User reviews

I won't go into the controversy surrounding this series during its earlier stage of production. As far as anyone should be concerned, we just have a new series on an anime streaming service. It will be judged as such.

The issue here is a lack of true innovation, or at the very least innovation that seems natural. Characters are one note or adhere to traits already used in other shows, the plot is just as flat and basic, the animation... I'm not gonna complain about a western cartoon being featured on an anime service, but this animation is pretty subpar.

Basic movement, mediocre art direction, often lazy backgrounds.

The writing suggests the writers are out of touch with the world or have no grasp on natural progression or presentation. It feels more like meeting a quota than providing true representation. Not all LGBTQ+ individuals have garish hairstyles or a punk look, it's a borderline caricature.

It's less "A lesbian character" and more. "Look, it's a lesbian character, are you satisfied?" I'm all for representation, but I fear it will always be handled in the worst possible way.

If these characters are based on the writers, then it's less about representation and more of a warped interpretation of it.

Either the wrong people are representing diversity, or this is just a poorly written show that was not worth the delays and vague initial details, plagued with cliches, bland characters and stories and low quality animation.

Both. It's both.

Please don't waste your time watching this series. There are plenty of other things that you can do with your time.

If you're looking for a similar series, please just watch Little Witch Academia instead. It is honestly one million times better.

You can tell the people who created this nonsense had no passion put into this whatsoever. The animation is God awful, diluted and awkward. The voice acting is even more awkward. The character designs are bland and uninteresting. The theme song is annoying and sounds like a stereotypical song from a barbie movie. Trying to target a certain audience by putting gay characters in the show. I wouldn't be against that, except for the fact that they're totally doing this to just get more people to watch which is just sad.

I give this a 2. I would rate it lower but I want to give at least one thing. It is bright and colorful. Other than that a complete fail. I don't recommend watching this, it has zero substance.

The artists are so lazy. Didn't anyone see how they blatantly copied and pasted textures onto light posts and breads? The voice acting sounds like a group of teens recorded themselves on the phone, not to mention, they don't fit the characters very well. And don't get me started with the script. What are they? Tumblrinas?

Oh boy, I remember all the hate this show got when it was announced. Well, that was years ago, let's have ourselves a looksie 3 years later.

As a member of the LGBTQ+ community who is not cis or het, I was personally offended and outraged when these people advertised their show using the terms "diversity" and "representation." I mean, seriously? We are not ad campaign fodder; we are human beings; don't exploit our culture for Good Boy Points. But, hey, this could be a good show. Perhaps their focus was in the wrong place when they advertised this.

Well, no.

All representation of trans and gay people feels... stiff. Unnatural. Forced, even. Our protagonist finds pictures of a male character pre-transition, and wants to understand why he is a SHE in these photos. She even asks the most appropriate question to prompt a response from him - "You were a girl?" Now, this is a world full of magic and monsters, anything is possible with magic, even transing your gender! A simple explanation like, "I used my magic to transform into the real me" would have been just fine! But the moment the words "I'm transgender" left his lips, I knew it would just go downhill. He gives the most textbook definition of transgender possible, you know, "I was born in the wrong body" and all. And that's all he is; a coined transgender character (and I use "character" loosely. We all recognize he's only there to be pretty representation).

I for one would rather have a good story and no representation instead of a bad story and great representation. But, High Guardian Spice doesn't offer much in the story department either. It takes from Steven Universe, She-Ra, Voltron, and Madoka in presentation and story, but chooses the worst aspects from all the aforementioned and the end result is a dumpster fire covered in glitter and pride flags.

Animation wise, the presentation is just... okay. Character designs are kinda cute, but the animation is stiff and feels bland. The art style is generic and leaves much to be desired, but, I feel that people are overreacting when they say this looks like a "how to draw anime" book. It's just a plain artstyle that I've seen in both the professional and freelance world time and time again. It's pleasing to the eyes if you can keep them open long enough to get a good look.

Voice acting? Again, just lackluster and so very disappointing. Their voices fall flat, and I wonder how many of these people have actually voice acted before? And for whatever reason, all the male voice actors sound like their microphones are out of whack. Poorly compressed voices come out of the men's mouths, while the women sound smooth and fluid.

But then again, the people making this show are hateful misandrists that refused to let male writers onto their team, for the sake of a diverse all-female team. I wouldn't be surprised if the men got the short end of the stick in terms of recording equipment for this sole reason alone.

No, men are not shown in a positive light here. Most of the men in this show are feminine or androgynous, which I don't mind, but the few masculine ones are so full of toxic masculinity and immaturity that I'm surprised they aren't overflowing with it- oh, wait, they are. They attempted to address this by depicting a masculine character struggling with expressing his feelings solely because he's a guy and is expected to be strong. And that's fine... except the show went on to equate "showing feelings" with "crossdressing"... yeah. I'm not opposed to men wearing feminine clothing; in fact, I believe it should be normalized for men to wear girl clothes if they so desire.. But this is NOT how you do it. In fact, lots of guys don't express themselves for this exact reason - they're afraid of being seen as "girly" and "less manly" because their whole lives, they've been told to suck it up and be a man whenever they show any hint of sadness. So showing a male character becoming more open with his feelings by dressing like a girl would just confirm that belief (though lets be honest, who is taking life advice from THIS show?) Just snap this poor boy in two, give the emotional constipation to one and crossdressing to the other, and boom, two good characters right there.

And one final note, who is this show for exactly..? The art style and story says "children's show" but occasional swearing shoves it into adult territory. Is this the kind of thing an adult would watch, though? The LGBTQ+ community hates this show and refuses to associate with it, and cishet people, whether allies or not, will notice the gay rep wedged in so awkwardly that they'll cringe with us. Boys will be upset at how the male characters are treated, and girls won't even look at it because there are so many better shows for them already. Anime fans are laughing at this western cartoon in an overcoat trying to pretend to be an anime, and cartoon fans, again, have better things to be watching right now. Somehow, these people have made a show that appeals to nobody.

In conclusion, if your show rides on representation alone with no tasteful story to be found, it's time to get back to the drawing board.

Heck even 0 is too generous for this abomination.

I saw the announcement form Cunchyroll 3 damn years ago and I knew it was gonna be trash, but for it to be THIS BAD, like bruh it's not just bad it's straight up offensive.

Just really cringe. Bad product. Everything around it stinks. Bad dialogue. Mediocre Animation. Horrible backgrounds. Cringe story.

The story its just bad, boring and stupid. The dialogue its funny if taken out of context, you're drunk and have a poor sense of humor. From the start of production to the finish it had a bad mindset around it that was enhanced by the criticism that came with the original announcement. It probably could have been better if it didnt received so much hate from the start but even without it the quality of the anime wouldnt be great. Just a little bit less horrible.

You can see very clearly that the creators were in a bubble. Didnt understand the world around it and therefore their audience. After the release i hope it popped.

Ok, I liked shows like SPOP, because it integrated LGBTQ ideas and acceptance causally. Moreover, shows such as Owl House had convincing plot lines and fit into their cartoon category. However, in this show they just shove the representation down your throat while yelling at you that this is actually an anime. Don't get me wrong I love seeing more positive LGBT representation, but this is NOT the way to go.

Don't let these other 10 star reviews fool you. High Guardian Spice has bad voice acting, they sound like wannabe Steven Universe characters, poor writing from the girls demonizing an innocent boy to the professor explaining what transgender is when all he could have said something as simple and move on, but too bad Rosemary is a complete ditz and kept asking questions like she's a 3 year old, and the plot is too weak for an adventure series. This makes the 4Kids dubbing company look like the God of anime distribution. We shall not be silenced by the defenders of this series.

The animation, writing, story and voice acting was so good that it can compared to such masterpieces such as Sharkboy and Lavagirl and Cool Cat Saves the Kids! :D

(This is sarcasm by the way, I dislike this show if I'm being serious.)

It's not brilliant, but it's pretty ok.

It does anime things, and western cartoon things.

Neither super originally, but honestly it's not really much more or less tropey than a lot of either.

The animation's a bit low-budget and kinda chibi, but it's not awful, and where they spent the money is visibly better and nicely done.

The LGTBQI stuff isn't particularly obtrusive, not perfectly done but seemingly well intentioned and certainly not just queerbaiting, it's not nearly as good as Shera and the Princesses of Power but it's not awful.

One thing I could say is I'm not sure if the creators' knew what audience this was for.

It's got a really kidsy vibe, but also enough swearing, adult subject references (booze, drugs, gambling, etc.) and/or blood content that would mean it gets a mature rating.

My one gripe is the music, any music with lyrics is awful. The ambient is mostly fine.

The legit could not get past the first ep it is so terrible. Nearly every box of what makes a good show is left unmarked. Not only is the animation terrible and choppy, but the designs don't even fit the backgrounds. There is a difference between characters popping off the background to stand out then them just straight up not fitting.

But the worst part is the story and how they introduce it. There is no setup, no world building, they just- leave. Their gone and now we need to make sense of a very confusing story due to lack of world and character building before hand. We just assume things and hope for the best.

The only somewhat decent thing this show has is it's voice acting. But even then some delivers come off as flat and don't fit the tone.

It's just- not good. Please god do not watch this show. It's all about fluff and terrible foreshadowing.

You know that High Guardian Spice is off to a bad start when you realize that the title is dishonest. *None* of the characters are named after spices. Nor do we actually know what they're guarding against. So the only thing that is accurate between the series and the title is "High." Because that's the only thing you'll feel after you finish watching the first (and likely the last) season of Crunchyroll's feverish, incoherent DoA nightmare, High Guardian Spice.

2/10 (it could've been 1/10 if it wasn't for Slime Boy)

A multi-billion dollar company used a stock photo for the animation. Everything about the animation is just lazy.

On top of that its made to promote twitter culture which is a red flag for me.

I remember when the trailer first came out and the show's staff advertised it so poorly. Boom, it came out, and oh boy, it's worse than I thought! The voice acting is annoying and emotionless. And people say The Nutshack has bad voice acting? Nah, son, this show takes the cake for bad voice acting. The plot of the show obviously copies that of other Western "Anime" shows. And don't get me started with the character designs. It's so cringeworthy how hard they tried to make an "anime", yet it ended up looking like a bootleg She-ra mixed with Teen Titans Go!. I don't recommend this to anyone! No! Crunchyroll should stop eating so much crunchy rolls while they're at it. Hands down!

It's honestly hard to remember the last time I saw a show that was simultaneously so boring, embarrassing, and confusing. This isn't a kid's show, so I struggle to understand why most of the dialogue is so condescendingly-delivered, clunky, and oversimplified. It's about as subtle as an ax to the face and the writing never once stands out as clever or witty. The animation is incredibly dull, flat, and lifeless, not to mention the abysmal voice acting. All the praise for this show coasts on the buzz about "representation", but I think it does a massive disservice to the communities you try to represent when all the characters are thoroughly unlikable and hard to listen to. Raye, I understand that you wanted to do something good here, but you didn't. I'm sorry. It sucks. It sucks hard and you should feel bad that you made it.

Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with fans making their own clips using characters from their favorite anime. The point is that not only was it branded as an "original anime", it feels like the producers of this show didn't really try hard enough to make their own original plot. A young girl trying to find her mother? Check. A group of girlfriends going to school to practice magic together? Sound familiar? We all knew how bad this was going to be when first announced, mainly because the staff didn't advertise it very well, and boy did it meet our expectations. From a bland plot, to pointless dialogue, to out-of-place voice acting, this feels like a slap in the face to anime and manga, if that's the way it was supposed to be branded as.

They didn't even try with this. The voice acting sounds like the idea was proposed by a bunch of 13 year old Star Vs. The Forces of Evil fans. The plot was boring as heck. God forbid if this ever gains an ironic cult following, I'm going to scream. How can people tolerate the audio that's 10 times worse than nails scratching on a blackboard? As an Asian teenage girl, I'm disappointed!

I really like the core of the show - what this needed was a second season and more money, it's unfortunate. The characters are really likable, and the only real complaint I have is about the sound - there are some bits where the audio is scaled confusingly, but I honestly wish that they committed to that harder! I would love it if every character had sounded more like Slime Boy, and spoken like that - a lot of the other voice direction was much more traditional, and while I understand that it's safer and probably a smarter business decision, I'm always a big fan of interesting audio like that. I would love to watch more!

High Guardian Spice has been a show that was on my mind for months and now that I've finally watched it I've gotta say it's pretty decent I was fully expecting this show to suck hard right at the first episode since people were making such a big deal out of it but as I watched it to me it felt more like an ordinary cartoon you'd see on Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon but more on that later. I personally really like the idea about young girls going to an academy so they can become strong guardians however it could've been better told but I guess there's only so much you can do with just 12 episodes. The characters are pretty entertaining especially the main ones, though I especially like the relationship between Rosemary and Sage. The voices for some of the characters seem out of place like was Crunchyroll too lazy to hire voice actors who could properly voice the appropriate ages? The early episodes aren't really that good but around episode 7 is when I was starting to enjoy it but episode 9 in particular is my favorite. I especially appreciate how violent HGS is though I never expected it considering how lighthearted it was in the beginning. Going back to what I said earlier I think this is more of a cartoon than an anime an if it were just that maybe it wouldn't get dragged on so much. Honestly I want to see HGS return for a second season especially after that end credits scene of the last episode of season one hopefully this time it'll have a better writing team that's not sexist....but who am I kidding this show's reputation has been driven into the ground thanks to constant hate it got but hey I could dream at least.

I am a big fan of the fantasy and science fiction genres, there are titles in where they are great epics tales, serialized adventures or just slice of life stories, this series is none of those.

The first episode gets lost in showing a journey via a cart, carriage, sky elevator and train where we know nothing about the world or two of the main characters other than they are traveling to High Guardian Academy. There is nothing gripping you into the next story other than the reputation this show has amassed from it's creators, suffice to say most people reluctantly watched this show with expectations of only bad story telling and it managed to disappoint people further with bad voice recordings, bad sound and music leveling, no English subtitles (that is how bad the voice recordings were and worst if you are deaf) and lastly bad animations.

I can go on about how bad the animation quality is, most animations have a smooth quality about them in where there are at least 25-30 frames a second, this was close to 12-15 frames a second, very choppy animation. Plus be prepared for the lack of environmental awareness where food on a table changes position or disappears and when you see the background been reversed every time a new camera angle is shown in the same scene, Given these basic fundamentals are bad I won't say how bad the lighting and shadows are and that the characters don't look like they are in the same room with each other.

Why I say good luck getting to episode 3 before that is when you get burnt out from constantly hearing the remix of Simon and Garfunkel's Scarborough Fair and giving a fair note here no credit is given for that piece of music yet you play the first five chords of Stairway to Heaven you get a copyright notice.

My advice if you decide to watch this, get a bottle of Jack, Jimmy and Johnny, mix them together and have a drink every time you hear the remix of Simon and Garfunkel's Scarborough Fair.

Like the voice acting is definitely not the best, there is use of water marked stick images and overall there just isn't any plot. Now I could sit here and go into detail for each one of the aforementioned problems but like must problems there are literally thousands of videos on youtube discussing all the problems with the show.

I would rather cut my fingers off one by one than have to watch another episode of this. The dialogue is like listening to nails on a chalkboard. It sounds like half of the voice lines were recorded in a cardboard box with a microphone that was purchased from a Walmart. This show in unbearable to watch I don't know how it even made it this far.