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Dec 1, 2021
Period anime with samurai seems too often trapped by a realism with less room for experimentation and more room for error. But there are some series that have our imaginations soar, that have those thought-provoking questions, allowing both anime- and non-anime fans to dig deeper with the theoretical discussions they offer.
This, and I would not be surprised while having a discussion with a fan of director Tetsuo Araki that we both agree Attack on Titan is one of our least favorite Araki-directed shows for that matter. Our discussion might transition to a point where we begin recalling the days of being so impressed with Death
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Note in the 00s---that we began relying too much on broad consensus sites like Anime News Network and THEM Anime, aiding our search in finding the perfect series that might come close to that show's all-around level of quality, consistency, and story. Kurozuka is not that successor, though it certainly comes very close when it hits it's high points with an mesmerizing sense of maturity and balance of themes throughout it's 12-episode length.
I am also going to note before beginning this review that the trust I once had in those broad consensus sites might've decreased a little bit more after having watched this series all the way through. As you can see, MAL has a score of 6.9, and that might already indicate enough about my position here - that is, the consensus made little to no sense after it's release.
Let's begin with the story - and this may come as a shock to some who haven't seen Kurozuka yet and are skimming through these fan reviews with the score and mixed reception in the back of their mind, thinking to himself or herself it could be unwatchable - do not - I repeat, do not believe the general reaction. With a story that spans different time periods, and a truly unique female character that vampire fans will see as a refreshing twist on the genre, the story goes through so many twists and turns that there leaves so much room for discussion afterwards.
I put this show up with all of the other great mature anime like Monster, Death Note, and Aoi Bungaku. Never has there been a samurai period series with as many transfixing elements and had me reimagine more what the genre could accomplish.
A mysterious sense of antagonism lurks beneath each foreground with a Kabuki act indicating a haunted past. Only lightly touched upon, most of these antagonists are masked, rarely show their faces, and rarely have a lot of dialogue - this, however, makes it twice more terrifying; and provides a lot more attention on it's two important characters: Kuro and Kuromitsu.
The female character Kuromitsu exhibits a vulnerable side, providing a deep sense of 3-dimensionality with the very first episode when she apologizes to the main protagonist for her horrifying thirst for human flesh.
Fast forward, the future. After Kuro's incident with Kuromitsu, he becomes immortal and must battle an army that is looking for Kuromitsu's blood. This transitioning from a spiritualistic cult to an army using advanced sciences, is an aspect of the series that causes for speculation.
The time and space that Kurozuka captures methodically wants us viewers to be more curious, and introspect with questions similar to the experiences had with Death Note and Aoi Bungaku.
My nerdish side for Araki-directed anime wants the famous animator to go back to this really thought-provoking and philosophical stuff and that meanwhile provides a throwback to some 90s anime when the OVAs were more inspiring, more often than not, cutting-edge - which is really now conflicted by the streaming format. This is an anime I definitely recommend.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Oct 13, 2020
Some of the things that made Bleach a great series for a short while was it's premise, world-building, and cast of characters. With the exception of the two protagonists that so far work really well together, this story has very little to support what they contribute to the whole. Kubo is always going to have a knack for strong characterizations, but there is too big of a flaw here with it's premise.
There is a very strange mix of modern technology introduced here as well that doesn't seem to fit with the tone of the series where we are given little to no backstory on Ninny;
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ultimately, a distraction away from the more interesting and otherworldly aspects.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Aug 16, 2019
Every hentai series I've seen thus far has been absolute trash. "Cream Lemon" is by no means an exception but is certainly worth a try if one has to start somewhere. There was a short period of time when there was opportunity to do an anime series like Cream Lemon when animation in Japan was flourishing and an actual budget for a hentai series similar in quality to mainstream series like Touch and Kimagure Orange Road was possible.
Ever since things have become increasingly dominated by the streaming format, the genre has---to some extent, lost an experimental touch; but this could also be very well due
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to how the budget for hentai nowadays has it's own fixed costs.
Although most of the stories in Cream Lemon are absolutely abhorrent, it is certainly admirable that a multitude of genres are coming together and being integrated to have us rethink about some old cliches. It seems that what "Cream Lemon" wants to ultimately accomplish is something of a mix and mash; a hentai to be half-satirical half-raunchy; perhaps even inform us of the storytelling possibilities that a hentai could accomplish as oppose to what the genre is normally limited in doing with----ahem, sex and sex only.
I don't recommend watching the entire series but, I do recommend giving at least, a few episodes a try just to experience trash at it's somewhat finest. It doesn't have an overarching story either so, you can basically start anywhere you'd prefer. I'd also advise doing some research on the strongest episodes. Otherwise, you will be in for a painful experience with a select few, as its pretty inconsistent and over the top. For me, I like high fantasy so, I stuck with those instead and officially stopped there.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Aug 15, 2019
When westerners think of of psychological thrillers, they are usually thinking of Hitchcock films like Psycho and David Fincher's Seven. Usually this kind of dark and gritty horror is thought to only be achieved in live-action, and I suppose that most horror entertainment tends to also be subjective between camps. Not every fan is going to agree that The Ring is the scariest or view Lynch's midget from Twin Peaks as the most terrifying.
This has us question if it's even possible that animated characters have a place in this discussion. When we think of an animated characters, we visualize something abstract and could be
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either hand-drawn, claymated, or done in 3D on the computer. With it's abstractions, it would be extremely difficult to pull off something remotely close to the level of scary as any of the aforementioned live-action works in this review.
Satoshi Kon's animated thriller "Perfect Blue" (1998) had me rethink about the range that animation can really offer in terms of genre, and perhaps also show how the choice in genre from medium to medium can be extremely difficult but rewarding when considering all of the required elements, the choice in style involved, level of detail, etc.
Picture "Perfect Blue" under the artistic direction of a Miyazaki or Otomo--- would this film be as terrifying or would the anatomy of the faces appear too childlike in appearance to be scary. And, would the choice in color have to be near-perfect in creating the tone of the film?
Horror in animation is nothing new. We've seen horror elements even in Disney films intended for kids. The animation in this film looks as if it took place in the real world and the way characters interact with one another is fairly realistic. Similar to Kon's other films, he is constantly looking for realistic expression on each of his character's faces; never are there expressions being exaggerated like with Miyazaki where there is a noticeable distortion applied to the character movements. Kon wants you to look at a more realistic portrayal and enjoy the ride in how something surreal can allow for a cinematic style to affect the execution of the story.
Sometimes when we are dreaming, we are basing our experiences off from what we've seen with our own eyes. We are understanding the terror of sight being felt in animation here when we are given multiple perspectives and it causes us viewers to draw a connection between them.
This is why Kon's film is as disarming as any of the great live-action thrillers I've ever seen. He recognizes the surreal impact that animation can have on the viewer and meanwhile utilizing those abstractions in creating something truly unique and visceral.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jul 31, 2019
Project after project, he has abandoned the industry's norm and has somehow gotten away on cheap budgets. Tons of innovation and experimentation in series like Mind Game and Kaiba but nothing like what we see here where the style builds up to a more consistent, climactic plot that goes through a myriad of exuberant compositions to have the viewer introspect on this otherworldly level about college romance. An uncomfortable student talks at a super fast pace from what feels like this immense anxiety. 'Tatami' goes above and beyond the expected with quick narration and Yuasa's freestyle form, blending perfectly together each scene. Each gob
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feels a separate movie that can be dissected for it's thought-provoking elements and tremendous use of color, design, and gorgeous soundtrack.
Tatami isn't just a lab experiment where test tubes are being shattered with an incohesiveness like before either. We see a Yuasa here that has refined an aesthetic by linking together those visceral snippets and pushing the saturation levels up to the max.
Science Saru has a lot to offer for the future if they continue to focus on what Tatami did in utilizing all the talent that went into it. If you are looking for something unique and above all, unexpected, look no further than Tatami. And, better yet, begin with Tatami Galaxy as your first 'experimental anime' because surely enough, their isn't going to be anything quite like it.
Best Episodes:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 11
Episode 9
Episode 7
Worst Episodes
Episode 4
Episode 6
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jul 31, 2019
Back in the day, it was either Bleach or Death Note that every emo or goth kid had to get a poster of to fill their bedroom walls as they'd lie in bed blasting Maximum the Hormone and Underoath on their 1000-song iPods all day. Yes, I do mean the '08 scene that no one wishes to talk about; nevertheless, it brings back some memories when Orange's Asterisk comes up in the recommended vids section on YouTube. Kubo as a mangaka was the kind of artist that got inspiration from the music he listened to while laboriously illustrating a 20-page chapter each week in his
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studio assigning some unknown song he dug through his playlist for each character in the series. One cannot resist surmising nowadays that the fashion of those metal artists at the time had to serve as kind of inspiraton---some kind of foundation for for anime/manga character construction, just like the ones you see in Bleach and Death Note. i.e. The phenomenon was taking over mainstream anime just as it did in those lonesome, american/japanese/weeaboo high schools it's targeted audiences had been all too familiar with.
This sort of nostalgia is not intended to haunt you, the reader, or sound like I am digressing from the review in order to open up with some cliched, digressing introduction. It is, in some ways, to suggest that such popular trends can act as a major influence in something plummetin, be it a show, anime, movie, etc. Anime cons were filled with countless cosplays of ulqiuorras, ichigos, and renjis... There is a reason that this series became the most popular out of the big three for cosplay because fans enjoyed the detail, cultural variety and symbolism that manga artist Tite Kubo incorporated in the construction of all his characters. For a mainstream shonen series, it was unusual to see this kind of sensibility applied to construction which was combining both western and eastern influences and while also suggesting something punkishly modern in portrayal.
Rockin' that '08 hairstyle, Kubo gives us this supernatural shonen series that--similar to Yu Yu Hakusho, tells the story of a somewhat rebellious teenager with the ability to see ghosts. At it's very heart, Bleach seems to want to do something more than to just have a punkish, emo flare to it and include a more colorful, diverse cast of characters further separating itself from the darker and dismal one of Death Note's. Some of Ichigo's desire to protect others comes from his childhood burden when his mother had been killed by a hollow---the antagonists in Bleach that devour human souls and fight against the shinigami. Ichigo, being a human, eventually obtains the power of a shinigami but eventually finds out that there is a lot more to his own power than he once realized when he encounters other powerful races that exist in the universe. Like many of it's shonen predecessors, Bleach lacks story with serious depth, just as it is informed by a lackluster title suggesting something will provide 'light' towards, or rather 'clear' one's palette with, ahem, detergent? Kubo chose to leave those backgrounds completely empty in his manga for a reason---or perhaps provide more clarity to elemens in the foreground, i.e. the characters? The characters, afterall, are the most detailed aspects, and certainly most interesting--- and yet, this didn't last long when plot twists were relied on too often when fans began giving up and seeing through the cheap plot devices When the characters are focused on separately from overarching plot, the show works very well; their distinct personality, artistic design, expression, reaches a high point.
Like all shonen that drag out to great lengths, power levels inevitably exceeding logic and the plot twists feeling overly sought after to the point that it ends up becoming the show's weakest device. It only takes one of it's major characters to change the game entirely but to then have the writer troll you in that he, himself is that character - the plot twister, aka Aizen, or maybe Kubo? This became the show's biggest trepidation and complete cause of downfall. You begin to see this take fold (spoiler alert) by around episode 63 when the main antagonist Aizen causes a a pivotal shift by initiating a blow-out-of-proportion, warfare lasting for hundreds of episodes, consisting of 15% plot and 85% fighting, striking too much similarity to Dragon Ball Z in how there is constant footnote where "no one dies in the end".
I recommend Bleach to fans that are interested in a long running shonen that certainly won't disappoint for a particular length of time. In terms of production value, Bleach might be better than the other big two (Naruto and One Piece).
The soundtrack by Shiro Sagisu will remain the most consistent part of the series, and possibly his greatest career achievement, as it will supply those action sequences with a wide range of music inspired by different cultures and genres. I think there is a good argument that it's actually one of the best soundtracks for a long running anime series, as it stands very strong for over 300 episodes.
All in all, it's a good introduction series for getting one back into anime, so I still appreciate it for what it was back then and still is today. For a mainstream show, it was surprisingly well-budgeted, and third season being the most impressive and memorable part. Bleach is a good series in the beginning, but loses it's charm when the formula gets recycled and earns DBZ status right after Soul Society arc.
Best Episodes
Episode 1
Episode 58-62
Episode 31-32
Episode 206-211
Worst Episodes
Too many to list
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 31, 2019
Ghibli gave us a very bland hodgepodge with Ronja which, felt like the studio produced it out of angst in order to compete with the present-day output of CG.
Land of the Lustrous does something well here with the aesthetic by demonstrating a keen understanding towards automaticity---weary that automaticity can detract from the animation of a 2D character's expression and movements, while also proving it's sheer power in rendering of sophisticated and gorgeous translucent materials---something that the hand-drawn aesthetic would otherwise lack a consistent grasp in.
There is also a real sense of space that the animators gave thought towards when constructing the setting; the places
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that you feel these characters will soon visit and discover more about offers a lot of mystery about what lies ahead, how things will unfold and who each character will encounter in the series.
As oppose to having characters that bleed to death in battle like in so many other shonen anime, these characters break into pieces like glass, and the body parts they lose in combat become important plot devices later.
I recommend this show to anyone just interested in the artistry alone as this is strongest part of the series. It's definitely one of the few CG shows that we can say, "this couldn't have been as good if it was traditional" The plot and characters are very cool and certainly adds to the flare of the animation style. One of my favorite shows of this year.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jul 31, 2019
You're a Gen Y or a Gen Z but your parent is a Baby Boomer and the only way they are going to watch anime and at the very least, understand one, is if you now show them Cowboy Bebop. They might hate it. They might love it. But, you did your part in at least, showing them this classic animated series directed by Shinichiro Watanabe. It's not just Bebop's pop cultural references that they can see the magnitude of in it's story, but that this series has a soundtrack that pretty much surpasses any they've heard in the past. You can throw in
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movie soundtracks, any various artist soundtrack for that matter too. This show has the greatest one of them all. With blended genres of jazz, rock, soul, and pop, Kano's music perfectly synchronizes with each story and is a complete cohesive piece of art separate from the show, just when casually listening to it in the car on your way home from work. Her renowned track "Tank!" sets the stage as the series opening and classic Jazz piece. An addicting fusion of Jazz and rock having shades of the old Lupin theme from the 80s. Both openings exercise a hyper-stylization of color with some 70s nostalgia to technicolor and the boom of american cinema when westerns began dying out and action cop thrillers took it's place.
The title "Cowboy Bebop" doesn't suggest the Ying and Yang of some sort. Instead, this juxtaposition of archetype and genre seems random with a great deal of introspection attached to it, providing the viewer a lot of investigative work for digging deeper into a genre's old cliches, and discovering something far more human and 3-dimensional about it's main characters' flaws---magnifying this for the viewer to draw connections between cowboy and soul artist, between Bruce Lee and Dylan.
Bebop's world, on the surface, is one that viewers can greatly emphasize with. Civilization is now on Mars although, much of it's culture is not very different from the one that was lost before. Earth has been somewhat obliterated by debris---not entirely, with people still somewhat retaining it's old cultures, and yet faced with the interpersonal struggles that you and I constantly face each day.
Starving bounty hunters live on earnings from their caught criminals---just as advertised. Their interactions with other characters from the past suggest to them answers for the present. We have our main characters: Spike, Jet, and Faye constantly question about why they still exist between the series most epic battles.
Fragmentation caused by a technology affects us more-or-less the same for as long as tradition is continually passed down and reiterated. A VHS tape from the 90s is now nothing more than some obsolete, priceless artifact stored in some second hand shop in a dark alleyway.
The series best episode "Ballad of Fallen Angels" centers on the backstory of Spike Spiegel and we get a clearer understanding that Bebop is not just a sunrise sci-fi with an over-the-top budget attempting to please it's crowd of Trek nerds. Bebop acts on one level as a love letter to a lot to 80s cyberpunk anime like Goku Midnight Eye and Space Adventure Cobra, the construction of Spike's character alone acts as not only a continuation of those from the past but as a more matured, 3-dimensional version of one. For instance, the eye that Goku gets in Kawjiri's anime was replaced with a fake, cyber eye that gave him control over a lot of scientific devices in the story and helping him defeat the bad guys. Spike has a similar characteristic though, their is a more human, realistic side to the outcome of his operation in how the eye affects him emotionally. The influence of Bob Dylan and Bruce Lee that went into the design of Spike truly separates him apart from these other rugged action heroes. And truthfully, the character Spike is simply a lot better than all of those action heroes in the 80s in general. Because this show is so well animated, it makes us want to learn more about Spike's haunted past and what caused his edge in the first place.
The other protagonists, Jet and Faye are very interesting as well with the construction of Jet being inspired by the song Black Dog by Led Zeppelin, and Faye Valentine inspired by the song "My Funny Valentine." They both seem to work well as supporting characters as they are more easily to crack than Spike is.
Best Episodes:
Ballad of Fallen Angels
The Real Folk Blues, pt. 2
The Real Folk Blues, pt. 1
Hard Luck Woman
Asteroid Blues
Speak Like a Child
My Funny Valentine
Jupiter Jazz pt. 2
Worst Episodes:
Bohemian Rhapsody
Stray Dog Strut
Toys in the Attic
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jul 31, 2019
We've seen a lot of experimental anime in the past decade that have gone against the grain in delivering something that doesn't traditionally look or feel like anime. The spiky hair with big eye stereotype is challenged once more with this unique ghost story about a medicine seller with a samurai sword.
Mononoke successfully triumphs it's predecessor as an enthralling supernatural drama thanks to its stylized artistry striking familiarity of ancient scroll art and japanese myths. Not only is substance intricately woven here in it's textured cut-outs, but also is continually shifting from composition to composition in conveying a real sense of depth and exploration. Their
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is a uniqueness in this show's artistry that feels unprecedented. The way that Mononoke is creatively executed breathes life into it's characters and there interactions. It is certainly worth the watch!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 23, 2012
94 episodes is a long running series and, Rurouni Kenshin seems to be a gem in the list of other 'popular series' that are often times dropped by fans somewhere in the middle due to the fillers, the recycling of action fights and the same annoying characters needing to always get stronger. Yes, 'Kenshin' has these qualities, but it really doesn't waist a whole lot of time with the cliched training-to-get-stronger sequences. The cliches are also somewhat cancelled out by the production value that Studio Deen went all out with. Feeling both arthouse/experimental with it's intergration of politics and moral complexity, Kenshin does something here
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that deviates from the average mainstream series. When the plot meanders, it meanders for good reasons. When the show enters it's filler phase, the fillers are somewhat interesting and worthwhile. This is not the case for Shonen Jump's Naruto, Bleach or One Piece where fillers are gobsmackingly weak and distracts viewer something a little bit more worthwhile. In Kenshin, fillers are somewhat necessary in between the progressive moments of the plot and supported by the historical elements that usually helps convey the sense of feeling to this period.
It's been said Nobuhiro Watsuki was inspired by the samurai game "Samurai Showdown" and I can definitely see some similarities with the character construction. 'iconic' is a word to describe the series; between Kenshin's red hair and Shishio's bandages, there is something cool and exaggerated in the designs that make it more memorable and distinguished from a long list of samurai portrayals.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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