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Jun 3, 2020
Ascendance of a Bookworm is good. It's very good, but it's got a rocky start.
Story: The show creates a very interesting narrative. The world-building is phenomenal. It does a really great job of showing the dark underbelly of medieval society with church corruption as well as being somewhat educational. The characters all work off of each other really well, but the first few episodes just drag. I can't say to skip them in good conscience because they set up the jumping-off point for the rest of the show with some plot points and Myne growing as a character, but they're so boring and devoid of
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substance (especially given how great the finale is). 8/10
Art: Not much to say here. Its art is amazing to look at. The colors are vibrant, the character designs look great, and the backgrounds feel real. It does exactly what it sets out to accomplish. 10/10
Sound: Nothing to say here. The acting is pretty good. The OP is okay. Not something I would play over and over, but it doesn't sound terrible. 9/10
Character: All the characters are well written, but Myne comes off as slightly irritating in the first 2 episodes. While her love of books is understandable, she obsesses to the point of irritation. By the fifth time she said she "Just wanted a book to read" I wanted to smash my head against a wall. She's still a very likable protagonist and you can tell that she cares deeply for her family, but the first episode is rough. 9/10
Enjoyment: People often say, "If I'm not enjoying it immediately, then there's no use sticking through it," and I'm usually in that camp, but this show is much better than I gave it credit for. If the beginning was less boring this would definitely be in my top 15, but as is, it's still a very good show. 9/10
Overall: Despite its rocky start, this is an anime worth sticking around for. 8/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 18, 2020
Words can hardly express how good this show is. Even if you have a deep hatred for anime, you'll still love this show
Story: If you don't expect the Black Organization stuff to be solved, you will open yourself to some of the most well-written stories ever conceived. It's not just the fantastic mysteries and the culprits that range from heart-wrenchingly sympathetic to downright despicable that make this show great. It's also the fantastic chemistry between the main cast that has also produced more laughs than the overwhelming majority of pure comedy anime.
Sound: No other show comes close to the sheer variety and quality of this
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show's soundtrack. You'll get hyped, think, and cry your heart out to each beautiful track. The voice acting is also top-notch. The voice actors all give perfect performances and even if you don't like dubs you'll still love this.
Character: As alluded to in the story section, every single character is memorable. Cary Mantle was a culprit with very little screentime and I still think about her predicament 84 episodes later. Every character sticks in your mind to the point that they seem like real people.
Enjoyment: My favorite anime of all time (or at least the top 5). The show may have gone down in quality, but all 115 episodes I've seen so far have been so good that they can easily be overlooked.
Overall: I can't stress this enough, even if you hate most mysteries, anime, and cartoons in general; you owe it to yourself to at least watch the first 5 episodes. Pirate it if you have to, this is simply a show that should never be overlooked.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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May 18, 2020
Yet another disappointment. I tried to like this one, I really did, but it's just too bland
Story: Nothing happens. It's entirely centered around the girls' conversations, and 9/10 times they're not saying anything interesting. I'd say I laughed once and that was at Konata's conversation with her dad about lolis. The rest of the humor is reference-based. It's not even parody most of the time. It's just "I know what that is."
Art: This is the saddest part of this show. It looks great. All the characters are adorable and the art style is colorful. There's so much to look at but dear God the
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content is so boring.
Sound: The voice acting is okay if you get past the high pitched voices (Konata, in particular, gives a great performance) and the background music does the job fine, but that opening theme is terrible. The high-pitched screeching and no clear melody make it sound like the auditory equivalent of waterboarding.
Characters: All these characters seem like interesting people. Any of them would be fun to hang out with, but their conversations are so boring.
Enjoyment: This show has the reverse problem of Magia Record. Magia has boring characters in interesting situations, Lucky Star has interesting characters rambling about food and the occasional game or anime.
Overall: I don't get it, and it's not for lack of trying. I may have watched one episode, but I've watched countless compilations of funny moments from the show and I laughed barely ever. I don't want to give this show a bad score, I just don't get it. Someone please, help me see what I'm missing, because as is it's about as interesting as watching paint dry and about as appealing as gnawing on said paint chips
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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May 18, 2020
There has never been a show that has had so much potential and that has been so soul-crushingly mediocre. A bit of background, I came into this with low expectations. I adored the show and the movie but I knew that this was based on a mobile Gatcha Game and so I didn't have high hopes. In spite of this, the show was still massively disappointing.
Story: The overarching narrative is beyond flimsy. The thread is "Magical girls can be saved from becoming witches and Iroha wants to save her sister." These threads go nowhere. I don't have a problem with a flimsy overall narrative if
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the mini-stories are good. There's plenty of great episodic shows, but the episodic material here is trash. Every plot can be summarized with urban legend creates monster, monster gets destroyed in fight scene, overly sappy friendship scene, and dropping vague hints to the main story. The only times I felt emotionally invested were when Iroha fought her dark reflection and when Mami went crazy.
Art: The art is obviously great. This is to be expected from Madoka Magica. The colors are nice, the animation is fluid, and the Labyrinths are creative. My only complaint is that the action scenes are a little muddled at times.
Sound: It's Madoka Magica, we all know the music is great, but none of the tracks stand out. Another disappointment given that I still sing the original OP months after I finished the series
Characters: Iroha and Tsuruno are the only memorable characters and neither of them are particularly deep. Iroha is basically a less deep Madoka. The main reason she really sticks out is that she has a cool design. In spite of her being a copy, her quest to save her sister and her interactions with the other characters make her a passable protagonist. Tsuruno is also your typical bubbly anime girl. She's extremely derivative, but her ambitions and are just interesting enough to make her a passable side character. Everyone else is boring. There's a shape-shifting tsundere, her friend, the boss Magical Girl, and a secretly evil mentor and that's all I remember. Why should I care what happens to these characters? I hope Iroha gets her sister back and I hope Tsuruno's ramen shop does well, and I could not care less for the rest of the cast. That's not to mention the returning characters. They're pretty meaningless. Mami gets barely any screentime, Kyoko is her usual self so she's great, and Sayaka's personality isn't really on display. There is so little depth given to these characters that I could not care less if this entire timeline gets erased as long as Iroha and Tsu get what they want before dying, and even if they don't I'll only be slightly disappointed. WHAT WENT SO WRONG?!?!?!?
Enjoyment: This show is worse than a mediocre show. With most bad shows you can tell after one episode if it's going to suck, but this awful show strings you along with a promise of a better story and spits in your face. It puts out a mystery so you endure the shallow writing, boring characters, and derivative ideas, and then never solves it. I would much rather have a bad show from the start than one that hooks you in and wastes your time.
Overall: Magia Record is like a stage play without actors. They took the time to make an interesting setting but they used planks of wood as characters and forgot to write a cohesive script. The fact that this is the closest we'll ever get to another PMM anime is sadder than anything Urobuchi has ever written into his scripts.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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