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I started this anime by recommendations praising its mature romance and thoughtful inclusivity. Sadly, I was bamboozled again by the weebs who rationalized their taste. Neither of those is true if you see through the lines. The anime is just a typical escapist romance written for teenagers transplanted into another setting, and the framing of deafness is patronizing because of the trad tropes. To explain my criticism, I will use a chapter from another manga involving a deaf main character.

Hidamari ga Kikoeru is a BL that explores the difficulties of being a hot guy with hearing difficulties, from solitude to expectations, from infantilization to romanticization. ... During the third chapter, a girl approaches one of the leads and talks about a shojo romance of a girl enamored with a guy who lost his hearing and gained his heart by purely acknowledging him. The point of this interchange was to point out how a romance portrays disabled people as lesser, as individuals with lower standards, as aliens, perpetuating harmful notions such as savior complexes and the misguided belief that deaf people can be won over by just being superficially seen. If the point isn't clear, A Sign of Affection exemplifies this narrative pitfall.

A Sign of Affection is a fantasy tailored for an audience seeking escapism through the heroine, and there is nothing wrong with that. It aims at a vicarious experience through Yuki, portraying her as a blank slate for the viewer. Her demeanor mimics one-to-one socially struggling introverts, burdened by an inability to express themselves, from the corny, flowery monologues straight from BookTok to the awkward body language. However, her deafness conveniently justifies these traits, reframing her as an empowered character rather than a social outcast. And herein lies my issue with the series. Straying from this intended illusion will quickly expose this as an ableist, dull portrayal through Yuki's archetype.

Yuki's archetype is uncomplicated-- she's shy, kawai, and deaf, embodying innocence and purity, uncontroversial and wholesome. Her primary role is entangling herself with an ikemen, as you can expect from a shojo. The problem is that her character lacks human depth. She is a sheltered girl without determination, orbiting entirely around the male lead. The absence of depth is why not projecting yourself and not fixating on the winning ikemen makes the experience miserable and dull. There is minimal substance to appreciate from an alternative viewpoint, as her life was constrained by her deafness, limiting her freedom and meaningful humanlike progression. Yuki's progression started when Itsuomi appeared because this adheres to an ongoing trad fantasy.

Don't believe me? Consider her inner monologue response to Itsuomi sharing pictures of his trip to South Asia. "Wow, I had never heard of such a place. I had no idea that this existed. Itsuomi, what is this place?." Remember, Yuki is 19 years old. She uses social media daily. She cares about opening her understanding of the world. You can write this same dialogue without the infantilization (i.e. "I always wanted to be somewhere like that. I want to explore the world like you. I want to explore the world with you"). Nonetheless, they wrote her as completely unaware of something as trivial as geography despite caring about it since she is inexperienced, pure, and innocent, which are prime trad tropes embedded in the narrative.

Going back to Hidamari ga Kikoeru, this is why I honestly believe that this anime is a piece of shit. The main character is ridiculously infantilized, and if you see this from a third perspective, the anime essentially suggests that a deaf person has the mental age of a child. She has absolutely zero agency because, if it isn't evident, the point of the fantasy is to give her as little agency as possible.

Continuing with the male lead, I think that criticizing the rapist ikemen is rapist ikemen is pointless. We sign up for this. However, as I said with Yuki, this anime is unenjoyable unless you follow the designed intent of falling for him. Why? Because his whole personality is backpacking, flirting with a girl who acts twelve, and learning sign language. There is nothing else going on. The author outlines a healthy relationship, persuades the audience that he is fulfilling so through Yuki's delulu monologues, and then expects us to follow through. Again, we are supposed to live through Yuki for the sake of caring about his background. Itsuomi is such a bland character that it needs Oushi, a villainous childhood friend, to justify his existence.

The main problem for me is simple. A Sign of Affection fails to encapsulate the essence of a compelling romance because it simply dwells on escapism. An engaging romance has a straightforward formula. It needs tension, barriers, and a longing for intimacy built over time. These factors hinge on proper human personalities. A Sign of Affection relies on a superficial approach, where the connection between characters solely leans on the premise. A character who travels wants an isolated pure girl, and an isolated pure girl wants a character who backpacks. That is the extent of the build-up. Successful romances thrive on the payoff from the characters overcoming their struggles, proving to the audience that they deserve each other because of who they are. The only conflict of this series is that the FL is deaf, and the ML is a sussy womanizer, and the only traits of the characters are their outlining.

This anime would be worth a shot for a tourist if it twists all of these tropes and makes a show where the creepy rapey guy turns out to be a creepy rapey guy who emotionally extorts Yuki, isolates her from her friends, and gets a Viper-like twist where he has a third-world sex slave in his house that he kidnapped on one of his passport bro adventures. Or maybe go through a route acknowledging that Itsuomi is a creep and reform the female lead into an independent human being, if the former sounds rough. However, as it stands, this is just a fantasy, which would be fine if it didn't pretend to be more than two dolls for the audience.

4 out of 10 because this has some good directional decisions but dreadful writing and characters with the personality of a rock. I guess 8 out of 10 if you are part of the target audience.

As a footnote, for anyone who thinks that I'm bullshitting through. When you see someone react to this anime, the most probable reaction will be, "You go girl" or "She is so cute, innit?." The audience infantilizes her condition. Shouko from A Silent Voice shows ten times more maturity, and she is a traumatized high school student.

Imagine this. You are about to watch a series sold as a hectic action with unexpected twists and chaotic energy. You are about to watch a series that has been declared revolutionary in its genre, a series that manipulated tropes to create something unique and distinguishable. Captivating, emotional, intelligent, entertaining, juvenile. Then, when you are about to watch the show, you see a fraudulent cinematic attempt with a disgusting production, a derivative storyline, and pathetic comedic timing. Yes, this happened. Yes, this is Chainsaw Man.

Chainsoy Man is a story about a guy who comes from poverty and needs to learn how to adapt to the ... luxuries he starts to experience, his new toys, and his new pleasures. The peculiar characters around him are the stimulus he keeps learning from, and he should realize the differences between desires and lifelong goals. He needs to adapt to complex and foreign socialization and grow as a person. Honestly, I expected differently. I agree with the concept, but it is simply nothing special without proper differentiation, and that inventiveness is not in this anime. Unless you have seen zero shows outside battle shonen, this concept has been exploited for eternity. Self-determination, dreams, frustrations. A manipulative girl that overpowers the main character and who is glorified by him. A girl with drug issues decides to use the main character because she struggles with love. Nothing of this is new. Where is the unexpected? The anime survives by aesthetical decisions that are just superfluous and vapid. Where is the twist?

Well, the twist is that things happen out of nowhere, which isn't a new turn. Dark shonens have been exploiting these shock elements forever, and somehow it keeps working. Yes, disposable characters die on screen. Yes, your main characters only die once their character arc finishes. Wow! So unexpected! Such a ride! The fact that the pace is horrible doesn't add anything to it. You get horrendous long scenes where nothing occurs because that is cinematic, and the snail rhythm spoils these supposed unexpected developments. One entire minute watching people walk with its atrocious animation, two minutes watching people talk at slowpoke speed about obvious stuff, and a character being quirky to coronate the entire investment.

Oh, so deep. Oh, so profound. The storyline is not just derivative, but the dialogues are horrific. They explain directly to the viewer each character's emotional state and motivation set in every moment. The script doesn't make sense. Why would you do that when you are also trying to portray emotions through character acting? Example.

How do I tell the audience that I want to touch boobs? Easy, say, "I want to touch boobs." Is this supposed to be comedic?
How do I tell the audience that I don't feel sad? Easy, say, "I don't feel sad." Can't the audience tell with something less straight?
How do you foreshadow Aki's participation in Denji's game against Katanaman? A cigarette that says easy revenge. Symbolism?

Maybe it is not that easy to portray feelings through non-verbal actions, but holy shit, at least have some respect. The anime reinforces dramatic backgrounds to explain the characters because why would we care about people having normal experiences? Oh, this kid is emo and sad because his entire family died, so he wants revenge. Just the 1000 times that this concept has been done. Oh, this girl doesn't want to work here, so she is a scaredy cat that can't be self-determined and would sabotage the entire mission. Wow, so human. Again, where is the twist? This is the typical exploitable background that every single shonen uses. Why can't people be weird because they are simply weird? Why can't people have simple experiences that extrapolate into their actions? Are we robots programmed to be subjects of our circumstances?

The fact that the voice actors are making soulless lifeless attempts to emulate seriousness makes this even worse. I'm not too fond of dub anime, and the dub voice actors make me feel more than these guys. Who thought saying Denji lines with a straight face was a good decision? Who thought that giving Makima an archetypal evil soothing voice was a good decision? Well, this all goes in one direction; all the fingers point there.

The cinematic attempt of this anime is dishonest. You have an anime this season that attempts it successfully (Arknights), you have an anime this season that ditches it and goes full creativity (Bocchi), and you also have a ton of entries from the past that thinks outside the box and create authentic experiences like Monogatari or FLCL (I name this two because this anime OBVIOUSLY has been inspired by them). This cinematic attempt is pretentious garbage; if you like it, you should feel ashamed. It breaks the pace. It breaks the comedic timing. It makes the action feel out of place. It simply doesn't work. It strains an already fucked production because they try to use creative camera movements that don't even work. It isn't good.

And I can go on and on about it, collaging every single out-of-place moment. The color palette is fucking boring to watch, depressing, and looks like a worse version of Modern Warfare 3. Yes, the Call of Duty game. The CGI is atrocious and only forgivable because the industry keeps sucking at making them good. The movements of the characters are incredibly choppy. The characters change their facial shapes constantly (Aki and his ten chins, Kobeni and her deformed head). The anime doesn't even know how to animate people walking. The backgrounds don't fit. The characters are stiff. It is just a robotic mess. It is the opposite of what the animation medium offers: freedom. Freedom to do whatever you want. The animation is just a chaotic production where the animators felt an increasing burden by fucking dumb requirements that constrain expression.

Yes. Attacking the production is not attacking the animators. If you have never worked a day in your life, then I can explain it to you. People don't agree with all the decisions. Workplace politics exists, and we are talking about Japan. The people in charge of that ugly ass walking that defies the law of perspective and makes the doors size change constantly? They probably thought that the idea was ridiculous in the schedule that they had. It is not their fault. Whoever decided this disaster pretended they could pull off something they couldn't. Simple and to the bone, it was a dumb decision. You are not attacking animators. The animators know when they fuck up and when their technical abilities go to waste. That is why you don't praise this shit because positive reinforcement over this scum is the last thing the medium needs. Dumb.

I could go on, but I will stop at the most fraudulent part of anything, the marketing. This anime started with MAPPA saying that they would be the production committee because they wanted to avoid getting external pressure. They make a bland and uninspired adaptation that doesn't elevate a single inch of the original medium, ruining what is special about the manga. They said that Fujimoto was heavily involved, which is just false. The anime then uses an opening with one hundred movie references, so people talk about it. These movie references are just fluff. They exist for NPCs to not talk about the bland first episode but the opening references and how this is authentic cinema because of Tarantino reference. Then they decide to create 12 endings, one for each episode. The tunes just exist to get funding from Sony and keep the discussion going. The songs are forgettable and skippable. They exist to consume and dispatch, fitting for the quality of this adaptation. There is no emotional attachment at all. Compare this to how Monogatari, Bocchi, or K-On use their songs, night and day.

The sound design is cool, and the OST is forgettable but adds some tension. One point for that.

This anime is just unmemorable. It is nothing. It is dust. It lacks any ounce of touch with the intangibles of its original manga. It is entertainment for people who consider smoking, sex, and violence synonymous with quality. The only thing that made me feel was Himeno sleeping with Denji, and that was because it was horny, and I like horny stuff. Chainsaw Man did nothing that any other lame dark anime hasn't done before during all these years. Will it get better? The plot could, but the other elements probably won't. If the next season is the same, then the dialogues will keep being corny, the voice actors' delivery undesirable, and the animation will still be ugly. Not subjectively ugly, objectively ugly. Like this adaptation. So let's pray for common sense to win here.

Arknights Prelude is captivating. It is an anime that does everything it desires. The adaptation displays notoriously beautiful and detailed environments, featuring shot compositions with layered pondering messages and expressive body language that entails consideration for the audience's capacities. The visually impactful presentation carries the emotionally powerful narration, featuring persuasive and well-written climaxes. While the original medium can be smelled from three kilometers away from how the story is devised, Arknights presents a stark contrast to plenty of action anime currently in fashion. For this reason, while this is not the most complex abstract serious metaphorical story, I consider Arknights a show worthy of its ... attention. Yes, even if you are wise enough not to play gacha games, like yours truly.

Arknights Prelude presents the perspective of Amiya and Doctor's journey, who are, I suppose, the main characters of the source. These characters are from a paramilitary faction called Rhode Island, which aims to guarantee a better living for the infected. The main antagonist of the season is the Reunion, as their means contradict each other, even though their points have many common grounds. Yes, you can think of it as any civil unrest because those visions always emerge. It is an inherently human conflict. The different ideals and interpretations of the solution to the discrimination are presented through multiple unique characters. These characters are shrouded by the limited time given to each of them and the rather unengaging conversations. While the limited time given to each character seems like a constraint, the reality is that the adaptation does a splendid job of giving each of them their flavor through their manners. They communicate their personality concisely; you can make sense of each character's interaction after just one scene. This is the main strength; the anime is concise and lively because it uses the visual medium correctly.

The concise and respectful exposure of information is the main strength of its development of ideals and motivations. The series knows how to conceal reality, so the viewer can freely interpret what is happening. A fool could think, "This anime is pacifist nonsense because it focuses on the pacifist group." That can't be further from reality. The show comprehensively showcases the burden of responsibility and how the decisions of the vast array of ideas have clashing consequences. The problem is that this is something to be inferred, which deviates from the discourses to the audience. They do not present the villains or protagonists through cognitive and rational closure lenses. No need to excuse a character being cold and grandiloquent because their entire family was assassinated by a demon, and no need to justify a character being scared because her family came from poverty and forced her to a job that she didn't want to. The characters act as if they have the determination to decide how they carry themselves because we grow up with values and these values determine how we behave. You do not become because your dog got eaten by your neighbor; you become vegan because you believe in veganism.

Furthermore, the conflict between the multiple ideals of solving an issue is latent and relevant because that differentiates our course of action. We do not differ just because we think differently about the outcome. We are also different because we think differently about how to get such an outcome. If you show this show to different people, they could side with any side because they believe in divergent means. Some people could call Rhode Island's methods too passive, while others can call the Reunion barbaric. Rhode Island's procedures are not portrayed as the saviors of reality. The show's point is the complete contrary; they are both bound to be flawed. Amiya's suffering comes from the complex decisions, and that pressure is transmitted to the viewer eloquently.

Indeed, the outcome of Amiya and Misha's conflict perfectly encapsulates it. You cannot avoid friction, but you have chosen your path and understand it is YOURS. It is your job to mold it as you believe correctly, and that is life. The story is clever about this crucial point because it doesn't need both sides to be validated by each other. After all, the paths can go both ways and never find an intersection. People don't justify each other on life experiences when they oppose each other; they attack each other based on their ideas, which is essential. We are always on a path. Somehow, many anime watchers feel like an antagonist needs to be explained from a neutral standpoint (Which is, of course, not neutral) to be credible. Otherwise, they are shallow or plain evil. That is not how realism works, and this anime somehow understands it. Misha and Skullshaterer never meet an agreement because, in fact, they would never truly meet it in a real-life situation. If the story weren't grounded on such compromise, then the whole point of it would be for nothing. It is easy to empathize when they give you the complete picture of someone, but Hitler wasn't a good person because of his past, Kanye.

Beyond the story, the structure of the plot and the execution of its action is compelling. The action usually does not overstay its welcome and is focused on giving the exact information instead of flexing frames. This is clearly supported by how consistent the animation is. The anime understands what it can do and chooses the most intelligent path to conceive each scene. The series' progression is sharp because it focuses on visually tying the different elements, so the anime does not need endless dialogues explaining the situation to the viewer. Well, except in the case of the massive infodumps of world-building. The integration of the fantastical elements and the world is understandable, which is critical to establishing a correct foundation. I never left with the idea of missing something that destroyed an immersion. The proficient use of sound and particle effects furtherly enforces immersion. The lighting is fucking majestic.

In the end, Arknights is a decent anime. It tells meaningful messages, has engaging action and respectable world-building, and is casual entertainment that you can put on a decent-sized TV screen. However, sometimes it can get dull because the story moves at a snail's pace. The dialogues between Amiya and Doctor could have been adapted in a way that does not scream videogame adaptation, and overall, the exchanges could be better. Suppose you can read body language and don't drown yourself in your illusions of intellectualism. In that case, this anime is the action anime of the season.

Bocchi the Rock's start has been nothing short of phenomenal. The show is an overflow of creativity and relatability, a fantastic comedy with charismatic and human characters. It is simple, straight, clever, and original. The series performs a playful and thoughtful approach to social anxiety, delivering innovation and flawless timing. Bocchi the Rock is pitch-perfect.

** Spoilers marked below **

The story develops from the perspective of the main character, Hitori, who suffers from social anxiety. Just minutes into the first episode, the number of relatable memories and her energetic inner monologue fastly strike. Hitori is a character that instantly clicks from her humorous delivery and ... her recognizable attitude. The animation and the voice acting just further enforce her particular personality. The series fully utilizes all the elements to showcase that she is none other than Hitori. Furthermore, the series uses its social anxiety to be unpredictable. The narrative is smart because it uses the fight between her vision and reality, connecting her deeper insecurities to realistic yet unexpected consequences, and using imaginative and energetic visual gags to visualize her emotions.

While Hitori is clearly the star of the show, what I consider truly great is the approach to the rest of the cast. Usually, anime related to social anxiety can become pandering and victimizing, reducing contemplation and striving for wishes. However, Bocchi's friends develop realism, quality comedy, and lessons. Ryo's hilarious introversion teaches the contrast between being an introvert to social anxiety, a usual confusion among those who don't recognize their condition. Nijika humanizes the perspective of outgoing people, clarifying their struggles, worries, and motivations. Kita's perspective defines a horizontal relationship to Bocchi, showcasing another point of view from inexperience. The group's dynamics are just fantastical because they work humanly. They are reminiscent of any conversation you could have with your friends, a beautiful compromise between reality and anime.

Also, it is hard to decide which girl is your favorite, trust me.

The direction of this anime is another strength. The camera positions are creative and purposeful, the usage of perspective and depth is impactful and meaningful, that fish lense with Bocchi approaching the group is fucking majestic, and the timing to the visual gags of Bocchi has been nailed (Anya would be envious). More importantly, the characters of this anime emanate a ton of life. Their walk, their voice, their eyes, their clothes folding, everything stems from intentionality.

**
The scene at the concert. Nijika is trying to empower Bocchi with her smile and looking for words to motivate her, moving her eyes to double-check her response, mesmerizing. The band is talking in the background, delivering life and portraying another point of attention, ambiance. Bocchi fixed to a corner, reflecting on her flaws, mistreating herself, feeling awkward, and anxious. The song starts playing, and Hitori realizes her determination, connecting to Nijika's words. She firmly breaks the ice, while the concert is still playing in the background. The sequence is so simple and yet so effective. It is enough to make you fall completely to Nijika, cheer for Bocchi, laugh at the punch, and feel a cathartic flow of memories from the past. This scene is Bocchi the Rock's experience. Empathetic, comedic, and creative.
**

Bocchi the Rock! is just a product overflowing with love and care. The themes make sense and they develop organically and fruitfully. You cheer for each one of the characters and you are charmed by each one of their attributes. This anime is superb, and the first three episodes have been nothing but excellent.

As a PD: Many people would compare this anime to K-On, which is a shallow comparison. The anime is way more natural than K-On could ever be, the approach is totally different.

Do It Yourself is one of the most disappointing anime of this season. When you see the animation, you meet striking designs, relaxing compositions, lively and naturalistic gestures, and lovely lightning. The anime visually invites you to comfiness. However, the anime doesn’t live up to its technical ability. Do It Yourself is just a set of gimmicks and themes attached to an unoriginal setup that leaves no amazement whatsoever. It is like a viral Tik Tok recipe. Yes, it looks good, but they didn’t care about delivering the flavor, and you ended up eating a bunch of parmesan cheese.

The main shortcoming of the series is ... the awful character department. The main character, You Serufu (Yes, it is a dumb pun), is the typical careless girl who lives in her dreamlike universe. Cool, that character works, as most CGDCT uses a character that is either dense or clueless for a comedy effect. No biggie. However, You Serufu's actions lack any wonder or anticipation around them, her character is just an unstoppable wrecking ball of fluff, she is Yui Hirasawa after a bad trip of ayahuasca. She will obviously keep messing up and getting injured as a formulaic comedy act, while the rest of the cast will evidently start to mesh because of her outgoing and careless personality. The issue is that the remainder cast plainly lacks the necessary presence or tools to make her character shine and interact. Like, You Serufu didn't even stutter when her childhood friend said that her club activities were a waste of time and outdated, dude? How emotionally stunted one has to be to not show emotion after that? How can the series throw that and go business as usual after that?

The series desperately needs a character that brings her to earth or transforms her fantasies into something funnier or more reflective. We don’t have Rin Shima personally growing while teaching her, nor Konata to mess with her and create ingenious punchlines, nor Ritsu to be her partner in crime and create a memorable duo. The characters are just as artificial and cartoony-independent as her, so their chemistry is painfully absent. As the chemistry is lacking, the dialogue transforms into a muddy debate between low-quality representations of CGDCT tropes. The interactions are comically bland. Like, please, just give You Serufu a chainsaw and give me some high-quality injuries to get more of that nurse and stop the nonsense conversations.

The ultimate consequence of the generic characters is the absurd predictability of the series. When you watch the second episode you suddenly realize that this anime is ridiculously telegraphed. You can copium about the first episode and state that it was a bad start, maybe they copied the literal structure of any run-of-the-mill club CGDCT beginning because it is a reference to the medium or because they lost the original script. Sadly, the second and third episodes are the same. The second episode presents Takumin as a shy character that looks towards a group of friends with melancholy. Meanwhile, You Serufu and Rei Ayanami need people for their club since that is the plot of every club anime ever (Not a spoiler). If you do two-plus-two then you know exactly how the episode will progress frame-by-frame. Why? Because Takumin is not a girl that happens to be shy. No, she is an archetypal introverted girl that happens to exist to expand on the value of friendship (And because shyness is moe). Her character is predictable and dull, Queen Elizabeth (This is a real character, don't inhale glue kids) too.

Takumin representation of the value of being with others is not an isolated case either. Do It Yourself tries to naively attach themes to each character, and it massively fails. The anime is simply not creative in developing the topics, to the point that even integrating them is counterproductive. Example. When you witness a pseudo-futuristic setting in a DIY anime, the first thing that should cross your mind, just five seconds in after watching the third drone.obj, is:

They will clearly do a Handmade v/s Computer-made argument, right?

The flaw is not that it unmistakably does that. The shortcoming comes from the ridiculous soulless discourse of Miku to explain the topic to the people who didn't notice the theme after watching her practicing 3D printing in high school (So jealous, fuck 3rd world). The problem with this anime is that it thinks it is doing enough by mentioning stuff. The presence of a commentary doesn't replace the need for clever blending. The anime pretends that delivering these themes and designing quirky characters (Such as a girl that says meow? Sorry, I can't still wrap my head around her) is enough to capture the viewer.

The show doesn't develop out-of-the-box comedy, the dialogues are just inherently skeletal and dry, and the progression is traced from "CGDCT for Dummies: How To Make Your Own K-On". This anime is a pass. No, it is not unsalvageable, the animation is frankly alluring to watch, but that would be it. The development will not be deeper than doing some handcrafts, guided by rudimentary and uninspired motifs that will spoil the entire episode and leave no relevant impact. It is not charming, it is not humorous, it is not endearing. It is not a good CGDCT.

One of the issues while assessing the quality of an anime is that it is always assumed that the people behind the project are trying to deliver a product that is intended to be, at least, entertaining and profficient. The problem of Birdie Wing is that behind the shock factors and subversive absurdities there is an extremely bland progression, with endless tensionless episodes, awfully forced comedic gags, and an uninteresting artistic direction, defined by stiff characters gestures and an awful artificial green color that my eyes cannot but cringe to. The reality is that the anime is obviously not trying at all on those aspects, ... and it will subsequently enter the category of “Too bad that it could be good” type of shows that some people are obsessed about, for better or worse. To elaborate this, there are three fair warnings before even starting this anime:

- The golf aspect is garbage, they never try to do more than skeletal montages of people using superpowers to create entertainment out of it. The cause of this decision is that the production thinks that golf is boring, so they tried to do a Mario Golf type of anime, or another reference, I don’t know about that stuff. Maybe they want to promote a game, I don’t care.

- Most episodes are a drag at face value, they normally feature one or two moments that could give you a sincere laugh or a sudden shock, but most of the time they are just mundane dialogues interpolated with some scenes that try to wake up the viewer by blasting you with a surprise

- By using the two definitions above, the only correct way of watching this anime is to laugh at the decisions that the team behind this anime made, not the content by itself. Whether the entertainment out of that is valid or not depends on the individual.

Going to the details, the premise of the show is basically the journey from poverty and delinquency to legit golf competition of the main girl. This is apparently unoffensive at first, but the anime manages to make it an explosion of absurdity by using the implications of her wealth position, as the logic of being able to even do such transition doesn’t add up unless certain requirements are completed. The next paragraphs have some mild spoilers to explain why this anime is not just random stuff, but why it also sucks.

The first important detail about the premise is that it is trying to portray the rivalry about two girls that live in diametrically opposed positions in the scale of privilege, and it tries to portray such rivalry through a sport where they must face each other, to finally converge into a friendship relationship of mutual respect and love, as they both grow of each other. This is the first subversion, as golf is a sport that is normally associated with an elite, with wealthiness, and having no connection with the sport or being poor is just a high hurdle that is hard to jump.

Those two main characters are Aoi, a Japanese girl, and Eve, a European girl (?). As you may guess, Eve is the one that is poor and Aoi is the one that is rich, because that is how anime works. As the subversion exists, the anime tries to give a proper answer to the fact that Eve could even be good at golf. The solution is generating an underground system that enables Eve improvement, despite her overbearing family responsibilities and her incapability to enter the circuit. Therefore, the mafia aspect is not as nonsense or random as it may seem, it is just a logical consequence of how to establish a proper reasoning behind her opportunities.

Once given this reasoning, the mafia aspect and the mysterious trainer start to make some sense. Underground gambling, fraudulent tourneys, real estate corruption, all of them enable Eve to be able to break free from poverty through golf, because otherwise she wouldn’t have the resources to begin with, criticism towards social mobility. What this seems to propose is that, with the current state of things, there is no other option but to incur in such shady operations. Eve’s trainer also represents the basics of how education manage to empower the character to be able to compete with those who had proper advantages produced by an actual infrastructure, the presence of such legendary golfer in that context is fixed by a set of coincidences, as people in the situation of Eve could just find such opportunity by a strike of luck and an actual interest to be good at their craft, the value of education and motivation in disadvantaged communities.

The underground activity also brings parallels to different perspectives about the same development. Rose represents those who find comfort into staying as the biggest fish in a small tank, while Vipere represents those who have no qualms about cheating the system to survive. As Eve develop her golf and find the light at the end of the tunnel, she must now stay away from her past. The system that allowed her to get out of the slums is also biting her back.

As a matter of summary, Eve is Chief Keef. RIP Nipsey

If this anime was just a mafia anime with golf, then it would be an interesting ride, the underground antics could have a better emphasis and the characters would be able to develop a multitude of hardships that come from modern issues. Sadly, for anyone who has no interest on mediocre yuri attempts, the anime stops using this concept at the final third of the anime. The last arc of the anime is just a bunch of pathetic golf montages that abuse a joke that has been tired in the second episode of the anime and the cast simping or hating on Eve.

While one can see this ending of the cour fitting, as the struggle of Eve has been finally overcome and she can reap the fruits of her effort, the reality is that this final stretch can be just enjoyed by laughing at some ridiculous decisions of the anime (Or by shipping, I don’t kink shame). Awful lip syncing, slideshows with awkward music, jokes about the laziness of the writing, reusage of material, over dramatic shots, the anime just have nothing else to say and start to do dumb stuff to wake up the viewer, the momentum just hit a full-stop when they must dedicate themselves to golf. Maybe the caddie of Eve and Aoi could now represent a new element of overcoming the status quo, as Aoi must face her mother and the weight on her shoulders and the caddie must showcase her talent against the odds, but their gags and developments are just too mundane to be enjoyable, as they are barely anything but sporadic statements about their feelings.

As a conclusion, if Birdie Wing tried to be an enjoyable anime that makes golf a fun experience, then they completely failed, as the golf aspect is simply the worst part of the whole experience. It is not equivalent to the typical sport anime that develop tension, knowledge, and more importantly, interest about it. Birdie Wing instead look for elements that could bring entertainment and drama in-between the golf matches, entertainment that takes a nosedive once the unique and absurd aspect of the show disappears, and the trail of entertainment is composed by tropey silly power-ups. Sadly, if I want to see a rich girl and a poor girl being rivals and developing a hilarious comedy with an honest friendship I would watch others shows, and if I want to see a golf anime that use this kind of superpowers I would rather sleep.

*This review contains heavy spoilers of episode 3 and 10*
Kamichu! is an anime aired in 2005 that tells the story of Yurie, a middle schooler who becomes a kami overnight. The structure of the story develops into multiple episodic adventures where Yurie must approach her new responsibilities and solve human problematics and wishes, all that while being an actual middle schooler with middle school worries and ambitions. Kamichu is a truly sweet experience with a memorable soundtrack and a vibrant soul that manifests through each one of its frames, with characters that you cheer for, an exquisite sense of nostalgia, and a surprising innocent fully-fledged ... romance, accompanied by an award-winning direction. Why would I mention Kamichu here? Because Deaimon fails at basically everything that Kamichu does correctly, and its own basic structure is basically the same as Kamichu. If you somehow liked this anime, then watch Kamichu. If you are about to watch this anime, then just watch Kamichu. It is just day and night, and it shows at every single corner.

Deaimon intent is to create a relevant relationship between traditional Japanese sweets and the conflicts that each character present in an episodic manner. Every episode presents a sweet related to a meaning and a problematic, and it tries to tie both cohesively. By incorporating Nagomu, a middle-aged man who just left his band to work in his parent’s shop, the anime intends to create healing moments by applying his selfless and empathetic nature to the cast, which would be equivalent to an emotional savior. Nagomu face his own issues too, he suffered a breakup and the apparent rejection of his family. However, Nagomu still can reach the others to provide help, the series install the idea of helping to grow, a bidirectional relationship of care.

Here is the first downfall of this anime, and this is an honest question for anyone who watched this anime, who the fuck cared about the sweets? Were the sweets anything but mere decoration and white noise for a vapid metaphor? Every single dialogue about the sweets is an awkward infodump with a bunch of nonsense words that tries to expose the meaning or origin of the sweet. This is supposed to be a promotion to Japanese sweets, but the anime would be the same without the sweets, hell, it would be fucking better. You have anime like Super Cub, Yuru Camp or the ceramic anime that actively do an effort to incorporate their product into the plot, this anime just doesn’t, it just throws a bunch of dialogue, showcase the sweets like a low-quality ad, and then continue with the story like nothing happened.

If you ignore the shoehorned sweet aspect, then the anime is just an insipid collection of typical dramas. The only salvageable aspects would be Itsuka and Kanoko stories, as they both have some sort of engaging development (Mostly because they last more than half an episode). Itsuka juxtaposition of being a middle schooler and being obsessed with the idea of rejection and responsibility creates sweet sporadic spotlights, while Kanoko regrets create an interesting storyline to watch for of self-searching. The problem of the series is not that there are not some good healing dramatic moments amongst the 12 episodes, the problem is that it is full of shitty scummy garbage awfully inserted stories that have no substance at all.

There is a character that arrives as a new intern for Ryokushou for half an episode to portray the theme of striving for perfection, which plays an interesting contrast to Nagomu lack of professional abilities. This character appears, creates a drama that completely breaks her implied character, proposes absolutely nothing to the main plot, and then vanishes from the series to just be a grandpacon comedy device after having a lazy resolution. That happens almost every single episode that is not based on Kanoko or Itsuka, I’m not even lying.

Even if one goes for the two interesting storylines, be Itsuka growth or Kanoko self-healing, the writing is just so absurdly stupid and lazy that I cannot but think that they are playing a joke on the viewers. I will just exemplify it with episode three, one should not require more than two braincells to see the absurdity:
- The episode starts with a flashback of Itsuka about a festival (Or whatever, I forgor), then it abruptly cuts to a random girl saying Kyoto (Pure foreshadowing guys! Do not leave your chair! Who this girl going to be?)
- Nagomu wants to go to a festival with Itsuka, Itsuka obviously says no. Nagomu starts to remember a promise to his ex-girlfriend (I love the subtlety on this one, I obviously cannot see what is going to happen, who said Kyoto!?)
- Itsuka leaves the store and go to school
- Itsuka takes the wrong bus because she sees someone with a guitar (This is the dumbest shit that this anime tries to pull off btw, I just buy it because I have never been abandoned by a guitar player so maybe it is believable). The scene abruptly cuts to show the concern of Nagomu to ignite the search. Abruptly is an understatement btw
- Itsuka fell asleep and didn’t even see the guitar player. Yes, the girl who is tailing her supposed father fell asleep just to put a flashback. A flashback that can be put anywhere else in the episode
- Itsuka tries to look for the guitar player in a temple by asking the people that were on the bus (??? Peak rationality here)
- The girl (Kanoko) is COINCIDENTALLY in that place and COINCIDENTALLY starts to talk with her, presenting herself to the audience (Emphasis on audience) with an alien dialogue straight out of a chatbot
- Kanoko mentions the festival that Itsuka rejected and tells her motivations to the audience (Emphasis on audience again, the dialogues are just infodumps that just connect her character to the plot), then Itsuka connects the sweet with the plot (Coca Cola open happiness type of beat), comedy homicide dialogue afterwards
- Nagomu founds Itsuka and Kanoko in the mountain JUST when they are about to part ways (??????????? You cannot make that shit up, at least make Kanoko stay with Itsuka)
- I will not write anything else, just think: What is the anime trying to do as the conclusion of this assassination? Isn’t it obvious after the anime mentions out of nowhere a random ass festival as something important? (Spoiler: The anime tries to sell this as the goal of the episode, not as something bound to happen)

Look, I don’t mind coincidences in anime, they are sometimes necessary to keep some sort of progression, but this is absolute shamelessness, like how can anyone eat this up? This is the one of the most lazy and desperate introductions that I have seen in a while. Do you know the worst thing about it? These coincidences are just fucking everywhere. Another example:
- There is an episode where a girl is having a problem with her name
- Her name was related to her grandma (Somehow she didn’t know, not going to question that)
- Her grandma did not want to reveal it as a solution (Spoiler: That solves the conflict, she reveals it afterwards, this is just to kill time).
- Then the grandchild of the grandma’s ex-lover (???) decides to go to the shop (!!!???) just when the girl is coincidentally in the shop (!!!!!!!??????) to ask for someone with the same name as the girl (Spoiler: It is the grandma, it was obvious since ten minutes ago, what is this suspense? Of course, the grandma enters the store when she is still eating). Four ridiculous coincidences, like what the fuck?

If you do not notice, this makes Kanoko’s introduction even worse. Why would you not introduce her through the shop? A random character conveniently went to the shop in the exact precise moment during that episode, why would you be afraid of doing the same with Kanoko? Why couldn’t they spawn her character there? And talk to Itsuka there? And make her surprised by Nagomu appearance after an exchange with his parents in a place where Nagomu would naturally be? It even writes itself! Introduce Kanoko and let her talk with Itsuka (The motivation of Kanoko could be changed, she could pretty much not know the store), Itsuka mentions the festival naturally thinking about her father, Kanoko starts to talk shit about Nagomu with his mother unknowingly, the parents start to agree with Kanoko, Nagomu appears, Kanoko is embarrassed, the mother starts to laugh and say “Of course! That is the Nagomu that I know! Hahah!!”, then you continue the episode by doing the conversation between Kanoko and Nagomu inside the shop, maybe shift the festival point to here so it doesn’t spoil the whole episode. How is that worse than using such absurd set of events to introduce her character? Why is this series incapable of not being stupid?

And it gets worse than that, the anime is not just satisfied by being a bland, it is not satisfied by not incorporating the intended motif correctly, it is not even satisfied by using the most absurd and robotic ways to solve or incorporate conflicts, it fucking sucks at setting the mood too. The anime for some reason has one of the worst storyboarding that I have seen, there is absolutely no space to any scene, they are continuously interrupted by a random barely correlated superfluous shots and they even have continuity errors. It is just obnoxious to watch because most of the conversations are pure background noise, they have no weight at all and introduce nothing important to either the characters or the story, it is just a downstream of mundane dialogues and comedy homicides.

The conclusion is obvious, this anime stinks. The only redeemable attribute is that it is just an inch above being frustrating because it is at least chill, but it is just a bunch of nothing with run-of-the-mill drama. Going back to Kamichu. Kamichu incorporates perfectly the traditional religious stuff. Each Kamichu conflict have a huge sense of importance and emotionality, coherently developing the cast. Kamichu doesn’t rely on random coincidences to create the situations (I’m capping here, but they are less shameless). Kamichu scenes are chef kiss, they are created with creative composition and magnificent sense of humanity, it makes you want to go the places that they are showcasing and live their lives. And it just has a shitton of magic. There is a cat that talks in Kamichu, and such eventuality is more credible than Deaimon as a whole. Indeed, that cat is more human than any character of Deaimon.

I started watching the series because the main character looks like Kanna, I keep watching it because of Raidou’s antics, and I ended up witnessing an emotionally relatable ride through the personal growth of two characters that I could not but cheer for. During its 12 episodes, Aharen-san Is Indecipherable delivers an honest yet comical representation of awkward socialization, portraying how the flaws and abnormalities outlines the beauty of human relationships. The strength of its routine, the constant usage of popular references, the coherence of its foundation, the texture of the cognitive distortions, the weight of the self-love messages, each element fuses to create a ... healthy and positive experience that portrays an engaging journey of honest friendship and relatable small conflicts between a charismatic and unforgettable cast

Each episode of the series follows a similar structure, where the viewer assimilates the experiences of Raidou, a socially distant guy whose mission is to connect with someone in High School but overthinks any situation that he is in (Awfully accurate social anxiety btw), and his relationship with Aharen, a timid character that barely expresses herself as she is afraid of being too invasive because of her past experiences. While both are the predominant figures of the series, the anime also tends to switch from Raidou’s perspective to the point of view of different characters that embrace different stages of life or social cliches, like an intensively romantic teacher that gets heated by their relationship, an elementary schoolgirl called Futaba that sees Aharen as her rival, a nervous and awkward childhood friend who stalk Aharen, or apparently standard classmates who portray an ordinary read of their relationship.

The attachment to the structure brings one of the strengths of the anime, the story trusts the premise. Aharen as a character is permanently subject to the perspective of each one of the characters, bringing to life the idea of being truly indecipherable to them. Each perspective forms a new source of relatability, a new layer of human irrationality and incomprehension, delineating a diverse empathetic array of emotions and experiences. The dialogue, the behavior, the gestures, everything comes from observing the real-life extension of each character, portraying both the ugly and the desired, creating awkwardness, comfort, and concern, as it can transgress the own viewer experiences. The siblings act like siblings, the friends act like friends, the kids act like kids, Aharen is Aharen, Raidou is Raidou, it is as simple and powerful as that.

The outcome of this trust to the premise and the attachment to reality is an experience that has a unique sense of life and personality, a journey through the connection between Aharen and Raidou, where each perspective represents a clear and engaging identity, where the viewer is allowed to do interpretations about the relationships, reflect on the characters decisions and its roots, and even develop a better understanding of themselves. The anime delivers a human mystery that is carefully revealed as the story progresses, it allows surprising turns and healthy inferences, it delivers a human voice that is not trying to escape or excuse the flaws of each character but search the beauty on their core. The beauty of insecurity, the courage of a first step, the love of a let it go.

However, the main strength from the anime is how it portrays everything through comedy. One of the potential criticisms that could arise from this anime is that the gags are repetitive, as they follow a transparent pattern for each character. The wrongness of such idea is that it abstracts the details, as the formats are nothing but simple templates that allows the generation of a diverse set of jokes (Like any other comedy, by the way). Indeed, while the patterns are prevalent, the reiteration of them should not be an issue at all, because the comedic blueprints are constantly evolving for the purpose of surprising the viewer with a new form. The comedy never overstays its welcome, it is always striving for new elements that could bring diversity.


The main example of such evolution is Raidou’s overthinking. The overthinking normally follows the “Raidou see thing -> Raidou overthinks that thing -> Reality is disappointing” flow, but the content and the punchline of each inference vary enough to keep it completely fresh, creating a memorable gag that by just existing delivers something, be it frustration, be it amusement, be it tension.

How does the overthinking vary? The overthinking variations come from changing the placement of the joke itself. Sometimes the punch is the thought itself, a conclusion completely derailed from reality that just lead to believe that Raidou should seek a psychiatrist, sometimes the punch is the outcome of a delusion, the reaction of Raidou to the impending reality disappointment, sometimes the punch is a reference, how Raidou use popular fiction to parallelize his fantasies or create a social commentary on credit for apparently no reason, or sometimes the gag is not even a joke, it is just a honest representation of how Raidou cares about Aharen and his friends. The gag itself creates expectations, can Raidou be correct once? How wrong is Raidou in this one?

The diversity and similarity allow the comedy to be fantastic, it uses the gags to approach multiple concepts supported by a careful study of the comedic factor of each idea, a fantastic sense of how to build up elements on top of another to create hilarious outcomes and generate iconic gags. How to make a joke about Raidou carrying Aharen funny? Deliver a bunch of frames that represent an absurd extent of Raidou’s extrapolation and put an unexpected moustache on an elderly Aharen. How to make a joke about Raidou being bad at swimming funny? Deliver the most typical technical error of novice swimmers after a juxtaposition to Raidou’s relatable perception of motion. How to make fun of Raidou’s failed youtube channel? Just display a capture of the video statics of Raidou’s past venture to accompany Raidou’s concerns. The anime is overflowing with visual jokes that are both clever and carefully inputted, whether it is to stop a crescendo of absurdity or to play with the expectations of the viewers or illustrate the characters wild imagination. It is smart.

If the anime just had the comedy as its main strength, then it would be an excellent anime, but it goes beyond that. As the series progresses through each one of its gags, the characters quirks coherently evolve into their development, defining their own ambitions and insecurities, elaborating a rich characterization that allows both dramatic and hilarious moments to flow without friction. Raidou’s overthinking develops his genuine caring nature and his own anxieties, Aharen’s supposed indecipherability allows herself to express her insecurities naturally, Ooshiro’s protective anxiety develop into a wonderful read of self-esteem issues, Futaba’s childish perception of love and confrontative attitude develop into a character that you cheer for. The peculiarities of each character progressively evolve into an interesting and unique singular entity, it allows the audience to care for the characters beyond their own comedic personality as they are the same person whether it is light-hearted comedy or a serious matter.

The consequence of this consistency is that it allows piecing together meaningful messages and themes, themes that could be felt shoehorned if it were not because of its excellence on the characterization department. From helping each other to being able to receive help; from embracing with pride the uniqueness of each one to being able to accept the diversity; from the importance to be confident on our own abilities to the importance of being able to express our own sentiments and concerns. Each character is cleverly attached to the messages that it is trying to portray, it creates a natural path to organize romance, comedy, and a meaningful and positive purpose. There is no need to display bland or uninteresting scenes where they explicitly state the purpose of the situation, instead, it delivers weighty ideas with emotional subtlety by adopting its characteristic identity, and it makes you care for it. Engaging entertainment, the show delivers the relaxing and healing atmosphere while portraying impactful ideas.

As it creates meaningful messages and portrays interesting relationships, one of the issues that could emerge from the comedy is a lack of sensibility towards some subject matters. Fantastically enough, that does not happen. A character of this series uses the clothes from his sister, but the series goes out of its way to clarify that it is not an issue and that the joke was just Raidou’s interpretation by adding a cute after credits. Raidou’s get fat, but the joke is not his obesity, it is Aharen’s incapability of telling him that he looks fatter because she was the one who did the overthinking this time. It is sensible and aware of what it is trying to portray, and that is wonderful.

While one can criticize the quality of the adaptation, principally by its extensive usage of jarring CGI or its off-model characters, my argument is, who the fuck cares. The anime perfectly captures elements that some other adaptations with extravagant and bombastic animation just can’t, it captures the mutual care of Raidou and Aharen, the dramatic twists of Raidou overthinking, the enthusiasm of Aharen’s classmates, the awkwardness of the teachers. The comedic aspect works perfectly because the timing is polished, it is one second about to fall off the cliff and being unfunny, which is the downfall of plenty comedy adaptations, but it just performs spectacularly in that regard. The romantic aspect evokes a strong aura and sensibility, obviously attributable to the great characterization, but also to how it gives itself the time to fully capture the tension and importance of the moment, the gestures of the hands, the head movements, the voice pauses, they are just enough to convey the intended idea and capture the viewer.

Could it be better? Of course, but I honestly prefer having an extremely horrendous Pokemon-like battle that captures the point of the joke and develop the FEAR reference instead of having a full-blown action scene that just completely ignore the purpose of the scene and just ends up being praised by redditors and easily impressionable people. Aharen looks Futaba for 3 seconds, tilts her head to look Raidou for 3 seconds, then watches the floor for 3 seconds in dismay, to then get embarrassed by an elementary schoolgirl observation, that tells a fucking lot without any sort of ridiculous paraphernalia, get real people.

Aharen-san is then just a fantastic experience with a lovely and refreshing thematic approach to romance and friendship between flawed and socially awkward characters. The comedy works perfectly if you let yourself flow with it, as there is care of each meaningful detail, and the series follows strong necessity to display the facets of cognitive distortions. The anime doesn’t derail into fantasy and search the beauty on its own cores, and as such, is able to create meaningful relationships with characters that will grow on the viewer over time. It is extremely funny, convey relevant and captivating messages, it is a unique voice, it surprises you, the romance is cute, and it has a golden retriever that retrieve things, what else do you need?

“Even if we ended up in different classes, there are all kind of people. Not just in the school, but in the world. A lot of good people. People you can get to know. I’m sure of it”

The start of Sabikui Bisco promised a relaxing dumb show with a bunch of random stuff that would leave something to care about after each episode. Sadly, the anime ended up being just as dumb, pointless, and insubstantial as anticipated, while also turning in an unintelligible convoluted attempt to evoke emotions out of nowhere, which derived in forgettable climaxes, emotionless speeches, and vain asspulls.

The flaws of the anime are all over the place. The complete premise of it gets denser once it gets further elaborated, being basically the equivalent of a Big Pharma conspiracy, narrating a discourse that not even the most braindead user ... of LateStageCapitalism would eat, and amplifying such flaw by not imposing any sort of coherency to the world, since the whole issue can be reduced to a single entity that happens to be ridiculously powerful for no other reason but mind control, and the government being inherently evil. To be frank, there is absolutely no business on the main antagonist to be an unforgivable piece of shit, but here we are, a world when even the antagonist knows that he is doing extremely unethical stuff for personal gain, totally credible, purposeful, and stimulating.

The characterization issues get even worse, the two main characters are tropes with legs, they can be reduced as a bishounen moral compass that do dumb exposition speeches and a full of testosterone red-haired hero that acts like the embodiment of what is cool for a 5 years old. The conflict between the two characters is as predictable as one could think too, one of the characters wants to make a self-sacrifice to protect the other and the other comes from nowhere to almost save him. The fact that such relation happened more than three times speaks volume about the originality or complexity of the situations, almost as like every single point of creativity was burned to throw darts to the Wikipedia page of Mammals.

The side characters are atrocious too, the anime features Pawoo, a random badass girl that is supposed to be the motivation of Milo and is meant to portray a change of beliefs to propose one of the main themes, skepticism. That obviously doesn’t work, the story completely forgot the importance and weight of the supposed conspiracy to allow her to change her heart in a matter of minutes after watching some character trying to sacrifice itself for the other, almost like the conspiracy itself didn’t have any sort of depth. Another character is Tirol, a plot device that also happens to have a hack sad backstory and a desire to have friends, an extremely relatable situation for the average viewer of anime, point that never get further than a “We are now friends” by Milo. The anime also features Iroh from Avatar escaping from a jail and appearing out of nowhere all the time as a gag (So funny!), and some random kids and ethnicities to portray the variety of the world and the dissemination of evilness, oh lord. At no point of the story these side characters add anything to the storyline other than time filling and creating apparent motivations for the main duo, motivations that could pretty much intactly exist by changing every single aspect of their characterization, and even be better if they stripped down their absurd tendency to appear out of nowhere, they are just terribly irrelevant to any sort of progression.

Not content with the characters being either irrelevant or unoriginal, the plotline starts making less sense as it goes forward. The first episodes created the foundations to a full of energy adventure, with extreme action and ridiculous events. What did we get? A fourth episode where they domesticate a crab, a fifth episode about some orphans and some creepy couple, a sixth episode about a character that have a forced sad backstory and trust issues. While some of the middle episodes had an interesting value as episodic adventures, those three episodes did absolutely nothing for the overall progression, so when the heat comes, we get the most pathetic anticlimactic intent to make something out of thin air, as everything was crammed to the last half. Honestly, if one “I love you” sounds completely out of place then the story obviously failed at building a credible relationship, fact.

To end the mess of a plot, the final episodes had the most room temperature approach to the phrase “You only die when you are forgotten”. To portray that, the anime sequentially uses all the characters that it introduced before and relate them to the memories and values initially enforced by the dead character. While doing that, one of the main characters start to talk like the deceased character to reinforce the idea of our actions having consequence on the others. This sequence of cringe is just pure desperation, the message was conveyed correctly initially, but the approach got ridiculously annoying and redundant after 5 minutes, almost like they didn’t trust the viewers to understand it. The whole episodes turned into a succession of: Fight -> Danger -> Asspull -> Saving -> Next Fight. To add salt to the wound, one of the episodes took notes from Mr. Peak Fiction Isayama and revived the character anyways (Now with superpowers so the whole issue can be solved!), so the whole struggle was just to propose that already badly executed message, thanks!

Happily, the anime is not completely unredeemable. One of the most valuable aspects of the show is that it never feels like it is going in cruise mode, which is potentially a bad thing, because the story sucks, but a good thing, because it spices up a lot some moments. The refreshing dumb action scenes, the diverse, immersive, mood-setting soundtrack, the well-done construction of the scenarios. The effort in terms of being it visually vibrant was achieved, and the CGI was most of the time passable, because the anime doesnt really look that good anyways. If the anime was meant to be able to build the mesh between CGI and 2D from the studio, then it is a good effort, it doesn’t look polished, at all, but at least is an interesting product from that perspective.

As a conclusion, the anime lacks any kind of overarching intent, it is just a set of fluff being put one after another where the viewer is supposed to infer that something happened in the in-betweens to make some sense about the behavior of the character. The best way to summarize this anime is “hippos mounts, big mushrooms, so random XD”

Theorem - If an anime that is supposedly about war and its psychological consequences on the soldiers gets considerably worse by not featuring LENA FROM 86 BATCHEST then the main appeal is simping and shipping, not its substance.

Proof

86 is an anime that delivers a whole lotta of elements that are apparently profound, a publicly acclaimed corny but awe-inspiring direction, direction that abuses impactful throwbacks and visual cues so people don’t get lost and cheer at any single bloated epic moment, inputting elements to grab your memories and let yourself recreate the sentiments of the self-insert like main character, delivering an atmosphere of constant switching between ... disturbing silence, grandiloquent action eminence, and a deceiving tension. While the animation is highly inconsistent during the season, symptom of a messy schedule that filters through the slideshow dull episodes in the middle section of the season that anyone with two eyes and sense of criticism would notice; the fights, Sawano’s soundtrack, expressive and conscious close-ups, and impactful explosions with a bunch of stuff flying through the screen let you experience a dynamic mecha warfare, an experience that shouldn’t let you be indifferent if you are a fan of romance… I mean action and politics!

Sadly, if you are not a person that spam WW3 WHEN in social media after any tension between global superpowers, or if you are not a fan of LENASHIN (Because watching a whole anime just to experience the two main characters that are obviously going to get together get together is peak entertainment), then the anime will not deliver any ounce of meaning or deepness, intertwining a mediocre storyline with cartoony heroes and villains, a ton of conveniences to create a bunch of melodramatic explosions for the lower common denominator, long running speeches that are one-note and accomplish barely anything other than a bunch of eye-rolls, and a landfill of edgy characterization and conflicts so people don’t get asleep because of how elongated any sort of point that the anime is trying to do is.

The main problem of this iteration of 86 happens to be the same as the past iteration of 86, but it also features a new flaw, the viewer requires a monumental suspension of disbelief to accept absolutely everything that happens on screen, because writing a story that makes an inch of consequential sense is for noobz and nerdz. This suspension of disbelief comes just for watching the first episode, where the main squad of emo war soldiers happens survives because of the heroes of plot and brain damage. At this point of the story, one should be an incredible idiot to think that this anime would kill or provoke any sort of interesting consequence to the acts of any of the major characters soon, phenomenon that I would call the Shingeki Syndrome, you kill disposable characters to make some point and create tension so people soyjak at the stakes, and you stop killing them afterwards unless you need to wake up your audience.

While the suspension of disbelief is a common element in anime, as making everything a complete hyperbole is almost a necessity so people can understand what they are watching, the main issue is not it, it is just the topping of this shit ice cream. The main issue of this anime is that it is trying to answer a reduced amount of questions through a limited perspective during the whole runtime, while not allowing anything else intersect the plot. The past season this question was about discrimination, and this season it is about the consequences of that, “Why am I fighting? Why am I living?” are questions that are studied by the perspective of some emo soldier kid called Shin during all its runtime. That wouldn’t be wrong if 86 was capable of writing anything that isn’t fanfic romance and room temperature IQ war strategy, but sadly you get 11 episodes of the same meaningless bullshit about the relationship between fighting, war, and Shin, the same dumb repetitive conversations with tiny changes of perspective, a random loli obliterating your ears with the most condescending shallow speeches that nobody cares about (Who the fuck cares about Kiri, gave me some Lena legs!!!!11), just to get to the most simpleton resolution “Because I have other people that are with me”. Yeah dude, nobody saw that coming, is this the apex of originality? Not satisfied with the stupidity of the answer, the anime also manages to get to that conclusion in the most absurd manner possible, by reintroducing (SPOILERS ALERT) LENA FROM 86 BATCHEST in an open field, with red flowers, after destroying the main villain, with fire in the back, and some mesmerizing colors and flashbacks so people start to cry. Moronic to say the least, but some people could like it, is this peak fiction?

86 not only have a monotonic purpose with elongated speeches and a power off brain requirement to enjoyment, but it also tackles any single topic as the shittiest parody ever. You have the president Ernst as a character who is supposed to be a moral pivot that juxtapose to the republic and the utilitarian politic system that we've seen during the past season, but he ends up as a pathetic intent to make a comedy device with a obnoxiously loud and corny approach to the conflict (Don’t know why people miss Lena, this guy is Lena with a dick), and his relationship with the other characters doesn’t make sense in any single possible power relationship that doesn’t emerge from the brain damage narrative.

Then we get the loli, Frederica, a character that should be sent to hell because of how stupid everything around her is. Frederica randomly starts talking hours and hours with Shin about nonsense of some character called Kiri, happens to be the center of many attacks with the indestructible squad because of a ridiculous superpower, and not just content with not dying and saving us for watching her, it also let the story introduce the ridiculous melodramatic parallel between Shin and Kiri, that not only tells you the same as the first 10 episodes of the anime have already told you 5 times, but also just serves to create this apparently magnific idea of making ghosts appear in the memories of Shin so the audience can clap and cry because memories sad!!!

The main squAdZ also got completely lost during the season, which is a complete shame, because they would allow the story to expand beyond the absolute snoozefest of Shin-Frederica-Whatever interactions. The episode of the guy who was about to see his sister was as pathetic as the whole plot of YLIA, which was kind of funny, could anyone feel anything but a spit in the eye after watching that? Anyways, the characters on this season are completely wasted. They are wasted because apparently the story can’t produce any eloquent message with diverse perspectives and it must reiterate the same issue all the time, because this is not a story of war, discrimination, PTSD, it is a story about how being a badass can get you a girl with thighs.

As a conclusion, the most disrespectful element of this anime is that it tries the audience as idiots, as people who are incapable of thinking that the stakes are all fake bullshit just to create drama, as people who are incapable of telling that this anime is not a mix between politics and technological advancement with some deep criticism and psychology, because it isn’t that, this anime is just a fetishistic approach of getting a wonderful girl that lives in the privilege converting into a badass and dragged to the lower class to have a romantic relationship with the average viewer that happens to be betrayed by the society, or in reverse, a story about how being a badass girl that helps the others and is always morally correct let you touch even the coldest heart (Inclusion people!) If it wasn’t such the case, 86 would care more about elaborating the principles of a multidimensional perspective of the issue, if it wasn’t so, 86 would never reintroduce LENA FROM 86 in a low quality fanfiction manner in the end, if it wasn’t so, 86 would never let all the characters live to create this fantasy of having multiple love interests.

QED