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I remember when I decided to start watching Makeine, it wasn’t in my plans to watch this show at the start, because when looked from afar, it looked exactly like every other romcom you and I already saw dozens of times, and I thought I was already watching enough of those. I decided to start watching it after I dropped a show whose name I cannot even remember anymore and because I heard that this “wasn’t like other harem romcoms”, this “this was different”, and without even having even started it I knew those claims were a lie, why would I believe these people when ... the cover and the synopsis definitely doesn’t even imply what they’re saying? But the second you start the first episode with a quote that even Oregairu would deem childish, and which is not actually relevant to the series because this isn’t about failed relationships in high school but rather about people who failed to get one, as if the author failed to grasp what his own series is about, then my mind just ended up being completely sure about one thing: this show is just any other romcom which both you and I already saw dozens of times, but it thinks it isn’t and by that little detail it comes across as worse being than them.

The only argument you could make about Makeine being “different” is that the girls didn’t fall in love with the MC immediately, and that’s honestly misleading, a lot of girls in those other harem romcoms don’t fall with the MC instantly either, and in fact this series plays exactly like them, because those romcoms linger on the fact that it is a more of a “will they or won’t they” dynamic, so actual romance doesn’t happen most of the time besides the MC sharing moments with each of the girls in each of their respective arcs, and if you didn’t notice it by now, Makeine works in the exact same way.

This is one of the most pathetic attempts of an MC I have seen in a series as praised as this one this year, I don’t think I need to mention his name because he was such a nothingburger of a character since he’s a soulless self-insert, this MC doesn’t even have a personality at all, his most notable qualities are that he reads light novels (because he’s just like you) and that he likes tap water, aside from that he doesn’t have any notable trait to him and yet all the girls are flocking to him, why? Because he is the MC, and in fact, there are multiple questions that you can do and the answer is the exact same thing every time: why did the tomboy started undressing after getting trapped in the same room as him? Because he is the MC; why was he found in a changing room alongside a girl that already has a boyfriend by her boyfriend? Because he is the MC; why did the super busty girl that already has a boyfriend fall with her breasts on his face? Because he is the MC, and that scene even had a “I heard that exact line in a light novel!” as if trying to be self-aware, but this series isn’t actually self-aware. This anime is not doing anything different from other shows of the exact same genre, it isn’t subversive no matter how much you try to twist it, it just thinks it is different despite using the exact same tropes as all others, and the fact people actually buy there’s anything unique about it makes me think they need to watch more romcoms.

This show reminds me of Oresuki, that show worked on a similar premise that other girls around the guy were in love with his best friend so they wanted the MC to set them up with him, however, Oresuki was pretty much honest from the very beginning by making a girl in love with the MC from the start. I saw many people saying that Oresuki was a subversion of the usual formula and it really wasn’t, but it was at least funny to watch, which is more than I can say about a lot of romcoms and specially about this one, the cracks that this was written just like a normal harem romcom were pretty obvious from a glance, but that show didn’t have a good reception like this one, probably because the fact that it was a harem romcom was even more obvious than here, and this anime has A-1 Pictures on it so you can say it was made by the same studio that did other “peak”, and by that I mean overrated, romcom shows like Kaguya-sama combined with their “great visuals”, and by that I mean the usual A-1 slop, make some scenes like someone dancing or boobs bouncing look good and make the rest of the anime look average, wobbling with so many drops in quality that the times it doesn’t look bleh seem impressive in comparison.

This shows tries to get me interested in how the girls solve their previous rejections because other girls got with the guy they were in love with which is terrible to watch, and while the comedy can be tolerated the drama here is simply unbearable, partially because I don’t care about these other couples, and the fact that all of these love triangles the girls went through makes one of them the childhood friend of the guy makes me think that the author fell for the meme that “the childhood friend always loses”, it is the same kind of stupidity that another anime already committed years ago, that show was called Osananajimi ga Zettai ni Makenai Love Comedy, and it was called that way because the author is stupid and also fell for the same meme. Of course, that series had a modicum of competency with the writing in some characters, something that I cannot say about Makeine, because in this series it isn’t even a focal point, it is there because you already watched other romcom shows and can recognize the joke from there, and that’s actually the part where Makeine shines, and that is in trying to be different just to return to the usual formula in one way or another. Obviously, after the girls get rejected, they have someone to go to cry to and that person is the MC, because once that other guy gets out of the way, they can flock to your self-insert after they got over their love for the other guy so they’ll slowly fall in love with literally you, because that is the type of show that Makeine is.

Thank you for reading.

Grendizer U is the first TV anime based on the Mazinger franchise in 15 years, the first anime adaptation of the UFO Robo Grendizer series in nearly 50 years, and a collaboration between staff members that worked on mecha classics like Gundam SEED, Code Geass and Evangelion… and it’s not good. I really wanted to like this show, and there’s a lot of ideas here that could lead to an interesting story, but the series just ultimately was a massive let down.

I’ll address the elephant in the room about this show upfront: the pacing sucks. Grendizer U feels like it’s trying to have a whole ... 50 episodes worth of plot despite only having 13 episodes to work with, so everything feels incredibly rushed, from the fights almost all ending in 2 attacks, to the characters suddenly going from not standing each other to developing strong bonds in the span of 1 episode, to the loads of exposition to advance the multiple plotlines being juggled every episode, and this just makes everything about it feel lacking in impact. I mean, I know the state of the modern anime industry sucks so asking for 2 cours was probably too much, but then they could just write the plot to actually fit the 1 cour they have, it’s not like good mecha anime that are only 1 cour don’t exist, Shin Jeeg told a coherent plot in the same time and had cool stuff like the double Jeeg battle. The show has multiple plots that are brought up, never elaborated on, and then dropped that coupled with the ending make it feel like the staff desperately want to get a second season, but given how that went for the last Mazinger anime, I won’t hold my breath for one.

Speaking of cool battles, that’s the other key issue with his show: it’s just boring. I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece of story given how messy the plots of SEED and Geass are, but I was looking forward to a fun super robot in the spirit of previous Mazinger anime like Shin and Mazinkaiser, but this show is incredibly dull. Aside from the OP and ED none of the music here is memorable, I wouldn’t care for any of these characters if I wasn’t familiar with their past versions as their relationships (with the exception Koji with Duke, for the better, and Teronna with Duke, for the worse) have no time to develop, and with the battles being so short, I hardly found myself interested in seeing how they were going to play out, which is a shame because I think the CGI mecha in the show are on the better side and the moments where they change to 2D actually feel they could be cool with the proper context. I mean, the animation of the show in general isn’t stellar, in fact I’d even call it subpar, and some of the character designs were redesigned better than others (I still don’t get why Sayaka has purple hair?), but I wasn’t expecting it to seeing as Gaina is basically Gainax’s corpse somehow still moving even after Anno took away their sustain.

This isn’t a slap in the face of the original like Devilman Crybaby was, but as far as Go Nagai remakes go, Grendizer U is sadly one of the weaker entries and I wouldn’t recommend it as an entry point for people not familiar with the Mazinger franchise. Go and do yourself a favor and watch Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-hen if you want to see a modern remake of this classic mecha franchise done right.

Thank you for reading

Note: I’m not into Vtuber culture, but I can recognize and understand some things about it mainly because they are so popular it’s basically impossible to escape them if you’re into otaku culture as they pretty much are a part of it, so I’m not going to be biased for it.

This anime is an advertisement for the Strong Zero beer- uh, I mean, it’s about a Vtuber breaking character and getting popular because of it as the title says. I'm surprised no one pointed out inside the show the little comments that are in the streams, because this show follows how Vtubers work, they even ... did their own live2D models of the characters for the show and use them from time to time where they could simply use regular animation all the time. While it also shows them outside of streamings, they usually don't change from how they look in their avatars, I could be cynical and say that it is to keep the illusion that Vtubers are still their personas outside of streams or that the studio was lazy and couldn't bother doing designs for how they should really look, but it is pretty obviously none of those, it’s because the show isn't focused on that, this isn't a show that has Vtubers on it, it’s a show about the Vtubers.

This show is pretty silly, it’s a complete slice of life show where you don't have to expect a plot, the characters can change a little in their relationships but it never goes to a point where you'll miss much, as it is basically a collection of streams which I guess most if not all are based on streams made by actual Vtubers and you'll probably see some characters and say that they remind you of some Vtuber you know. It’s also one of those anime where the comedy can vary a lot in quality, but it will never reach a point where you will be laughing a lot from them, if you understand the culture you will surely be able to enjoy it more, because the moments that landed the most for me was stuff like in that episode where they shouted "MAKOTO" and then showed the "nice boat", or the episode where they were playing an online card game where the studio even made an entire small animation for Rias Gremory and references to other TNK anime which I watched and loved, I mean, TNK animating Rias Gremory in the year 2015+9? I didn't even remember the last time they animated her, while other jokes are as bad as the adult baby fetish ones which I can only guess is one of the fetishes the author has as it had two episodes on it. If for some weird reason you were expecting something about the "dark side" of vtubing or anything of the sort here, then you aren't watching the right anime, there are some darker moments like Awayuki being forced to drink to keep capitalizing on her new drunk persona or when they doxed her, but those are played as comedy sketches that don't impact the characters or the setting much.

I can't understand why Vtubers are so popular, if anything they remind me that when I was like 12 there were some YouTubers that would do Let’s Play videos that my classmates would talk about, I never got into those because 1) I wasn't interested in that 2) I didn't have Wi-Fi back then, so watching things on YouTube was pretty difficult, so I wouldn't be able to do it even if I was interested. The only difference I can see from Vtubers to Let’s Players is that these are behind cute anime girl avatars, and it's not like I didn't try to watch things from them, I remember when I tried watching one of those Vtubers stream, I watched it for like 10 minutes or so, and while I guess it wasn't so bad, I just cannot possibly get what would be so interesting about watching it for hours to get all the popularity they have right now. If anything I'm surprised this anime isn't more popular given it’s about Vtubers, something extremely popular nowadays to the point of dominating the Comiket just behind a plague like Blue Archive, but this show doesn't even get much fanart, I guess it would be because Vtuber fans aren't even interested in anime or they could just watch their Vtuber instead of watching an anime about completely original Vtuber personas, or maybe the overlap of fanbases just isn't as strong as one would think, as Vtubers are much more similar to watching any other streamer than watching anime. If anything, this show is about what Vtubers can only dream to be, actual anime girls.

It's not like I could expect TNK to do this anime, they are one of the only studios that can constantly put out good ecchi anime and they don't do many works per year despite not having impressive animation or anything, so I can just wonder why they chose a light novel about Vtubers to adapt it, I could be disappointed on it as there are other ecchi shows that aired alongside this one like 2.5 getting censored, however, the reason why I'm not really disappointed is because you can see that they really were having fun doing this show, it surely won't change your opinions about Vtubers but you can see how much they appreciate the culture and the last episode is pretty much a testament to that.

Thank you for reading.

Political dramas are hard to make, I’ve seen enough series be completely unable to have the gravitas needed for such storylines, so the fact that Karasu wa Aruji wo Erabanai actually managed to pull it off was a pleasant surprise to me. The series tackles webs of conspiracies ingrained in the royal family, in the royal court and even in the common populace, taking it all with the seriousness these plots need, but also the complexity needed to be engaged in them. A character chart to keep track of every character, their relations and alliances is practically a must if you want to follow all ... the twists the mysteries provide, being a rare example of a modern anime that rewards you for paying close attention to everything happening, something I never expected to see when I picked this show purely because of finding the premise intriguing.

Character wise, our standouts are the main duo of Prince Nazuhiko and Yukiya, the future ruler of the land of Yamauchi and his young bodyguard. The Prince is the one fated to become the Kin’u, a mythical Messianic figure who’s said to keep the land of Yamauchi afloat for reasons the show eventually delves on, so he can come across as being a bit too perfect at times, but this is no Mao Mao, he actually has flaws and self-doubts that he needs to confront over the course of the story. Yukiya has the more interesting character arc, being forced by his family to serve as the Prince’s bodyguard due to his status as a rebel but laid back bum, and the circumstances where he has to put his life on the line for the service of a man he barely knows leads to his growth as he discovers more about the actual state of affairs in the government. Other notable characters like Sumio (the Prince’s older bodyguard), Rokon (first prince Natsuka’s bodyguard with his own agenda), and the Prince’s mistresses (a bunch of slimy women who want power no matter the way they have to get it), round out a memorable cast living in this palace of conspiracies.

Superficially, the lore of the show looks like a fairly standard Feudal Japan but with fantasy elements, with the fact the main characters are not humans but shapeshifting birds called yatagarasu coming across as its only twist, but the show also addresses on its latter half where we see more of the situation surrounding Yamauchi, so the world building is actually richer that it may seem at first glance. The show is a bit lacking animation wise, being very average with its many long shots, even if the art direction provided by the former Yuru Camp staff involved at least manages to make it nice on the eyes, while the OST is very fitting for the kind of setting this has.

Overall, I enjoyed seeing a series that succeeded where Kusuriya no Hitorigoto failed, providing a proper political drama that takes itself seriously and has flawed main characters with obstacles to face, so I’ll gladly wait for another season to see if the duty of the true Kin’u is fulfilled.

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Gimai Seikatsu was a surprise, not because of the premise, but because it is not every day that I can confidently say that one of the best directed shows in a season is a romance anime. Most romance anime I’ve seen that are praised as “creative” or “well directed” aren’t, well, creative or well directed, however, this anime definitely makes use of framings and visual techniques that you would usually never see in a show of this kind, the director definitely did a good job, which is surprising given he has no other experience being the main director of a series.

It's easy to see why ... a lot of people who are searching for more creative directing than average wouldn’t even give the time of the day to this series, after all, the title Gimai Seikatsu or “Days with my Stepsister” would probably remind you of some kind of porn instead of an actually well done romance series, and I can’t blame them, I first saw this series being recommended alongside Otonari no Tenshi-sama and that series was terrible, so I decided to watch it to laugh at it, but once I started watching it, it definitely caught my eye that it didn’t even try to have comedy, then when I saw the author notes explaining things about the episodes that were posted on the author’s social media, I’d say that this series surpassed my expectations by far, mainly because my expectations for it were really low, but it got me to actually be invested on it. And I’m sure that people who want to watch actual incest and not NBR stuff would not look at this series at all, but I’m actually glad that this series touches the theme about relationships between stepsiblings, because while the characters obviously see that a if they were to enter in a romantic relationship it would be seen as “wrong” by society, it also makes multiple points about how stepsiblings are basically strangers that were suddenly put to live together so there’s actual no problem with it, after all, some people will look down upon anything that’s even remotely close to looking like incest, so unless you are an extremely sensitive snowflake there shouldn’t be a problem with this type of relationship, and there’s also the fact this series focuses more on the character’s emotions and their way of rationalizing around their new situation and less on the fetishy side of wanting to fuck your stepbrother/sister.

The diary episodes gives you what happened from Saki’s point of view and shows you things you already knew about but with Saki’s inner thoughts included, and they are shown as if watching an old filming roll, which I guess it is fitting for showing you something you already watched but as a memory, and these episodes worked pretty well for me, because I’m sure a lot of people, including me, see the average romance anime and asks to ourselves “why is this girl in love with the guy?”, and these episodes pretty much answer that question as thoroughly as it can, it gives you a bigger exploration of Saki’s character, and by being presented as her diary it makes sense why she would go in such overexplanation of her emotions instead of saying it out loud for everyone to hear.

The scene where, after watching the movie, Shiori starts saying some dialogue from it and then Asamura follows along, I paused the episode to stare at the ceiling, I mean, her reaction seemed completely in tone with being stopped midway by a freaking vending machine, it definitely made me feel the kind of emotion I’m wishing in romance series without doing anything exaggerated, and I honestly really liked that scene, Shiori could have won right there and I wouldn’t have minded, but alas, she isn’t the main girl so of course nothing would happen. But this is the kind of scenes that work for me, while you definitely can’t expect for something too exciting to happen, the down-to-earth feeling that they have is what makes the series in general work.

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Tokidoki Bosotto Russia-go de Dereru Tonari no Alya-san is a series that could be a fun romcom, but due to bad decisions from the author after the first episodes, it just doesn’t work. Simply put, the gimmick of this series doesn’t do anything, sure Alya is Russian and she sometimes speaks it, but this doesn’t really change much, it’s like a different kind of tsundere-ism which would be okay, the problem here is that the series obviously breaks what should be the logical use of its premise by making the MC being able to understand Russian, which is stupid, there’s no point in making a ... character talk a different language so no one can get her just to make the MC being able to get her, and the justification about why he can speak Russian is also pretty dumb in itself. I sometimes wonder why working in a gimmick when you’ll just break it right from the start.

The protagonist is obviously meant to be “literally you”, just look at his introduction and you’ll notice it, oh he watches anime, he is an otaku, now he will play his gacha, and I just wanted to roll my eyes because once again I’m supposed to believe that the most beautiful girl in the class is in love with the MC who has nothing going on for him, and perhaps the author noticed that too and that’s why he also decided to make him someone proficient at everything he tries, you could replace him with Sakuta from Bunny Girl Senpai or Ayanokouji from CotE and it wouldn’t change anything because he is a charismatic god and a genius like nobody else that has ever existed but he NEEDS to hide his power level by being lazy and will only show it from time to time, the fact that he is a otaku is irrelevant, because he isn’t one, he does nothing to actually show it except saying that he is because the audience needs to self-insert as him, and by being called an otaku it makes it easier for the audience to think they are like him. Honestly, I’m not sure why there was a need to do two completely different versions of him in the same character or which one is worse.

If I was more invested in this series I would get shivers by thinking that Alya beating Yuki at the student council elections is completely plausible because she is the main female character and has the MC that can do absolutely everything by her side, because Alya most definitely doesn’t deserve to win it, she breaks down the second the MC isn’t holding her hand to cross the street as if she was a little baby that needs to be taken care of at every moment, there are multiple examples of this like the baseball club and football team, she needed to be saved by the MC despite the fact that that this is her job in the student council because she is the treasurer, she cannot even do that correctly and I just can’t see why she should win, maybe she’ll be able to actually stand in her own two feet at some point in the future, but even if she does how is she supposed to compete with Yuki when she actually has experience since she won in middle school? Alya was originally characterized as someone who is just so above everyone else and that only she is competent and that’s why she is alone, which barely explains why this girl who gets so much attention as the “solitary queen” has no friends, but she isn’t able to pull off things alone, it makes it funny when she got called out by the glasses girl that she was a pretty face with good notes and nothing more, because that’s true. We just get constantly told by the MC and the series that she is a hard worker and that you should support her for it, but we never see that being close to reality. Of course, this problem wouldn’t exist if the author didn’t add the student council plot to take over everything about the series, because it is easily the worst part about it.

Which takes me to the absolute best point of this series, that is, Yuki. She singlehandedly carried the show by being an actual character and not the boring and lazy attempt at making a tsundere that is Alya, from her way of talking being so polite that the subtitles cannot even begin to show that her manner of speaking would make a butler blush, and then when in private with her brother she is basically a brocon, playful and actually bounces well with the MC. Honestly, I agree with the glasses girl that they are the perfect duo and the show would be much better if she was the main girl because she got actual chemistry with him, even if she couldn’t salvage how shit the student council stuff is. She is actually fun to watch when she isn’t being serious, and when it comes to the student council presidential election, she actually has drive and ambition and will do terrible shit just to win, for example, using Alya’s own foolishness against her was actually nice and was basically playing 4D chess the entire episode, which seeing how stupid the other characters are, is not even surprising how she pulled it off. Even if she wasn’t easily the most entertaining thing about the series by a landslide, it’s not like she got much competition, Masha is not a character, she was a plot device to make the MC learn Russian because they met in the past, but that isn’t relevant, because they don’t do anything at all with that information because the MC doesn’t know she is her childhood friend, the fact that she knows and decides to do nothing about it and just let Alya have the MC makes all of this irrelevant as you aren’t even getting something out of it, just as an example.

Telling you that the first two episodes were the best part of this series would be the truth, after that, it jumped to Alya’s “sad” past and then to student council shenanigans which I honestly cannot care much about, it could be an actually entertaining romcom when it tries, which is almost any Yuki scene, but the fact that the gimmick it had is basically thrown to the side to the point Alya won’t speak in Russian in some episodes tells you everything that you have to know about the series, “the main girl is a Russian” is an extremely weak gimmick, so I’m not sure if the author actually thought about making this a full-fledged series in the first place. Honestly, this should’ve just been the Yuki show, that would’ve been great, but sadly it isn’t, instead we’re stuck with this bad excuse of a tsundere and a perfect self-insert MC.

Thank you for reading.

Kaijuu 8-gou is perfect evidence that an anime can, indeed, be carried by the animation. It's no secret that this show is one of the most blatant attempts at getting American money funneled into anime, what with the streaming on Twitter deal and the bands brought in for the atrocious songs in the show, but even ignoring the blatant tech bro shilling with their insane AstroTurfing on it, this show is just bad. I’m to the point of saying this show should be renamed to AstroTurfing The Animation, because it’s one of the most blatant cases of artificial hype I’ve seen, to the point I’ve ... never seen anyone even mention this show despite its supposed success.

Let's start by listing the one positive aspect of this show, it looks great, Production IG continues showing why they're the top of the industry with clean visuals that MAPPA's edgy slop could only dream of having. And that's literally the one positive, because everything else, from the weak plot, to the insufferable characters, to the ear bleedingly bad music, to the ugly character designs, to the very unfunny attempts at jokes, all makes this show only not end up with a lower score because at least its battles look cool. This is the exact kind of slop that the meme "carried by the animation" is supposed to make fun of, because even middling shows like Demon Slayer and Frieren have other positive aspects to them, this show has nothing going on for it but IG's great production values.

And given this is a generic shounen, I can see a weak plot could be forgiven if the characters were likable, but this doesn't have that, in fact, the characters are all incredibly annoying and arguably the worst part of the show. The main character is probably the worst offender, being an extremely loud and obnoxious manchild who is supposed to be 32 years old, yet acts less than half that age, there's literally no joke to making the MC a grown man if he's going to act no better than the thousand other teens that normally headline this kind of series. There's also a female lead, and she's a "strong female protagonist" straight out of some Disney Star Wars streaming exclusive shit show, with no clear personality but with abilities far above our male lead because she needs no man. The rest of the cast are honestly so unmemorable I wouldn't be able to tell them apart, but they feel like nothing but one-note jokes that aren't even funny, because in general the comedy of this show is atrocious.

I don't get the point of this show. Unless you're the kind who thinks mindless action is all that's needed for a good series, don't even bother, there's no plot to get hooked on here. If I can't watch this for the characters, I can't watch it for the plot, and all that's left is some pretty colors, then the show sucks, no amount of good animation is fixing a badly written snoozefest like this one.

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Yuru Camp S3 is the sequel I have been the most thoroughly disappointed by this season. Like, sure there are shows like Hibike Euphonium that while still good don't live up the the first season but it definitely does to the second season or Tsukimichi that goes slower than the first season despite having more episodes, but Yuru Camp is suffering from the same thing as Date A Live which is both a combination of the source material getting weaker and changing to a shit studio. I mean, 8bit is doing another 2 anime this season besides Yuru Camp, and while those are shit so ... you don't expect anything from them, Yuru Camp is actually a very good series. I was extremely happy when I saw the announcement of a third season, it felt so weird to be so excited over an announcement, but then another announcement came and it was that the studio was changing to 8bit and that the director was also changing, that immediately was a punch towards my excitement, I mean, surely, there’s no way a studio can fuck up this series even if they aren’t working with the best material, right? Well, I’ll tell you that I was wrong and the first couple of trailers just confirmed my fear.

When I think about Yuru Camp, what I remember are all those moments that melted my heart, the ending of the first season is something that watered my eyes the first time I saw it and I still smile every time I watch it or remember it, things like Nadeshiko using her money to buy a gift for her sister comes to mind too, but when I try to think about something similar this season I cannot imagine something because those moments basically don't exist here, it's not like it didn't have fun moments like Chiaki's schizo camp, but that isn't the kind of things I'm referring to when I say something memorable, I clearly mean something that you can actually see and feel, something more real if you will, and while previous seasons had their fair share of moments, this season didn't quite reach that area.

The problem here clearly isn't even the change in character designs, because I could complain that Rin looks too different or that Aoi's tits basically disappeared, but that wouldn't cover the actual problem because other characters like Chiaki and Nadeshiko look almost the same despite the very clearly amateurish character design. I have always liked the backgrounds in Yuru Camp, because they take what the manga conveys and actually brings them to life, when you look at season 1 or even season 2 and then look at season 3 you will very clearly see the difference, in season 3 the backgrounds often almost look like pictures with a little filter and the terrible compositing makes the characters stand out so much that the background ends up looking even worse. I'm not saying that Yuru Camp didn't have photographic reference before, if my mind isn't failing, there was an episode where they used a Google Street View copyright notice, but there was a clear difference in what C-Station did and what 8bit is doing, because the backgrounds break the immersion so much this season that it hurts, just look at things like Nadeshiko walking into the store in episode 3 or Nadeshiko and her sister standing near the Sakura tree in episode 10, and then I ask you to watch anything from season 1 and you will see the big difference.

Aside from that, even the source material was weaker after the chapters that the season 2 adapted, because it was in some weird transition period where it was looking more and more to be a tourism commercial, and I'm not saying Yuru Camp wasn't that before, but you can see the difference between how it was done at the start and how it is done now, because the balancing between the preparation, the camping and the tourism has completely shifted to focus more on the tourism. I remember perfectly in the first couple of episodes asking myself "where is the camping?" because they were doing a tourism across hanging bridges or dams and I know this series wasn't as blatant before because they mostly stayed into place to camp. The simplicity of just going outside and camping while explaining some camping tips is basically gone, and I remember there was a review complaining exactly about this the previous season, and while I would disagree that the change completely happened last season, it definitely turned into a snowball and went with full force throughout the entire beginning of this season.

Honestly speaking, I don't think this season is bad, but it is such a clear downgrade, if you were judging the manga and feel a part is weaker, you can just compliment it with what came before, but unlike the manga, I'm not taking what happened in season 1 and season 2 and making it part of this season at the same time here, I'm judging the third season, and the third season covers something much weaker than before. It is still good, I had many laughs, but I didn't get some of the most important things in this series to me, and those are memorable moments that you can really feel.

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In 1972, Mazinger Z by Go Nagai debuted, creating the entire mecha genre with a formula that still gets used to this day. Now, while I’ve always been a fan of its charismatic cast and cool battles, it’s never been a particularly deep series, with modern reinventions rarely deviating from what was set 50 years ago. So, in 2009, two projects under the Shin Mazinger banner were made, bringing a more intricately written take on this classic franchise in different mediums, Shougeki Z-hen as anime and ZERO as manga. Here I’ll be talking about the lesser known, but more interesting, Shin Mazinger ZERO.

Shin Mazinger ZERO ... is a very unique take on the Mazinger mythos, with its main divergence being the addition of cosmic horror elements, capitalizing on the iconic quote that Mazinger Z can become a god or a devil by showing what said devil would be and why depending on its godlike power may not be the safe heaven it’s normally presented as. The entire first volume of the manga is the most hopeless and bleak Mazinger story ever made, showing some of our familiar characters turning insane or dying even BEFORE Z becomes Mazinger ZERO, letting us to see how Koji slowly loses all his emotions and gets consumed by its power as it ravages the world. And then, we start again.

Shin Mazinger ZERO is a very unique take on the Mazinger mythos, with its main divergence being the addition of cosmic horror elements – but it’s also about time loops. Character of the week turned main Minerva X has been going for thousands of iterations of the world trying to stop Mazinger ZERO, so when it seems she has finally reached an ideal world where ZERO won’t surface, she’ll make everything in her power to make sure that devil isn’t born. We get a multitude of flashbacks showing previous worlds, and how everything, no matter how hopeful, always leads to ZERO ending the world. While the main plot during this time is a standard Mazinger plot, its backstory of showing how unstoppable ZERO is puts the stakes Koji is in trying to become stronger without unleashing the devil into a perspective no previous entry did, ZERO itself looking really unnerving helping the horror all scenes with it look for.

And yet, despite corrupting the franchise’s symbol of hope into an all-consuming monster, Shin Mazinger ZERO is a story that perfectly gets the fundamentals of why this series ever worked. The cast is as a lively as ever, but it’s particularly good to see how it puts greater emphasis on their more human side, with the adversities and insecurities they feel being greater focus than every previous series. The battles are fantastic, the beautiful and detailed art all over the series helping sell the immense scale of these clashes, and the final battle in particular has incredible pieces that look straight out of Getter Robo. The story gives actual depth, development and themes to the conflict, but doesn’t forget to retain the sense of levity traditional of the franchise, filled with cameos and fanservice that’d make Uncle Go proud. It’s, in essence, a perfect representation of every aspect of this series that made it appealing, not working as only a good popcorn show, but also a legitimately good example of a pro humanism tale.

Why I wouldn’t recommend it to people not familiar with Mazinger beforehand, Shin Mazinger ZERO is an essential addition to the Mazinger canon, deconstructing its iconic hero to reveal its core appeal with a never seen before level of depth, making it probably the best this franchise will ever be.

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Metallic Rouge – A Forgone Failure

Something I always do before watching an anime, specially an original one not based on a source material, is seeing the previous works from its director, as that’s usually a good sign of what you’re getting into. Motonobu Hori being the name at the helm of this anime was an instant red flag, as he had previously helmed 2 shows (Carole and Tuesday, Super Crooks) that are very bad, and Metallic Rouge ends up unsurprisingly suffering from many problems.

Its attempts at a story are slow paced, but not because it can actually set anything of substance, but because it feels ... like it has no idea what it truly wants to be, between the CGDCT-type protagonists that feel straight from a Lycoris Recoil rip-off, cyberpunk world that’s the millionth take on the long used “robots can dream” plot, mystery story with no actual driving question, this show feels like a mismatch of ideas that never truly gel together. Aside from its aimless plot, the characters have no chemistry, the attempts at making them feel like friends being incredibly forced, while the animation is bog standard from the Bones staff, and the scenes they seem to actually care about (the fight parts) just feel so bland, I literally stare at them with a blank expression as none of them make me feel anything.

Even worse, the series suffers from a major case of what’s known as narrative gaslighting. It tells you things, but these things don’t match up with what’s actually happening, and it refuses to accept it’s wrong and instead convince you it’s right. Neans are treated as these poor little things that are always suffering… when we see that the reason they’re like this is because they’re very clearly a danger to people, they seek to attack humans and only don’t because they were wise enough to put restrainers on them, the ones we see entering fights are clearly the type who’d kill a person the second they got a chance, with Rouge’s clearly violent behavior from not having these restrains being the best example. Neans are supposed to be seen as victims, when they very much either a) shouldn’t have issue with being unable to attack people given they literally exist for labor and thus should carry no desire to fight or b) are a restrain away from becoming dangerous criminals, so it feels very rational for them to not be allowed to become murderers.

At the end of the day, the biggest sin of this series is that it’s just so empty. I scrambled to even write what to say here as this show is just so lacking in terms of substance, it’s hard to critique something in a constructive manner when I can basically sum up every single issue with this show by saying “every part of it sucks”, as it’s really just a bunch of bad writing that doesn’t have anything to make it stand out. Metallic Rouge is simply a fundamentally flawed series to its very core, with barely any aspect of it that doesn’t suck, so a project so blatantly doomed to fail as this one is painful to see, because it was a forgone failure from its inception.

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