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Nov 29, 2022
I'm 3 episodes in, so take that into consideration. I started watching this after Gigguk's Fall anime recommendation. What brought me
here? A lewd Gyaru, sign me up. But after watching these three episodes I feel better about watching this anime. It's quite wholesome. Before mentioning what I think about the story, I think the art is really nice. It's unique and fresh, very colorful and poppy and takes liberties with the usual anime style that I found to be nice. It's very vibrant and saturated and bright so you know that this anime isn't going to touch the dark side. Music is nothing special
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here, both the op and ed are skippable.
So the gimmick here is that this school pairs a guy and a girl together to have them experience married life and are then graded on how adaptable they are to their partner. The issue here is that gyaru girl (Akari) likes the popular guy (Minami) and nerd guy (Yakuin) likes his cute childhood friend (Shiori). But those two, Minami and Shiori, are paired with each other thus making a soft-NTR vibe. Dw, this anime is wholesome so I don't think we're going to get to far into those vibes here, plus guess what? Shiori actually likes Yakuin too - who would've guessed? This issue gives me a lot of Koi no Uso and Kuzu no Honkai vibes, it's a girl and a guy who team up to help each other get the person they in love with while those two are paired with each other already. But the other half is that these two oddballs will learn and get comfortable with each other and end up liking each other even though they are polar opposites, a hot gyaru and a typical nerd. Should've expected it from the moment you read the blurb of this anime - it's typical but does make you wanna check on how these two get along.
What I did like about this is that both characters are pretty competent. Yakuin is actually able to see Akari objectively and understand when she's feeling bad or scared or discouraged and tries to help. After episode one we see him already shaking off the dense MC traits a little and tries to get along with Akari. Akari is also the same - she tries to understand his dilemma with failing to ask Shiori out, and so I feel that this anime has potential to be enjoyable instead of being a dumb generic romance. Of course, I don't think this is an amazing romance anime like Golden Time or Toradora, but it had me rooting for the couple and enjoying when they got closer. So far, I'm okay with giving this anime a 7/10 for being good, comedic, meta, and enjoyable; with fanservice - if that's not your taste, then maybe avoid this since Akari is a gyaru and they animate her with that stereotype pretty hard, but her personality subverts that (which kinda is a stereotype in it's own way too). Overall, the anime is cute, colorful, and wholesome af.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 27, 2022
For a long time I heard of Perfect Blue and it was on my watchlist for years. The reason I did not watch it sooner is because I was worried that it was too much for me. Other anime like Lain, Elfen Lied, Evangelion, and Higurashi also made me pause and wait years before I completed them. I also really like all of them too, so I only played myself. So I thought Perfect Blue was the same situation, it probably is. Before I move forward, I am a early twenties man with a psych degree and a fascination with crime, thriller, and psychological content
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and so I have a good idea of what to expect and what sort of techniques these media use to create the film/show/anime. I've also never seen a Satoshi Kon film and this is my first.
This review has spoilers...so please beware. I gave the story and the overall film a 8/10. It is good, it has merit, and the content is great. I would definitely rewatch this over time and if someone else hadn't seen it, I would watch it with them.
What really stood out to me was the psychological part of Mima. It's clear that by the ending and the beginning of the story, Mima is relative fine. In her career shift, she has self-doubt about her abilities and how other people are going to see her. I think that's normal and understandable, and it's odd that the only person in the film that understands that is Rumi. Clearly, Rumi knows Mima really well which leads to most of the film even occuring. I really like that in this format, with the level of technology access the anime film industry had back then, that Satoshi Kon was able to deliver this level of ambiguity and visual confusion to the story - as well as a background details and clues - a master class in presentation. In the 3rd act, even in the r*pe scene, we still don't know what is real and what isn't. It definitely helps that the person Mima uses to validate her reality is in on the exploitation of her reality, which continues to confuse both Mima and the audience. I really liked the scene where Mima is talking to the psychtrist in the show, and it is done twice but once as Mima and once as the character she is playing and it really reflects how she can't tell which is reality, which is true, and which is a dream...and if any of her "dreams" are real or not. And we can't either, so I was impressed. The other scene that stood out to me and confirmed the lack of reality in Mima was the 2nd murder scene where we don't know who the assialiant is. Then as it plays out, we realize it's a woman. And by the end of that scene, we are shown that it's Mima. But earlier, Mima was reading the blog which told her that she went to Harajuku - and the real Mima doesn't recall that but she trusts the blog since it is more accurate that her own memory now. After the murder scene, she checks the bag from Harajuku (which means she probably did go, or it was planted by both antagonists) and it has the bloody clothes from the murder. Wow! It confirms one thing, but then has us still confused about another thing. The only thing that I didn't like about the psychosis was that at the end we see that it was all Rumi. Mima had her self-doubt and her own issues with her career shift and the possibility of a stalker. But we see that in the end, she does become a successful actress and isn't bothered by those things anymore. It is all because of Rumi and her plan with the guy that this occurred and that now that Rumi is out of the picture, Mima regains her mental stability. I would've liked to see how she regained stability, not that I disbelieve she can regain it, but how did she regain it? It definitely is possible that with the removal of the main instigator of her mental issue, the things like memory blackout and dissociation with reality would go away, but maybe because I have some knowledge about these things, I wanted to see how Mima "undid" the mental trauma she was going through. Because we do know that somethings she did in her career (that I thought was way too early in her career), like the fake r*pe scene and the photoshoot, she did have a bad time with but felt that she had to do it. In reality, those things can turn into mental trauma and so I wanted some sort of closure on how she got past that.
As an antagonist, they had a great plan. They knew Mima had self-doubt that could be exploited. They had access to her at any time. They were in her proximity and knew what she was up to. And they had her trust. Throughout the whole psychosis part of the film, the person Mima trusts is the antagonist and we don't really realize this either because the film is doing it's best to keep up paying attention to the guy. And early on in the film, we know the guy is up to something. I think that should've been hidden a little more, but seeing how this was made in 1997 maybe back then the audience wasn't as accustomed to crime stories so they wouldn't have realized that this man was an antagonist. But I did. What I enjoyed about the real antagonist is that, looking back to earlier in the film, she was always against the career shift. And at one point she was crying about Mima. At that point, we think it's because of the fake r*pe scene, but by the end we realize it's because that scene solidifies Rumi's 2nd persona to go against the real Mima. When I look at the film again, Rumi probably always had this attachment to Mimarin, and when Mima was Mimarin, her need to be with Mimarin was satisfied. But the career shift into an actress removed that satisfaction from Rumi as now Mima is not Mimarin anymore. Making the blog and having Mr. Me-mania believe in her as the real Mimarin, Rumi is able to continue satisfying her Mimarin complex. I liked that just before the last scenes of the film, the audience is in on the trick. We know Rumi is the antagonist because she says "Mima's Room" and not Mima's apartment. Mima doesn't realize this because she's confused af and just had her real/fake fight with Mr. Me-mania (and I still don't know how he died [like who killed him, Mima or the manager?]).
And to talk about the other things in the movie, for an older film - it's good. Nothing stood out to me negatively about the sound or art design. All of that seemed good and detailed enough and in place with other good films from that era. Odd that a lot of characters had a wide eye gap. Maybe that was design decision to have the audience realize that "bad" people in the movie have wide eye gaps...which would make sense. Another thing that bothered me a little was that there were some shots where if characters were talking - all other characters would be absolutely still (as any anime animation would be) but the talking character is shaking. I guess that was a limitation of the production back then but it was very obvious to me that not only is that talking character's mouth moving but also their whole body (but they aren't moving their body deliberately). Some shots had non-straight shots and some shots had the entire screen shake. I know nitpicking, but these are things I noticed about the art. Regardless, I didn't take points off because of those things. The 8/10 is purely because of my enjoyment and my understanding of the film. Definitely a film I would like a physical copy of for collector's purposes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 13, 2022
Personally I don't really think Demon Slayer is "carried" by the art. I've always known ufotable to be god tier in animation, I'm a Fate/Nasuverse fan after all and we've been eating good because of ufotable. Of course, Demon Slayer is being helped so much because of ufotable's ability to animate action scenes but also bring movie level art to a show format - this season especially did that. When Demon Slayer was first annouced as a ufotable project, I was confused. What is Demon Slayer? Season 1 was great, but the story itself was weird in pacing, a lot of time skips and some
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parts dragged on. But I enjoyed it because it was fun, it was mindless, and the action made me go "ooo" and "aaa" everytime. Maybe a "good" anime doesn't need me to think all the time or have be completely dragged into the world it paints.
All the criticism about the characters and the story I think are based in fact, but then exaggerated because some people really don't like this show and need to justify it with these flaws. I think they're right, but it's not so bad. Yes, in S1 the characters were shallow, the fighting was doing most of the work for the show and the demons got more dynamic characterization than our main three/four characters. I think in this season (not sure if the manga made this improvement or this is an anime exclusive) the characters got better. With the addition of Uzui, this season was a blast to watch.
Thankfully, the story is very straightforward, no thinking needed. But it wasn't stupid or anything, it was just very simple. I still really like that Tanjiro's inner thoughts are very important to his actions, we still get to see his drive and why he's doing what he is doing. We also get to see his struggle with his power vs his inability to fight the people he's up against. Inosuke finally speaking meaningful stuff, like his whole time in his House, he did a pretty good job of actually being mission focused and not just screaming random lines about being the master in the group or a wild beast. I hope that keeps up. Zenitsu, well at least we get to see that he is a nice guy but also...they gotta do something about his power only being an asleep thing. Like...it's getting a little hard to convince myself that's it's a sleep thing when the man is talking coherent action plans and having an inner dialogue about his legs giving out. Again, haven't read the manga, but I hope the next arc does something about that for his character.
Overall, this season does a lot of repair for what season 1 did with these characters. I think Demon Slayer is on it's path to be a really good anime. At least for the simple, brain off feeling. I enjoy the emotional scenes as I do with the action scenes. I like that people think this should be the next Big 3...while I don't agree that we should be making a new Big 3, this show is doing a lot of work for the anime community in that a lot of normal people are watching this show. For years, my interest in anime had to be a hidden thing. But now even my parents are watching Demon Slayer and enjoying it. Whether you think Demon Slayer is good or bad, you cannot deny that it is making anime a staple in society and I really think that's a good thing. People deserve to enjoy the vast amount of content and storytelling that out here. This, Attack on Titan (my family is also watching), JjK, and BnHA are doing so much for anime and regardless of them being good, really good, or meh - they are really exposing people to a format that people should've been in a long time ago. No long is Death Note my go to first recommendation, now it's these four. Congrats, I hope Demon Slayer and ufotable keep it up.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Mar 10, 2021
Short review: 10/10
This was one of the first anime I watched subbed, but it was so bewildering to my young mind. The action of trying to understand the dialogue while also trying to understand the story made the memory of the anime so vivid that I'm pretty sure it changed how I grew up as a person as it still lingers in my head when I seen certain symbols in daily life. I've watched FLCL multiple times, subbed and dubbed and enjoyed it as much as I have the first time partly due to the nostalgia of my middle school self learning about growing up,
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partly because of how creatively expressive the anime and soundtrack was, and mostly because it was a banger of an anime that only needed 6 episodes to move me. It's in my top 10 and I recommend it to anyone getting into anime as it's an espresso shot of japan and anime culture that shocks you and leaves you with a sour aftertaste that ends up causing you to have a coffee (anime) addiction.
The only flaw I could see in this is the story, and that's because there really isn't one. It's not the focus nor is it the point. The point is your feeling, your emotion, and you visceral reaction to the metaphors and behaviors of our characters. Even to this day, I don't really understand the story, I do know it's a coming of age story about a kid learning about sexuality and adulthood and probably also to escape normalcy and be a self-motivated adult but heck that took me years to understand and I became an adult myself in the meantime. And I probably owe some of my adulthood understanding to FLCL, for being a good explainer of certain concepts (as any media can be).
The other categories, like art and sound are all 10/10 because FLCL is not standard. It can't be rated like how other anime can usually be, because it deliberately breaks the concept of normal per scene. There are shifting art styles, the music is indie rock during an anime era that was starting to become Western, and the characters were all developed as the episodes went along - huge credit to the VAs and seiyuus.
You will enjoy this. And at least you'll admire the anime's attempt to reach into your right brain and shake it around for a few episodes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jul 20, 2015
First of all, I don't write reviews. I just watch the anime, take note of it, put a score on it, and remember it if was good. The fact that I'm writing this is quite important.
Now I gave this a 10.
Story: 10
I had just finished watching "The Mentalist", a television show about crime and mystery, with comedy in between. So landing on Kamisama no Memochou was great for me. I was able to enjoy the story because, like "The Mentalist" the story was well thought out. The story starts and follows the general mystery solving format that makes it good. First, recognition of
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the crime, planning, first scouting, planning, first action, and then the reveal. Or something like that. I really appreciate that the series takes ~40 minutes to start and end a mystery. This shows that Alice and the detective squad are really well at what they do. Now of course there were stories that took longer than 2 episodes. These stories...omg they were awesome. Each scene exists for a purpose in the development of the detective skills. Each scene progresses the MC and the viewer ahead and also allows us to find the personalities of the characters involved. For a story that is deep, proper, and meticulous in the way the mysteries are solved I really liked it.
Art: 9
I'm too picky about the art style since I understand each studio follows their own way of drawing. So every now and then I pause the episode to notice the detail in a frame. The art was well, nothing lazy. Sure, a few frames had simple drawing but nothing that would remove from the show a lot. Everything that needed focus had detail and that's all that mattered.
Sound: 8
Again, sound is great if it matters and if it doesn't then it's just another thing for the acoustic value in a scene. I like anime such as Kill La Kill and Katanagatari in the way they use a special song or tune for a certain type of situation or character (s/o to Blumenkranz for Ragyo). I noticed that in this anime there are a few empty scenes with no BGM. Otherwise there is something to fill the airwaves. And then there are a few reoccuring songs to match a situation, and I really liked that. I.e. when Alice explains something, a really cool female vocalization song starts in the background and adds a special intensity.
Character: 8
Never get your characters wrong. I really liked how the characters in each crime were explained in a nice and detailed way. Sure, some of them were regular characters that already existed in our knowledge before they make their "request" but still...characters that stay for a short time or have importance for a short time still get enough presentation to show themselves to the viewers. Characters with longer importance are slowly revealed to the viewers. And I liked that. The pacing of revealing the backstories of characters was great. There were a few episodes just to reveal the backstories of two characters, and another single episode to reveal the story of another. Each was very well presented. The NEETs are highlighted for their abilities, and they're "powers" are constant, no deus ex machina here. I really like the MC because he isn't the dense type and he is smart in his own way. His pairing with Alice is great too and in that way the viewers get the inside scoop on what she is thinking because, as they point out in the anime a lot, the MC is talker and not a thinker. The reason why I think the characters aren't super awesome is because, well the author uses concepts so out of the norm that it becomes unique...and that hurts it a little. Near the end I saw the MC become a little different and succumb to the generic MC style where "he is weak and confused but now he is strong, but isn't always strong...just when he wants to be" and that was annoying to me because I really hoped the anime wouldn't end like that.
Enjoyment: 10
Like I said, I just finished watching 7 season of "The Mentalist" in which I thoroughly enjoyed. Coming to this only helped extend the enjoyment I had in that show and so seeing the pacing of this anime and how there was a smart character who didn't do much, and a not as smart character who ran around a lot helped me relate back to "The Mentalist". For anyone who hasn't seen the show I'm talking about...well if you like to think a little in an anime and like a bit of problem solving and connecting the dots...I think you'll like this too.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jul 8, 2014
I came to this right after finishing up Higurashi.
Both are mystery thrillers and so I thought they go hand in hand together.
Boy was I wrong! To start off, Rin (the anime) is more darker than other mystery thrillers and it takes the supernatural into account. The story is also unique since it takes place over long periods of time. Also, since there are only 6 episodes it has little character development and more plot (I say that with both meanings of the term, if you know what I mean). The animation is also a bit weird, it has less focus during the normal
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scenes and more detail during the important or action scenes and it isn't bad, but it feels weird.
When watching this make sure to open up your mind and accept anything since it isn't your usual anime.
Rin (the character) has some kind of underlying conflict that isn't known at the start and isn't very clear as the story progresses and her background isn't clear either. So like Higurashi, expect to be confused and amazed at the same time. It is definitely a great anime to watch and I have no doubt that you'll like it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Apr 21, 2014
I've seen many anime, most of which are romance comedies. The few action anime I have seen are quite superb. I heard of Guilty Crown from my cousin and he said that I would probably like it. I kept it on my planning to watch list and forgot about it. Two days ago I picked it up and watched it.
Many say that it is like Code Geass. I can see where that idea is from but Guilty Crown is very different. Rather than using Lelouch's intelligence, Guilty Crown focuses on a common boy and so his reactions are something a normal person can relate
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to. Obviously as the story progresses the viewer can see that he has a bit of a background. That is a flaw, some of the characters' backgrounds are either not explained enough or useless to the story. There are a few backgrounds that are important though.
Now the story is an action based story but I follows the emotional POV of the main character. I cried twice in during my run through of it and I can definitely say that the story is moving. After asking some non-anime friends about it's story they had given it a 9/10 for uniqueness and the compelling storytelling. But it loses the point since there is a major part to the story where the whole mood changes and the anime feels like a letdown or should I say "normal".
It is on my favorites list and I would definitely recommend this to any fan of anime. I might have to watch it again later after a year or so to bring back the good memories.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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