Now, if you're reading reviews, chances are you've read the anime summary. If, like me, the only thing in the summary that intrigued you was protagonist's memory loss, then this ISN'T the anime for you. In 50 short (under 10 minutes) episodes, the contents of the lost memories - the recovery of which becomes the protagonists' main motivating factor in the series - is NEVER REVEALED TO THE AUDIENCE. All you get are hints. You don't even find out why Ren Homura's hair changes to red and he can remember some of the memories he's lost while in the midst of battle. The two biggest questions you have from the first episode and they're never answered.

I only watched the end to find out what was so special about the memories only do be denied - I honestly feel I've wasted hours of my life. That's why I decided to write this review, so nobody else has to do the same.

(Looking around, it seems as though the answers MIGHT be revealed in the movie - if they are, I wish I'd known sooner and would've just watched that instead of this miserable series.)

Outside of the unfulfilled lost-memory-premise the only thing this anime has is the monster battles which imo really aren't that great - the protagonists themselves don't do much - the battle system consists of the player touching their smart phone's screen, pulling their finger back to create a slingshot of energy, then flinging their monsters into battle. In first few episodes it seems as though there's a strategy of getting certain angles and finding weakspots, but that mostly disappears after a couple episodes. The monsters, some of which DO have their own personalities, pretty much take it from there.

People who play the game the anime is based off of might get more out of this - assuming the monsters are based off real ones in the game, you'll get to see them battle it out with each other. Other than that, I personally wouldn't recommend it anyone.

As far back as I can remember, I've enjoyed animated shows where something arbitrary is used to save the world. Yu-Gi-Oh ZeXal (subbed) and Bakugan (dubbed) come to mind. Naturally, when this animation came onto the scene, I was stoked to watch it.

It had everything: interesting mysteries, quirky characters, and a decent setup for a plot (in this case, the missing memories... and the mystery of Ren's color-changing hair XD). As MS went on, it kept getting better. More questions, vague answers and an interesting conflict, since the protagonist's goal is being hindered by the team member he replaced.

Nothing could go wrong, right?

Wrong.

Starting from the second story arc (where the main cast go on a quest to find Haruma, an old teammate), I felt something was wrong. The plot felt wackier- more... padded and slow.

Since I heard about the 3DS game (sadly, no localization ;_;) having a similar story to the animation, I watched a Japanese Youtuber play through it and I enjoyed the story- or what I could infer from it.
Oh my gosh, that ending! That was perfect! Cheesy, but perfect! The villain was threatening, as was the final arc for the story! This was a great game!

Back to the ONA, though. The short episodes made me come back for more. Since there was nothing major happening, it felt like I was being led on- lead to become hyped for a major twist near the end.

This is where the show just throws itself off a cliff.

The War Gods sounded interesting, and I was expecting the show to invoke the Eldritch Abomination trope. Sadly, they just turned out to be humanoid gods with flashy CGI powers. Their battles were kinda lowering my standards for the show, too- often relying on comedy to keep you watching.

And then there's the final arc of the story- where the hero and his partner must stand against all odds to defeat the great evil they defeated in the past. Being a fan of how the 3DS game's climax went, I was pumped after such stagnant episodes. It was at this moment, that I grew to despise the animated series.

Among many of the problems with the final arc, there was the fact that Oragon's true form was never revealed (he's just a massive flaming dragon, woo-hoo...), the contents of the characters' memories never being revealed (literally, it's the same shot of them playing together as kids over and over) and the final showdown not being as climactic as I had hoped (the hero literally gets shot with energy bullets... and just sits there while the runtime for the episode dwindles.... only to come back out of nowhere and win). Also, Ren's hair changing color was never explained.

I know that the "movie" is the climax to the series itself. And, sure, it explains a lot of plot holes in the series itself. But I would've liked this closure in the series proper!!

"But Manga!" you say. "This is intended for people who play the game! Not you!"
Shut your yap. If it's a Japanese cartoon, I'm watching. Nuff said.

Also, I would have liked for Oblivion (final boss of the 3DS game) to have been the big bad of the animated series. As a one-eyed bio-mechanical monster of doom and destruction, he looked threatening- more threatening than a white-haired, red-eyed shirtless dude with standard magic powers and creepy rocks.

Overall, Monster Strike is an animated series that some people may like. But personally- and a LOT of people agree with me on this- I think it's a worthless pile of garbage.

This show deserves at least 2 stars for a good concept, but its flaws (mainly in my opinion) that nullify that second star.

Don't watch unless you want to be irritated.

For those who don't know what Monster Strike (MS) is, it's a mobile game that combines pinball and slingshot aspects to fight monsters (same way how it is in the anime, but with AR). Other than that, the gameplay is quite similar to Puzzle & Dragons. The anime caught my interest so well within the first couple of episodes with their comedic parts and 4th wall breaks that were pretty amusing. People seem to get the wrong idea for why each episode is 8-10 minutes. These are ONAs, which means it's a web series and not a full length television anime. I was really into it but lost a lot of interest when season 2 came out. Don't get me wrong by the star rating, season 1 and the movie was worth the watch, but I regretted watching season 2 and onwards.

Season 1: The story follows Ren Homura, a guy who has no memory of his past. He meets a group of people(Oragon, Aoi, Akira and Minami) who apparently also have amnesia but are somewhat familiar with each other only vaguely. They meet through MS of course. The anime introduced a secret underground, team-based MS competition with battling CG monsters that I had hoped it had more of. I had a lot of Dragon Drive vibes from it at first and I was interested in that. Instead, it focused more on the outside world where people are just picking fights. The goal of Ren and his team was to regain their memories and uncover secrets hidden in the past as people tell him to do or not to do so rather than just telling him and making things easier, because plot. It ended up becoming a "fight in the name of friendship" cliche and left us with a lot of plot holes like what happened in the past or why Ren's hair changes red in some cases. In my opinion, I enjoyed this season till the near end. 8/10

The Movie: Best watched after season 1. By far, the best of the best for MS. This fills a lot of season 1's plot holes, since it's set four years before the present time. It explains their memory loss, their familiarity of the game, and their relationships with each other. It again follows Ren and his crew, replacing Akira with Haruma, as he searches for remnants of his father, who disappeared three years prior, and keeps a certain dragon away from baddies. A lot of emotional aspects were implemented throughout the movie, which I found effective and the plot was more straightforward compared to season 1. It still kinda throws you off since it didn't mix with season 1's finale so well. 8.5/10

Season 2: Everything was animated in CGI (not that I hate it or anything but since it started as 2D, it would've been better if it stayed consistent). Monsters are now roaming free in the real world. The Ren I knew has died and I hate the new one, personality-wise. A new character, Mana, was introduced and I didn't like how it centered around her so much. I very much did not like how easy it was for her to take Aoi's spot as Ren's love interest. K's seriousness was immediately replaced to goofball. We hardly ever got to see the side characters introduced in season 1 (and when we did, they were 2D and not CG as if the main characters were monsters if you get what I mean). It became a monster hunt and nothing about that underground battle plaza... I wanted a tournament or something along the line in this season! 3/10

The Fading Cosmos: We're back to 2D MCs for some reason. Ren's personality regains some season 1 aspects, but still got tainted from the last season. Mana has practically become the center of gravity in this one. The world is about to end and the fate of it lies on her. Ren has completely forgotten about Aoi at this state as she becomes a supporting character along with Akira, Minami and Oragon, and he gets even closer to Mana (poor Aoi, she even had a chance in one of the episodes of season 2; I blame the director change for that one). Basically, everything here got ruined because of the previous season. We are left with a cliffhanger and I fear of what comes next. I'm sure some people would like the ending of this, but in my opinion, I don't. 4/10

Overall, I would just say, definitely watch season 1 and the movie, but be wary of what comes afterwards, cuz it's a whole different thing beyond that.

I took an interest to the show because it held similarities to digimon/puzzles and dragons x ect ect ect. The added bonus of the missing memories which introduced an epic storyline showed great promise as well.

Season 1 : Each episode is only 8 minutes long which makes it hard to get invested in the show. Ren's memorie are never recovered (you discover them in the movie at least). You never find out why his hair changes color when he activates the game which seemed super important since when his hair turned red he seemed to recall his past better. The moment they get new monsters, either the original ones are never to be seen again or the newly acquired ones are never to be seen again after being acquired. Other then using your phone to launch your monster at other monsters, only the first few episodes really focused on the angles of shots for extra damage.

Season 2 : We are now suddenly in 3D and K is over the top nutty professor barely ever mentioning his son Haruma or his wife who was the while point in season 1. The whole focus of teams of 4 is thrown out the window ehen a 5th player is brought into the group. Oragon is also demoted to sidekick comical relief who never battles. Second half of the season is 2D and past characters of season 1 show up out of no where to help at the end.

Monster strike the movie : omg one of the only things i actually enjoyed most of. Seeing the game in development and the crew as kids being testers was great. Akira going back in time and seeing Oragon in his true form the entire time also great. The fact the parents werent out searching for their kids once they escaped the research lab, wtf? Otherwise good movie.

Spin off MSSonic: seems at this point monsters are fully assimilated in Japan and it focused entirely on different monsters trying to become idols. Lucie is the only character that is recurring but somehow she's no longer with Haruma and not explained why. Not bad for a stand alone spin off for music lovers. Hated the 3D performances.

I do wish they would explain Ren's red hair when he uses the game and also cover what happened to his father.

I've noticed one thing in particular about this show, you either love it or hate it.
Me, i loved it, I think the whole premise and plot are something new and different.
The first season focuses on Ren Homura and his missing memories and a game called Monster Strike, which is an actual smartphone game, not available in English anymore after a short year of being out. The episodes are pretty short in the first season, about 6-8 minutes but that is why it's called a short anime. This anime makes constant references and parodies of other anime, video games and the likes and it's really fun!
The second season picks up where the first leaves off but watch the movie first before watching the second season otherwise, you will be out of order chronologically. The 2nd season starts to use CG animation that some viewers either hated or liked, I liked it because it gave the animators the ability to accomplish some really awesome looking scenes and monsters. The episodes start to get longer now in the second season more like 13 minutes an episode.
The third season just began and there is even a side-story series of 5 episodes called MSonic that follows a cat-girl wanting to be an idol with various MS characters making appearances.
Monster Strike is a really fun anime to watch, it's not the deepest of stories but it is very intriguing and pulls you in. Don't listen to all the haters, make your own decision about the show after watching a couple of the short episodes.
P.S. These reviews are mostly negative but the episode ratings are all 4-5 stars, that doesn't add up right, the show is much better than some reviewers give it credit for.