Jan 31, 2021
It seems there's a lot of salt coming from manga readers about this adaptation, and anime-only's seemed to be taken aback by this and perplexed by this....
Well, I'm an anime-only viewer and have no stake in hoping for the strict adaptation of the manga. I could care less about changes they make that's anime original, as long as the anime is lit like it was in S1. In fact it wouldn't have to be as good as S1 to be seen as awesome and great, since S1 TPN went above and beyond, expecting that top tier level is too high of an expectation, I think.....
But
...
even I can tell that this anime S2 original is a nose dive. I haven't read the manga content, but I don't need to, to know that what I'm viewing in the anime is bad writing, bad execution, bad pacing. It's an inconsistent mess with top tier SoL cringe filler being thrown into the mix, that I just can't even express how depressed I am to see such a down grade.
The character dialogue and slice of life interactions felt completely unnatural and forced. I don't want to watch and rewatch them take a bath or shower, I don't need to see Nat constantly play songs on the piano. This isn't a concert we came to view, we came to watch a story about children escaping a death farm, strategizing and training then implementing a plan to enact some sort of guerrilla warfare and sabotage to help rescue the rest of their brethren. I don't want to waste time watching instead, the kids fumbling around trying to catch land fish for a good chunk of the episode. Not to mention, I thought these kids were supposed to be savants, and prodigy's. Having food yet still deciding to test out a possible fataly toxic fish by having some or even one of the children consuming it?! What an incredibly stupid and dangerous decision to make without any fundamental reason, merit or benefit in taking such a risk
Not to mention how blatantly obnoxious the plot armor is in ep 4..
1)Two children will defeat an armed and equipped soldier.
2)that soldier won't scream or call for a team formation to chase those children.
3) there's an underground passage they can use to escape
4) one of the children used it as a playground so they know the way.
5)there's an extra exit the soldiers don't know about but the child does.
6)there's no soldiers outside near the shelter
7) the soldiers are exactly at their destination to capture them (near the woods) where of course a big monster appears and kills all the soldiers who apparently weren't prepared for it.
8)Ray shoots and hits the eye.
9)its the monster's weak spot, which the soldiers with GUNS couldn't hit once.
10) monster eats all and only the adults allowing all the kids to escape unscathed....
Wow, plot armor extraordinare.
Are we supposed to believe that these special ops military men with guns couldn't even get anything done against a bunch of unprepared 12 year old and under children armed with a few bows and arrows?
And Isabella is back to help hunt them down cause why? I mean obviously their trained military men are utterly idiotically useless but still. ...how is she going to magically know how to hunt them down and capture them? Not to mention they duped her before already after planning, training and implementing a successful escape under her care and watch so ......wtf? Why did they keep her around? She's in jail? But she's not a criminal that is serving time. She's livestock that's meant to help raise and groom other livestock for butcher. They aren't trying to rehabilitate a criminal back into society. To house criminals costs money, and resources so why spend it on one livestock animal? It's an illogical outcome UNLESS she's just a recycled plot device for uncreative writing and staff to use as a villain to save time, effort and money instead of bringing in new antagonists into the mix. The only 2 logical options that would've happened to her as a character would be, that they killed her and sold her off as cheap since she's aged (kinda like selling mutton, instead of lamb) ....or she gets shipped to a breeding farm since she might bare more high-quality livestock. Which is reminiscent to Handmaid's Tale, and being a shonen, may be too adult themed, but if so, then they should have just killed her off. Having her be jailed is just ridiculous and would only happen if she was a plot device in a bad script.
There's more wrong with this episode and in fact the entire 2nd season that I could rant about but I think I'll just end it there for now with one parting comment... Since ep 1, something felt off with the pacing, as well as the weird dialogue that seemed more like plot narration exposition for viewers rather than in-character dialogue interactions with each other. With ep.4, my unease/ nervousness has turned into crushing disappointment.
Even though I haven't read the manga, I wouldn't need to, to understand the frustration of the manga readers, since they changed what was for a lot of fans, their favorite arc, and presented instead this steaming pile as a replacement.
If the show somehow does a 180 turnaround from episode 5 onward, I'd be absolutely floored, but the probability is next to null if given the recent episodes that's been released so far in S2 is anything to go by.
QUICK UPDATE: I was preparing to give this anime a score of 3/10.... Up until the season/series ending that is.
That end montage, of the various plot points they chose to skip over... It was like them going 'Oh hey there manga fans. You came here excited to see TPN animated, eh? PSYCH!!! But here, since we have 3min left over, have this slideshow of some of the events you thought you were going to see when tuning in. Take it or leave it cause it's all you're going to get."..... . That slide show ending was like they hawked up a loogie, spat in our faces, then took off running into the night (cause they covered their asses by removing the writing credits of EP. 10&11)
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
