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Jun 1, 2022
It's just more "Dakaretai Otoko 1-i ni Odosarete Imasu." - The only thing that changed was the setting.
It's more beautiful animation (albeit I think it's actually way worse than the series + the dancing is terrible), it's more yaoi and grunting, it's more good soundtracks, and it's more toxic yaoi bs. It has the exact same problematic behaviour as the first one.
For anyone who has read the manga, this follows the spain arc very true to the original. Meaning: yes, that scene is in it.
TW + Spoilers, there is a non-con sex scene in it between the main characters. It's forced, and very
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creepy. Even if the uke had "hearts" in his eyes as he was protesting and crying. He protests very openly that he isn't ok with it, not just the standard Japanese ~yamate kudasai~ schtick.
And then it tries to cover that up through Flamenco dancing with characters we honestly barely care about until the uke forgives him purely with the puppydog eyes.
If you didn't care about Juunta's SA in the anime, you'll probably like this one. But if that scene understandably made you feel icky in Episode 1 - you'll probably not like this movie.
Just chalk it up to another toxic yaoi manga. One day we'll get a decent one, bois.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 21, 2022
Belle is one of the most visually stunning pieces of media that I've ever experienced that simultaneously blends 2D and 3D rendered art styles in a seamless, colorful way.
But that's, unfortunately, all it is.
We follow Suzu, a girl who suffers from anxiety from singing who finds she can confidently sing again in a cyber world anonymously under the avatar "Belle". There, she meets a famous "troll" called The Dragon, and finds she wants to know more about the beast. Simple, right?
Well, it should've been. Belle is a film that can't decide what it's doing, but was given a lot of money and a
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run time and told to make something.
And it spends the whole two hours trying to distract you with the pretty art for long enough that you forget what a train wreck the story is. And I think that's why it's done so well commerically - Because it does a fairly incredible job of distracting you, visually and sound-wise.
But there are glaring issues. Aside from a disembodied voice explaining the setting to you in the first 2 minutes, you're on your own when it comes to understanding this movie. There is no exposition, no rationale, no goal for the characters - no humanity. There's nothing likable about any of the characters, and the plot is so all over the place theme-wise that I didn't care about any of them.
There are random scenes where characters aren't explained, and every storyline is solved within 10 minutes of it occurring, or falls off a cliff never to be seen again for the rest of the movie.
It is honestly like watching a fever-dream. There's instant love that is never explained, there's a weird All-Might supervillain with a dox-canon, and a live-stream of child abuse, a childhood trauma flashback we see twice, and a boy who could give Sasuke a run for his emo crown. The main "plot" is everyone, including Suzu, trying to dox this Dragon because he looks so evil in-game, that he MUST be evil in the real world.
And it's not like I can even rewatch it and turn my brain off and just enjoy the mystery leading up to the doxing.
Because, spoiler alert, it's about a group of people trying to dox a child who's "ugly" in the game because his manifestation is so angry and upset about his father abusing him and his brother. It's literally just a kid that tries to chill online, people bullying him and hate him, and demand to know who he is.
And the ending is laughable. Someone says "I love you" and instead of saying, "I love you too" and at least giving us that, they reply "Thank you." Suzu stares down a 200lbs man, and he falls to the floor trembling before he runs away terrified. The children are still in Tokyo, now under police custody as legal orphans, I assume. Suzu's identity as Belle is revealed to over 5 billion people, and it's not even addressed. Instead, we get an overly long scene of them staring at a cloud.
This is seriously the most disappointing anime movie I've ever watched. I tried so hard to like it, but it is an absolute mess of a show.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Dec 29, 2021
I'm gonna say it - it's hardly a BL. It really doesn't feel like one, and I'm not sure if I should be angry at the queer-baiting, or disappointed it doesn't use the source material better.
I entered this anime with no ideas whatsoever. I was told it was a BL, I saw the trailers, and that was it. I thought it was a great concept and I was excited for a BL with an actual plot alongside their relationship.
First off, if you don't know the manga, you'll be pretty confused. There are scenes that are awkward and quiet, and overall the plot couldn't
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really keep me because I realized how little I actually cared for the characters.
I've heard there's lot in the manga, the live-action, and the novel that are way better than this and really explain things clearer. Which begs the question, why bother watching the anime if you need the rest to really enjoy it?
Maybe this rubbed me the wrong way since I didn't enjoy Psycho-pass or cop animes like that. But it didn't have the mystery or the narrative driving it forwards. Honestly, I couldn't even tell you what they did in most of the episodes of this show, and I'm so concerned by that fact - that I'm worrying if I've even watched it. That is how little really happens.
Maybe I'm being cruel, but it was the most disappointing show this season. Hopefully Sasaki to Miyano next month will be better.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Oct 9, 2021
~Review copy-pasted from Season 2 review~
"Master, a relationship with a person is like a kite. It won't fly high if you hold it too tightly. Loosen your grip too much and it falls, and when you pull strongly on a kite flying high in the sky, the string will snap and it will never come back."
I wish I could like this anime. I wish I could write nothing but good things about it, especially since it seems to have a cult following with fans. But I can't.
I'll start with the most glaring issue - This doesn't feel like Shounen Ai. This feels like queer baiting
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and people clutching at straws. This was produced in China, which you probably know has a strict censorship law over gay relationships being shown in the media. I believe this show only got away with what it did show because its producers were Tencent - a very well-known Chinese conglomerate. But even they had their limits.
Let me start by saying every kiss in this has a purpose. Much like Mahou Sensei Negima!? and Yamada-kun and the seven witches. Each kiss is an "exchange of energy" or forming a contract between the two characters. There is never any mention of love and each kiss has a clear purpose to it.
Which is fine. We're watching Shounen Ai, not smut, right? But that's where it falls apart. The characters are unlikeable and never really develop from their initial introductions in season 1, and therefore their emotions never really develop. They're never shown to love each other beyond this sould connection, and it's never even explained why Ki makes the connection with Keika in the first place. ~Sure~, we're given backstory and how they're fated, but Ki doesn't know this at the time he makes the pact and he never shares this information with Keika.
And sadly, there is no season 3, so we can expect to never know past the webtoon as this anime has been cancelled. If there was a season 3 - I might've spared this anime such a harsh review, but the entire plot was just all over the place. There was no pacing, scenes felt awkward, places that were supposed to make you cry just left me sighing and wishing I could fast forward to the resolutions. I couldn't connect with these characters or their emotions, and the emotions felt by most of them seemed flimsy at best - or had overarching, massive conversations and conflicts between them go unspoken or even straight up forgotten about and ignored.
So I couldn't even go "at least this is a good anime, even if there's not any real romance." Because there wasn't any real plot, and any plot was quickly abandoned for the new, shiny plot line they decided was better the next episode. In fact, 5 episodes in the second series were dedicated purely to a flashback between a character introduced 4 episodes into the season within these flashbacks. And the 5 episodes weren't even needed - it was two perspectives of the same events, and by the second run-through, I really didn't care anymore.
I think a portion of this criticism can also be attributed to the Japanese dub. They tried to match the lip animation to what the original Chinese dub said, but Chinese is incredibly fast compared to English and Japanese, and I feel like a lot of what was ~supposed~ to be said was lost in translation and lost it's impact. Instead, scenes flew by unnecessarily fast, littered with sentences and statements that made me go, "uhh, and?" where I'm sure they were supposed to shock you and add tension.
I was going to let this all slide, because "at least the art is good" but it's very sloppy in some frames and scenes, and for some reason, Keika's eyes are retconned and made purple in the second series instead of yellow. Which really doesn't help when Ki and Shouken also both have purple eyes, so every important character just looked the same in the flashback scenes. I wouldn't have cared if they'd even explained it. But there's zero explanation, and Keika's eyes are purple in flashback scenes, so the fan theory that they "changed when he got closer to his ancestor's power level" is redundant because he has them as a child.
I feel like this entire show was trying to do too many things at once, and spread itself too thin as a result. It prolongued the scenes it should've shortened and missed the big picture involving the things it should've prolongued instead.
I can't hate it. It has guys kissing in a CHINESE piece of media. That's nigh impossible to achieve ordinarily and I'm certain Tencent's production was the only reason this was given a second series. It's paving the way for more acceptance in a culture that desperately needs it. And it wasn't a horrific anime. There was semblance of a plot here, and it tried. It just didn't try very hard.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Oct 9, 2021
"Master, a relationship with a person is like a kite. It won't fly high if you hold it too tightly. Loosen your grip too much and it falls, and when you pull strongly on a kite flying high in the sky, the string will snap and it will never come back."
I wish I could like this anime. I wish I could write nothing but good things about it, especially since it seems to have a cult following with fans. But I can't.
I'll start with the most glaring issue - This doesn't feel like Shounen Ai. This feels like queer baiting and people clutching at straws.
...
This was produced in China, which you probably know has a strict censorship law over gay relationships being shown in the media. I believe this show only got away with what it did show because its producers were Tencent - a very well-known Chinese conglomerate. But even they had their limits.
Let me start by saying every kiss in this has a purpose. Much like Mahou Sensei Negima!? and Yamada-kun and the seven witches. Each kiss is an "exchange of energy" or forming a contract between the two characters. There is never any mention of love and each kiss has a clear purpose to it.
Which is fine. We're watching Shounen Ai, not smut, right? But that's where it falls apart. The characters are unlikeable and never really develop from their initial introductions in season 1, and therefore their emotions never really develop. They're never shown to love each other beyond this sould connection, and it's never even explained why Ki makes the connection with Keika in the first place. ~Sure~, we're given backstory and how they're fated, but Ki doesn't know this at the time he makes the pact and he never shares this information with Keika.
And sadly, there is no season 3, so we can expect to never know past the webtoon as this anime has been cancelled. If there was a season 3 - I might've spared this anime such a harsh review, but the entire plot was just all over the place. There was no pacing, scenes felt awkward, places that were supposed to make you cry just left me sighing and wishing I could fast forward to the resolutions. I couldn't connect with these characters or their emotions, and the emotions felt by most of them seemed flimsy at best - or had overarching, massive conversations and conflicts between them go unspoken or even straight up forgotten about and ignored.
So I couldn't even go "at least this is a good anime, even if there's not any real romance." Because there wasn't any real plot, and any plot was quickly abandoned for the new, shiny plot line they decided was better the next episode. In fact, 5 episodes in the second series were dedicated purely to a flashback between a character introduced 4 episodes into the season within these flashbacks. And the 5 episodes weren't even needed - it was two perspectives of the same events, and by the second run-through, I really didn't care anymore.
I think a portion of this criticism can also be attributed to the Japanese dub. They tried to match the lip animation to what the original Chinese dub said, but Chinese is incredibly fast compared to English and Japanese, and I feel like a lot of what was ~supposed~ to be said was lost in translation and lost it's impact. Instead, scenes flew by unnecessarily fast, littered with sentences and statements that made me go, "uhh, and?" where I'm sure they were supposed to shock you and add tension.
I was going to let this all slide, because "at least the art is good" but it's very sloppy in some frames and scenes, and for some reason, Keika's eyes are retconned and made purple in the second series instead of yellow. Which really doesn't help when Ki and Shouken also both have purple eyes, so every important character just looked the same in the flashback scenes. I wouldn't have cared if they'd even explained it. But there's zero explanation, and Keika's eyes are purple in flashback scenes, so the fan theory that they "changed when he got closer to his ancestor's power level" is redundant because he has them as a child.
I feel like this entire show was trying to do too many things at once, and spread itself too thin as a result. It prolongued the scenes it should've shortened and missed the big picture involving the things it should've prolongued instead.
I can't hate it. It has guys kissing in a CHINESE piece of media. That's nigh impossible to achieve ordinarily and I'm certain Tencent's production was the only reason this was given a second series. It's paving the way for more acceptance in a culture that desperately needs it. And it wasn't a horrific anime. There was semblance of a plot here, and it tried. It just didn't try very hard.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 26, 2021
"Sajou is a different genre from us." "But isn't that okay? Even if it's not the same, even if it looks different, isn't that interesting too? And it's not like the colour will change."
Doukyuusei is a light-hearted fun romp in the shounen ai genre. There's no serious drama, or over-arching plot - just two boys in love at school.
And it's fine. It wasn't revolutionary. It wasn't a story I'm going to tell to my grandchildren. But it was a nice waste of time for an hour.
The story revolves around Sajou, who is aware he's gay, and Kusakabe, who was straight and fell in
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love with Sajou the second he saw him singing.
The usual ensues - "I'm gay, so he's going to leave me for a girl. He's not really gay, it's just a time-waster for him and a bit of fun." angst, angst, and more angst as far as the eye can see from Sajou. He wasn't a remarkable character by any stretch.
The real reason I feel this anime is so worth the watch, and arguably what saves the entire thing is Kusakabe. In an environment surrounded by people who don't talk about that kind of thing - who are "normal" and know "how to act" - Kusakabe defies that. Oftentimes in the show, he'll throw away his pride and use his big boy words to convey his feelings, his anxiety, and his insecurities. I believe his transparency in his interactions with Sajou truly made this movie worth watching, and I feel it was a great creative move to place us in the mind of Kusakabe during the first season.
That being said, he's human. They all are. No character here is completely absolved from blame or hurting each other throughout the film. They all act like idiots. But at the same time - who hasn't hurt someone? You can't tell me you've never snapped back at someone during an argument because you were hurt, especially during your school days when you're full of hormones. These people are flawed - and this movie highlights just how ugly and fragile our emotions can be, especially when you're in love.
There was no non-consent, albeit there wasn't any sex for them to try and non-consent with, but the kisses were cute, and I enjoyed how Sajou began to open up about himself and trusted Kusakabe's feelings were real. So that was nice to see a BL anime treat the genre as such (even if they ~did~ add a weird "person almost kisses me and boyfriend saves him" scene. At the very least, thankfully Sajou looked like he was consenting to it.)
Kusakabe might not've been the same "genre" as Sajou, but their colours matched. They both loved each other and it was a fun little hour.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 25, 2021
Let me start off by saying this is one of my first reviews. I was going to go through all yaoi anime, and systematically rewatch them and offer a review whilst the show was fresh in my mind. And then I got to Love Stage's turn...
And I can't. I can't rewatch this. To make me rewatch this would be harder than physically pulling out my teeth. It is that bad.
To be fair to it, once upon a time I enjoyed this show - I THINK. And you never want to have to think about whether you did in fact enjoy something. But I binge-watched
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it and liked the setting of the entertainment industry. I had a fun time watching it. But looking back, that enjoyment was reminiscent of watching a train wreck you can't avert your gaze from.
I realise now that the reason I finished this anime was *fascination*, not enjoyment. I wanted to see if they could pull off a "good" yaoi anime with a more lighthearted plot than many of the dark, forced yaoi with horrid visuals and homophobia.
News flash: they couldn't.
To borrow my friend's review line: "Love Stage is a repugnant anime, but the perfect example of everything wrong with boys love anime. It is stereotypical, homophobic, offensive, and it romanticizes abusive relationships."
And, to be quite honest, Lala Lulu ~sucks~ and I would rather gouge my eyes out with a melon baller than have to rewatch any scene with that screeching harpy in it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Sep 25, 2021
As someone with a personality disorder who realises she hurts her husband the same way Ugetsu knows he hurts Kaji, this hits ~far~ too close to home.
I can't review this properly, nor will I give it the justice it deserves. But I just wanted to say "please watch it." It's important. Given the Movie has improved on everything I adored about the series, and it managed to do it in less time.
"But I want this pain to end just as much. But at the same time, I don't want all the things filling this room to disappear."
Approach this movie carefully and in
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a positive state of mind. It's broken me, and I need to go lay down for a while and cry.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Sep 25, 2021
"Yes, No, or Maybe?"
Do you consent to sex? "Yes, no, or maybe?" Did I like this anime? "Yes, no, or maybe."
I loved this anime. It was a lighthearted romp. It was fun, it was impactful. It made me feel a type of way. I got butterflies in my stomach from it. I loved the audio, the story, the concept, the resolution, the characters - everything. As a woman who struggles with a personality disorder, the concept of never being able to show the real "you" really caught me, and I really connected with it.
However, there was no real substance beyond "please like yourself". There's
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nothing that will stick with me for the rest of my life after leaving this anime, and if it wasn't for MyAnimeList, give it 4 years and I'll forget what it's even about.
It wasn't Given. It wasn't Strangers by the Sea. It wasn't Hitorijime My Hero.
But it WAS A Tyrant Falls in Love. It WAS Finder. It WAS Dakaichi.
Long-time fans of yaoi anime know exactly what I'm getting at. When it was all looking so good, there was very dubious consent in the last THREE MINUTES of the entire thing.
Seme wants it. Uke says no. Uke vocally resists ~a fair bit~ and the seme ~~~can't control himself~~~. Uke says "Stop". Seme doesn't.
It was hot. I'm only human. The sounds, the visuals, the animation, the music. The way the Seme says the Uke's name mid-sex. It's not something we get very often outside of straight-up hentai. It was never framed as "what is appearing on screen right now is bad".
Many animes refuse to even go "there" with gay relationships, giving no kisses - let alone sex. But this one did, and I have to give it that to its credit.
However, even IF the Uke was okay with it afterward (which he was, btw. He was happy to stay under the Seme and hug and talk about their feelings), WHAT was the POINT of that dubious consent?
Strip him down naked, he's happy with it, and then when the dude tries to put it in, the uke dislikes it? And the seme does NOTHING to reassure him? I don't know. I felt it was needless. I felt like the movie went, "this is what all yaoi anime does, so if I want to be one of the cool kids, I need to do it too." And it was just so unnecessary.
I enjoyed myself. Truly. The ending was satisfying, and despite the questionable sex making me feel a little icky, I had fun with this movie. I'm just so disappointed in it for adding literally a pointless dialogue that he wasn't okay with it. If they'd just made the Uke silent, or made him say "don't look" or something equally bashful, if that's what they were going for with the whole "yamete kudasai~~" nonsense - it would've been nice.
Instead, it's apparently sexier to want someone SO MUCH that you "lose all reason" and become a rapist in this genre.
Ahh well. At least it's fiction.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 25, 2021
"I was just wondering what makes us all so afraid - of two men or two women -being together? All the things we could fear in this world, and we pick love."
I don't say this lightly, but this anime was a diamond in the rough. I went in not expecting much, and I was pleasantly surprised by it.
I will mention now; I watched the English dub, and I have read the manga (which I reread a day before watching this). You do not have to read the manga to understand this, and instead of fleshing out plot arcs they used in the manga, they
...
simply omitted them. So if you want more of these two, I recommend the manga. It missed stuff, but this still felt complete.
The voice actors of Yuri Katsuki from Yuri on Ice and Mikaela Hyakuya from Seraph of the End feature as the two main characters, which is the dream for people who wished those shows gave a little more. The voice acting for the dub was really well done, albeit the beginning had a few lines that looked very hard to get into the short amount of time for each speaking animation, so it felt a little awkward until about 20 minutes in.
Umibe no Etranger, as other reviews have said, does something most yaoi anime can only dare to dream of doing. It doesn't fetishize gays, yet has a sex scene that is handled well. This story was never about their relationship - or the sex and kisses between them - it is instead a journey of how these two people met and changed each other, for the better, by encouraging each other and showing that their worlds were not as lonely as they first appeared.
Mio struggles with the death of his mother, and the lonelliness that surrounded him after her passing. He felt bitter and angry that the people around him merely pitied him. Shun very quickly breaks down these barriers and fights against his own fears to prove to Mio that not everyone pitied him, approaching him with a more selfish and basic reason.
Shun, on the other hand, is the main road bump and plot point of this film. His family disowned him after he backed out of a marriage with his childhood friend, who knew Shun was gay, and Shun now suffers trauma and panic attacks from the time. His childhood friend, throughout their childhood and despite her feelings for him, tried her best to encourage him to tell his family - to finally live in his own skin happily without feeling shame. Sadly, this doesn't begin to happen until he meets Mio, whom he is enchanted by. Despite his best efforts, he is drawn to Mio and begins to reveal himself.
The story didn't need a grand plot in order to create drama and interest - it was a battle against the character's flawed misconceptions about their life and whether they deserved happiness.
The artwork was beautiful (don't watch it when you're hungry lol). The sounds were glorious and the scenes with Mio's mother peppered between really worked well. The rain scene on the mainland was a visual feast, and I thoroughly enjoyed all the character designs and expressions throughout.
Finally, for the meat of what brings people generally to "yaoi" anime. Yes, there was sex. It was tastefully done - it wasn't rape, it wasn't smut with uncensored scenes, it was consensual, and it wasn't simply a "pan-out" and ~~imagine~~ they did it. They even spoke about preparing themselves, and Mio telling Shun to let him know the second it hurt him really just added to my love of this show. It didn't detract from the story, and in fact, added to it in a way I didn't expect to see.
It was intimacy, pure and simple. It was two people making love because they wanted to show the other how much they loved each other. And the scene portrayed that love in every touch.
So yeah. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I'm shocked more people haven't watched it and that it's so criminally underrated. It is a crime to sleep on this movie. Don't put it off.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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