Back to GBF's Profile GBF's Profile

I didn't review the first season because I didn't feel that strongly about it. It's an okay if unsubtle re-imagining of a character that doesn't actually get fleshed out too much in the source material. Sherlock manages to, through painstaking effort, track down and somehow kill this Machiavellian supervillain mastermind.

Anyway, the second season of this alternate take on Moriarty is silly. That's the best way to describe it. There's a part a few episodes in where a character takes on a new name, and the reveal was SO insanely goofy I couldn't take anything seriously from that point on. The show is fujobait with ... some recognizable names that draw on a few of the better-known Conan Doyle novels and general English media.

It's shocking how high the average score is on this site, because nothing really stands out as being all that good. One of the music stingers (think it gets used about 4 times across 24 episodes - you'll know the one, it plays in episode 1 of the first season) is incredible, but the story and characters are pretty average. Robin Hood and his best friend who doesn't even really act all that much like Sherlock Holmes. Watson could be replaced by a cardboard cutout. Moran and the rest of the Moriarty gang are absurdly bland. But they're all hot dudes, which caters to what I assume is the audience.

The core plan is well-meaning, but the execution is dumb and the portrayal of all the aristocrats as total assholes just makes me roll my eyes. The teenage crowd will think it's some kind of awesome take on class revolution, but it's not. It's hamhanded. I think people are so starved for something Death Note/Code Geass-esque that they see this series with elements of what made those great and they jump on it. Underserved genre, basically. Same reason why garbage like Anohana or Clannad get rated so highly; anime fans are starved for certain types of stories and they will accept and praise mediocrity if it means they get what they want.

I rated this a 7/10 because I thought it was genuinely amusing. There are moments that are so silly I would feel bad rating it any lower. The audacity is respectable. But it's not very good.

Koikimo reminds me of those Hallmark movies that women really like. It follows the same formula. Unremarkable, average-looking girl manages to somehow wrangle an attractive, successful man. It's like a self-insert fantasy for plain janes. Not only will I not begrudge them this, but I'll say it's reasonably entertaining in the process.

Ichika ensnares a guy so far out of her league they might not as well even be playing the same sport, by calling him creepy instead of fawning over him like all the women in his life have done up to that point. From there, the guy is hopelessly infatuated with her and ... the traditional manner of wooing her while selfishly having fun doing it is kind of his modus operandi. Over time, the series comes to butter its bread with the questions of "is this okay?" and "am I hurting anyone?" and how the characters come to terms with the answers. There's not really any grooming, despite what 21st century lazy feminists will screech, and the age gap isn't weird or even uncommon by the standards of pre-millennial generations.

I will admit though, that there is a certain allure to grabbing that low-hanging fruit and going for the easy criticism about their ages, and some nebulous perceived imbalance in their power dynamic (even though she's clearly the one leading him along for literally the entire duration of the series). But if anything, that makes the show more appealing. It annoys people, and that means there's something interesting to it.

TLDR: This is one to skip. It's both mindless and devoid of entertaining action - unsatisfying in every regard.

I was lucky enough to get in to the U.S. premiere at Anime Expo, but my expectations weren't nearly low enough for this. Miyano Mamoru tends to be attached to good projects, but this one felt like a mistake.

The movie makes use of the title of a very famous piece of Japanese literature by Osamu Dazai, "No Longer Human." Unfortunately, any relation this movie has to that book is all surface-level. The character names are mostly used (Youzou, Horiki, Takeichi, Hiiragi), but their personalities and motivations ... don't really draw on the book at all. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing; plenty of adaptations of written works become something entirely different on the big screen.

In this case however, the result doesn't have much merit on its own. The movie is a vague and generic story about humans succumbing to some kind of corruption that turns them into monsters, and the oppressive government and police agencies that keep society running as they see fit. The art style gets the job done but it's not a standout. It's average 3DCG animation, average character designs, and the main physical transformation that Youzou undergoes is fairly generic in appearance. Guyver-esque is how I'd describe it.

I'm not going to go into spoilers really, but the main takeaways for me were as follows:

1. The character motivations are weak/cliche (hero wants to be good, villain wants power and destruction, good girl is sweet, submissive, kind).
2. The story doesn't really go anywhere interesting, and at times it's completely nonsensical. The first two acts aren't awful, but they don't lead to a satisfying conclusion in the third. I would describe the story as both incoherent and unmemorable. It slipped off my brain an hour after I saw it.
3. The only reason they named it after Dazai's novel was for marketing. Crossover appeal to both fans of the novel and Bungou Stray Dogs was definitely the primary factor, because they didn't even try and address anything the book focused on. Youzou attempting suicide is window dressing. A throwaway gag. "He tried to do that in the book!" "He does that in the show all the time haha it's so funny." I'll admit the book is impossible to film or adapt to a movie, or at least very difficult, but they could have at least done something that tapped into one of its core acts, like drug dependency, or being unable to identify socially with other people. They didn't.

Before the movie, the interview with the producers and Miyano Mamoru confirmed that they made this one with a western audience in mind. It's why we got to see it before Japan did. While that makes me happy to hear (that they care about their fans worldwide), the final product left me wondering what kind of view they have of western viewers. If this kind of thing is what they think plays to our tastes, then I'd prefer they just keep us as a secondary or ancillary audience.

Depressingly close to a 9. This show's premise and execution on its core concept are excellent. The premise alone was enough to start the show at a 7 for me, and the way they handle things like how an adult (even one with a master's or doctorate) would deal with high school feels realistic. They also avoid - for the most part - the typical high school boy/girl awkwardness, because the main character just doesn't see himself on their level. It's refreshing to see the main character have the kind of poise and maturity that someone in their late twenties would have gained through years ... of social experience. This show could've fallen to a 6 or even 5 if he started blushing and freaking out like a high school kid would when talking to a girl, but thankfully they actually write him like his true age for the most part.

Still, it's held back by the fact that they don't bother with a real ending, and all the potential issues that would come with it. The train rushing down on the main character is the eventual return to real society, and the effect that will have on him and the characters he establishes relationships with throughout the show. I think my other main gripe is how focused the protagonist is on the people around him. He's less a man with a limited lease on youth trying to recapture lost emotions and motivation than he is a disguised mentor to all the kids around him. I think in that sense both the show and the titular experiment fail. It's also the type of problem that almost certainly would have been fixed with more episodes.

There's a few reasons they could have ended the show the way they did. A second season is possible. It could also be that they realized just how much time would have to be devoted to a true resolution. But either way, it drags the show's score down at least a full point for me. Still absolutely worth watching.

A few vague spoilers below.

Durarara's first season seemed pretty excellent at the time. Most of the characters had some intrigue to them; they had secrets. When it was revealed that even the apparent foil of a protagonist, Mikado, was actually the founder of the largest color gang in the city, there was definitely something awesome going on. But as we learned more about the characters and their motivations and backstories, their secrets dwindled as a result. The intrigue that made them interesting was dispelled, and the show was forced to get by on its actual story.

Everything after the Mikado/Dollars reveal in the first season ... was downhill. Some would probably disagree with me, but it's pretty much true. This of course applies to the second season as well. There is an attempt to rekindle what made the original enjoyable by introducing new characters that we don't know anything about, but the magic doesn't come with them. It's probably because I personally have gotten older and more cynical, but the new characters aren't very interesting. The conflict within the Dollars group, and Mikado's inability to evolve with the group he created aren't interesting story avenues. There's no good mystery this time around.

It's disappointing that the aforementioned is the storyline that is taking the forefront, because it's not strong enough to carry a show like this. I don't care about Toramaru, I don't care about Dollars rogue groups, and my interest in Sloan and Varona is limited to her interactions with Anri and what it could mean when another broken girl is cut by Saika. That's about it. There's no further exploration into the more interesting paranormal aspects of the first season (Celty's head, what Kishitani's dad is doing, etc.), and that means the whole thing feels a bit more mundane than season one.

Overall, the show has some pacing and focus issues, and I really only watch it because I want to see the eventual resolution of the Celty storyline. It's by far the worst in this line of shows (DRRR s1, Baccano) and I can't recommend it unless you really liked the first season. At that point, it's passable entertainment I guess.

WataMote is the story of an autistic sperglord in their high school debut, and all the pain that comes with it. The thing that makes it interesting is this particular autist is female. On a scale from 1-10, 1 being as unappealing as possible, and 10 being extremely attractive waifu material, Tomoko Kuroki is like a 3 or a 4. Bags under her eyes, flat chested, anti-social, and generally just weird even with her one friend. If this were a live action show, nobody would watch because the art style couldn't save her.

She's pretty fun to watch in anime form though. Show might be ... painful if you're sensitive to embarrassing situations, but it's not really that bad.

I guess that's all I have to say about this one.