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Jul 24, 2019
I paid money for this. That's just it. I spent money and it wasn't great. I'm not gonna get a refund so I'm not on that goalpost when I'm posting here, but here's how you can save some cash: don't view this in theatres. Don't buy it on Blu-Ray.
Because the Danmachi you and I love won't really be found here. I mean gee the series isn't great, trust me. And what shortcomings may we find here are the main shortcomings of the anime as well. But here'a the thing: just max out those annoying details and we get just... the most generic thoughtless thing
...
ever.
Characters? What Character? Oh, the somber piece of cardboard I'm supposed to feel empathy for? Plot twist? Oh you mean the thing i called 30 minutes ago? Dialogue? You mean a literal montage of NANDEEE DOUSHITEEE? Like... it's just really the hell spawn of Danmachi with nothing good about it like the rooting for Bell, or the interesting interactions between Gods, or the interesting world. And like every female character interaction with Bell is like BELL KUUUNNN WHY CAN'T I HAVE YOUR DICK INSTEAD OF HER. And now that I think of it, that was probably the BETTER part of the movie.
It's just unoriginal and not great and not worth your time or money. Is it offensively bad? Compared to the original season, it's like 15 IQ points down so if you're tryna hold up appearances, best to pass up on this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Mar 12, 2019
I'm not going to really say that much for this anime. I like the premise a lot, basically it had a lot of potential for drama and an intriguing plot. What it mostly ends up being is like a sort of slice of life about managing a magical amusement park. Sure, that's fine. Except the slice of life or comedy just isn't that funny or compelling. A lot of the same jokes hurled over and over, few enough interesting characters to carry a comedy, and not particularly interesting enough scenarios to create a memorable situation comedy.
Amagi Brilliant Park, in my opinion, just seems to
...
fall short. It has a lot of potential. Like the main character, Kanie Seiya, and Isuzu Sento, are potentially good characters. It's just... nothing is done with them. And their romantic relationship for that matter really doesn't go anywhere either.
Music is fine, I love the opening.
Art is FANTASTIC.
But honestly, walking away from it, I'd just say I was pretty disappointed with basically how little they had to work with despite how much potential the premise held.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 11, 2019
How easy is it to write a review for a slice of life anime?
Often times, a slice of life anime, or comedy for that matter, is really just a hit or miss for some people. Luckily, while speaking of Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, it's a slice of life and more, and I'm going to attempt to explain the appeal of it beyond its aesthetic cuteness. Because honestly, it's just a beautiful show.
A lot of what makes this anime good is how relatable it can be to us, not necessarily because we have cheerful, goofy dragons around us. And that's not a coincidence either; Dragon Maid
...
views the world with a glass-half-full approach, even when we can relate to the bitterness and longing sometimes.
Our main character is Kobayashi, who is a very relatable character by, I think, a lot of seinen viewer standards. A working young woman who is so diligent at work that it comes at the cost of having no light in her life when she comes home from the day, and often just sleeps off the fatigue. She is not boring: she simply has never had time to do other things with her life. It's honestly interesting how they frame the character, because her responses to a given situation are expected of a character who has become emotionally distant by practice, but doesn't necessarily mean she is not compassionate or that she dislikes fun.
The complete opposite of her is the very simple-minded Tohru, a dragon who transformed into a human form in order to serve Kobayashi. Oh yeah, and she's blatantly in love, in every way, with Kobayashi for some reason that doesn't need explaining really (it's an anime). Tohru mostly is just a vehicle to grab in viewers with her cutesy moe actions and over-the-top love of Kobayashi, but there is substance to her character overall. She represents someone who is so outside the normal conventions, trying to assimilate in a world where Kobayashi had to lose her flavor to do so, Tohru does while keeping a cheery and larger than life personality about her.
The moment we meet Tohru is where we draw a very gray and murky line between fantasy and reality. We certainly relate to Kobayashi, but can we really say there are people out there with the bubbly personality of Tohru, despite life's flaws?
Maybe.
And that's what makes this series so great. It's not about what life is: we know all of that already. It's about what life can be, and it shows it in the most fun and charming way possible. It shows complex relationships through the lens of not-so-complex slice of life. Sometimes, the characters will have a bento box making showdown just because. Is it cute and silly? Sure. But it does have its place and purpose outside of just that. The show subtle suggests its because the main characters have grown a playful rivalry with each other over the course of their time together, which itself is a benchmark in their friendship.
These sorts of subtle hints of motivation and development allow the series to not feel as if we are constantly stuck doing the same day-in-the-life-of Kobayashi, but makes you feel as if you are growing with the seasons. And speaking of which, from beginning to end of the series, we get to see the remarkable changes that Kobayashi and Tohru go through in their wacky relationship from the beginning of the series to the end.
Slice of life denotes the same old shenanigans all episodes round. But Dragon Maid is not that at all. From the start, where we see simply just Kobayashi on her lonesome, to a group of wacky and fun characters together as a family, it really is a heartwarming and beautiful experience.
Art: 9.5/10
It's simple, but damn. When it wants to be expressive, and that is not uncommon, it is INCREDIBLY gorgeous. Beautiful coloring and shading, many drawn frames for movement, I mean it's one of Kyoto Animation's most beautiful looking works, in my opinion, despite most shots being pretty standard fare.
Sound: 9/10
I love how simple and cute the soundtracks can be. The opening and ending are just adorable. But I might think that that background music isn't particularly extensive, because they pull a lot from the same soundtracks per episodes, so it might sound a bit too familiar after a while.
Characters: 10/10
One word. Kobayashi. Simply put, the rest who are important are Tohru and Kanna, maybe Fafnir and Takiya. Not the most complex characters, but still loveable and genuinely heartwarming.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 22, 2019
MHA is one of the most talked about anime of recent memory. Is at least this season worthy of the hype that the later seasons generate? Frankly, I'd hope to believe it will get even better, admittedly I'd not watched beyond the first season. But as a starter, I think it is very good and does indeed live up to the hype.
The main aspect that is worthy of note is how seriously it takes its themes, it's character's struggles, and the imminent danger they face in situations. Sometimes, I feel like conflict in anime is just thrown in there, because they need something
...
to keep it interesting. But the danger is so poorly acted: the characters don't see it as much of a threat, it's not really a threat, and the viewer is like hooo-hummmm as well.
But in MHA, there is always a real feeling of tension. It's always coming from the eyes of our main character, Midoriya, who takes situations very seriously. And as such, the viewer sees it the same way. The plot is honestly slow, but it's what you call "slow and steady." It's the story of someone gaining both the physical and mental strength to be a hero, and if he were to gain that all too fast, what would be the point of seeing his growth? But his growth is well documented over a long series of meaningful tests that he overcomes, and seeing even the smallest amounts of his growth is worthy of the viewer's elation.
Next up, characters. I know they get even better in the future, but I already cannot stop loving many side and supporting characters. Their designs are funky, and at first, I was really put off by the designs. But some of the "quirkiness" of their designs lead to really unique characters. Take Tsuyu, for example. She could not be achieved without the overly cartoony art style of the anime, and thus the style often works. Of the characters, my favorites are Uraraka and Tsuyu, though there hasn't been much time to develop anyone but Midoriya so far, and to some extent, Bakugou.
A slow and steady start for what seems to be a great anime that does live up to the hype. I give it 8.0/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 13, 2019
To get something straight about bias, I have to admit I had never read or watched really any piece of vampire fiction prior to watching Tokyo Ghoul. And yet I always thought the idea of vampires were very interesting because of their overwhelming strength, despite certain crippling weaknesses like not being able to enter a building.
When Tokyo Ghoul basically took the idea of vampires and spun it into the idea of their "ghoul," and remembered to add a very important caveat that ghouls come with, I was intrigued. The basis of the anime was extremely engaging to me, and it presented itself as such:
...
"What happens if you're a person in this world who literally HAS to eat other living things, specifically humans of your own kind? What sort of person are you to have to obey your hunger?"
And that was a beautiful question to a.... not so beautiful work. And for various reasons.
However, before I lose anyone here with my negative outlook on the whole of the series, that question was INDEED very satisfactorily answered upon the conclusion of the season, and I would consider it frankly a masterpiece of an episode.
What lets down Tokyo Ghoul as an anime is simply... a little bit of mediocrity in just about everything. The action never really interested me, even if it's cool that people can grow blood-tentacles from their bodies I guess. The characters are basically all completely forgettable except Touka and Kaneki. The art is straight-up not good. Like... it is by no means pretty or fun to look at. The music, well the OP is a banger and a lot of insert songs sound really nice, but the soundtrack wasn't memorable.
Not to mention just... the awful plot. And by plot, I mean the overarching story and objective that this anime was trying to get to. It just makes... no sense at all, it's not interesting, and it's something we've seen before. It's a B-rated plot, there is little to no intrigue with the villains of the story or even the primary antagonist. It's just ho-hum.
However let down Tokyo Ghoul is by many of these facets, it still come out on top as a positive in my book anyhow. And this is because of the question framed so early in the series, that the writers took extra care that it would, in time, be well answered. Not only do they tell you what sort of person a Ghoul who eats humans is: they show you why they are that way, as well what sorts of moral conceits must a Ghoul relinquish. It's not just a lesson for Ghouls in this anime: it's a universal lesson that can be learned by everyone who lives in an imperfect world.
Kaneki is your typical milk-toast MC. But despite being bland, weak, and boring, that is frankly what makes this series work so well. They show the descent of an extremely meek boy into a full-blown murderer, and it's honestly a beautiful and sad transition that we see to his character. That said, this sort of development, while having its roots throughout the series, does not actually culminate until the very last episode, so you're going to have to put up with him kicking and screaming around like an idiot for a long time before you get an inch out of him.
Touka is one of those two-faced characters who more often than not, she's not morally doing the right thing or the wrong thing. And it's simply her trying to do what she thinks is right which is interesting to watch, but she herself isn't a particularly fun character. She comes off as extremely similar to Mikasa from Attack on Titan in terms of how she perceives the main character and her stance on murdering.
Anyways, let's wrap this up with a run through.
Story - 5/10
Art - 5/10
Sound - 7/10
Character 7/10
Enjoyment 6/10
Overall - 6.5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 13, 2019
Which did it better? Season 1 or Season 2? That is the real question.
That's honestly the only real comparison here. Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, while drawing on a lot of genres and anime that came before it, there really is nothing quite like it.
I don't pretend to be some expert on mecha anime. I watched a bit of Gundam on Toonami when I was young, and I watched most of canon Evangelion. But how can we really compare Code Geass to anything, if it's a war drama mecha philosophical action-romance, and then we throw in some superpowers to spice things
...
up?
Well? Imagine being the poor soul who pitched this at Sunrise headquarters in 2005. What horrible chimeric beast would they have let out of their storyboard panels. What it was was absolutely beautiful.
If anything, Code Geass deserves praise for being so complex and wrapped up in its own intricacies, and yet never failing to deliver in any department. The action is great. The characters, although there are mainly four characters, they are all compelling. Music, GORGEOUS. And then there's that little-important thing, called, idunno, plot? Yeah, Code Geass's plot is a beautiful trainwreck, but it's one we all want to ride and then cheer when we're upside down and inside out, crying tears through our nostrils.
Code Geass is frankly one of those series that is so well-thought out that often I feel that any attempts to amend or add to this universe is extremely difficult: every action has an action and a reaction, leading to its ultimate finale in either season. That said, because it's so difficult to get your bearings on where the story will end up, unless you are some sort of clairvoyant or professional skeptic, once you begin this series, you will be led by the nose from one point to another, not knowing who what or how unless the story tells it to you. Perhaps this is why each week seemed infamously long when waiting for the next episode, because the amount of cliffhangers in this series could hang all of Nordstrom rack.
What honestly can I say about this series that you would not get by watching it on your own? Well I suppose I can tell you what it's not. It's a very thematic anime, and it is absolutely strewn with themes of rejection of the status quo and societal callings. If we're talking an anime that talks about lies and hiding one's emotions, Code Geass is probably the first one to think of. However, it's not to say it's particularly an introspective study on these philosophies. It moreoften presents them in certain lights that makes sense given the world, but it doesn't really care to explain it. In other words, if you as the reader are already aware that these themes exist, watching Code Geass won't convince you one way or the other of a stance being any more legitimate than it is on paper.
And for that matter, while Code Geass often means to speak some truth through it's themes, it can come off as a platitudinous quite often. It's those scenes where those who are more annoyed with simple 8th-grade philosophies might stare at the ceiling to let the scene pass.
However, I should concede that as my opinion because I'm sure some people might really have a change in perspective by watching this show. I'm not one to speak of these things like they're beneath me, because I DID watch this when I was growing up, so it's natural these themes were pretty cool and new to me back then.
Anyways, lightning round finish-ups:
Art: 10/10. Great. A little bit flat at times, but no style comes close to this anime, and there is a lot of charisma and beauty to be found in the designs.
Story: 9/10. It is a VERY compelling watch. Once you start, you will not put it down. However, when we're done with the season, we'll be ending up asking ourselves "What in the heck did I really just watch?" because plot points travel so darn fast in this series. Sometimes, slow and steady does win the race, for us with sub-5000 IQs.
Character: 9/10 Each character is basically a moral parable. They are pretty iconic as of this point, and definitely interesting in the stories and relatable in a point of discussion.
Enjoyment: 9/10. Just watch it, you'll see.
Overall: 9.5/10. Great! Excellent. Read the review for more.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 13, 2019
This is my first anime review on this site, and I thought: what better to start with than a show I know probably above any other in my collection.
Shokugeki no Soma doesn't appeal to a small collection of people: with as many tropes as it can sneak in there (and I do mean sneak because it is not particularly tropey in any one way) Shokugeki really is a show that is quick to pick up and easy to enjoy. That said, there is one caveat, in that if you cannot finding yourself enjoying the following three things, then this show is not for you:
...
it's over-the-top humor and overblown scale, food (because you must hate life to not love food), or anything remotely ecchi. Because the first thing that would turn anyone away from this series, particularly in the early episodes, is ecchi.
With that preamble out of the way, we can discuss what makes Shokugeki a pretty compelling show, at least for me. Well for starters, the charm of this show is primarily based on the characters, who honestly all are memorable and likable despite their simplistic designs and philosophies. Shokugeki reminds us that just because you have a shonen protagonist, he is neither vanilla milk toast that is simply pushed to fight the bad guy, nor is he some overpowered Kirito that makes his battles uninteresting to watch. Being somewhere in the middle but leaning on the overpowered side, Food Wars constantly shows us the joy and thrill of learning how Soma will come out on top, despite the fact that the audience knows how capable he is and even that he will come out on top more times than not. While not necessarily a cliffhanger-heavy series, the show keeps its audience on its toes and hanging by suspense simply because often times, the stakes of Soma losing a cooking fight are always so high.
With the danger of the situations Soma and his classmates find themselves so often, it can come off admittedly as artificial sometimes and the reader will notice a pattern of how plot is resolved in the face of impossible odds. However, I continually come back to rewatch these episodes for more reason than needing to know what comes next. What really stays is the out-of-this-world charisma of all the characters and how much nerve they show in ways that would make the manliest Shonen characters go cross-eyed with envy.
Soma. He's. Got. Balls.
More Balls than would need to revive Krillen over the span of a three decade series. This guy... is seriously the coolest main character to ever exist. And generally speaking, every girl in this anime is best girl. It's just a matter of (hehe) taste. You got diamond-in-the-rough Megumi, tsundere-queen Erina, and the ditzy-genius Alice. And no one will really fault you for liking any of them, because they're all great girls. The side characters don't get too much screentime, but enough to definitely put a smile on your face whenever they show up.
Phew. I talked a lot, so I'm just going to bullet point the rest.
Art- 8/10
JC Staff isn't known to create the most detailed artwork, and some might long for the beautiful coloring of the manga. However, I think the anime adaptation is extremely competent and consistent. It won't have the /sakuga/ rapid-fire chopping pan flipping you might expect from an anime of this caliber, and those shots are usually relegated to freeze frames. However, it's serviceable enough to enjoy the anime and never feel let down with gloopy in-between frames.
Sound- 9/10
A very competent and memorable soundtrack that makes you feel the heat (heh) as the characters are revving up. There are a few tracks that you'd pull off of the OST to listen on your own time, and the OPs and ED are very solid.
Character - 10/10
Without needing the "oh-so-darkness-inside-me" character, the characters in this anime will show us the best sides of the any character trope, and show how even as they are, they can be total baddasses. However, don't expect some in-depth character study about the idea of motivation and development.
Enjoyment -10/10
Fun, Exciting, Easy to get into. A great watch and rewatch, worth some smiles and tears on the occasion.
Overall -10/10 You want hype with a side of pickled plums? Coming right up.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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