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Jun 8, 2022
There's something sublimely beautiful about what I think Shinichirō Watanabe is trying to say through his works, a feeling of both apathy and hopefulness about life where nothing really matters, but that's alright. Samurai Champloo is the embodiment of the phrase "It's the journey, not the destination," especially when our destination is a vague rumor and the path to get there is a long and nonsensical adventure involving samurai, beatboxers, beatboxing samurai, and a whole laundry list of other cool stuff I'm not gonna waste your time with; so let's dig into this masterpiece.
Story 9/10: I hate to compare it to Bebop, but it's inevitable.
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I do think Champloo did a much better job of slowly weaving in its overarching narrative alongside the episodic story, which is probably the biggest marked difference between its predecessor. Cowboy Bebop has 5 episodes in total that talk about Spike's backstory, the rest seem to make a conscious effort to ignore it almost entirely when it's not the main focus; the same thing applies to the rest of the main cast apart from maybe Faye.
Champloo does a great job with casual and offhand references to the past littered into the episodes that have no bearing on the full story, begging you to ask more questions. Even when the story is the main focus, they still leave a lot to be determined on purpose and do very little explaining beyond what would naturally come up in conversation.
Great story for what it was intended to do, could have been better in some regards or a little bit more fleshed out but I don't think I would have personally changed much if I was behind the pen and page. A perfect first episode, a perfect last episode, what more could you ask for?
Art 10/10: Way ahead of its time, I was genuinely under the impression that studio Bones had made this until I saw it was actually Manglobe, shocker. Even more impressive is that this was basically their first anime, just wow.
Samurai Champloo's character designs are unique and memorable, the fighting is fast, fluid, creative, and most importantly fun, the set pieces are gorgeous, and the bright hip-hop-infused aesthetic permeating everything fuels me dopamine. Watch a few of the fight scenes on YouTube.
Sound 10/10: This is a perfect soundtrack, and probably my favorite one altogether. I'm a hardcore Hiroyuki Sawano simp, but one day I ran into a Nujabes song on YouTube, immediately fell in love, and started this anime a few days later because his name was tied to it and it was also apparently a pretty damn good show regardless.
I don't even know how to put this into words, but this is like a time capsule to the birth of lofi as a genre and it is so breathtakingly beautiful it makes me mad I didn't hear it sooner. The intro is great, the ending is PERFECT, and everything in between is a masterpiece. Perfect score across the board.
Character 9/10: I'm gonna miss these guys so much, what a wonderful ride it was to watch them constantly grow and change. They feel all feel so simple, but not without depth. Every character, from the minor side characters to the villains to the main characters all carries baggage with them, some more than others; and the show goes to great lengths to unpack it in front of you. All the minor characters introduced to us along our journey stand out enough to leave a hole in my chest when it's time to depart and continue onwards, and everyone was done fantastically. The main trio's dynamic is also nearly perfect.
I don't want to spoil much, but the inner strength our vagabonds grow from episode 1 to episode 26 is enough to make a grown man cry when you see how it all plays out in the end, but I'm gonna keep my mouth shut about the character department because it's better to go into this completely blind.
Enjoyment 10/10: It's gonna be a long time until something hits me as hard and as well as Watanabe can again, Samurai Champloo is one of those shows that's hard to explain the value of because on the surface level it's an episodic adventure show with some good fighting and cool characters, but I think the beauty of a show like this is lost on a lot of people due to its tendency to convey its messages without words.
Overall 10/10: After watching its ending, I am at a loss to describe this weird feeling of optimistic melancholy as the final credits rolled. I want to talk about it in more detail, but it's impossible without majorly spoiling the ending. The world is bright and alive with color, the characters are fun and personable with good depth to back it up, the art is a decade ahead of its time, it quite arguably has a perfect soundtrack, and it can make you go from laughing to crying within minutes.
Samurai Champloo is a show about finding meaning in the meaningless of life, focused around a group of penniless drifters in search of an unknown destination for no reason other than to find a reason to do so. They play baseball, fight zombies, go on adventures, and even run away from each other, but there's no place they'd rather be than by each other's side, even though they know one day their paths will inevitably diverge again. The real treasure was the friends we made from the enemies along the way, but all good things must come to an end and that's alright.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 21, 2022
It's not an overstatement to say that Neon Genesis is probably the most argued over series ever created, and it's not an exaggeration to say that every single frame of that show has been deconstructed, overanalyzed, and misunderstood a thousand times over in every position known to the critical lense of man. For a series that has such a massive cultural footprint, it makes me sad to see that the manga it spawned failed to attract ever a morsel of the rabid cult following the anime's had for the last 25 years.
Story 9/10: Eva hits it out of the ballpark with their adaptation of the
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OG story, keeping most of the plot points that made the TV series special and axing the stuff that held it back. They combined the TV series and EOE together near the end, but around where the events of the movie start the manga takes a bit of an unexpected detour that not everyone is gonna love. Although it plays out more or less the same as the movie, the change a lot of stuff throughout the final few chapters, and the very end of the manga is pretty radically different from the movie ending.
Personally, I think nearly every change they made storywise was a massive improvement to the original, as things were generally better explained and much less confusing as well as expanded upon lore where it was deserved. My only gripe with this area was the unavoidable lore mess that comes hand in hand with anything Eva-related, and how they choose to end it by taking it in a different direction than the EOE ending; pretty sure most would agree with me that EOE had a near-perfect ending, not sure why they would deviate from that but the ending we did get was still good by its own merits, made sense, and didn't devalue the rest of the manga.
Art 8/10: Nothing stands out as being over the top or particularly spectacular, the angel designs are badass and the mech designs are even more badass, but it's nothing we wouldn't have expected from an Eva manga.
Character 10/10: Wow, they fundamentally fixed Shinji. I get that in the original, he was written so you intentionally didn't like him, but that doesn't automatically make him a good protagonist. Not saying he was poorly written, but I think what they did here with him was provide a good amount of balance so we can truly get a sense of depth to his character. Everyone else was significantly more developed than in the original, with Kaji being the most noticeable improvement; he was always one of my favorites, and seeing him fully fleshed out was awesome.
Overall vast improvement over anything from the anime, Shinji was actually kinda based, Rei felt a lot more human, Auska felt a lot more nuanced and somewhat empathic, and the main cast just had a wonderful dynamic together. Enough said.
Enjoyment 10/10: They tell the Eva story in a way that a lot easier to follow then the confusing mess of the original, and it pays off. I can actually understand what's going on now, and even when I can't, it doesne't bother me because I know it will eventually be explained to me.
Overall 10/10: An action packed psychological Seinen till the bitter end. Although they could've stuck the landing better, they did a phenomenal job adapting one of the most iconic shows of all time into a different medium and (somehow) actually improving upon it. Hate Eva? This series improves upon or erases most of it's major problems. Love Eva? This series narrows in on what makes it great and hyperfocuses on it. Conclusion: Read this manga. somehow it passed under the anime communities radar, even though it has absolutely no right to go this unnoticed for this long.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jan 26, 2022
Manga readers are a very critical bunch, but I'm still not really sure where the mass influx of negative reviews is coming from. It's not a great manga, but it's a damn good police thriller that admittedly gets a few things wrong, but gets a lot more right.
Story 7/10: The story is very reminiscent of a hybrid between Death Note and Future Diary, taking aspects from Death Note that work like carefully timed suspense, and taking things from Future Diary that don't like swiss cheese riddled plotholes, characters forgetting their motivations/doing complete 180s out of nowhere, and leaving many key aspects of the plot unexplained.
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However, the manga sets up a good atmosphere on the relatively ridiculous premise of a dude trying to juggle his harem without them finding out about each other all while working around a mentally unstable yandere, a corrupt police force closing in on him, the yakuza trying to get a payday, and a crimelord that sits above them all pulling the strings from the shadows to cover up a murder. It has its issues, and it's not perfect, but the city of sin the author manages to construct in only 5 volumes is commendable, and the ending is both surprising emotionally moving, and extremely satisfying despite its numerous flaws.
Art 8/10: A generally more simplistic manga style, but effort and care were put into the panels to make them flow together, with images jumping out of panels and into the neighboring ones. Hard to grade this objectively, but this manga's art has a flare of personality to it despite its fairly industry-standard art style.
Character 7/10: The MC shows tremendous growth throughout the manga, while always retaining that streak of douchebaggery that defines him as the player he is. He is a bit of a massive asshole at times, and his morality and ethics jump around quite a bit throughout the manga, but never to the point where he did anything that felt too out of character for him. The main yandere quite literally has the mental age of a child, and act's irrationally to keep the plot moving quickly. As for everyone else, the girls in his harem have little personality, the main villain is entirely overly cliched, and a lot of the supporting cast forgets what they're supposed to be doing half the time.
Enjoyment 8/10: I finished this entire thing in two evenings, it's a great deal of fun if you are willing to turn your brain off and overlook the more glaring errors, but to each their own. Incredibly subjective as always, but I tend to enjoy mindless chaos a little bit more than most. Not saying this is all mindless, but you will definitely be better off approaching this a lot more casually.
Overall 7/10: A decent story with a handful of flaws, but a number of things it can be praised for as well. Don't take it too seriously till the third act, the entire manga is pretty well written overall but the third act really is an excellent culmination of all the characters and events of the plot leading up to it, wasting no extra pages and stopping right where it needed to. The ending is a satisfying conclusion that surprised me in both its quality and execution, tying up all the loose ends and giving things a great degree of finality.
If you like yandere and don't mind a story that's a bit rough around the edges, you'll be able to appreciate the more unrefined qualities of this manga and the wonderful ending that shines through the things that could've realistically used some improvement.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 6, 2022
I tried so hard to like this anime, and I desperately wanted to understand the hype of one of the biggest household names in anime. I'm generally not someone who rates stuff below a 7 very often, so it pains me to do this for something as renowned as this, but I believe it fully deserves this. Forgotten loose ends, poorly written and neglected characters, abandonment of basic worldbuilding, plot holes everywhere, and shit continuity between episodes are all things I can and usually do forgive as long as a show is fun to watch. Although it has a handful of fight scenes and cool
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moments, almost none of it is building towards an overarching plot and everything feels sloppy.
Story 5/10: It's fine, it has a strong start and a basic but solid premise that would do a good job supporting a plot if one had developed on top of it. I can't comment on the story all that much, because there's nothing much to even comment on. Nothing happened except for the very last two episodes, and even then they didn't show you the outcome of the several different fights that started in the last episode. Super lazy writing, and again, basically nothing happened in the story besides some occasional action and everything ending back where it started, aside from the last 5 minutes.
Art 8/10: Twas good. The animation complimented everything nicely, and the different Ghoul's powers and abilities were creatively animated with awesome standout effects. Not much to say here, the designs of the Ghouls and weapons were cool but the characters and world didn't have much flavor or spice to them.
Sound 9/10: Envokes a great, powerful, and downright beautiful feeling of the struggle for purity in the souls of those forced to live in a world that corrupts, defiles, and destroys all those that desperately cling to their sanctity. Beyond a shadow of a doubt the best aspect of the show, and pulls the majority of the weight of drawing out your emotion in scenes where the writing just isn't strong enough to do it for you. I don't need to defend this, if you've seen this show or have not, you've already heard some of the soundtrack here or there just from spending time on the internet; Unravel has been dragged through the memetic cultural meat grinder more times than I can count over the better half of a decade, but that doesn't detract from it genuinely being an amazing piece of music and I think you can say the same for the rest of the OST as well.
Character 5/10: Aside from Gourmet and Jason being cartoonishly over the top and inconsistent, I don't think they're strictly any bad characters in this show, but they tried to develop all of them so they ended up developing none of them. We didn't get a conclusion for anyone except our MC, and even then it wasn't the conviction to fight for those he cared for and believed in that we'd been waiting to see, but instead, more of a total psychotic mental 180 from timid crybaby to unhinged edge lord. That's not character development. Don't even get me started on everyone else, we didn't even get to see what happened to them or where they ended up, the season just abruptly ends once our protagonist goes sicko mode and that's that.
Enjoyment 5/10: I didn't hate it, but it was super hard to get invested and just turn my brain off when nothing seemed to matter to the plot aside from the last two episodes. Our MC doesn't even properly fight someone till the very last episode, we know he trains and stuff (and presumably the other ghouls he works with do as well) but we never actually watch it happen or see his growth, and so many other little minor details the show just flat out ignores for whatever reason end up dragging it down and making it painful to watch.
Overall 6/10: A little bit of a trainwreck for everyone, if there's one common denominator behind all my issues with this show it's a complete and total lack of creative direction in every single department except audio/visuals. It tries to do everything instead of telling a story, developing interesting characters, or just being a fun action-packed superpower adventure and instead does nothing at, all right up until the very end. I've heard that they condensed around 60 chapters into this season, and it shows. I still can't figure out who it's trying to appeal to, maybe edgy middle schoolers and those new to anime, but those two groups are probably the same people. TLDR; the show is all over the place and it's rated decently higher than what I'd have expected, but from what I can tell it's generally a pretty respected title, so who knows; maybe I'm just missing out on a good show that doesn't quite reach me.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 29, 2021
An unapologetically raw mecca action show, that both takes itself seriously and has the substance to be able to back that seriousness up is extremely rare these days, especially for a mecca; oh my how they've done justice to one of my favorite subgenera of anime. This is an action adventure blood and gore soaked clusterfuck of constant fighting, and it's awesome. I can somewhat understand the criticism this show commonly receives, but IBO is not fine art, it's just pure fun violence.
Story 8/10: A very solid anime original story, feels like it's trying to be Code Geass in some places, but with less politics
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and good writing and a shit ton more fighting. This show is definitely a show where the story is there to serve the action and adventure as opposed to the other way around. However, if you try to copy the Mona Lisa, your not getting a masterpiece but you still might get something pretty cool. The story is fine, but the reason why it's an 8 as opposed to a 7 is because there are several moment's in the story that punch well above their weight class. Solid story, can't complain.
Art 10/10: This show is an artistic masterpiece in every conceivable way. Not only are the cinematic and panoramic shots absolutely stunning to look at, everything in this show seems to be built from the design phase up with nothing in mind but "would it look badass?" and "how much detail should we put into the badassery?" The character designs are good, but the mech designs are so godDAM perfect. To top it all off, the uncut action sequences are so seamless and fluid you will be constantly rewinding to watch it again and again. Not much more I can say, but if it's related to art I could gush about it till the end of time; this show is goated here.
Sound 9/10: The intro's are both fire, with Survivor being among my all time favorites. Apart from that, the rest of the soundtrack is pretty awesome with a few tracks being particularly memorable. One of the old non Hiroyuki Sawano soundtracks I regularly listen to, it's a banger and a half. Don't really know what else to say about it, but I promise you it's good.
Character 7/10: A lot of them have their moments where they shine through, but ultimately it is a pretty big cast of characters and they have a hard time focusing on anyone effectively. Development isn't amazing, but is still alright for most of the cast and doesn't hinder enjoyment of the show. The characters tend to lean a little to heavily on their archetypes, and the so called mastermind behind a lot of the antics that go on in the show does somethings that are somewhat stupid pretty often, but that's about the extent of my issues.
Enjoyment 10/10: This show is the anime equivalent of driving down the highway as fast as your car can handle and blasting music in every direction. You would either have to be an extremely jaded anime viewer or a hardcore boomer Gundam loyalist to find yourself have zero fun during the fight scenes, it's just to high energy.
Overall 9/10: While this might be a little higher than the show objectively deserves with it's somewhat decent writing held together with an all you can eat buffet of eye candy and fight scenes, the eye candy and fight scenes are the peak of what the industry of anime has to offer and I think that has to be worth something at the very least.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 22, 2021
First of all, this show deserves a 9, and I think the vast amount of hate this show gets from the wider anime community really just stems from either how jaded a lot of people are about literally anything they might perceive to be a trope for 0.01 seconds of screen time or if the ending doesn't suck piggyback off the manga.
To be fair, the manga's ending was better and I can understand why a lot of people weren't satisfied, it does leave you with a sense of "that's it?" but I was still heavily invested and never felt like my time was wasted. The
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criticism you'll see in the other reviews is also very valid, just in my opinion not as extreme as people make them out to be.
Story 7/10: One of the bigger complaints with this anime, the setting and a lot of the characters feel like they got ctrl C ctrl V in from a fantasy settings for dummies guidebook; but I'm gonna go easy on this because I get the feeling that it's done intentionally to get you acclimated to the setting faster. Basically the exact same main plot device of most isekai, people just hated it being used here for some odd reason.
Other than that, the pacing is good and nothing drags on for a ridiculously long time. The ending could have been a lot better, and the author sure as hell wasn't going for creativity or depth, but I'm still okay with what we got.
Art 8/10: It's not a Ufotable, Bones, or Madhouse levels of production quality, but it's still damn good art. The action scenes are very well served by the gory and fluid fights that show no restraint for the budget, and it's definitely a high point.
You also get some really nice panoramic shots, character designs that are pleasant to look at, and when they try to milk the emotion out of you they really step up to the plate and dial the quality up to ten. Nothing more to complain about here.
Sound 7/10: The intros and endings where alright, and there where a few cool bombastic tracks that made the battles come to life just that much more, but nothing really stuck in my head that I can remember. Maybe after this I'll go on YouTube and listen to the OST again, but it really didn't strike me as all that memorable. I liked the overall vibe of it though, and it did what it needed to.
Character 8/10: I'm gonna do what's called a pro gamer move, and actually admit I'm not entirely sure about this one. Character's vary extremely in quality depending on who they are, but I would say that I like the MC even though he is very obviously written to be such a borderline cardboard cutout Shonen protagonist. He grows and changes along with his relationship with both his allies and his enemies, and I actually like his character arc even though it's not perfect.
Technically, Akame is the main character, but out of the main cast of around a dozen characters she's probably both the least interesting and (thankfully) has the least runtime. Not a bad character, just no development until late into the series. The same can be said for every major character in some sense, as this show LOVES to kill it's cast and most of them do end up dying, someone getting development is a pretty surefire way to tell if there about to bite the dust.
Oh, and this show gives plot armor to absolutely no one; some may hate that but I love it; gives suspense to every fight when you know they might die. Background and supporting characters are just alright, and the main antagonist is hit or miss but her squad of subordinates is awesome. I'm looking at you, Bols.
Enjoyment 9/10: This shows high octane action combined with it's zero plot armor policy and easy to follow plot made this impossible to put down. I got way more invested in the characters then I probably had any right to, I got shamelessly hyped up when the show demanded it of me, and there where one or two deaths that brought me real close to shedding tears, and I don't cry easily. Seriously, the last thing I watched that made me cry was the ending of Teletale's Walking Dead videogame, although to be fair you would have to be a psychopath to sit though that one WITHOUT crying like a baby.
Overall 8/10: The criticism for this show is valid but it's strengths and it's fun factor are almost always completely ignored by armchair critics, because constantly bashing on everything the normies like is totally radical. Good show if you allow yourself to look past it's faults, most of them are there on purpose anyways.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jul 21, 2021
Wow, I don't know if I would personally go so far as to call this show a masterpiece but a 7.4 average does NOT do this show justice. If I had to sum up my experience watching this with one word, it would be "surprising." I honestly didn't expect this level of quality from a studio that's made basically one other thing so far suddenly deciding to do anime original Attack On Titan fusion dancing with Mortal Engines, Ghost In The Shell, and arguably a dash of James Cameron's Avatar.
I have a tendency to rate things with a lot of leeway towards the higher sides
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and usually always round up rather than down when I'm on the fence about something, and I'll admit this show was no exception to my rating generosity, but hear me out. Also, sorry if this review is bad; it's like 2am and I'm operating on zero sleep right now.
Story 8/10: Humanity is in a post apocalyptic setting, huddled together in the last bastion of civilization and fighting a losing battle against the monsters of the outside world that mysteriously appeared out of thin air long long ago.
You've heard this a million times before, I wont bore you with the finer details but know it is very heavily AOT inspired. That does not mean it's a clone, a little bit of a tangent but I'm so tired of seeing this argument; you wouldn't call an Isekai show a SwOrD aRt OnLiNe ClOnE just because SAO was the first show to go absurdly viral with the Isekai formula.
Normally I would give my two cents on the actual story itself, as well as some key points, but it's basically impossible without telling you a giant spoiler that happens pretty early on. The story is rock solid and very good, and for the most part all of the loose ends got tied up in with exposition well before the ending, but there are more unanswered questions then I would have liked. Other than that, I liked the plot twist, but I will admit it was very jarring and might turn some people off. If your not feeling this show after 3 episodes, you probably won't love it.
Art 8/10: They switch back and forth between a rubber hose/chibi hybrid and classical 2d animation, depending on certain plot things I don't want to get into for your own sake. I realize that it's a pretty strange transition for most people, it was for me as well, but it grows on you after a while. There is very little CGI, and the panoramic landscape shots are absolutely fucking amazing. This show is an odd duck in the arts department, on one hand I know that the quasi-LooneyToons graphics are off putting, and on the other hand the time spent with the classic animation is drop-dead gorgeous. Not much more I can say about this without spoilers, but the show has it's own very unique style, even if not everyone will eat it up.
Oh, and the fight scenes are awesome.
Sound 8/10: The opening and ending are both bops, and the rest of the soundtrack puts in the legwork when it needs to and rarely ever pulls it's punches. The sound design is also pretty neat and the voice acting is as far as I can tell very good as well.
Character 9/10: Holy shit, the leads for this are so good. I really REALLY don't want to get into details about this, but the two main characters are an easy S tier and thankfully the bulk of the show focuses on their growth as characters and their dynamic; to be honest that's probably why this show works so damn well to begin with. Sadly the supporting cast doesn't have a ton of depth or focus due to the disappointingly short runtime, and the villain is more than a bit lacking, but the MCs more than make up for everyone else.
Enjoyment 9/10: This show starts off at a pretty normal pace and dials it up rapidly before cranking that soulja boy at max volume and diving into meticulously organized insanity; to say that this show was fun is underselling it. Only reason this isin't a 10, is because the initial plot twist is a little jarring no matter how you look at it, and I feel like it could have been done a little less suddenly. Also, the ending was satisfying but still felt a tad bit rushed, that being said I was still very happy with the conclusion and it does wrap things up with a nice bow and a definitive ending.
Overall 9/10: Overall I think this was one of the best shows to come out of last year and certainly the best original. A compelling story, truly spectacular artwork, phenomenal lead characters, and barrels of fun coupled with a decent soundtrack make for an action packed 12 episode that you are sure to remember long after you finish watching them. Additionally, this show exudes a warm sense of passion, creativity, and the boldness to try something new over and over again. Keep in mind, this studio has made more or less one other thing ever so far. For how far my expectations where exceeded, I would be amiss if I didn't give this at least a 9.
Bravo studio Nut, the world NEEDS more originals from you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 5, 2021
Huh, that was cool I think?
I knew going into this that I wasn't exactly going to be watching a masterpiece, but I was still hoping for something entertaining at the very least. I have pretty trashy tastes, and I'm very forgiving to a show's shortcomings if I personally enjoy it which is what I was looking for here; either I'm getting more cynical as time goes on or it was just underperforming in the categories I expected it to thrive in. Not saying it was bad, it kind of delivered, but not really to the degree I was expecting.
Story 7/10: I don't know man, it
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was fine I guess. Evil bad government is corrupt and evil, morally ambiguous anti government terrorist organization is morally ambiguous but ultimately 'good', and Whimpey morally righteous inexperience 'chosen one' protagonist is inexperienced. Some lore comes in later that's somewhat cool, but the story is mostly just alright and the setting isn't anything special nor does it feel properly lived in.
Granted, I just described like two thirds of all anime ever created, but this is not one of the better versions of this story arc nor is it the bottom of the barrel, it just is. Not all that creative, and is one of the hundreds of shows that copy from Neon Genesis's homework.
Quick side note, I'd heard from a bunch of people going into this that the second half of the show falls off in quality from the first half, and that is not the case. The ending isn't perfect, but it's certainly at least serviceable and probably a best case scenario for Guilty Crown all things considered.
Art 9/10: Holy shit the graphics might be some of the best and most creative I've ever seen. Guilty Crown has a very distinctive style to all it's fights and anything having to do with the shows powers has an uniqueness to it. The quality varies a bit throughout the runtime, but it hovers between well above industry standard and eyegasmic at all times.
Seriously though, there are times where the animation is so smooth that if your watching it in 1080p it's actually almost uncomfortable, uncanny, and dizzying. That's not an insult if your couldn't tell, that's definitely a complement.
Only thing holding this back from being a prefect 10 is the designs of the characters and the mechs we're kind of bland, they felt like they where made out of obligation rather than inspiration.
Sound 8/10: I mean, come on, it's composed by that Sawano guy; having him do the score is basically cheating. Both intros are good, both endings are good, and everything in between is terrific. My only complaint is for as goated as the soundtrack was in this show, this don't find enough spots to actually play it. Most shows with good soundtracks tend to overplay their best tracks, but Guilty Crown had the opposite problem where instead we only hear the best OST pieces once or twice. Also, there weren't that many tracks altogether compared to other shows of similar length with really high caliber OSTs, maybe I'm only saying that because we rarely hear any of them though.
Still though, what we did get is outstanding, and My Dearest is definitely up there with the best openings of the last decade.
Characters 6/10: I feel like giving this a blanket 6 is a tiny bit unfair, but allow me to explain myself. The main character undergoes really good development in the second half of the show, but most of the other characters are all either just archetypes, enjoy like 5 minutes of screentime, or don't complete their character arc. The show also introduces so many characters, that I found myself unable to remember any of the supporting cast's names after the halfway point.
Characters are mostly all bad, except for the MC which redeems himself in the ladder half of the show and has actual understandable motivations. Everything else character wise is a bit of a clusterfuck.
Enjoyment 7/10: Ehhh, it was alright. Had the potential to be a wild ride, and the first half was a lot of fun because they where constantly using new powers and stuff, but by the second half the writing got better but it had a trade off with the enjoyment of the show.
Overall 7/10: Fundamentally built on a bland foundation that doesn't really try to be anything particularly special, unique, or inventive with any of it's storytelling. The mindless action is saved by a good soundtrack and amazing visuals, and later in the second half by a decent character arc, but it's not enough to make up for the the nothing-burger of the rest of the show. Aside from the audio-visual spectacles, this show has no real egregious shortcomings besides the fact it has nothing in particular going for it. It was a fun ride for the most part, but I'm probably not rewatching this anytime soon and it's not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of "banger anime I would show my friends."
Proceed with caution, keep your expectations low, and maybe you'll have a good time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 27, 2021
Quite possibly one of the greatest anime arcs ever made, Dawn of the Deep Soul is almost perfect in every way possible. There are a few things I want to point out that could have been done differently and maybe be improved upon a bit, but other than that I'll be mostly gushing about one of my favorite anime ever.
Story 10/10: The author of this Manga said he draws a lot of his inspiration from Lovecraftian style horror and especially Dark Souls, and it's incredibly obvious here that the best aspects of both were merged to create this beautifully grotesque abomination. Perfection might not exist,
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maybe it's only in the pursuit of it that we can briefly peek in on it. However, the setting in Made in Abyss, the setting is perfect, if not the next closest thing a creator can achieve to such a momentous milestone.
The story itself is pretty straight forward, our main trio is on a quest to dive deeper into the abyss, conquer the fifth layer, and pass the absolute boundary. Ends on a tiny bit of a cliffhanger, with some intentionally unanswered questions to keep an air of mystery about the setting and some of the characters, but is all around a phenomenal story.
Art 10/10: Just type Made in Abyss wallpapers into google and go to images, you'll see what I mean. This movie completely hits it out of the park in the visuals department, especially towards the end of the film, and really does justice to adapting the manga panels insane level of artistic detail. A big chunk of the movie is spent in the 5th layer, the Sea of Corpses, which is pretty dark, drab, and gloomy. I preferred the 4th layers vast array of color overload but the art is still expertly done and deserve all of the visual awards a show could ever get.
Sound 10/10: Fits the movie perfectly, literally nothing to complain about here. It's moving, it's beautiful, and it's breathtakingly gorgeous.
Character 9/10: The only category that I wouldn't give a 10, I feel like no one would take this review seriously if that's all I handed out anyways.
Riko, Reg, and Nanachi do fine as a main cast, they aren't outstanding by means, but I like them and think the way they are is a necessity to tell the story the way the author is trying to tell it. Riko is a bit of a Mary Sue, Reg has to do everything for everyone because everyone else in his party is incompetent, and Nanachi has some major daddy issues with Bondrewd she has to work out with him.
The movie adds two important characters to the mix, Bondrewd and his adopted daughter Prushka. Without spoiling anything big, Prushka's role in the story felt a tiny bit rushed and a little all over the place with her character arc although still pretty satisfying, but Bondrewd, holy shit Bondrewd was so amazing.
I really REALLY don't want to spoil anything, just know that Bonedrewd's role is nearly perfect to the story in every way possible.
Enjoyment 10/10: I can't think of any error in this film so egregious that it would hamper anyone's enjoyment. Definitely peaks right before the finale in a grandiose action sequence that can only be described as animation creative mode. I felt like if I blinked I was going to miss hundreds of hours of animation, and I couldn't have any detail of this masterpiece go unviewed.
Overall 10/10: The definition of a masterpiece, the most convicted I've ever felt in giving out a true 10 out of 10
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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May 15, 2021
It's like Monogatari if Monogatari scaled up it's ecchi and it's harem, but made everything else significantly worse. I normally don't really care all to much if ecchi is in a show, or even if it serves as one of the main focal points as long as there is other stuff of value to latch onto and enjoy; but strike the blood is a massive nothing burger of, well, nothingness. There isn't one thing in particular it does that is bad per say, but there isn't anything I can single out as good either.
Story 6/10: I'll admit it, I'm generally not a huge fan of
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mini arcs but the first few episodes had me pretty intrigued about the plot and the world around it. We start off on this artificial island somewhere (I don't remember) out in the ocean, where vampires, werewolfs, and other fairytale like creatures are quarantined among the general public and blend in with society there. Pretty interesting premise. However, the major problem with this show, is after introducing the big figures, governing bodies, plot elements, all that expository stuff, it's pretty much never mentioned or thought of ever again.
Strike the blood presents the audience with interesting ideas, and a cool setting for them to take place in. It's a shame that this anime has a fundamental problem with following through on it's exposition, and we never actually get to see how cool the setting is or how any of the things that make up their world really work.
Art 7/10: I mean, it was alright I guess. It was never awful or anything, but the character designs all felt boring and uninspired. I saw the exact same highschool building I've seen probably a thousand times across all of anime ever, and nothing in the world stood out as unique. The fight scenes looked pretty cool, and they where kinda flashy, but they never lasted to long and usually didn't require a ton of movement or direction. Nothing worthy of praise, nor scorn; next.
Sound 8/10: I have a heavy bias towards music as a deciding factor in scoring an anime, and if the second intro slapped as hard as the first one did, this show would probably be a 7. Unfortunately it didn't, and I couldn't distract myself with a banger tune as I slogged through the second half of this show with my brain coasting on autopilot. The rest of the OST is mostly meh, you could've copy pasted it from a visual novel and I wouldn't have noticed. Some of the battle OST is hype, but nothing special enough for me put in my Spotify playlist.
Character 6/10: If you generally like haram, you would probably put this higher and I respect that; the inverse is true if you generally don't like haram. I personally don't really care for it, but wouldn't really consider it a red flag when choosing what to watch either. I would complain that everyone loves the MC, and he's basically Jesus if Jesus was a dragon summoning immortal vampire (yes, the MC is all of those things) and a gaggle of tsundere anime bitches that all fall in love with him after a single episode, but that's just how haram works and we all know it.
I was going to write my short opinions on everyone in his haram, but it would just be to damn long. Just take my word for it when I say it's pretty dry, and leaves a lot to be desired. There's also a dude mixed in there as well, but I actually thought that was pretty funny for them to include.
Enjoyment 7/10: The ending to the mini-arcs was usually pretty satisfying, but slogging through it fight like such a chore. There is nothing of substance here, I enjoyed the first arc or two, and I think the introduction to the setting in those arcs was really strong, but after that it got so SO repetitive. I felt like I was just waiting for this to end the whole 2nd and 3rd act, and to top it all off, the way this ended was extremely underwhelming.
Overall 6/10: God, I was so bored at points in this anime, and I can stomach anime being quite a bit of less than desirable things, but I have a very low tolerance for boring. On another note, this show presents us with a very interesting world that we never learn about due to pretty awful writing. None of the characters really click, the art is never particularly special, the music isn't really that interesting (aside from the first intro, that was fire), and watching this felt like work. Painfully mediocre and easily forgettable, just watch something else.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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