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Aug 3, 2024
Someone let a ten-year-old boy make an anime.
That sentence alone is the perfect way to summarize Studio TRIGGER's debut ONA disasterpiece, Inferno Cop. A far cry from what the studio would later be known for, this show has more in common with what you would have found on Newgrounds in the mid-naughties than any other anime. "So bad, it's good" doesn't even begin to describe it.
Story - 0/10
This show has events that are strung together by a sense of continuity. Notice how I never said it has a story. Because rather than having a true beginning or end, the show instead chooses to have its
...
characters pop up wherever, whenever, and do whatever the director decides would be badass at that moment. You've got monsters, robots, zombies, time travel, dinosaurs, race cars, and more on top of that. Pure, unadulterated, un-adult writing.
Characters - 0/10
Compounding this, the characters have no personality to speak of beyond simply being loud. The titular Inferno Cop is, as he insists, "the embodiment of justice," and anyone who gets in his way is evil because they're evil. Not as in "I just slaughtered a village for fun," but as in "rahhhh I didn't do anything but I'm evil because I said so."
Art and Animation - 0/10
Unless you've only seen Delicious in Dungeon, Studio TRIGGER is known for their high-octane, breakneck-pace, absurdist, and oddly sexual fight scenes, and humor that's largely derived from said absurdist animation. Inferno Cop...doesn't have that, in fact there's not much in the way of animation at all. The characters look like they were ripped out of a comic book - not a manga, but a two-dollar, full-color, left-to-right, twenty-page, American comic book - and they're given precisely one frame each across the entire show. The only "animation" you get is the art itself sliding, rotating, or blowing up. I could whip up a full episode of this show in Sony Vegas over the course of an afternoon and nobody would be able to tell the difference.
Music and Sound - 3/10
Ah, finally, the show gets a few points for its fairly catchy (and oddly German) ending theme. Not its opening theme, though, because it doesn't have one (these episodes are four minutes apiece). And it definitely doesn't earn those points for the voice acting; honestly, I was shocked that there was more than one voice actor on board. I don't even understand Japanese, and I could still tell that every line was overacted to Hell and back. Oh, but don't forget to buy the soundtrack CD for ¥2300 (I think that's about $20) while supplies last! It's the trendy thing to do on the west coast.
Personal Enjoyment - 12/10
I try to be mature when reviewing, and even rating, anime. I spend ten minutes after finishing each show trying to think of what value I would give it, otherwise I'd have about five zeroes on my account and everything else would be either a nine or a ten. But I'm a nineteen-year-old man, not even half of my life removed from the ten-year-old boy who would have seen this show, with its overly-simplistic animation and the sheer badassery of its setting and characters, and would have gone and made his own fan episodes in Scratch. Every single negative that I mentioned ended up working in the show's favor, helped by the clearly parodical nature of everything. It'd be a lie and a shame to not recommend this stupid show. I'm very glad that I took the half-hour to binge it, and I can see myself coming back to it again and again.
Inferno Cop is awful. Watch it.
Total: 15/50 = 3/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Oct 13, 2023
DO NOT JUDGE OSHI NO KO BY MY REVIEW. I AM NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE.
Oshi no Ko is a show that everyone freaked out about when it was first released. It was lauded with praise and placed near the top of many "best anime of this year so far" lists. And this show is one of the most boring, uneventful slogs that I've ever sat through.
The first episode is a movie. I watched it at my college's anime club. Two otakus die and get reincarnated as their favorite idol's twin babies. There's some...weird (read: illegal) overtones, but the ending of the movie was great.
...
idol gets stabbed, and the male twin, Aquamarine, vows to go and kill the killer's rat, who could be no other than Aqua's own father. A setup for what could've been a fantastic show, a toddler detective with the brain of a 40y/o and a thirst for blood. (I need to watch Conan.)
And then that whole plotline gets dropped almost entirely.
The real meat of the show is Aqua growing up and becoming an actor while his twin sister, Ruby, becomes a pop idol like their mom. The whole "kill my dad" thing is kind-of there with Aqua largely being in the acting business so he can make connections, but it's nowhere near as important as I was hoping. Instead, you get five or so episodes of Aqua being a part of a reality dating show. Yes, a reality dating show, the kind that JonTron made two videos trashing on. What a great way to spend half the show.
As for Ruby's side...well, I don't really care for idol culture all too much. I prefer hard, rough, and gritty music over cutesy, obnoxious garbage, and my type of woman is more of a tsundere with a dark sense of humor, a misanthropic worldview, and a variety of mental problems. Ironically, the type of woman Ai (Aqua and Ruby's mom) used to be, and the exact kind of woman that the show says is unattractive. So, yeah, that, coupled with the fact that I had already seen a far better and funnier idol-based show in the form of Gokudols, means I didn't get much out of Ruby.
So, Ruby's story is inconsequential and Aqua's story is a disappointment. That's the easiest do-not-recommend I've ever given out. But, I think the problems with this show run deeper than just that. I had noticed a few things that were...off-putting. The show was overall fairly romance-centered. Most male characters were androgynous. The high-schools outfits were overly-designed. But it was at around the midpoint of the show that I realized what the problem was. A minor character from the reality dating show was slapped and got a small scratch, and then the whole show came to a screeching halt. That was when I realized that this show wasn't made for me.
It's a shoujo.
Now, everything makes sense. The embarrasingly-slow pace and complete disregard for the established story didn't matter. The show was made so that the Japanese equivelant of Tumblrites could smash any two characters together and make them kiss. This show was made for women, and a woman is something that I most certainly am not. That means I can't give it a do-not-recommend, because people who actually watch this kind of stuff might actually find enjoyment in this. Hell, I probably shouldn't have even written this review trashing something that I wasn't even supposed to care about in the first place.
Whatever, let's just get to the final rankings.
Art and animation: 8/10
Music and SFX: 5/10
Story: 0/10
Characters: 2/10
Enjoyment: 2/10
Overall: 3/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jul 8, 2023
"Contrary to popular belief, the Russians did invade the U.S. during the Cold War, and they won. It just went unnoticed, as they were quite crafty about it."
This quote comes from the TV Tropes page for the Tetris franchise, and is shockingly relevant to this anime. Outbreak Company is an isekai anime from 2013 where a complete shut-in named Shinichi gets picked for a little experiment involving a parallel world the Japanese government just found a little bit beforehand. He gets dropped there as a missionary to spread the Gospel of otaku culture, and then starts a harem with a maid, a foxgirl, and...a loli
...
(had to dock a point for that), so basically, he's living out all of our dreams.
And then things take a dark turn.
It's evidenced early on that the culture of Erdant is quickly eroding through Shinichi's presence. It starts off great, with the children finally learning to read and write (in Japanese, of course) instead of immediately getting thrown into the military. However, early on, said children have already started having heated debates about which 2D girl is the sexiest at an age where they shouldn't even know why we like boobs. Later, Petralta, the 16-year old "supreme leader" of Erdant (and the loli I mentioned earlier), ends up replicating the lifestyle of a NEET out of adoration of Shinichi and otaku culture. In the penultimate episode, anime has effectively become Erdrant's version of crack, with the people clamoring for more and more as time goes on, and the government handing out less and less.
Aaaaaaand I'm gonna stop right there. If this sounds interesting at all, then stop reading and go watch the show. I'm about to get into major spoiler territory, and I might get a bit philosophical in the process, so if you're cool with that, then by all means, stay with me.
The big reveal at the end is that the whole operation was a ploy by the JSDF to assimilate Erdant into, effectively, another Japan. The plan was to take this entire world with hardly any form of culture of its own, and give it the culture of Japan. It's a story of colonialism (there, I said the word, could someone give me an N-word pass?), and also one that parallels the outbreak of the American weeaboo.
I'm an American, born and raised, and I'd imagine most people reading this review are either also Americans, or at least come from other English-speaking countries (shoutout to the one guy from Ireland reading this garbage). And I've been pretty much surrounded by Japanese stuff my whole life. My oldest memories include watching my dad play Kingdom Hearts 2 and Zelda Twilight Princess, and watching Sonic X and Yugioh on CW4K!DS. Everything I did since the age of two was a step towards otakufication, finally culminating into full weebdom at the age of fifteen. I never stood a chance at a normal life.
You look at me, and then you look at those kids. Anime is straight up a school subject. An entire generation is being raised by the culture and customs of foreigners. If you think the generational divide is bad in real life, imagine GenAlpha being raised by...I don't know, Austrians. Imagine dealing with that kind of culture shock during every Thanksgiving (or similar holiday). You'd go insane.
And it's already kind-of happened.
I recently went on my senior trip. I went to Canada with just my grandma. Eight days of me barely talking, because I didn't want to disturb my grandma with Japanese nonsense. The only experience she's had with anime was trying not to fall asleep watching one of the Pokémon movies with my cousins. Trying to explain even something as simple as Demon Slayer, I was worried, would both exhaust my mouth and her brain. I'm not saying she's dumb, far from it, but we have two completely different minds, separated by two generations and over half a century. Weeb culture wasn't even a thought until Nintendo singlehandedly saved the Western video game industry in 1985 with Super Mario Bros.
On that note, Super Mario Bros. was the first real game shown in the anime, before even Japan's favorite series, Dragon Warrior. It's almost like it's supposed to mean something. The thing that caused the weeaboo epidemic here also played a role in it over there. It filled a void that desperately need to be filled - good video games here in America, and literally any form of fun activity in Erdant. And by the time we were able to finally fill that void ourselves, we became too dependent on the Land of the Rising Sun to try.
That's where the final two episodes come in. The most controversial episodes out of the whole show due to their far darker tone, which is also one of the main reasons why they're two of my favorite episodes out of the entire isekai genre. That's where the bombshell conspiracy was finally laid out, and Shinichi began to fight against it. A few episodes beforehand, it's revealed that the kid who has been translating light novels decided to write his own book. A stroke of inspiration, creativity, and most of all, ability, allowed this child to create something new, proving that a thriving culture could, in fact, exist without further intervention from Japan. Shinichi presented this in front of Supreme Leader Petralta, and recommended that the people of Erdant create their own works instead of leeching off of the Islands for everything, which led to the government trying to "erase" Shinichi.
Of course, say it with me now, "HIS NEW FWENS CAME AWONG AND SAVED HIM FROM DA EVIW PEEPUW!!1"
Even still, after being saved, he still had his contact with Japan cut off, meaning he couldn't get or give out any more anime, manga, light novels, or video games. He still, however, continues to spread the good news of otaku culture, just with more emphasis on creating new things.
This show feels like it was more directed at us, the international weeaboos, than it was to the Japanese. We have all this entertainment made by our own hands, and yet we choose to consume the creations of the Far East. At times, it almost feels lile it's mocking us, with the words "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US" being plastered in numerous spots. Not only is it a fairly ominous message on its own, but it was once the biggest meme on the English-speaking internet, and one that only exists due to the difficulty of translating Japanese to English. When was the last time you watched Rick and Morty? Read Batman? Played GTA? Been a while, hasn't it? Now, what about this season's isekai? Or the latest chapter of My Hero Academia? Or Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom? Probably far more recently.
During this year's 4th of July, I spent much of the day playing Final Fantasy 1, a Japanese video game, and on top of that, I imported it from Hong Kong. I call myself a patriot, and yet even on my country's birthday, I can't resist the urge to enjoy foreign media.
Who am I?
Who are you?
Where do we belong?
Do we belong anywhere?
Story - 10/10
Art - 8/10
Characters - 9/10
Sound - 8/10
Enjoyment - 9/10
Total - 9/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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May 9, 2023
I always like to start my reviews off with a brief personal tangent, in order to give a bit of extra context for why I feel a certain way about a series. And this one...this one's got some baggage. In fact, despite not having watched a single second of the show until just yesterday, it wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say that this anime
ruined the past few years of my life.
Yes, really. Back in ~2019, I was browsing TV Tropes and managed to stumble upon the page for this show. Seeing the cover for the first volume of the manga, and
...
seeing the two main characters flip me off, caught me off-guard and I closed out of the tab immediately. For the next few weeks, that was all I could think of, those two adorable anime girls telling me to eff off. Eventually, it was too much. I opened the page up again...and that's how a fetish was born. A damned TV Tropes article on a gag anime set in motion the downward spiral that would eventually get me addicted to hentai.
And yet, despite having the cover, and plenty of fanart, saved on every device I have, I never actually watched the show until now. So, how was the show that destroyed me? What did I dedicate four years of my life to?
Well, to put it simply, this show is WarioWare. A bunch of bite-sized skits played one after another, with barely enough time in between them for the humor to settle in. And when it does that, it works wonders. That's when the show is at its peak. Problem is, each episode has to be twenty-four minutes long, and you can only do so much with five-second skits. Something has to be done to fill the runtime. How do you do that?
Bloat.
For starters, after the opening, every episode has a little story thing that lasts five minutes and, more often than not, well outstays its welcome. The show's off-the-wall humor only works in the first place because everything's over with so fast that you don't get to comprehend it. Bogging the pace down with five minutes of shogi or sledding just reveals the cracks in the show's armor, the biggest one being its insistence that "random = funny." These story segments would be more than fine if there was some sort of overarching plot to all of them, but many of them couldn't even fit in the same universe, seeing as so many of them end with either Pipimi being a robot or Popuko taking over the world in some way.
Another thing the show does to pad out the runtime is by repeating jokes. I'm not talking about the elephant in the room - we'll get to that. I'm instead talking about Bob Team Epic, the worst and most nauseating part of the show. Basically, a few times each episode, they'll take a random skit from any episode in general, or in some cases, just pull a new one straight out of their asses, and run it through the meat grinder a couple hundred times until it looks like a Newgrounds flash animation mixed with Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff and topped with a bit of that Johnny Johnny video that Chadtronic reacted to. They're obviously meant to be as horrendous as possible, but they ended up flying too close to the sun and burning their wings. These segments alone knocked the show down from a high 8 to what would have been a low 6 if it weren't for things like the opening theme and Japon Mignon.
And I feel like I have to mention at least a few positives if I'm gonna give this show a good rating, so yeah, let's just go ahead and talk about that. Japon Mignon is a legitimately adorable little series of skits added into the show, where Popuko and Pipimi take a trip to France and make fun of it. These skits were actually animated by a real Frenchman, and the characters were presumably voiced by two French girls, in French. I assume those segments were done in response to the ridiculous success that Miraculous Ladybug was receiving back then. (Seriously, it was a show that was airing on Disney XD and nobody could shut up about it.) Overall, I think those segments were better than most of the rest of the show, at least the second time around.
Oh, yes, their final ploy to stretch this show to a full cour was to play every episode twice. With very little differentiating the versions beyond the Pop Team's voice actors. I will say that it's funny to hear them speak with male voices during the second run, but it still feels like pointless filler, or in some cases, like with what they decided to do with the Japon Mignon segments, it feels scummy. See, during the first version of each episode, the Japon Mignon segments have no subtitles. The second version adds the subtitles. Okay, but why? Wouldn't it make sense to do it the other way around? 'Cuz those segments are nowhere near bizarre enough to stand on their own as foreign art pieces devoid of context. There's one where, without the subtitles, they just...take a picture and get on a bus. Funniest thing I've ever seen.
Now, sometimes, there are big enough differences between the two versions of each episode. Case in point, episode 11, where the first version has a five-minute horror skit, and the second version has some random guy in a closet reacting to said five-minute horror skit. If there was more stuff like that, the I'd say the whole concept was justified, but either I didn't pay enough attention during the second version of most episodes, or there wasn't much there.
Everything else was great, though. Whether I like it or not, I'm a GenZ-er, and I fell prey to "random = funny," just like the rest of us. I enjoyed it, outside of the stuff I mentioned above, and I'll probably watch the recent second season soon enough, too.
Now, do I recommend it? Well, that depends on who you are. For starters, if you're like me...yeah, no, you're not, but assuming you were, you'll get a kick out of all the middle fingers being thrown around, and a lot of the jokes will click with you as you remember, "oh, yeah, that thing from DeviantArt/Pixiv/Danbooru." If you like the modern, post-ironic "random = funny" type of humor that's been popular throughout the 2010s and 2020s, then I'll also recommend this show to you.
Here's a good test to see whether or not you'll like the show. It's a joke that I saw a lot of fanart surrounding, but I don't remember it being in the show. Ask yourself this, does the following make you laugh?:
"One hambaga, please."
"No, no, HAM-BUR-GER."
＂Ａｈ． Ｙｏｕ ａｒｅ ｍｏｔｈｅｒｆ＊ｃｋｅｒ？＂
If you laughed at that, even a chuckle, go watch this show. If it didn't, it's probably not for you.
Now, let's run down its qualities and give it a grade based on my personal opinion.
Story: None. 0/10
Art: This is an unique show, in that its artstyle changes between nearly every skit. You've got regular anime-styled segments, you've got felt, sketches, sand, actual real-life people, and of course, the revolting Bob Team Epic. As a result, the quality of the art tends to fluctuate between a nine and a one. I'll just throw it at the midpoint. 5/5
Characters: Yet another mixed bag. Popuko and Pipimi are essentially the center of the universe, with everyone around them being their for little more than their own amusement, and that of the viewer. In that regard, they serve their purpose extravagantly, and the duo themselves are undoubtedly great barrels of heroin. Except, I don't think you store heroin in barrels. 7/3
Sound: Men voicing women, instant 10/10. As for the music, the opening just needs to be blared into my ears at all times, seriously. It's that good. The other songs, on the other hand...eh, a lot of them sound like either the most generic anime music, or stuff you'd hear on the radio here in America. And I am not a fan of radio music. 3/-13
Enjoyment: Yes, I freaking did. 6/3/1
Final verdict: 🖕/🌲
Conclusion: This is a show that defies professional critique. Every concept that a normal person would use to judge any other form of media is thrown out the window because this whole thing was just made to have a good laugh. And that's what you'll get. Don't expect anything groundbreaking. Gather your friends, get five hours of free time, load up on booze, and just have fun. I wasn't able to do those first three things (no friends, watched it over the course of two days, not old enough to drink), but dammit if I didn't enjoy myself. This anime tormented me for four years, and it's great to finally check it off the bucket list. I may not be free, but now I know what I was jacking off to all these years. It feels nice.
Personal rating: 7/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 13, 2022
This is it.
This is the best anime ever made.
No contest, this is better than even Golden Wind. Nearly everything about it is perfect, from the crazy action sequences to the surprisingly engaging romantic subplot. It never skips a beat, no down-time where you don't have to pay attention. Something is always happening.
Story: 10/10
The show was surprisingly accessible to someone like me who had never played 2077. Everything you need to know is laid out for you in a quick and easy-to-understand manner. David is a high-school delinquent who dropped out after the untimely death of his mother, and he joins a group of cybernetically enhanced
...
bounty hunters after finding an implant that gives him bullet-time abilities. One thing I really like about the show is that there are legitimate consequences for abusing his abilities, either damaging his body or his mind. Far too many stories have super powered characters that have either no drawbacks whatsoever or the drawbacks are completely superfluous. Having consequences that actually matter help raise the stakes. Unfortunately, I can't go too in-depth with reviewing the story (I want you to watch this show), but I will day that the ending is top-tier.
Art and animation: 10/10
Gore! And tits! What more could you ask for? Everything is vibrant, the battle sequences are smooth as butter, and yeah, blood will spill. The backgrounds are gorgeous and the characters are easily distinguishable from each other. It really looks like a cyberpunk world. Basically, imagine if there were ten episodes worth of that one crazy episode of Star Wars: Visions (fittingly enough, that episode was also a Trigger animation).
Characters: 9/10
I'm deducting one point because I'm bad at names. All the characters are incredible. If there's one thing I love in a story, it's when every single character is an asshole. You've got David, who I already mentioned, Lucy, the hacker who bangs David once an episode, Rebecca, the best character, the biggest asshole and she looks adorable, the black guy who I forgot the name of, admittedly a relatively good person, but sometimes that's necessary, and then there's the hilarious guy who installs the cybernetic enhancements.
Music: 7/10
The music is the only part that I'd say is less than stellar. I'd assume it came from the game, but there's a bit too much rap and a bit too much stuff that sounds like radio music. The OP and ED are bangers, though.
Overall: 10/10
I'd rate it an 11 if I could. Holy freaking smokes. I'll admit that this isn't my best review - I'm far better at bashing than I am at gushing - but I had to make it. This is the best anime of all times and it sold me on the game. If you're over the age of sixteen and have a strong stomach, take four hours out of your day to watch this masterpiece. You won't regret it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 14, 2022
Soul Eater is a show that I had heard a lot about before starting, yet I had also heard nothing about it. What I knew was that it was a show where people become weapons, and that it was apparently really good. Hearing the show get showered with praise like that, I was shocked to see that it only had a 7.8 here. After watching...I can see why.
To be fair, the show starts with a bang. The first third of the show rivals the GOATs of anime. Whenever the characters weren't cracking jokes, they were beating each other up. I loved it.
But that's also its
...
biggest weakness. It sets itself to such a high standard that it could never keep, and then crumbles beneath its own weight not too long after. A similar thing happened with Bakemonogatari, but at least that one was short, and it collapsed as early as the third episode. Soul Eater managed to hold strong for seventeen episodes, and when it fell, the impact caused a second worldwide flood. The show became so boring that I had almost considered switching to the dub so that I could do something else while "watching."
See, once episode 18 hits, the show goes from "wacky school antics" to "shallow bromantic EVA ripoff." The main cast ends up under the school for twelve episodes and Maka (the main character) ends up flirting with this kid named Crona the entire time. Crona first appeared in episode six as what felt like a one-off miniboss-type meant to introduce the actual main villain, and instead he's here now, reintroduced as one of the main cast and pretty much only existent for the sake of having an emo character. Yeah, he has a tragic backstory and blah, blah, blah, but that's no excuse for almost single-handedly ruining the entire show.
From there on out, the only fun episodes until the end are the filler episodes. I'd say you should watch them, but it's not worth sifting through hours of filth just so you get a small bit of Excalibur. I'll admit that some of the fight scenes are really good, especially with that one guy who wrapped a chainsaw around himself, but most of the time I wasn't paying enough attention to even see them.
What I did gather was that there was a man behind the man behind the man, and I was actually invested in one particular character, Stein, who was slowly going insane throughout the show. That's about it.
However, the last three episodes are actually incredible, almost enough for me to give this show a positive score. One long fight scene (minus a small break to wrap up Soul's character arc), and it's gorgeous. A bit of Evangelion-inspired diving into the mind, and it's just about perfect.
And that's my review. Very sparse on details, but that's because (1) the first seventeen episodes are so good that you should watch them blind (that's why I don't review stuff that I like), and (2) everything else was so boring that I couldn't pay attention. Watch the first third, don't bother with anything else.
3/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jan 29, 2022
Evangelion is a depressing, pretentious series with insane action scenes, and I'm a depressed and pretentious guy who really likes those cheap dopamine shots. It's a match made in heaven, and indeed, the original series is my third favorite anime of all time. The first twenty-four episodes and the movie tell one of the greatest stories ever told, held back only (or perhaps even enhanced) by budgetary constraints. It's arguably the best written TV show ever.
Now take that show, give it an actual budget (stripping it of much of its charm as a result), and replace half the damn story with something completely original. Now
...
you have the Rebuild films. They're better than I'd lead you to believe with that description (in fact, 2 and 3 are on par with the End), but nothing could really surpass Neon Genesis Evangelion and still be Neon Genesis Evangelion. So, they didn't even bother.
The Rebuild movies are a remake/reboot/retelling of the revered Evangelion TV show from 1995. The first movie was a retread of the first six episodes, redone almost shot-for-shot with higher quality animation, and the second movie similarly recycled the next half-dozen or so episodes before relinquishing control and rerouting the story, to the point where the third movie relished in its originality and did somethign qyite remarkable: nearly redeeming Kaworu, or at the very least, rescuing him from the "pointless lifeless yaoi retard" pile. This review is specifically for the fourth movie, however, which attempts to retcon the whole "story that repeats" aspect with no regards for the show's original message. As a result, it's difficult to reliably decide on a good rating, as I'll no-doubt come back and re-rate it again and again. As a movie, it's really good with incredible action scenes and a story that's about as reasonable as you'll get from the franchise. As an Evangelion, it's arguable even worse than the reviled last two episodes of the show, as it renders everything I love about the series moot, and retroactively makes the show worse.
Also, I'm diving deep-ish into this, so if you haven't watched the entire series already (that's episodes 1-26 of the original show, plus the End of Evangelion, plus all four Rebuild movies), there'll be massive spoilers.
The movie begins with Mari from the last two movies showing up and trying out a new EVA. I hated her ever since she first showed up; adding new main characters to a remake always means it's going to hog all the screentime and become best friends with the main character and conflict with the entire mood of the show and blah blah blah, though thankfully most of that hasn't happened QUITE yet. Anyway, as I was saying, Mari was testing out a new EVA (which for some reason doesn't line up with human anatomy - good job, engineers), and ends up in a fight with...what was it, again? I honestly don't remember every detail, I was doing a huge binge and my brain was already fried from the last three movies. Either way, I think I remember that she had to take them out because they were trying to set off the Fourth Impact, which already happened in the last movie, but apparently didn't. Unlike the Third Impact, which happened in the second movie but didn't, but still did, just it didn't, and we call it the Near Third Impact, the Fourth Impact happened but didn't, and it actually didn't, even though it did. Following me? No? Good, then I can get away with not remembering half the movie. Anyway, something probably happens to Mari - all I can remember was a really cool fight scene above the signature ocean of blood and a couple of scientists with computers on an island made outta girders - and then we cut over to Shinji and the gang in a village. A peaceful, friendly, traditional post-post-post-post-apocalyptic village. Tohji and the class rep are grown up, married, and they have a baby. Asuka has a Wonderswan. Everyone lives their lives on the farm, and everyone is happy.
Let me repeat that. Evangelion. A series infamous for its depressing story and mentally broken characters. And here we are in a quaint village where the people are HAPPY. How do you manage to take one of the defining characteristics of EVA and throw it in the trash that easily?
Well, at the very least, the trio is as emo as ever. Asuka is fed up with Shinji's crap because he won't eat his rations, and Not Rei is having an identity crisis because she's been existent for, like, three days. In fact, this entire part was largely about Not Rei learning how to function in a society and figuring out what her name should be. That could've been kinda cute, a little calm before the big, fat, final storm to end the series; in fact, I was on the edge of my seat, waiting for the moment something big would happen. Problem is, this part lasted THIRTY FREAKIN' MINUTES without anything impactful happening whatsoever beyond Asuka snapping at Shinji for not eating. Thirty minutes of this 150-minute Evangelion movie is taken up by not Evangelion.
Thankfully, eventually, something does happen. After deciding she can't think of a name by herself, Not Rei decides to ask Shinji for a name. He, of course, decides that the only name he can five her is Rei Ayanami, so Not Rei is...Rei. This entire time, everyone has been calling her Not Rei because she's isn't Rei even though she is Rei, and now she is, even though she isn't, even if she is. See why I had trouble paying attention? It doesn't matter, anyway, though. because then she explodes into a puddle of blood (finally, the real Third Impact!), and then Shinji wakes up because it's all a dream. The last thirty minutes were completely pointless. Hideaki Anno wasted my precious time by slapping everyone in a happy backwards farm village.
Anyway (I've been saying that a lot), Shinji wakes up and he doesn't have the Choker. Yes, Kaworu blew himself up with it in the last movie, but Shinji still isn't given a new one; in fact, it's mentioned that he doesn't need it anymore because he needs to pilot the EVA again. He gets in the "robot" and the sync rate, at first set to zero, is revealed to be (big surprise) infinite. Meanwhile, Gendo's in the back talking about how he didn't start the fire and it was always burning since the world has been turning - that is to say, the Human Instrumentality Project was SEELE's idea and he was just following orders. They're trying to make Gendo seem like not a bad guy, and you don't do that. He's also a cyclops. Mari jumps in and we learn that her real name is...Mary. Incredible, what a twist. What's notable, however, is her middle name: Iscariot. This could have actually been a good plot twist, having the obnoxious, spotlight-hogging OC be a traitor. But, no, it means absolutely nothing.
Back to Shinji...I don't know. I think I remember him trying to get up over to Unit 13, but that's where Asuka is. Speaking of which, Asuka's side is that she went over to Unit 13 and tried to destroy it while it was dead, only for her ATField to activate - HER ATField - blocking the way for the big fat punch and making her go mad trying to destroy it. She even fuses with her EVA and grows giant and crazy-looking for a bit in probably the best action scene in the movie (of two). And then my brain went kaput again so Unit 13 woke up and the Fourth Impact is happening for real now. An army of naked headless Reis coming to claim your soul under the leadership of Giant Naked Rei's disembodied head from EoE is how it's visualized, and it's all rendered in disgusting CG. Back to Shinji and Unit 13, turns out U13 is actually a mirror image of U01. We get five minutes of showing a scene from the original show, then U01 and U13 show up and punch each other, then another scene from the original show, ad infinitum. Such repetition is accurate to how some of the later episodes of the show played out, but the key difference is that there, it only happened during a deep dive through the characters' minds. Nothing of the sort happened in any of the Rebuild movies, which is one of the reasons why I hate Mari. On top of that, this whole thing feels like a tug at the nostalgia strings, which one again goes completely against the core message that ESCAPISM IS BAD.
Eventually, Shinji realizes what's happening, and Gendo reveals to him everything I've just said about the mirror image and the Fourth Impact. We finally get the signature deep dive into Shinji's brain (there might have been something in between, but at this point it's been two days since I've watched it and my brain has been fuzzy since day 1), where he's in a garage with Rei, with a projector showing the titles of all the episodes and movies on the door. Rei talks to Shinji about why he's here and Shinji decides this crap's been going on for far too long. He says "bye-bye, all of Evangelion!" and suddenly the entire series never happened.
THE ENTIRE SERIES NEVER F*CKING HAPPENED.
They retconned the entire franchise into that one scene from episode 26. Shinji is outside, on the shore staring at the BLUE water. Mari (of course it's Mari) ends up surfing over to where Shinji is. Time skip. Shinji is going off to college. Kaworu is in the background, dating Rei. (They've officially cured him of his gayness!) Mari jumps on top of Shinji, and they...PROPOSE to each other?!! What the hell!!
Now, I just want to make it clear that I don't hate the ending because Mari stole Shinji from Asuka. My problem is that Shinji went out with ANYBODY, and that he's HAPPY, and we have a HAPPY, CONCLUSIVE ending. That is NOT what Evangelion's about. Evangelion, to me, is about the futility of the desires of man. The End of Evangelion was the perfect ending to establish this, being neither happy, definitive, nor sane. Hideaki Anno himself went on record saying that the story repeats itself, which also drills in the core message of the show: that escapism is bad. By making the story loop, he created a show that, despite ending over 25 years ago, could never truly end. You just start from episode one when you're finished. Add on top of that all the fake and meaningless symbolism and you have a show that you can dissect frame-by-frame to figure out what everything means, and by the time you decide what it means to you, you've watched the series a hundred times and have gotten agonizingly bored. That's the subtle genius of Evangelion, making you watch the same eleven or so hours of robots and depression over and over again until you hate it so much that you get up off of your seat and live an actual life. This subtle genius is absolutely destroyed when you employ a legitimate ending, and worse, a happy one. Leaving Evangelion satisfied means you didn't actually watch Evangelion. You watched another capesh*t movie.
And I think that's what this movie is supposed to appeal to. Fans of modern Hollywood films who like their happy, conclusive endings where the good guy always wins. I'll admit that I enjoy a good superhero movie from time to time (my favorite movie of all time is the Snyder Cut), but this isn't a superhero movie. Don't try to make it one.
In conclusion, as I said at the beginning, I have no idea how to rate this. As a movie, it's a great popcorn flick (beyond those thirty seconds of farm), and I'd give it an 8. As an Evangelion, it's a disgrace to the entire franchise and gets a 2. If you just want a good time, go watch this. If you want Evangelion, skip this. There's plenty of Malaysian bootleg DVDs of all the good stuff on eBay for twenty bucks.
This is how the world whimpers. Not with a bang, but with an end.
Art: 9/10
Sound: 8/10 (Oh yeah, I forgot. The voice acting is good and I like the music during the first fight scene.)
Characters: ?/10
Story: ?/10
Enjoyment: 5/10
Overall: Unrateable (but I have to put a rating in so 5)
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 19, 2021
I like futanari.
I do not like hentai.
This is a large dilemma for me, as the very basis of futanari - the concept of a woman with male genitalia - is inherently sexual. Trying to find a futa in a SFW work is like trying to order a McFlurry, you basically need to plan everything ahead and do about a week of research to even get a chance at it. Even if you find a good one, chances are it's likely only going to be passively mentioned or implied. I get that you can't really show a dick on-screen, but it only really has to be
...
a slight bulge for me to be turned on. You rarely even get that.
Bra Girl, more accurately translated as Swing Girl, is entirely focused on a group of futas in a world where no sane man would ever knowingly date one, more specifically about one of them being in love with someone. With a plot like that, you have to have at least a little bit of bulge, and this manga definitely delivers on that end. The problem is, that's the only end it delivers on.
In terms of story, it's a romantic comedy. I'm a teenage boy, so we're already off to a GREAT start. But, even if you are a fan of rom-coms, this title has way too much of an emphasis on the romance aspect, and what comedy there is boils down to "girl talk." So, yeah, this is a title for the twenty-something virgin businesswoman who binge-watches Hallmark movies out-of-season and has no interest on anything made in Japan, and the 8-year-old princess who watches Disney Channel sitcoms and has no business knowing about the snake in Daddy's pants. This appeals to nobody.
Even if the story isn't a turn-off for you, the characters are bland and uninteresting. The entire Swing Girl club is basically the same character copied and pasted five times, with only slight tweaks to each one. "Oh, look! This one has daddy issues!" "Hey, this one has a porn stash!" "Ah, this one figured out a way to hide her rod under her swimsuit!" Honestly, I might be remembering wrong and these all might have been the same character. Not great when you've just finished reading the entire thing.
If you're still interested after all I said, stop now. We're heading into the finer details, and that includes spoilers.
So, uh, how is it so hard for these chics to find a good man? It's not like this isn't a well-documented and common phenomenon in that world. Surely there's at least a decent chunk of the population who would be into that kind of thing. It's impossible in the real world, and you've still got millions of people like me, who are very much into that kind of thing.
Also, I mentioned how it does bulges a lot, but it doesn't even do that enough. One of the major "plot" points is that there's actual panties made for futas, which have pockets for your schlong. I wanted bulges, not pouches.
The way that one girl managed to hide her wiener just hurt me. Tape? On your privates? And you're wrapping it underneath your crotch? I get that they don't have balls, but even still, that sounds painful. That rash is gonna come on much sooner than a few hours.
Furthermore, the ending was too obvious. It barely even qualifies as a spoiler to say that they get together at the end with how fluffy the whole thing is. I think it would be better if the man said he changed his mind long before the chick made that big reveal, and decided he was in love with that dude with the spiky hair. I'm not into gay stuff, but that would be a lot funnier than "tiny cock haha", and it honestly felt like it was building up to both sides being homo.
In terms of stuff I did like...the art was pretty good sometimes. I also like how they demonstrated the tape thing with a hot dog, that was actually pretty funny. And it accidentally kinda admitted that pornography rots your brain and makes you gay, although it's shown in a more positive light than I'd have hoped.
So yeah, bad manga, don't read. I initially gave it a six because I was blinded by the holy bulge and couldn't think critically. Then I came to my senses. You're better off reading a crappy doujin.
3/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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