暗殺教室 (Ansatsu Kyoushitsu) – Mission: Assassinate the teacher

*Major spoilers for those who haven’t read the manga!* Note: this review does NOT encompass the entire storyline as it was written before the manga was complete. At first glance, this anime seems like your run-of-the-mill school-life gag anime. However, this is far from what Assassination Classroom is. For someone who doesn’t watch much shounen anime,…

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (ひぐらしのなく頃に) – Cute anime characters meet gory ends

When They Cry consists of two independent yet somewhat related anime series, ひぐらしのなく頃に (“When the Cicadas Cry”) and うみねこのなく頃に (“When the Seagulls Cry”). These two are popular Japanese murder mysteries that have had an anime adaptation, manga, visual novel as well as a video game. For this review, I’ll be covering only the former. PG…