belonging to ALCA, a special police that protects the streets from foreigners of another world. Logicalists are given a special power that allows them to enter a trance with Goddesses from the other world.

One day, Yoshichika Tsurugi, a civilian who is lacking “Logic” and lives peacefully with his family, meets the beautiful goddess Athena while helping people escape from a Majin attack. She wields the “Logic” that Yoshichika should have lost. This leads Yoshichika to an unexpected destiny with Athena.

The future of the world depends on the “Luck” and “Logic” and these Logicalists.

I picked up Luck & Logic purely because I used to teach card games from Bushiroad Card Games, the company that licensed this property out to be turned into an anime. The usual thing with Bushiroad integrated anime is that the show revolves around the card game itself, being used as a tutorial for the card game and to push the new products with each additional season. The best example of this are the other two more popular Bushiroad integrated shows: Cardfight Vanguard & Future Card Buddyfight. These two shows are all about the cards and the players fighting each other for some ultimate goal. Luck & Logic is nothing like that. Luck & Logic plays more on the lore behind the card game and uses some of the same terms of the mechanics from the card game but doesn’t involve the people actually playing the card game, which while it was a welcome change from other shows, it was ultimately destroyed by a very cookie cutter plot and tropes that don’t work on the long term in keeping my interest.

I think the biggest flaw here was that the anime just went with the mysterious protagonists and love conquers all plot ideas for the whole 12 episode series. The other thing that really got to me was the overtly bright colour pallet during the action scenes that hurt my eyes and distracted me from looking at the screen during those scenes and leading to a disconnect from a huge part of the show’s appeal as an action anime series. The last thing that I think works against Luck & Logic is that the transformation scene involve all the females, naked, embracing and kissing in order to combine into a armor form. Don’t get me wrong first and foremost, I have no issues with females loving females or the actions shown… Except that a couple of the characters look and act like they are underaged kids, something that will not play with Western audiences.

Luck & Logic is not a bad series at all, it’s a great departure from the usual Bushiroad integrated format, but I think the execution here was something that was left lacking. I know the series did well enough to get a follow up series called Hina Logi – From Luck & Logic that is airing in Japan at the time of writing. Hopefully some of the issues here are addressed in the follow up series. I do recommend people giving Luck & Logic a try, maybe watch a few episodes through a streaming service like AnimeLab or CrunchyRoll before dropping money on the retail release.

---

Title: Actually I Am… 
Genre: Comedy, Supernatural, Romance, Fantasy, School, Shounen
Details: 13 Episodes 
Date: June 7, 2017 (Australia)
Languages: Japanese
Subtitles: English 
Number of Discs: 2 (DVD) 
Runtime: 325.0 mins (23mins per episode)
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Widescreen Full Height Anamorphic
Distributor: Madman Entertainment (DVD) 
Special Features: Textless Opening and Closing Songs
Rating: M: Sexual references and sexualised imagery

One day after school, Asahi Kuromine stumbles upon the truth that Youko Shiragami, the girl he has a crush on, is actually a vampire. According to her father’s rules, Youko must now quit school in order to keep her family safe. However, Asahi does not want her to go and promises that he will keep her true nature secret. Unfortunately, this turns out to be easier said than done, as Asahi is a man who is easy to read and is unable to keep any secrets to himself.

And this is the only the beginning of his troubles—more supernatural beings enter his life, and he is forced to protect all of their identities or face the consequences. Jitsu wa Watashi wa follows Asahi as he deals with his new friends and the unique challenges they bring, struggles to keep his mouth shut, and desperately tries to win Youko’s heart in the process.

Ok, I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for some High School Harem anime. Especially when that type of anime involves supernatural beings that are involved with a loser male character. One of my favorites is Rosario + Vampire, which is sort of the same thing as Actually I Am… (or My Monster Secret or Jitsu wa Watashi wa, depending on who you ask to translate the title) except with the monsters being a part of a normal human high school instead of the normal human guy ending up at a high school for monsters.

The characters here are not very deep at all. You have the dumb as bricks Vampire girl, the authoritative alien in a mech, the gender changing werewolf, the 1000 year loli looking principle demon, and the first year decedent of the main character who time traveled from a dystopian future where all females are perverts… Yep, that’s what we are dealing with here people. A lot of crazy in a very tight and small bag. Oh, I almost forgot about the loser main guy character who can’t keep a secret worth a damn but ends up with all the monster girls chasing him for his affection or some other personal reason. Overall these characters are not all that deep and you really don’t learn much about them besides what type of monster they are and some basic personality traits. But that doesn’t matter too much since this is one of those anime series that needs to be more situational then personality driven.

Given that this is a High School Harem anime, don’t expect too much from it. It’s very stock standard with how things go about. The main guy learns about main female Vampire by accident, then slowly enters a world where he notices he is surrounded by more monsters than he was expecting, and of course most of them are chasing him down for his heart, or penis. You get the usual funny moments with the Gender changing Werewolf character (probably the highlight of the series actually) either pushing the two mains together or trying to get between them to bring them closer together. You do get the usual beach and festival episodes to break up the high school setting, but that’s only 2 episodes out of the 13 that are available here which isn’t too bad and come at the right time in the series.

My personal disappointment with Actually I Am… is that there was no English dub made for the show. Sure, the anime series only came out 2 years ago but it shouldn’t take that long to get something done in that regard. But I can understand that with the big who-ha about sexually charged anime being “bad and offensive” in the West during the last couple of years that there wouldn’t be too many dubbing companies wanting to take something like this on. However Shimoneta: A World where Dirty Jokes Don’t Exist came out at the same time in Japan and it got an English dub… Weird. Oh well, guess it’s subtitles for this series then.

Overall, Actually I Am… is not a bad anime to sit down and watch. Sure it’s got it’s perverted side to it and it’s a very by the numbers series, but it’s one of those shows that if you don’t mind an afternoon of reading, you can get through it in a day and still feel like your time was worth investing. It’s no Rosario + Vampire, but it’s enough to keep those wanting something monster related happy till Monster Musume* comes out.

---

So there we go! All of the above anime is available at Madman Entertainment’s Online Store via the links in the informational section for each series above, and I am now caught up on the June releases. Coming up in the July release list (aka the next Bulk Lot Anime Reviews) are Himouto Umaru-chan, Chivalry of a Failed Knight, Gangsta and The Asterisk War Parts 1 & 2! So keep an eye out for that here at The Outerhaven. Also sometime in the future I will be teaming up with our Manga reviewer and all around Sailor Moon fangirl Liz for a combined review of the Sailor Moon R movie! With that being said, I’ve got to fire up the DVD/Bluray player and get to watching…

Till next time, jaa ne! *^_^*

Read more: Bulk Lot Anime Reviews: Amagi Brilliant Park, Gunslinger Stratos & Seiyu’s Life

*Monster Musume has not been licensed by Madman Entertainment. This makes Karl all sad face. But he will try to get a copy and bring you that review eventually.