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- BirthdayOct 2, 2001
- LocationUnited States
- JoinedDec 29, 2016
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Jan 9, 2021
This is a manga with a lot of good parts that’s bogged down by some irreconcilably bad parts.
The story is extremely simple but passable and the art is very good. What simultaneously makes and breaks Aho Girl are the characters.
The side characters are enjoyable, likable, and quirky. Nothing revolutionary, but they’re all pretty fun. The male protagonist is unconventional for a romcom. He's a loner who is pretty disinterested in the people around him and just wants to study, which works better in this story than that description might lead you to believe.
The main thing bogging down this manga is the titular
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character. She manages to be so annoying and unlivable that it’s actually shocking this manga has any good parts. I get that the author likely wanted to make her annoying, but my god, she sucks the enjoyment out of every scene she’s in. By the end of the manga, I get the feeling you were supposed to like her somewhat, but I just wished she wasn’t there. Her jokes are overused by chapter 2, her personality is annoying and never gets even the slightest bit better, and she's never gone from the story as long as you'd want her to be.
The only other big negative is the ending. Without getting into spoilers, the ending is very inconclusive and forced, with no closure at all. If you want a satisfying conclusion, romantically or otherwise, do not read this.
It’s also worth mentioning there’s a lot of physical violence where the main guy hits the stupid girl, which might be a big turn off for some. In my opinion, however, it’s more like extreme slapstick than real violence.
In the end, this is a mediocre romcom that could’ve been so much better with a few changes. If it sounds like your thing, I’d recommend giving this a try, especially if after the first few chapters you can tolerate the main girl.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 27, 2020
Oh boy, the reviews for this are really high. Guess it’s time to piss a lot of people off!
This season's animation is by no means bad, but it personally feel like a small step backwards after season 2. For 5 years later, that’s not exactly great.
The sound design is pretty good. I personally really liked the opening, and the OST is solid, if not a little understated.
The main characters are excellent, as usual. There are some some small nitpicks, but overall, the cast is as good as ever.
The fatal flaw of Kan is that it spends far too much time exploring plot points that
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the audience doesn’t care about, when it should be focused on the characters. The story in this season feels especially disconnected from the cast, and it really weighs it down. If you are only here for the characters like I am, you’re gonna have to sift through a lot of bs to get to the good stuff.
From this point onward, major spoilers!!!
The prom plot point is uninteresting. It just didn’t feel important at all, and it ended up distracting from the character interactions that really should’ve dominated this season more. I also don’t understand why they thought it necessary to hold a second prom event afterward. It feels like it came out of literally nowhere, and while it allowed for some cute interactions between Hachiman and Yukino, it just didn’t feel worth it.
Throughout this season, Yukino's older sister throws a lot of criticisms toward the main trio. These criticisms seem particularly superficial and subjective, but for some reason, it freaks every character out, and they spend large portions of the season trying to prove her observations wrong. I did not feel like the criticisms were strong enough to justify the main cast's actions. The logic in this season just felt faultier overall than in the previous seasons.
Yui gets screwed over hard. That’s a given for the runner up in a romance anime, but even still, she doesn’t get any time to get over things. She spends the entire season sad over the fact that she knows she'll lose to Yukino, but when she actually does lose, she ends up spending time with the new couple pretty much immediately afterward. It feels really bizarre that they hammer in the whole point about her feelings being 'stronger than love' only to have her resume the status quo pretty much immediately. Either she's putting on a mask of happiness, which sucks, or she just kinda got over it, which seems really rushed.
The ending of the last episode felt overly sentimental, which feels especially out of place given Oregairu's typical cynicism.
Despite my criticisms, this season by no means ruined Oregairu. I think it’s the worst of the three, but it’s still not bad. Season 3 is an enjoyable experience that stalls in the first half and falters a bit at the end. If you watched the previous seasons, you should watch this one, too. Just don’t expect a perfect finish.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 27, 2020
Warning: vague spoilers for the ending ahead.
School Rumble is a rom-com great dragged down by a bad ending.
The story is simple but executed well. The two leads trying to get closer to their crushes is held up by great comedy, absurd situations, and a lovable cast of side characters. It’s filled to the brim with parody of Japanese rom-coms, which is very entertaining if you get it. I’d recommend not reading School Rumble until you have a few romance manga/anime under your belt, since you’ll miss out on a lot of the humor otherwise.
The characters are the highlight of the manga. None of them
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are super complex, but they don’t need to be. They’re fun, distinct, and form an absurd yet enjoyable web of crushes. Harima especially is one of the most uniquely amusing rom-com protagonists of all time, with his tough delinquent exterior coupled with his surprisingly pure romantic ideals.
Toward the end of the manga, things get a bit more serious, which I believe it actually handles well. However, the ending itself leaves numerous loose ends, and almost seems to contradict itself between the chronologically last chapters.
If you have a basic understanding of the rom-com tropes and are ok with the fact that a lot of plot lines don’t end up going anywhere, you’ll love School Rumble. Everything there is great. The only problem is what’s missing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 25, 2020
Musunde Hiraite isn't particularly deep or nuanced, but it’ll definitely satisfy an itch for heartwarming romance.
The manga tells a variety of interconnected stories in a style similar to Tsurezure Children, with the protagonist shifting every chapter or so. The stories aren’t particularly deep, with plots typically moving forward through the powers of teen angst and passionate speeches from supportive side characters. That said, almost all the stories are entertaining, with distinct enough plots and characters worth rooting for.
The art is extremely well done, with people being drawn with especially clean and detailed line art.
The characters themselves are endearing, but a little flat. Most
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of them are defined by one or two traits, but still manage to bounce of each other well. Due to the rotating protagonists, even if you dislike a character, they won’t be in the spotlight for long.
The only major issue is with the messages of some stories. The characters occasionally preach some really dated or faulty values, which just kinda make you go "...what?" These weird values really only ruined one story for me, so it's a pretty easy problem to overlook. It could just be my personal beliefs clashing with the mangaka's, but if what I described sounds like something you’d hate, you might want to steer clear of this series.
All in all, Musunde Hiraite is just a good romance manga to turn your brain off for and enjoy. It’s just plain fun, so if you like romance, I’d recommend giving it a shot.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 6, 2020
Solo Leveling fucking rocks.
The art is unbelievably great. Every panel of this manhwa falls into two categories: kickass wallpaper material or great potential profile picture. Everything’s in color, everything pops, and it all just works so damn well.
The story is a pretty generic power fantasy, but it’s executed better than most others and has enough twists to avoid feeling repetitive. Watching the main character grow stronger and stronger is extremely entertaining, especially since the world is distinct and deep enough that it doesn’t feel like everything revolves around him.
The characters are also nothing too special, though they’re all well designed and manage to
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be surprisingly charming. The main character is from humble beginnings, and this alongside the staggering amount of cocky bastards in the manhwa make you really want to see him get stronger, blow some minds, and deflate some egos.
Overall, Solo Leveling is fun. So fun, in fact, that I'm giving it a 10/10 primarily because of how damn fun it is. You know what’s going to happen. You know there’s no real tension. And yet, somehow, you can’t wait to see it all play out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Sep 6, 2020
Honesty, I think this season has been pretty bad, even for SAO.
Minor spoilers ahead.
The basic story here is fine, but it’s executed so poorly that it’s unbelievable. Throughout this season, so much of the fights rely on incarnation, which essentially canonizes ass pulls, and it gets really grating. For example, Sinon has a necklace with an electrode on it that literally blocks bullets multiple times. She can also just turn her bow into a gun if she feels like it, apparently. Worse though are the villains, who seemingly gain unbelievable powers and abilities out of nowhere just to maintain tension. The main villain, after
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he's defeated and has to rejoin the game with a GGO avatar, somehow has a giant demon that he can ride, and for some reason, he can use weird dark energy shit to control people. Since when was this in GGO Why can he do this? Incarnation, duh. There are even more examples, but at this point, it’s just not worth delving into.
There are some good character moments with Kirito handling his PTSD, but other than that, nothing else is really particularly good. It doesn’t feel like characters have a real personality here. The girls have two character traits: liking kirito and having reactions of shock and horror to the villains, and beyond them, nobody else is really all that significant to the plot, other than kirito, who is just kinda bland. The writers also feel the need to have a cameo for pretty much every good guy character with any sort of past plot significance, which just kinda feels cheesy.
While it isn’t a huge issue, I do feel like certain scenes were directed really bizarrely, to the point that it’s actually funny. There’s this one scene where Sinon has sort of stalemated in a fight against the main villain, and she smiles confidently and thinks something along the lines of, "I’m not afraid of you," like they’re about to fight some more. However, the camera just shows a close up on the villain's face of disapproval, pans to a wide shot, pauses for a few moments, and then the villain guy just quietly floats away. It’s a very entertaining moment, but for all the wrong reasons.
You may have noticed I haven’t said much that refers to the "real world" scenes, and that’s because I don’t think they’re particularly bad. The only real problem is a traitor reveal that you can easily see coming from seven light years away, but other than that, it’s pretty decent, if not a bit standard.
I’ve also not talked much about the art and music, and that’s mainly because they’re exceptional as always. If this show was just one really long AMV, I’d give it an easy 9/10.
All in all, this season just feels like SAO but worse than usual. I watched all the previous seasons and thought they were pretty decent, but this season really murdered my suspension of disbelief. So much so that i decided to write this review before even finishing the series. It's already lost me so hard that there’s no way I could ever get reinvested in it. If you like the usual SAO stuff, you’ll probably like this, but if any of the issues I mentioned above would bother you, then I’d recommend not even bothering with this season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 27, 2019
After watching The Rising of Shield Hero, I was left satisfied, but a little disappointed. The first few episodes were like something I had never seen before, and they were by far the best episodes of the series. They led me to expect that Shield Hero would surpass the generic isekai anime of the past (which I admittedly did and still do enjoy) and become a staple of the genere, a must watch along the lines of Re:Zero, revealing the darker side of a fantasy world. However, the show slowly but surely left behind it’s bleaker portrayal of the world, becoming a standard isekai with
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a touch of harem by its end.
The first episodes stand out mainly for their bleak atmosphere, believable chain of events, and sympathetic protagonist. From Naofumi's first moments in his fantasy world, the dynamic between him and the other heroes seems a bit off. Something about their interactions is extremely believable, with Naofumi seeming off sync with the rest of the heroes, leading to realistically awkward interactions rarely seen in anime. The world generally seems against Naofumi for no clear reason, allowing the viewers to sympathize with his plight and feel more invested in him as a character. While we don’t know why the world seems against him, it never seems like the odds are stacked against him to an unbelievable degree. People seem to hate him due to the connotations of being the shield hero, and so they act against him in a believable enough way. As an outcast, Naofumi acts more like a villain than really any other isekai protagonists, and because of what happened to him, he can still garner sympathy and investment from the audience even as an anti hero. His journey to fight a forced fight in a world that loathes him is very compelling, and if the show continued like it started, utilizing a more slow and methodical rising of shield hero, it would’ve had the potential to get a 10/10 from me.
In the latter half of the show, however, things go a bit downhill. Naofumi acts more and more like a standard isekai hero, losing the anti hero persona that made him really interesting, while the other heroes seem to act dumber and dumber as the show progresses. Character interactions in general also feel less unique, as almost everyone in the main cast ends up worshiping Naofumi, understandably so, as it seems like he is the only individual doing anything remotely heroic. In essence, the show shifted over time, starting out as the story of a man moving forward in spite of the world around him, and eventually becoming the story of a man which the entire world moves around.
It might sound like I’m being hard on Shield Hero, and that’s less because it’s some atrocious show, and more because it could’ve been so much more. As a whole, the show is just a slightly above average isekai anime that was admittedly enjoyable. The thing that frustrates me about it is that if it lived up to the massive amount of potential it showed early on, it could’ve been one of the best isekai anime out there. Naofumi definitely needed to rise up from being viewed as the lowest of the low, but his rise felt too fast and drastic. It’s like at some point in the story, the writers thought, "it’s time for Naofumi to be recognized as a hero," and then, all of a sudden, his suffering just about halted and he rather quickly became a standard protagonist. The Rising of Shield Hero was generally a decent, well made anime, but it’s bogged down by its promising start that showed it could have been so much more.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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