- Last OnlineJun 9, 2018 10:04 AM
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- BirthdayJun 25, 1992
- LocationPoznań
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Jan 1, 2018
Colorful begins from the first person perspective, with the hero’s words being written rathen than spoken. I have to admit, this is a very interesting choice for an opening, which reminded me of visual novel games a bit and got me instantly interested in what was about to happen. As it turns out, the main character has just died and is now given a chance for a resurrection. In order to have it given to him, he has to pass a certain test. His soul is transported into a body of young boy who nearly passed away in a suicide attempt. The task that is
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given to our MC will require him not only to be able to continue living as a new person, but to remember and atone for the sin he commited during his own life as well.
Unfortunately, I am not really sure of how accurate that summary was. And this is not due to me hardly remembering the movie (which I kinda wish was the case) or it having a very complex plot, making it hard to give a decent explanation of it within such a brief paragraph. Instead, I have to put the blame on what seems to be the this title’s largest shortcoming - it’s a complete and utter mess.
This is a little surprising, seeing that Colorful doesn’t bring up a whole lot of characters or themes, but it still manages to continuosly forget about the ones it did thgoughout its duration. As a result, the movie ends up with a line-up of people who are not only not given any kind of development, but are left halfway through their exposition when the ending credits roll in.
The only character which I felt was decently introduced and deserved their place in Colorful was Saotoma. His subplot seems to be the one that actually pushes the protagonist and the plot into some kind of direction, too bad it takes place exlusively within the last one-third of the movie. As a result, we are left wondering what is even the whole point of it throughout the rest of the time. Although, to be frank, I’m still not 100% sure about what it was even now.
To give you a better example of how severely Colorful lacks any kind of focus, let’s talk about some more adult-like themes it throws at the viewer. And there are at least two big ones, namely betrayal and prostitution. I won’t go into details to avoid spoilers, but if you watch it expecting some kind of an actual look into those issues, you’ll come out dissapointed. It’s a bit like virtue signaling, except the authors don’t even have balls to actually condemn those sorts of behaviours, they just throw them into vacuum and never do anything with them. Maybe this was an attempt to make the movie seem more edgy and appeal to certain types of demographic, but instead it came out totally out of place.
However, the absolute cherry on top when it comes to lack of direction in Colorful was the moment when its creators realised they forgot to actually put its keynote into it. To fix it, they decided to make the protagonist blurt it out in the middle of the dialogue with barely no context, while the person they were talking to just nods silently, listening to an explanation of the movie’s title. Unfortunately, I cannot bring myself to fully hate this moment, because while the MC was talking, his school’s graduation song was also playing in the background and I happen to have a particular weakness to those. In the end, I had a very weird moment of contrast, when the worst and the best thing I was able to hear throughout this movie both happened simultaniously.
Speaking of contrast, this words also deserves its place when talking about Colorful’s visuals. I definetely have to apploud the backgrounds - while they’re not quite on Shinkai’s levels, they are still really well made, vivid and detailed. On the opposite side, the character designs are pretty poor, even scruffy. Their animation is even worse, especially when it comes to walking or running, which seems very sluggish and at times the framerate for it is really low. You can really tell the difference between the level of detail put into those respective aspects and the overall impression is similiar to a poor green screen effect.
I was hoping the whole mess in the direction would eventually be given some kind of explanation, but in the end all of it was left to my own imagination. Was the movie trying to be an elaborate metaphore of our own lives, which can be very chaotic as well? Unfortunately, this is but a poor excuse for the Colorful’s very apparent issues and I can’t bring myself to handle it to it.
The ending doesn’t help much either. Instead of leaving me with a good final impression, it brings the exact same resolution I was guessing would happen six minutes into the damn thing. And to make it even worse, it gives hardly any explation as to how the protagonist was able to solve the puzzle, making it even less satisfying than I was expecting.
All in all, watching Colorful was but a waste of time. I might end up being a bit salty about it, seeing that is was the first anime I decided to watch in the new year 2018, but the rating I decided to handle it is what I give to series that might have some pros to it, but are largely overshadowed by their cons. I believe this is what constitues as a fair judgement for this movie.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Mar 11, 2013
Most of you probably would imagine that someday we'll reach a concept of a computer game in which we would play being "inside" our character and experiencing eveything from their prespective. What Sword Art Online does is bringing this seemingly interesting idea into life. And fails at it miserably.
First things first. SAO incarnates two already known concepts together: creating a virtual reality game which you connect to with special helmet-type devices and then imprisoning all the players inside the game till they complete it, making it so their death in game will cause the device they connect with to end their real life as well.
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Here is basically where the very first plotholes of the series begin to show off. How can you explain that it wouldn't be enough to get those people back simply by cutting the power off the helmets? Internal battery? Well fine, but how long can an internal battery of the device that is permanently sending signals to your brain run, even speaking of the (not very distant) future? Even if, it would only take someone to destroy the thing from outside by just cutting some cables in it. Or you could just physically annihilate the game servers which belonged to a public-known company. However, eventually noone from outside ever consired those options and thus 10 thousand people were stuck in this digital world. And this only opens the very long list of this series' plotholes.
The main character of SAO is Kirito. Looking like a typical visual novel character, but behaving more like Hei from Darker than Black as he can manage everything and has an inborn advantage over all the rest. As the only person in the game he tries to beat it alone which makes him achieve better statistics than others, although it is never shown to us how he manages to do it... Just at some point we get to know that Kirito is about 20 levels above the regular players. It needs no explanation that watching a character experiencing no hardships whatsover is not very satisfying, especially when you have bery little idea about how he got to that state. Shounen obvously wouldn't be a shounen without a female partner of the main hero and this role was assigned to Asuna. Till some point she actually keeps up with his pace, but finally she turns out to be merely a character that just needs to be saved by the main hero (not the only one to that). I can kind of compare her to Orihime from Bleach (or to Yin if you want to stay with DtB version), but if the second season of SAO is true she may even get promoted to second princess Peach. When the second arc begins, the third key character is introduced to the series and that one seems pretty similiar to Karen-chan from Monogatari series (the comparison is not coincidencial, because since she comes out half of the show's air time is filled with her cleavage shots alone...). Thanks to her something like a love triangle appears as well, but it is so poorly done and executed (I'm not even sure about it) that despite my strongest efforts I can't even call it a better love story than Twilight.
The plot of SAO was divided into two parts and although the first one is commonly believed to be the better one, I have a different view on this topic. It is because most of the series' plotholes and weirdness is contained within the first 14 episodes. My favourite one of those was the fact that amongside the lucky 10,000 first buyers of the limited edition of the new mmorpg game you could not only find female customers (and lots of them in fact), but also... Retired people and kindergartenrs. Yep. I'm not even kidding. Being at this it's hard not to mention the author of the game himself, the one who caused the sufferening to the "lucky" customers. It is taken for granted that villains have their own motives, usually something they want to achieve with their actions. I don't want to spoil you what's hiding behind this particular case, though I will say that the answer is extremely dissapointing and clearly shows how little effort the plot creators put in the title.
What tries to save the anime is the audiovisual layer. However I will admit that the graphics aren't at all that much great. Action scenes are fine, but there aren't that many of them and they're not packed with special effects. And that's a pity, cause we have an anime that is showing a computer game, so it could at least try more, for example by including some nice looking CGI graphics! What I must praise is the OST of the series. And not even the openings (I felt that the second was better btw), but mostly the background music. It's really cool and climatic and you can hear lots of it, especially closer towards the ending. In my opinion it's clearly the best aspect of the show.
To sum things up, despite a very ambitious concept, SAO remains a mediocre shounen deprived of any greater ambitions. Numerous plotholes, unoriginal and rather disturbing characters and the fact that the anime doesn't really keep you watching it makes it barely possible for me to recommend it to anyone. I hope that someday someone will try to touch this interesting theme once more and this time do it some honor.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 9, 2012
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is an unique anime. You rarely see a title showing a catastrophy in here. And not only it is catastrophical, but in fact there is more slice of life theme going on in here. Did this attempt turn out well? Partially.
The story focuses around young middle-school girl called Mirai (which is an interesting name in the contex of the story, since it translates into "future") and her younger brother. Due to her overworking parents, she has the one to take her brother for a visit in some kind of gallery away from her home, where the fatal accident in the title takes
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place. Briefly after the earthquake adult woman named Mari decides to help them return to their parents and so the trio starts on their way back, which is pretty much the theme of the entire series.
Now, this anime has only 11 episodes, though looking on what there is in the plot, and there is pretty much nothing but just going back home, it seems that the number is too big. The series has some side stories, but they are rather short and depth-lacking, like the one about guy who liked robots, cause they helped saving people.. Yes, he liked robots and it was just about him liking the robots. The entire episode of just him liking the robots. I'm not even kidding. The more you watch, the more you begin to wonder "what the hell did they fill the next x episodes with?". There is a little turn at the end of episode 8. It would be hard for me to explain the circumstances and what made me not like it without giving out much spoilers, so I will touch as generally as it is possible. The series ends with some kind of inception-like theme going on and the inception itself is a little bit confusing at the end, in a way that you're not completely sure if the plot won't take another twist or there would be a sudden moment of realisation that the girl was just having a bad dream all the time at the very end. This makes is hard for you to go along with the actual action and empathize with the characters. I realize that this story is made to be emotional and tear-jerking, yet I couldn't get the feeling that it was dragged on with a forced ending to it off my head.
For the visuals, there are just mediocre. I don't have much against the background, but I certainly didn't like the way characters were drawn. While Mirai is generally ok, but the boy with her looks plain bad, and the moments when he's supposed to smile resembles me of a parody rather then anything else. The voice isn't that bad, but it doesn't show off too much either. Opening is a bit anti-climatic, it makes you a bit excited and waiting to get in action, while the anime is extremely slow-paced. The ending on the other hand is just brilliant. I loved it and the way it fit with the show unlike the op so much, that I gave +1 score just for the ending theme.
In case of characters it is hard to say much, since there are only 3 of them and each is pretty much one-coloured. There is a handful of side characters, but most of them are as deep as the aforementioned robot guy, so let's just just ignire them for time-being. For the main trio, the one that I certainly didn't enjoy watching is once again the younger brother. He's just over-optimistic, family-loving, everyone-around-concerned-for etc etc child. Everyone he speaks, he merely says anything new or unexpected, and his voice is a bit annoying, when he says everything in a shouting manner. The only character I enjoyed looking at was Mirai, since she was kinda dynamic, turning from depressed, a bit rebellious teen into warm and sympathizing girl. I could sort of identify with her and experience her drama and that was the part of the show I greatly enjoyed.
As far as I'm concerned, this anime could be way more entertaining if they decided to give up on the inception theme. This would also make it shorter, cutting it possibly to 9-10 episodes, but it would also make the ending less confusing, so the viewer could actually enjoy the feeling of katharsis which comes with it. If it would be true, I would be actually willing to give this anime an 8 from the title, however it's not that simple and I'm a bit in two minds when it comes to judging it. On one side I like the overall theme of it and the character development of the main heroine, despite the fact that the anime feels over-extended and even boring, not to mention the confusion around the inception-like end theme. So to say: I liked it and I was bored with it at the same time. If you are looking for a catastrophical anime with high value of realism, as well as some personal drama going on, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is a solid recommendation for you. Too bad I can't forget about it flaws, and thus it makes "only" 7.0 earthquake on my scale.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 22, 2011
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, an anime which certainly became a real something during this season, has finally came to conclusion. One may say that conclusions are often parts that kills a good anime, but with this particular one we have a bit of a different story... However, let just start from the very begginning.
At first, we see the lovely story of Madoka, a typical ordinary girl, representing the stereotypical cute anime character - pink hair, ribbon, shool outfit and rather not too tall. With all that charm, she is drawn in a way that rather prevents her from being described as moe, but this is
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not quite a problem in here. The main misfortune is the fact, that among all characters, the main one is the worst one. She is just warmly-hearted, one-dimensional girl, that seems to be existing just to keep the plot going.
Well, what is the plot? As the title indicates, it is focused on the topic of magical girls, although there are quite not the same as in the most anime of its kind. In this one, the whole procedure of becoming mahous shoujo or puella magi, as you like, is telling your wish to Kyubey - a weird, but adorable cat-like creature, who has mouth, but never opens it while it speaks - and it grants it for the repayment of you starting a risky life as the magical girl, spending whole days on hunting the evil witches. The entire thing starts when the main character and her friend Sayaka meets Kyubey being chased by another character, Akemi Homura. It soon turns out that the cute monster wants to make contracts, as earlier described, with the two protagonists. The third one however, the mysterious Homura, wants to stop them from proceeding in this way. The reasons for her doing so and many other unknown facts concerning the true nature of magical girls in this universe are being revealed to us in the following episosed, making the whole plot much more complicated and darker than in any other anime of this kind. As many people claim, this is certainly not an anime for children. Althought the very begginning does not suggest it, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica has some very thrilling moments in it and is in fact overloaded with a hard, dreading climate.
One thing that is certain is that the audiovisual side of this anime is the factor that instantly keeps this climate going. Even if the plot is not very appalling itself, the way it is presented keeps the viewer's attention without any delays. The feeling that "something" may instantly happen is following you all the time as you keep watching the show. The music fits perfectly to the scenes, the opening is just great and the way in which this anime was drawn makes it even more appealing and outstanding, especially if you keep comparing it to the other mahou shoujos.
Nevertheless, despite how great this anime is, it still has a couple of drawbacks. As I already mentioned, the most annoying thing is the main hero. She really is the less interesting thing in the whole anime and despite her being the title character, one can argue that the whole show could even proceed without her at all. Apart from Madoka, there are not really many characters and the one that I most enjoyed is Homura. Always cool and mysterious, but having a completely different nature on the other hand, as it is revealed later on. She is the only non-one-dimensional character and the only one that you can at least sympathise with as far as I am concerned. Moreover, another problem with this anime, which I indicated on the beggining of this review, is the way it actually ends. I do not want to give you any spoilers, but I guess it is fair enough to warn you to not expect anything extraordinary. I had some hypothesis along before watching the final episodes and I was in fact closely enough with one of them and I did not find the ending scene that surprising. One may have other feelings regarding it, but in my opinion the last part was not that great as the rest of this anime.
So, how is it overall? If I have to sum it up, it is a very enjoyable anime overall. It has some cons regarding the characters and the ending is not that good as it could possibly be, but it still it a great piece to watch and I really liked the way it outstands on the background of its genre. I feel awkwardly sorry about the fact I cannot give it the highest score, but this does not change the fact that is a truly amazing thing to watch. Highly recommended!
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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