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Jul 17, 2017
Unwatchable Machine Doll
I’ve never been more pissed off at Funimation than I was when I watched this show.
WHY WHY WHY did Funimation waste resources on this garbage?
There are no redeeming qualities about it. The story goes nowhere and is ENTIRELY UNFINISHED. The characters are all either completely bland or actively unlikable. Finally, the animation is practically nonexistent, which is a rather gigantic problem for an animated show.
Most of the libraries in my area have this piece of junk, which means it must have been on fire sale to sucker them into wasting funds on it, either that or they were donated, which is still too
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expensive.
What’s so bad about it? Everything. Let’s start at the top.
Story!
A bad guy is set up against the hero and the show stops before they get anywhere near a climactic showdown. If you believe you would enjoy riding a really flat, uneventful rollercoaster 1/5 of its length, then need to walk back to the start in order to go do something more interesting/fun, this still probably isn’t the show for you.
In three hundred minutes, they couldn’t string together anything resembling an interesting story. Pathetic.
Here are some questions that don’t have answers.
1 What is a Machine Doll?
2 Who is the unbreakable one and why? (We have to assume it’s one of the leads, but it’s never explained.)
3 Why is it that every introduced character uses what’s termed a “banned doll” yet no one gets in trouble for this? I always thought “banned” meant prohibited.
4 Why on earth was this show localized?
The Big O is desperately unfinished yet a single episode of that was more interesting than this entire show.
Sometimes, when an anime turns out to be a train wreck, people will defend it by claiming “it’s an advertisement for the original work.” Well, in this case, the show is based on a series of light novels which as far as I know was not officially translated into English. So, if the thinking was that this show is so amazing that it would inspire legions of fans to study Japanese simply so they can read the light novels and learn what happens to these extremely boring characters, then someone is insane.
Art!
The art was okay. They didn’t try too hard but didn’t fail that often.
Animation!
Think of every single shortcut you can. They used them all as much as possible, and sometimes even more than that.
Cut the mouths off so you don’t have to animate talking. Check.
Zoom far out so you don’t have to animate talking. Check.
Face characters backwards so you don’t have to animate talking. Check.
Relying on bad CGI to handle fight scenes so you don’t have to animate. Check.
Sound
Forgettable, except that one of the leads is very irritating.
Character
One of the leads has a joke she uses. It’s not funny, however, either the author or studio believed that if you take an unfunny joke and repeat it many, many times, it will become funny.
They are wrong.
Towards the end of the show, characters start to form relationships. This is about nine or ten episodes too late. Other than the irritating main character, everyone else is pretty flat.
Enjoyment
The only way anyone could possibly get enjoyment out of this show is if they were actively looking for ways that it was badly and cheaply done.
Some of you may be thinking that I look for bad shows or things to complain about. That’s not true. I don’t have so much free time that I can afford to throw hours and hours of it away. I just feel compelled to warn people off from the bad ones and can sit around and wait a bit to review say, Mushishi. I deliberately go into shows knowing as little about them as possible. My super-secret method for picking shows is to randomly grab something and if it’s anime, I watch it. If anything, since I am devoting what little free time I have to a show, then I am automatically trying to look for every single positive point so that I don’t feel I wasted my time. The fact that UMD fails in all aspects is not my fault.
I suffered through all twelve episodes of this awful waste of plastic and looked at one OVA episode but enough is enough. Your time is more valuable than this. DO NOT DO IT.
Overall
Even D-Frag has more redeeming qualities.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Apr 15, 2017
You know what would be really surprising? What if I watched SSW after watching the series before it, which I discovered to be mostly garbage?
SSW is the sequel to SIW. As noted in my spoiler-free review of SIW, only 2/3 of the title was explained, so I assumed this time around that "spread" would either refer to a fancy buffet or jelly.
If you haven't seen SIW, you can still watch SSW. In fact, you might enjoy it way more than people who HAVE seen SIW.
Now for a spoiler-filled review of SIW which will gradually segue into a spoiler-free SSW review.
SIW's story is absolutely, terribly, horribly
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awful. It seems like the writer(s?) had no idea what they were doing and just made up crap from week to week in an effort to surprise the audience.
"Hey," they said. "We have a card game where if special people called Selectors win CCG duels an unspecified amount of times and the plot demands it, their wish will come true." Okay that sounds pretty standard...collect x items (wins) to get wish y.
You know what would be really surprising? What if Yuzuki had a wish that was something taboo? Yeah, that'll shock everyone!
You know what would be really surprising? What if losing three times made you not only lose the ability to be a Selector, but you also lost all memories of anything related to being a Selector, and you had the opposite of your wish come true FOREVER?
So, this happened to Hitoe and she freaked out. Stuff was either disappearing from her diary or she couldn't see it and she was basically shell-shocked. Not only that but she felt physical pain when touched by anyone who could potentially be a friend. It was pretty dark.
Then, Akira lost three times and...
You know what would be really surprising? What if we showed you how screwed up Akira's life got? So, the characters met.
You know what would be really surprising? What if Akira still remembered about being a Selector? Uh...didn't you just establish that they..? Shhh!
You know what would be really surprising? What if getting your wish means that you switch places with your LRIG and they inhabit your body but have your memories and everything? Then Yuzuki expressed disappointment that it wasn't really her getting her wish. However, LRIGs really want to get back into the real world and are required not to say anything about the switcheroo if they ever want to get out. However, getting out of the card world and into someone else's life ALSO isn't really getting your wish to get out of the cards. So what is the point?
Just like when Hitoe was punished, there's clearly an element of magic going on because Yuzuki's LRIG achieves Yuzuki's wish practically overnight.
You know what would be really surprising? What if there were certain wishes that can't come true? Ruko decided she wanted to save everyone but then we're told a couple of times that that wish can't possibly come true yet she still wants to go for it. Hang on for a moment. Akira's wish was to ruin Iona's life. Since she failed, the opposite of her wish came true but...what if she'd won? How would Piruluk have been able to ruin Iona's life? ~_~;
By the way, I thought I should mention that one thing they never made any attempt to explain was WIXOSS. You'd think they'd spend a couple of minutes somewhere in twenty four episodes to explain say, the basic mechanics, but pretty much all you learn is that there are coloured cards, there's a board, there are turns & card power levels, and pretty much everyone starts their games growing their LRIGs. This lack of explanation defuses many shocking game-related scenes because we're not sure what's possible or not. I mean, did you notice how Ruko starts off knowing nothing, then an episode later is one of the best players in the world? Would it not have made sense to have things explained to her and thus the audience by proxy?
You know what would be really surprising? What if Yuzuki became Hitoe's LRIG? Wait, I thought you said that losing three times meant you'd lose the ability to be a Selector? Shhh! If Hitoe can try for a wish again and she wishes for the same thing as last time, can she cancel out the previous negative wish which was for forever?
You know what would be really surprising? What if Hitoe met Ruko and didn't remember anything about her and was cold and hostile?
You know what would be really surprising? What if Hitoe actually remembered Ruko and Yuzuki? Wait, didn't you establish that she could never make friends ever again?
The whole thing with Akira and Hitoe reappearing seems like the creators didn't want to get rid of the characters. However, they clearly stated that losing is a permanent thing. They SHOULD have gotten rid of them. Doing so would've made the whole series stronger. They already said Akira killed another Selector!
I assume the writer(s) knew they had created a steaming turd because the author is credited as "LRIG." No one wanted to take responsibility for the story. Can you blame them?
SSW has a stronger story in that it doesn't contradict itself every episode..just some of them. If you watched SIW, you'd be more likely to question how it was that certain characters suddenly knew things.
Now, you could argue that the contradictions in SIW are not the result of the story being slapped together by squirrels but instead give the show an air of mystery as the girls are confronted by continuous lies but you'd be wrong. The story starts where they know nothing except that win lots = wish comes true. So, being told there are permanent consequences for failure...which turn out to not be permanent...and then you can do things but then you can't but then you can...that's exactly what makes it a mess.
It'd be like if you and Bill were playing a new game he'd just made and Bill told you that throwing the ball into a box would get you three points, then changed his mind to make it two points, then eventually added that you want a low score instead of a high score. How fun of a game would that be to play? Likewise in SIW, introducing surprises and immediately revealing them to be lies has no meaning since there's no real foundation of "truth" established! No mystery is created other than "Who on earth green-lit this project?"
Personally, I felt the strongest parts of SIW were when Selectors interacted with non-Selectors. Ruko's grandmother was almost certainly the best part of the show. At the end, her comment on Ruko's growth as a character was probably the most poignant moment of the series and it had weight because it was grounded in realistic interpersonal relationships, not magical fantasy arbitrary plot twist land.
While SSW has a stronger story, that's only in comparison to SIW. The story is still terrible. It will patiently explain things to you at length...which don't make any sense. When it gets away from SIW, it's halfway decent. However, it doesn't stay away from SIW, which makes the show only 1/4 decent. Pacing is abysmal and you get info-dumped a couple of times which really kills the flow.
So, besides the story (or lack of thereof), the art is not as fancy and the animation is more inconsistent. They love their flashbacks, I tell you. There was also a scene which demonstrated why most characters' hairstyles cover their ears. o_o
Overall, if you've seen SIW, I can't recommend it. Of course, SIW didn't end on a very satisfactory note but this continuation contradicts itself all the time and doesn't flinch. If you haven't seen SIW, then uh, er...mmm. Lucky you?
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Apr 9, 2017
The Blues Brothers is one of my top two favorite movies. The setup is that these two guys have to raise a lot of money very fast to pay off the church's back taxes and save the orphanage where they grew up.
The only problem is that in real life, churches do not pay taxes, so...the entire plot makes no sense. However, I still love the movie.
Selector Infected Wixoss's plot is about as strong. Unfortunately, it's not an action comedy musical, it's a story-driven show and as such, having a weak story is basically a death sentence for it. I'm not going to spoil it, but
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the problem is that they go for too many twists. It's like if you explain to the audience that falling down a bottomless pit will kill you, but then a character falls down one and only gets a scraped elbow. It kind of devalues any danger presented in the show.
Apart from trying to surprise the audience too much and accidentally murdering the story, the series is nicely put together. The first few episodes in particular show off lots of intricately detailed scenery and the characters presented throughout are likable if a little flat. Animation is sporadic with bursts of insanity and then stretches of recaps so I'm undecided on that.
Overall, not the worst show in the world but anyone with the slightest writing experience would immediately reject that story.
Also, if you care, only 2/3 of the title is explained.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Mar 28, 2017
I watched this show many, many years ago, and will simply tell you my impressions of it from many, many years ago. This is because I don't want to watch it again, ever.
It's basically Rurouni Kenshin with robo-cowboys and much, much worse animation. I guess I wouldn't have minded so much if I hadn't seen RRK beforehand, possibly because Kenshin came out first. Well, okay, the plots aren't entirely the same but the main characters are rather similar and then I was constantly irritated by how low budget the animation was. Kenshin was stylish. Trigun's animation is just...blergh. That's the word, blergh. If you haven't
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seen RRK or hate samurai, then perhaps you will enjoy Trigun. It's 3/5 across the board except for the animation, which isn't the worst in the world but then I do like to have animation in my animation.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 9, 2017
Nodame Cantabile is one of the most popular shows ever. It's a manga that got turned into an anime, TV show, and movie. In my mind it's quite similar to HachiKuro, which is a manga that got turned into an anime, TV show, and movie. I'd bet NodaCan is the more popular of the two but did you know Yoko Kanno did the music for the HachiKuro movie?
In order to write this review, I watched the first two episodes just now. I last saw the entire show nearly ten years ago. @_@ All I remembered was that it was very emotional, most of the characters’
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names, certain plot points, that it was beautiful, and that they liked to put songs into the episodes. I’m waiting to find someone who might be interested in this show before I re-watch the whole thing, so this will have to suffice. Why did I decide to write a review of HachiKuro? Firstly, I promised Karlstein I would (before I got sidetracked). Secondly, I wanted to put a positive review in my reviews.
I’ll tell you a secret. I love art. What struck me when I first saw the show was just how good it looked. It seemed less of an anime and more of a watercolor manga come to life, with its soft colors and detailed lines. Watching it today, I noticed it was more than that. The way shots are framed is also quite impressive, with varied angles and distances appropriate for the mood.
Morita-sempai! He’s awesome. One thing that bugged me about the Viz subs is that even though they put -sempai and stuff on names and have a glossary of cultural terms, some weirdo decided to always put characters’ first names. Shinobu? I totally forgot he had a first name.
HachiKuro is about art students making art, and some of the pieces they come up with are really neat. At the same time, they have to deal with growing up and relationships, hence it being very emotional. The characters act believably towards each other, although certain things are exaggerated, like when Hagu cries, her eyes become squiggles or Morita-sempai zooms around at high speed. There’s a certain light mood through the show, which helps to you become attached to the characters and ratchets up the drama higher than an entirely serious show would be able to. This is a delicate balance to maintain. Too much humor can devalue the serious parts but they pull it off magnificently.
As far as I can recall, there aren’t many sword fights, giant mech races, or space ship battles, so if you’re looking for action, I’m afraid you may be in for some disappointment. What you have is beautiful art, and stories of friendship and love. I once showed someone “Whisper of the Heart” and she thought it was incredibly boring because it seemed like all very normal, everyday stuff. This is rather along those lines.
I remember the first time I saw this show. I accidentally walked in on episode three or four and thought it looked really dumb. However, I eventually went back, started from the top, and let it draw me in. Ack, that pun was not intended.
A few months ago, I borrowed the movie version from the library and watched a little bit. However, since they only had 116 minutes to cover (presumably) season one, everything got jumbled and they had to slot famous lines in wherever they could. Also, Hagu was too tall.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 8, 2017
Phantom (170108)
I really wanted to love Tsubasa Chronicle. It had a nifty story idea and I do like CLAMP’s work because it tends to throw a curve ball right at you when you least anticipate it, so I expected great things. However…it’s in…cred…ibly s…l…o…w…
I was reading up on Tsubasa Chronicle and found that it was animated by Bee Train. Fast forward a couple of months and I randomly picked up Phantom. As I watched the Op, I noticed that this show was animated by Bee Train.
Hmm.
Well, it turns out that either Bee Train is exceptionally inexpensive or unusually inept because Phantom is in…cred…ibly s…l…o…w…
Coincidence? I
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don’t know.
Have you ever watched filler episodes in a long-running show and noticed how all the main characters’ IQs drop several points as they try to figure out the solution to a problem that should by all rights not be a problem for them anymore? That’s how all of the characters in Phantom act, all of the time. You’re sitting there constantly wondering, 'why did she do that?' Why did he do that? Why did they do that? Character motivations make little to no sense. At first, I thought perhaps it was because there was some twist that they were going to pull that would explain why nothing was as it seemed but having just finished the show, I have to sadly inform you that is not the case.
In this show, something happens, time skips, repeat. When I say “something,” it’s invariably something that doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. They assassinate people in the middle of large crowds, leaving evidence everywhere, they case locations they don’t do anything in, and other such stupid things. At one point, there’s a manhunt in which some characters can’t find people who are in exactly the same place they’ve been living for weeks, if not months. This location is not just known to everyone, it’s even been visited by all the major characters. ~_~; One of the antagonists wants to hunt down and kill someone because of a misunderstanding. The other character tries to explain at one point but then they suddenly stop because someone at Nitro+ or Bee Train realized that if it was explained to the angry character, there was no way they could possibly continue.
At the start, the two main characters are empty husks: mere assassins who do as they are told. They're supposed to be super-amazing and they're shown as being really effective for one entire mission. Then it's flashback time and you're forced to watch Assassin #2's humble beginnings unfold in an in…cred…ibly s…l…o…w fashion. After that, they're really clumsy and sloppy for the most part, as noted above. It's really surprising how inept these two ultimate killing machines are. They murder loads of people in the course of the show, but there are way, way too many times when some random person walks up behind them and they’re completely surprised. Maybe they’ve gone deaf from firing guns all the time.
The crux of the story is the relationship between the amnesiac girl assassin who has no emotions and the amnesiac boy assassin. Um, if she's always acting and has no emotions of her own, how can they possibly form a relationship? There are no character-building moments between them, so viewers have no emotional investment in them as they have zero emotion between them. Yet somehow this relationship is supposed to be a driving force in the show.
Another large problem with the story is that for about 2/3 of the show, the story is NOT about the main characters. It's about a bunch of other people you glimpse in the background. It would be like if Duck Tales episodes were mostly spent on Launchpad flying from place to place as opposed to Scrooge and company having adventures. After each episode, I wrote summaries of what had just happened. For the most part, it was "nothing."
A weak story doesn’t mean the show has to be bad but the show is almost entirely serious so you don’t even have humor to distract you from these brooding characters doing completely illogical things. There were let's see, about two light-hearted moments in the whole mess.
Moving on to animation, I have to report there really isn’t very much. After a couple of minor fight scenes in the beginning, it becomes sliding pictures for the most part. I was astonished when they animated crowd scenes but I guess they had money saved up from not animating the rest of the show. It’s not as bad as say, Unwatchable Machine-Doll but they certainly seemed to strive for that. The only really animated bits are the CGI cars, which impress no one. If I was after rendered cars, I’d go play a racing game, which now that I think about it, would likely have a stronger plot and better characters. Halfway through the show, they drop the art quality a bit and animate a little more but the show looks really low budget and with how in…cred…ibly s…l…o…wly the horrible story is paced, I think they should've edited the show down to something actually tolerable.
When you read a book, you have a plot and characters. When you watch an animated show, you have plot, characters, music, camera angles, pacing, acting, art, and animation. Here’s the scorecard (out of 5) for Phantom.
Plot - 1 (There are some okay moments but they're only moments.)
Characters - 2 (They could be likable if they were in a different show.)
Music - 3 (Unobtrusive but it’s hard to build emotional impact to dramatic events that make no sense.)
Camera angles - 2 (Mostly functional but they do like being upside-down and artsy. However, since nothing happens in the show, this makes it feel like style over substance.)
Pacing - 0 (It also has inappropriate flashbacks, yay!)
Acting - 3 (I can’t fault the actors trying to work with the shoddy material.)
Art - 2 (It's okay at first but then drops noticeably later, which is when the animation picks up a little.)
Animation - 2 (It's pretty stiff.)
Sorry to hand out another "unwatchable" rating but I'm trying to save you 650 minutes. There are no fun characters, interesting moments, clever ideas, beautiful art, stellar animation, or creative stories. If you still don't believe me, feel free to watch it but at least skip the epilogue. Please.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Sep 6, 2016
Since the '90s, the first episode of Escaflowne has been my benchmark episode. It is very well done with beautiful art, animation, music, and special effects on top of a well paced story that ends on an incredible hook. It is so good, even if people don't watch anything else, they absolutely should watch that single episode just to see how great anime can be.
Likewise, the first episode of K will blow people away. The colors, the camera angles, the scenery, interesting characters, lushly animated crowd scenes, and intriguing plot are simply put, compelling beyond belief.
You have two warring factions under leaders called kings. The
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op tells you that the show will be about these two groups fighting each other. Then there's a mystery set up later on in the first episode about Yashiro Isana, who you can see is listed as a main character on this very page. It's set up to be an action show with slight comedic elements, say like Rurouni Kenshin.
You know what? I'm going to stop writing for now. GO WATCH EPISODE ONE. It is amazing. Then come right back.
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Back? Okay! Now you can skip the entire rest of the show. Don't waste your time on it. It's clear just from episode two that that they blew two to three episodes' worth of budget on episode one. That's not the major problem, though. While Escaflowne falls apart at the end, K falls apart in episode two. Specifically, the show turns into a light comedy with action bits. Those two kings in episode one? They don't really hate each other. Those two warring factions? They don't really fight each other very much at all. Eventually, they even pull a piece of animation out of the op and use it in the show. o_o Then they do it again with the same piece.
So, yeah, the production values take a nosedive in episode two and never recover, as the recycling increases more and more. The intense action-packed show that's set up in episode one dissolves immediately at the very start of episode two because they can't keep up the pace, and that mystery? Trust me when I say that whatever you think the answer is will be a much more satisfying answer than what they came up with. ~_~;
A note about scores. I use a traditional 5 point objective scale:
1 terrible
2 bad
3 average
4 good
5 great
This is stretched to 10 points, so everything is multiplied by 2 with no half-points allowed.
Overall series animation gets a 2 and art gets a 3.
After watching all of Escaflowne and knowing the sad fate that befalls the end of that show, I still found it compelling enough to purchase the whole thing on DVD. On the other hand, I would not buy K.
So, the bottom line is everyone should see episode one of K, then just imagine how the rest of the series goes. Enjoy!
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Apr 4, 2010
(This is my first review ever.)
Oh, dear. I'm shocked at the overall positive vibe people have for this show. Was I watching something else by mistake?
The story itself is serviceable, perhaps even interesting, but it's buried under a glacial pace. They managed to cover about 12 episodes' worth of material in 25 episodes, which seems like the director was suddenly told just before they went on air that he had twice as much time as he thought he did. I just read that the manga is still going while the anime has finished. Oh wait, no. It didn't finish. It ended. Finishing sounds like they
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gave you some kind of resolution. I challenge you to find someone who can honestly say they liked slapdash episode 25.
There are only 2 characters they try to explore, one of which is Oz, but in Pandora Hearts' 25 episodes you learn far less about him than say, the entire cast of Cowboy Bebop in the same amount of time. Everyone else is generally one-dimensional, though the second explored character turns out to be surprisingly well-rounded.
The good news is that Oz does develop slightly. That's all the good news I have.
For most of the show's 9-hour run, the characters are rather crudely drawn and spend the majority of their time sitting or standing still. It's been a long time since I've seen an animated show with so little animation. Every episode is stuffed with padding...slowly sliding pictures of scenery or whatnot with recaps thrown in to desperately take up screen time.
Not sure what's up with MyAnimeList. When I write the review, it wants me to rate the "Art," but when I submit, it says "Animation." Those are different things, man! Art is 3, Animation is 2.
Episode 8 was a turning point in the series because there was finally decent art, interesting camera angles, and 9 (amazingly enough) has some animation in it...a brief fight scene! On the down side, some of the frequent flashbacks begin to flash back to earlier in the SAME episode! There was even a scene where all the characters are talking while facing away from the camera so they didn't have to animate anything at all! In the entire show, there are only about 3-4 episodes that are really animated.
There were some things I liked about the show. The music box theme is pleasant and sticks in your head, though by the end of the show they're opening the watch just to play the tune. The main theme is reimagined several times in interesting ways. The voice acting is well-done.
Beyond that, the character designs are nice, although everyone's clothes billow out and hover (due to lack of animation). The first plot twist was completely unexpected and handled nicely. I also found one character's bloodthirsty fixation on eating animals charming.
But those are just shiny bits glimmering from a sea of slow and muck.
(4) Bad.
Actually, you know what? I'm going to drop it to (1) Unwatchable. It's cruel to pretend that you're going to go somewhere, then don't.
I kept watching, hoping it would get better. The second half of the show is a decent start to a show, with mysteries and interesting characters introduced, but then poof, the show ends and you're left wondering why they (and you) even bothered.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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