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Dec 21, 2016
The most difficult challenge a reviewer faces when writing about this show is choosing if it should be initially referred to as "Disappointment!!! on Ice" or "Queerbait!!! on Ice". Both names are equally hard-earned and both unfortunately represent it well.
But how such a promising show ended up being so underwhelming? It has an interesting premise, very appealing character designs, previews suggested strong visual direction and great sports scenes combined with a quality soundtrack. The first two episodes were perfectly watchable. What went wrong? Well, honestly, quite much.
Firstly - Yuri on Ice is surprisingly cartoonish - it heavily relies on exaggerated goofiness and chibi faces. It
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definitely isn't a serious sports drama - its general tone is rather light-hearted and inconsequential. In itself it isn't anything wrong (although I admit it isn't what I expected), but it heavily damages its ability to create tension. And tension is something which this show sorely lacks - during ice skating performances there wasn't a single moment I felt on the edge of my seat, feeling pressure of important things being at stake. So I felt exactly the opposite one should feel watching well-executed sports anime.
The show also significantly struggles in the writing department - the script seems devoid of ideas of how to outline key events and where to go with them. It's also very repetitive - the typical episode goes as following: someone does a skating program (with all important points of it explicitly explained to us in an off-screen commentary), he is scored and then the show proceeds to the next skating program. Repeat several times. Most of events, characters backstories and development are narrated to the audience by internal monologues of skaters during those programs. It comes off jarringly unskillful. All the more the show has a penchant for introducing number of new skaters per episode, telling their stories only during their skating programs, and forgetting about them the moment they get the score. As a result the show is extremely unfocused. It jumps between skater to skater, with little connection to the main narrative, as if it wanted to fill up the time the writer had no idea how to spend better. If we combine that with questionable quality of individual lines, the fact most of side-skaters are boring and with the annoying tendency of the show to reiterate the same points over and over again we have to come to a sad conclusion: the writing is bad.
After the second episode the anime doesn't excel in animation either. Quality takes a big hit, ice skating programs lack frames and key animator's polish. It makes one wonder even more strongly why this show decided to include so many of them. The soundtrack helps to save the situation a little - some of those skating programs are still quite pleasing too watch - but it's by no means enough.
THE NEXT PARAGRAPHS CONTAIN VAGUE SPOILERS
And finally we've come to the show's main selling point - M x M romance(?). What this show plays with its main pairing is probably the most self-aware, obnoxious and dishonest baiting game I've ever seen in the medium - the anime is constantly devising the scenes building up a serious, honest, for my taste even tad too conventional, romantic relationship between two guys. But all of that in either a tongue-in-cheek or very fuzzy way. It does it so intensely at the end of the show the main pairing is almost undeniable, but at the same time as a relationship it remains totally ambiguous.
Usually I don't mind ambiguous relationships in anime that much, I even frequently find them offering interesting storyline perspectives. Not in the case of Yuri on Ice though - this show suggests non-straight relationship in so utterly unsubtle ways they make sense narratively only if they lead to a conventional and clear romantic pairing. They don't. As a result the show ends up being extremely disingenuous and deserves only to be booed off for that.
Even ignoring the above dishonesty the show still isn't a particularly good romance - it spends too much of its energy on setting up those little moments suggesting (never confirming!) the characters are in love to accurately capture the magic and emotion between too people drawn to each other. Since it also isn't a good sports show nor a character drama it ultimately isn't worth even a tenth of the hype it currently gets. The show might not be atrociously bad, there were clearly refreshing and interesting ideas behind it. But they were not enough.
All the more it doesn't really end conclusively - it only offers more promises and tells us we should wait for them to be delivered in the second season. I am not forcing anybody to do the same, but personally I'm not falling into that trap again.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 2, 2016
This Studio Ghibli motion picture is relatively well-acclaimed outside the anime world. As of now it boasts 100% rating on rotten tomatoes and it was nominated for 87th Academy Awards. Unfortunately, for all of its praise it's a surprisingly mediocre work.
The movie has some merits - it has delightful watercolor-like visual style. It's very pleasant to watch, one can simply sit and enjoy the flow of images. Animation is vivid and the art style captures the mood of the period and atmosphere of the folk tale very well. What this movie fails to capture however, is the very point it's trying to make.
Because the
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movie is adaptation of the 10th century Japanese novel (sort of novel, at least) I initially believed it's the ancient text which is to blame for anime shortcomings. I was really shocked to find out that numerous versions of the original narrative tend to have a better story than this anime offers.
The writers of the anime failed because they took their own set of what I will loosely describe as 'Ghibli values', injected it into the old narrative, clashed it with Heian period customs, played this conflict for over an hour and instead of resolving it they turned back to the slightly changed climax from the original story, completely ignoring the fact that with the liberties they took the original ending doesn't work as intended - some characters are straight-up unlikeable, when they really shouldn't be, some characters don't serve any purposeful role and main character is spineless and passive. And any potential moral is subdued by the story's inconsistencies.
The creators tried to amend the situation by explicitly telling the audience how and what it should feel and accompanied the ending with an emotional soundtrack (which is by the way not particularly memorable). These tricks don't work perfectly - for the most part the movie feels more like a series of disjointed segments (Ghibli-esque beginning -> modern social commentary -> traditional folk tale -> melodrama), in each segment aiming at a different thing, connected only by the characters and art style. And additionally all of it feels dragged out and, honestly speaking, a little boring.
This really is not a good sign for a Japanese movie when a Western viewer relates more to the millennium old original story than to its modernized retelling. Visuals, faint mood of melancholy and oriental feel are not enough to consider The Tale of the Princess Kaguya a good film - it's at most an average one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 28, 2015
Monster is a series which gets almost universal praise. And for a good reason - it is a very good show and I enjoyed thoroughly almost every episode of it. But unfortunately it is sort of a failed masterpiece - and as such it may ultimately be not as rewarding as its ratings suggest or even worse, may leave the viewer with a (very) strong sense of disappointment.
And because watching it is potentially disappointing, all the more the series is 74 episodes long - three times the normal show's length, mind you - please treat this review as a warning (as non-spoiler-ish
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as possible).
The show around the middle seems almost perfect. It has a great premise which constantly evolves when a protagonist uncovers new layers of what he is destined to confront. The series evolves simultaneously by expanding its cast of characters and by narrating its story through different conventions - Monster starts as a kind of fugitive on the run crime revenge story, but in its run it touches many different (though related) genres - there are elements (or even entire arcs) of road movie, detective story, horror, conspiracy drama, psychological thriller, medical drama, soap opera and film-noir. This variety of means of story narrating (and variety of spotlight's characters) keeps attention of the viewer and make her overlook quite a few clichéd events. The ensemble cast is also a very strong point of the show - obviously some of them are walking archetypes, but some of them are very much not and even when they are, they're designed in an interesting way.
What is worth noting, Monster is almost entirely non-animesque both in characters' design, in its setting and also in its choice of themes and plot devices. There are almost no distinctively Japanese tropes present - the show much more resembles the HBO live-action series that its anime counterparts. Art style and soundtrack fit the show very well and emphasize its grim atmosphere - from the opening to the end credits. Bleak colors and ominous sounds serve the show very well. The world of Monster is stylishly sketched and sound-tracked in a way which helps the viewer to immerse in it. Designs of the streets, buildings, "the city out of fairy tale" and a certain unique children book cannot be easily forgotten.
Until the very last arc there are minor flaws here and there - several, though very rare, bland individual episodes, maybe one arc not on the par with the others. But for so long a series it's hard to find anything to sincerely criticize. Yes, the anime relies too heavily on suspense - even while doing it masterfully (and it really does it masterfully), the constant cuts of the scene in the heat of the moment could grow old on the impatient after 50+ episodes. The constant use of cuts in most thrilling moments also prevents the anime from showing most of the action sequences it could have had. I wouldn't mind this in the shorter series, but in the longer one, even more variety than it already has would be welcome. And sometimes there is a little too much melodrama, and one or two cheap tricks too many.
But it is all forgivable. My only real gripe through series run was a growing uneasy feeling that there is a significant inconsistency between individual characters' actions, the way story treats them and the show's dark setting - on the one hand the unfolding events are rather creepy and disturbing, on the other some characters tend to behave like pre-modern Disney movie heroes. The show during many episodes lands surprisingly often in territory of a very clear-cut version of black and white morality. What's more, it tends to resolve conflicts in favor of the white side by plot conveniences. It contrasts starkly with the overall grim mood. This tonal dissonance fluctuates - it is not always prominent, sometimes it is abandoned for good.
Up to the last part the series weaves skillfully its premise and subsequent multiple parallel threads, interconnecting and twisting them. It's worth repeating that individually most of them are stellar. But as they unravel they don't conclude the main story and leave much of the mystery concealed to the very end. The build-up is so enormous that it promises the viewer not only a satisfactory ending, but rather catharsis in its most refined form. The problem is the series fails to deliver on that promise. The conclusion comes and it's not cathartic. It isn't even satisfactory. It isn't bad, by any stretch of imagination, and it isn't one of the usual anime endings which doesn't resolve anything. Still by the series own standards it isn't satisfactory enough - all of these threads don't connect neatly, some of them are left hanging in the air, few are connected in an unconvincing way and quite a few plot-holes are created.
And it happens apparently not only because creators wrote themselves into corner by sheer complexity of their story and by setting the viewers' expectations unbelievably high. Their story not only seems to rush last arc, not only doesn't fully connect its multiple threads, but ultimately it doesn't wholly abandon the aforementioned tonal dissonance. It refuses to draw serious consequences from itself. It's unbelievably infuriating because almost all the pieces needed to make a better ending are there, yet the creators choose the unsatisfactory way. I understand the reasons for that, they have much to do with the ethical message the writer tries to convey and a little with cultural differences between Japan and West in terms of a certain public morality issue (I don't want to spoil here exactly what issue). Yet I find such reasons and such a way of concluding story fundamentally outdated. And hypocritical.
For some it won't be a problem at all. Some may even like the ending - I repeat, it's not bad, it's only dishearteningly inadequate. So bear in mind that you might be heavily disappointed by it - if you are the person who could live with a 74 episodes long fascinating journey which doesn't necessarily lead anywhere you definitely should watch this. If you are not, seriously reconsider committing yourself to such a long anime, it may be not worth it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jun 25, 2015
This review will be harsh, but second season of Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works fully deserved it. And don't be deceived by the catchy slogan "Unlimited Budget Works". The only thing which is truly unlimited in this anime is characters' redundant talking.
Some of the show's weak points were unavoidable - the original material's storyline quality is dubious at times and the fact that Unlimited Blade Works as a second route of Visual Novel is supposed to be built up over experiences from the first one definitely doesn't help when someone is adapting it. But VN's weaknesses aside, its premise is interesting enough to make
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an entertaining show with lots of cool fights. And first season of UBW managed to do that fairly well.
Second season, on the other hand, does almost everything wrong. The animation is still gorgeous, but all the rest, oh girl. First of all - the creators seem to think that main strength of F/SN UBW is its story and, inevitably, character of Shirou. It's a massive problem, because Shirou is really not that great (which essentially means: he sucks). He wasn't that great in original VN, neither in F/SN 2006 and he still isn't in UBW. But now not because of his sexism or blandness but because his central conflict (which is the central conflict of the story now) is shamelessly moronic. What's much, much worse (moronic conflicts in action flicks aren't necessarily a bad thing) - the series abandons much of the action and characters' interactions in favor of explaining his utterly idiotic conflict to the viewer. Explaining again and again by two, three, four (I've lost count) episodes of pure talking. And by the end of this talking they still explained not very much - the viewer gets crazy amount of plot holes and plot conveniences instead. It's very clearly inherited from visual novel, but transfer of this style of exposition and this lazy writing into TV is inexcusable. The exact same problems haunt the interactions with and exposition of the main villain of the anime. Both these arcs are just plain bad - and because they happen to be the final ones they basically kill the show.
Also, as a result of putting emphasis on Shirou and his internal struggles, the show wastes other, much more interesting characters. Rin and especially Saber are sent off to backgrounds and play a role of damsels in distress. Rin in second part of the season continuously acts out of her supposed character. Saber on the other hand is literally doing nothing - which was explainable in the VN (she had her own route) but in the stand-alone anime it looks bizarre, to say the least. The anime even manages to botch the highlight part of its fictional universe - the moment Saber screams "EXCALIBUR!!!" isn't particularly memorable in this version. Which is really a shame.
The other part which seems to be forgotten by writers is the romance part of the original material and constitutes another example of character wasting - it started off quite well but it gets abandoned in favor of Shirou's struggles for many episodes. And then the series returns to it for a brief moment, in most convoluted sex-scene replacement I've had an honor to witness. This replacement is out of place, out of character and completely out of story's coherence. And honestly, if the series wasn't bad in the first place, its low score would be warranted on virtue of this scene alone - the very idea that, gasp, physical contact between characters (even in form of a kiss) is something which needs to be replaced in the show for teens is insulting and actively helps to make the world a worse place. The only thing which could be said in defense of the replacement is the fact that the actual sex-scene from VN was also insulting, out of character and degrading to women. But certainly it doesn't justify horridness of the replacement. Shame on you, ufotable.
All of the above maybe wouldn't be that annoying if only the action part of the second season was any good. It isn't. Most fights are static, anti-climactic and/or resolved too fast and constantly interrupted by excessive talking. I must also note uninspired choreography and lackluster design of some of the characters outfits. What's really weird - many earlier ones are actually not that bad, but in this anime the more important given fight is the more underwhelming it will be. Very peculiar and quite infuriating. The Gilgamesh's way of fighting is partially to blame for that, but still, zero imagination on the creators' side certainly doesn't help.
In summary: the series obscures the strengths of original novel (entertaining premise, cool servants, fascinating fights, good side-characters, romance), instead it emphasizes its weaknesses (main story, Shirou), amplifying it by ridiculous amounts of "tell, don't show". And as a bonus it damages the society by promoting petite bourgeois morality.
Finally, this show is nothing more than a proof that world doesn't need any more Fate/Stay Night adaptations.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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May 28, 2015
This is a very bad anime. Nevertheless on several conditions I'm inclined to highly recommend watching it. I'm doing it mainly because it has some originality, its melodrama is rather disturbing and, what is really rare for a bad show, it's thought-provoking.
One can have many complains about Kannazuki no Miko, especially about its story. But the very general outline of the narrative is very solid and not entirely unoriginal. At least I have never watched anything like that. It slightly resembles PMMM, but Madoka is almost ten years newer and it's not nearly as edgy. I suppose the outline of Kannazuki no Miko could make
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a brilliant story but it looks like something extremely difficult to write properly.
And, as expected, when it comes to filling the general concept with details writers fail horribly. HORRIBLY. And unfortunately they fail from the very start, even before the difficult parts begin. The central conflict which threatens Earth is sketched, but basically unexplained. Neither is the mechanics of the world. Main antagonists are so badly described they are unpleasant to watch. They are walking clichés thrown into the world without exposition for short bursts of screen time and used by story mainly as obstacles for the developing romance. They even try to provide some jokes, with dreadful results. Everything seems to be rushed - it's probably the first anime series I would call "too short for its story". Action sequences for most part of the series look like imported from some generic 70s mecha anime and glued to the show by creators' caprice only - Kannazuki no Miko focuses so much on relationships' development that short and boring fights can be seen only as annoying distractions. The outdated and uninspired animation and art design make it all the worse. It's all bad, it's really bad. The anime pseudo-nudity is also present - but here, for the most part, I would call it justified (because it serves mainly as accentuating erotic tension between characters).
Initially the only redeeming quality is (fortunately) the central point of the show - and it's the more or less standard love triangle story. This is still somewhat convoluted but done acceptably well and apart from the character of Chikane it's the only reason I can think of you can endure watching it. And later the series pulls off something not fully expected, fanservice fades away and central conflict begins to play more prominent role (at least not entirely artificial one). It still isn't executed very well - for several episodes I was asking myself "Hold on, hold on, what the fuck just happened? And now? What is happening now? Why? What am I watching? WHAAT?" - but it was more than enough to grab my attention. And the ending actually resolved some of these wtf-questions. Not all however - it's better to look at the story from the distance, because when one looks more closely one can't fail to notice it is full of plot-holes and on event-to-event basis doesn't make any freaking sense. And it's the reason why I hesitate to call the ending good - although it would be really good if it was written by someone skilled. Still, as a very general concept, the story is interesting enough to make one think about such issues as double standards and their implications. I even suspect that if it was handled better it would be less thought provoking.
So who is the series aimed at? Undeniably, you shouldn't watch the series if you've come for mecha battles - they are probably the worst part of the show. If you expect good story with interesting antagonists and well thought-out world, it's also not the anime for you.
But you could like (maybe "watch it with interest" would be more appropriate phrase) this series if you like controversial romance melodrama. And you should probably see this if you are a Westerner who likes anime for its orthogonality to your culture world. And if you are a fervent yuri fan this anime is probably a must see. In all cases - watch it, but be prepared to encounter numerous severe flaws.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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May 18, 2015
"Memories" consist of three entirely different short movies, which, as I'm going to argue, may be not bad individually but as a compilation aren't probably worth anyone's time.
It's not even fully comprehensible why these films ended up bundled together. They are not tied by any single concept. E. g. first two look like adaptation of some short-story of the month from random SF magazine, while the third much more resembles short-film with focus put on visuals (and it's the only one which is actually short). The first movie has significantly more complex plot than second and third - the latter ones explore one idea
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only in a hit or miss manner. The first and third movie are dead serious, second one is supposedly more light-hearted. Of all of them only the first has some connection to the title of the collection. And all have distinguishably different art style. Thus it's quite probable that the viewer will like only one or two of them, while not liking the rest.
Therefore it's probably more reasonable to watch the movie in more than one go. Also diversity makes it difficult to rate this as a whole or even particular parts relative to each other. But I'll try to do it briefly anyway. In the order they were in the movie:
MAGNETIC ROSE
6/10 - It's a story about fateful encounter in deep space - crew of garbage disposal ship answers SOS call from a dangerous region. Standard SF concepts ensue. It's not bad, but most people probably saw/read something similar many times before. And animation is beginning to show signs of age. I was a little bit bored by it, but generally, it's pretty average. I'll give it +1 point on assumption it was not as behind the times in 1995 as it is now.
STINK BOMB
?/10 (my personal enjoyment - 1/10) - It's essentially "Akira" made shorter, simpler and goofier. This story works only if one finds its idiot protagonist funny. I didn't, so I found Stink Bomb daunting and irritating. And much too long - idiocy of the protagonist is the only source of humor (and driving force of all the events) for almost 40 minutes. Nevertheless, many people don't share my sense of humor (or lack thereof), so you can give it a try.
CANNON FODDER
8/10 - The shortest one which I liked the best. But it's only good as a short movie, when compared to Magnetic Rose it comes out as shallow. Its main strength is creative art style and depressing dystopian setting. When one doesn't like it one won't find anything interesting in it.
OVERALL
?/10 (my personal rating 5/10)
I think most people would like at least one of these stories. It is questionable however if it's good investment of your time to sit through all three parts to find out which one you'd like. I strongly suspect it is not, all the more neither is particularly exceptional. Find yourself something more fitting your taste.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 10, 2015
Satoshi Kon's "Millennium actress" is a breathtakingly brilliant film. It was so breathtaking that I'm still in awe and I feel forced to write my life's first unconditionally positive review.
What primarily needs to be noted here is that it is brilliant as a work of art, and not only as a piece of entertainment. It is clearly a traditional cinema movie, not an "anime" of the type Westerner is accustomed to. As such you shouldn't expect almost any typical elements you learned to adore in the works you treasure in your anime list. It's also not advisable to judge the movie by classical MAL
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categories, especially in "Story" and "Character" sections. "Sennen Joyuu" doesn't tell any substantial story. Ok, it does, to a degree, it can be potentially described as simplistic yet gripping romance melodrama. And I saw the movie advertised that way by many people. But it is doing the movie a great injustice, because simplistic story is certainly not its main goal.
The movie is rather an unusually skillful meta-narrative, it is the story about stories, tropes and plot devices, about what role they play in each individual's life and how powerful driving force they can be, despite being simplistic. And it focuses on very specific types of stories - on these told using cinema as a medium, thus on numerous different cinema genres at once. As such film "Millennium actress" pays homage to many (mostly Japanese, but not only) movies. While it is not necessary to pick up references to these films, if one is able to pick at least some of them (fortunately some will be rather obvious) it enhances the viewers' enjoyment. On a side note - Japanese cinematic references notwithstanding, it's probably the most culturally Western anime I've ever watched, second being, by peculiar coincidence, Paprika by the same director.
The movie doesn't indulge itself in character portrayal much either - you shouldn't expect captivating protagonists or antagonists or development thereof. Or again, to an extent you should, because, as I noted before, on the surface level it's the story about the journey in search of love. But as a meta-movie it's more about how the character is created (or how she creates herself) in act of being portrayed.
"Millennium actress" is also kind of an ironic proof that anime is sort of ghetto medium. The movie is apparently in love with "cinema" as a whole, even more with "live action cinema" than specifically with "animation", yet it itself is animation. And I'm afraid it's the main reason it's not as notable as it could be.
But what it's so great about "Millenium actress" that it should be so notable? What comes to mind immediately - It is told by using intertwining layers of different narratives coming from different movies thrown together into individual scenes in an exceptionally masterful way. Every passage from scene to scene, from layer to layer and simultaneously from style to style is smooth and barely noticeable, yet with every turn it creates entirely different reality. And through different turns the story remains coherent and never looses itself on anything unneeded. What's interesting, these ever-changing sceneries gave the creators chance to make the movie even casually entertaining - it contains for example genuine action sequences and even comedic reliefs. That combined with all these setting changes practically excludes possibility of boredom.
Art style closely follows every turn of the scenery - it recreates all different movie genres in their own unique style, often adding some distinctive touch. It's creative and pure pleasure to watch. The soundtrack of "Millennium actress" may be not as infinitely exceptional as the whole movie but still it is pretty much perfect. It resonates with the viewer, it fits the mood of the scenes and it stays in the head after ending.
The movie has also the trait of being simple yet complex. My analysis of the movie is not necessarily the single correct one, the movie stays open to many others. The film provokes the viewer to come up with her own interpretation, without forcing anything on her. Yet it's not vaguely about everything and it gives the viewer strong sense of fulfillment.
The only flaw one could find in the movie is that its unrestricted love for cinema results in film being in love with itself and becoming self-absorbed in playing with different settings and references to other famous works. The movie is by no means bombastic in it, so I didn't find it pretentious. But still, someone could complain about it. And one can possibly call such type of film parasitic or even fundamentally empty - it's not great on its own, its greatness manifests when it plays with genres and conventions, when it builds its world, its story and its moral from borrowed pieces.
Although I'd understand such objections I personally don't regard such flaws as diminishing my final reception. I think that they are inevitable consequences of creator's choices, of what this movie intends to be. I find such movies important and I cherish them immensely. I mention these para-flaws as a warning for people who don't particularly like post-modern self-obsessed meta-narratives - they definitely won't find in "Millenium Actress" anything worth special acclaim. For all the others - it's truly magnificent. Check it out ASAP.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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May 8, 2015
Toradora! is one of the most annoying shows I have ever watched. And it has the single most ridiculous ending of all anime I've seen. Even the ending of Claymore was more satisfying, which is saying something.
It is naturally that annoying because initially it seems to have much quality. I liked animation, music, opening, and, most importantly, I really liked most of the characters, including Taiga and Ryuuji. It is definitely quite cliché but charming brainless high-school romance with engaging characters isn't something I automatically hate.
But, as episodes go by, all of the shows' cons start to become visible. First of all -
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it is too long relative to its content. Generally I'm ready to forgive Japanese for being so inept at confessing emotions, but my tolerance is limited and after over ten episodes fueled only by "omg, I'm so Japanese, I just can't spit it out" I'm totally fed up. Then around episode 11th Toradora experiences massive tone-shift and evolves into a soap opera without any significant comedy element. It wouldn't be a problem, but honestly it's not a very good soap opera - the dilemmas and problems seem forced for the sake of drama and easily solvable, had characters sit down and talked. As a result the entire middle part of the show feels completely unnecessary and contributes little to the main plot.
But still it is not tragically bad and these unnecessary middle parts may be fun for someone who likes Slice of Life genre. The real problems begin when the series after much overblown melodrama finally establishes official couple. There are many people who didn't like the pairing and preferred the other ones. For me the problem was not the pairing (because I personally preferred it over the others) but the way it was dealt with - I got the strong impression that the story on an emotional level actually justifies these other relationships better (even although I didn't like them). The final confession ends up being forced onto the couple, not only by the writers who want to rush the end, but by the other characters in-universe as well. As a result final romantic couple is not very romantic - at least one side of that pairing was literally dragged into it by external circumstances. And when one puts into consideration the fact that this forced side had all the chance to act on its own will few episodes before, yet it chose to pass, one begins to wonder what the writers had on their minds.
Still, I wouldn't dislike the show that much. But the very last arc also turns Toradora!, already an over-exalted soap-opera, into a full-blown Bollywood movie. The only difference between the two is that Toradora manages to have even more unnecessary stupid drama than its Indian counterparts. Characters start to behave completely at random, clearly with a goal to create as much drama as possible, without any other reason. The viewers are presented with a runaway couple (which ran away for no reason whatsoever), hasty engagement (without even sharing a single kiss beforehand), missing fathers, a few family reconciliations and the girl leaving a boy without a single a word for an extended period of time (again without a good reason). All of these serious events are introduced over the span of one and a half episode and resolved almost immediately. That was so unbelievably contrived, idiotic and poorly handled it was painful to watch. And it was absolutely not romantic. At all.
There is something seriously wrong with romantic comedy that manages to be ultimately neither romantic nor funny. That combined with the unbearable forced melodrama and the clumsy treatment of last six episodes sinked this show so much, I can't rate it any higher.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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May 3, 2015
In short, "Psycho Pass" is a weak, pretentious and utterly misguided show. There are two main reasons for that. First - very general failure of the show in constructing a sensible futuristic vision and second - its not exactly superb writing.
At first Psycho-Pass looks like a clinical example of a generic work. It rips off "Minority Report", "Dredd" and many other SF stories. It has generic dystopian setting, generic art style, generic soundtrack - neither of these special nor particularly bad. Just not very promising. But then the basic premise of the story degenerates quickly. Decent dystopias in fiction generally should be at least marginally
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plausible and even if they are extremely bad place to live in it should be shown that they benefit at least some individuals in some way. Or at least it should be revealed gradually that they are nightmarish, nightmares being hidden behind idyllic appearances.
Ignoring that, Psycho Pass from the very beginning presents its world as pure hell on earth. It is a close relative to Nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa and Stalin's USSR. After realizing it I counted on some in-story justification which would make me believe that this world (overseen by computer algorithm called Sibil System), evil as it is, has any sense. None was provided. The citizens of this world have absolutely no reason to endure living in such place. There isn't even any privileged caste who benefits from the system and there is no overwhelming force which keeps everyone in check. Literally nothing holds the system together. In any even marginally realistic scenario it wouldn't stand a chance of going on for longer than a month without big social turmoil and bloody rebellions on a massive scale.
And it should be apparent not only from the outside perspective, to the viewer, but, inside the fictional universe, also to the characters themselves. In fact the entire cast of protagonists not only should notice on rational and political level how evil is the system they are protecting - the story gives them also every emotional, ethical and psychological reason one can think of to openly rebel. Yet they don't, they choose to back up the system instead. Which makes them automatically unconditional villains. And simultaneously complete morons, their choices and actions are so thoughtless and harmful to themselves it's almost beyond belief. It's also the reason why one loses all interest in their fate and in their fight against so called crime.
Then we meet an antagonist. For a change, he rebels against the system. By being a psychopathic murderer with a higher goal. As a result he is moron as well - many of his actions are done only for the fun of bloody carnage and are actually harmful to his ultimate plan. Although he is better and a little bit more relatable character than protagonists, still in the end the whole story is about moron villains fighting other moron villains. I simply could not care less.
All of that alone wouldn't sanction such a bad rating. But, as I mentioned, on top of that the show was really badly written. Some characters are portrayed inconsistently - our main male protagonist oscillates between an apathetic cynical criminal, hunter obsessed with only one goal and sympathetic obedient detective entirely on the whim, without any justification given by the story. Causes of his intense hatred of main antagonist are also left unexplained, as are many reasons for his actions. Similar applies to main heroine, but because she is a rookie, it's justifiable to some extent by character development. The relationships in the hierarchical environment of police force are portrayed equally incoherently - the superiors and inferiors interact with each other from scene to scene so randomly one gets the impression writers haven't thought it out at all. The show has many underdeveloped characters and plots which looked promising, were played with but were ultimately abandoned in favor of the main story. There are some twists and climaxes later on, but they are unconvincing or fail to incite any emotional reaction. The latter is actually inevitable when you have unrelatable characters. Oh, and the series' lackluster ending is a sequel hook.
The other glaring flaw of the show is its frequent violation of the "show, don't tell" rule. It spends enormous amount of time on explaining to the audience what exactly is going on, on delivering pompous speeches on philosophical topics and on quoting famous works, does it have a sense or not. "Psycho-Pass" insults the viewer with its explanations so many times that at some point it even begins to be funny.
Another problem arises every time when show tries to be insightful. The writers are trying to discuss serious issues, but everything they achieve is scratching the surface of the problem. The aforementioned pompous speeches are pretentious, shallow and often without actual content. It also looks like writers couldn't decide what exactly they want to discuss, they often raise an issue and then almost immediately forget about it.
Nevertheless I hesitate to call "Psycho Pass" a complete shit. It really tried hard to be non-trivial, mature and thoughtful. It tried so much that although I really didn't like the show I finished it anyway. Unfortunately all of its strengths lay in its potential, actual execution is a miserable failure. All what is left for the viewers is to hope that Gen Urobuchi will write some day as good story as he once did.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Apr 23, 2015
Most important thing first. Don't watch Fate/Zero before this show or before anything Fate/Stay Night related if you don't want to spoil yourself almost entire story.
However it's worth mentioning that the story isn't that terribly important, because it's actually quite idiotic and only an excuse to have battle royale with an extremely hot chick as a main participant. What distinguishes this anime is the fact that she is fully clothed - it may be a small thing, but nice nevertheless.
Fate/Stay Night is based on the popular visual novel. I'm writing this review in 2015, and as of now the 2006 anime adaptation tends to get
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more bashing than praise. But is it really a bad show? No, it isn't, but on the condition you don't expect it to be anything more than adolescent fight series. As I noted it has a ridiculous story, it can come at times dangerously close to harem series and its shounen protagonist is stereotypical to the extreme. And it takes place, all anime fans wouldn't believe, in Japanese high school.
However when you are ready to accept all of it then it does reasonably good work at putting its clichés together. Animation is quite good, although definitely not on par with newer series. I was impressed by the soundtrack of the show. It is very memorable and conveys emotions very well, particularly when the show wants to be epic. Characters are moderately interesting. On the whole F/SN could be even described as charming. I almost enjoyed it very much.
Unfortunately there are things which ruined my enjoyment of the series entirely. Firstly, it's inherent to the series highly questionable view on gender roles. Words "sexism" and "chauvinism" come to mind when one is confronted with numerous ingenious remarks of main protagonist on what women should or shouldn't do. Many anime series may be received as chauvinistic and as promoting gender inequality but F/SN has really taken it to the next level. Truth be told, it's not surprising, because the original visual novel is so absurdly sexist, it would really blew anyone sensitive away. It's really not by accident that the franchise is called sometimes Fate/Stay in the Kitchen.
But let's suppose someone is not sensitive and has strong aversion to feminism. Then there is still second problem, somehow connected with the above. Namely, F/SN is not only sexist but also morally archaic. Every discussion on the fundamental issue "girl and boy living in the same house? Abominable!", every time protagonist blushes when he sees naked female body, every time he risks his life by refusing to sleep in the same room with his freaking 1500 years old all-powerful guardian only because she's essentially a girl make you bark at the moon. It sounds like I'm exaggerating (and frankly, indeed I am), but really, the amount of cringe-worthy moments of this type is remarkable and on really rare levels comparing to other shows I saw. Given the choice I would prefer even blatant fanservice (which I genuinely abhor) over this exasperating para-Victorian morality.
Under normal circumstances I would give this entertaining mindless show 7 out of 10 but due to strong values' dissonance I'm compelled to rate it a bit lower. So 6/10. But if you don't mind such dissonances or you can honestly describe yourself as "(very) conventionally moral" than you should ignore most of my objections.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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