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Nov 9, 2024
"The elusive samurai" is a story set in a feudal Japan in which some people have rare super-powers such as seeing the future or in the case of our MC, agility so good that not even a group of well-trained warriors can get close to touching him even in a pincer attack. We follow a young boy who after losing everything, is set on a campaign of vengeance and self-preservation.
The characters while poorly fleshed out and one-directional are mostly likeable (With huge exceptions like that weirdo who can see the future and is interested in practicing Japanese bondage for some reason, who tf thought of
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that?), the villains suffer from the same issues but have interesting skills, there's some interesting fighting strategies and one particular close-quarters fight that was very good. That's everything positive I could think of.
The world building is not there, same thing for character development, the animation is sometimes decent but usually there are a lot of cut corners, this series has the worst fighting/fleeing animations I've seen in the last few years, there's one scene in the beginning where our MC is thrown down a cliff and into the fray so that he can practice fleeing and climbing back up, you can see how this scene would've made sense if you were seeing some manga panels but it was translated so unskillfully into an animation that it is laughable.
There's an overarching story but 90% of what we see are self-contained stories where there's either a new ally found, a new skill learned, a danger avoided, etc... Most of the time I found myself putting the anime at 2x speed because between the bad animation and subpar story I was constantly debating whether I was going to finish it, the only reason I trudged through the whole thing was so I could write a review.
The story is loosely inspired in Japanese real events but after reading about them I don't get why they didn't just go with a fully fictional story since not much is taken from the real story other than things like dates and names, I would be insulted if I was Japanese, truly, because not only is the story poorly written, there's also a push to subtly cater to a perverted audience with things like bondage depictions, and odd direction choices like showing the concubine of the MC happily dancing in both the intro and outro when she's only seen for like a minute in the first episode before being raped and executed, or one part where the characters are playing modern hockey with some of the proper equipment, this makes no sense even if there's a guy who can see visions of the modern world, like who made the equipment and how did they learn to use it when they're always on the move and fighting for their lives?
I would rate this a 4 but I really liked that one close-quarters fight divided between (I think) episode 7 and 8.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 9, 2024
"he Strongest Magician in the Demon Lord's Army Was a Human" is one of those animes that come every season with the typical overly
powerful protagonist without much of a personality except for being capable, humble and noble (so that the viewer may self-insert), where women seem to gravitate towards and fight for his attention but he's oblivious and every time someone makes an advance it is interrupted. A dumb relief character, fantasy elements (magic, demi-humans...), and one-dimensional villains can't be missed either.
The story is simple, we follow a human working for the demon lord (who is a young looking girl who seems to have
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a slight crush on him, just like every other girl) who is on a war campaign to unite the races. Along the way there will be rivalries, alliances, many fights (poorly animated, with lots of still images and ugly-looking 3D animation), drama with fanservice sprinkled in between and lots of irrelevant episodic plots that you can easily predict the outcome of.
There isn't much I can say in favor of this anime, the fanservice was pretty tame in comparison with what's out there, the characters where hollow and without development but mostly likeable, and the world-building was lacking but what I got to see was interesting. The story was engaging enough for me to finish 12 episodes but I don't think I could withstand another season of this generic slop.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Aug 15, 2024
"BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense" is a lighthearted slice of life anime about two girl friends adventuring in a virtual reality world while learning about the game, making friends, winning championships, etc... I won't get into any important part of the story but I'll need to speak a little about the things that happen in this anime to explain why I disliked it.
The world is interesting and the characters are likeable and maybe even relatable... At first glace, it's just that at the same time those characters lack depth and don't go through any kind of development,
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and the VR world always seems to bend to their imagination making them incredibly powerful, I swear every issue is fixed by Maple's Hydra (A poisonous dragon thing she gets in one of the first areas of the world) being used in a different way than originally showed which was a poison attack, it can also:
-Pin them/push enemies back
-Poison large bodies of water
-Fill containers with its poison
-Create a poisonous gas area that stays that way for extended periods of time
-Create a ball of poison to envelop Maple (and later her friends) to roll down hills without taking damage and even to just shoot through dungeons at lightning speed
-Be used to create an impenetrable defensive poison bubble cocoon around maple
-Be used as a remote shield to stop incoming attacks
And the list goes on, you get the idea.
The example I gave with Hydra goes for most things or situations, the two main girls always are the best at what they do because this VR game seems to be impossibly complex and versatile, it will respond to whatever silly idea and give absurdly powerful skills as a result like:
-Just getting stung by a monster until you develop resistance to any poison attack
-Eating a monster to gain powers
-Speedrunning the same dungeon to farm EXP
Again, the list goes on, even defeating any of the bosses around the world gives either a unique weapon/armor or an overpowered skill.
If this is the idea the writer intended then it's great, such a unique world lends itself to creating a very nuanced story with lots of creative action, but this doesn't happen, apparently everyone else is so dumb that they don't get any overpowered perks like our MCs, most other people don't even use any skills while fighting and act like filler characters, and when we do see interesting skills they're like speed boosts, stun spells or fireballs while Maple is unlocking godly powers. if the world is going to be rewarding our MC with overpowered skills for every small thing then everyone should be incredibly powerful, not just her.
The only other people that get good skills are Maple's team, nothing as good as her, but they're powerful in their own right, able to wipe hundreds of players on their own, this includes Sally who gets many powers but her real ability lies in the fact that she's somehow too skilled, through her own sheer ability she can overcome attacks that should be impossible to defend for her, and kill anyone with ease. She's a kid with not much gaming experience, so this skill can only be sort of explained because she's agile and athletic in real life, for a kid, but if this is the case then there should be plenty of adults in better shape than her, meaning more coordinated and agile, this is never the case.
Maple's neverending flow of new OP skills is explained through the devs watching maple and being astonished at her stunts, meaning that they created this world with skills hidden everywhere but only Maple finds them one after the other being a kid just playing however she pleases, no one else should be finding these skills apparently, and the devs are baffled, they for example, somehow programmed into this world that if someone takes a few bites from a boss then that person gets the ability to turn into something akin to godzilla with OP magical abilities, but are perplexed to see Maple finding one of the myriad of powers they've planted into their world. They even nerf Maple once, but the thing they nerfed wasn't even a skill, it was a shield that killed everything it touched instantly with no limits or repercussions, how could they have predicted that the shield would be OP!
The story still feels very bland and poorly executed, a slice of life + action anime sounds like a hard idea to execute but one with a lot of promise, for me BOFURI was a big disappointment that didn't deliver on the characters and the consistency needed for a believable and enjoyable VR fantasy world. The ending was a good chance to show the OP team struggle, but in this anime anytime Maple finds any resistance and seems to struggle, it's because she's trying not to use too many of her abilities, not because she's in any real trouble, the main antagonist Payne was painfully unutilized.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Aug 11, 2024
5 centimeters per second is a slice of life descriptive story that follows the story of two young lovers pitted against distance, with letters and text messages to fight it. The characters are immature and unlikable in many ways, but they're meant to be that way, in that sense they're relatable because we have all taken bad decisions or grown to feel regret after not having the maturity/intelligence to deal with some situation.
I have no complaints about the complexity of the story, with very romantic moments and a well developed setting, which is heightened by the cinematic visuals. Where the anime falls flat is in
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being interesting, it lacks flavor, I could only have enjoyed the story if something similar had happened to me, there is only so much "being relatable" can move a story, there is no character development, the ending is purposely vague, the whole story is just a life situation depicted with good animation.
There was a lot of talent involved in this movie so I wouldn't completely write it off as bad, I may even recommend it depending on who asks, but only the first minutes had me captivated, the writing is not good, this type of slice of life translates horribly to a movie format, and I generally wouldn't recommend it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 3, 2024
This OVA is just a small set of recycled scenes from the original series, along with a few new ones where the first 1-2 minutes of the 1st episode are re-made in different scenarios (like everyone being an alien). It's boring and unoriginal, something to skip, but that's not where my very bad score came from:
For those who didn't notice, Sakamoto desu ga? Ends with indications of Sakamoto being sick and near death, it's easy to miss but there's a few dialogues indicating that he's been to the school nurse's office frequently or things that allude to him being constantly sick, also in the end
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Hayabusa points out that Sakamoto is lying about his NASA internship and Sakamoto doesn't even bother denying it, Hayabusa is onto Sakamoto's lie and asks if he's leaving with any regrets. You can google it, there's things like reddit threads with very good explanations, the main evidence for me is the last chapter's cover art where Sakamoto is seen in a school locker as if in a casket, with his arms crossed, this points to his imminent death.
This is what made Sakamoto desu ga? Be all the more significant, it's not only a comedy but there's a big subversion of expectations that gives a deeper meaning to an otherwise silly story, it doesn't make it a masterpiece but it's a great element in the plot. That's why I give this OVA a 2, it is indicated in the OVA (through breaking the 4th wall) that the studio decided to make this because they didn't fill their 13 episode quota and only reached 12 so they're making the OVA hastily, this is not something coming from the original source, and it shows because they depict Sakamoto feeding birds in the US, meaning that he wasn't sick and went to NASA, this goes against the canon. Along with the disgusting lack of effort that makes this OVA unwatchable, this lack of attention to the story is what makes the OVA horrible.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Jul 21, 2024
Season 2 is predicably underwhelming, continuing to grow the loli harem of the shield hero while giving us a mediocre story, something I found irritating yet funny is how the new loli not only acknowledges that she's one, but also the type of loli she is (loli hag, apparently that's what child-looking adults are called in anime, you learn something new everyday when watching pedo-bait animes!).
This season introduces a way for the adult-shaped loli to go back to her real form (a child) as well, this serves no purpose to the plot.
Some really bad plot devices continue to be present, like Naofumi being able
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to find a way out of difficult challenges almost as if he knew the answer from the beginning, without struggle or challenge, he's also able to use OP abilities to overpower any challenging enemy he comes across, making the anime feel blander each episode.
Another big issue is how I was able to predict the outcome of every new plot point as soon as they introduced it, like who was going to be the wielder of the vassal katana, or how the seemingly inescapable scenarios or deathly challenges were going to unfold, the anime is just that easy to predict, because it's very commercial and streamlined, the main focus is to sell. Another weird thing that keeps happening is how every girl in Naofumi's team wants to get a slave crest so that they can be ordered around by him without the ability to say no, definitely not a bizarre thing meant to sell to a perverted audience.
The strong points continue to be the focus on action, fast pace and interesting scenarios/skills, but again they're kind of diminished by the cheap plot devices.
The last episode was the classical section where nothing important happens and they have time to relax, so a series of mini-stories unfold. In this anime they used this to show the girls with very skimpy clothes (children may I remind you, all girls of course), there's also a section where the children get advice to boost their relationship with the hero, of course they're told to, as they put it, "mate" with him. Usually animes do these mini-stories in a separate OVA where they do something silly like going to the beach, with this one they didn't even see the need to separate it, they just made the last episode a lifeless pedo-fest! I think this is going to be the last season I waste my time with.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jul 20, 2024
The Rising of the Shield Hero presents a very common trope: We follow Naofumi, who is unfairly and unreasonably hated by absolutely everyone, so he has to grow as an underdog filled with disadvantages in an environment where villains antagonize and try to weaken/demoralize him, including people who should be his comrades (in fighting videogame-like waves of enemies that appear every few weeks).
The story starts with a cliche and is incredibly predictable all the way through but seems to be fine in the first few episodes, and it continues to have strong points such as the weapon skill system, the hero's character development and travels,
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decent and frequent fight animations, etc... However there were many negative points as well, a big one being the need to have the protagonist surrounded by little girls who fall in love with him, one who grows into the body of an adult in weeks, and another one who can shapeshift (but chooses to look like a kid), this pedo-bait element really ruins it for me, not only this anime falls into the crappy harem formula that most shonen follow, but they try to maximize revenue by making them enamored children who can magically not look like children. Well, there are also straight up children who accompany and love the hero too.
Trying to avoid spoilers, the anime follows our hero being well, a hero, emphasizing how despite his shortcomings he can be more heroic than his counterparts, there isn't much depth to it but the story is constantly moving to the next objective while a bigger threat is looming over everyone so it is engaging enough.
The most complexity you'll see is maybe the turmoil in Naofumi's head due to the way he's treated by most who meet him, there's also the way he perseveres in growing as a fighter and makes a living even when always being against comically cartoonish one-dimensional villains. Don't expect much really, despite being the supposed weakling, Naofumi has OP abilities that make every difficult and potentially interesting encounter trivial, and is lucky finding incredibly powerful companions, all of which takes away from the plot, most growth Naofumi experiences comes by chance instead of through merit.
I just know I would've loved this story when I was 15, but now that I've seen plenty of good stories this anime feels shallow, generic and focused on fanservice, watch it if you want a long fantasy story where the story is action-focused, fast-paced and easy to follow, and you don't mind the sexualized lolis. The end of the season sets up some promising developments but I have low expectations, seeing how they introduced them while adding a new girl to the ever growing harem of the shield hero...
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 28, 2024
This season continues the steep decline of the [initially] decent story.
The love story between Saito and Louise still has some remnants of that endearing dynamic between a really innocent and feisty adolescent and her loyal and caring companion who is also an adolescent but more mature, however this is ruined due to the constant barrage of sexual situations Saito finds himself in, where he either acts confused instead of stepping away or he directly cheats on her and then acts innocent... Which I kind of understand because Louise at this point has opened up about her feelings yet still refuses to be anything but
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extremely abusive and crazy. Either way that dynamic, which was one of the few good plot hooks is decimated for good here.
As far as the story goes, the anime has built a relatively interesting world, but all of it is only continuously used to generate new vulgar and sexual situations, so in the end the whole season is reduced to softcore porn, this season firmly established the harem formula. The OVA (ep 6.5) for a moment turns into tentacle hentai, and Tabitha's dragon ends up being sexualized as well (turns into a busty anime girl), a f*ing dragon, need I say more? Actually one more thing, ALL sexualized characters are underage, oh Japan...
The writing also isn't nearly as decent as in previous seasons, they straight up bring back a dead character with a very bs reason, in the end it just substracts from the low quality the anime already has.
I'll skip the final season, it was a huge trudge to just finish this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Mar 31, 2024
Solo leveling is a very generic anime, there's no original concepts or tropes and you'll be sick of it by the second episode, but I still gave it an 8, why? Because the pacing is very fast, there's enough of a barebones, lackluster story to keep you entertained but it's almost exclusively focused on the action, and that action is well-animated, dynamic and fun, top notch i'd say. The best parts come by the second half so I recommend giving it a chance even if you get bored in the first half.
This anime presents the typical shonen power fantasy: Humanity is constantly under siege,
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portals appear randomly and constantly, along with them some people start getting powers that allow them to go in, finish the videogame-like dungeon monsters and boss, which allows them to close the portal. Our protagonist Sung is a good for nothing Hunter so weak he can't even finish the easiest raids without being seriously injured, but by chance he comes across an unexplained, videogame-like power that makes him incredibly overpowered.
Since the focus is almost exclusively on the abilities, growth, and fights you'll either always be stuck to the screen or be disgusted by the lack of explanations and story development. But there's skill advancement and many goals for both Sung and the top hunters.
Either this anime will be short and keep up the quick pace until the end, or the next seasons won't be nearly as good, since it's a one trick pony that will show its lack of polish if it over extends itself.
In conclusion, this is an excellent anime to turn off your mind for a bit and just enjoy the fights, but if you like well written stories you may have mixed feelings about this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 31, 2024
Zero no tsukaima is one of those few animes that I would recommend to some people despite the low rating I gave it. It has a an interesting world, many likeable characters, a decently written main character, well-thought abilities, etc...
The anime makes it clear from the first moment that there will be a love story between the two main characters: Louise and Saito, and while Louise is abusive and cold she's so innocent that you root for her somewhat, even more when even she doesn't know why she acts the way she does and regrets the flaws she shows towards people she cares for.
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Saito on the other hand is lecherous but cares for, protects Louise and is loyal, he has a lot of chances to take advantage of her innocence like some other characters try to do, but he seems to respect her.
The story has many great things to develop but it's poorly written so it doesn't polish any of the great concepts it presents, and it often goes in a vulgar tangent like "a thief has a mark on her chest, Saito you need to cause a ruckus looking at every girl's chest". We also get a lot of unnaturally bouncing chests, underage girls in very revealing underwear, and an exhausting amount of sexual innuendos.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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