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On October 30th, in the year of our lord 1938, a radio-novella adapted from the writings of Englishman and author H.G. Wells was read aloud by radio narrator Orson Welles as part of The Mercury Theatre on the Air, and broadcasted around the country via the CBS Radio Network. The innovative and gripping story that gripped the attention of listeners and thrusted itself into the annals of history was in no way related to the story that is Byston Well Monogatari. That work of fiction, and indeed all works of fiction, can only dream of reaching the heights of storytelling and fantastical drama that Byston ... Well Monogatari so effortlessly achieved.

This is truly one of the anime of all time. If you are a connoisseur of anime of the isekai variety, then this is the feature for you. Our protagonist, Christopher "Chris" Chiaki, is truly the embodiment of the typical japanese everyman. Chris-chan, if you will, is the part of ourselves we wish to see in the world around us. He is you, he is me, he is all of us. So it is through his eyes, our eyes, that we are abruptly and cruelly taken from our everyday life and catapulted into a world unfamiliar and alien to us, clearly a metaphor for our emergence from the womb and birthing into a reality beyond our control and far from our understanding.

Like Colombus disembarking from his vessel upon a new world, virgin soil, Christopher "Chris" Chiaki sets about acquainting himself to his new surroundings, and finds that he is in the middle of a conflict older than time or space itself. Though the name of this particular war matters not, we know its wretched face all the same; it is the blackness, the evil and vile tar that poisons the hearts of man, tethered to us no matter how far we run nor how many limbs we sever in a vain attempt to escape it. Just as Caine struck Able, just as Sisyphus toiled day after day, the rock that is our suffering follows us through the ages, and this is the real story of Byston Well Monogatari.

Just like the Hebrews of old, enslaved by pharaohs who crack the whip from atop their Pterodactylus antiquus, Christopher finds himself summoned to play the role of a savior, a task he neither wished nor asked for. He is to be their Moses and lead them from slavery to a better land. But the despotic forces of tyranny gather at every turn, conspiring to halt his progress. Thus, Christopher is forced to go from Moses to Mujahedeen, as his fight for freedom in this holiest of holy wars forces him to grapple with the violence lurking dormant within his own heart. Frank Herbert wishes he could have created a story as compelling as this one, but alas we are left with Byston Well Monogatari.

As Christopher battles man and beast alike, the creeping realization that he himself may be a beast far worse than any foe he has yet vanquished dawns on him, and the thin line between savior and enslaver erodes even further. He is no longer Christopher "Chris" Chiaki, he is Garzey's Wing. The tribesmen of Byston Well have long awaited a prophetic figure to lead them to paradise, and as Garzey Wing, Chris-chan becomes this voice from the outer world, playing the role of hero in this fantasy despite his real body remaining tethered in the mundane and tedious existence that is adolescent boyhood in Japan. Powerless though he may be here, Chris-chan gains omnipotence in the world of Byston Well, an obviously symbolic act referencing the dominance of the mind over the body. Chris-chan thinks, therefore he is more powerful. The famous mural of the divine gift on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo, often mistakenly believed to be a representation of God creating Man and imparting on him the gift of creation, is actually a reference to Chris-chan's awakening, realizing he is the God of his own world, and that the power of mind is in fact greater than matter.

After having taken in the water of life, Christopher Usul Chris Muad'Dib Chiaki continues to deliver crippling blow after blow to the ruinous powers of King Fungun and his generals, fully embracing his role and the burden he must carry in order to lead his people to paradise. The once holy warrior and savior has become the very thing he swore to destroy. It forces us, the audience, to reckon with the challenges of bringing peace, freedom, justice, and security to our his empire. "Your new empire?" it makes us ask. Would Chris-chan be made to kill even us, if we were to side against him and be labeled as an enemy? The dealing of absolute ultimatums such as this is what defines the most enigmatic fights for freedom, where the once celebrated hero merely becomes the next oppressor, and clearly the writers of Byston Well Monogatari have a complex and intimate understanding of the intricacies of the human mind and heart so as to allude to all of this, and more, within such a short and uncharacteristically poignant animation.

Sound Design 4/10

Animation: 3/10

This anime belongs in a museum

This show has made me feel a lot of different things, and I can't say that I am likely to ever rewatch it. Golden Time would at times feel like its name implies, and at others it was more akin to a goddamn trainwreck. That being said, a lot of the reasons I struggled with watching this show was because of how real the writing felt. It captured some of the best and some of the worst feelings that come with being in a relationship, and the one we were audience to was far from any semblance of something you can call healthy. Its remarkable ... how easily we can wound eachother, especially those we choose to share our most intimate secrets and vulnerabilities with, and unfortunately Golden Time did an excellent job at giving us a front row seat to such events. Sometimes done out of ego or pride that we know what is best for our partner, sometimes done out of guilt or self loathing, and sometimes done out of sheer frustration and anger at the other, there truly is no shortage of motives nor methods for people to fight.

The main pair in this anime are not a healthy couple, at least for the first half of the show. Banri is an easy-going and borderline unremarkable average college student but with a debilitating neurological condition brought on as the result of an injury, and runs from this looming threat to his very existence through nearly the entire show, often through deceit and keeping those he cares about at arms length. Kouko is a beautiful golden haired rich girl who has deep-seeded insecurities and anxieties which drive her to be obsessive, controlling, and generally check off every red flag that should make a potential suitor run for his life.

But soon the unlikely duo hit it off and down the spiral begins. People often praise the first half of the show and say the second half was where it fell off, but I think it was the opposite. It was often played up for comedy, but the first half is full of signs this relationship is in an extremely precarious position. Anyone that has ever been in a toxic relationship will recognize what it means when a partner spends all their waking moments with you, when you check your phone after a short amount of time and have hundreds of missed messages from the same person, or when you find yourself making up lies to excuse yourself for an hour just to hang out with a friend they dont want you to associate with. The rationalizations you tell to yourself to explain why you put up with their behavior, and the way you yourself begin to excuse your own problematic actions since you feel as if you are owed some leniency for 'putting up with' them despite at the very beginning of all of this you promised that being with them will never feel like 'putting up with' them and their problems...

All these problems are very obviously present in the first half of the anime, and I would have written the show off as a loss had nothing changed. However, it often takes hitting rock bottom for people to change their ways or at least begin an earnest attempt to, and that turning point does come. Each of them attempts to restrain their worst aspects and to improve themselves for the other's sake, but more importantly for their own as well. And just like any recovering drinker or addict, there will be bad days where it seems like all the trials and efforts have been for naught. Perhaps it isnt the best message to encourage the "i can fix her" mindset, but in this anime it appears to have prevailed. The only problem that remains... is everything else.

Of the various reasons I've seen people cite to explain why this show is bad and not worth the watch, the amnesia/ghost banri plotline seems to be the most reoccurring. To briefly describe it, a ghost of his former self prior to his memory loss follows him around and attempts to sabotage his current life and relationship as he is still in love with a childhood friend. I'm not necessarily opposed to this plotline, as it could be a personification of our memories the past and the lingering regrets we carry with us. When are we supposed to stop loving someone, when are we expected to have erased those previous feelings like deleting photos from a camera roll, and how do we disentangle complicated feelings and separate them from the things we feel in the present? All of it is worthy of exploration, and this setup made for as decent place as any to try. Some balk at the idea of such a surreal sequence in an otherwise straight laced slice of life romcom. But such things have been successfully pulled off in the past, just think about those dreamlike sequences from Clannad after all. Clearly based on its reception, Golden Time was not a very successful example. The idea could have been promising, but they failed in its execution, along with the pacing and ultimately delivered a half baked product which only furthered the audience's frustration with the anime.

The pacing of the show in general left a bit to be desired. The most egregious parts though seem to be the beginning and the end, where the impact of what should be life changing events is ultimately rushed over far too quickly than it should have been. The enormous weight of what has happened isnt given enough time to really sink in. It would be like if a shounen villain kills the protagonist and everyone cries, only for him to come back 5 minutes later and defeat the villain. Instead of the moment reaching its full emotional potential, it just sort of seems like a cheap trick.

The final issue I think might be worth discussing is the issue of realism. I have seen many criticize this show as having characters that are too stupid or erratic and behaving in an unrealistic manner, and just as many saying that the show's characters are very realistic. Personally I enjoyed most of the side characters; their comedic relief and their struggles felt comforting, harkening back to the time when i was in the midst of my own golden college times. Perhaps most of this debate lies in people thinking they would not act the same in a situation, and that's fair. At the end of the day if a viewer can't distinguish the difference between a character doing something for no reason, and a character doing something because their motivations, doubts, guilt, anxieties, self loathing, depression, or a myriad of other factors drove them to, then it matters not how realistic they are. It is a matter of communication, of how effectively the author is able to portray and convey the subtleties and underlying ideas to an audience. No one should feel like they 'werent paying close enough attention' or 'they should have picked up on this or that' when they engage with a story which promised them entertainment.

What I think is the real underlying cause of the controversy is an undoubted failure on the part of the anime. It isn't enough for an anime to be realistic, it has to be able to captivate and engross you into the story. Golden Time had many interesting components which certainly could have made for a great story, yet they struggled somewhere along the way weaving them together in a way that makes fans unquestionably stick around for the ride. Despite all the criticism I throw around, I find myself at a loss as to what to suggest could have been done differently, what could have been done better, so as to bridge that gap between audience and author. Perhaps there was the best attempt possible to bring this story to life, but at the end of the day I can't fault them for trying, and I ultimately think my time was well spent watching it. Compared to many of the faceless seasonal highschool romcoms that come and go, Golden Time is not something that will be leaving my memory anytime soon, for better or for worse.

This show is either the best written dumpsterfire i've seen or a good idea prepared in the worst way possible. I think the only way to really know if you like it or not is to give it a shot yourself and see.

So a Buddhist, Priest, Shrine Maiden, and a Scientist walk into a bar... Despite this sounding like the setup for a bad joke, Ghost Hunt was an unexpected pleasure to watch. Fans of Mysteries, Detectives, Supernatural, or Horror will almost certainly find something from this anime to make it worth the watch.

Each character is an expert in their respective field, and they all happen to find themselves independently hired to solve the same case. They bicker and squabble yet there is an undeniable camaraderie they begin to develop, and the fact that all of them are sort of dysfunctional in their own way ... makes me all the more fond of them. They form a little cohort of ghost hunters capable of rivaling scooby doo, and their exploits bring them face to face with forces capable of unimaginable violence and cruelty, be they spirits from beyond the grave or the demons that lurk within the hearts of men. It almost reminds me of playing phasmaphobia with a bunch of friends.

The show is well paced and to the point, with 8 or 9 "cases" usually taking more than a single episode to solve. Yet despite this, there is time made to give the characters personality and also weave in clues to solve whatever mystery they are currently investigating. If you're the type that enjoys trying to solve a mystery before the detective character explains it, it is definitely possible with several of these cases. But that's not to say they are poorly written, rather, the author rewards the clever reader, and though your theories may not always be on the mark, there's a certain satisfaction that can be gained from being given the chance to try.

At the end of the day I would describe this as a comfort anime. That it took me a decade of anime-watching to even stumble onto its name shows how popular it is. I think giving it an 8 is perhaps a bit generous, but when I look back to the past two days where I completely binged straight through it, the only real complaint I have after it is all said and done is that it doesn't have more episodes.

Abandon all hope ye who enter here. Giibate is an anime you cannot enjoy unless you are drinking, mocking it with friends, or some sort of masochist that likes to subject themselves to the worst entries MAL has to offer. Considering there is no shot someone will watch this anime if one of these things isn't true, I can safely say it is deserving of its 'accolades'.

I stumbled upon this anime as I was browsing an interest stack containing 'so bad it's good' shows, and at first I couldn't understand what was going on. I read the ridiculous over the top synopsis. I took a ... look at the 3.82 average rating, and even the stats that showed nearly 20k people had dropped this show (more than had completed it). Yet oddly enough I thought this would be the perfect anime for me. This seemed like an eccentric, overly edgy yet serviceable anime with awful cgi and melodrama that was very typical for the early 2000s and though I can't necessarily say they are good, for me they always scratch a sort of nostalgic itch. Then I realized wait, this was not made in 2002, but rather in 2020. I was literally determined to watch this anime and enjoy it in spite of every piece of information suggesting that it would be an absolute trainwreck.

Having made it to the end, I gotta say there was no exaggerating at all when people say this is truly bad. The fact that somehow something like this could have been made in this day and age astounds me, its like an anime out of time. Somebody watched these episodes, read the dialogue, the script, the storyboard and signed off on it all. The sound design, fight choreography, scene composition, dialogue, 'art' and cgi, plot, characters, writing... it all gradually declined until the final act, where it takes an absolute nosedive and enters wtf-levels I havent encountered in an anime in a while. To actually describe any of the egregious faults this show has would be to spoil the surprise for those who have yet to encounter them.

Is Gibiate the worst anime ever made? No. Is it so bad that it is comedic? Depends on if you. The ending will leave you absolutely bewildered as to why you wasted your time watching 12 episodes to get there. But it is absolutely a must watch for any fellow pilgrims that are on a quest to consume the worst of the worst.

I watched the original and enjoyed it but I wouldn't really say I have overwhelming nostalgia for it. When I heard of Trigun Stampede I didn't have any strong feelings one way or another about it. I thought, maybe they might fix the flaws of the original, or maybe they will do their own thing, but whatever they do, best of luck to them.

Well I finally got around to watching it, and unfortunately I'm left with only a feeling that I've wasted my Saturday morning. I'm a simple man with simple tastes. Just give me an interesting sci fi setting, a few cool characters, ... entertaining action sequences, and a decent plot to tie it all together, and I'll have a good time watching. To my dismay, I did not get much of this out of Stampede.

While some may gag at the cg art style, I've never really been put off by it, especially not when the show itself makes up for any possible flaw in the visuals. I would much rather see the hard work of the studio go into storytelling rather than exhausting themselves animating. Given how generic all the enemies and world looks, I would have at least hoped they put that effort to better use, but unfortunately it doesn't seem like the effort put into the story really payed off.

I don't even need to compare Stampede to its predecessor to be able to describe my disappointment with it. The average episode was so formulaic and predictable that I can describe how one plays out and in doing so I will have covered about half of them. The majority of them have contrived reminders that Millions Knives is bad and painfully trying to remind us that the bad guys are up to something and we should feel tension. This is often done in the form of constant flashbacks, because I assume the creators must believe the audience is senile and will forget that Knives crashed the spaceship or kills women or tortures orphan children. It's almost comical at how moustache-twirly him and his henchmen are. Literally like a villain out of a campy James Bond film, they just explain their diabolical plans to anyone who will listen at every opportunity. Except theres no camp to this at all, pretty much no humor at all. Taking a serious approach is fine, I usually eat up those edgy early 2000s anime like they're crack. There just isn't really much here to get behind unfortunately.

So getting back on track, a typical episode goes like this: opening flashback/exposition dump, then we go back to current events where our main cast has arrived somewhere new (them actually going place to place is sometimes skipped and they just appear in a new place without any explanation how, im guessing the flashbacks are distractions to avert our attention from this), then we get the villain of the week backstory, the villain of the week is fought and defeated (but not before another flashback interrupts the fight), Knives steals a power plant, and the enemy is defeated or killed by someone other than Vash because he wont kill.

Vash is, according to this anime, a crackshot gunslinger, and he is a radical pacifist who seeks to protect people no matter what they do to him or others. So naturally, I was surprised when I realized by the end of the show I didn't really get to see Vash doing any of these things at all... Usually hes just awkwardly sad all the time or others have to resolve the conflict by killing. It seems like for a bit during his final showdown with his arch nemesis, that when Knives challenges his ideals and beliefs, Vash cant even offer up any rebuttal. It just seems odd to me that someone who supposedly devotes his life to saving the lives of others cant even reject the villain's statements with even a cliche or determined yell or something. The impression it gave me was that Vash really has zero conviction towards his ideas on the worth of life, and every moment of inaction just serves to reinforce this throughout the whole anime. It'd be one thing if he was some depressed teenager that didnt want to get into a robot and fight monsters, but he's been around for a while and can literally shoot the bullets that his opponents fire at him or others. Stampede wants us to believe hes this cool outlaw who only fights to save people, but it fails to make him feel cool, like an outlaw, or make us think he could save anybody...

So maybe this could be redeemed if you go into it craving a cool but mindless action thriller right? I wouldn't count on it. The show makes it apparent very early on that aside from plot armor, the characters are pretty much just unkillable. In fact, I'd argue that Stampede was counting on the fact people would compare it to the original adaptation because certain characters (you know who) died and it was incredibly impactful, yet in this adaptation everyone can get riddled with bullets and shrug it off. The only proof that death is even still a thing in this world is that helpless people are constantly and graphically murdered on screen constantly by whatever grotesque abomination has been sent by the bad guys this time. Maybe if every enemy didn't look like Bane from the 1997 Batman movie (the same one with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze) you might feel fear or excitement at these fights. But after watching them, I'd be surprised if I still had a pulse. It was just boring, and I found myself actually checking to see how much time was left until it was over on more than one occasion.

Up to you if you like it or not, but I know one thing for sure. Meryl's hair looked a lot fluffier in the original.

Any fan of Sci Fi should be familiar with the phrase "Pulp Science Fiction". Short stories published in magazines that were as cheap as the paper they were printed on, and yet the questions and ideas they proposed became inspirations for nearly a century's worth of novels, films, games, and stories of all types. AI no Idenshi pleasantly surprised me when I found myself watching it and couldn't help but be reminded of the countless works of Pulp Sci Fi. It describes itself as an omnibus of short stories, and I certainly am finding it worth my time.

To briefly explain what this show is ... all about, Dr. Sudo Hikaru is a physician specializing in the treatment of humanoids and robots alike, while also moonlighting as an underground doctor for those who cannot seek legally treatment due to various circumstances. His cases are our window into the future imagined by the storywriters. The show, as a result, has a sort of sci-fi medical drama vibe, and our "protagonist" is actually very similar to us, often no more than an observer to the events unfolding around them. When needed, our doctor interjects with some advice or a treatment or piece of wisdom to force the characters and also the audience to reflect on what has just transpired.

I understand that not everyone is likely going to enjoy this anime. I've found many people criticizing it on the basis of the characters, or the brevity of time spent exploring a topic, or the lack of a plot, ect. But to me these complaints seem to be off the mark because its not the goal of AI no Idenshi to present a standard "beginning middle end" story, but to ask "what if" and try to show you a possible future in which our new technology is extrapolated in ways beyond our current imagination. So to me, these complaints would be like if I criticized a poem for lack of character development or a theatrical play for the lack of special effects. If you watch AI no Idenshi, you have to understand that the bread and butter of this show is not the characters or the plot, but the imagination of the future.

If you consider so much of our modern Science Fiction has been inspired by a few pages of short stories by the likes of Asimov, Heinlein, and P.K. Dick (among others) back when it took a computer the size of a room to solve a few math problems, imagine the possible muses that can now be drawn by creative minds in the present day when we have AI-generated art, algorithms predicting what you want before you even are aware of it yourself, AI Deepfakes, and so on.

AI no Idenshi certainly isnt a masterpiece of writing, but I've been thoroughly invested in the futures it predicts and technologies it envisions. I've been surprised more than once when it not only avoids the cliched predictions we're all familiar with, but actually subverts your expectations and presents them in a new light.

For example, we've all seen the classic "man vs machine" struggle played out in some story or another where a flesh and blood person strives to show that they can still overcome the flawless perfect machine. But very rarely have I ever seen anyone, myself included, consider that for someone who is a machine, their limits are predetermined and no amount of determination will change that.

Any of the ideas put on display within the mere seven episodes that have released so far at the time that I'm writing this can likely be the main focus of an entire story on its own, and I would very much love to see that. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is a fan of science fiction, especially because if there is enough popularity and demand for more sci-fi stories, then perhaps stories inspired by ideas within AI no Idenshi or new ones from other writers will be created.

It's not often that I am moved to write a review for an anime, and when I am, it is usually only because I feel so compelled to sing the show's praises, or to voice my sheer and utter frustration that the anime has caused me. Spoiler alert, Hanebado falls into the latter category...

I haven't read the source material, and have heard conflicting reports about how well it was, so I can only speak as to what I experienced while watching the anime. Hanebado has everything necessary to be a decent show, perhaps even above average if executed competently. Like so many great sports anime ... before it, Hanebado attempts to place us in the front lines of the athlete world, and let us witness the physical and mental anguish first hand. I was disappointed by Hanebado, and that is not because I was comparing it to better works before it. I simply watched the show, and at nearly every turn was either appalled or outraged by the writing choices that had been made. Below I will attempt to explain the basis of these feelings, so please bare with me. I do not know if this fault lies with the original author or the anime studio adapting their work, but either way someone dropped the ball here.

Overall the show had good animation, a decent but forgettable soundtrack, good voice acting, and never felt slow. For a sports anime, capturing the intensity of the game and making an audience care about it is crucial, and Hanebado did very well in this regard. I have never watched a game of badminton in my life, nor do I particularly care for it, yet I always found the matches engaging, if not a bit predictable. The main problem for me was the writing of the show. Hanebado essentially follows two high school badminton players as they struggle through their athletic careers.

The first, Nagisa, has been embittered by a loss and thrown off her game, and must overcome physical and mental boundaries in order to rise above the player she had been when she lost, and also to maybe defeat the opponent who bested her. I have no complaints about Nagisa's arc, she demonstrated real growth, and more importantly, all her triumphs, defeats, and actions feel earned. She doesn't do 180 degree flips in personality, and her flaws seem true to her character.

The second, Ayano, also has what is set up to be a profound and very moving arc. Daughter of a badminton prodigy, it is revealed that after her first major loss, her mother pretty much disowns her, abandoning her to move to a new country and adopt a new daughter to seemingly be her replacement because Ayano had failed. This sort of abusive mentor relationship is something that is present in many different walks of life, from students with gifted academics, natural talent in sports, or proficiency with instruments. It is an incredibly pernicious form of abuse, because to an outsider it appears as if the mentor is pushing their student to better themselves, when in reality the student is drawing closer and closer to self destruction in an attempt to please their abuser who will never truly be satisfied with their performance. I think the movie "Whiplash" demonstrates how monstrous such a "mentor" really is. Ayano's mother is certainly one of these people, and she admits as much herself in the final episodes. Where Hanebado truly fails is addressing how Ayano overcomes her toxic relationship with her mother, as well as with the other abusers that have decided to track her down no matter where she goes to try and remind her of her traumatic experiences.

Ayano herself is a decently written character, and as the show progresses, her method of coping with everything that has happened in her life leads her to become a cruel and merciless person lacking any empathy or compassion for even those who had been her friends. It is very believable and regardless of how one personally feels about the morality of her actions, it was compelling to watch. With such a set up, there are really only two ways the story could have gone. They make the ending a tragedy, with Ayano never overcoming her past and continuing to tear through people on a self destructive attempt to try and win back her mother's favor. Or, they make the ending one of catharsis, one where the character has some sort of realization or experience with a massive emotional payoff that allows her to finally move on.

What the show did instead was spend half of the run time trying to trick you into forgiving the abusers so that when she makes up with them suddenly in the end, you really believe that the power of friendship can overcome everything. Its one thing to portray antagonists as nuanced or complicated, because very rarely is someone ever just inherently bad. What Hanebado does, however, is sets up deplorable characters, people that have literally traveled around the entire world just to find Ayano and humiliate her, or track her down to whichever school she goes in order to remind her that she is a failure, that her being a failure caused her mother to leave, and that she should give up. Only for these characters to suddenly out of nowhere do complete 180 degree character flips. The girl Ayano's mother replaced her with who came from Denmark to beat her and prove she's the better daughter? Yeah no actually the whole time she just wanted to become real sisters with Ayano. The pink haired bitch that tied Ayano up and deliberately infected her with the flu prior to the game Ayano lost that caused her mother to abandon her? We should feel bad for her and forgive her because she was afraid of losing to Ayano. Ayano's mother, who only returns to her life once she is winning again and tells her that she abandoned her own daughter because it would make her play better? It's okay because Ayano forgives her.

Hanebado's entire second half (aside from Nagisa's plot) are almost entirely just repeated attempts by the storytellers to force really contrived and unearned forgiveness for terrible and unlikeable people. Ayano is going to far in defeating them and its a cheap trick to try and make us swallow the sympathy pill they're forcing on us, but based on nearly all the reactions I've seen people have, no one sheds so much as a tear when these people finally get what's coming to them. Except even then, they don't get what is coming to them. They get unearned forgiveness, and years of abuse get handwaved away. Watching the ending of this anime was like watching the Hindenburg go up in flames. Even from the half way point, I saw people discussing how whatever the show does, they better not dare try to have a "we're all happy now everything is fine and forgiven" ending. Well spoilers, they did. And it felt so jarring that it actually detracted from my overall enjoyment of the show.

If you build up an person to be such a terrible character, and make it seem like the plot is going towards a direction where someone will call them out on their behavior or they face consequences, or even just have the protagonist rise above it, and then fail to deliver on that implied pay out, you have failed your audience. Had it not been for any of the painful scenes involving Ayano and one of her abusers, I might have been willing to rate the show a 5/10, maybe even a 6/10. But the offenses are as frequent as they are egregious, and for anyone who is bothered by toxic people and cant stand them to face no consequences for their actions, I suspect you too will find Hanebado unpleasent to watch.

I tend not to write reviews, and yet here I am again writing a review for the second season of the Higurashi reboot. I don't even know where to begin anymore. At first I was just frustrated at many components of Gou and Sotsu, but now I'm just utterly defeated. I haven't even seen the final episode yet as of this review, but seeing as how completely and thoroughly Sotsu has destroyed the legacy of Higurashi, I don't feel like waiting another week only to voice the same opinions. Before this review turns into an incoherent rant, let me attempt to try and bring some ... order to my thoughts.

Im only gonna cover the characters and mix in criticisms of parts of the story, otherwise there will just be far too much to say. The only conclusion I have is that Higurashi Sotsu is an excellent character assassination of figures from both Higurashi and Umineko, almost as if it was intentional. I'll try to briefly cover the biggest offenses below:

Featherine (or Eua or whatever her name was in the anime) is The Witch of Theatergoing, Drama and Spectating. Out of the countless stories she has witnessed and manipulated, for whatever reason she acts like Satoko's little cat and mouse game is some sort of high art and among the best of them all, which really shatters her image as a refined and cultured being who has seen all of history yet still looks for new entertainment. To add to the destruction of her image, she laughs patronizingly nearly every time she is on screen, in a way she would likely chide her servants for doing. The writers use her to explain the concepts that might be a little too complex to the viewer instead of letting the not so subtle themes be shown rather than told to the viewer, and in doing so they dumb her down as well.

Anyway, next is Satoko. Satoko...Yeah. 13 of the 15 episodes of this season are essentially recap episodes of the Gou season before it ever actually returns to the cliffhanger they left off with. The only difference is that they are instead told from Satoko's perspective, except instead of teaching the viewer anything, it is overexplaining a plot element that was never strong enough to carry the show. Satoko's role in all the new crimes is not news to the viewer by this season. So instead of revealing any new information like the typical Answer arc of an 07th work would do, Sotsu shows us the completely unsympathetic efforts of Satoko as she crafts plans and carries out cruel torture of her closest friends, all because, and I'm quoting Satoko herself here, "I hate studying". If you got to this season you know the whole Saint Lucia's ordeal, but yeah, she is willing to destroy the lives of her friends and does so sadistically because Satoko is now the cute little fanservice loli yandere workhorse that is supposed to justify this anime existing and carry the plot.

The last character I'll bother discussing is Rika. Perhaps this criticism is too harsh, but given that she is someone who has hundreds of years of life experience and sagely wisdom, and has solved countless crimes in Hinamizawa (although she rarely lived through them), it takes her two seasons to figure out who the killer is, and even then its not through her own deduction but because of a poorly written plot convenience. This is part of the biggest problem I would say this season had; the complete lack of any payoff.

There's absolutely no sense of triumph or excitement when Rika reaches the truth, as there is when the protagonist of any mystery work finally solves the mystery. Nothing new happens until the 14th episode of the season, and there's only 15 in total. But rather than redeeming any of the problems or issues, episode 14 is the murder weapon that finally kills the Higurashi franchise. Even among the people who have been enjoying this season, I have been hearing wtfs and comments about dissatisfaction. It doesn't even feel like Higurashi anymore. Without spoiling anything, all the tropes of a shounen anime are thrown in, and a dragon ball style battle ensues spanning multiple quickly cut fragments with tons of determined anime screaming, unnecessary loli gore porn, flying through the sky and battling with nonsensical energy auras... I don't even know what to say. The final fight makes no sense anyway, as the anime has previously said that if Satoko dies before Rika it basically nullifies her power, but now they act as if the only way to kill a looper is with the specific weapon Rika was told about. The anime is clearly aware of both of these statements, as Satoko is always careful to die after Rika, and both of them battle over control over the weapon, but it somehow overlooks the fact that Rika doesn't even need the weapon to kill Satoko, not to mention the fact that Satoko doesnt want to kill Rika permanently but still tries to kill her with the looper killing weapon anyway.

Sotsu has done everything wrong, both as a Higurashi successor and as a story in general. It feels the need to show every single detail of Satoko's plots, rather than trust the audience to understand that she is masterminding the plots. The motivation of the main antagonist, who is the main focus of the season, is not only remarkably shallow, but completely unsympathetic and really takes you out of the story, as it is in no way believable. The constant debriefing sessions Satoko has with Featherine are also just another way of padding runtime, recycling plots, and giving exposition or explaining how characters are feeling instead of actually having any feeling at all.

Higurashi Sotsu is not horror, its not mystery, its not suspenseful. It isn't really Higurashi at all, and if you watch this season I'm sure you'll agree by the end too. But even if you stop comparing Sotsu to the original Higurashi, you're left with nothing really. The show takes too many leniencies with explanations that can only come from the original to be considered a standalone. But if we ignore this and consider only the substance in front of us, the story Sotsu tries to tell is still just a long, drawn out attempt to make a lackluster story and unremarkable writing into something that resembles a coherent one, and sacrifices everything that could otherwise make it enjoyable along the way.

Why have you done this to us Ryukishi?

I've seen many bad anime, but I have never felt the need to write a review to express the sheer frustration with an anime I have felt before now. Higurashi Gou is an offense to both the legacy that its predecessors have created, as well as a stain on the otherwise amazing track record of Ryukishi07.

As a sequel, it retroactively detracts from many elements of Higurashi, and also undermines the respectability of characters from both it and Umineko as well. Considering how as a standalone anime this show would be even more of an utter mess, it is not only fair to measure it up ... against the stories from which it attempts to associate itself with, but necessary, as this show presents itself as an heir to them.

The story exists only for its own sake, switching between sloppy and rushed remakes of original arcs with a wacky twist, to inventing new conflicts that are fundamentally flawed. These new conflicts are not even given enough screen time to pan out, as the show decides to leave a cliffhanger for another season to resolve the only new conflict they created, despite feeling they had the time to have completely unnecessary episodes about the most unrelated events, such as an entire episode devoted to everyone's favorite character, Satoko's Uncle, literally right before the final episode of the season. Another instance of this is how many more episodes than were needed were devoted to the arc revolving around the protest to help Satoko. This was followed by an entire episode of loli gore porn because the pacing of the show needed to pick up so they just compiled as many deaths as they could into a 20 minute timeframe. I've never seen an anime somehow simultaneously suffer from the need for more time to explain things and from having so much time that they waste it, but somehow Gou manages to do both.

The art and sound is decent, recycling only a fraction of the original Higurashi's amazing score, while using the Monogatari style moe blobs that some people might enjoy but to me feels completely out of place in Higurashi

The characters are probably the worst aspect of Higurashi Gou, and I'm saying this as a huge fan of both Higurashi and Umineko. It's one thing to take characters who act/think one way and have them do something uncharacteristic or unrealistic to their characterization(as this show also does). But its another thing to have them do 180 degree character flips and become psychopathic yanderes who would rather horrifically torture their closest friend. It takes a special kind of ineptitude to make murdering friends in Higurashi seem out of place, yet Gou manages to do so. I'll try to stay away from too many spoilers, so to explain it, a character feels spited by the growing distance between themselves and Rika (that they partially imposed on themselves). This spite eventually leads them to brutally torture and kill Rika over and over, despite learning about Rika's decades of torment in Hinamizawa and gaining the ability to loop as well. Instead of using the newfound looping abilities to repair their friendship, the person decides the best way to fix it is to become the very nightmare that they know Rika has tried so desperately to escape. The goal? Make Rika like them and stay in Hinamizawa. Ah yes, by becoming the thing they hate, that will make Rika want to stay with them. This person is under no effects of Hinamizawa syndrome or any other capacity reducing phenomena, and decides of their own free will to kill Rika. They've already displayed that they are smart enough to resolve the problem by cheating on tests to stay in the same class, or by simply not refusing to hang out with Rika when invited to. But no, they become certain they have to kill Rika because someone has to kill Rika for the plot to exist. To make matters worse. other characters like Rena, Shion, Keiichi, ect, are completely sidelined and given no focus whatsoever, their only appearance on screen is to allow them to give one of their classic quotable lines and maybe a few shots of fanservice and nostalgia baiting.

Needless to say, my enjoyment of Higurashi Gou was not very high. And to be honest, I'm surprised there are some Higurashi fans that actually enjoyed this trainwreck. I want to believe that they would probably be the very type of Goat people that the writer criticizes in their work, however the fact that Ryukishi himself wrote this deeply concerns me. I hope this anime can be wiped from collective memory just like the Umineko adaptation attempt has been.