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Grimm fairy tales are common. They are the darker versions of Disney/modern classic tales you have heard of. All the goody stuff is flipped some darker topics. There are 6 eps: Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretel, Elves and the Shoemaker, town musicians of bremen, and Pied Piper of hamelin. Each one is gloriously animated and the music elevates the scenes. Art design is very beautiful. Each ep starts off with a little narrative framing of the Brothers Grimm and their sister who mention one of these tales and the sister talks about what if it was different. I felt these stories were less ... grimm variations and more what if type beats.
Like what if Cinderella is instead in a Japanese type setting and that cinderella is some lunatic who set up her step-mother, step-sisters, and even her own father to make herself out to be the good one and its like, "how did you even know this would get you what you wanted". She was like some Light Yagami type character, planning her entire future over here. Speaking of future, red riding hood takes place in a distant future with some Alternate Reality type technology and nanobites and some richboy douche hungry for womens flesh until he meets his match and gets knocked off. Settings were pretty wild while the stories felt unoriginal or werent cooked enough. Its fine having an evil Cinderella but like, i just felt it came off as ridiculous and she had all this knowledge to do the type of stuff she did. One of my favorite eps is probably elves and the shoemaker. Its more mundane than the others but carries the inner relatable struggle of trying to come up with new material as a novelist. I thought it did a pretty decent job aside from the end where this elf is like "kinda wished you resisted the temptations and finished that novel of some young man being a murderer" and he just flash forwards to a kid and a wife and now being old and dying.
All in all, art and animation are wonderful. Music is very nice. Some of these changes are pretty decent but i felt they could have been handled better or delivered a more satisfying conclusion without introducing confusion.

In the show, I felt it had solid production values. Music was decent as well as the animation. I liked the art style of the in game cast and the more intense moments were great.
This was a very entertaining show. The original premise had a unique hook that several people will gravitate towards. A broken family playing at a pretend family in a game without knowledge of each others identities. I feel as though this original idea could have been extended and done better than what the anime goes down. The anime did a nice job of setting up hints and pulling peoples legs as ... things unfolded. Several threads arose which were quite interesting such as piecing together the split in the family, the introduction of the black bird and the real effects on their world. I enjoyed the in game stuff for the first 5 or 6 eps. And then we diverge.
We find out Pico is not real but an Ai core to this thing known as the Black Bird and is dealt by the creator of the game who is Taichirou and Asuma father. We were given like roughly an episode length to learn about Pico just to realize she was never real and she never existed physically. Then its revealed the Black bird was some Ai made by the father which fed on human emotions and became rampant and powerful. People in game touched by it would have their mind and body separated, and their mind is trapped in a virtual nightmare as this virus subjects them to this hellhole of endurance trials which involves them dying multiple times. A mind breaking experience and one unforseen. The story soon becomes critical as we learn this Ai touches Asuma and forces Taichirou to take action to save him as well as a hunt for this black bird by Kojirou.
Then we have the last arc of this show which involves one of the characters revealing to be the Ai computer virus. It then, with the help of this delusional character, basically eats or merges with many players to gain more power and soon gains enough power to blend reality with the virtual realm. Like....what? It just happens. So the two worlds are combined and this thing becomes that of a god and the family we follow basically sets out to confront and end this nightmare. I will say this was definitely a unique idea and a story line I was not expecting. I think the first and second arcs of this show could have been wonderful. But this last arc put a wrench in things by merging reality without any sort of explanation. There were clues thrown around that were pretty generic such as something happening to the familys daughter and the father creating an AI which led to this. But I enjoyed that and can gloss over several of these glaring plot elements. This is a complete work which I'm grateful since this does not need any more content. While I did have gripes with the story, it was still a fun ride.
For characters, we have the Akabane Family or the Arima Family in real world.
Taichirou- A shut in brother. He looked up to his father and learned about computer coding from him. He loved his family until the incident that took his sister. He began to hate the world and escape to games. He began to wallow in his hatred towards his brother and father. His growth throughout the series was fun. Showing his shitty personality to him growing as a character. He was isolated but grows close to Pico which slowly breaks him out of his shell. From there, he become an older brother figure to save his younger brother. Finally, he rejects his fathers perfection and attempts to drag him back with anger. Rather heartwarming seeing him call his father "Dad". A rather generic archetype but loved his growth a lot.
Asuma- While I did enjoy his backstory, his arc felt cut short. It would have been nice to learn about his unique name of "AAAAA". After he is saved from the Black Bird, he kinda lingers in the background. He does serve as the optimist. I like his thinking of there is terrible things in the world. But things are better at least with everyone close to him alive. Even if reality has been altered.
Miyabi- A shining light in this family. However, we never did get much info on her side of things. We only ever learned that she never did recover from the loss of her daughter and abandoned the house. It would have been nice to see why she joined Planets and how she came into contact with the others.
Kojirou- A shit father yes. They really highlight this. His treatment of his daughter was evident. That loss led him to despair as he tried desperately to bring her back some way. In the end, he does become connected to his sons one last time as well as manages to reunite with some version of his daughter. Sometimes I liked him and other times, yeah he sucks.
Supporting cast- Only real noteworthy member was Pico and maybe her crew. I did not care much for Leon nor for Sasmata. I enjoyed Pico's story though it kinda felt like a waste with her reveal. I will say though she did get a happy end which was surprising but ill take it.
Overall: Show had an interesting setup. They introduced a pivotal plot that could have been good but spiral into some guy managing to create a computer virus to directly affect people and reality without providing sufficient reason as to why. Endurance trials did not make much sense either. Main cast were fun and enjoyed their growth but was lacking for some of them. I had fun with this show and could overlook these plot holes but I know others may not be able to. 7/10.

FLCL grunge was..... experimental to say the least. Unlike its predecessors, it was only 3 eps, mainly done in CGI, and told its story within the same timeframe but each episode was from one of the viewpoints of the kids. I try not to be a hater for CGI stuff. I know there are shows that incorporate it well. I just felt most of the time in the show, I was not rocking the CGI direction they went for. Their style irked me. Some of the characters did not look right and I was not a fan of just the background Yakuza designs. There were ... some moments it really did shine but they were few.
The characters were not interesting to me. Shin literally gets referred to as Naota from the OG. I did not really get much information out of him or why I should care about him. He was just a normal kid who sees Haruko and gets a bon-- I mean giant bump sticking out of his head. I felt they tried to shove some sort of growth into Orinoko to make her choose her own future and leave the place which wasnt satisfying. It happened too fast. She is basically tied down to that area and soon loses her connection to that place and sets out on a journey which just came out of nowhere. The only one I liked was Shonari and his brother. That was probably the only character i vibed with. His story of being bullied and his brother stepping up to help them did strike a chord within me. It was sad to see the fate of Shonari's brother and shocking to see what Shonari found to be tasty. I will point out how very Japanese focused it was with Shins father being a sushi chef, Orinoko father being a swordsmith, and Shonari's brother being a Yakuza member. Haruko is back and she is cool.
Pillows is back and their music was cool. However, I think there was only one character I did not really like their VA performance and it was shin. Aside from that, everyone else was voiced well.
The show could have been better. I think if they did away with the CGI and focused more on 2D or just improve the CGI more as well as flesh out the characters, it could have been better. But this was a show that did not need to be made and didnt add much value to my experience like FLCL progressive or alternative.
Show is a 4/10 for me.

I'll be short and simple on this. This is a disastrous film as someone who just finished the trilogy.
This film gets ones hopes up as it gives us 27 minutes of original content and it looks amazing. It showers us with this amazing spectacle of the Summer of Love and shows us characters like Holland, Rey, Charles, and Adroc during this pivotal moment. Pretty funny how this was called the Summer of Love, took place in woodstock, and the ultimate weapon of mass destruction was a concert device. Everything about this part was amazing with the soundtrack, the visuals, where certain characters were. I would ... recommend this portion of the film to anyone.
The downside is the rest of the film. The execution of the film is an incoherent and lazy execution. From the looks of the film, it looks like some recap movie. In actuality however, it is supposed to be an alternate timeline where Renton initially becomes the son of Rey and Charles and then runs off to Gekko and comes back for a little bit. While a unique take, this is not clearly explained in the movie as it takes existing footage from the show and just merges it together, adding nothing of note. On top of that, we have Renton being chased by dogs and wondering how he got to this point, we keep going back and forth and back and forth from 22 days ago to 13 days to 2 hours ago to 8 hours ago and etc. Too much going back and forth and the show throws up all this information about characters and events that do not serve anything aside from block a portion of the screen.
The only saving grace to this show is the 26 mins of footage which i recommend on watching. Aside from that, this was a film I would not let anyone watch as recycled footage is used to attempt to make some alternate timeline in which it fails at that. You are better off just watching the OG anime again.
4/10.

Story: 3/10
Supposedly, this anime draws from an existing novel for inspiration called A Little Princess in which the main protagonist attends a rich school in New York City but her father dies in World War II which causes her to become a maid for the school. There she is laughed at by her peers and treated poorly. This anime utilizes that setup to create a similar scenario of the main character having it all and losing it all and being bullied.
The story is nothing special. In the background, two nations are fighting to establish an existing conflict and they aren't really explored or fleshed ... out in the runtime. As mentioned, the main character, Sara, attends a special school for piloting special mechs but an enemy attack hits her area and it turns out her brother became a traitor. We follow her becoming basically a grunt mecha pilot for an academy where she is laughed at and mocked for being distant and showing off her skills. From there, trouble ensues and casualties take place.
The story felt rather boring. It contains action moments given its mecha tag but it could have used more screentime for fights. The show has like 2-3 eps of downtime to add humor which isnt all that funny. And for a show labelled an ecchi, it only has 3 eps with nudity. They should have leaned heavy into the nudity which it didnt.
The series does end for Sara. Nothing epic like ending a war but for her own journey. Having said that, the ending has a happy route which I did not care for since none of the conflict or characters I cared for to appreciate the ending.
Characters:3/10
Let me just say this first, no one in this damn show is memorable nor are they likable. Many side character that are introduced are not fleshed out and several die to push some sort of reaction from characters and motivation to perform some action due to their deaths. Sara was a MC whom I could not care for. I thought her struggles were ok. I enjoyed the riches to rags to whatever she became in the end and that was it. The antagonist, her brother Ralph, was forgettable, and his motivations were rather shallow and unimaginative. OF all the characters in the show, I hated one girl named Lavinia because she attempts to do something to the MC in the name of love which backfires and create more conflict. I just hated her and she was one of the only source of ecchi in the show which sucked even more.

Sound: 4/10
I felt overall, none of the music in the show really stood out. Rather bland to listen to. Additionally, I had no thoughts on the VAs.

Art: 4/10
The character designs were generic and unappealing. They kind of looked bad. The thing that stood out for better and for worse was the inclusion of CGI. It was used for the mechas which I will say were unique in design. The models though for other CGI entities looked out of place and the CGI explosions did not look right. I value them attempting to incorporate dynamic scenes with the help of CGI but wished they looked better and had more screentime for these mecha fights.

Enjoyment: 3/10
I think the only thing I will remember from this show is how much of a snoozefest it was. There are better mecha genre out there that should suffice rather than watching this. Same goes for ecchi. I would not recommend anyone to really watch this unless they desire something to help them sleep.
Overall: 3/10

Story: 6/10
One summer, the cast meet up and talk to a ghost. Biggest flaw of the show to me is that this was much too short of a movie. It did just enough in the amount of time it had but it could have been more emotional or fulfilling had it been longer like an hour and half. This story contains typical experiences that many may relate to and can hit for many. Each person is struggling with their own issues and they find the resolve to confront their own issues while helping a ghost along the way. My issue with the story is we ... do not know what made our cast meet each other. They just happened to arrive at a diner and introduce themselves. I was left wondering how they managed to connect with each other and that never really got answered.
The story was three teens confronting someone who has passed and confronting their own issues and moving past them. However, their conclusions mixed from unsatisfactory to decent. More development should have been given to Aoi to make her ending great. Instead, it felt like they reached the desired end without much buildup so it fell flat.
To sum it up, there were pacing issues and lack of buildup for certain events.

Characters: 6/10
We are given 4 characters. 3 of the 4 characters are facing their own issues. These issues are rather generic which means we have seen them throughout many mediums but many can relate to these experiences and empathize. One character has attempted suicide because of bullying, one is feeling dead inside and wonders what death may be like, and the last one only has months to live due to illness. Given how close to death they supposedly are, they are able to see the 4th character, Ayane Satou. However, despite these established rules, it didnt seem justified that someone feeling dead inside would be able to see a ghost.

Ayane is the guide for one of the characters, Tomoya. She helps guide him through his struggles and along the way, reveals her backstory. Similar to the other characters, its a rather generic trope but still manages to hit emotionally. As she has fun with Tomoya, he decides he wants to help her resolve her own issue.
Ryou and Aoi on the other hand seem to reach their conclusions rather quickly and it doesnt feel as satisfying. Ryou releases his pent up rage and reveals how he feels truly. However, I dont recall much from Aoi side of things.
These characters are able to confront their own issues and move forward. There isnt really an antagonistic individual in the movie but near the end they try to create one for Tomoya which just feels rushed with the pacing.
Personally, there were no memorable characters in the film. I thought I would be able to resonate with Tomoya however near the end I just felt disconnected with him. They all are given simple stories with them reaching their own conclusions but it never feels satisfying for some.
Art/Animation: 7/10
It had some nice shots of the cast members as well as some nice coloring of the fireworks and the surroundings. During the trip to the moms house, the memory sequence tied with the trip through the house was cool.
Sound: 5/10
It was present is all I can say. Nothing really enhanced my viewing experience. It was not bad but there wasnt any music that stood out to me and I thought the voicing was ok.
Enjoyment: 6/10
I thought this was a good film although short. Clearly it was trying to hit your feels given the characters situations which it accomplished but it was not something unique. Maybe cut a character or two or give double runtime for the movie and this could have been a great movie.

Oh damn, y'all smell that? Smells like a pile of shit. Thats what.
This show is based off a mobile game of the same name.
Story:3/10
There is no story. Deal with it. This show needs to pick a side. For 85-90% of its run time, we follow these group of girls at a magic school I'm assuming as they do mundane things. The main character has a unique ability of like, 100x power of sniffing. So in one episode, her nose malfunctions and she can't sniff. So we have to spend an entire episode of them trying to gather nose working again. Or another one, they ... have a snow day and get caught in a blizzard. But luckily, some magical creatures of the academy were there and dug a cave into the snow to help them stay warm as they eat snacks and food. The story would not be as bad if it did not try to lure you in with their B plot. This B plot follows an order of knights who are killing heretics. We don't know who the heretics are, don't know their motives, or much about this order of knights besides them killing people. This B plot takes up like 10% of the runtime of the showing switches the tone from the CGDCT to serious action stuff. But nothing is elaborated on that side. The OP lies to us as it shows one of the knight members in confrontation with the main character. And yet, for 12 episodes, we wait for a confrontation between the knights and students and nothing comes to fruition. It deliberately introduces conflict but fails to deliver on anything.
Characters:2/10
Let me just say.....nothing about these characters is great. We are given like small snippets of each character like, the Main character has a powerful nose and several characters have like a sibling and whatnot. There are small identifying features but nothing unique to make these characters stand out. They are just bland. I barely know anything about these characters. All I know is they attend a magic school, they have magic, there is small details to the world but nothing that makes you go "Wow, this is incredible world building" as it doesn't affect the plot much.
I slowly started hating these characters because of how bland they were. I kept yelling at my screen for them to do something to make me like them but there wasn't anything.
Art: 6/10
Prolly the best thing of the show sadly. I really liked the art. The character designs are really nice. Each girl whether they are the main ones or a random side character all look nice. The background is really nice. The creatures in the show all look cool. I can definitely see several of these side members appearing more frequently in the game based on dope their character designs are.
Music: 5/10
I can't say much for the music. Its nice but its not too my liking. I had no issue with the music of the show.
Enjoyment: 2/10
The other night, I was behind like 3 episodes. So I decided to binge 3 episodes. Those 3 episodes had no progression whatsoever and the pacing was so slow. I had to increase the speed to 4x speed just to get through the episode. The show played with my emotions as I expected more to the knight plot which never came to fruition. It really killed it and made me suffer through this show
Overall: 3/10
I think if I had played the game, I prolly would have known more about these characters. I prolly would have already had a foundation of the story and of the cast and liked them. This show feels like it was primarily made for the fans and just gives you the characters I assume you should know their backstories to and let them enjoy mundane things. The issue is I did not know the characters and seeing them do these tasks was boring as hell. The only saving grace to the show was the art and the music. Aside from that, this show is a waste of time.

For me, I enjoyed season 1 just enough to go read the manga (I am not as interested in reading lns). I gave season 1 a 9 and went down to an 8 before s2.
Having read the manga, I could see the cuts that were evidently made to rush this adaptation
Story: 3/10
My god, what the fuck happened. I thought they would have done a small training arc which the manga had for like 2-3 eps and do the rest of the season with the Spirit turtle. That was not the case. They took what is known to be a large and perhaps the most ... boring arc and condensed it into 6 episodes. Those 6 episodes contained small moments that would help foreshadow and build up future events like the Vassal weapons and a new beast in the future. However, they took away certain characters background and gave them bare bone details. They cut out certain characters to give us more content to squeeze in and gave us horrible character development. What truly made this show fun again was the second half.
We are dropped into L'arcs world, that other hero enemy from season 1, and given some new faces and a new enemy. It was great to see Naofumi grind once again and experience the new world. However, similar to Spirit turtle, changes were made and the pacing just felt off but not as much as the Spirit arc. The main baddie was introduced halfway into the show and we waited till the second to last ep to get any insight of his background before he was defeated.
TO RUB SALT INTO THE WOUND, they finish the season off with what is equivalent to an OVA. There are like three flashbacks for characters that could have been weaved into the storyline but were instead cut and slapped on at the end of the show to 'Remember the good times' that we never saw.
Art: 5/10
There wasnt anything that really stood out to me in a good way. I like the character designs of everyone and we got to see some new outfits for the crew. However, the fighting was rather dull and the animation of the turtle was not good.
Several moments that could have been better just felt lacking or too simple which the art did not really help elevate.
Sound: 6/10
Kevin Penkin has a hand with the show and my god, I love the OST. Im sure im the only one who really cares but it just stands out to me. I would love to just listen to the OST. The band MADKIDS and Chiai Fujikawa come back to do the OP and ED respectively. I loved both OPs of MADKIDS in s1 but s2 just does not hit the same for me. It just seems average to me as well as the ED.
Characters: 5/10
This was difficult. Naofumi just felt like a lifeless character this season. It wasnt till the end we got to here his thoughts once again for Rishia but my god, he just did not seem present despite being the MC.
Raphtalia comes in the second half and gets a new powerup. She is cut off from Naofumi and travels with her past enemies, L'arc and the gang. However, she still seeks to be Naofumis sword, so nothing changes there.
We get two new characters: Ost and Kizuna. Both balance each other. I cared a lot more for one and didnt care about the other.
Ost was the Spirit Turtle familiar who conveniently remembers important details right after stuff happens and turns out to be the spirit turtle without knowing it. She had a nice design but her interactions with the members felt lacking and with her demise, there felt like no emotional weight to it.
Kizuna was a nice fresh of air. Seeing as she is a Cardinal weapon from another world away from Naofumis who also cant attack normally. She was a fun character who also knew of otaku culture like Naofumi. We got to see her clash with people, seeing it not right that their world was invading Naofumis for survival. I hope we see her again.
Kyo was the big baddie behind all this. He made the spirit turtle kill people before the right time and steal its power. He then barely makes himself present and we only get a slight backstory to parallel himself with Naofumi in the second to last ep. he was a crazy person but as a character or villian, he lacked any source of being a threat for the viewers. He was just goofy. he did throw some sense at Naofumi for those viewers who dont support slavery of people......Naofumi.....
To help defeat this bad guy along with Naofumi, we had Rishia ever present. For many people, she was hated but for me, I found her to be tolerable even tho the adaptation did not do her background justice. She slowly worked alongside Naofumi and came out of her shell which was fine. And we heard what Naofumi thought of her in a cheated sense since it wasnt him in the right head.
Enjoyment:7/10
Personally, I knew the Spirit Arc was gonna be not good. But this adaptation just butchered everything to dive into it and get out quickly. Imma be honest and say the latter half is what kept me the most entertained as we got to see a new world despite it being a short time. We had fun encounters with different world systems which reminds me of early season 1 of shield hero. This brought me back to my love of shield hero and glimpse of Rage shield once again.
Overall: 5/10
I just do not know what went wrong. For some reason, another studio is helping out Kinema and they dont have many good animes under their belt. Action felt dull in the show and the pacing was awful. I dont know if the studio was only given 13 eps to go through 2 arcs, which just sucks right off the bat. There were not a lot of good aspects to the show that made me like the first season. I already know several key things for future content and hope that the quality of a third season is not as bad as what we received now. If you have a love for Shield hero, do not watch s2 else you will just hate it.

Story:7/10
In a post-apocalyptic Japan, we have several gangs of teens competing against each other in BattlleKour or something similar. Honestly, a cool concept and something i would not mind watching more of. The landscape was interesting enough to keep me entertained. The show does well to use the Little Mermaid to set up its own story. The themes of destruction and restoration remain consistent throughout the show. There were some glaring issues i found.
I think this story was very typical. We have the main character who is a loner and outcast who has the goal of figuring out where this song comes from. He ... comes across the female MC who knows nothing of human stuff, somehow teaches her, and they fall in love. They are met with hooligans, and she must be taken away from him and he must fight the supernatural forces and they have social commentary at the end. If you did not like this synopsis, I can see why you might hate the movie. As for me, I was fine with it. I felt the pacing was a bit fast in some areas of the show but was fine.
This whole story can be summed up to alien little Mermaid
Art:10/10
To be honest, this movie really wowed me with the art and animation. It is no surprise that Studio Wit does well with its animation of parkour sequences thanks to working on Attack on Titan. However, I clearly saw traces of inspiration from Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song. There were several moments that had a close up on either of the main 2 characters and the art was very detailed. I found it to be quite stunning.
Sound: 10/10
I am a quite simple person when it comes to music. I felt the music paired well with the show and was banging my head to the music. I liked it.
Enjoyment: I came for the action, and I was not displeased. I had a good time with the show as well as with the pretty colors across the screen.
Character: 7/10
Our main character Hibiki, is shown as a sort of a loner type who tunes people out with his headphones. It turns out that he has auditory hypersensitivity. It is revealed that he has this disability, and his mother slowly rejects him. This leads him to listening to the song of Uta and surviving a disaster. His main reason for being in Tokyo is to reach that sound he once heard. Fine motivation. My only issue with him is outside of him being less memorable i feel like they introduce this condition, and it seems to not really affect him later on. I have no idea what people with auditory hypersensitivity go through but his headphones are treated as the symbol of his isolation and he loses them to symbolize him being social with someone else. To me, I feel like his hypersensitivity just became irrelevant halfway into the movie.
Similarly, we are introduced to a side character with a prosthetic leg who receives some great attention. We see this side character with his own parkour segment and even knocks a steel beam with his leg. Incredible.....and then, the Main character uses the bottom of the side characters feet as a launchpad near the end. It was an incredible moment and yet... the side characters leg somehow manages to shatter into pieces. Obviously, I do not know how prosthetics work but I would have thought his leg would have been shattered long ago.
Uta is the second main character. She is used to parallel with the Little Mermaid because she is walking amongst humans, interacting, and falling in love with the male MC. I really had no issue with the way the story plays out to try to imitate the Little mermaid. i think they may have used it too much as later on, Uta recites several story points in the fairy tale to describe the same thing that happens in the movie. I did feel though that the introduction of her sister as an antagonistic force was shallow though.
The rest of the side cast exists. They similar to the main characters, they are really forgettable and only serve the purpose of supporting the male character. I had no ill will towards them but they did not really make me care for them.
I will say tho, there was an enemy team known as Undertaker who I thought was gonna be a main bad group but they were nothing important. They go to steal a side character from the MCs team to be used as motivation to do a battle. If Undertaker wins, they take the big ship that the MCs group lives on as a hideout. In hindsight, I thought it was going to be revealed that some organization had interest in the bubble phenomenon and was using this group to gain intel, especially on Uta. For some people who despise this trope, fear not, this did not have that happen. But I feel this buildup of Undertaker was kinda lacking. They had cool technology of water propelled shoes which helped propelled people farther and faster.
Enjoyment: 10/10
I had a blast with the show despite the lower scores for characters and story. I came for the action and left amazed by the visuals and soundtrack. The story and characters were not bad whatsoever. I enjoyed seeing parkour as well as the setting of a ruined Tokyo as their playground.
overall, this show was a 9/10 for me.

This whole show has had some interesting aspects. Whole show is a compilation of six stories, by 4 authors. Each one with quite the interesting backstories as well as state of minds they were probably in when writing these stories.
Supposedly, each author has quite a bit of merit to their names as well as their works being quite important to Japanese literature from what I have learned of.
Story 7/10:
Each story was fairly unique and had common cases of introducing death. I'm no literature freak nor do I know much of the original sources so I was not able to appreciate these arcs nor did ... I have the troubles of being in angst to see several of these arcs be butchered from their original material. Each story reflected themes of humanity and society as well as reflected the authors themselves.
No Longer Human
Being the longest arc as well as the most packed I feel. Again, I am no literature buff so I am merely scratching the surface but seeing the conflicts happen to Oba is quite exhilarating. From what I have seen on the wiki of No Longer Human, several parts seem to have been omitted, however, I felt the idea of fitting into society and the meaning of humanity were interesting and the use of topics like drugs and suicide were quite interesting. Reading Dazais background makes it evident the character quite parallels to Dazai.
In the woods underneath the Cherry blossoms in full bloom
One of the...weirdest adaptations in the whole show considering this def felt the most anime-ish and lighthearted compared to the first story with its bleakness. however, this does incorporate some rather dark moments despite the weirdly placed modern items such as the character, the Mountain Bandit, chewing gum and listening to music on earbuds. There is some story I felt may have been left out considering he had seven ex-wives, not sure why but ok. But the part that really found its horror is the newly acquired wife. This woman manipulates the mountain bandit to commit these criminal acts such as murder of immense magnitude, all to please her desires. But, slowly, he loses his love as we see he feels different towards society. he cannot meet the norms of society and wishes for the quietness of the wilderness and the different of standards. However, he takes his wife back with him and in a paranoid state, sees her for what she truly is and murders her. The show like I said, had some animeish things such as a talking boar for some reason, as well as the other such as a monk to just try to power up for some reason. Despite the anime-ish feels, the songs and stage like segments of the show during the mountain bandits murderous acts or quite chaotic.
Kokoro
Perhaps the worse adaptation I am assuming yet I still hold it in high regards. This arc spans 2 episodes and centers around the two friends, one known as Sensei and the other known as K. From what I gathered, the original story was told in 3 parts and includes the sensei older as well as a narrator/university student. This work instead adapts the last part of kokoro which is the senseis past and the 2nd ep tells the story of K, however, this was never part of the original work so some may feel conflicted about it. First half of the show focuses on Sensei and his perception of K. He sees K as friend until he invites him to the house he is staying at where K slowly takes a liking towards the homeowners daughter which Sensei also loves. Sensei slowly feels threatened by K as he sees him as a villain and becomes wary of K, causing their friendship to shift. In the end, the homeowner marries the daughter to sensei as she does not want K to have her. Sensei is pleased by this and K, in supposed sadness, commits suicide. The narrator marries his love but feels like he lost to K. The interesting yet messy portion is the 2nd half. It is the retelling of the story from the first part but from K's side. In this, we actually see K's thought process as a shy person and not a villain. Instead, we see from K's perspective that Sensei emits the presence of a cold and dark individual. We see a new side to the homeowners daughter who in fact is looking for excitement and sees it in K. Despite the retelling of the same story, several events and pieces of dialog are changed. This leads some to wonder which side is telling the truth. However, some may find this frustrating as the 2nd half, like it was mentioned, was not part of the original work. Despite that, it was quite the dynamic to see their perspectives of each other.
Run, Melos!
In terms of direction, this story was quite interesting as it utilizes a greek play of A man sentenced to death, using his friend as a substitute as he may visit his sisters wedding, however, the man is racing to meet his friend so that his friend does not die instead of him. The story uses this play to parallel the struggle a playwright has. The playwright original had a close relationship to a friend in High school. Someone that saw his talent and supported him. The friend urged the playwright for both of them to leave for Tokyo to pursue the friends acting and the playwrights writing. However, the friend does not show up and instead, the playwright leaves and becomes infuriated as he sees his friend near the rails just watching the playwright leave. The playwright is tormented by this play as he feel betrayed by his own friend. However, he learns that the friend is suffering from an illness and may dies soon. Similar to the character in Run, Melos, the playwright is rushing against the clock to meet with his friend and is able to reconcile with him. Compared to the prior stories, this was the most lighthearted and animated quite well, however, the story felt a bit predictable. It may had to do with seeing something similar of ending to other works but I was not as astounded by the story.
The Spiders Thread
A bandit who is on a killing spree. He kills many people without any remorse. He recieves his karma as he is stabbed by someone whom he killed their mother and he is sent to the execution block. Because of his crimes, he is sent to hell, where he is tortured from his own crimes of killing or of the disturbing scenery. However, a spider he had saved from when he was alive, decides to drop down a thread of silk. Seeing it as his salvation, the criminal climbs it.However, when he climbs, so too do other sinners and he soon kicks people off as he is more focused on his own salvation over the others. The thread breaks and he falls with the other sinners back to hell. The story feels more shallow compared to the others. Maybe because it was because it was originally made for children, however, it still is a nice story and more understandable. The story itself relies more with the depiction of the hellish landscape.
Hell Screen
This is another weird adaptation as it takes place in the same world as Spiders Thread and we see the painter view the execution of the bandit in the prior ep. However, this adaptation is much more different as the original source focuses on the Artist having the job of depicting hell and inflicts torture on apprentices and in turn, has his daughter killed. The artists finishes his Hell screen and proceeds to kill himself. However, the anime version is different. It instead has the artist go down the route of madness. He is deemed a great artist but does not see the beauty of the land and is forced to create a painting for the king for when he dies. The artist see the true nature of the nation as well as the kings nature. People burned from the plague, people killed for being crushed by the kings boat, and people entombed in the walls as structure for the wall or as an example to the slaves. The artist depicts hell and the King is angered. however, the artist needs more vision and asks for a maiden to die. The king abides but has the artist daughter die. The artists watches his daughter die in a moment of obsession and the king dies from the greatness of the flames. In the end, the artists depicts the hell he had seen, with the tortured of the king and the bandit, with his daughter at center, and the artist laying, most likely in a dying state with her. It too felt a bit shallow like the previous but makes up for with the hellish acts the artists sees and tries to depicts in his work.
Art: 9/10
Overall, I felt each arc had unique art to enhance their story tellings. Especially in the case of the Spiders Thread and the Hell Screen which utilizes its colors to depict Hell. The best animations were in Run Melos with the dramatization of the playwright and the play. The 2nd story, Cherry blossoms one, had sort of a generic anime style but the moments in which the new wife was singing and the Bandit was killing were well done in animation direction.
8/10:
The Ed was pretty meh but the OST for each arc was quite nice. I was quite interested in the music of the first arc and couldn't help but bop my head to it.
Character: 7/10
I feel many of the characters were depicted quite well such as Oba in No longer human, the playwright in Run Melos. The characters in Kokoro I feel were not as fledged out as I felt some details were omitted or were not properly displayed but it was quite well. The characters in the other works were either bare bones or were fine such as the Cherry Blossoms one.
Enjoyment: 9/10
The show was quite the blast, it had me interested in the stories themselves as well as the authors. I had the interest to look online to see the actual way some of the stories were written to compare each arc. It was nice to see a collection of these popular works in the Japanese literature.
Overall: 8/10
The show utilizes different styles which can help or damper the arcs. I feel that several arcs did not get a proper adaptation which is understandable as some content may had to be cut for length I'm sure. I would rank the arcs as so:
No longer Human
Kokoro
Run Melos
Hell Screen
In the woods beneath the cherry blossoms in full bloom
The Spiders thread
No longer Human was an interesting ride. To see the life of Oda and be it the reflection of Dazai. Despite the weird adaptation of Kokoro from what I heard, I do believe it was quite entertaining. Run Melos, despite being animated quite beautifully, did not have as much of an effect for story telling compared to No longer human and kokoro. Hell screen is above cherry blossoms mainly for the artistic style and with the painting near the end. Had the cherry blossoms used less of the light hearted moments, it may switch between hell screen. And the spiders thread was a bit boring in terms of character and the story was a bit simple but I still liked it.
Truly an great experience I had from the show.