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The college arc is meant to expand on the world further, but this time focusing on young alchemists. The alchemists are explained to be more common and different from mages. This might be wrong, but the way the season presented the information, it seems that alchemists are weaker than mages, yet they still can do most things that a mage can. The takeaway is that mages draw their power from making contracts with gods and spirits, alchemists prefer magical materials and craft their way out of situations. I would have liked to see this expanded on futher, there is a hint that the alchemy system ... is more or less based on the law of equal exchange, but it's not clear, since living beings are simply mana bateries. It is also not explained if anyone can be an alchemist or mage, or you have to be born special.

It was interesting to see that the alchemist families still follow the traditional ways of old nobility. It does not seem out of place, since the story basically takes place in the UK and such things would not be so much out of place there. The idea of alchemists poisoning each other and how that means they will never eat or drink what other alchemists give them is a cool one. This season did show that being an alchemist is not all good, and some people simply leave to pursue other stuff like investments, or just a simple life outside the family. I think we are missing some sort of explanation if some form of governments or intelligence agencies are aware of the presense of alchemists or mages, because they could distrupt the economy and the order of things if they mess around with magic too much.

You can detach your own soul without consequence, wut ?

Part 2 focused on Chise growing as a character. In season 1 she starts as an almost suicidal, very down character. She then proceeds to heal slowly. Season 2 part one Chise is already growing more selfish, which is exactly what she needs to become integrated into society. Fianlly, season 2 part 2 is about Chise helping someone else regain their self a classmate by the name of Philomela. It's fair to say that this part is focused primarily on Philomela. The story makes a lot of sense on paper, a person who thinks themselves only as a victim who managed to get over it, rallies some people to save another person who is in the same position. The power of friendship overcoming abuse. The villain of the story has a pretty clear motivation, raising Philomela without love and treating her as a slave. This Cindarella like story drags out a bit to long, and while it reaches a satisfying conclusion, I can not say that I liked this season more than the first. I think that it would be more interesting to get more world building questions answered, unless Philomela will somehow serve a very important role in the future (which I doubt, since she is not special in any way). We also failed to see how she will deal with her situation serving another family. Will she break away from the system completely ? Can she do that ? Are there any consequences for her or will she be viewed only as a victim ? She did bring the book to school knowing that it would endanger people, and she didn't go to reach out for help.

DM is well put together visually and has decent world building, but suffers from tone and pacing issues. The show establishes the bleak reality of adventuring and how deadly it is, and yet it's hard to believe that the party is not scarred mentally to the point of not being able to function properly. The atmosphere of the show is dark, yet the characters we see behave like they are playing an MMORPG, not actually living as a part of the world. I don't believe that the unique circumstances of the dungeon would affect this to a degree that we see on screen.

I would ... describe the pacing of DM video-gamey. The goal of the party rarely changes, the means to achieve the goal rarely change. Each episode is very formulaic and I did not feel enough progression episode to episode like I would expect from a show. These things are ok in games because games have gameplay, but an anime does not have gameplay, making us watch the same thing happen and happen over and over again get tedious fast.

I got constantly distracted watching it because it failed to get me invested in the characters or the story. It was serviceable, but nothing stood out that makes you want to keep watching. I don't think that killing and eating monsters is a concept that is interesting enough to carry an entire story on it's own.

What makes a masterpiece series for you ? I would bring up 2 main points - being a work that excels at some things beyond anything else and being something that when changed in any way, would seriously disrupt the experience.

Frieren is a vibe. The humor, action and drama compliment each other so well that each scene, each interaction and scenario are instantly memorable. It excels at taking only things that would be basically filler or side content in most other shows, builds an entire season of television around it and executes on it so well that people are as or sometimes more engaged watching ... than action packed shows with constant brain stimulation. This show is a different kind of dopamine, as a viewer you are engaged in a different way and this is insanely refreshing in our age of dopamine overdose.

Finally, I would not be able to think of anything that I would rewrite or change about this season. Each arc was so different that it was impossible to predict what will happen next, the only constant being that fantastic consistent tone I mentioned in the previous section and the carefully crafted cast of characters. The episodes where not too long, the action was not too short, the humor was not cringy, not too meta or deconstructive, there was a lot of restraint (like that we never actually saw the final fight between the party and the demon lord) and yet that was a lot of moments of absolute explosion. Each frame is a painting, the animation was so clean that you could wipe glass with it.

I recommend this work to absolutely anyone, it is truly beautiful and leagues above most fantasy anime.

The show starts very strong with a good premise, but unfortunately falls off by episode 4. You can compare this anime to a detective TV show with a twist. Episode 1 is fantastic, has great pacing and does a strong setup. Then, the show slows down and gives us a bunch of filler introducing new characters and stories. The problem is that the story that is being told here is not big enough to support a long running manga, thus it has been stretched with subpar high school drama. I would say that the manga is propably better, if you decide to skip through a ... lot of chapters really quickly and get to the main story parts.

To me season 3 feels like a very interesting reboot more than a sequel. It's very similar to how the shift in Tokyo Ghoul RE felt from season 1. The world is quickly and heavily expanded on, things get fleshed out. For example, the beginning they address how politics work together with the Sibyl system. They go into how genetically engineering people is a thing in this world. The technology of he world is a step up here, as even in episode 1 we get to see a passenger drone, then in episode 2 we get to see how dominators can be ... activated outside the grid. It even shows us how people live outside the law in the slums. Overall a great improvement for me as a fan of the sci-fi setting.

Honestly, there are so many ways this show does a proper sequel, even though it changes so much. We get to see the old cast show up early episodes. We get to see references to the events in the movies. Even the season 1 soundtrack get's brought back at times. The show feels like a sequel because it continues from where the show left off in exploring how the Sibyl system is exploited. This time, by the top 1% of society. Naturally the detectives are upgraded to match the threat. If in season 1 we had junior detectives and more or less grounded every day police, in season 3 the main characters are elite operators who have more insane CQC, investigation and people skills. These guys don't mess around.

The reason it's more of a reboot than a sequel is because of how many new things are introduced compared to how many things are actually followed up from the old season. This is due to the new characters and concepts, and also due to how long ago the show had a season the last time.

As a fan I got what I wanted, I would recommend getting into this series for fans of dark noir, cop dramas. Psycho pass is everything anime can be if they stopped choosing virgin half brain man children as their target audience

There are many "protagonist focused" shows like this one that I really enjoy, the most popular being "One punch man","Trigun" and "Violet Evergarden". These series focus around a strong MC and concept. This show is amazing because it is very easy to sell to anyone who likes anime or comedy just by giving them the premise, more so to nerds who grew up on space odysseys like Star Trek.

The plot and characters 10

A very strong cast and events that hook you in instantly. You will find yourself asking every arc- "How will they get out of this one ?" and by the end you ... will feel a sense of deep satisfaction. Much like the before mentioned "protagonist focused shows" this one has much to say about the involved parties drive and motivations towards life. The strength of the premise and character writing creates fun, memorable situations. Somewhere by the end of the plot there will be a great surprise waiting that made watching it to the end a rewarding experience.

The rest 8 - 9

I am not one to judge the technical quality of the show from the year I was learning to walk and speak, so I will give it this rating because it did not bother me, but did not seriously impress me either.

This review is spoiler free and is from the perspective of someone who has finished all 3 seasons. It is split into 3 parts: 1. overall criticism of the genre, format and medium 2. A look at how the show realizes it's main concepts 3. The only redeeming qualities that make this watchable


The problem with romantic LN adaptations

MTRC SNAFU is everything wrong with the genre of light novel anime adaptations. To understand what is wrong with it you have to have played a romantic light novel before. The games are basically text adventures with still images. The gameplay revolves around following a certain path ... in this interactive book. Essentially, you are working towards an ending based on which girl(s) you want to get intimately involved with. When such a work gets an adaption, we can begin to understand where the problems stem from.

What happens when such a story is adapted is that a certain path must be chosen for the viewer. The protagonist can now only end up with one girl. However, since the show would be too short if only one path was adapted and since it would be impossible to please even a small portion of the viewer with such a story, what we get is basically constant edging. What do I mean by edging ? I mean bating the viewer into believing that something big is about to happen. Someone is about to confess their feelings - phone call interrupts it. Entire dramas are built around a girl giving cookies to a guy. This illusion falls apart if you just pause and consider what would happen in real life: none of these scenarios would bind the people together. Even having sex doesn't guarantee that people would start dating, would be a good match for each other or it would last. In the anime we are miles away from even something so innocent as a kiss, let alone sex scenes or a hint towards them. The viewer is then watching the show, jumping from moment to moment hoping to see a kiss, a hug, something ! But what they get instead in the example of this show is maximum a tug on the shirt. My point here is not that we need to get hentai, but instead that the anime is operating on an illusion that two people can get into a relationship almost by accident.

The writer needs to keep all options open to maintain this illusion, so nobody starts dating or even hooks up with anyone at any point of the show, until the very last arc / episodes. After watching a few arcs unfold, when you reflect on what you saw, you realize just how unfulfilling the experience truly was. No progress was made in terms of romance. Other things still develop, like friendships and rivalries, but why settle for watching romantic anime then, if you can find actual romantic developments in other mediums like TV series and movies ?


A look at the concepts explored in the show

Since the producers of anime often work together with the author of the LN and since they are not idiots, they try to justify the adaptation by including other genres like comedy and slice of life. SNAFU miserably fails at this, as the comedy quickly fades to a few minor sketches that repeat too much to the point of annoyance. The slice of life dumbs down to school festivals, fireworks show and other overplayed, over saturated tropes present in absolutely every anime out there. Even ones without a romance tag.

A big part of what "My not so romantic teen dramedy" does different is it's commentary on society, fitting in and voluntary isolation. These things are mainly tackled through the protagonist and his philosophical monologues. It's sad to say that these also fail, come up as pretentious and cringy. The show attempts to preach how it is okay to be alone. This is not done well, as we see the characters actively try to fix the problems that come with being socially disconnected in a school setting. If this was an actual point, then we should have seen the benefits play out, instead we only see bulling, regret and eventual change.
You will not learn anything new from this show about human psychology or navigating social hierarchies.

Characters also have other issues, but nothing original. There is a guy who everyone loves who doesn't love himself and a girl who is too agreeable and thus suffers from a lack of identity. These aspects of characters are okay, but don't get enough screen time. The MC has a method of dealing with troubles involving putting himself down. It is an interesting concept, but is mostly unbelievable in how it works and sometimes just flat out confusing. I get what they tried to go for here with originality, but my perception of this is summarized by a quote from the show itself "if you think that people care enough about you to hate you - you are very arrogant". It might have worked a couple of times, but then everyone would see through it, and it's really hard to find real appliances in life.

Then there is the service club. The service club is a poor plot device made for convenience, along with another long list of convenient plot threads that get introduced but never get a satisfactory resolution. The problem with the execution of the service club is that it would not work in real life. Not just in the cases presented in the show, but in almost any case possible. Having an organization of volunteers with a completely random skill set help out on basically any kind of request is simply naïve. In the show we get examples like the members being asked to learn to cook. What if the members don't posses the skill to cook or the skills necessary to teach ? Why would anyone consider asking a group of random volunteers over asking an expert in the field for help ? The convenience aspect of this plot device basically boils down to creating situations for our rather passive, reactive characters to get involved in school drama and spend time with each other. The MC get's forcefully paired with 2 girls, and then gets many opportunities to interact with other people. The problem with this plot device is that the MC basically get's put alone in a room with 2 attractive girls and people come to him, instead of him having to actively seek out social interaction. I am sorry, but this is too lazy and convenient writing in most anime, but in this show, it is flat out best case scenario for the MC with such a character. Basically, this entire premise is only possible because of this giant convenience.

Some slightly redeeming qualities

This show is not an absolute pile of trash because it does a couple of things right. The first thing that comes to mind is that the narrative does not give all the information away. Many things the viewer has to figure out and interpret by themselves. The dialog is pretty good.
If you forget about romance, and switch this show up a bit, it could be a soft slice of life about a group of friends supporting each other and eventually having to deal with a love triangle. The last part is something that I must give the show credit for, as I did feel genuinely attached to watching how these characters relations developed.

Final thoughts

A promising show that get's dragged down by it's source material and the expectations it sets for romance. A true waste of time, only good quality I see of this show is waking up and stopping to watch these poor LN adaptations. Never rate this show high or recommend this to anyone. You can take certain scenarios, characters and scenes from this work as being decent, but the rest is just god awful.

Part 2 of a show that blew my mind with the first season. Many describe this as a sequel nobody asked for and I have to agree. There are some really interesting choices made here.

Theme:
While the first season told a kind of Cyberpunk dystopia style story, this one borrows elements from Spanish folklore. It's done to great effect, however I feel like it was not as focused as the first season. There was a lot to unpack here while simultaneously it didn't feel meaningful. The characters got to go home in the end, just like the hummingbird story. The payback was not that amazing, ... I just think that the underdog story was something that went better.

Fights and enjoyment:
I am always down for a serious anime instead of a show full of useless action, but I really felt a lack of fights here. It was also rather depressing in a bad way at times. There was not much hope for Joe, even after he did so much to change, in the end he realized that he will never change and family is all he has to focus on. While I see how this is positive, this made me sad personally.

Just didn't feel like this season was as good as I expected. It's worth a watch, but I would not run and recommend this over many other amazing shows this season

I had high hopes for this show, the first few episodes seemed promising. I am not sure how you can flop the writing this bad. This is the biggest train wreck of writing I have ever seen in anime. The story is very confused, there are so many things that the anime adaptation fails to explain that you would need to give up to watch it, while at the same time it tries to be serious at times and that is when it's really painful to watch.

The art and sound are brilliant, Mirai is probably the cutest anime character ever made and the MC is ... not a cry baby, cowardly or very stupid. The side characters have something to them that gives them potential, but the story feels so extremely rushed as if we are watching an amateur school project, so they never get to shine.

The romance is sound, but it flops when you consider how short and how poorly explained the story is.
Why anyone wants to kill the MC ?
Why they don't just do it themselves ?
The rank system is never explained beyond the mention of "A rank hunters"
What does the spiritual society actually do ?
Why "become stronger" fuse with Yomu when the monsters don't pose a real challenge ?

The biggest disappointment for me wasn't that such an amazing studio and such a high budget was spent on making a show with such a flawed story. It is rather that it doesn't even have anything to say. In the end the main story of fighting lowliness isn't even actually resolved.

The show got me to try it just by reading the name and synopsis. I found the core concept intriguing so I gave it a go. After reaching episode 9 I went and read the manga.

The writing and characters - 9/10

The story starts up very slow. Having the main 2 leads confined to the room for a big chunk of the episodes and their first conversations felt rather awkward. As we see more of the characters they quickly became very likable and really help to care about what's going on.

The story focuses on mysteries and plots, later revealing to be a game of wit ... and deceit. It never overstays it's welcome and very consistently introduces new concepts and problems for our characters. There is no filler or beach episode in this show, it doesn't overindulge in flashbacks.

Visuals and sound - 8/10

The OP and ED where chosen very well, they carry the atmosphere and set the mood. The manga I found is colored. The colors in the show are a bit more clear than the source material, but they carry the general idea quite well.

Adaptation

As an adaptation this work is unremarkable. The studio did not improve or degrade the experience from the source material. There isn't really much reason to watch it over reading the manga. I think mainly because the first season is just a taste. I believe it will end with a cliffhanger just when it will get real good.