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The Umineko anime isn’t a bad adaptation because it fails to capture the mysteries—it’s bad because it blinds people into thinking that the main appeal of the series was the murder mysteries which it botched, as if solving the cases was the essence of Umineko. The anime doesn’t ruin the mystery—it ruins the character drama and characterization, which are the real sources of the VN’s emotional payoff. and that It's also a slog to get through just like the novel.

To understand what went wrong, we need to step back and look at what the VN actually is. It’s a massive slog—bloated with extreme ... overexplanation, moving at a snail’s pace, and lacking taut writing. But what happens in the VN is that it occasionally hits you with sentimental moments and some thrilling moments in its early chapters, heightened by its BGM. And even if it’s boring for very long stretches courtesy the mystery bits and their toilsome deduction bits, you still end up forming an attachment to the characters, because the sheer length of the work ensures that these emotional moments stick with you over time. By the second half of the novel, you start to feel like something is going to come out of all of this, just like Higurashi. In Higurashi, the slice-of-life moments, which might initially seem like secondary additions to the plot, are actually the very core of the experience. These seemingly lighthearted interactions are interspersed throughout the horror and unsettling events and serve as the foundation for the story’s emotional weight. Ultimately, it is these moments that provide the greatest payoff and make the resolution in Higurashi Kai feel truly transcendent, as they establish the deep bonds between the characters, making their eventual triumph over tragedy profoundly cathartic.

Umineko was never a detective mystery in the traditional sense, where you logically determine the perpetrator and victim and that's the goal—it was more in the spirit of something like Kyokou Suiri. The mechanical solution to the locked-room murders and whodunnit was never the focus. The VN goes out of its way to force battler into false deduction scenarios during the meta-game between the witches who observe the events of Rokkenjima, and battler and co., precisely to drive this point home. Instead the title is all about giving a core message, one of “empathy”.

The Umineko anime follows the plot of the VN more faithfully than Higurashi’s adaptation did, yet it fails because Higurashi knew what it had to sell, while Umineko doesn’t. A much more faithful adaptation than this too would have never been good or served the purpose of a good adaptation when most of the content in the novel itself is dull overexplained exposition and guesswork mess. The anime rushes through the events of the story, covering them in a way that strictly follows the VN’s structure, but without ever taking the time to let the character drama properly manifest. It also doesn’t let the creepy, atmospheric moments breathe (remember maria singing, face to the wall at the end of chapter 1 in the novel).

Had the anime taken the time to develop the characters properly—ignoring the mystery elements—or focused on crafting a more tightly written narrative that preserved the VN’s strong use of sound design and horror elements, either of the two, it would have provided a much stronger foundation for adapting the rest of Umineko and its message and given the work breathing room to get the audience attached to the characters. It thoroughly lacks that one single element (done sufficiently decently beyond just getting through it) that you keep seeing AND enjoying the show for. What it needed to provide the audience is something that would keep the audience hooked till the adaptation of the second half, but it lacks in everything from animation to atmosphere to what could be crassly put as sufficient waifu baiting. A derviate approach, for example, would be to focus on the key relationship between Beatrice and Battler as a way to keep the audience engaged while they slowly get attached to the other characters. Don’t tell me that no one watching Umineko saw Beatrice and her charming looks and wanted to empathize with her and her pompous, but ultimately endearing ojou-sama personality.

Umineko’s core message can be summed up as "It can't be understood without love." The later parts of the story introduce the concept of the “Shrodinger’s cat box”. In Umineko, the "cat box" metaphor arises from the meta-narrative’s central conflict: the battle over how truth is defined. Within the meta-world, characters like Battler and the witches engage in a struggle over whether Rokkenjima’s events can be objectively proven or whether multiple interpretations can coexist. The cat box represents the idea that as long as the truth remains hidden, no single reality takes precedence—both human and magical explanations hold equal validity.

Ange, battler's sister, seems to have the “key” to this box which would be the diary of his aunt, the sole survivor. At first, Ange’s desire to uncover the truth is driven by bitterness and resentment—she sees her relatives as selfish and corrupt, believing that solving the mystery will expose them and bring closure to her suffering. However, as she pieces together fragments of their lives through stories, memories, and the emotional weight of their struggles, she begins to understand them not as villains in a murder mystery, but as people with their own hopes, regrets, and pain. She has her cherished memories of how her aunt was like, what her parents were like, and what they meant to her beyond them just being murderer or victim or just roles in a plot to solve ie the acceptance of magic. The phrase "Without love, it cannot be seen" takes on a deeply personal meaning and that opening the box would overwrite everything she has come to understand.

You’re now beginning to see what umineko was all about. There’s a lot of nuance to what I briefly touched upon and other elements and stories both of the meta world and real world woven into this or with the spirit of the work. Like battler coming to terms with the fact that sometimes the logical solution isn’t everything, beatrice’s pain and goals etc, but this suffices to make a point about why the adaptation sucks, and it’s not about the mystery.

The anime is a spectacular failure and just as much of a missed opportunity considering this is exactly the kind of thing that can be made so much better in this medium with moving images and sound. The tediously bloated novel is not something that couldn’t be properly translated to it. Bad as an adaptation, bad as a standalone, and while I did find the VN tedious and lacking as a whole, I'll have to begrudgingly admit the execution of its message by the end was truly unforgettable.

Okinawa de Suki ni Natta Ko ga Hougen Sugite Tsurasugiru aims to be a refreshing slice-of-life series, sprinkling Okinawan trivia into a laid-back narrative. While its scenic backdrop/setting and easygoing charm do give off a pleasant adventure vibe, the show struggles to elevate its core moments—those quintessential “snippets of life” that can truly resonate with viewers.

One telling example comes from a recent episode, where two girls recall learning how to whistle as children. One girl, unable to whistle, faces teasing from boys following which they work through a typical training montage to overcome that. This scenario had plenty of potential for a sweet, nostalgic flashback. ... A more evocative framing, for instance, might show an adult quietly watching the girls—smiling from ear to ear in fond amusement yet momentarily wincing or narrowing his eyes out of secondhand cringe at their innocuous teasing by the boys. Such a viewpoint or framing would highlight just how significant these now insignificant childhood challenges can seem, and how witnessing them from a grown-up’s perspective can stir up comforting nostalgia (PS: that's also us, the audience looking for it there). It's the framing that helps capture the moment/snippet, its nuances, and its connotations.

This is just an example. It isn't necessary for the show to highlight this, frame it in pursuance of this idea, or show this kind of snippet. Alternatively, for example, the show could have focused on capturing the genuine bond between the two girls. Before the training montage, there’s a brief moment where one girl defends the other from the boys’ teasing and offers her encouragement. Those small gestures of support could have served as a warm, authentic snippet of their friendship—had the scene lingered on their shared resilience and reassurance or the cuteness of their interaction with some creative framing. Unfortunately, the execution feels more like a stepping stone to the montage rather than a heartfelt window into their relationship, losing the potential to deliver a more emotionally resonant slice-of-life moment.

This kind of thoughtful perspective is what slice-of-life (put differently, a snippet of life) is all about: capturing small, everyday moments in a way that reminds us of life’s gentle poignancy. Unfortunately, Okinawa de Suki often glides over these deeper emotional beats. While the show remains warmhearted and breezy, its love triangle and character interactions rarely achieve the kind of framing that would make viewers become truly attached to the cast.

Still, there’s an undeniable charm to its Okinawan setting and cultural tidbits delivered in a refreshing "wearing the heart on its sleeve" way, and it’s more appealing than many weaker seasonal offerings. This keeps things from feeling entirely lackluster—yet it never quite achieves that perfect slice-of-life magic.

Final Verdict: 6/10 with mixed feelings.
Potentially fun for a casual watch, with glimpses of warmth and a sense of SoL adventure about Okinawa. However, if you’re seeking a good slice-of-life where simple moments gain depth through creative framing and genuine emotional resonance, Okinawa de Suki may leave you wanting more.

If peter grill is a morally corrupted offensive NTR piece and futoku no guild is depraved animal pron, then yes this is a dog x woman romance or dog x woman fanservice. Seriously, this is nothing but completely self aware comedy that pokes fun at the scenario of our protagonist, the dog named rin tin tin (google this name btw), being into his owner, a high school girl named chika. Infact, there is less animal or beast related fanservice here than to love ru (maron) or futoku no guild.

The shows starts with rin tin tin creeping near the bed of his owner chika to get ... a pantyshot, which doesn't work out as chika wakes up and whacks the bejesus out of doggy and he goes running for his life and tumbling down the stairs. The next scene moves to chika taking a bath and a frustrated rin tin tin imagining giving chika a backwash with a comical scene portraying that in his imagination " *hah hah doggo pant* wh-when we get married i'll give chika a back wash everyday *more desperate and bothered doggo pants*" All done in a hilariously self aware way.

Another scene after goes like this where they're all sitting around a dinner table:
Chika's mom: Did rin tin tin wake you up again?
Chika: Ugh this dog never leaves me alone
*rin tin tin scoots over to her chair*
Chika's mom (with a beaming smile): That's a man in love for you. You make such a nice couple.
Chika's dad( his face buried in newspaper): That's what happens when you live together, nature may as well take its course.
Chika than pops a vein in anger at the bizzare suggestion and rin tin tin is surprised and falls over.

The dog, rin tin tin, being into chika is played for humorous scenarios like getting embarrassed in front of her friends, a guy she's crushing on getting a wrong idea about her and the dog's relationship, the guy wrongly thinking she's suicidal in one scene and in another after seeing her with the dog in a faux compromising situation he remarks, "so that's why she wanted to suicide".

However rin tin tin doesn't ever come across as despicable or degenerate enough to ruin the show and offend one's sensibilities, seriously the dog seems more cultured that issei from highschool DxD as he doesn't have some creepy fixation on a single body part and that it's a thoroughly comical work. In one of the scenarios, chika's teacher is trying to get together with her in sneaky ways in a test of courage and rin tin tin tags along to foil his plans . In the middle of this, snakes come out that bite all of rin tin tin, chika, and the teacher but as the teacher panics and runs leaving her behind, rin tin tin stays with her.

it has a charismatic main character and is funny and ridiculous enough that by the end you'd almost think, fuck it, rin tin tin deserves to get together with his owner, gotta root for him even though the author never shows any intentions of going that route. That is precisely because it doesn't ever get too realistic to be uncomfortable. Its misfortune is that came out at the wrong time, got seen by the wrong audience of the times who got the wrong idea about it, and is niche enough that it never reaches the audience that would appreciate it for what it really is and what it actually tried to do.

An 8/10 because this show deserves so much better.

The first time I saw this show’s poster I expected it to be another generic and cringe LN romcom with crappy moeblobs, but as it turns out, there's a fair chance it might end up being the best show to have come out this season.

The production quality of the show is high and the faces are quite expressive (keep track of the eyes). There’s the wonderfully executed punchy photographic rotoscope for character models that make them pop out of the screen, which works for its kind of physical comedy. Also, the show’s stylised limited animation approach for exaggerated physical comedy (staccato effect) pairs incredibly ... well with the exaggerated deformed facial expressions, which then combine with whoosh sfx-es for the motion. The blobbier faces are more of a plus than a minus here with this approach considering how expressive they get. The same thing that almost put me off from picking it up in the first place.

Talking about the male protagonist (the most important part of any harem/romcom) he has really expressive eyes, like the other charas, which deform into taremes and then into complete tunnel entrances with white walls in certain scenes for example, and then there’s expressive, desperate, and worked-up dialogues of his reactions to the antics of the heroines and the unfolding events (quoted example in paragraph after next) or straight man comebacks lacking in condescension. All of these along with the exaggerated physical comedy and sound effects set him apart from the more workable MCs in more generic comedy harems or even a lot of the good harems where the reaction dialogue voice and tone is smugger. The Mc is made to be a good reactor, which is also the case for all the characters.

When you combine all that with the general conduct of the MC, the reaction dialogue and retorts as well as judgmental monologues relating to the heroine truly feels empathetic throughout the comedy segments of these couple episodes and puts Mc on the same level as the people he is reacting to in the reaction scenes. This works so much better here considering the show presents the MC with losing heroine scenarios and their failed attempts at wooing their loved ones, which he has to react to as an observer. You just feel much more empathy and much less condescension.

The show's comedy is brilliantly executed and directed with great comedic timing and exaggerated physical comedy, with the very first episode setting the tone perfectly. In an early scene, the protagonist finds himself in a cafe where he sees one of the heroines and our protagonist’s classmate, Yanami, getting rejected by her childhood friend after she encourages him to chase after the transfer student who had been with them for a month and was about to leave abroad again. After she's left alone in the cafe, she sees the cup with the chewed-out straw that belonged to her childhood friend and slowly starts bringing it to her mouth and eventually takes a sip, with the MC reacting with the “Ah no, Yanami-san, just don’t please, that is too desperate to chew that straw, nooo!” with suspenseful music and elements of physical comedy involved, which completely expresses his second hand embarrassment. The Mc looks down in the middle of this, with hands over his face, and then looks up across the room to see her now noticing him with big dead eyes. Another scene has the protagonist’s sister is shown making the same dead eyes out of concern as the camera abruptly shifts from the protagonist to his sister as he tells her he actually talked to 5 people today in response to her concern that he has no friends.

The comedy is also quite witty in how it deconstructs the rejection scenarios of the harem/romcom heroines, of which the above is an an example but there’s much better scenes down the line. A different scene details the struggle of the heroine as he tells our MC that her and her crush's families are friends and they're concerned about them not hanging out as much as they organise a party to have them together, a funny and awkward moment delivered with creepy music. Another example of its wit is how it sets up a long scene with the MC and one other heroine visiting a water fountain a bit away from the main class building with the heroine asking him what he’s doing there as it’s strange, which leads to them having a verbal showdown regarding who is more knowledgeable about the water taps in school, with the heroine finally arguing after a good few volleys that the x floor tap during the afternoon is better despite the excess chlorine as it makes one used to it, following which the MC deduces she eats her lunch in the bathroom. Much better executed than I can express in a few words, as the direction plays a big part.

Finally, perhaps the last and the qualifying element that enhances the show is that while it was in just a glimpse in the second episode, it showed it knows how to nail big moments, be they bittersweet or life affirming or heartwarming. Another heroine in the work, who is an athlete, ponders upon how she has been running in circles all this time. Later in the episode she is rejected and is cheered up by the protag and the straw heroine with the whole part being wholesome and comedic. Following this the next scene has the school nurse guessing and doodling a relationship chart of the students at night as her hobby and she hears sounds from the track ground, which she goes to check and finds the heroine there. They have a brief convo, and at the end the heroine asks the teacher if she can run one more lap: “You want to run some more?” “I feel like I can finally get somewhere.” Then the scene cuts to a snap of the diary which shows the relationship chart with a question mark over an arrow between the heroine and the protagonist, portending things to come.

PS: did I mention how well the ed suits the show?

The problem with a lot of these isekai adaptations is that while most of the these isekais out there getting an adaptation are uninspired, there are some of them that have some specific fun elements aside from the setting and plot that the adaptations fail to comprehend more than with non isekai works. What made new gate likable was the characters and their behavior and the sentimental drama relating to them most of all, which the adaptation gloriously mangled to move the "plot" along.

The show starts with a scene where a bunch of people are dragging away one of the main heroines, the black haired ... elf in the poster, to idk struggle snuggle or sell her as a slave or whatever, doesn't matter, and our MC comes to the rescue. Dere dere moeblob GET! said elf is now suddenly pretty friendly with our MC. But there's one problem now: to move the plot along you need to get back to the plot. Seeing how in the original there was no kidnap squad to save moeblob from, she didn't warm up to the MC immediately and was quite skeptical of him and his intentions as well as seemingly more mature and cheeky. So the next thing they do after they make the moeblob look like a dere dere moeblob is to insert some of the dialogue from the original and manga adaptation back into the scene, which felt weird to see as the dere dere moeblob now seemed a tiny bit rude as after being a dere dere moeblob (adaptation original) she starts saying things that her original cheeky self said to her benefactor, the MC (rescuer in anime only). "hey buddy, i just met you, who are you to ask about where the owner of this establishment is," roughly something like this in spirit which kind of works with her original personality , looks, and considering she never got saved in the original.

The above scene, taken from near the start of episode 1 itself, is to illustrate what the quality of the adaptation is like. Speaking of characters first, the characters in the anime adaptation look much more childish with the faces being much rounder than either the LN or manga art, as a result of which, the personality of one of the heroines, the black haired elf, feels incredibly different as shown above. Her personality while still bubbly also had cheekiness and more maturity to it which is no longer true in the adaptation, this is a result of both her being a moeblob in the adaptation and the adaptation cutting dialogues and events to rush the plot. The same is true for the other silver haired main (the elf schnee) with her character in the adaptation not being able to express her wistfulness in general and her feelings of melancholy as the MC will one day return to his world again, feelings which are an important aspect of the title and her character. The silver haired elf/schnee's reunion with the MC was much more of a tearjerker moment in the manga, but that's again true for most of the moments.

Now the core issue that actually butchers the adaptation, it's that you have these blob charas act out the rushed plot whose selling point was supposed to be its big sentimental scenes with some okay slice of life scenes in between, with the sentimental parts being bittersweet moments and moments of mildly melancholic happiness (like the feeling of nostalgia). Like the schnee (silver haired elf) reunion scene. It's already obvious a rushed plot doesn't even begin to work for a title like this, like it's not going to make you sentimental when it's not slower paced and making you sentimental is the core pull of the title before anything else, but then you also have moeblobs acting out those sentimental moments along with the rushing. Just look at the manga's chapter 2 page 20 onwards till the end of said chapter and compare it with ep 1 9:40 onwards for a few minutes.

Similar to the scene just above, a lot of other scenes were spoiled in the adaptation. The generic, poorly written kirito-lite parts of the work ie the "plot" only matters if the stakes matter to you. The stakes matter to you if the character and the world matter to you, with the world ultimately dependent on the characters. It's all about the people. The generic kirito-lite activities matter as far as how the characters react to it when you do them, whether you care about those activities affecting the charactes, whether you care about how they'll perceive you etc. Essentially, do you care about the characters and if they're worthwhile. Guess what makes them so.
finally, there's nothing creative in the technical side as well to maybe try and salvage it, and then there's the extremely Substandard script that miserably executes buildup scenes to sentimental ones, thereby effectively reducing the emotional impact of the final sentimental scenes.

Maybe it isn't that bad of a show and it's the expectations of manga readers and the lack of comprehension of the work's appeal by certain others that play a part in its bad rating, so a 6/10 is a safe bet, but it's certainly not a recommendation worthy show. No "mixed feelings" here since there isn't any substantial element worth picking it up for, If the title is to be recommended, it should be the manga. A 6/10 but with " not recommended" for it.

A simple google search for the show monster would end with you pulling up a repository of all your favourite NTR doujin protagonists, but i'm here to convince you that's not reason enough to hold the show in such high esteem, and here's why:-

The show starts with a Mary Sue Japanese surgeon who is forced to decide on whether to operate on a dying child who came to him first or some rich dying politician whom his father in law, the hospital director, wants him to operate on first. Hilarity ensues as our conscientious mary sue combats the peer pressure of his awfully caricatured ... evil looking coworkers, wife, and father in law to save the life of the child cause first come first served is the foundation of modern civilisation. Actually, JK, he had some weird caricature of a mourning woman whose husband died come to him and tell him he's such a good doctor so he could've saved him reeee. Said woman's ramblings convinced our hero that it would only be morally right to operate on the child and not the politician (evil occupation+rich+first come first served bitch!)

Following this apparently there's a breakdown in a lot of his important human relations and his career, but worry not, the author has a plan to bore you with a pseudo-profound exploration of morality as the child this surgeon saved is about to turn into a full fledged psychopath. Our conscientious Mary Sue from hereon gets a new self actualization goal, to stop this wanker from swatting more of these jojoverse charas/ BBM caricatures.

If you don't already see the issue in the type of work it's turning out to be, no problem, just combine that with what I'm about to talk about. Did you notice how all the side characters except our surgeon MC look like ugly bastards from NTR hentai? If not, try looking around a little. They seem to exist there to contrast as unsubtly as possible our mary sue MC with the rest of the characters in the story who lack his moral greatness. Afterall, the point of the story is to explore the moral distress of our Mary Sue. The characters don't just look like ugly bastards, they exhibit exactly the values you see on their faces and they also do this just as unsubtly. It's there to accentuate the Mary Sue nature of the MC.

The show looks overly serious and drab as if it actually is a serious work with a lot of thought put into it, but actually it is very unsubtle, dull, and barebones where all the developments feel forced and the absolute lack of viscerality in the scenes make it so easy to spot what the author is trying to do with the caricatures and our mary sue. It only works to accentuate the aforementioned contrast to levels it shouldn't reach. This contrast then just highlighs how artificial the story writing is where you see moment to moment what the author is making the character do and why. It's like seeing the seams of a cloth along with the cloth THROUGHOUT the episode. See you can tell these things, but usually you have to put effort into making it out, Like "oh the author made her say this, that actually helps bring out the feeling of tenderness between the charas, and that he is trying to show she is that much more comfortable with him now than at the start of the show" etc. Monster isn't like this, it's in your face from moment to moment, every moment. Extremely unsubtle and extremely low effort, like just see the dull moral dilemma that started this dull show in para 1.

The plot is so generic that I don't know what to watch it for and then there's all this, just imagine what you're in for in 74 eps. It might work as an afternoon soap on TV, but this is competing with anime with all its animeisms. The only animeism here is the caricatured faces, but the content is from an uninspired afternoon TV soap. With caricatured characters like these likely jojo kind of comedy might work, just make it more memey internet red pill kind of trashy with waifu beating humour and what not. This is irredeemable stuff. 1/10.

I would like to preface my review by pointing out that the show gets a lot of unwarranted criticism for being the kind of detective show where deductions are made up (they don't use solid, concrete pieces of evidence), but that is exactly the point of the show and they are done quite intelligently while integrating the supernatural into them, something which is best exemplified by the "yuki onna" story arc that stretches from the second to the fourth episode of season 2. The fake deductions in the show work towards solving the problem at hand in a more wholistic way, taking into account its ... other aspects, which is more than just solving the mystery of the problem mechanically (like, for example, just deducing who the culprit is, as opposed to maybe trying to give the victims closure as well).

The flaw of the show instead can be understood from another very common criticism, i.e., there's way too much talking. Now that isn't an issue on its own. After all, Monogatari series does that, and it's an incredible series. The problem with the show is actually the inability to properly integrate the intellectual masturbation of the author into a larger more visceral extended plot with more of the fun elements present in it. To give a rough and simple example of the idea, imagine you're playing a complex military strategy game (game 1) and imagine playing another game (game 2) that has the same gameplay but this time it is embedded into a great story (like, let's say it's set in the world of the Youjo Senki light novel and you're Tanya). It's obvious which is better. The short yuki onna arc feels like the former. Even when the arcs are longer, the visercal elements are not that many.

The aforementioned yuki onna story arc, with which the story's main selling point (MSP) peaks, i.e., false deduction, also highlights best the main flaws with the show. We are introduced to a yuki onna and her human darling, both of whom are not all that endearing to you, and you get to see their story for 2 episodes (ep 2 and 3), following which you get our FMC and MC making contact with the duo, doing the deduction work (regarding the issue of the duo) in the final episode of the arc, and delivering a brilliant piece of deduction-exposition that lasts for that one whole episode (ep 4). Brilliant as it was, your ability to care for anyone is non-existent and that includes our main characters, and you can guess the entertainment value of the arc from that (for the majority of people). There aren't more fun elements woven into it. It's too to the point. You just made a setup and provided the solution to it with no viewer involvement. THIS is its main and fatal flaw.

Now imagine if the same yuki onna story were woven into a longer arc where our MCs were roped into the story of the yuki onna, where they get to have some good interactions with each other and other characters for us to watch, and they get involved with the tale of the yuki onna which makes us care about the tale since you can't really care all that much about side characters. Finally, the whole of the otherwise brilliant deduction comes at the end of all that, like at least 3-4 more episodes down the line after the author made you engrossed in the story by making the FMC or the main overarching story get involved in the short and to the point story arc with elements such as more FMC-Mc interactions, some interesting jokes etc put into it. The brilliant deduction would then be the closing act of this long arc and would be elevated to another level.

Another way to see this flaw can be from understanding how interesting detective shows are written in general. We need just one phase of it for the sake of this review, which is the exposition phase of the deduction. In this phase, while the exposition goes on regarding the culprit and his modus operandi, there are also things like creative banter between the characters you've come to like and some quirky behaviour of theirs that gets shown while the deduction is going on (as punctuation marks in the exposition). A show like this with longer expositions than usual needs more of that or something similar, the purpose of which is to endear us to the characters and to the show, which in turn also endears us to the story and the other elements as a side effect. Sadly, it's not that well done. Take the example of a similarly supernatural but much less intelligent show with a much less intelligent writer doing this specific thing better: Undead Girl Murder Farce.

All in all, Kyokou Suiri is a flawed work of an intelligent man, which despite having some charming things (like the FMC kotoko ofc) ultimately falls a bit short in reaching the level of viscerality which would raise it and its intelligent aspects (some brilliant false deductions) to the level of a masterpiece, or at least a really great show. A 6/10 with "mixed feelings" for this particular but fatal flaw.

Tl:dr needs a bit more waifubaiting and fun times to make it the great show it should have been~~

This might be biggest disappointment this season. You don't need to know much about it to know why it's not worth your time except that it's one of those explore and learn about human feelings slop. The story is about a long lived elf whose fwens die (oh no~), so elf-chan needs to journey around retracing the steps she once took with them on her adventure to give the melodrama enthusiast some low quality cri pron.

To accompany elf-chan on her adventure in stead of her boring and uninspired teammates, she finds an even more boring and uninspired kuudere. Together they travel the brilliantly uninspired world ... of whatever it is and run random errands for the NPCs of the world. Each such errand reminds elf-chan of her time with her companions, what they liked, what they said to her, all in her quest to understand human feelings and more specifically to know about her now deceased comrades (and their feelings?)

Also Please also note that the elf grill travelled with the guys for 10 years, didn't get to know them. One of the teammates (one guy from her party of four) dies and elf chan has an epiphany that she needs to get to know her comrades, then she doesn't get to know about her still alive comrades because they need to be dead to set the find my feelings find myself cri pron journey into motion. Sasuga~

Now i haven't seen violet evergarden or fumetsu no anata e, but if you have, you don't need to see this. All of these kinds of stories are usually this exact kind of slop and if you've seen one, you've seen them all. Solid 4/10.

To further expand on my earlier review, it hasn't improved one bit and im already almost 11 episodes into it. The female main character is as expressionless as ever and so is the aforementioned kuudere. joining them now is a third character that is not very expressive himself but seems like he is just because of the contrast with these 2. In fact, no character in the show is very expressive, it's like the FMC in a low effort shoujo manga, the one with the personality of a fish with her mouth open in an O shape. Or like a guild of serial killers killed these guys and now wears their faces, like yakuza clans and their tattoos. The writing might be taking a battle shounen-ish turn at this point but it is not one bit better than it previously was. Itt might be going the battle shounen route in part/partially. It might thus be undoing the one thing it is praised for, which i don't think it was doing well anyways. The battle shounen parts you can guess won't be as good as a genuine battle shounen since they're about the feels and viscerality and emotionally charged characters. It tries to play on power fantasy where frieren is stronger than some mighty demons, but again there's better shows to do that as it's again not that gratifying seeing the mixed nature of the show and again the lack of viscerality.

Earlier i compared this to violet evergarden, but You can't expect any visercal sentimentality from it (which you might from violet evergarden?), or compared to other titles with drama like koe no katachi which is memorable and makes you feel. It has the drama tag but it lacks the visceral nature of a good drama. There's some lighthearted jokes sprayed in, some of them sexual, but these jokes are just as lukewarm as the show's drama is. The delivery may be okay and so is the comedic timing, but they're the usual generic uncreative kind and they don't offset any pressure from the barely visceral drama and they are not unexpected twists on another visercal chain of events to catch you by surprise and be humourous. You can get a smile, but the comedy won't either warm your heart or make you laugh heartily.

But maybe, just maybe, the show is something like the monogatari series? No, it is exactly what you would expect from a show with characters like these, it's not particularly atmospheric, there's quite a bit of generic tavern ost with some decent tracks and the locations, quests, characters etc are all one dimensional things from generic fantasy. It's not exactly some chill/relaxing travel where you take in the journey and the beauty of the locations or activities the party is indulging in. Like it does not create an appreciation for the mundane by presenting it in a different form. Like for example you find a ditch in a road, and then maybe you see a bunch of children floating paper boats in it with insects atop. There's nothing like that here. watching paint dry can be relaxing some time, but you can't say it's anything more than being just that, but sure it might relax you if that's your inclination, just that there's nothing to see there and you can't say it is more than that (used paint dry as an example and drew an analogy, not used as the usual insult).

There are little moments where the show tries to give the characters a layer of subtle emotional responses and dialogues but it feels mechanical and jarring and that it was done to manipulative you into thinking it has depth. But why does it fail? why is this manipulative feeling and not koe no katachi? because again the show is bland and not viseceral, and because of its mechanical nature the tool of subtlety too feels mechanical and that it is there based on a formula. It doesn't get disguised as you're not on an enjoyable ride where you don't get the chance to sit and nitpick.

All in all, i don't know what slice of life or drama is on display here because everything is so lukewarm that it amounts to nothing from what i've seen and felt about it. There's no form of visceral charm to it. Even a laid back relaxing atmosphere is fulfilling, kind of like denpa onna for example, it's not mundane but a title can be the run of the mill mundane that is beautified in presentation. Slice of life shows elicit different feelings but they're visceral just like blood and gore shows, just without most of the adrenaline. frieren is not this. It is brilliantly uninspired.

Another edgy, vengeful, battle academy manga with some isekai elements. It's clear by now that the battle academy mangas (of the harem kind especially) churn out the highest amount of poorly written, uncreative, and cringey stories. This manga is no exception.

It starts with an MC that wants to be the main character and has a huge ego but turns out he has one of the weakest familiars. And as is usual for this kind of shlock, every classmate of his makes fun of him for being a weakling. Now you know how stories like these develop, the MC either got a power or ... familiar that people underestimated and is actually OP, or the MC comes across some plot device that allows him to become strong. The manga aims for the latter.

Now here's where the issue starts, most battle academy mangas like these play on the feeling of being "the eminence in the shadows"/"secretly op dark horse a few know about" more than the edgy isekai vengeful kind of thing where the reader wants to get back at the world or some others to regain his self esteem, kind of like the "equal rights, equal fights" folk who fantasise about being #MeToo'd to then be able to get back at the other sex, whom they feel has been raised to a higher standing while degrading them (Cough shield hero cough). This manga embraces a feeling similar to this quite strongly.

What makes this even worse is how blatant the abovementioned feeling is in this work, there is no subtlety to it, the MC starts out acting like a hotshot who proclaims he wants to be a main character only to be degraded by his classmates and teacher verbally in a way that no suspension of disbelief works in making it seem realistic and that it wasn't done blatantly to write the abovementioned kind of story, there is no subtlety whatsoever. Guy swears vengeance upon his classmates and the mangaka even writes a scene where the next day after making fun of the guy one of his classmates comes to give an apology, the MC brushes him off sulkingly with a "whatever" while anothes classmate glares at him and he glares back from a distance with his thought bubble reading "what did i ever do to you". Again this goes to show the lack of subtlety and makes it obvious this is a pure victimhood-revenge fantasy.

The lack of subtlety is so jarring that it is genuinely one of a kind trash even for these edgy, revengey, kind of light novels and mangas. The generic art, characters, and the lack of any positive creativity in any aspect at all only accentuates the trashiness.

The writing ability of the author is very questionable, but the show works. Most of the show is a trek through the wasteland meeting people, but this time the character interaction and dynamics work because the interaction isn't cliched, like cliched sentences they speak to each other and the like. The fanservice isn't the "fell on crotch" kind and works even with these chara designs. It's stuff like the FMC , who is a genderbent guy inhabiting his sister's body, worries about MC going missing. Then when Mc's found, the FMC and MC hug where the MC gets a boner and the FMC is completely ... chill about it while only remarking, "something hard is touching me".

It's vibey and there's a mystery plot that lends to the atmosphere and builds with the wasteland trek each episode, which in turn helps it not feel it is just a generic episodic post apocalyptic journey like many others and that things are moving somewhere and things link up. As an example, it's Kinda similar to how annoying spider girl's parts in the start of the anime "kumo desu ga" helped make the harem dude's introduction and his parts feel less generic and somewhat entertaining.

That was about what makes it entertaining, but it's also worth pointing out there's some pretty bad writing from the author to go along with it. While I did say you get the feeling the jigsaw puzzle is coming together, it's not done well enough to be gratifying. It feels more like the retcons of kumo desu ga if i am to draw a comparison, just even more numerous. THe main charm of its mystery parts is it lends to the vibe/atmosphere.

To illustrate the poor writing, the mawkish behaviour of the characters at the death or tragedy of randos is a good place to start. Then there's an NTRish-vibes rape scene of FMC which could've been avoided in a show so reliant on FMC-MC dynamics and fanservice within that dynamic. The rape doesn't immediately build to anything and its mainly there as shock value and to make the show look a tiny bit smart (as its hinted the genderbent FMC's body's real owner, his sister was being groomed by this rapey guy).

It's building events on foreshadowing for the sake of building on foreshadowing, and the show is littered with moments like these. characters are wasted/killed just to foreshadow and build on the foreshadowing, all for the sake of making the show look like a smart show where everything is connected to everything else and nothing happens for no reason. There's too much of this attempt, and It feels shoddy. Lots of small chunks of foreshadowing+ building on them that don't build to anything worthwhile that lasts overarchingly over a significant period/portion.

The charm of the show is not its mystery but the atmospheric post apocalyptic journey of a duo whose dynamics works. And it's also worth pointing out again that It's a show that works despite the poor writing ability of the author.