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Ah yes Shaman King. It is definately one of those shows I used to love as a kid.
To give some backstory first I first watched the old adaptation of this anime back as a kid and went on to read the Manga a bit later. I never finished the story though ... but I knew it differs a lot from the old Anime's ending.

So when the new adaptation was announced I was glad to have the chance to get back into the series to experience the 'correct' adaptation of the Manga's story.
Was it good though...? Well....

The first episodes were actually really promising. I was ... glad to recognize a lot of scenes from the Manga and it was great to see these characters again after so many years. It was actually pretty enjoyable until the part of Anna's backstory ended... After that everything went downhill sadly.

The Shaman tournament lost all importance and it kind of just faded away? While the old adaptation really focused on this part it was weird just not seeing much of it at all. When you did, it wasn't really fun anyway though... the fighting scenes were just overall really boring and not animated in an exciting way. Most things just got explained instead of seeing some actual action...I hoped a new anime would do this differently but I guess not.

The characters definately didn't have enough time to interact with each other ... I am actually kind of annoyed that Chocolove got so much attention throughout the story... I just hate this character a lot. His weird humour doesn't work and is so unnessecary. Instead I would have loved to see more of HoroHoro or Ren or even Yoh... because honestly for a main character he sure didn't do that much... especially in the final episodes.

The story just went all over the place... characters constantly got revived like it's nothing special at all. The progress the characters made just felt forced and rushed and everything kind of became 'too big'. I can't really say anything positive about the second half of this show... and it pains me to ay that really.
I guess the original story wasn't that good after all and the old adaptation definately made a good choice of rewriting it...
At least my respect towards the old Anime only grew now and I would recommend it over the new one. Especially since the new one didn't get rid of anything 'outdated' like character clichés, bad humour or too much shouting or Ryu being creepy af anyway.

Unfortunately This anime turned out to be really mediocre, maybe without the nostalgia bonus it would be even worse.

I gotta be honest here... this season was such a disappointment. It lead this path of the franchise into a direction I didn't want it to go.

The first season was pretty good:
There was a lot of action and fighting and we got a few glimpses at servants from other Fate series which is always nice.
The relationship between Miyu and Illya was a little weird here and there but all in all it felt pretty wholesome to me.

Now the second season takes both of these things out of the series.....
There's not too much fighting in this one and the reason behind is just kinda stupid and ... had me annoyed... Kuro in general had me really annoyed.
She turns the wholesomeness of the series to a lewd, dumb fanservice direction.
Getting kinky with the Onii-Chan and getting him slapped? check.
Randomly Kissing people just for the heck of it to show fanservice? check.
Unnecessary, constant fighting with the main character? check.

The other part absolutely despice are the school friend side characters...
That orange-haired girl is unbearable. It feels like this is marketed towards
Hikkikomori with the basic, sad fanservice but on the other hand it's target group are kids because the characters are acting so dumb and unfunny.

All in all a really poor Magical Girl series that could have gone a different path but it did exactly what every other bad, basic Magical Girl anime does.

*might have spoilers*

Yet another VRMMO Isekai anime, but the premise of this sounded kind of fun and fresh.
Sadly this anime is anything but not that, it's probably worse than a lot of others.

I realize that this show isn't meant to be very serious, deep or story-driven.. but there's so many other flaws that make this just.. really boring and irrelevant. So I'm gonna judge it on those things it is supposed to be.

-Characters:
BOFURI kind of wants to be a slice-of-life show focusing on cute girls doing cute things like so many other shows do. I find that this only works if you have somewhat interesting, ... unique characters. A cute/crazy characteristic/quirk or a variety of personalities that go well together and profit of each other usually achieve the goal of making the audience like cute girls even tho they just do kind of boring things.
However this anime really fails here already.. None of the characters really has something that makes them stand out or makes the interaction between them interesting.. All the girls are basically the same? They're optimistic, friendly and determined. I feel like people are blinded by character design concepts sometimes that tries to indicate a certain personality to a character.. but it's really kind of a trap. Like some books with nicely designed covers but there really is the same story in every each of them. None of them really has a flaw or any depth.. I felt totally indifferent to all of them. Everyone being super OP really didn't help either...

-The game:
Even tho this is a slice-of-life/comedy show you should kind of expect the anime to at least stay realistic in some aspects when it comes to the game design of the MMO the characters are playing. Because if everything is just excused by this not being a serious anime.. then you might as well have no structure or premise at all.
To be blunt here.. the game in this anime has absolutely nothing in common with actual MMO's and how they work. There is no balancing.. the way characters acquire new skills is just ridiculous (like being exposed to poison for a long time = resistance to poison... if it worked like this every player would be resistant at some point). Unimportant characters seem to only ever own 1 or 2 different skills.. while Maple has like 500 OP unique, undefeatable skills in her pockets.. and she also didn't really do anything for them except being silly and lucky as shit.
The characters never really die.. nothing ever feels like a challenge they have to overcome..
It's not a parody either tho.. because it doesn't make you laugh about smth that feels familiar with games you play. Idk where the entertainment is in this really? Would you watch a hacker play through a whole game by just cheating through literally everything? sound interesting? no? yeh you're right.


-The concept of Maple:
The whole premise of the show is Maple putting all her skill points into defense so that she won't get hurt. So initially I thought alright... I guess she will be very sturdy and probably undefeatable while her friends will take the damage job. But oh boy was I wrong..
Maple just gets every OP skill you could ever imagine. Without any effort, no dev doing anything against it. She really doesn't need her guild members at all.. which makes them even more pointless and irrelevant as they already are having no personalities.
Idk what the point of the premise was if you're just gonna give Maple the strongest skills to defeat anyone without even really getting to TAKE any damage.

-The comedy:
So the characters aren't quirky, the game isn't parody-material, the events and general 'adventures' of the characters aren't interesting nor funny nor.. anything.
I tried looking for the comedy in this but I can't find it, I'm sorry. Maybe episode one makes you blow some air outta your nose but that's about it really. All the 'jokes' are really predictable, boring lil things that we have seen dozen of times.

All in all this is one of the most boring, lazy shows I have seen in a while. I'm a little shocked and disappointed that it still manages to impress some people.. because clearly there went no effort into this..Ha. Just like Maple.
Animation and Music isn't really outstanding either.

Not recommending this one.

*Will have some spoilers*

I've wanted to watch this Anime for quite a long time and finally went through with it but I have to say .. I feel conflicted about it.

On one hand I can relate to a lot of things being brought up in the anime. Especially in the beginning (like the first 2 episodes) there's just a lot of relatable stuff going on, even tho it was kind of hard getting to know all these characters.. the introduction was a little too complicated imo.
Takatsuki was way more relatable to me than Nitori. Probably partly because I feel exactly like her, being born female ... and wanting to be male. But it's not only that really.

Nitori just felt kind of.. confusing at times. Both he and Takatsuki feel confused and try to find out what they truly want and it's pretty realistic that you often bounce between one and the other because of outside influence and thinking about things a lot. And for Takatsuki it felt pretty genuine and believable... However with Nitori.. it didn't feel real. He never truly seemed troubled, hurt and sometimes he simply didn't seem to care at all?

The biggest flaw this show has.. and at the same time a pretty critical one if you ask me.. is that you only relate, understand and get what's going on if you're trans yourself. The characters rarely voice something clearly... The whole topic is being touched with gloves..meaning they kinda show you how things are on the surface and kind of downplayed as well.. but they don't really go into depth.. They don't actually explain things or dare to show the ugly truth.

I think if you aren't trans or know much about trans people and their feelings in general this show is gonna leave you totally confused.. and imo the anime also doesn't really do justice for trans people sadly.

1. Nitori dating a girl is a pretty real thing.. I mean many trans people or even gay/lesbian people dated a person before they didn't really feel comfortable with in the end. It's part of the journey of realizing who you are and what you like. But the show handled this kind of poorly.. and Nitori telling Anna he still loves her in the end is just.. unnecessarily confusing? We all know what unknowing people would say, right? "If he loves girls why doesn't he just stay a boy?"
And you know what.. I wouldn't even blame them here because the show just fails at portraying the whole thing in the right light.

2.When Nitori goes to school dressed as a girl basically EVERYONE is telling him what a shitty idea it was.. how wrong it was...the teachers handle it weirdly.. the parents handle it weirdly.. actually the parents are never really a topic in this which is really unrealistic.
But even his friends tell him it was a dumb idea.. so all in all the show just leaves you with the impression that boys will just have to accept that crossdressing only ever works in secret.. and that nobody will have your back. And that's kind of shitty.

3. A lot of mean characters never get told the fuck off in this. Especially Nitori just seems to kind of take everything that's thrown at him and just not say anything. Sometimes I was especially angry with Chiba being such a cold ass bitch... It makes things seem very watered down.. the characters never actually get hurt a lot or angry. It kind of almost seems like it's trying to tell you "Well you're trans, you gotta deal with it. People be people." And well yeah..people be people but that doesn't mean you have to just quietly accept it.

4. The Ending. Even in the end the characters haven't clearly decided what they are and want to be.. I know this is just how it is for a lot of people, including me. But for outsiders I think in the end it just looks like Takatsuki is simply a tomboy after all and Nitori simply likes to crossdress from time to time ... and I'm just not sure if that was a proper way to end it. What does it say about trans people? That they're just confused? That they're just in a phase? Or that they will have to arrange themselves with it and accept that they can't change?
It just felt unsatisfying to me.

All in all I just can't agree on a lot with this show. It has it's good moments but some very bad mistakes were made..
For people who aren't rly in the topic it's nothing helpful.

I watched this show as the Character designs are right up my alley and the main character being a young boy also really stood out and seemed interesting. Despite that I wasn't really enjoying this show tho..

I think the story , while not super unique or surprising, isn't actually the problem. I'ts more the way it is presented.. Things get really confusing sometimes and some things seem to happen just super randomly without any explanation or obvious reason.. just a lot of weird coincidences happen and none of the characters questions it... and that feels off.
I have to admit I watched this over a ... longer time because it was incredibly boring and hard to chew through.. so sometimes things happened that got mentioned a few episodes prior but they didn't really explain it again or make it obvious what happened.. so I was left with some questions marks from time to time. It wouldn't hurt to just mention it in one sentence again or portray it in a way that makes clear what's happening at the moment.

The action scenes were pretty poorly made.. It just seemed to me like they didn't really know what they were doing there. I felt no impact or action and sometimes the music was quite unfitting as well (like the weird piano piece..). I would be able to kinda overlook this as the anime doesn't have THAT many fighting scenes anyway.. The bigger problem are the conversations.

The most time in this anime take all the conversations between characters... which makes sense as it is kind of a political drama too. But the writing of these conversations is so bad. The characters just don't act convincing at all.. especially Ibuki.. everything that comes out of his mouth is bullshit. He's really useless and not saying anything meaningful or helpful throughout the whole series.
Sometimes major plot points are being revealed in conversations but they just cut off the scene abruptly like suddenly all the characters just decided to stop talking and leave. This makes no sense.. For example when Ibukis friend (thought to be dead) shows up again and then later in a group conversation between almost all characters they reveal the secret that she's 'Returned one'. They just cut off the scene and nobody asks a single question.. Later in another scene it turns out they just let her walk out the room and yeah. Nothing comes off it. Conversations are so..meaningless... Nobody asks questions or questions motives. It just feels empty and fabricated.

The characters themselves are really boring and empty as well because of this.. Their motivations are kind of flat most of the time too.. Lou's backstory and motivation was pretty disappointing tbh.
And as I said.. Ibuki is just friggin useless. He either says nothing at all.. or just shit that gets misunderstood by other characters.. which seems almost like he does it on purpose ??? But that wouldn't make sense.
Also the anime tries to kill off A LOT of characters in a dramatic way.. but really they mostly die because of really damn stupid reasons.. and since we don't really get attached to them in any way it doesn't feel as dramatic as it's made out to be. Honestly with some charactersI was even questioning how the frick they would be a 'friend' to Ibuki.. He barely interacts with anyone and isn't close to anyone.. that kind of destroys the whole concept of his curse.

All in all this anime is just a mess tbh. It fails to succeed in any aspect ... not action, not story, not the characters. I wouldn't recommend it as I was bored to death watching it.

So i bought 4 Volumes of this at once, having high hopes because the art style and the overall feeling of the manga covers reminded me of the ghibli movie 'Nausicaa of the valley of the wind' a lot..
What I expected was an adventure about a skyship and it's crew exploring the world and the dragons in it. The way they live and where they live, how it would be possible to locate and hunt them.. and ultimately how they would actually capture them in some interesting ways.

But all of this IS NOT in this manga.

We are simply following a crew of a dragon hunter ... ship, flying from place to place and killing literally every living creature they encounter on the way. The fights or rather.. the catchings are really, really boring and unexciting. They're simply shooting a harpoon onto a dragon and pull it in... that's it. Every single time.

And the whole mindset about eating dragon meat they have is purely disgusting.. because there is literally no thought behind it whatsoever.
Oh, a baby dragon? let's kill and eat it.
Oh, it's angry mother? let's kill and eat it.
Oh, a tiny dragon no one saw before? Let's kill and eat it.
Oh, a legendary dragon who leads ships out of a storm? Let's kill and eat it.

The crew (and all the people in this world in general) seem to be eating nothing but meat, meat, meat every single day. They use dragon parts for literally anything in their life.. while wasting no single thought on the creatures.
Hell, they don't even know what dragons eat?... They simply know nothing about dragons other than how to take their dead bodies apart and how to cook their parts...even brains like wtf. And they have no remorse, no empathy, they don't waste a single thought about anything.
I'ts simply disgusting honestly.
I don't know why watching a group of people slaughtering creatures and then devouring them and overindulging in gluttony is supposed to be entertaining..

There is no deeper meaning to anything in this manga.. there is no thought or story behind it (except maybe that it's okay to eat anything and everything without having to think about it. Sounds like todays problem with the meat industry, doesn't it?). It's honestly the most boring piece of garbage I have ever read and the most shocking thing is to me that this atrocity of a manga is even getting an anime adaptation right now.

I am honestly disappointed in Japan for this. This manga could be very well seen as a representation of the whole whaling and overfishing problem that Japan has..and it offers NOT A SINGLE bit of critic or any food for thought about the whole thing.
It's almost a crime to bring this hymn of devouring and gluttony onto the TV screens in fucking 2020.

That is why this piece of crap is getting a 1 from me. It is nothing but harmful and super lazy.. The pretty art can't change this at all.

I was really looking forward to watching this anime when I first read through the idea behind it but sadly it has been a big disappointment.

The premise gives you so many possibilities and I was honestly expecting a story involving survival elements and some interesting knowledge about chemistry and physics to be used with what is available in such a 'stone world'.
Sadly none of these elements are actually in the anime or at least not in a satisfying way.
The story goes into really boring directions and ends up being the same shit you see in every other average shounen anime... might be something you ... find interesting if this is one of the first shounen anime you're watching but if you have seen your fair share of them this is just really boring..
Silly fighting scenes... Comedy which consists of yelling characters... unbelievably overpowered 15 year old characters... A plot that rarely makes sense in a show that is supposed to be about fuckin science but it's not even trying...they just go way overboard with it and it's never really plausible.

Honestly though the one thing I hate most about this show is... Senku. The protagonist.
This whole show is just a sad excuse to praise his greatness and each and every character is just a tool to make him shine as much as possible.
I mean sure, every show does this to an extend but it just bothered me so much in this one as Senku is just not believable at all. (like counting seconds for thousands of years. riiiiight.)
He seems to know just anything of whatever topic.. physics..chemistry...history..medicine...biology....technology
and on the contrary almost ALL other characters are just stupid but strong and look up to him. And oh he also thinks he's the greatest living person of all time as well.
This level of narcissism is just unbearable to me. He's even worse than Kirito at this point.