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Ho lee fuk, there's sum ting wong here: China has been putting out flashy stuff with proficient yet soulless production values, but it's all terribly written, superficial cringe. There's trashy CGI for the first episode, with the characters having some cellshading or something and 2D effects for the nonsensical bang ding ow fights; there are lots of shifts in style throughout, usually to 2D, and based on the trailer, it appears there is plenty of experimentation in this fashion. I'm sure there will be some choice sakuga bits, but there isn't much else here. This series is about media perception, media personalities, and fanboyism, but ... it's shallow consoomer tik tok schlock. Really nauseating with the fanboy becoming the media personality and his rote memorization of irrelevant trivia and all this anyone can become a hero wish-fulfillment thing. The Moon idol worship segment is pure barf fuel, with her being the same generic cheerleader / money-sucking harpy for simps that the idol always plays in Japanese series. "She is my goddess. She gave me encouragement. She gave me hope. Hope that I could become outstanding. Hope that I could become a hero... by her side... protecting her." Though she, of course, predictably is shown in the second episode to secretly be an unpleasant, violent woman, whose boots are a perfect match for the doormat MC. No wonder the real Nice threw himself off a building. The only sane character in this mess. There are ideals in fiction where one is inspired by heroes and beautiful women as muses, but this is inauthentic slop, effectively taking archetypes and trivializing them in the tackiest kind of faux-meta media spectacle possible.

Is the LN of Your Forma any good? I cannot say. But this is, without doubt, a terrible adaptation. The author is not happy with it either. The way Satelight handled the recent adaptation of Übel Blatt by cutting out the first three chapters was a poor choice, but Geno Studio skipping volume 1 of the LN, starting with volume 2, and not even rescripting to make this change reasonable is one of the worst examples of cut content I have seen in a while. I have heard it was the double-chinned fatass director's choice, who was apparently too busy stuffing his face with cake ... to realize he should be cutting weight rather than content. There are good elements to these cuts because back when I was watching Metallic Rouge, I was yawning when they were babbling on about Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. This kind of stuff might be helpful for the sci-fi novice, but anyone who has been exposed to much of this stuff is going to be bored by these pointless references. However, the pacing is too fast, and the script is in serious need of reworking, often damaging the characters and leading to scenes and references that feel out of place. Certain moments have more directorial and compositional flair to them than is average for slop seasonals at least, but one aspect where the direction is poor is the storytelling, which is confusing.

The brain dive concept is interesting in the way that the characters are able to probe the subconscious and memories of a subject, sometimes resulting in disorientation for the "brain detective." The idea has been explored in a number of movies and books, but it is not quite as common as I would have hoped for in anime. Older films, like the 1990s Darkside Blues, touch upon this lightly via fantasy; Psycho Diver, a 1990s OVA explores the idea briefly in a dark, gruesome sci-fi world, with the dives resembling a nightmare; Satoshi Kon heavily explored this with far more surreal imagery in his Paprika; and a number of other titles, like Kaiba did similar things, but Id:Invaded, another brain-diving police procedural series, is probably the closest to YF: One brain dive in YF is depicted in a similar fashion, with the "hole" in a character's chest resembling one of the scenes in Id. Thus far, they have used the device to find a few clues, but they have yet to truly take a deep dive into the mind or do anything compelling with the concept. They used a Matryoshka doll as a symbol in the first scene, but there is not much layering or genuine disorientation here, except for what results from production problems.

Honestly, I am not sure if I can take a series seriously when it stars a girl named "Bigga." I know that seems like a frivolous thing to take issue with, but that is truly bothersome, and I could not figure out why Bigga was inserted into the plot at this moment, as it seems confusing and irrelevant in relation to the rest of the story and probably could have been incorporated elsewhere. Who even is Bigga, and why should we care? The reason for this weirdness is because the anime skips volume 1, so the various characters lack an introduction, and the same goes for the world. Darya's name is not even used in the first conversation between her and the FMC, but she would have been fully established as a character in volume 1, and we only slowly piece together who she is throughout the episode. A line of dialogue indicates the main duo had a rough start and the FMC is not keen on androids, but that, too, is skipped. As is the apparent conflict between the FMC and Bigga. There is a reference to the FMC's sister as well, which is again in relation to more cut material. It does not feel like a first episode because a proper adaptation would have started with volume 1, and Geno Studio's attempt at skipping ahead is amateurish.

Since we started with a brain dive scene, the whole thing had a somewhat hallucinatory, dream-like feel, but it turns out the episode was just normal, and that brain dive scene was nothing other than a quick preview of the duo's brain dive detective work... The event involving the amicus attack on a human is also explored in volume 1, though the exclusion of that is probably not detrimental to the adaptation or as wonky as these other character issues. Maybe they had a good reason to skip to volume 2, but they absolutely needed a rescript. they probably could have done a movie version or a longer than normal episode to cover the most important parts of volume 1 at least, not to cover everything that happened in volume 1 but to establish the characters and other important details prior to S2, if that would even be possible.

The dramatic part on the bridge between Lucraft and Echika, after the former used a gambit to make a break in a case but at the cost of damaging their relationship, feels lifeless. It happens in the second episode when it probably would have been more warranted at the halfway point of the series. If we had been exposed to volume 1's material, then we would have presumably had enough investment in their relationship for this to feel better balanced. I can see how this relationship might work with the right kind of chemistry, but the line delivery and emotions are unbelievably flat, like everyone is just going through the motions. There's a clear distinction here between human and android "thinking," which is a part of the conflict between the two, but too much material was cut for any of this to feel fleshed out. The decision Lucraft makes feels like a logical one for a machine, but there is also a sense in which it is not actually that logical and indicates that he needs to be fed more data. There are strange aspects to the writing as well. The design of the android line was based on a human, but they did not look into him for a lead? No one thought of that? If you are going to use your partner as bait, it would be wise if you had people staking out the scene to actually capture the culprit rather than let them get abducted, would it not? If that is not possible, would it not be best to let the bait in on the plan to increase the chance of capturing the culprit? Why not make the brain plugs more secure and not so easy to get access to? Imagine being on a crowded subway car and having someone finger your brain hole 🤢. This whole segment was not well thought out. It gets even worse later on. If you find a dangerous criminal who is already tied up, why would you untie him, except as a convenient and dumb plot twist? Then if we return to the Three Laws of Robotics issue, it is still absurd: Lucraft is an assistant to a detective, and he was programmed in such a way that he could not stop a culprit from choking out and tying up his partner and could not attack the perpetrator so as to detain him, then Lucraft stands there like a dumbass as he is crippled by a sledgehammer? What!? You would think they would be programmed to engage in non-lethal takedowns at least! Suspending disbelief is a demanding task. It does not matter if they introduce some element into the story to justify this scene later on, as it looks like poor writing, and the damage is already done. This part also could have been rescripted to make it more believable, regardless of how it went in the LN. The series is chock-full of B-movie action and thriller writing like this.

For atmospheric flavoring, there is a darker tone to YF in some areas. Harold W. Lucraft seems to be a nod to H. P. Lovecraft (with the name Howard being close to Harold and the emphasis on the middle initial) in much the same way Edogawa Rampo is to Edgar Allan Poe. Lexie Carter appears to be another Lovecraft reference, this time to Randolph Carter, as well as the use of butterfly imagery for her introduction, and anywhere else that the symbol is used, being on the dreamy side. This is a sensible and meaningful reference to Lovecraft's Dream Cycle, in light of YF's themes and concept. The university looks to be the center of the android crimes and will occupy a space similar to Lovecraft's Miskatonic university, swamping the plot with mystery and murder. Though this is not a horror series, there are scenes of mild violence and even some surprisingly gruesome synthetic body horror moments. References to Lovecraft seem more interesting here than average because the series is not making lame references in the context of a Lovecraft ripoff but seems to be applying some of his dream and cosmic elements and motifs to technology, transhumanism, human-android relationships, and brain diving, which is a novel spin that could probably produce fascinating overlap.

Then, finally, in stark contrast to the potential for atmosphere detailed above, there are the generic-looking shojo romance designs and characters: Lucraft is a "cheeky" ikemen android husbando sidekick to a flat cat lady lead (I am not talking about her cleavage, but she is washboard-flat there too), who cannot have a human partner because she is so advanced in her brain diving that everyone else ends up with fried brains. To add to the weirdness, it turns out the Japanese voice actors for the two leads are married, giving one the impression of watching a bumbling and slow-burn opposites-attract romance: flesh and machine uniting; one reserved, the other outgoing. Otherwise put, the autistic, awkward, and mildly "taboo" romance of two autists form Gimai Seikatsu unfolding, when this is supposed to be a high-concept and psychological detective sci-fi. He is always flashing his gaggy smile, at one point making her blush and resort to behavior practically like the tsundere-esque routine of "It's not like I like you or anything, b-baka!" The suggestion of attraction with a human FMC and male android does not work nearly as well as the other way around for obvious reasons. There are also moments where the android will hope to repair their relationship: "I, too, wish I could dive into you." That is probably one of the most unintentionally vulgar lines I have heard in a sci-fi. Then we get moments equivalent to "Echika-chan, I bought you a little stuffed goat to calm thee. Please take it, my pookie." Now the only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not Lucraft has a vibrating mecha phallus to provide better work-life balance for Echika, but I will not stick around long enough to have the misfortune of finding out.

Dragon Dentist looks promising at first, with a unique fantasy setup of cleaning mushi cavities and plaque buildup amongst the huge rows of dragon teeth, for dragons are nearly unstoppable weapons, but their one weakness is that they have a bit of a sweet tooth. What I thought might be on the fantastical SoLish side turns out to be a "serious" story of war between two ill-defined sides. The worldbuilding is vague and limited to the mystical and metaphysical possibilities of the dragon's teeth alone. The characters are dull and the script is heavy handed, leaving us without much other than an often appealing aesthetic ... (when the CGI isn't too obtrusive, like in the finale), half-baked themes, and a dragon as a unique micro-world within a world, and one of those grand spiritual-laden conclusions so common to anime. While I try to avoid heavily summarizing a title, it's impossible to talk about what I want to discuss without a large amount of context and plot summary.

We start with an explosive action sequence between a fleet of dragons obscured ominously by clouds and rapidly decimated battleships. Aspects of the scene look old, so you could point to WWII-era technology, especially given the appearance of the dragon dentist base attached to the dragon that will be revealed once we have been introduced to the dragon dentists in the next scene. There's a feel of early 20th century Japan, before they were defeated, especially with the four-eyes commander looking like an imperial army caricature and being mildly antagonistic with the dragon dentists. All of the dentists and soldiers on this side have Japanese names and are of the same ethnicity. We can see here that the creator presents the dragon dentists as noble, while the soldiers are hardly portrayed other than to be criticized as oppressive.

While the backstory is never explained, one might imagine an alternative scenario where Japan was on the verge of defeat in WWII and acquired dragons. For the enemy side, most of them appear to be European, South/Central American, black, and mixed ethnic or racial groups. The enemies shown never appear to be a single ethnicity, like the Japanese dragon dentists, and there's a feeling of a nationalist versus globalist power, the latter being in the most literal sense, with Japan being the last bastion for the former. This gives me the impression that nearly the entire world is the enemy of Japan, with them having the advantage because of their command over dragons, though they presumably hold far less territory and manpower. The premise is similar to Attack on Titan in a lot of ways. For the sake of convenience and the lack of worldbuilding, I will call Nonoko's country Japan and the enemy country Not-Japan (whether "the enemy" comes from one country, multiple countries, or one global empire or some such is never made clear, presumably for the sake of universalizing the events). It follows the commonly seen anime notion of a liberal post-war Japan either turning back the clock to prevent a defeat or regaining respect and dominance and looking to broker peace with the world, while grappling with its own war-like, imperialist, or colonialist ambitions, which is pretty common in the work of authors like Ryousuke Takahashi or Kaiji Kawaguchi.

Though we never actually see dragons eat, they accumulate all kinds of nasty creepy crawlies upon their teeth. The three rows of teeth on top and bottom are, of course, giant compared to our heroes, so they use ropes to climb their way to the top, and they plod along the gums of different dental alleyways, shoveling crud into bags, and exploding black cavity-like mushi mobs with their assortment of crimson melee weapons. Every so often, teeth will degrade and crack, and stronger mushi will emerge for them to fight. The process of becoming a dragon dentist involves being absorbed into the tooth, being shown one's death, and not struggling against one's fate. To struggle is to be fully absorbed. To accept it is to be "spat out" and stationed with cleaning the teeth. Oddly, the teeth act as a kind of metaphorical prop, with the cavities and toxic mushi obviously emerging from the dragon's teeth because of the war itself. Soldiers, friends and foes alike, are seemingly absorbed into the teeth upon their death, and those who are available to listen can hear the voices of the dead emanating from them, with the inner chambers of the vast pearly whites acting as something like a purgatory or afterlife or a repository for memories and consciousness. Discarded military equipment pours out of the teeth on a daily basis, acting as more detritus for the dragon dentists to clear and providing a touch of mystery and dread in the same way one might find an abandoned ship upon a mist-laden sea, filled with items of unknown belonging. These strange interactions with the teeth represent the cycle of warfare between the two sides, but without the war, it would still be a place of the dead.

The primary reason the dragons need a dentist is because of the "foolish" actions of man, for they debase nature with their ways. The ideal would be for man to be at peace and the dragon to continue its natural role rather than the destructive parasitism of humanity using it as a weapon. Dragon dentists are not even needed for dragons to maintain good oral health (remember that many "uncivilized" tribes have strong, healthy, straight, white teeth without having ever been to a dentist, and it's actually some of our developed habits that make us so dependent on them), and what they do is only necessary because of the horrors the two sides are committing against each other. If the dragon dentists were to abandon their posts and there were a shortage of them, then the Japanese couldn't continue to use the dragons as weapons. This would presumably balance the war between the two sides, which might eventually lead to reconciliation and an improvement in health of the dragons and humanity. This, of course, casts aside whether or not peace is a good choice for the people controlling the dragon. Not-Japan might even double down on eradicating Japan if they were to lose their best weapon, sunk cost fallacy or otherwise. Struggle and war are also a part of nature, and humans being able to better harness resources to inflict more damage hardly changes this. In this sense, Dragon Dentist is another preachy anti-war and environmental film, just like Ghibli, Origin: Spirits of the Past, or Arjuna.

It warrants attention that Nonoko's fate is to be killed on the battlefield by a young European soldier with blue eyes and blonde hair, who she says is beautiful. Bernard Octavius (Bell), is a yomigaeri drawn out of the dragon's tooth. The dentists are hesitant to touch Bell and want to allow him to be absorbed into the tooth because of the potential hassle of dealing with yomigaeri, who are something like bad omens, but Nonoko saves him. She also remarks that he is beautiful, much like the boy in her vision, and they look relatively similar. She is predictably assigned to be his trainer and they develop a bond that verges toward romance. This is clearly a nod toward reconciliation between the two sides, for Bell was murdered by his own unit and is estranged from either side, so he could reasonably act as a bridge between the two toward achieving peace. While Nonoko and most of the dentists are dutiful and accept their fate that is tied to the dragon and conflict, Bell thinks they should fight against their fate and he is only ever an ambivalent and clumsy dragon dentist, eventually rejecting the role altogether in the second half, albeit rather abruptly and without much buildup.

The central conflict for Bell begins before he meets the dragon dentists and is reborn as a yomigaeri, with him being a ranked officer due to privilege, for his parents were military doctors (it's thematically relevant that they are doctors). The men around him are bigger and stronger. He fits the stereotype of the studious school kid, and they look like chiseled, battle-hardened soldiers. This has historically been a fairly common scenario, where you have officers who are given such a position without earning the respect of their unit (either because of education or family) and would have likely never been promoted to such a role by normal means. Whoever assigned Bell to be the commander of this unit is a moron. One of the soldiers under Bell's command is Blanco, who acts as one of the main antagonists. The name is Spanish, but his origins are unclear, with him being of mixed descent from a likely former Spanish colony or the equivalent for this world. He's one of those mysterious figures who stands in the middle of the battlefield without fear, for all gunfire appears to be deflected, as if some unknown force were shielding him. This is a common trope in nonsensical grimdark war films to comment on fate or something something, though it clearly doesn't apply to Blanco's teeth, for most of them have been knocked out, rendering him as an ugly toothless old bastard any time he opens his mouth. Just as with older caricatures in fiction, Bell is beautiful, and his nemesis is ugly, though the other traitorous villain is granted mercy in appearance and perceived in a more sympathetic light.

Hoping to save themselves from the wrath of the dragon, the unit abandons a wounded and unconscious soldier. Bell wants them to save the soldier, but they mutiny. Bell orders them at gunpoint, shaking in his boots in fear. Blanco disarms him, and the unit stabs Bell. Bell would be justified to shoot Blanco for insubordination, not just in self-defense but to establish his authority, for Blanco was coming to disarm him and would not follow orders. What would happen next is uncertain. Would the others kill Bell or fall in line? But it's better than being gutted like a fish. The convenience of the dragon and the gunshot being loud, of course, stacks things against Bell completely because he would blow their cover by firing, maybe resulting in them all dying either way, which is also why they knife him. But Bell's hesitation to shoot Blanco is not because of this practical concern. Bell is stupid or too kind for his own good. Given the situation, it was not a good time to assert authority and not be able to deliver, though his reason for doing so is understandable. Bell is a coward, but that's also not the reason he does not shoot Blanco, per the script. The primary reason is because Bell is a good boy without "killing intent." In the final confrontation between Blanco and Bell, this same situation is repeated, and the thematic coup de grâce is delivered. Blanco and Bell have their standoff, each pointing a gun at each other. Bell could have tried shooting out Blanco's few remaining teeth with his pistol, like that one arcade game where you spray wacky slabs of cartoonish chompers, knocking them down one by one. Instead, Bell now faces Blanco without fear, has no intention to fire, and is shot, but the cavity tentacles kill Blanco because of his "killing intent." The whole production resembles a dream where the scenario was rewritten for Bell to die in a more dignified manner, to have been right to not fire the gun in the past or present, and for justice to have been served, like some cheesy ghost story.

There is a large battle at the end with anyone who has "killing intent" being slaughtered by the cavity tentacles. For all we know, those killed might be the bulk of the army for both sides, meaning there would need to be a hiatus to the war, but I sincerely doubt this, and we're given no context to make such a determination. Japan still has dragons, so they are the dominant power. The idea that the cavity feeds off the "killing intent" of man like this is ridiculous and hypocritical. Somehow, the boy who was meant to kill Nonoko is shown to survive, but if he had "killing intent" toward her in the vision (and the visions are shown to be accurate based on the death of Shuuzou, short of some intervention by some unforeseen event, like a yomigaeri being born), shouldn't he have had "killing intent" toward the other soldiers and would also be killed? That's a plot hole, unless we are to believe something contrived, like the pile of corpses formed a shield for him, or he gets off on killing women only. The medics were not being killed because they were simply treating the wounded, so they couldn't have had "killing intent." The same goes for the dragon dentists. The message on war seems kind of nonsensical considering Japan keeps using the dragons for war. Even if you can say the dentists don't have "killing intent," they are undoubtedly responsible for more deaths of the other side than any single soldier with "killing intent." The irony here is how we judge soldiers who are possibly conscripted and forced to kill because of the threat of violence from the state, yet the medics and dragon dentists are presented as a cut above, despite the former keeping these "killers" going, and the latter maintaining weapons of mass destruction.

If not for Bell, presumably most of the events of the series would have happened, with Hibana betraying her country, causing the cavity overload, and for Blanco to escape with or destroy the wisdom tooth. The result would have been for the dragon we follow in this story to be taken down by the foreigners and for Nonoko to be killed by the blonde soldier on the battlefield, who is shown alive, rising out of a pile of bodies to smile at the sunset. Bell changed fate and instead of this story ultimately leading to the kind of "come together" reconciliation that I expected or any talk of peace, Japan still has another one of its dragons to continue the war effort against Not-Japan. Bell wasn't even betrayed by his own country. He was betrayed by his own unit. Helping Japan instead of Not-Japan seems questionable because we don't have any comparison of the two sides. Since Bell was from the other side, you can see why I would think this is about bringing about peace between the two, but the other side is primarily an enemy and we don't know why either side is fighting.

The production has the appearance of Bell becoming a traitor and sacrificing himself for a waifu, even though that's not the case. Bell never gives a coherent argument for why he does what he does or compares the two sides. It seems like he is choosing neither side by saying that he's not a dragon dentist and declaring war is bad, but what he does ultimately helps the dragon dentists (and, by extension, Japan as a whole). Here is a summary of Bell's various shifts in perspective: "WAAAAH, my unit mutinied and killed me. Oh, this waifu might have sex with me if I stay by her side. I don't want the responsibility of being a dragon dentist and want to forage berries in the woods instead. Oh, no, my sweet waifu needs me. Let me give my life to save Japan and its wonderful waifus, so they can continue to fight against my country with full force." It can be argued that what he did was not for Japan but for the Japanese dragon dentists who have bought into a deterministic agreement to the dragon on behalf of Japan. The conflict between the Japanese military and the dragon dentists is established early on, and the dentists protect Bell from them. Nonoko probably was not keen on being a dragon dentist, except she appeared to be a war orphan living a meager existence, so she went for it. We can imagine a lot of her compatriots are similar. Bell, when he was taking orders from Not-Japan, also seemed to prefer not to be part of the war and both of his parents similarly died as a result of it, then he died at the hands of mutineers for adhering to his ideals. With Bell's first death, he transcends the conflict itself. He is the savior come back from the dead, attempting to enlighten the humble dragon dentists who act according to orders from Japan but actually hold all the power and could resist, if only they could realize their own worth and leverage, just as anyone who goes against fate is called "brave" by Godou, the head dragon dentist. Bell urging the dragon dentists to challenge their fate means to abandon their role as dragon dentists. Similar to how I have mixed feelings about the way they present Bell as turning away from his own side, I can't help but think Bell is a meek Christ figure who comes in like a trojan horse and inspires Japan to give up their one all-mighty weapon and be subsumed by the hordes of Not-Japan. If we're presented with an element of reform to Japan but not to Not-Japan, the whole thing appears unbalanced and unconvincing in its sentiment, as if striving for being stamped under a boot.

The ending also is unsatisfying, with Bell comparing a childhood event where his horse threw him into a marsh and left him to drown to Nonoko proudly casting him aside as he dies. The one solace for him is that the horse galloped out of the water and moved on without any concern for his former master, while his waifu obliviously looks around for him now that he is dead, so at least he's getting a few scraps of concern. Hope it was worth it, cherry boy. The final frame is Nonoko descending the stairway of the shrine that houses the wisdom tooth of the dragon, which is a symbol of Japan's pact with the dragon, and she's calling out to Bell to return to the status quo of scrubbing dragon teeth. His importance to her and moving away from the shrine in the final frame could suggest that she will come to reappraise her views much in the same way Bell did, but we're not given anything more explicit than that. An ending where Nonoko acknowledges that Bell could not be found and must have once again died and became reabsorbed by the tooth, using voiceover much in the same way that they had with Bell, would have been more meaningful and probably could have suggested a bitterness that might lead to reform. Bell is the only character with much depth or development, but Nonoko is never given the chance, remaining no more than the waifu who could have been. She didn't necessarily need to be developed as much as Bell, but we should at least see the seed of development planted in lieu of Bell seeding her. There is not enough information given to Nonoko for her to understand that Bell's existence and actions changed her fate and likely that of the remaining dentists; while we are shown the battlefield in her vision, she never acknowledges the battlefield to be the same one, so she most likely is unaware. As the viewers, we know the fate of the dragon dentists is not set in stone, but they do not. It's fixed if they choose to be dragon dentists, but it's not if they abandon the role, which is arbitrary. Why should it be set in stone for going to war versus not going to war? Because the script said so.

Dragon Dentist's take on violence, cyclical or otherwise, is naive. The idea seems to be that our characters should embrace their meekness. If we all did, there would be no violence. But there are always the meek and strong, those who engage in violence and those who won't. But if you want a hypothetical non-violent world, then you, other people, or multiple generations will have to do something that this script would deem "bad" to actually achieve that outcome. Otherwise said in a cynical but true fashion, you can't make an omelet without scrambling a few eggs. Something as revolutionary as "Violence is mean, so no violence is allowed" requires "killing intent" and a lot of bloodshed to achieve such an outcome. The setting is intriguing, but the themes percolating around the war story are somewhat muddled and not well conveyed, and the short length was not quite enough to fully flesh out the story, attenuating a lot of the vitality the production might have otherwise had.

Re:CUCK -Revenge of the Otakus in Another World- Season 3 is the worst in the series thus far, and the "rocking" OP that has all the smugly smiling characters lining up like they're walking into a capeshit film is telling. The dialogue and characters have always had weaknesses that were masked by the more intricate plotting, mystery, and tension of past seasons, yet with almost the entire cast bouncing off of one another with sassy one-liners and yucky banter in what has shapeshifted into a battle shonen, the series is at its most juvenile: Just look at the Looney Tunes ice skating chase with hammer ... bonks or the 12-year-old DBZ/Superman fanfic writing of one character heading to the moon and back to earth in less than a day.

Early parts of Re:LOLI feel like they're set at a kindergarten because of all the lollygagging with lolis, upping the ante for the baby talk moerot like never before, until they're sent to nap time because of how long the battles are. Looking to the latter half, episode 14 is a contender for the worst episode of the franchise. At least half of it's a sluggish, pointless flashback consisting of information the viewer either knew already from the White Whale arc or didn't need to know. The forced drama and crybaby antics here look like a parody (except they're dead serious) of a soap opera. Re:SNOT has led me to realize how important animation and composition are for crying scenes in particular. A raw closeup of grandpa Astrea ugly crying all of his dignity away, with the tears practically looking like icicles stabbing him in the eyes because of how static the shot is, cheapens everything further. The sappy music is the rotten cherry on top. The director embraces the author's clumsy melodrama and makes it even more obvious, when an adaptation should try to diminish these issues rather than double down on them.

There are also a few added characters and developments outside of the main plot and battles: There are new rambling villains, with Wrath being like a Diet Petelguese but with a poorly concealed identity, and the reveal will undoubtedly be butchered by the ridiculous melodrama. Liliana is a bard, who looks exactly like Trixie Kong, with a hackneyed filler backstory that she dumps on us in the middle of a battle because we just needed another flashback to Re:TARD the pacing. For the character with the most bloat in Re:BARF, there's Garfield boasting of being a "Gorgeous Tiger," the unconvincing "trauma" of having Elsa stalk him as a figment of his mind (as opposed to the more appropriate Subaru), a generic quest for vengeance, and a sappy backstory and "must protecc" side plot. We could have done without most of this, and it's hard to imagine anyone being moved by his portrayal, as the main reveal undermines any developments to his character from the Sanctuary arc and is embarrassing. There are cliche things with great execution in many cases, but this is told without any real craftsmanship. Most other characters aren't worth mentioning.

Although not as expressionistic as other examples of weebish heroes, like Dandadan's Ken Takakura and his removable pork and beans, Subaru is perhaps one of the most well-rounded pathetic, simp, doormat, zero-to-hero archetypes to emerge from the collective consciousness of the otaku. Which is not to say that Subaru is a good character, but he represents all the trashy wish-fulfillment, otaku pandering, and "Just Like Me" syndrome cases, and Re:REEK distills it all into one of the stinkiest, please-change-out-of-your-Adidas-track-suit-that-you've-been-wearing-for-several-years-straight-and-take-a-bath packages. It's all there. A NEET with no confidence, who sits around playing video games and does unspeakable things with grill figurines, dies and is isekaied into a world where he is quickly thrown waifus and responsibility far more desirable than what he'd ever find back home. That's not to say Subaru's rise is without considerable effort, for Re:CUCK isn't the easiest of power fantasies, at least at first. Furthermore, while he is OP, it comes with a cost: He is a loser who fails over and over, soaking up the pain and rage of the otaku like a suffering messiah as he works through the elaborate plot like a puzzle and makes things right with the help of his reset hacks, various mommies of his harem course-correcting and pulling him up by his bootstraps, and numerous higher-status males who come to respect him and blow smoke up his increasingly smug and annoying ass.

An obvious undercurrent running through the series has always been Subaru's self-loathing, relative uselessness compared to the other characters, the constant tone of "You're pretty awkward and not very reliable, but I can see how hard you try," and whiny insecurities. Of course, because of the "reset by death" hack he achieves great things. Re:CUCK is ultimately about the reformation or redemption of the NEET otaku, but since being a cog in the machine is not particularly inspiring, we're instead treated to an exciting fantasy world, adventure, and lots of waifus. The meeting of Emilia and Subaru in S1 of Re:SIMP, which has him ascending from would-be stalker to white knight by means of a plot convenience, goes something like this:

Emilia: Boohoo! Oh, if only I could reform the kingdom and end discrimination against half-elves like me.

Subaru: That sounds like a great cause, Emilia-chan. Tell me, does your hypothetical society discriminate against otakus wearing Adidas track suits, by any chance?

Emilia: What's an otaku? Are those the vegetarian hobbits with smol Peepis that I've been hearing about lately?

Subaru: Ahahahaha... forget I asked *Subaru shifts his beady eyes*. I would be honored to help as your knight, milady *Subaru kneels and takes Emilia's hand, his long, thin, forked tongue slithering out with a hiss*.

It appears quite a bit of that redemption is underway by S3 because the tone is now much lighter, whereas S1 sometimes felt like a horror series, for it dripped with Subaru's despair (okay, that was probably just the waste seeping out of his track suit), reveled in crushing suspense, and what seemed like perpetual dying and resetting. By contrast, S3 has all the characters appearing to respect Subaru, and even though ikemen like Julius used to roast him on a spit (at least he got in his "loli tsukai" line in this season, which is equivalent to little girl user/tamer/wielder), they're now brothers in arms, if not outright bromancers. A number of his waifus had tsundere traits, yet almost all of that has vanished, with even Ram probably eventually getting the tsundere-to-deredere pipeline taming treatment in future installments. Subaru, unsurprisingly, gets the kindest, most unconditional, mommy-like moeblob of all time, Emilia, who can see his inner beauty beneath the track suit, as his main squeeze (any moeblob who will not accept him unless he takes off his track suit is trash!). There are a few reasons why the tsundere archetype is popular. One is because they are more difficult to tame, and the other reason is because the more beta society becomes, the more desire there is to be treated like a doormat. But I think the other thing to note is that even when the tsundere kind of likes or even begrudgingly comes to love the MC, when she's being mean to him, there is a subconscious knowing that the little rat bastard deserves every kick to the balls and wounding of his pride that he gets. There's almost none of that here, even though he deserves it for being such an insufferable MC; spare the rod, spoil the child! Nevertheless, Subaru is on his way to becoming one of the great men of Re:CUCK's world and acts like a smug bastard put on a pedestal and worshipped. I'm sure he'll go down in history for his laughable "Okay, everyone, listen up. I'm a loser and totally pathetic compared to all of my allies, but even I'm managing in this struggle, so you can too" speech. Then he's like, "Don't make fun of me... I know it's a bad speech... Uwaaaah..." And his allies are like, "Nuh uh, that was amazing, Subaru-sama."

While it's a matter of taste whether one wants a series that's on the darker or lighter side, the author doesn't handle the latter quite as well. Just look at his villains. They are unhinged baby-eating psychopaths on meth, cocaine, and caffeine, all at once. There's the gruesome device of dying to reset the story. Subaru is quite troubled throughout much of the series. Many of the characters are exposed to trauma to the point of crumbling under the weight of a psychotic break. There was an outlandishness to the scenarios because Subaru would end up having to correct the most dire of outcomes and navigate through a labyrinthine and ever-changing plot, and we got to see things from different angles that added dimension or information to characters and events that we wouldn't acquire otherwise. The device is used a few times early on in S3 and is soon forgotten, without even the slightest tension of it being utilized again for most of the run.

Part of why this season is so lackluster is that there was once a greater sense of mystery and more attempts at creating atmosphere, yet all of that fades away as a result of S3 being like a long-form version of a battle shonen film. The formula for films of this type is even more subpar than your average TV shonen because we're introduced to new villains without much, if any, development or backstory, everything is usually rushed and shallow, and these films rarely rise above being action fanservice. To seal the deal, we even get to see Subaru suddenly become a poorly dressed Indiana Jones, tripping villains and swinging across rooftops with his whip. Very quickly, rivalries form or various characters pair off to either overcome a challenge or because they have some kind of counter to one of the villains. The worst part about the various characters being paired up against the villains is that it, again, sounds like a puzzle meant to be solved, just like the way the reset was often used in the past. It would have been more gripping had they failed because of uneven pairings, leading to Subaru dying and realizing a need to rearrange the parties so they are better matched. There could probably be more insight into the villains this way, since we would get to see them be victorious at least once or more.

There are too many battles going on at once for anything to be well developed. Even though several of the villains had been introduced prior, like Gluttony and Greed, none of them had many scenes or much to their characters, not to mention that content was cut for the adaptation. Petelguese stood out with his unhinged monologuing, and that's pretty much the course taken with all of the villains, yet the scenery chewing has ceased to be that amusing. None of the villains receive as detailed of a portrayal or an appropriate amount of time like Petelguese did, who we even got to see prior to his induction into the cult. There are hardly any insights into these villains as we watch the battles unfold. Going into this, what do we really know about Gluttony, for example, other than he made a few of Subaru's waifus forget things? We don't learn anything else about him until nearly the last episode, when the anticipation for his fights would have been greater if his scenes had been incorporated earlier into the series, and there's no reason this couldn't have been restructured more because most of the fights are occurring simultaneously. Even if you set aside the lack of resetting, the plot structure is less than ideal, and the finale is extremely rushed. But once you understand how the formula works, you'll realize that there's no chance for any of the main characters to die or for Subaru to use his reset by death, completely dissolving any tension or interesting progression for most of the season. If you reset in relation to one of the several ongoing fights, you have to reset all of them, and that's a hassle, which just emphasizes the laziness of this season's approach.

The most important fight of Re:CUCK S3 ushers in the ultimate NTR and Revenge of the Otakus experience. As if to provide foreshadowing, there's a scene where Subaru is driving the carriage and Otto and Emilia are having a friendly conversation in the back. The ever-insecure Subaru almost drives off the road at numerous points for our first dose of cuckold comedy. To make this component hit below the belt even harder, there have been a few tweaks to the character design, but they are most obvious with Emilia because she is the main heroine and temporarily a damsel in the worst kind of distress: the dreaded NTR event! In past seasons, when there was regular conflict between Emilia and Subaru, the eyes were sharper around the edges (tsurime), but they are now much softer and rounder (tareme). The result is that she appears more innocent and docile, has an increasingly generic "girl next door" moeblob feel, and she has lost any mystique she had from earlier seasons and is just Subaru's boring trophy. They also apply a blush effect that makes her look like she's in heat and dtf, heightening the impression that the Archbishop of NTR's Peepi is looming over her like a sword of Damocles.

Then we get to the main course of ball-busting suspense, for the Archbishop of NTR swaggers in and abducts Subaru's elfblob to take as his waifu. Of course, the Archbishop of NTR has like 72 virgins already, and I imagine his cowering harem will subtly convert to Subaru's outer harem once his nemesis bites the dust. The contrast here is supposed to be that the Archbishop of NTR is the most tyrannical and perverse scumbag, while Subaru is gentle and noble. If you look past the initial dominance of the Archbishop of NTR, in a sense, he's like the most narcissistic and smug otaku who plays multiplayer video games with cheat codes (invincibility hacks), collects waifus (note that the virginity check is something of a red herring and these waifus are purely objects of another sort), and goes on endless monologues on message boards about how incredible he is, all leading to him being an NTR hentai super villain. He is the most obvious mirror held up to Subaru; the Archbishop of NTR is essentially a villainous Subaru with unlimited power and no character development. Most isekai and otaku-centric shows at least implicitly interact with the idea of a redemption story, but the way these two characters are paralleled is a riot.

The "7 deadly sins" are obviously meant to be a reflection of the MC's bad traits that he's working through in some sense, but the author lays it on really thick: He writes a story where Subaru (author/otakus) meets Emilia (crush) first and can goof up and have infinite resets to win her over and save the day, and he's such a well-meaning, dedicated simp that she falls for him. Then the author depicts the Archbishop of NTR (bully) as the villain responsible for using and abusing his many conquests (harem). You can tell the author is attempting to process his trauma of the high school bully cuckolding him by dating the girl of his dreams, dunking his head in the toilet, and stuffing him in a locker. The author simply reverses everything as part of his Re:CUCK -Revenge of the Otakus- plot. Finally, Subaru is so amazing and good that he has Reinhard (Chad), who he constantly notes is better than him and how inferior he feels next to him, save the day and step aside so Subaru and Emilia can be together. The author even takes this fiasco so far that he creates a plot hole in relation to Reinhard's sword draw, serving the double-edged purpose of enhancing the shaming and making the later Astrea character arc more emotional, yet the latter is squandered because the author writes such contrived melodrama.

Subaru spends most of his time in fights against the Archbishop of NTR shaming and talking down to him, cavorting around like a mooning monkey, screeching insults and flinging poo simultaneously. I've never seen a better example of a fight devolving into a glorified shaming ritual than this, and I can almost hear the author crying from the catharsis of having finally gotten the better of his bully through words in a popular LN series. If the author had put as much effort into plot and characters as he did shaming this one villain, then S3 could be a masterpiece! Subaru and Emilia's interactions with the witch cult, even when there should be "bombshell reveals," don't lead to any deeper insights or effective beats. The worst part is how they shot themselves in the foot by being so judgmental and spiteful with writing cues here, while being overly forgiving elsewhere.

We know that the witch cult are villains who will eventually all be captured, reformed (Subaru needs to pad out his harem, after all), or killed. We're all flawed and grapple with these "sins," yet the witch cult brings out the absolute worst in an individual. We've already seen the transformation of Petelguese from a normal man into the monster that he became. All the leeway they give to Subaru and how we're supposed to feel sorry for him... well, isn't Regulus just a shade of Subaru at his lowest but with immense power to act out his most depraved fantasies? Regulus and the entire witch cult are really tragic figures, and the way they present this, with all the exploitative glee of gawking onlookers gathered around the carnival freak show, is a disservice to the themes and storytelling thus far. In a lot of ways, the power fantasy is far, far more pathetic in this segment of Re:CUCK than your average isekai where the MC is simply OP, and S3's naked, warts and all, writing makes it even more ridiculous.

Sister fucker series, stepsister or otherwise, tend to be tropey trash, but this is a slippery sibling slide that has an arty pretension and few, if any, of the typical tropes associated with this taboo subset of the romance genre. Given the lack of consanguinity or even long-term brother-sister roleplay, it's questionable if one should call this taboo at all (the tourist doth protest perhaps), instead acting as a sort of silly framing device to have them enter a role that is oddly intimate yet acts as a barrier to a relationship, though their apparent autism and insecurities act as more of a barrier than ... their respective roles.

Just to give an example of their modus operandi, let's look at some dialogue: Right out of the blue, in a bizarre and humorless non sequitur, with the only context being a brief exchange about how laundry should be divided within the household, the imouto blurts: I don't adhere to strict gender roles, so I don't want to assume that you're not into wearing panties and crossdressing.

MC: Huh (my thoughts exactly)?

Imouto: UwU, onii-chan, your eyebrows are shaped so nicely. Do you get them done at the salon? Maybe you should crossdress (I would add a teehee, but she doesn't strike me as having enough of a sense of humor to laugh). "Don't you think it's hard to force all sexual difference into just two categories?" While I could blame this on western politics worming its way into Japanese media... Seriously, does she have a crossdressing fetish and is trying to get her step-onii-chan to play into her kink? Or maybe she's a rotten-to-the-core fujoshi? Perhaps the author has a crossdressing fetish that he's insecure about? "But still, prejudice leads to discrimination." Time to turn the channel to Gundam. Using this as anything other than a fetishy joke is something I can't take seriously. Either way, it's not how I'd imagine even an autist would break the ice. Then again, I've known enough autists to think that maybe this is a believable discussion, and I should simply accept it as a character quirk that defines the character study. Anyway, it's a shortish scene that leads to growth of the relationship, so it's not all for naught.

Another tiring strand of dialogue delivery is the constant back and forth about doing favors (not the fetish fuel kind, get your mind out of the gutter, this is a wholesome rather than Peepi-oriented show!) for one another that the couple have. "I want to show my gratitude for what you did for me." "But I've done nothing to receive your gratitude." "No, you did a lot for me." "Well, maybe just a little, but it's not really that much." And they go on and on, comparing what each one did for the other, haggling all along the way to see who can scratch the other's back more, and it has me thinking, "Shut the fuck up!" This aimless blather will go on for minutes at a time! One of the most awkward scenes of all is the autist in the elevator scene, which is somehow stretched to an excruciating 2-3 minutes (in a 23 minute episode, no less!). Sometimes people insert umms and ahhs or interject with relatively useless lines when talking so as to gather their bearings and figure out what to say, and I feel that's what the staff are doing with this hemming and hawing. Perhaps there's a way in which it seems fitting for the characters, as they express their concerns for the other and simultaneously downplay it as if to avoid getting too close, but it's not a very good use of time in a script.

They're both pretty stunted, with her being far more so and failing to understand anything that isn't conveyed in a blunt way, for, in relation to literature, "I can never really understand how the characters feel and all that stuff." Not only does she win the award for the most humorless poker-faced fujoshi, but she can't read a room to save her life. I think it's safe to say that she's on the spectrum, and her onii-chan is either much less on the spectrum or is introverted and emotionally restrained enough for people to suspect he is autistic. It's additionally hilarious how obvious the animal inserts are when it comes to different scenes representing the characters or aspects of them. Like the constant shots of fish. I believe there are only 2 fish in the bowl! Tell me these two kids don't feel like the gold fish heading to the rim of the bowl and blowing you a kiss, in all their autistic, fish out of water, glory! They'll cut away to two birds flying, and so on. This is a common motif in fiction, but it seems absolutely hilarious here. I think with how slow it is and how bottled up and uncomfortable they are when expressing themselves that it comes across as more obvious and hysterical. As a crude exaggeration of the kind of symbolism this show dabbles in, maybe they'll head to the zoo, and when he's thinking of how he loves her, it'll show two animals copulating. It reminds me of that Naked Gun comedy movie where he's driving, and he's upset because he misses his ex-wife and says, "Everywhere I go I see her and can't get her out of my mind." Then it cuts to a shot of two farm silos close together that look like a pair of tits. And he's like, "See what I mean?"

The more depressive and alienating (relative to anime) art film sensibilities and light experimentation often reflect the state of the characters adequately, and there are a few commendable parlor tricks here and there, along with decent, well-balanced composition (when it's not using grotesque rule of thirds composition) and great directing, considering what little there is for the staff to work with. Might even give off a feel similar to select cinema verité or John Cassavetes at times, though relying on more crafty techniques than is the norm for those. Cinematography takes precedence over animation, and this is pretty obvious even from the first frame, where the camera is slowly panning over a bright city and the FMC in what appears to be an elevator, featuring multiple rack focuses used more dramatically than tends to be the norm in anime. Usually, when it's done at all, we rack focus between two different characters, with each having an important line, but this is done in an intensive mood-setting and emotional way. Even though the diary segments mostly relay information we already knew or could infer, the kind of nostalgic imagery used to convey the character's more honest inner thoughts was a compelling shift away from the static angles and alienating minimalism of other scenes, representing a stiff formalism that gives way to a looser stream of consciousness. The music could be syrupy at times, but the sound design is well above seasonal standards, and there's a pleasant blend of ambient, piano, and a sparser amount of choral elements, which combines fantastically with the imagery, mood, and emotions. It's somewhat of a barebones or bargain bin arthouse romance and depends on you caring about these characters or being invested in a kind of character study romance, and it's easy to be indifferent. Still, as an autist character study romance, the artsy independent film feel and aesthetic strongly reinforce the relationship, making this a commendable effort from a directorial standpoint. It's like the staff figured out how to make the series as autistic as the characters, contrasting their controlled and carefully calculated behavior and mannerisms with turbulent outpourings of their inner feelings that they cannot hope to express!

Penguin's Memory is what you would get if Terence Malick made an anime parodying Deer Hunter and various other gritty American-made Vietnam war films, but he has the built-in challenge of not using rambling diary-esque voice overs and to use penguins from shitty low-class beer commercials as characters. Many of the shots and the way they represent the main character's (or others') internal state are great at various points, but maybe half of the shots appear to have less thought put behind them or are standard fare. For fans of Malick, it should prove to be an interesting viewing experience, but it's definitely in the ... "poor man's" (or poor penguin's) category by comparison.

The consistent post-war depression is interrupted hilariously via the romantic interest of the main, as she engages in a Dr. Moe (if this weren't such an obscure title, Dr. Moe would be a sensational meme, given how widespread moe has become in anime) certified Moetown hit of an upbeat nature, and the inclusion of a pop song at random is certainly jarring. Anthropomorphic romance (aka furshit) is on the gross side, and all of these penguins look fat, if not obese, and nearly the same. The penguins are used for marketing purposes, which variably clashes with the tone of the film or enhances it with a touch of humor. The story feels contrived in its intense compression and even uninspired but basically well told for what it is.

Can't believe the plot developments at the end. He goes PTSD psycho in a scene reminiscent of Taxi Driver. The main acts in self-defense and has a sympathetic witness but the verdict is guilty before a court? This judgment is made even more absurd by the most emotional part with Chico! Am I suppose to judge the main as "wrong" or "corrupted by war" or some other pretentious low-t drivel based on the direction of the story or the main's complex? Guy's rampage was alpha, totally justified, and he did nothing wrong! It's about as cool as watching the vigilante film Dirty Harry and making jokes about film critics Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael, who had typical elitist sympathy for the criminal over the victim, being dead. Overall, it's a ridiculous sequence, even more so for the writer's judgment. Yet it's a decent-enough film, that hits the right notes much of the time with its understated emotions and soul searching, flawed and forgotten though it may be.

Hidamari no Shit is a CGI animation, originally part of a compilation of films called Zoo (which the author probably escaped from), the rest being live action short films. The compilation is weird and terrible; I reckon the same for the source, and the one film they decided to animate is the most satisfying of the bunch because, despite the dated CGI, they do a decent job with the visual presentation. It has a somewhat charming cel-shaded look for the period.

However, the story is the most insipid kind of "twisty" android-raising simulator. A man creates a female android and teaches her how to imitate humans. ... The reason he has created her is because he will soon "die." He's actually an android and wants her to remember him, and the process will presumably be repeated by the female android, just as the male android also had an android creator who gave him the same role, and so on, in an infinite regress of pointlessness.

Animals thrive, except humans are all dead because... I don't know... probably cow farts, as usual. The theme is remembrance, aside from imitating humans to be a better remembering unit. What she does throughout the story consists of banal things like fetching coffee or tea, but she also learns of heartbreak by observing the death of a little rabbit because seeing cute things die is far sadder than a masculine android pretending to be a human and engaging in a silly ritual before running out of batteries, which is priceless and absolutely hilarious. The emotional cadence resembles the reptillian overlord "The more of your data I collect, the more human I become" philosophy of Mark Zuckerberg more so than the typical "cherish these precious memories" slop it tries to imitate that is so common to slime of life media.

You could potentially make something worthwhile with the concept, as Casshern Sins presents a world where humans are nearly extinct and does a far better job of exploring its themes and telling a story. Seeing as machines are created with humans in mind, the machines have to come to terms with an existence where they don't have meaning derived from doing chores, parlor tricks, or bending over for humans. Why do anything if humans don't tell them to do it? Without a shred of sentience, they will simply be operating at the behest of whatever their programming dictates and cannot ponder this lack of meaning. So we give them sentience or some intermediate, regardless of whether that is possible or would be beneficial. What makes these stories so boring is that they become ersatz humans that can change parts out and have expanded life but are stuck in kuudere archetype mode, which begs the question of why don't we just make stories about humans instead? Or a story about the interactions between man and machine at least. A pointless cycle perpetuated by machines, sans humans, is worthless. The idea of android sentience is laughable other than to make an android moeblob more endearing for the sake of a sexy female android and incel revolution, and Armitage III is the manifesto!

Genma Taisen is a dated, ambitious mess. The art, animation, and atmosphere are the only reasons anyone would want to watch this, and all three are inconsistent. The other reason might be that this is something like a proto-Akira, bringing to mind the similarly dubious Ai City dystopic sci-fi film. Katsuhiro Otomo was also involved here, which suggests it might have been another influence leading up to that vastly superior film. There's an impressive fluidity and style to the animation in numerous scenes and plenty of staff overlap with Akira, featuring many of the same key animators.

The art is oftentimes bold and sharp and given ... a great stylistic flair from Rintaro's direction and exceptional moments of fluid animation. Unfortunately, Certain shots look flat in terms of both composition and color—like something out of a 1970s series. Other moments are like the wonderful near-monochromatic scenes when time is stopped, a sequence which is among the most elaborate in terms of production values, storyboarding, and accentuated by those smoldering red lanterns that are used to incredible effect. Takashi Nakamura has a few incredible scenes, and the fiery finale from Yoshinori Kanada is spectacular, but no matter how impressive these scenes are can make up for its flaws. There are plenty of budget saving techniques used to offset the otherwise decent to impressive animation. One of the worst offenders is the devastation of America, featuring loads of pans and zooms and wacky camera movements dancing around stills. Rintaro can be an interesting director, but he doesn't always have an easy time telling a story, and Genma Taisen is one of his bellyflops onto asphalt, from the top of a high-rise building.

I thought it was a safe bet that I'd give this a better rating for the visual prowess alone, but the writing, pacing, and characters are all trash. On some level, I feel this is at least a 3/10 for how impressive some of the scenes are, but the movie is so unbearably hollow and boring that it's hard to do better than a 2/10. There's no emotional connection amongst the characters. Friends of the main even get turned into monsters but we never get any clues as to whether they were killed or if some human component of them remained, as the main dispatches them with the ease of a psychopath, and we promptly forget about them. We get a lot of time with the Japanese high schooler, the android, and Luna, sans any development or characterization to differentiate them from any other generic "we have to save the world" cast, but all of the other characters assemble without an effective introduction and have almost no lines of significance. The only other character I can remember is the black kid with roller skates because of the ridiculous line the android delivers to Luna about how he thinks she's uncomfortable teaming up with the boy because he's black. It came out of nowhere and was outrageously funny, yet the intent was obviously social commentary finger wagging!

There's nothing to offer in terms of storytelling or thematics, the film is simultaneously too long and too rushed, and In the few instances where they squeeze in a theme, it's nauseating, preachy, and half-formed. Worst of all, there's so much gooey B-movie cheese and horrendous jazz-funk muzak stinking up the film to the point one can't even turn off his brain and appreciate the aesthetics or atmosphere. What on earth was with the film turning into a mawkish Bambi ripoff toward the end!? At heart, it's basically a Captain Planet precursor but instead of an environmental hazard, they combine their forces to save the world from a cosmic evil of generic proportions, complete with a kumbaya song and dance finale.

Plastic Memories takes the basic idea of disposable synthetic humans from Blade Runner with a predetermined lifespan but moeblobified and hyper-emotional, so they cry all the time, eat cupcakes to drive away the existential dread, and become engulfed in loads of comedy and romantic scenarios. I doubt anyone really questioned the concept strongly with Blade Runner because the idea seemed to be that they were still in the experimental phase and were primarily being used for labor. They weren't adorable moeblobs fetching you tea. Here, they're like home companions, as shown with several older people who own them in the first episode, along with many ... other setups, especially incel x sexy android revolutionism. Why give them such a short lifespan and not be able to renew them with their personality and all of their memories if people will grow attached to them?

One could say the reason for the short lifespan is about profit (Whooooa, time to trade my Iphone 5 in for Iphone 6!), but while there's a way in which the corporations could make extra money recycling the giftias and selling them again, imagine how much some people would pay to extend their moeblob's life. Disposable obsolescence is a thing, but the repairs and upkeep must be pricey for such sophisticated technology, and this isn't the same as retiring your old smart phone or PC, for people become attached to these moeblob androids, like they're pets or something... or you could just say humans, since they are nearly identical, and you can't really tell much of a difference other than the script said so. They call them giftias and distinguish them from androids at one point, but they never go into much detail.

PM is using the sci-fi concept to enhance the romcom emotions and inject tragedy into the story to bolster the themes, as well as presenting a unique flavor. A similar comparison might be to develop a romance with a girl who has a terminal illness and coming to grips with her impending death, choosing to either pull away or remain steadfast. The series plays out as a romcom first and foremost and a sci-fi only as a distant second, with many people expecting the series to primarily be a sci-fi story being disappointed. The concept clearly was thought out to be as emotionally manipulative as possible rather than logically conceived for the world. Moreover, it is mean-spirited and assholeish: "LOL, let's make moe android servants that the plebs will grow attached to and secretly have sex with that only live for 9 years, so we can laugh in the owner's face once we liquidate their moeblob, LMFAO!" Furthermore, if they don't get liquidated in time, they go rogue, become uncontrollable, unpredictable, and lose their limiters, resulting in super strength and speed! It makes sense that if you don't regularly service these advanced androids that they would develop some glitches, but the way they're designed makes them an easy weapon to wreak havoc in society. CEO: "Well, the crime rate is plummeting, and life has become too boring and safe, lacking any excitement. Violence is, in fact, awesome, and we need more of it!" These two core issues are artificial and don't make complete sense without added exposition. Those who can't suspend disbelief or don't find these aspects hilariously awesome and darkly comedic probably won't enjoy PM as much. Admittedly, what is heightening my enjoyment is not intentional, or they noticed the issue but didn't care.

The characters accept the status quo and try to adapt, barely questioning the structure of society. All societies have problems, but the only ones visible here involve giftias, and the problems appear to be by design and without any obvious benefit. If humans are becoming dependent on giftias does that mean human relations are deteriorating or becoming unmanageable? Many of them are falling in love with disposable moeblobs that can't reproduce; is that a problem? Is that a means of lowering the birthrate? How does the pervasiveness of giftias alter society for better or worse? Are people who design sexy female android moeblobs that you'll hopelessly fall in love with, only for their existence to be snuffed out due to an arbitrary law or software design, scum of the earth? And if they are, why do they do what they do? If you're going to create giftias expressly to deal with retiring other giftias and integrate into the workforce with young males who will dote on them, why make them lovable fetish fuel? Well... I know why... but... Anyway, you'd expect many of these questions to be alluded to briefly in the background, but we don't even get the subtlest of hints.

If they have sentience and a human-like personality, it only makes sense if their personalities and memories can be copied to last longer than 9 years. One explanation might be that their greater empathy and understanding is desperately needed for labor and as caretakers (birthrate and employment are never addressed, but it would seem both are in decline and giftias are a means of automation), but somehow the technology prevents effective preservation of data and they haven't been able to find a solution, but PM explains so little that what could be rendered as plausible with a few more details is cast aside, resulting in the series looking poorly thought out or with glaring plot holes. I can accept that copying a giftia's personality and memories is not the same thing as copying the data on a hard drive, but you've got to give me more to work with than that! They don't even make that analogy in the series!

The parting of the human owner and their giftia is often shown to be painful. Isla's existence is one of such agony that she deliberately closes herself off and acts more machine-like than she really is (the constant usage of "error," for example), pioneers a method of giftia retrieval that is inefficient but is meant to promote a meaningful parting between humans and their giftias, avoids forming close relationships to prevent hurting herself or others, bears a burden of guilt for her occupation, and frequently contemplates her fate, knowing the exact moment that she will cease to be. It's unbelievably cruel and seems to be without justified reason, other than to inspire a "MUST PROTECC" response from the audience and, "No, I don't think so, you're not getting away with doing that to my moeblob, you son of a bitch!" The artificiality of the cryporn renders the performance as unintentional (???) dark comedy of the highest order.

As for what the series is like outside of the themes and concept, the workplace of Plastic Memories feels more like a dating sim consisting of a bunch of flirting moeblobs, which is to say, everything about it is inappropriate and unprofessional. There's the tsundere sidepiece, and most of the others are either there for a plot function, thin archetypes, or have one or two traits that they flaunt. Although the writers try to push sad and serious periodically, there's a lot of contrasting humor, perhaps even too much, which sometimes seems superficial or jarring. Isla is a klutzy kuudere (because klutziness is a fantastic trait for a labor bot), catapulting into obnoxious physical comedy and outbursts abruptly and regularly. Although some of it is natural, there's quite a bit of stock comedy from the various archetypes, especially the tsundere! Series like this are really only made for self-insertion and to make the waifu as endearing as possible, and it's decent enough at that, with a bittersweet touch from the boohoo crypornisms. The sci-fi coating helps give it that extra something to distinguish it from other generic moeblob romcoms, even if it's underutilized or oddly constructed. In that respect, it's a bit like Chobits, where they establish a distinct sci-fi world just to explore fetishy romcom setups.

Controversial take, but PM bears a lot of similarities and is better than cryporn like Violet Evergarden, with the negotiation that the "spotter" and "marksman" engage in with the owner and the giftia to help them come to terms with their moeblob being liquidated having a similar build up and catharsis to the letter writing in VE. The main difference is that PM isn't afraid to have fun once in a while and is less pretentious, there's a male MC for self-insertion, plenty of waifubait, and Isla is much more moe and endearing than that autistic automaton with terminator-hands that is Violet. Isla feels less like an android than Violet, but it's hard to say whether that is a point for or against PM... The production values aren't as glossy as what Kyoto Animation would deliver, but PM is colorful, has decent sci-fi backdrops, and punchy character acting for the frenzied crying (in particular, the ultra-low-angle composition where soppy Isla is looking down, her tears splatting the camera, is underutilized in tearjerkers), embarrassed reactions, and comedy, when it needs it. Additionally, although not a deep show by any stretch, the ending is even misunderstood quite often, offering a fitting and cyclical bittersweet touch that's way better than what you'd get from your typical Help, My Waifu Has a Terminal Illness and I'm About to Be an Incel Again tragic romance that is so common.

The character art is some of his ugliest, aside from the moe being passable because at least he is trying to make his characters look appealing, like he would sometimes do in the past. Seriously, why is he reusing Yunbo, the fat prostitute, as if that scene from Reiraku was anything but garbage? Asano chub chaser achievement unlocked. This is one of the most repulsive manga I've seen from a mangaka I used to admire. What's with all the pointless sex scenes and nudity? It's strange because I don't tend to ask that or think that there necessarily has to be a "reason," but it ... feels forced here: as if Asano realizes Mujina into the Deep is subpar and needs to distract from it by putting in lots of "mature" violence and sex.

A prime example of the vulgarity is when Main is sent on her first hit job; the mark, a fat, unattractive middle-aged woman, is introduced by having her hop out of a cab to drop her clothing down to where we see her bulging bare ass so she can relieve herself. When Main swoops in for the kill, the mark summons her own mujina, who is an obese naked man in bondage gear. It's unbelievable how trashy this manga is, even though Inio Asano is often assumed to be part of the 2deep4u teenage nihilism crowd.

This looks like a work from a first time author who spends too much time on Twitter, Live Leak, and Porn Hub rather than a seasoned mangaka, even if the art is quite proficient other than a few grotesque character designs. The dialogue is horrendous and would make even Tarantino at his most excessive blush. Imagine your final words being to call someone "cray cray" or to spout any of the Kill Bill-tier "tricks are for kids" lines coming from the mujina and influencer Tenko's filthy mouth. I doubt this is a case of unfaithful translation because the trashiness of the dialogue often matches the visuals to a tee.

It seems Terumi, who has European ancestry but was born in Japan, is a character who is simultaneously integrated into Japanese culture through his career but is wholly alien to it racially and somewhat of an outcast in his industry despite his successes. It's also pretty obvious he is meant to be the stand-in for Asano here, which clears up some of the political blather and indicates how estranged Asano feels, and there's plenty of overlap from his semi-autobiographical Reiraku. Terumi has a lot of the meandering "why do we live?" kind of monologues and is constantly in his head and critical of society.

Asano is looking at the generational divide, which is likely best emphasized by the bimbo with the "liberation" shirt and mushroom-cloud afro, who is unbearable in terms of behavior and appearance and louder than most comedy skits featured in shonen for elementary school kids. She seems like a poor attempt to lampoon an irritating type of political activist character. Asano can be burlesque and tacky when he gets into the political stuff, with this one being fairly explicit. Though she's meant to be the butt of many jokes, she does make one statement that seems to act as a kind of thesis for the work: the Mujina, which are basically ninjas, ronins, rebels, or general outcasts, hopping around on rooftops and often taking illegal jobs, like assassination, lack "human rights."

Understanding the ways of the mujina is a means of tapping into the feelings of the next generation, who are even more alienated from society than Terumi. Furthermore, the elderly, after 85, have their rights revoked and are moved into zones to reduce costs and save resources, perhaps functioning reminiscently to a more benign version of the tales of the past that had the elderly abandoned in the mountains when times were rough. Mujina are in the same boat as the 85+ crowd, except they're more so in a gray zone, where the government hasn't quite wormed its tentacles into.

There's at least one interesting idea: It's revealed how much the lines are blurred when it comes to the mujina operating illegally and on the fringes and how much they have to gain from left-wing lobbyists who are concerned with the expansion of human rights to the mujina. Human rights can be exploited for gain, with it even being valuable to sacrifice one's rights or the alternative possibility of scamming one to give them up, presenting the issue of rights as more like another part of the consumerism that Asano is critiquing. Thankfully, he goes beyond basic bitch oppressor/oppressed narratives, though the story does return to this being exploitation and a partial explanation for the young girls wandering the streets aimlessly. Additionally, the manga is also exploring the media industry and the way it shapes child stars, treating it as a kind of Stockholm syndrome and brainwashing, which would apply to the model of consumption as well. The story is consumed by a fixation on human rights or a lack thereof and consumption culture, without many intriguing developments as of yet.

The critiques from Asano in this manga are mostly valid but delivered in a shallow "rule of cool" kind of way. A lot of his perspective feels outdated as well, only focusing on capitalism and people being fashioned into consumers, reminiscent of an entertaining but inaccurate dystopic vision like John Carpenter's They Live. If everything were about consumption, then increasing the birth rate would be desirable. The idea is actually closer to using consumer society (amongst other things) to numb the masses and gradually reduce or shrink the population so as to preserve a greater number of resources for the ultra-wealthy. The global population is shrinking, and, yes, that applies even to Africa, which is set to see a decline in the population over time. Asano probably chooses this hill to die on because it's safe and easy, and we all know Asano is a whiny bitch boy who's probably 100% accurately represented by the MC in his vile Reiraku, who is obsessed with sales. With how often his characters are shown jerking off, I'll bet Asano jerks off anytime his manga sells more. Number go up--UOOOOOOOH! 😫😫😫😭😭😭🍆🍆🍆💦💦💦.

Even when I agree with Asano in some respect, it's still easy to become repulsed by his caricatures because they feel too over the top, and it seems he's mocking everyone with "hip" dialogue. Honestly, this kind of satirical approach isn't Asano's forte, and he's even less proficient at crafting an action series. The characters are one-dimensional garbage with poor dynamics and the final nail in the ghastly coffin: Ubume is a stoic cardboard-cutout female assassin. Juno is a dull damsel in distress to be saved from a fate similar to the mujina. Tenko is the kind of character the word "degenerate" was made for. No one else is even all that notable, though the detectives might have a more compelling dynamic than Ubume and Tenko, who mirror them in the sense that they are also opposites. Although not a likable character, Terumi is one of the few who is even remotely interesting thus far. Whereas Punpun and other works from Asano at least had some degree of character depth with functioning relationships and scenarios, Mujina into the Deep only offers meh politics, oodles of naked females done up in Asano's vaguely derpy style, and goofy action scenes.