Hey, what's up? This is a One Piece midstream review. Taking time out around the time-skip to review OP once and for all...until it ends? In 2035? Or doesn't end. We don't care, this story doesn't have to end for it to be important.
So, you're wondering, should I watch OP? It's too long, maaaaan! I get it, it IS too long...of enjoyment. It's filled with gutbusting laughs and hurrah moments and manly manliness. I get it, we don't have time, it's hundreds and hundreds, a THOUSAND episodes! I can't take this, I really can't take this. You don't have the right, oooooh you don't
...
have the right.
I get it, life is short, why invest time in this longass anime? Ain't nobody got time for that, I'll keep it simple and watch Naruto instead.
However, let me let you know that this is in fact a priceless piece of @ss and you're staring at it all wrong. "Oh, it's just about little kids, I can't stand that, drop it in the first arc." Yeah, little kid fillers in anime are annoying to me too. And the manga doesn't really go anywhere from the start either. That's where I began, the manga, and I didn't get it at all. I talked about how much I didn't like it, maybe I was obnoxious, I really hope I was. Little kid fillers suck in OP, Naruto, pick your poison.
And yet...we're telling A STORY.
I get it, it's hard to get into this world. It really is. You're reading this and you're jealous of those 90's Japanese people who had the sophistication to read OP on a train and dedicate themselves to all the stories it was telling. It's 2022! Ain't nobody got time for that. I get it.
And yet...when it catches, IT CATCHES. I get that people say Arlong Park is the one. For me, in the manga, it just wasn't for me. Why is every story about little kids? Who is LUEFFY? Why do I care about this island and the fruit Nami is trying to grow? Doesn't make any sense. Truth be told, you had to have a lot of patience. And I think OP got enough chances that it eventually started to become a really good story. It could've been cancelled early on, and you never would've heard of OP, but Shounen Jump gave it enough chances. This is why you don't give up on an artist until you have to. Have a little faith. Especially in your taste in artists, of course.
So yeah, this story starts out rough, that's for sure, in the manga obviously. But then, I like anime, I watch anime, the anime is incredible, and that's where it started to truly turn around for me and the vision of Oda-sensei became obvious.
I don't know why the manga never clicked for me, but as soon as the anime became bingeable on Netflix, I knew I had to give this series another chance. I don't know why, it just dug at me that I'd never been able to sync with one of the biggest deal animes of all time. So many fans, it felt like an underground club. And it had 1000 eps! I must've been missing something.
The manga for me moves far too slow, has way too many little kid backstories, and never gains any kind of momentum. It's a very slow subway line page turner. It's for guys who are bored reading Jump and just so happen to need something to look at and OP just so happens to be there. It's not as good, or flows as well, or gives immediate satisfaction the way Hellsing, Ranma 1/2 or Black Lagoon do (the manga I most want to see back in print). But manga is slow, it is traditionally slow.
The big turning point for me was obviously Little Garden, that's the arc where I started to see the forest for the trees and became intrigued. Something about that arc was much bigger, much more masterful than what had come before, this is where Oda started to master his story and a line of imperceptible...something, became obvious. We could now see a clear trail of where this story was headed. Pirates? On an island? And giants? It's so obscure, it belongs in some aristocrat's logbook from the 1700's in France or Germany. And yet...what is it about this story? I thought to myself.
So that's 70 episodes in. I know you'll complain, "That's too loooong! Raaaagh! No time for anime, gotsto go to wooooork!" Like some shounen jump character, I get it, that's a lot of episodes. Gintama is kind of the same way. Long running shounen series take time. Not every series starts off as exciting and interesting as the iconic Naruto....
And yet, while Naruto's beginning is FAR better than One Piece and far more accessible, especially to westerners who will recognize the storytelling conceits right off (a young boy is isolated and must fight as an individual to gain respect from his senpai and peers), OP is a long, slow churning series. This is a guy pushing a boulder up a mountain, no doubt about it. And as a western individual, you won't recognize the collectivist emphasis on 'friends'. That will be confusing. OP is purely collectivist from the start, while Naruto starts individualist and is always redeemed by 'friends' and collectivism and falls into the trap of collectivist story tropes late in its run, to its detriment.
I get it, Naruto has a far better beginning, so does Death Note and so does Fullmetal Alchemist, and Bleach had a few really good episodes as well. I get it, everyone gets it. What is it about OP and long running, grueling shounen series? I get it.
But while Naruto, DN and Fullmetal start off really great, their issues become enhanced the longer their series go on. Naruto becomes 'talk-no-jutsu', which might be the greatest criticism against a fictional story ever levied. Fullmetal loses the drive of its narrative arc as its baddie becomes too overpowered and then too underpowered in a couple of quick moments and all the long storytelling is destroyed before you even remember how good it was. DN falls apart as soon as its chief protagonist dies, to the utter detriment of the story and its hype.
OP starts off goofy, it should not have been the one, but it is. And it is probably because OP starts off so goofy from nowhere and has so many little kid backstories that its lore is built to a chillingly complete level that most manga outside of Berserk never reach.
Because as we all know, the pinnacle of storytelling in manga and anime resides in 'hang out stories', where the characters aren't forced to be action stars and can just breathe and be themselves and explain who they are, this is OP's strength, its ultimate strength, its characters feel like real people.
Before Luffy ever goes to a castle to save anybody, you understand who that character is. We know Robin, we get to know Nami, we know Tony Chopper and Frankie. OP bores you with backstories other shounens never would, but in the process you gain something richer. In its first seventy episodes, Oda lays a backstory so rich and fine that it's only later that you appreciate the scale of what he is doing.
Luckily for you, there is an anime, with a fine, fine dub, and many, many episodes to binge at a moment's notice when you do really get into this story, with very fine animation. The animation is akin to Miyazaki's glory days, the classic Nausicaa/Nadia/Castle of Cagliostro style, green grass, blue skies and a little bit of hazy mystery on the horizon. It's way better than Pokemon but it's still the classic Japanese art style. Green fields, blue, blue water, big smiling, expressionful eyes and lips. Big hair, it's a basic, classic style, simplistic but it has always done the job in animation. It doesn't try to do too much animation wise, only giving us what we need.
Which is why it is so remarkable, peak OP is like Miyazaki fell asleep and you smoked a pipe containing the essence of his very best works, like Totoro or Mononoke, or Spirited Away, and just got carried off to dreamland. Like he's the caterpillar and you're Alice, and you're just carried off to Wonderland. It has many notes and influences from Miyazaki and basically interpolates his style as 'the main style of anime'. Which is why OP reminds you so much of the best Miyazaki movies all the time. There's constantly moments where you take a second to recognize the natural beauty of areas which Oda has built. This foreground is part of what makes OP special.
There are so many pretty landscapes like the Grand Line's cliffs, or Sky Island, or Drum Island or Sabaody. Hundreds of eps in you might be tempted to say it's all the same, but I never stop appreciating the Miyazaki notes in the landscapes. Natural, beautiful, unspoiled, the way it should be, a paradise, nature before man ruined it. It opines for something better. Thus OP becomes like a post-Miyazaki paradise.
Its characters are special as well, but I won't spoil you. Suffice to say, OP is extremely special and there's a reason it is the TOP anime and one of the best stories going.
If you're going to endeavor One Piece, it will take time for you to graft onto the story. I wasn't captured on Oda's entire vision at Arlong Park or anything until his writing started to become one-world traditional. In so many words, One Piece started to carry notes and spice from many classical stories that made it really accessible to me. It felt like fairytales with pirates, fairytales from childhood. That's when I started to realize the enormity of the thing. Little Garden was the start of that.
Until then we have some baddies here and there, like Whiskey Peak, that allude to something bigger. But you don't get an idea of how big the world is, nor is the World Government solidified until later.
But who knows? Maybe if you start with the anime then everything will click early on, but in the manga I definitely felt lost, even on Baratie with Sanji I had no idea what was going on or why.
Basically what I would say to you is, East Blue is tough to get through, that is Oda laying the foundation of his plan and a lot of the time it's like watching paint dry. No doubt, it's a tough first part of the story. It's not like Death Note, Naruto or Bleach, it doesn't come in bombastic, flashbombing you with an interesting backstory. OP starts off more innocent. I would argue that Oda was finding his sea legs. OP legions will stand up and shout that Oda had it all planned out from the beginning and it was always a masterpiece, but I beg to differ. Things were shaky at the start.
So for westerners, that's going to be hard to take, that this story doesn't hit you from the start. There's no death pen, or scoundrel in the village living on his own and being abandoned by everyone, there's no sexy older woman living in the cupboard of your bedroom, there's no vampires or biker chicks with guns. OP is a much more peaceful series, out on the seven seas, away from all that.
At its heart, One Piece is about peace. That's going to be tough for westerners to take. More often than not, dudes are just chilling or having frank discussions about this or that. There is no bombast, there are no big bads from the beginning. Dudes are just lazing around, chilling, sailing or talking crap. East Blue is okay.
OP doesn't become OP until the Grand Line, that's where OP really starts to take off. The question is if you have the patience to get through East Blue to Arabasta and the Grand Line around sixty eps in? Which you should, because OP is a masterpiece and you know around ep 180ish that OP is a masterpiece that will keep on giving.
Is it the GOAT? Yes, probably, now that Berserk will go unfinished, OP is right there with Berserk, except it has an anime and a great dub and amazing music. The openings are always so danceable.
I would recommend getting into OP immediately, the story is incredible, the characters are amazing and everyone in this story becomes like your own family. Heck yeah I recommend OP.
One Piece after the Grand Line starts is basically like watching a movie all the time. The pacing only has issues if you're watching week to week. Otherwise, the anime is way better than the manga. I just couldn't ever get into it very well. But maybe the manga gets really good around the Grand Line as well.
Yes, I would put in the work, get through the East Blue saga over 60 episodes and start really enjoying one of the greatest anime series of all-time from Grand Line on.
Ranking the arcs: All>East Blue, to start.
Among the fantastic arcs, which is everything after East Blue, the only one that is less than perfect is perhaps Thriller Bark. The rest are excellent to perfect, and Thriller's dumb baddie is the only real issue, just because he's kind of lame.
Once you get through East Blue this story is kind of masterpiece after masterpiece. If you sat through EB I'm not sure anybody couldn't enjoy Arabasta, Sky Island or Water 7. It's like if someone made a long anime series out of all the best Miyazaki films, it's that good. It has the same kinds of values in my opinion, friends, companionship, love, the good normie ones, with the same kinds of backgrounds and good characters. One Piece is an anime that truly lives up to the legends of before, who made anime what it is today from the '70s, '80s and '90s.
It gives you everything you ever wanted and is very pure. True, there is no romance really, no adult themes like Black Lagoon or Hellsing. But it is a palate cleanser. The true themes of One Piece are far bigger and more universalist than you could ever hope to imagine. Eventually you realize that OP is a political anime about the evils of neoliberalism. The pirates symbolize the hope for freedom and the chaos that ensues without order. The navy represents the lie of justice and the fact that crime will always be rampant. The world nobles are an evil class of aristocrats protected by the navy who think that they're serving justice.
One Piece is about a world whose laws and customs rely on lies rather than truth, obfuscation over simplicity. While pirates represent chaos they also represent man's wish to be free. The navy represents man's wish to repress the desires of the middle class and rule over them with an iron fist and steal the proceeds of their hard work.
I would not say OP is communist or egalitarian. Rather it represents the need for individuals to feel needed, respected and required, rather than discarded, repressed or oppressed. While it has many collectivist sentiments like its emphasis on 'friends', its emphasis is really on community overall. Trusting, feeling safe in, and requiring community that is respectful towards the individual.
OP does not respect law and order without generosity or care. Luffy does not respect a lawman who is corrupt, fat, docile or feeding off the classes he or she oppresses. Luffy stands for freedom and justice. This is very different from every other shounen anime. OP actually has values which only become apparent later on in the story.
The World Government seems increasingly evil. It represents the ambition to 'MASTER' man and make SLAVES of the lower classes and EXPLOIT the lower classes for all proceeds of THEIR work. It really is that simple: man's dominion over man, due to values one invents upon one's birth: intelligence, class, access to special education or certifications and licenses, entitlement, the profundity of wealth over the work that actually achieves the ends which humanity requires to obtain a society.
What is the World Government except parasites on the system? Snatching their own share from a system they have produced no profit in? Luffy is a black eye on all of that. Luffy only respects certain values, though even at Marineford, he could not save those closest to him against a system which uses immense strength to achieve its ends.
The strawhats bully friend and foe alike if they fall on the wrong side of the path of true justice, which means accountability and honesty. They never have the time or patience for those who would bring ruin to others for their own profit. And that's what makes them so heroic.
At the middle point, OP is a dang masterpiece. There's absolutely no doubt. If you're looking for something a little more adult in certain attitudes then it is never going to satisfy you. But anyone who watches OP has no doubt, hundreds of episodes in, that what they are seeing is like a culmination of decades, fifty years of anime. And in many ways it is peak anime, because its values are so universalist. Luffy stands against corruption, he believes in the dignity of every individual and protects them against a system that means to do evil and harm to others.
Should you watch OP? Of course you should, it's one of the essentials. Does it take some time and appreciation from a distance to understand where it's going? Perhaps, but that doesn't mean the work isn't worth it.
When OP hits for you finally, it will hit hard.
May 4, 2022 Recommended Preliminary
(521/? eps)
Hey, what's up? This is a One Piece midstream review. Taking time out around the time-skip to review OP once and for all...until it ends? In 2035? Or doesn't end. We don't care, this story doesn't have to end for it to be important.
So, you're wondering, should I watch OP? It's too long, maaaaan! I get it, it IS too long...of enjoyment. It's filled with gutbusting laughs and hurrah moments and manly manliness. I get it, we don't have time, it's hundreds and hundreds, a THOUSAND episodes! I can't take this, I really can't take this. You don't have the right, oooooh you don't ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Apr 29, 2022
Violet Evergarden Movie
(Anime)
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I UGLY cried to this movie, like, literally balled uncontrollably during the final hospital scene, just, totally lost control and fell apart kind of cry. Japan struck their arrow to my heart and my dams broke.
Haha, but the structure of this movie is very smart. So, we have a girl who's fighting with her parents for some reason. Snooze, bore. And of course it's the girl who's mother received the letters from HER mother, written by the doll solider, Violet Evergarden. This beginning section serves to be quite boring and ultra-cliched. But it totally disarms the viewer and puts them in a neutral emotional ... state. We don't expect what's coming. "Oh, Kyoani lost its way, this movie is terrible, I'm so bored, let's go for a sleep then." So you march through the mud in endless cliches as the movie gives you: a girl who's parents are fighting with her for some reason because grandma is gone and work a little too hard. A girl who goes off somewhere to search up the history of grandma's letters, and eyeroll of eyerolls, the WIND, the stupid WIND, snatches a letter from her grasp and we get the usual cliched 'pretty streets and people shopping during the day' which you assume, ho-boy, this film is going to be obnoxious. So the viewer feels safe. "No surprises in this one!" The movie ramps us up to speed with the story. As a partial standalone movie and as a sequel, it tries to bring both viewers into the fold. The girl with her letters for standalone, for the ignorant viewer, and the insider, as the movie ramps up and we get a finish on the anime story from the original 13 episodes. But obviously, this takes a a long time in coming. Who are these characters? I barely remember them! You will say this to yourself if like me you lasted through the pandemic and only remembered the 2010's by random one day once all the insanity was over. Don't laugh, Putin's still got the hangover. Violet the movie sets up in-the-know and out-of-the-know viewers in its first 30 minutes. Finally we get to a plot point where Violet meets a boy in a hospital. Which you assume, EYEROLL, another crying Kyoani cliche: boy in hospital wants letters. This won't affect me at all! We assume. And next, Violet fights with people, not accepting compliments from a rich funder of her letter for a ceremony at sea, and she fights with the brother of the major--her former lover? In some ways, yes. We all assume these are all dumb cliches. "Boy, I barely remember this series, maybe it wasn't as good as I recall." And in the second half of the film, the damn breaks. The letter is from the major! So we're finishing up that timeline, are we? That's random, but it had to end somehow and we figure it would've. Violet has made a promise to the boy in the hospital, and time is short. Suffice to say, we are not expecting to be absolutely WALLOPED by Kyoani in the last stage of this movie. We are not expecting this story to hit us straight in the balls like a final courageous tribute to those lost in its terrorism incident. And yet, Kyo has set us up, they have played us like a fiddle, like lamb to slaughter we are laid waste by a drenching of tears. Why does the final hospital scene hit us so hard? I can hardly figure. A boy, his friend, his brother and his parents. And yet, it makes us consider life at such a considerable degree that we are diced upon a table, our feelings offered up as sacrifice, long since deep and covered feelings we didn't even know we had. This is the emotional crux of the movie, but finding Violet's major at last, and finding that a letter would unlock their relationship at last and the major could forgive himself to love again, is a very nice ending. Gotta' admit, Kyoani played me like a fiddle. I expected this to fizzle out into wrote cliches for days, but they got me, they got me hard. The structure of the movie was actually brilliant. I was poison pilled by that hospital scene, I got struck full in the face. I would've told you I wasn't a crier, before last night anyways. All of the thoughts and feelings of the series and the event came back in waves. And you felt for the studio, the people who worked there, and the long arc of these people's work. Somehow they were able to put into a movie feelings you didn't consciously recall about the event or the series, all in one. I would recommend watching the series first. I would also recommend watching movies before reading reviews, as if everyone on planet earth didn't already know that, it's what a review section is supposed to be for. "I UGLY cried to this movie, like, literally balled uncontrollably during the final hospital scene, just, totally lost control and fell apart kind of cry. Japan struck their arrow to my heart and my dams broke. Haha, but the structure of this movie is very smart. So, we have a girl who's fighting with her parents for some reason. Snooze, bore. And of course it's the girl who's mother received the letters from HER mother, written by the doll solider, Violet Evergarden. This beginning section serves to be quite boring and ultra-cliched. But it totally disarms the viewer and puts them in a neutral emotional state. We don't expect what's coming. "Oh, Kyoani lost its way, this movie is terrible, I'm so bored, let's go for a sleep then." So you march through the mud in endless cliches as the movie gives you: a girl who's parents are fighting with her for some reason because grandma is gone and work a little too hard. A girl who goes off somewhere to search up the history of grandma's letters, and eyeroll of eyerolls, the WIND, the stupid WIND, snatches a letter from her grasp and we get the usual cliched 'pretty streets and people shopping during the day' which you assume, ho-boy, this film is going to be obnoxious. So the viewer feels safe. "No surprises in this one!" The movie ramps us up to speed with the story. As a partial standalone movie and as a sequel, it tries to bring both viewers into the fold. The girl with her letters for standalone, for the ignorant viewer, and the insider, as the movie ramps up and we get a finish on the anime story from the original 13 episodes. But obviously, this takes a a long time in coming. Who are these characters? I barely remember them! You will say this to yourself if like me you lasted through the pandemic and only remembered the 2010's by random one day once all the insanity was over. Don't laugh, Putin's still got the hangover. Violet the movie sets up in-the-know and out-of-the-know viewers in its first 30 minutes. Finally we get to a plot point where Violet meets a boy in a hospital. Which you assume, EYEROLL, another crying Kyoani cliche: boy in hospital wants letters. This won't affect me at all! We assume. And next, Violet fights with people, not accepting compliments from a rich funder of her letter for a ceremony at sea, and she fights with the brother of the major--her former lover? In some ways, yes. We all assume these are all dumb cliches. "Boy, I barely remember this series, maybe it wasn't as good as I recall." And in the second half of the film, the damn breaks. The letter is from the major! So we're finishing up that timeline, are we? That's random, but it had to end somehow and we figure it would've. Violet has made a promise to the boy in the hospital, and time is short. Suffice to say, we are not expecting to be absolutely WALLOPED by Kyoani in the last stage of this movie. We are not expecting this story to hit us straight in the balls like a final courageous tribute to those lost in its terrorism incident. And yet, Kyo has set us up, they have played us like a fiddle, like lamb to slaughter we are laid waste by a drenching of tears. Why does the final hospital scene hit us so hard? I can hardly figure. A boy, his friend, his brother and his parents. And yet, it makes us consider life at such a considerable degree that we are diced upon a table, our feelings offered up as sacrifice, long since deep and covered feelings we didn't even know we had. This is the emotional crux of the movie, but finding Violet's major at last, and finding that a letter would unlock their relationship at last and the major could forgive himself to love again, is a very nice ending. Gotta' admit, Kyoani played me like a fiddle. I expected this to fizzle out into wrote cliches for days, but they got me, they got me hard. The structure of the movie was actually brilliant. I was poison pilled by that hospital scene, I got struck full in the face. I would've told you I wasn't a crier, before last night anyways. All of the thoughts and feelings of the series and the event came back in waves. And you felt for the studio, the people who worked there, and the long arc of these people's work. Somehow they were able to put into a movie feelings you didn't consciously recall about the event or the series, all in one. I would recommend watching the series first. I would also recommend watching movies before reading reviews, as if everyone on planet earth didn't already know that, it's what a review section is supposed to be for. I UGLY cried to this movie, like, literally balled uncontrollably during the final hospital scene, just, totally lost control and fell apart kind of cry. Japan struck their arrow to my heart and my dams broke. Haha, but the structure of this movie is very smart. So, we have a girl who's fighting with her parents for some reason. Snooze, bore. And of course it's the girl who's mother received the letters from HER mother, written by the doll solider, Violet Evergarden. This beginning section serves to be quite boring and ultra-cliched. But it totally disarms the viewer and puts them in a neutral emotional state. We don't expect what's coming. "Oh, Kyoani lost its way, this movie is terrible, I'm so bored, let's go for a sleep then." So you march through the mud in endless cliches as the movie gives you: a girl who's parents are fighting with her for some reason because grandma is gone and work a little too hard. A girl who goes off somewhere to search up the history of grandma's letters, and eyeroll of eyerolls, the WIND, the stupid WIND, snatches a letter from her grasp and we get the usual cliched 'pretty streets and people shopping during the day' which you assume, ho-boy, this film is going to be obnoxious. So the viewer feels safe. "No surprises in this one!" The movie ramps us up to speed with the story. As a partial standalone movie and as a sequel, it tries to bring both viewers into the fold. The girl with her letters for standalone, for the ignorant viewer, and the insider, as the movie ramps up and we get a finish on the anime story from the original 13 episodes. But obviously, this takes a a long time in coming. Who are these characters? I barely remember them! You will say this to yourself if like me you lasted through the pandemic and only remembered the 2010's by random one day once all the insanity was over. Don't laugh, Putin's still got the hangover. Violet the movie sets up in-the-know and out-of-the-know viewers in its first 30 minutes. Finally we get to a plot point where Violet meets a boy in a hospital. Which you assume, EYEROLL, another crying Kyoani cliche: boy in hospital wants letters. This won't affect me at all! We assume. And next, Violet fights with people, not accepting compliments from a rich funder of her letter for a ceremony at sea, and she fights with the brother of the major--her former lover? In some ways, yes. We all assume these are all dumb cliches. "Boy, I barely remember this series, maybe it wasn't as good as I recall." And in the second half of the film, the damn breaks. The letter is from the major! So we're finishing up that timeline, are we? That's random, but it had to end somehow and we figure it would've. Violet has made a promise to the boy in the hospital, and time is short. Suffice to say, we are not expecting to be absolutely WALLOPED by Kyoani in the last stage of this movie. We are not expecting this story to hit us straight in the balls like a final courageous tribute to those lost in its terrorism incident. And yet, Kyo has set us up, they have played us like a fiddle, like lamb to slaughter we are laid waste by a drenching of tears. Why does the final hospital scene hit us so hard? I can hardly figure. A boy, his friend, his brother and his parents. And yet, it makes us consider life at such a considerable degree that we are diced upon a table, our feelings offered up as sacrifice, long since deep and covered feelings we didn't even know we had. This is the emotional crux of the movie, but finding Violet's major at last, and finding that a letter would unlock their relationship at last and the major could forgive himself to love again, is a very nice ending. Gotta' admit, Kyoani played me like a fiddle. I expected this to fizzle out into wrote cliches for days, but they got me, they got me hard. The structure of the movie was actually brilliant. I was poison pilled by that hospital scene, I got struck full in the face. I would've told you I wasn't a crier, before last night anyways. All of the thoughts and feelings of the series and the event came back in waves. And you felt for the studio, the people who worked there, and the long arc of these people's work. Somehow they were able to put into a movie feelings you didn't consciously recall about the event or the series, all in one. I would recommend watching the series first. I had long forgotten about Violet Evergarden because of the pandemic. I'm glad I returned.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Aug 9, 2021
Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san
(Anime)
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Nagatoro is a young girl who crushes on her senpai after finding in him something she wants: an honest guy. Or she just likes him. Either way, Nagatoro is an anime about a freshman girl crushing on her art-loving sophomore senpai.
The art is great, this animation style is very fluid. Sound is very good and up to spec. Characters, well, you get used to them. Hachiouji and Nagatoro's friends become a decent group by the end, and Sunomiya, Hachiouji's senpai, is a bit too generic. The story is alright, but this anime is just a teaser for the manga so if you want the ... whole thing, you'll have to read the manga, which is considerable after finishing the anime, so: mission accomplished. Enjoyment: Who doesn't enjoy Nagatoro's whimsy? She's a great character and this lovey-dovey couple is always fun to watch grow. Overall, Nagatoro was a brief seasonal ad for the manga worth enjoying. One imagines the manga must be pretty good so reading it would be worth the time. I like that the characters are honest about their feelings for each other by the end of this first season. I wouldn't mind more anytime. But did it live up to the hype? Maybe not quite so, since the story is not as cut and dry as Nagatoro bullying her senpai. Rather this is just a good love story slice of life like some others. Nagatoro is an iconic character because of her grimacing, leering faces, but this is just how a freshman would act. Overall, Nagatoro is a pretty good love story for which its story may justify a lower seven score but its art, good production values and iconic character, plus its stellar enjoyment from being a slapstick comedy, may push it over into very good territory. For me personally, it fell into a very good 8 score. But my soul without comparison feels a 9 since I would really enjoy a movie or a second season. Failing that, maybe I'll check out the manga. I just really got caught up in their love story and want to see how far they go or if the story introduces another character worth considering, like a rival--all love triangles introduce a rival. So I feel like at end of S1 we're on the precipice of a new character/possible rival who could spice the story up and push Hachiouji and Nagatoro to the brink. So overall, a very successful project, but since it was early in the manga, the generic Sunomiya storyline felt a bit too tacky. My hope would be that the story gets a bit better in its next arcs. In general: enjoyable seasonal, worth checking out, not a masterpiece, but you should have fun.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Aug 9, 2021
Fruits Basket: The Final
(Anime)
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Fruits Basket is good, you should watch it. There, the mystery is solved.
So this has about 200K rates thus far. The first season has 500k rates. So, a lot of people couldn't stay up for the journey of pain and madness that Fruits Basket endures. I guess it was all too much of a commitment. But if you're thinking about endeavoring Fruits Baskets' wild psychological traumas, the final season makes it worth it in every sense. One: I prefer the dub, but the Japanese VAs did a very serious job that adds a lot of drama to everything. I found this atmosphere insufferable. Likely ... a lot of sub vets and people who've read the manga won't be perturbed but the dub keeps things light and fun enough that I just drill through this series. I really found my watch-rate increase with the dub. Anti-dubbers will argue it makes the series more cartoony and 'funny'. It reminded me of the tone of the original 2001 adaptation, which I always adored, so dub mode is definitely the way to go for me. As for the story, it's superfluous. You should definitely watch Fruits Basket for the story. Tohru is a girl who has been captured by life's vices and pitfalls, but she finds friends who lift her up. Consequently, her friends need help too. This is a story about how Tohru and her new friends find solace together and build a new future and life together from the ashes of abuse--psychological and physical--, tears and traumas. The story pulls no punches. Fruits Basket really gets into the mental side of traumas and hardships. These people are all pulled together against their will and personalities clash hard. You will feel sorry for everybody before the final episode. The opening and endings songs are superfluous, not a single one of them is really bad, which is so rare. Clearly, the studio TMS Entertainment was going for broke. And bless them, they pulled it off. The series art is done in soft pastel colors, as fits with a classic shoujo series. So you get a very soft, hazy palette but with modern technology. This makes for an interesting contrast, between the heavy emotions of the characters and the lighthearted art. So we get a light, fluffy feel and look with a drastically heavy toll in psychological trauma. This contrast makes the series pop even more than it would have and was clearly the right choice as art directions go. Now, as far as enjoyment, one does need to probably know that this is not an easy series to travail. Climbing the mountain of personal traumas, whispered hatreds and total psychological trauma could drag the viewer down. I think most viewers will get through season one alright on their own, it's its own little masterpiece in a way. What stands out is how difficult things get for the characters in the second season. The whinging emotions of the characters, crying, anger, depression, will get to you. It got to me, and I felt a need to escape this show more than a few times. I won't lie, second season is difficult. It has a really great payoff in its final episodes but it languishes so much pain on the viewer between first arc and the beginning of its second arc, that one may need to take a break. And in second season one may inevitably feel like they cannot go on and it is not worth it. I feel it is appropriate to take a break if you must. Fruits Basket probably isn't something you should binge. The second season was definitely the point where I had to switch to dub and also take a really big break with something more light hearted. But at some point, you should swallow the hard pill because Final Season is extraordinary, and I think the final S2 twist will push you to want to finish this series as quickly as you can. It is certainly an emotional rollercoaster but once you get to the top, coming back down is a smash. The characters are all built to an extraordinary degree and are the strength of this show. Nothing else needs to be said, you should be latching onto these characters and every little conceit they show. As far as sound, this isn't a movie, it's an anime series. The sound is what you expect. Overall, Fruits Basket is something you'll want to eventually watch and finish, even if you don't do so immediately and take breaks in between, it's quite a journey. Comparison: FMAB: The Guns of Navarone (1961). A WWII action movie with Anthony Quinn, Gregory Peck and David Niven. A rollicking action joyride. But some heart along the way. Fruits Basket: Meryl Streep crying over and over and over again. Definitely a tear-jerking shoujo about emotions and feelings, but something that energizes and and lifts you up by the end. Terms of Endearment, Kramer vs Kramer. Trigun: a great sci-fi epic in the old west, Bladerunner mostly. Original Fruits Basket: a basket full of puppies that hug you over and over again. New Fruits Basket: the puppies bite you over and over again until you are consumed by the zombie puppies, only to feel better about everything because they were actually eating your original sins and unhappiness. Awe. Outlaw Star: Big Trouble in Little China, Kim Cattrall and Kurt Russell. AOT: The Ghost and the Darkness 3-Gatsu no Lion: When Harry Met Sally/Crimes and Misdemeanors. Fruits Basket is mostly going to be tears and catharsis, but I don't know why more people won't watch "criers". 3-Gatsu only has 200-300K votes. I guess it goes to show that action is always more mindless and popular. Blood and war, that's all good and fine, adventure is exciting. But I suppose emotions are much more kept in and not exposed. A lot of people don't want to put themselves through something that is going to draw in a lot of emotions. The same goes for Higurashi, which manipulates emotions in the name of horror. I guess a lot of people are intuitively scared of emotions. Action is by far the most popular thing here, but as soon as you start talking about trauma, guilt and psychological abuse, people run away from these things that are natural to humanity and life, but can be painful. I feel like frank discussions about emotions can be good, but I think newbie viewers are going to watch easy action stuff first. I suppose things like Fruits Basket may be for the more seasoned viewer, but I think you will learn something about yourself and others watching this series. You leave yourself open to the rawer side of life and expose yourself to the psychological emotions of other people so you can learn from it and feel better when you overcome it. I feel like Fruits Basket has so much to tell us about life, that is will be ever-valuable as a piece of art. I kind of wish the same number of people debating great action series would give more emotional things a try. It is not an effeminate thing to watch Fruits Basket or series with women and tears. I think it is more brave to face the person you are within, or just as brave, as wars and fighting and brutality. Because what else is Tohru but a very brave person who faces all her failings and positives, sorts them out, and discusses them with people so she can lift everyone up out of their personal swamps of aggression, depression and mindless acceptance? I would caution people who enjoy entertainment to give emotional things a chance, I think there is much value in something like Fruits Basket. Tohru's journey from putting everything on herself to accepting the help of others and helping those others is very honest and brave. I don't think one thing is necessarily more masculine or feminine than the other, rather these are universal human emotions. And you will gain much from Fruits Basket.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Aug 1, 2021
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
(Anime)
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Well well well....FMA. Yep, this is the one, the big one, the one everybody likes, the top anime of [i]all time[/i]. The anime you're [i]supposed[/i] to like and [i]have to[/i] like.
Uh, so, this anime has serious issues, but nothing to do with foreign watchers or people who aren't Japanese. Look, the Ishvalan War thing is a dangerous territory for the Japanese. They actively try to ignore their history during WWII and don't go to much lengths to teach this history in schools. And tbh, to not teach about an atrocity is to commit the atrocity over and over again a thousand times. Japan still ... has petty battles with S. Korea about the comfort women, which was basically slavery. And much could be said about how characters in FMA are basically war criminals. Now, depending on your view of war, this is either good or bad. I can't help but feel the author is trying to create an excuse for war criminals. "They will lead a good life now so everything is fine!" "War criminals should not be prosecuted and hanged" But in Germany they were, in Japan they were not, many were let go. So Japan got a 'special deal' after WWII, and the elders of Japanese society decided to hide these crimes and censor them. If you have any doubts, lookup Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrined war criminals and also has been accused of war loser's apologism against the United States. And you know, there's going to be some nuts and nationalists in every country. Hirohito it should be said was not pleased with Yasukuni's actions, and emperors and emperesses have not visited. So that's something. And you may say, what's that got to do with FMA? Well, a whole heck of a lot, because these pernicious attitudes show up again in Brotherhood. Maes Hughes, Hawkeye and Colonel Mustang all participate as class A war criminals in FMA and are seen as empathetic, good characters. The only character who wouldn't be a class A war criminal is Louis Armstrong. And the Elrich brothers support the state of Amestris' military who committed the war crimes. I think to S. Korean and Chinese people, watching a series about war criminals who commit atrocities and human experimentation is going to be a bit of a 'miss'. Part of this history is why S. Korean, Chinese to Japanese relations aren't as great as they could be, because Japan seems to refuse to acknowledge what they really did, that it was wrong, apologize and properly atone for their actions. This arrogance could be harmful in the future, especially considering growing Chinese nationalism these days. It's very concerning. So on that basis, the series has extreme, legitimate issues about war. A racial genocide just hangs like a sore fruit through the series. I can't tell how much the author knows about her country's history, or if FMA was meant to be war loser's apologism for young Japanese. I'm not Japanese! But it's highly suspicious. But this is really for Japanese and the Asian-Pacific theater countries. A lot of us are American and only think of Germany after the war, we don't consider Chinese genocide or Korean slavery by Japan during WWII. So, I guess I'll view it through the perspective of a western audience. Now that we have the hard politics out of the way, which you can make your own decision about, this adaptation is a full-on masterpiece. The music, character movement, story pace, are absolutely great! If you can forget about WWII war atrocities for a few minutes, it really is a breathtakingly beautiful series. In fact, tbh, this is more of a 32-hour long movie than an anime series in the classical sense. So, a shounen series that steals notes from Berserk adapted in movie quality is going to be hard to beat. It's some of the best cinematography in an 'anime series' you'll ever see outside Kyoto Animation or something. The direction is phenomenal and nearly every episode or action sequence has immense sakuga animation. It doesn't get a whole lot better. The adaptation of this anime? A ten, a full perfect ten, full-stop, no doubt, absolute perfect ten. Yep. Especially pretty is the Hohenheim episode where his philosopher stone victim/friends are dancing with him or he is having a dream. Very beautiful episode. You'll hardly see better outside of Mamoru Oshii movies. The way it looks, moves, flows, directed, pacing, tone, hitting on the mark (action coinciding with dialogue and the drama/plot of the story on time) are the best you'll probably ever see in anime. So, they budgeted a great all-time adaptation for this series. Which is why you should not skip any episodes. EVEN IF YOU HAVE WATCHED FMA 2003, WATCH FROM EPISODE ONE, since it adds to the epic pace and grandioseness of the story. Don't skip a darn one, start from one and move to 64. So no doubts about Bones' efforts here. So then the story. Well, it's a woman's story, and I'm not a woman. But it's nice. It's your classic collectivist shounen: friends make me complete and oh what would my life be without friends!? Which is basically the same as Gintama, Naruto and One Piece. Which makes it where I can't help but feel that this whole thing summates to Berserk-influence + Naruto Shippuden + extra steps. I couldn't make heads or tails out of what the author meant in regards to the homunculus and [spoiler]his desire for knowledge [/spoiler]or why he was wrong. None of it makes a lot of sense, and near the end we get into character-action-convenience to solve plot problems, like Kimblee showing up in Pride at the last minute to thwart his plans. Also, if you punch people hard enough, they will die. The only way to [spoiler]beat father is to punch him hard enough[/spoiler]. So, punching is really the solution for all of life's problems. Which is just like Naruto, One Piece, Gintama and every other shounen in existence. (Naruto Shippuden with extra steps). The plot has a lot of conveniences and deus ex machinas, something I don't like in my best stories. Stuff doesn't make sense and isn't explained, like the lore of the homunculus or his motivations until the very last minute. Nor are they completely satisfactory. They're merely good enough to 'pass with a C'. So it's best not to spend much time on the philosophy, lore or history of this series, which is just like all or most shounens in that regard. So, the story? 4? It's not that great. In my head it's around a two, but since it's just anime I'd put it higher. It's not worth debating much because all shounen is the same. Who cares? Nobody is going to read much into the story, especially considering the fact that the main theme is human humbleness, and the fans of this show downvote other shows that get even close to it in the charts. So nobody is watching this for some masterpiece story. Comparison? There's the fun. [i]HXH[/i] Togashi is a masterful storyteller who doesn't need a masterpiece adaptation to make masterpieces, just give him good enough. Winner: HXH. [i]One Piece[/i] There's a reason Oda-sensei is top of his game, his stories are ingenious and work like clever clocks. The adaptation is good enough. Winner: OP [i]AOT[/i] Uh, AOT is all over the place and its lore is WAY worse and less clear than Brohood. Winner: Brohood [i]Gintama[/i] Uh, Gintama is all over the place and mostly a comedy, it's not a fair comparison since Gintama never promised to be anything other than a lampoon of shounens. Winner: Brohood [i]Fruits Basket[/i] Who cares? One's a shounen written by a woman's pov, the other is a shoujo through a woman's pov, if anything they're similar. Winner: Brohood [i]Steins;Gate[/i] SG is all over the place and its second half is regressive. Winner: Brohood [i]Monster[/i] Monster is one of the greatest anime series, and probably an influence on Brohood. Winner: Monster [i]Cowboy Bebop+movie[/i] Bebop is an all-time masterpiece with a ridiculously good ending. Winner: tie [i]Evangelion+movie[/i] Brotherhood wouldn't be here without Eva. Winner: Eva, of course! [i]Demon Slayer+Mugen Train[/i] Be serious. Winner: Brohood [i]JoJo's[/i] JoJos is too much fun and far too brilliant with intricate plots. Winner: JoJo [i]Monogatari[/i] Monogatari has this wrapped up from the first episode, since it's not average shounencore. Winner: Monogatari, but it's the greatest AOAT, so not a hard choice. As a movie, Brohood is okay. Akira and most Oshiis are better. It's simply a cinematic fandaptation of another shounen, so it's an in-universe adaptation, like any Naruto movie. Same class as Naruto Shippuden films. Yeah, so it's okay, but people are trying way too hard to turn a molehill into a mountain with this series. It's got its idiosyncratic Japaneseness like anything else. Don't like lolis? Try war atrocities on, how does that fit you? All anime are anime. Really, the only universal animes that don't fall into this trap are the big shounens: My Hero Academia, One Piece, Naruto. Extremely popular stuff, but anything will have a bit of its nation's influence stuck into it, that's natural. Also, I'm not saying America doesn't have southern civil war losers' apologism or voting rights suppression or The Trail of Tears or Japanese internment camps, but we teach those things in school and people are aware of them and discuss them openly. We don't hide from the bad things we have done, and if people do they get caught and left to rot on Twitter or bad press. Our first amendment is supposed to mean we talk about everything, nothing is hidden. Maybe we don't always live up to it but we try. All bad, rotten things should see the light of day, don't hide from them, and don't inculcate an apologist's propaganda to somehow 'forgive' yourself of your sins so you can just move past them without discussing them. That's how the problem resurfaces generations later. You have to be open and honest and discuss your faults as much as your glories. You can't be perfect, but you can try. Which I thought was a low bar. Either way, watching this series from the bottom up was a fun experience. It's a pretty good movie in the FMA universe. And the ending is pretty cool. I wish I hadn't skipped the first twenty episodes years back on Reddit advice, that was dumb. And since most people voting on here aren't Japanese, you can enjoy this series at least 70% without considering the problematic Japanese war history that their elders should've dealt with generations ago. I agree that this series is going to be hard to beat since it's 32-hours of movie quality with a pretty good story. It's also somewhat pro-mothers and women and feminist which is a good point. But if it was up to women, men wouldn't tinker with technology and would've been fine staying in their hut with their children and never arguing with their wife. As a man, I can tell you, that way lies insanity. So considering the censored war history and wrong view of war criminals, this pernicious angle cancels out the good of the feminism for me, which I didn't ask for in the first place. So all its left with is faulty plot mechanics of convenience to tie together the story the author wanted, all neat and clean. Personally, I like a story dirtier, ragged, edgier, breaking through the polite walls of heart and hearth and seeing the free world and breathing the clean air. I want to break through. So, not necessarily my bag but I guess I can respect it if it's your thing. There are other series and anime I want to see get this good of an adaptation and I have a hard time believing I'm ever going to get it, which leads to the question: why this series? Why did FMA receive SUCH a good adaptation? Because of sales? Or because it logicalizes Japan's war history for them? Hmmmm, just a question I'll leave out there. I won't bash people who enjoy this series, just as long as you consider the implications of the war stuff and consider it thoughtfully. Overall it's pretty good and worth remembering, but it may be the most problematic manga in the canon. Hey, the author brought it up, not me!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 28, 2021
Nettaigyo wa Yuki ni Kogareru
(Manga)
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Mixed Feelings Preliminary
(34/34 chp)
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THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!
Welp, the infamous A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow is over. As one of the people pushing this series earlier in its run, I regret doing so. I'm sorry to anyone who got sucked up into this sad-fest. Clearly, obviously, for anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear, Tropical Fish was a yuri manga from the get-go. The characters have a romantic rendezvous on a tropical island, have a date with yukatas, and everyone is going "Squeee!" in excitement as their relationship is close to beginning. And then, in a complete blindside, the two are broken up. They both get ... utterly depressed and stop talking to each other. They spend their days being depressed to the point of suicidal ideation and literally questioning life. Koyuki (the taller, blue haired girl on the cover) doesn't know how to handle her classmates or responsibilities, being a daddy's girl all her life. She quits aquarium club and begins to be like...every other girl in the history of the universe, hanging out with the cool crowd and accepting all their whims and conforming perfectly, as she prepares for bio-marine college. Konatsu instead befriends Koyuki's old friend, Kaede, a vivacious girl with mean teen spirit. Kaede knows Koyuki is a gnome of a girl so Kaede becomes Konatsu's actual high school best friend. And Kaede develops a thing with Koyuki's younger brother, because she's fun. Konatsu spends a lot of her time getting darkly depressed in a black, bleak world of tears and loneliness while gnomish Koyuki embraces the popular crowd. Konatsu is left holding open the bag in metaphorical life terms. So most of this manga which was initially about Koyuki finding "friendship" becomes Konatsu "finding sanity again". And things are sad. Things get so sad that we lose all connection to what this manga is supposed to be. It was literally a 'Konatsu is sad' manga. She loses her possible friend/girlfriend, starts hanging out with the vivacious girl, and tries to overcome the emotional violence done to her by Koyuki--who is a gnome who doesn't know how to handle people or what they need. So by the end of the story, we regard Koyuki as the kind of person who will ignore people and lose many friends because she's so insular. Konatsu will be damaged by numerous people because she does not have the confidence to speak out, and Kaede will be fine and marry Koyuki's younger brother someday when she's a model in Tokyo. Overall, it's a fine mess. Many people were baited by the early chapters of the series to believe this was a yuri love story. It was apparent and obvious and only a liar would say different. The pages literally exuded future yuri love story at every turn. The hug after an aquarium club event was about as gay as it gets. Luckily Koyuki knew better. (; And the two main characters continue to call each other little nicknames after Konatsu's depression spiral has ended. You're my little salamander, with their big tongues and long bodies and being wet all the time--oh, but I ain't gay and I ain't talking to you anymore, because you know, that would be weird. Indeed, it was weird! So they stopped talking to each other forever. Koyuki keeps it purely professional after that hug, and leaves Konatsu alone to get depressed and confused and nearly fall apart, while Kaede attempts to fix the damage done. Overall, Kaede was a good character, Koyuki is frustrating, and Konatsu is moreso. Don't teenagers have cellphones? Not in this part of the world. Nor mouths or legs to speak or run after somebody. A lot of people have tried to defend this series which deflated so precipitously from its glorious beginnings, but frankly they don't have a leg to stand on. They try to say it was never going to be a yuri series, well, could've fooled me, and it appears you fooled everyone. That's called misdirection no matter how you dress it up. "I said in the beginning..." Uh, no you didn't. No one did and no you didn't, and this started out as a yuri romance. So, considering the story just from a, "these two girls will have really hot boyfriends in Tokyo," angle, man, what a confusing frenzy of emotions. So in that context, two girls hug and have a great time together, only for Koyuki to literally go missing from their relationship and Konatsu not to even get a hold on her wrist and have a serious discussion after class--because they're deathly afraid of talking to each other. Well then, bless people like Kaede who are extroverts and want to be friends with everybody like a good little puppy-dog. This is why a dog is man's best friend. But I wouldn't call Koyuki's actions those of a cat, more like a gerbil. Hibernating through winter and not giving a damn about the rest of the world. The story definitely starts out as a Koyuki/Konatsu thing. But artificially, it becomes a Konatsu/Kaede thing. They're just good little Tokyo girls at heart. And Koyuki will always be that lonely girl out on the widow's walk, searching for her departed husband who was thrashed by the sea. Or...departed wife? Koyuki had strong gay vibes coming from her the whole story, and so did Konatsu, this is absolutely undeniable. Look, I get it, at some point the team decided the story would be something else than how it began. That's cool. But write that story from the beginning. For one, if no gay vibes (there never were in the first place! Fugah!), give Koyuki a personality. Literally that's the biggest hammer in the thread of fictional contents in this story. Who in the HELL is Koyuki? I still don't know, nobody does. And mangakas do this (most often in yuri stories) often, such as in Citrus, with the mysterious Mei who cannot be discerned. And we cannot discern Koyuki. She's a daddy's girl who will be a marine biologist and...she likes water? We don't know. We know more about her brother and Konatsu and Kaede, and her dad and mom. But maybe that's the point? Koyuki is an indiscernible gnome, we can never know her purpose. What she is, what she will do? We will never know. And don't get me started on the reunion of Koyuki and Konatsu at the end of the manga, nobody in the world is buying that. They don't talk to each other for a year and suddenly, "You're my salamander"? God, does Koyuki even get it then, at the very end of the story, that Konatsu wanted a special friendship? How can Koyuki be so dense? It's unpossible. There are a lot of normie-het stories where some high school girls have a fight and then get over it. So give Koyuki a boyfriend or something, or Konatsu...but I guess the manga isn't about relationships. But make Koyuki just a normal, overbearing girl like every other story. This manga becomes like every other Japanese manga. Two girls start a friendship, have a fight and find a boyfriend, or another group of friends to hang out with. That's how they all go. In every other story, Koyuki is a strong tsundere who wants to hang out at school and insults her sensitive friend Konatsu. Konatsu then hangs out with bookworm Kaede--except things are reversed here because this is an outlands manga--this takes place in that special world in Japan that isn't a city. It's a tourist beach town. But if Koyuki isn't the main character and she doesn't drive the story forward, what purpose is there for her? I guess she's the conflict, the antagonist, the girl who won't hang out because daddy tells her it's more important to be a marine biologist, so she does. While Kaede is the only sane one and helps Konatsu get past Koyuki who is worthless as a character and human being. This story is weird. It WAS about Koyuki, but then it's about Kaede, while Konatsu has a mental breakdown. It's just strange. It WAS a yuri, but then it becomes a Seinfeldian (every problem could have been solved with a cellphone) high school drama. "Why don't you hang out at club anymore?" "Leave me alone, I'm not a gay like you are," "But you were the one hugging ME!" "Away from me, you gay! A curse be upon all humanity which does not swim in the wonderful, pure blue ocean which all girls truly love, whales and other sea mammals." Poor Konatsu, she's just the gimp of this story, absorbing all the pain and anguish while Koyuki lives her normal insular world and Kaede is there to pick up the emotional/support pieces. How do you not read this story and despise how selfish Koyuki was? How aloof she is, how much she isolates herself from friendships and more. She feels like the kind of person who is too much of a daddy's girl to ever step outside and accept other people for what they are. But Konatsu could've shown her that, right? Koyuki is reaching out with that hug, begging for someone to accept her as a human, more than a daughter, and Konatsu does, and her punishment is isolation, the same as Koyuki. The epic sadness arc in this series, which takes up a good 80% of the run, is inevitably going to be controversial. It doesn't have much of a purpose other than to be pain-torture porn for Konatsu's loneliness and emotions. Koyuki never has any idea about it, going aloof into preparing for college. Kaede, being Konatsu's same age, sees all this from a mile away and picks up the pieces. Yes, I suppose in Japan, preparing for college is a serious time, at a specific year in one's high school life. And I should mention that Koyuki is a year older than Konatsu. But damnit, that doesn't give Koyuki any right to be so oblivious about everything. I'm not sure what was going on with her this whole time--because we're never told--but you just about harmed this girl as much as is possible. You weren't waving to each other in a hallway between classes, you two were as close as it's possible for humans to be without taking their clothes off. So what is going through your head? I come out of this series loving the meaning of Kaede: being there for other people in a time of need, noticing social cues, and giving your time and emotions to a person like Konatsu because they need help. Of course having grown up in this village-like place in the boonies, Kaede knows Koyuki and what she's like, that isolationist attitude insular villagers have. And so she protects Konatsu from this harm. She looks out for her, God bless her. Konatsu is an ex-Tokyo girl placed in an outlands village on some wharf next to the sea. She is looking for a friend, and KAEDE of all people is there for her, after KONATSU was THERE for KOYUKI. How freaking selfish can you be to just drop out of this girl's life after she supported YOU through a tough time? Ugh. Of course Koyuki has her full family, while Konatsu's mother has passed and her father is too much of a rolling stone to be around, and Kaede misses her sisters quite a lot. So it's a perfect match in that way, but by the end of the manga I cannot forgive Koyuki no matter what she does or says. And the author tries to pull us back in and relate to the beginning of the manga--which we're about a thousand sea miles from at this time. And we're supposed to accept Koyuki back into the fold, and see Konatsu and Koyuki as friends. But sorry, not seeing it and not accepting it. This whole 'salamander' metaphor they try to write in has lost its meaning since the early chapters of the story. We've since seen the manga become a depression novel about a Japanese wharf outpost for teenage high school girls. I can't accept the cutesy nicknames and metaphors. Things were way too dead-serious for me to ever accept Koyuki as a good person I want to see good things happen to, she's the antagonist and bully of this manga, she's the enemy. Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing Koyuki utterly destroyed by the end of the manga for her arrogance and insularity, she deserves it. Konatsu deserves all the good things coming to her, and her good friend Kaede does as well. But I won't forgive Koyuki no matter how many cute nicknames you try to give her. And in the second-to-last chapter the author gives us some fluff between Konatsu and Koyuki, but I'm not buying it. I'm not buying that these two have a real relationship anymore. It would be impossible for anyone to forgive Koyuki in Konatsu's position. Overall, the author didn't write a very good story, simply because they had no plan for what they were doing. I feel like they definitely winged the whole thing. It's no masterpiece. They surely mished and mashed the pieces of A Tropical Fish from beginning to end, throwing in a little of this, trying a little bit of that. One can admire the epic scale of the story and ability to contain characters to their own personality such that we have a solid narrative we can bounce interpretations off of. That's certainly one thing. Another thing is the lack of ability to pull all those elements together, which the author did not. But I feel like there are enough positive strengths as far as storytelling goes, which were shown here, to make a better story the next go-around. I hope that's what happens. Clearly this was a hodgepodge of elements of storytelling: depression, high school relationships, a bit of yuri--okay, a LOT of yuri--and decent dialogues and honest conversations. I'd say 60-80% of this was decent to good, but put into the context of the tale's structure, its angle from A to B, it was surely a failure. But future readers may be interested in whatever roughshod results were achieved here. They will surely be mystified by the overall structure to begin with, but grow warmer attachment to what the story became: a tale of resolution. Kaede and Konatsu prove themselves stronger through their pain. I don't think Koyuki was redeemable and in the story she becomes a third wheel as the author realizes they're boring and ill-conceived. But the two side characters became the real story and that should give the mangaka some runway for their next project. So I would be interested in what else they come up with. If anything, this story tried to be a real tale of people in a more geographically isolated part of Japan facing what it means to be out of the Tokyo loop. Yes, if you see the story through this prism from the get-go, I think you should get more out of it. It reminds me of the recent anime adaptation Higurashi Gou in that regard, in that, out of the Tokyo-orbit, bad things can happen and horror stories ensue. That's the real moral lesson of A Tropical Fish, that rural people struggle through things city people do not, and that dichotomy lends itself to challenges a city person couldn't imagine. In a rural context this manga was excellent. Just stop trying to make it a yuri or yuri-apologism in the end and all sins can be forgiven. Write the story as it is. Be honest. Perhaps you think I've been too harsh, but I really did foresee something in this manga which did not come to be, and many people will feel that way. But enjoy it for what it is and there is value here.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 13, 2018
Darling in the FranXX
(Anime)
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Recommended
Another day, another Trigger masterpiece. This was quite a series. Most of the criticism is going to come from the last 4-5 episodes. Apparently, whoever wrote that watched quite a bit of Macross and reimagined it. If you have a critique for this show, I would remind you to familiarize yourself with the reference material, perhaps with the movie Do You Remember Love? It's one of the finest anime movies, series whatever from the early 80s.
In Macross, the humans on earth fight anti-loving organisms who hate personality and feelings. Macross also featured dopey pop-songs, of which Darling has in its opening song. Darling's villains ... are called VIRM, which is as good as anything. I was fascinated by the episodes featuring the characters living in a community and getting along with each other as all humans do. In Macross humans must live in a similar postapocalyptic sandscape. Sandscapes were all the rage in the genre, along with cyber cities. Such as Akira. The characters were out of this world, which is a constant with Trigger and carries through here. Little Witch etc, Kill La Kill, Gurren Lagaan, have some of the strongest characters in all of anime in their time (last ten years). It almost seems as if Trigger first strives to create great characters, and then builds off of that. Perhaps they have overused Tsunderes, 002 and the antagonist friend blonde girl in Little Witch. But nothing captures young audiences like tsunderes, so, good business. The love story here was interesting, Trigger usually doesn't rely on it. A1 also had a fair part in this series, but I think the focus on reimagining Macross is what set them together. I loved the ending. I was fascinated by the focus on Japan's demographic shift. They lost 300,000 people from their population last year. The series focuses on an old lesson in a new skin. Loving, relationships, dealing with other people, expressing yourself to others. The series was about socialization, and a humanity that had given up on it. Some of the more opaque symbols were ignorable. Oil, global warming etc. These were second fiddle to Japan's demographic trouble. Such is why sex was focused on, the crazy positions of the pilots. An older earth at battle with space really is a good way to focus on environment--a thing Americans could do well to focus more on. When is Trigger going to get tired of saving anime? I'm not sure. People are probably butthurt that 002 and her boytoy didn't lay down the law in the end, but they'll have a second chance. The endless griping by people about the show also proves its popularity and importance. And as a Macross fan I don't think they tread too heavily on that old story. Rather, I was entertained by the influence, following around about the subtle mentioned things and taking no offense at paying homage. Of course, if you haven't seen Macross from the 80s, even after all the many readaptations, and really didn't understand the story again, the symbol of love should've been enough. I enjoyed the animation, the budget, the way we never knew what was going to happen in the story. All ends were wrapped up, and I enjoyed Darling in the Franxx as a pop series. It was really great, it reminds me of why anime is important. Some may try to demean the characters as dopey, but what was with everyone's obsession over their love story around ep 15? You complain about the end, but they're talking about current events in human history. You'll point to Trigger's favored use of using multicolored main characters in green, pink etc EVERY SINGLE TIME, but I never get tired of their use of color. 002's pink hair was iconic. Trigger does tend to do some of the same things, but we all watched this show. It's a shame to think the complaining still hasn't ended. This series was old-souled. A peon to the 80s spirit of love, hard work, accomplishment. However, their demographic shift in Japan has to do with relationship rights, respect for relationships, as well as working too long into the day. The show references this, such as not believing or living only to fight, but rather fighting to live. Fighting to live could be a great metaphor for current Japan to go by. Most foreigners are concerned for Japan. I'm concerned that they cannot adapt and make anime more profitable for all involved. Yet, by itself, Darling was a phenomenal piece of art with A1. I hope people can appreciate it for what it was. A fine series, really, in the tradition of trigger with some mopey, dopey teenage emotions and romance, and a Macross ending they thought would resonate today. I very much enjoyed this project, and thought the way the writing circled around its subject without copying the original show in the last five episodes was quite the feat! I recommend this show.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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