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Oct 30, 2024
Relatively Spoiler-free reviews follows (I don't mention anything that can't be guessed before ep 4)...
Anime nowadays is full of... many things but more than anything of these two: Shounen demography and mindless action with power ups fueled by the power of friendship.
Not misunderstand me, I love anime as it is. I mean... look at the other options...
The things is... I was desperate to take a break. I really need more shows free of those two "features" mentioned above.
Well, this one came at the right time for me.
...
Brief in one sentence: Edge of Tomorrow made anime and well done.
And yes, I know Edge of Tomorrow is based on another manga.
Now I will analyze the individual parts that make the full show and value each one:
"The others": I will call them that way. I could have used doppelgangers or copies. Aliens or supernatural/spiritual beings? The show remains ambiguous with this until the second half. I promised to not speak past ep 4 so I won't tell now. Watch to discover the answer. I hope this caught your attention.
What I can tell now... is that they are interesting and you want to know more about them as soon as they are introduced. You even wonder about the science behind all this. Look, this is the very thing about this show. In most action shounen, you are always wonder about power levels and who is stronger. Make you wonder about something else, for once, is refreshing.
These "beings" have a sole but very versatile skill. They can scan... and print... any object or life form. In case of smart beings, like humans, the copies come with all memories, but their survival instincts and empathy is overwritten and replaced with absolute loyalty for their own kind. In other words... the original information is "hacked" at the "others" convenience.
But the hack is limited to this alone. "They" are copycats, they don't really fully understand what they are copying. For the most part, they need to respect the original design. They aren't creators, they are copiers.
There are also other uses for this "power", but that one is the core part.
It's doesn't sound very epic here but animation, pacing, and other resources make this process feel like something complicated is going on. And you are unsure, until very late in the show, if it is scientific or supernatural.
Since some time now, I have this opinion about soft magic vs single skill roles. With the first, the possibilities are too overwhelming. There is no way to anticipate anything rationally, other than using previous similar titles for reference. Boring.
For example, you can always anticipate "power of friendship fueling power ups", it's simple, just answer these: Is there a very loud screamer character always repeating "I want to be the king of something"? Are you always wondering who is stronger than who... and paying no attention to the world, the relationships between the characters, etc? Have you the time to read an entire novel while the characters are explaining an attack, supposedly executed at the speed of light, while it still doesn't impact the target? Is there a magical skill than can turn into anything limited only for your imagination, fueled be nothing, limited by nothing, and boosteable by the "power of...", you got the idea?
Anime producers and manga authors doesn't seem to catch this yet. People are enjoying your content for everything else. Like character relationship, music, waifus, etc. But believe me, not for this.
They want to justify something like "friendship" so badly, so desperately, maybe because people at Japan are very sociable, I don't know. But in the end, they know no working justification for it, negating their own thesis... and wasting your time. If you can't justify something, then don't do it.
While for single skill roles, things get more tactical. By limiting the possibilities, you have to be smart with how you use your only weapon, or limited arsenal. Anticipation becomes possible. Applying rational thought becomes possible. And true fun can be created. "I know she would do that..." kind of moment. Things have sense again, and in the case of anime... for once.
Well... this show implements the later. With "minor" observations. Only for this, you should give it a chance.
Music: Good enough and complements all the other individual parts very well. This is all that I, personally, require for music. And it meets the goal.
Character design: more mature than the norm in anime. For me... refreshing.
Shounen: it's the best demography, for real. Seinen is for when you want to do something else to get sleepy other than counting sheep. With some notable exceptions... of course. Because, let's face it, yes, it's great to see people at work other than in the school or the uni. You can't be a student forever. A world is waiting for you out there. But that means nothing if you can't watch 3 eps in a row because you got sleepy. Monster... anybody? Most seinen must do something about their pacing really soon.
I can watch, at least one entire season, of Code Geass (the original one) in a single day. I can't do this with Berserk, any season, I value its high quality but...
Shounen doesn't have this weakness. But... shounen by itself guarantees nothing. it's a very complicated demography. Shounen can be any genre: action, martial arts, supernatural, scify, etc. They can be masterpiece or sh*t. They can be just going out of the previous demography, retaining the repetitive patterns, or they can be very dark going very close to seinen, featuring adult-roles, somewhat well done psychology, and everything.
Action and combat can be completely mindless (sometimes better done and less boring) or very tactical (sometimes too much too).
They can be 12 eps or 400+ eps. Yeah...
They can have no fillers eps or be plagued by them.
Shounen means too much possibilities. This is it's strength as well as it's weakness. It's a two edged sword. But you won't find gold in other places. You will have to deal with it sooner or later.
Guess what, this one is a shounen. So... the potential is there. Question is... how well it exploits such potential.
Well... this show passes, for me. It definitely passes.
Waifus: This is no place for this. And I believe there are more interesting things to pay attention this time. But each person have different needs at different times. So, if you totally need this, there are some interesting prospects for you.
Ecchi: Again, no the place for this. Said that, there is ecchi. Very few, making this no show for ecchi watchers. But it's there. Some occasional pantsu, very occasional, behind layers of comedy. I, personally, can't have a boner with this. No judging you at all, honestly. Not enough screentime and not the right mood... for me at least.
When it happens, it's too silly, as to take it for something else than comedy.
It's true that the main female role adopts a school swimsuit as battle outfit. But this didn't worked for me. The show just doesn't have the right mood. Camera angles aren't mean for ecchi. In the end, you can only take it as comedy.
Really. You can share this show with your entire family and sell it to them as a scify or supernatural series. Not all anime are compatible with this and you should know it by now.
The main female role is blonde because their father is American. In most Animes a character gets yellow hair because... it's anime...
There is that girl with pink hair... no justification for that one... uh...
Yuri: I don't know. I believe is there... but it's so... so irrelevant. You have to have your antennas very well prepared to detect it. One of the female roles is somewhat interested in another but then she doesn't really do anything about it, other than say some suspicious lines... in maybe... two episodes... And body language is also something... they show 2 seconds of a still frame... Really, why even bother? It serves only to make you angry. Don't stay for the yuri.
When you do something wrong, it only serves to distract people from what you do right.
The gender tag (in some sites): well... ok... look... the tag is fair. But it's not what I believe you expect... I can't tell you past ep 3, I promised not to, so sorry, I can't tell more. Just don't stay for this.
Loli: comments on this on the Internet are unfair. It may be that after all these years I get too used to these kind of things, but I believe that some people need to get more into anime to really get to understand what a loli is.
It's not easy to explain to newcomers, but a loli must evoke a feeling of "moe". Moe is also hard to explain, you have to experience it many times to get to really recognize it. And it's not something por*****phic. The controversial thing with loli, and moe, is that they are very very close to be something else than just cuteness. That's the point of it. It stops just at the line. People not used to anime may get to misunderstand it.
People, really, please... not all female child roles, or aesthetically looking like child roles, are loli. Child ≠ Loli. Please.
I really tell you that this anime is loli free. Those allergic to lolis can proceed with confidence and enjoy the show.
As a storytelling resource, children means fragile, in need of protection, innocent, ignorant, etc. Same as us when we were children. When used this way, they aren't lolis.
Anya from Spy x Family isn't a Loli. Just a child doing what is expected from one. Spy x Family is ok for those allergic to lolis. Actually, this show have the potential to set a new quality standard, depending on how it evolves and if it avoids to get repetitive. You can't say that of every family friendly show out there. Usually, family friendly = boring.
Komoe Tsukuyomi from Toaru Majutsu no Index is a Loli. Her design, and behavior at times, seeks to evoke moe. Toaru is lethal for those allergic to lolis. Also, not all shortie characters from Toaru are lolis. You really need to get more into this and pay attention to not make mistakes judging based on unfair prejudices.
If you will point at a show accusing it of trying to make easy money from lolicons, at least be fair. And not attack reputation of good shows so easily.
A traumatized child isn't a loli. A traditionally clothed girl isn't a loli only because she looks cute... Cuteness ≠ Loli. if properly justified by the story. I didn't even thought on the word "loli" until I read some comments for the episodes.
Best place to watch: probably Disney+. I watched the dub first, and I about to start again but with Japanese audio.
Rewatchability: Honestly, not the best. You need to take a break first because some of the episodes aren't so much fun. But it's not zero either. It can be watched again with no problem and you probably will sooner or later, because good anime is very hard to find nowadays. Barely pass seems the norm. This one is a gift from heaven.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Mar 30, 2024
Should you watch? Yes.
For "ecchi seekers" (either if you have the psychological condition XD or just looking for a temporal change of pace): E. Level in this show is as high as you can go without becoming hentai. Still not safe for work. Top body drawn uncensored and we aren't even on BD release yet. But the E. Level isn't high because of this, but because of the creative things the main character do to their... targets? Interesting and enjoyable even if you don't share the base fetish.
For Magical Girls seekers. How I say this... run, non stopping, and no look back. This is a
...
trap set to deceive you, except you have a wide range of different interests and are willingly to trade. While the show use, and abuse, the concept in a somewhat clever way, it doesn't limit itself with any respect for it at all.
Want to know why? Here is it...
I gave it an eight but I need to be clear on why.
A show is more than the sum of it individual parts. The synergy among the parts makes the actual show.
Also I will be totally clear, when I detect that a title is mere promo material to sell the source manga, I instantly apply a minus one to the score. Until I hear any news on future seasons, this anime is promotional, sorry. And promotional always have a negative impact, meaning than 95+% of all anime in existence cannot ever reach the masterpiece 10 points.
Music, very good, not my kind of music but it goes 100% with this show, so I enjoyed it and you will too, probably. "Charming...", indeed.
Animation, maybe I was too shocked as this is my first watch of the show, but I didn't detected any inconsistencies. It's very well drawn and very well animated. The color palette shows synergy with the topics touched and the overall atmosphere of the show. It has a darker version but I don't want to spoil that part.
Ecchi, while the main attraction of the show, I have to be clear. I avoid hentai like the pest because is simply boring. Some are too extreme as if being so would compensate for its lack of interesting content. Inconsistent drawing, frame rate, and such...
But Ecchi is different. Ecchi leaves room for story and character development. Ecchi, when done right, leaves, and use, room to know and love the characters. You can have your bo**r in peace without totally wasting your precious time.
Characters in this anime are lovable without a problem. Action scenes have their notable moments. You will have your doses of tension too.
The main character start very weak (from a storytelling point of view) but it improves with time and get to be really cool at the very end.
In the end, it's ecchi, meaning that action and drama are rushed (think ToLoveRu) and ecchi scenes takes a lot of screen time. But at least they are there. Not necessarily a problem but worth mentioning. Still way better than the typical hentai. And I enjoyed it way more than the quoted ToLoveRu. Sadly it's only 13 eps and only one season.
The main theme of almost all of these scenes is "teasing". And it's a competent exploration of the concept. In my opinion it goes beyond the satirization of the S&M fetish that it implies in the cover.
Tactical fights: maybe I overthinking this, but try to not get distracted from other aspects of the show by the incoming ecchi content, and you may reach the same conclusion. The main character has to be in an advantage position to start "teasing" the magical girls. The teasing moments are her spoils of war, her reward for being smarter or faster to capitalize on her enemy mistakes. When she fails to do so, she have to runaway really quickly, and when not possible she just get defeated, and can become the teased one.
If a character is strong, fast, have long reach or is close combat based, etc. All these aspects are given consideration. There are also meme skills like the one we will discuss below...
Required spoiler: What about Nero Alice? Should I worry? Nope. This is the creators teasing you. And showing off their craft and that they master these concepts good enough to deserve their job positions. Because teasing is what most of what happening is about, getting us teased too is just... It's deserves praise.
Nero Alice is a little child with an OP magical skill that is proof of how little manga and anime care about physics and thermodynamics. Because of this, she has no much participation in "serious" fights.
And because she is so young, this character has no reason to be in this kind of show. And the reaction you are having is totally wanted by the creators (the mangaka, the anime production team, etc). Nero Alice doesn't actually participate in any ecchi scene. And this may look like I'm teasing you with this spoiler, I'm actually doing this so you can relax and start the show without any worries.
The Yuri...
Not bad. They finally go beyond giving some clues to directly admitting it. Sadly, for yuri fans, the atmosphere at those moments is comedy. But with full intimacy and actual love confessions, at least for some side characters. All the ecchi is yuri, to be fair. No man in this show. When two characters touch, they are two women touching. When two characters kiss, they are two women kissing. But... continue reading...
The hard truth...
Sadly, very few of value happens on this season, and this season may be the only one, so...
Ecchi is high level and ecchi fans will love this show. Specially because there is no real competition. To do something like this and not end in trouble you have to really know who you are and the world you live in. Know how to use the shield of parody and many other tricks I probably not aware of. So, we won't see something like this soon.
But it's single fetish, and it's not everyone fetish, so you will stress on the fact that you won't ever see the same done with one of your actual fetishes.
Yuri is ambiguous... again, so not all yuri fans will be ok. While it's always woman on woman, and that is great for yuri fans, you do not feel you are watching a yuri anime. Why? Because the protagonist don't give a single thought on that. Usually, in yuri shows, you have these psychological moments of the involved girls thinking hard about what they had discovered about themselves.
The protagonist of this show gives s**t about it. She have thoughts about S&M, and she have thoughts on the alter ego developing inside her as she keep using her powers, but is not even aware that she want to tease other girls 100% of the time. Not a single thought. Not a single reflection on it. It's so natural for her, that's a bit exaggerated. The show shows so much craftsmanship in other aspects but fails here.
Sure, you can say that she is already past that, probably off-screen. But how are we supposed to know about that? If that is the case, at least include a flashback scene, if you don't want to give screen time to such topic, just some seconds are ok. They tried so hard so we can understand and love the characters, and they leave out such a important aspect of the mc personality.
The only conclusion is that the aspect isn't there at all. The characters live in a parallel universe where, that's looks like ours only in the surface, but for some strange reason, this topic is something not interesting. One reason for yuri being so interesting, it's because it's not the norm in society. If you remove that, it stops being so interesting.
The character isn't really lez (some side characters are). She just like to tease and target other girls because reasons. Anime logic, I guess...
I didn't try the manga yet, and I don't know if it plays this differently, but I doubt it does.
Conclusion
Not perfect and with some sad facts. But no show is perfect. Watch. You probably want this in your mental library of experiences.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Apr 18, 2021
This review has mentions to Code Geass and Shield Hero. Those mentions contains minor spoilers about those shows.
Am I the only one who realizes how manipulative this industry has become?
Before casting Flare Lv99 on this show, let's say something good about it. Because, yes, there are goods things about it.
First, should you watch it? Yes, do. You need variety to be healthy. Do, please. No sarcasm intended. I don't know if you will be a better person after watching it, but you won't be a worse person. Fast food and junk food exists. Everyone do it. I do it. Watching this show say nothing about
...
you, it's just another entry in your list, and not the worse entry.
I gave it a 3 in story, but not for the story in itself. Maybe it could be a 6. The problem is the trope its capitalizes on and how manipulated made me feel. The setting had potential. The characters had potential. The world had potential. The species had potential.
There are two tropes that smells to low quality writing. One is the Mystery Box, and the other is the victimization to justify aberrant behavior.
I cannot stand these two. And I usually drop those shows. The second trope can be well done enough to not completely ruin a show. Example, and you may not have realized it, but Code Geass uses a variant of it. Why it works for Code Geass? Because of timing and other factors.
In Code Geass we have enough time to get to love the characters before the aberrant behavior is shown. While the extremely fast pace of Code Geass was pointed by many as something negative, even being so fast paced we still get to sympathize with most characters motivations. Being, in my opinion, Nina the one with the weakest construction. Her obsession for Euphemia is super exaggerated.
Also many can say that Lelouch uses victimization to justify world destruction, and that is not aberrant behavior. Well... while world destruction doesn't have to imply direct aberrant behavior, I'm not referring to the world destruction part. Lelouch actually does aberrant things. He "forces" people to go again their own wills and morals. Why is that different to rapping? Actually, it is not, but it is subtle, because you don't see physical/sexual violence, you don't see obvious aberrant behavior. It's easier for us to see his power and his use of that power as a tool absolutely necessary and well justified by the story.
Also, Lelouch may enjoy when he outsmart a foe, or got control of a resource. But he definitely isn't sadistic. If there is no foe, he doesn't hurt.
In the other side we have this show.
The show tries very hard to justify main character sadistic tendencies. But I don't see it being successful there. It never felt natural or intuitive.
Our Healer has a very broken skill. So far nothing new for us. His healing not only heals more than any other healing magic in that world (no spoilers so far, this is explained in episode 1 or 2), but also transfers the experiences of the person being healed to the healer.
This power is used for many things. Like the Swiss Knife of the plot devices. Don't misunderstand me, I actually like it. And I learned one new trick.
Because he faints each time he uses this power, he got to see a face of the world that he may very well not had seen otherwise. The world may have treated him differently. Well... maybe some big muscular hero would treated him the same. But at least it could be a different story up to that point.
I'm not saying that it is his fault. Everyone on that world need a basic curse to human rights. And we can put some demi-human and demon rights too.
The heal power makes him to the top of society first, it's the reason why the other heroes need him so much, to the point that they cannot just let him go when the task proves to be too much for him. It's the excuse to make him fall to hell, to show us how rotten everyone with a bit of power is in that world, to show us how ugly can things gets for some poor souls.
So far, so good. The problem?
That everything is too artificial. I will enumerate. I will warn you when there are potential spoilers. Also, I won't consider spoilers things revealed in the first episodes. If you don't agree with that, you can stop now.
- How can be all these psychopaths and perverts so close in the same country, in the same city?
- Because of how things are presented, I feel that the purpose is not main character revenge and how he executes it, but to show us that very visually aberrant behavior.
My problem is not with aberrant behavior in itself. I have seen worse. Genocyber... anybody? My problem is with how relevant it appears to be for the show. It's like they say to me "here, take this, we provided a proper excuse, now enjoy the gory hentai, without genitals so we can air this show". Because this show is the most explicit it can be without being tagged hentai.
Again. If it interested you enough to read the reviews, go watch it. At the time of writing this, it scores between 6 and 6.5. That's a fair score. Maybe it is too close to 6.5 in my opinion. You would want to decide by yourself if that scoring is fair.
What good things will you get? Let's speak good again, for me it was a rest of some overused formulas, my principal motivation to stay to very end. I will list them:
- Going as far as you can go with sex scenes (the non gory ones) without being tagged hentai was something I don't remember having seen so far. Have you watched Game of Thrones or Vikings? Well, this show won't harm you. Also, a man traveling with so many women, and absolutely nothing happening between them, do you honestly think that is believably? These shows avoid the obvious and intuitive in this case, only to avoid possible censure and to not end being transmitted at night when most potential viewers would miss it. That's why these shows are very infantile with these topics. Having at least one not doing the same is refreshing. But again, its defect is that when it gets gory it feels too artificial. Do they really think we want to see that?
- Another refreshing aspect, and also related to sex (consensual sex, just in case), is that the main character isn't the typical guy that doesn't get it no matter how the girls try to communicate it to him. No, this guy not only gets it, it seduces them if required. And you can have your opinions on this, but that's how we see that people behave in real world. The absurd infantile behavior shown by characters in other shows of this kind, is not intuitive and really I got a bit tired of it. I always sigh when they do that. I'm not asking for erotic scenes, you can remove that, just show the clock in the wall or something, but please, characters must act as humans. This shows at least tried, the result is exaggerated, far from perfect, but refreshing.
[Somewhat serious spoilers ahead]
- The magic system is better at the start of the show than latter. But you will get some entertainment from it. Our healer has a single skill at the start of the show. A single skill with a lot of potential uses, but not so useful by itself. It requires mastery. This is more intuitive than say the evolving shield of the Shield Hero. The later has so many forms and random powers that you really can't follow what is happening. In this show, at least while they maintain it simple, you can tell why a strategy worked. It's a lot of fun when you can anticipate things, because they have logic, even if you fail to anticipate, as long as you can say "with a bit more thought I would have been able to anticipate it". But then he gains the reverse healing, the transformation healing, all the techniques coming with all the experience transferred from the healed people, and soon it turns to be a very chaotic skill tree and we have our Shield Hero 2.0. My problem with this, is that combat get less interesting. Another evidence in favor of this show being all about the sex scenes, and give you one million excuses so you can watch it without feeling like a jerk.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 17, 2018
This is intended to people that watched the first season, and if you didn't yet then you shouldn't be here, as this season is chronologically next to the first one, and you won't understand this universe if you start with this one season first.
First of all, if you already watched season 1 and you liked it, at least for a 7 out of 10, then you will enjoy this second season. Watch it, it's not a waste of your time.
But I want to be fair, so I will organize this review in two sections: what is better done than the previous season, and what is
...
done worse.
The following paragraphs may contain spoilers or clues that may ruin the show for some, so please, do not continue if you are "spoiler vulnerable".
--- Done wrong ---
- The worst is the peace -
This one hurts me the most of all, all other are forgivable details. The first season has a nice peace. Story unrolls considerably fast. In comparison with most animes you don't have to wait to much for something interesting to happen. This second chapter is still tolerable, there are worse animes, but it's sad that sharing the same title it doesn't share the same quality.
They included that action scenes right in the beginning because they need to maintain the public watching somehow. Shameful. And please, before answering to this, I beg you to try to be objective. We are more tolerable with second parts because we already love the characters, I cannot explain in another way why some full of fillers anime like One Peace, Naruto, and others super lengthly shounen are at the top.
In my opinion, you have to wait too much for something interesting to happen for a only 6 episode show.
- Less Yuri -
And is not that the original has any yuri/shoujo ai in it. But for the ones that like to fantasize with this it's annoying that in the second season you find it harder to do.
--- Done right ---
- Even more girls -
For a "404 men not found" show, that you will only get from Japan (Americans would feel too gay doing this), more is always better. I personally liked the fact that a character that was so charming, but so done for, in the original is now all healthy and sharing screen time with the other girls. She is a blonde, wow.
- The bogus hero system was fixed -
Second seasons are to do things differently. It is boring when they are too afraid of try new concepts.
Now, the value on this is not only that they had the courage to change things. It actually has sense. If the girls proved that the hero system can works in a different way, of-course this has to have some kind of impact. So, the new hero system is not based any more on sacrifices... well, at least not in the same way.
- They stay on topic -
And for a 6 episodes show would be weird not to. The first season started with a ton of generic fights. I took it like a generic anime made of unrelated episodes, like most "for kids" shows. I stayed because of the cute characters and the fights special effects. But it didn't lasted, with things getting truly interesting when Togo discovered her imposed invulnerability. Then, and it's noticeably the similarity with Madoka, things changed from funny to very serious in just an scene, and it stayed serious till the end. I may like the original so much because of that sole moment.
But this installment hasn't generic fights. It stays on topic from the beginning. Suffering of the girls still escalates with each episode. Slower, of-course.
--- Conclusion ---
If you watched the first, you will watch this one. It doesn't really matter what reviews you read. It is a common feeling, when we finish one of these shows, that we didn't get enough of the characters. So continuations are rarely unwelcome. I tried to be objective and not centered only on the good.
I can't give this more than 8. I wanted to give it at least one less than I gave to the previous installment, but in the end I decided to give it an 8. Note that I gave this one only a 6 in story.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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