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Jan 3, 2025
Ooi! Tonbo, 2nd Course – Now this is what I call competitive golf.
I think it’s safe to say that we haven’t got as much AniManga content that speaks to the inner sport in us, especially when you see that niche sports like golf hasn’t nearly surfaced as much. From Bandai Namco’s series of Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story, to the upcoming Sorairo Utility for the Winter 2025 season, we need to look back at how much of a particular series, that a decent following in Japan has, that literally no one outside of the Land of the Rising Sun has ever seen before. Of course,
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I’m talking about mangaka Ken Kawasaki’s Ooi! Tonbo, the massive juggernaut of a 50+ volume series that already has the set-up prequel back in Spring earlier this year.
With Season 2, Tonbo growing up, both out of her comfort zone and into the world of professional golf, with the former pro golfer of Kazuyoshi “IgaIga” Igarashi to expand her horizons out of Tokara in the Toshima Islands into Kumamoto, this is only but the starting point for Tonbo to manage more than just her trusty 3-Iron club and hand-me-downs from other people whom they deem will find much usage out of the growing spectacularism of the girl who can find shots by instinct, though much of it is on the basis of just having fun, competition or otherwise. And the biggest challenge moving out of her home, is to get her affiliated with coaches that could help train her upstage herself in the world of professional golf, as is the case with one that Igarashi knows: Hajime Udo. The long line of succession golf players who’ve achieved various accolades of their own, comes with yet another rising star: Hinoki Otowa, whose family is the epitome of your typical Asian family where achievements must start from young and cultivate from there.
Aside from Tsubura Adaniya (which was seen competing against Tonbo in Season 1) being yet another prestigious winner of her own regard, there’s the older golfer of the 4 girls: Ema Kurisu, also another accolade winner, but with a condition that strikes at the very heart of what she loves to do, that would decide their success going into the first tournament arc of the series: the Kyushu Women’s Open. All the golfers, the 4 standout girls included, who are winners of various golfing tournaments (except Tonbo), vy for one more glory to add to their growing career list, and will test each of their strengths, weaknesses, and abilities to foreshadow and foresee how the course dynamics will go, with practice that makes perfect. And that shows thoroughly in Season 2, where the set-up of the decent Season 1 pays off to become a show that’s just as enjoyable as it is thrilling to see what Tonbo comes up with her trusty unorthodox methods of golfing that keeps on surprising even the heavyweights going into the competition.
Otherwise, everything I’ve said about Season 1 can be applied here, from OLM’s minimalist animation to the OST, which has since been an improvement, though a few tidbits here and there. The theme songs, again from both Sacra e sole and Tokyo Groove Jyoshi, on the other hand, is a significant downgrade compared to the prequel.
If you’ve been pandering on the side to want to try out Ooi! Tonbo, now’s the perfect time to do so. Season 1 may be a hard sell, but Season 2 creates the perfect foil for a show that gets better progressively with time.
This could easily be a series worth the long run with the humongous amount of content from the now-54 volumes of the manga, though I would just bet to see more whenever future seasons of the show would drop to continue this epic journey of a girl who doesn’t play by the standard but yet excels with her very best.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 28, 2024
Whisper Me a Love Song - What was supposed to be a wonderful adaptation, got absolutely ripped to shreds by haphazard production.
You know the drill: hyped series tend to get the adaptations that were supposed to be expected from, and if there's anything to learn from the AniManga industry in the post-COVID era, is that the industry itself will NEVER learn from their mistakes trying to pump more quantity than quality just to satisate their audiences, on top of having to spend and lose revenue over what is commonly sighted as "production delays". Case in point, one of the highly revered Yuri a.k.a Girls' Love
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series of all time, mangaka Eku Takeshima's Sasayaku You ni Koi wo Utau a.k.a Whisper Me a Love Song, whose reputation in Japan, is said to be comparable towards mangaka Nio Nakatani's Yagate Kimi ni Naru a.k.a Bloom into You, it's just that popular.
The anime, however, is a well-known case of production hell that is worthy of a case study on its own.
I know this is rather old, but picture this with me: imagine series like Winter 2017's Fuuka and Spring 2017's Fukumenkei Noise a.k.a Anonymous Noise, the stereotypical love polygon that's the staple of all rom-coms in the music theme, but make it Yuri instead. This is what you get with this series, which births your typical romantic love out of music from characters that just admire each other, to then only be seen as a one-sided "misunderstanding" that led to romance being an objective to be achieved from both sides so that their love for each other remains ethereal, pure, and lovely. The 1st Year high school student of Himari Kino having "fallen" in love with her Senpai of 3rd Year Yori Asanagi being the lead vocalist and guitarist for their SSGIRLS band, it's all based on her singing abilities that she admires, but having never actually fallen in love before, she misinterprets Yori's singing from a form of admiration, to one of being romantic. Likewise, Yori also being in the same shoes as Himari, also misunderstands her approach as one of love and not admiration, but this vowed her heart more than ever to want to one day have Himari wholly as her partner for life and get her to reciprocate her true feelings in time. This is honestly a romantic love so grounded in both maturity and reality that both girls give each other space to explore their options and tap into the romance if ever required, asking each other's opinions and embracing both their strengths and weaknesses, no questions asked (or rather, the appropriate ones), and so on.
Every romance should desire to be like Himari and Yori's, and so will the heavy drama be accompanying it, which is a story of lies, betrayal, and the love polygon drama that comes along for the ride, making this the rather complicated mess between all relevant characters. The SSGIRLS band, consisting of Yori herself, bassist Aki Mizuguchi, drummer Mari Tsutsui, and keyboardist Kaori Tachibana, the 4 girls are especially outgoing and love to hang out with one another, for playing music is their passion, and nothing else (besides the obvious of Yori wanting to embrace Himari as much as she can). As with any 1st Year joining a club (which is mandatory), Himari is accompanied by the Culinary Research Club that hosts its president of 2nd Year Momoka Satomiya, and the ghost member of Shiho Izumi, though things within the club are as typical as its name applies. But the drama that affects everyone, and most especially that will rock both Himari's and Yori's romantic bubble, is yet another band that is the result of a feud gone wrong: Laureley, consisting of the two girls in Himari's club, the 3rd Year drummer Hajime Amasawa (whom also has a tragic drama of her own), whom they want to best against SSGIRLS from the long-standing rivalry of its lead person of Yori or Shiho. If you're the type to love endless soap operas, this show has it all — from hatred and jealousy to pure romance as sidelined third parties. The drama in this series absolutely does NOT relent on emotions that are just for show but true emotions that test the vulnerabilities of the heart matter.
Sadly, its production is just one of the saddest stories of tragic misfires leading to animation so broken that slips and cracks begin to start showing at the very beginning of the series. Despite both studios being of one parent company, both the main studio of Yokohama Animation Lab and sister studio Cloud Hearts, for some reason, can't quite maintain consistent production values for the show. The endless and egregious complaints being summed that up of a PowerPoint slide show, it's very damning for a studio (let alone 2 of the same company) to have such deviances early on, leading to the delay until now (that is still not an acceptable late Xmas present or anything). To have a director step down due to health issues and let another one take over, the situation has already gone from bad to worse, horrible even. The finality of Cloud Hearts apparently "closing" its doors just after this high-profile fiasco, the AniManga industry once again takes a massive L for instances like these.
The music is front and center for a series like this, and the anime delivered to an extent. I'm actually OK with SSGIRLS's OP, it's not the best for indie projects like this, but it's serviceable at best. What gets me more is the diversity of the ED songs, which actually plays a more pivotal role defining the drama stages of the series' nature according to where it is.
All in all, it's sad that such a famed series like Sasayaku You ni Koi wo Utau a.k.a Whisper Me a Love Song get the anime adaptation that is the very literate definition of "go read the manga". What a shame that the anime was literally in shambles even before it was a "go" at the green light, much less butchering a revered series that has Eku Takeshima's art drawn so beautifully, reduced to mere drab art by anime standards, so much so that you can't really call this "anime" to begin with.
Just go read the manga, for real. The anime is NOT worth your time, unless you can dare to stomach horrible animation with a compelling story to tell.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Dec 28, 2024
Demon Lord 2099 — Psycho-Pass meets Hataraku! Maou-sama, and it's legitimately good, interesting even.
I have a legitimate question to discuss here: why don't people take the less-traveled road and do something that's worth the interest to talk about? This has been my gripe with consuming AniManga within the post-COVID era (in which series' delays (or even hiatuses) are STILL the norm): the number of authors writing stuff of interest has been nothing more than copy-pasting aesthetics of one another; you can't help but see predictability at every corner. This is especially so if the series is marketed in the Isekai genre, because good shows are
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far and few in between, and for the case of one show in particular, it is so interesting that I just can't help but be mesmerized at how it's being done here. And that, my friends, is novelist Daigo Murasaki's Maou 2099 a.k.a Demon Lord 2099, the newest and freshest take on the reverse Isekai trope to come out of the anime spectrum.
Think of your usual fantasy good vs. evil trope, but take the premise up a notch by bringing the traditional to the modern. This is the setting of the magical world of Alneath, where the battle of justice over evildom takes precedent through its Hero Gram defeating the villainous Demon Lord Veltol Velvet Velsvalt. But fast forward 500 years, with the "Fantasion" catastrophe merging the old fantasy world with the new modern industrial Earth to bring about change that's all for the better, it becomes a place where fantasy meets sci-fi cyberpunk, magic meets engineering, and wars are quelled to make way for peace between the old Alneath and the new Earth. With the help of a revival from a close friend, Veltol now finds himself being the same villainous Demon Lord but in a place where everything is foreign to him and must now navigate what to do to achieve what he's been called to do: achieve world domination...in the year 2099.
On paper, I think that Daigo Murasaki coming up with this concept is pure genius to sideswipe the audience about the usual Demon Lord and fantasy tropes to give a different take on the matter, an "edgy" one if you will (that thankfully doesn't go full-on edge). This may be something that has been attempted before in different mediums, but as is for the AniManga industry, this is brand new and is an area never yet experimented with, so this already does hold more interest and should have your time investment well worth it (which it did for me), even though sometimes it falls back to standard tropes that thankfully don't take the immersiveness out of the entire series.
For once, I truly vibe with a Demon Lord of Veltol's size. Veltol Velvet Velsvalt's character is so similar to Overlord's Ainz Ooal Gown, where he exercises his duty according to the situations and circumstances, knowing when and how to make the right calls (even though that puts his ego on the front out of his usual Lord personality), plus with his powers unexperimented in the new modern space and acknowledging that he has work to do not being the OP in the house, that IS the mark of great character writing to know that Veltol is not just all bark and bite as a Demon Lord who survived countless centuries of experience. Even the hero Gram also makes it into the modern world, but he's a disheveled person of his former self, being in a world where there's no need for heroes, just lazing with his Excalibur (well, it's not exactly called that) sword and passing every day with bats of eyes from citizens of the cyberpunk city (though he soon finds purpose of being one so as not to wane his experience from defeating Veltol all those years ago).
As expected, the one who revived him, Machina Soleige, one of the Six Dark Peers of Veltol's trusted followers, gets him back on track within the new world and its developments to do the same he's always been... and also fall in love with him all the same? Yes, that's what you get for being the Demon Lord's most loyal follower, but also one of the remaining surviving ones due to the infamy of their own brethren, now being the tour de force of the industrial age: Marcus, leading a company on his own that fuels the city he's leading to extreme lengths of modernization through technology for the masses with a heinous plan that's just as ambitious as Veltol's did during their time. Also, I don't know why, but his secretary Kinohara just loves to splice some Engrish over normal Japanese dialogue just to show her range and boost her confidence that way, that's so weird. But the one good fact is that Machina's friend is the Super Girl Hacker Takahashi, who is born after the Fantasion, and despite being the typical high-school-looking girl as she is, she's quite the talent for her aether hacking that provides a way for Veltol in rather sticky situations.
From the world-building to the characters, everything just feels fresh to the point that despite its predictability, there is a perchance of twists that gives the series some substance, and it really shows. Thus, it answers the question of what if authors were able to experiment with genres that don't quite fit together, but they do for some reason, and they do it smartly.
It's safe to say that within the faults of J.C.Staff being chosen to do multiple projects within a single season, some have faltered (like DanMachi's remainder for Season 5), brutally survived from poor production (like Yarinaoshi Reijou wa Ryuutei Heika wo Kouryakuchuu a.k.a The Do-Over Damsel Conquers The Dragon Emperor), are "special" in their own ways (like Mahoutsukai ni Narenakatta Onnanoko no Hanashi. a.k.a The Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians), and the most obvious case, have the budget to do so. The 7th of 9 shows for the Summer/Fall 2024 season, and clearly the best-budgeted series of the lot (thanks to the sweet, sweet Aniplex BIG bags money), the studio really has a lot of space to work on delivering scenes that truly matter. For the most part, the anime delivered, albeit with the typical studio production sacrifices that Demi-chan wa Kataritai a.k.a Interviews With Monster Girls director Ryo Ando and his staff team have to make, especially for the director that hasn't had a major directorial work since the Winter 2017 show, only working as both storyboarder and episode director for shows in and out. To say that this is a return to form for Ryo Ando would be a pipedream; it's clear that he's still got it despite being out of the chair for years, and it would be a gross understatement to say that he's still working on it, which I would be down to see what he does next.
The OST is good, as expected from Dr. Stone music composer Tatsuya Kato, which gives a level of impressions to bring the audience into the cyberpunk aesthetic of the show, which, this being under his wheelhouse, is just great to experience. I'll admit that I was in the wrong to see both Shiyui's OP and sekai's ED as decent songs, but they proved me wrong the more I listen to them, and it's just so perfect for a show like this, with great visuals as a backup to hammer in the sci-fi element.
Despite the anime only covering 2 out of the 5 LN volumes present (since the series is brand new that started in January 2021), Maou 2099 a.k.a Demon Lord 2099 has EVERY right to excel with its potential, and I believe that we're just only getting started to see what the series could achieve with so much more. If this show does get a Season 2, I'll be down regardless, but for the anime as it is now, it's honestly one of the best hidden gem shows of the Fall 2024 season that, while it garners the audience numbers (on MAL), more people should give this a chance, because it deserves every bit of attention for being innovative at the very least.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 25, 2024
Sengoku Youko: Thousandfold Chaos Arc - A resounding finish following its prequel part, that still certifies itself as a Satoshi Mizukami original.
There has never been a quote so true to an extent like "It's not how you start that's important, but how you finish." And for the second part of the 3-cour treatment, that is the adaptation of the famed mangaka's weakest work, Sengoku Youko, covering the Senma Konton-hen a.k.a Thousandfold Chaos Arc. And I have to say that the series, now in its full 35-episode count (split 13 + 22), is a lot better than I remember, putting everything as a whole, that with
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the complete adaptation of the manga in this year (of 2024) alone, is a showing on why Satoshi Mizukami is still one of the most respected mangakas of his heyday and how White Fox is trying to expand outside of its usual Re:Zero quality as a studio that used to and actually can do much more than said juggernaut series.
Following up with the events from Winter's Part 1: the Yonaoshi Kyodai-hen a.k.a Siblings for World Reformation Arc (covering the first 6 volumes of the manga), where the siblings of human Jinka Yamato and Youko Tama were separated after the long-standing feud against the katawara-hunting monk group that is Yazen's Dangaisyuu, this inevitably caused a rift in the world to worsen the relationship between the katawara and humanity, leading to the exile of the Thousand-Tailed Youko as Jinka's powers go horribly out of control. And the unlikely source of the enemy being the front and centre for Part 2: the Senma Konton-hen a.k.a Thousandfold Chaos Arc (covering the remainder of Volumes 7 to 17 of the manga), with Jinun's son of Senya taking the MC reins alongside the now demotivated Shinsuke just drowning in liquor after the intensity of the conflict that ultimately caused the siblings to separate and leaving him with nowhere to go; the world dynamics ever shifting into a new realm of tales with the thousand katawara within the young boy's body.
Like Jinka, Senya must learn how to better control his Thousandfold Menagerie, and that's where Shinsuke, after goofing off for the timeskip of 8 years since the incident, reluctantly agrees to help him find his footing and grow strong, just like the roots that he came from the hands of Dangaisyuu with the Four Beasts of Yazen, Douren, and his own biological father of Jinun. The intensity of Part 2's arc is fundamental to Senya, as he gets to know the people that would help shape his life, for better or for worse: the death of a girl's father that she could not protect from the inadvertent damage from katawara going loose; a group of people who had toyed with fate to determine their survivability; as well as the people that were once his enemies/rivals, now fighting alongside him to settle the long dispute between katawara and humanity that would shape the future of their world. It's one hell of a long and tough journey for Senya and the girl of Tsukiko growing up alongside him, as well as Shinsuke being a mentor after all the training that he had with Tama and Jinka, now tested because of the cowardice he had back in Part 1, to reaffirm his conviction in Part 2 that he will not run away from the fear that has amassed every fibre of his being when he first started tagging alongside the siblings. This is Satoshi Mizukami at his finest, where each and every character does not get wasted for character development and otherwise, and I'm glad that despite coming out later than Hoshi no Samidare a.k.a Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, Sengoku Youko still retains his early 2000s-era Shonen writing that while isn't unique by today's standards, still manages to carve its own identity that's wholly Mizukami-certified.
For debut director Masahiro Aizawa and studio White Fox, the anime itself is a rather huge undertaking since essentially the entire series is produced and wrapped up all in 2024 alone. This meant that White Fox inevitably producing Re:Zero Season 3 would be just a matter of time to come (which it did this season, to eat up valuable resources), and that production for this show would have to be held back just so its A-team could work on delivering Tappei Nagatsuki's Isekai masterpiece of an adaptation. Even though production for this show did get affected at times with low-budget animation, it still delivers a consistent experience that never takes the action away from its busy premise. And what can I really say, then to be impressed that White Fox could actually handle a Shonen of this magnitude.
On the music forefront, Evan Call's music is still really good, and amps the show where it's needed. But sadly, where I find that Part 1's OST is great, Part 2's OST with Stereo Dive Foundation's OP, as well as both Senya's VA Hiroki Nanami and Rainy's EDs, were obtusely (but intentionally) held back since this part serves as the climax of the series to go out with a bang. Decent songs that are not bad but not great either.
All in all, I'm still thankful that Sengoku Youko remains as Satoshi Mizukami's standard when it comes to the anime side of adaptations, that both Planet With and (especially) Hoshi no Samidare a.k.a Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer severely needed to showcase their strengths when production hampered the experience. Though not perfect, the series itself is a show that has a lot of teachings going for it, and it's a lesson about people, their journeys, and where fate takes them to, cultivating in gains and losses that result in the remembrance of the path they take to get to where they want to be.
I have but only one final question: So, when is Spirit Circle's anime coming? That is the finest masterpiece of works when it comes to Satoshi Mizukami, and I'm eager to see how that would turn out in due time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 25, 2024
The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor - Déjà vu, I've just been in this place before...if you know what I mean, yeah?
Not gonna lie, I'm starting to think that we may have overstretched ourselves thinking that authors know it best, when it comes to their work that gets the media literacy that makes us look like fools. And while this approach for alternatives sounds good for the most, this can backfire almost naturally if they are conscious (semi or otherwise) about what stories are on the table that can help flesh out said work and such. Furthermore, what feels like a double whammy of
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works that just don't compare to the competition, novelist Sarasa Nagase is back once again with yet another anime adaptation of her works, that's sadly bested by others who did the exact same approach, but better in every way.
In the Isekai Villainess time travel trope, for every iteration of Fall 2022's Akuyaku Reijou nanode Last Boss wo Kattemimashita a.k.a I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss, there's Touko Amekawa's showing of Loop 7-kaime a.k.a 7th Time Loop, from Winter this year being the better of the two. And with the progenitor show of Spring 2023's Kanojo ga Koushaku-tei ni Itta Riyuu a.k.a Why Raeliana Ended up at the Duke's Mansion, comes the contrast with this season's Yarinaoshi Reijou wa Ryuutei Heika wo Kouryakuchuu a.k.a The Do-Over Damsel Conquers The Dragon Emperor, a show that while isn't groundbreaking by any standard, amplifies the tropes so hard that it ends up questioning the plot itself if it's ever worth a restart for a second chance at life.
You know the drill: the heroine, betrothed to a loved one (even by political standards), only to have her betrayed by the one she loves for a crime that she did not commit, and the perchance of time travel back to the starting triggering point to rewrite history once again and improve her life from there on out. And honestly, who wouldn't want to rewrite something bad and replace it with something good? This is the question you should ask the MC of 16-year-old Jill Cervel, who was born a noble family's daughter, wed to the prince of her kingdom, Prince Gerard of the Kratos Kingdom, only to be used as a pawn for his servitude, which Jill eventually died by his very hands. Instead, turn back 6 years in time to her 10-year-old self when the political marriage was brought up between her and Gerard, only to have her choose a different person than her willing to marry the one that betrayed her very existence. And that person is Emperor Hadis Teos Rave of the Rave imperial family of dragons, her sworn enemy in her past life...and the love interest of her new life?
I know what you're thinking at this point: despite the anime being very forward with its romantic drama life, having Jill and Hadis be the couple in an age-gap romance is quite the uncanny thing in and of itself. Depending on your outlook, this is easily the make-or-break moment of the series if you're thinking that Hadis has all the power to control a young girl the likes of Jill, who is in actual fact the Dragon Consort with powers to back her up, but sealed because of the potential danger she could bring that fundamentally shakes the very core of the dynamic between humans and dragons. As if Hadis has it worse than Jill, him being the Dragon Emperor that comes from a family line of dragons is one that's just your standard political family drama shtick of lies and betrayal that's the conviction to the belief/disbelief of an endless family drama that is the result of countless wars against factions in the never-ending "I would not acknowledge him/her as part of the family bloodline" subterfuge that drags outsiders towards what should only be the matter of the imperial family and its many noble half-siblings, like brother Prince Risteard and sister Princess Elentzia.
Despite all of the negative connotations going against Jill and Hadis (yes, even the age-gap romance aside), the young girl with her 16-year-old mentality intact alongside the adult male who may be a beast on the outside but a real, childish softie on the inside, these two, I would say, are a match made in Heaven. Jill being tempted by the inner child of Hadis, so much so that he cooks and bakes food for a living for his new bride, I can't think of a couple that's just so perfectly made for each other, against all odds of both the important and not-so-important beleaguering arguments, cementing this rather unkempt romantic bond. This is the cherry on top, of a story where the pacing is atrocious at best, with key scenes supposed to connect together, but then constantly throwing the bones of comedy shtick all around that it feels jarring at best. But then (again), what's a story to nitpick about when it's being so predictable, and yet, it can interject with Chibi scenes in-between for some tongue-in-cheek comedy that while sometimes doesn't feel appropriate, provides a bit of relief? In my own opinion, stuff like this is what's missing in the AniManga industry nowadays, that we have gotten too serious to the point that we forget to have fun. At least they have the dragon God of Rave keeping them company both in the good and bad times, as well as being the front audience in Jill and Hadis's budding relationship to pure tongue-in-cheek mockery, as a close friend and confidante. And alongside Jill, would be her servants of Zeke and Camilla being trusting of her very origins to the point of aligning their loyalty towards her.
The Summer/Fall 2024 season has been nothing but a train wreck for J.C.Staff, having to helm quite a lot of anime projects for the second half of the year, and with this show being the 6th out of 9 shows under the studio's belt for the same period, it's by far one of the worst-produced shows of this season. You can literally see production cuts everywhere that the animation lags behind the intended action that the anime is supposed to bring, but can only be shown by the puny levels of effort. Sure, the production need not to be bombastic for a story this size, but you won't find consistency here, not at the very least hopeful, and to blame director Kentarou Suzuki for his past low-ball efforts on Summer 2018's Satsuriku no Tenshi a.k.a Angels of Death and the much maligned adaptation of Winter-Spring 2022's Baraou no Souretsu a.k.a Requiem of the Rose King, I'd be with you on the blame game, as he's not a good director at all who doesn't quite understand how to direct anime in general. With this show being his latest example of a blunder that's supposed to extract the goodness of the source material, he instead let his efforts dumb down a decent-to-good show of this calibre, and true to honesty, this show is potential to excel but is wiped off hands clean to bear the ugly scars of its adaptation.
The OST is somewhat decent, though I'd be frank to say that I really never noticed anything tingling to my ears at all times. It's just there for show, and nothing more. At least both sajou no hana's OP and HaNaTan's ED is good, and quite enjoyable to listen to.
As Bob Fosse puts it: "Life is just a bowl of cherries. Don’t take it seriously; it’s mysterious, so live and laugh and laugh at love, love a laugh, laugh and love.” The icing on the cake, like Sarasa Nagase's prior series, is learning how to have fun in the face of tragedy, and this quote sums up Yarinaoshi Reijou wa Ryuutei Heika wo Kouryakuchuu a.k.a The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor, quite well. The political turmoil being the focal centre stage of the conflict, where it rests an unlikely couple being survivors of their own circumstances, budding an uncomfortable love so wholly and divine that, honestly, it more than makes up for the faults that this show has to invoke and poke some fun.
Even if you don't see the show the same way as I did, it really depends on you if age-gap romances are your thing, and that's the objective when it's all said and done.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 24, 2024
Tasuketsu: Fate of the Majority - A high-stakes, psychological death game so bad that you'll want to reach out for the "Exit Game" button on your end that has an escape latch.
In the entirety of the AniManga industry, the one genre that it seems to have a tough nut to crack, is the Death Game premise, and seemingly for good reason. You got to have a lot of ingenuity to write a premise that's believable to have a high-risk, high-reward return, alongside characters that would constantly lie and betray, for and against their own kin, just to make ends meet for a victory so sweet
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that lands the remaining one standing: the Survivor, to Outwit, Outplay, and Outlast the competition.
One fine example of this is Spring 2022's Tomodachi Game, which, despite critics from all sides, is still a quality work in and of itself. But for mangaka Taiga Miyakawa's long-running series of Tasuketsu: Fate of the Majority? With just 6 volumes since September 2013, and the series' 4th part just getting started just in December last year, this is a work that, despite being ranked heavily justifiable on AnimeJapan's "Most Wanted Anime Adaptation" back in 2019 (to then fall 5 positions below the following year) based on the popularity of the WN (Web novel), all of these accolades are NOTHING compared to the abstract horribleness that is the anime adaptation being a slob and a slog to sit through all 24 episodes of BS nonsense...that made sense, be it that if you can get what's going on.
The anime itself works like your typical death game scenario, only except that this is more of a strategy puzzle game of wits and brains of a thriller mystery, where its question is the straightforwardness of its game: See the question, answer Yes or No, and the majority dies. But thankfully, just like with any RPG of the sort, it's a collectathon of skills called Rights that just about anyone could weave when integrated together with its user and be used when danger's in the way. But above all, each person has a unique Prime Right that is wholly the individual's alone, and can't be stolen from anyone, unless you're the Emperor that controls this game just before midnight strikes to emit questions daily and cut down the dead weight. Pretty simple, right?
Unfortunately, this is where the anime falters from the manga's writing, which you can think of as laid out in its sequential parts/arcs, that it takes the concept and runs along with it, while leaving the audience with barely any knowledge of what's going on, and forced to follow where the non-stop plot goes until it has time to breathe and explain what just happened back then. To add to the insanity, remember what I said about each person having a Prime Right? It has to be under the correct Attribute in order for the power to be used at its best, which, for the life of me, this is just way too much information just to remember which character has the specific power, that due to the progression of the plot, things could change here and there, that it becomes a whole tangled mess of a webbing.
Simply put, this series has an infodump with lots of characters that, despite inching out who are the real ones in charge (like Saneatsu Narita and Saaya Fujishiro in Part 1, to Raion Ouno leading Tojuro Yagihashi in Part 2), this Tasuketsu death game (if you could even call it that) just seems like an ordinary death game that's beatable under the right conditions, spawned from the cusps of those leading the charge for their own nefarious plans (that doesn't have logic either). The story at the start will put people off, and the high risk of that turning into high rewards at the end, I can confidently say that it's worth the run, though it's up to you to try treading through Part 1's rather mediocre run, to get to Part 2's exhilarating run.
Satelight certainly has seen better days, but over the last 5 years or so, it's beginning to look like the studio has been slowly downgrading into 3rd-rate status with bad animation and lifeless production values that just are like ravens already culling to fly away from whence they're from. For a studio whose Golden Era had been long past pre-Covid, this is the sad deterioration for a studio that is already looking at the finish line long before it started its hellhole down the production pipeline. Getting director Tatsuo Sato for the job, pretty much like its own production on Helck just last Summer, just hampers the success that both series could've had in its 2-cour, 6-month-long run.
The music is wholly forgettable, easily skippable even. Neither the OST nor the 2 sets of theme songs were that good to begin with, and I just find myself easily skipping over them like the plague they are.
In the end, what even is the purpose of this dreaded, lifeless adaptation that seems to drag on for weeks and months on end, for content that will easily disengage just about the equivalance of a TikTok person of small brainsize and have pursuers like myself hoping that the risk to stick with it will pay off with its rewards (which it did)?
Ultimately, the truth of the matter is this: Tasuketsu: Fate of the Majority, is a show that you'd be best to stay far away from if you're looking for a death game to satiate the investment of finite time. While I'd reckon that this is just not it, maybe a try would suffice...?
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 24, 2024
I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History - Yeah, you go girl, you're carved in history for trying to be the interesting twist in the usual Otome Game villainess market, though it's in the eyes of the beholder if it's any good.
You know the saying: when you see a trope, you'll never be able to look away from it. And this is pretty much true for the new Isekai reincarnation trope that is the Villainess sub-genre, which, since the debut of Spring 2020's Otome Game no Hametsu Flag a.k.a My Next Life as a Villainess, has been spawning countless series like it, bringing
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their own twists to differentiate in the same saturated market where its parent genre came from. And just like the market that it opens the can of worms with one-note authors thinking that they have something unique on their plate, that is ultimately down to the audience to see things as they do fit. Case in point, novelist Izumi Okido and said series of Rekishi ni Nokoru Akujo ni Naru zo a.k.a I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History, a series that, while it doesn't bring anything new to the table of ever-present Villainess tropes, presents a story plot that, in my opinion, is a good contrast to HameFura that it's still as enjoyable on its own.
The best way to describe the anime is in the form of the TL;DR: it may be nothing new with recycled/repeated tropes, but what it chooses to do with everything else is worth its own platter that's worth taking a look into. And this premise starts with MC Alicia Williams, the self-proclaimed Villainess expert who was reborn from a girl playing the Otome Game where she comes from and adores her character to an endless degree, so much so that she got Thanos-snapped into the game as the titular character herself. And with the girl finally weaving her soul into said character, she can finally live her dreams, becoming the villainess that she always has wanted to be, to tackle the game's events, and make it flow just as smoothly as she is plowing through its sequences to get to her good ending.
This is pretty much a nonproblem...until the arrival of the good Saint side that's represented by Liz Cather, the game's heroine. And this is where I feel the series stands out with its depiction of realism in the face of idealism and its rather deep philosophical discussion into the heart of the matters involved. You see, Liz may be the sweet-natured girl who should be the idol of the people; however, it's her rosy mindset and naively narrow worldview, believing that everything can be solved just by "having faith." The girl is thinking that she's Mother Mary, spreading her goodwill in good faith to everyone and letting matters settle on their own with no casualties at the end of it all. This is the exact depiction of HameFura's MC of Katarina Klaes, who has the popularity but doesn't have the heart and brains to know what the hell she's doing to coerce everyone to her side by hook or by crook, inevitably forcing Alicia, at the request of the King, to help her grow outside of her comfort zone, but swapping the tide to becoming the heroine instead while Liz is the evil Saint to force people around them to pick sides in this rather epic battle of wits and valour.
This, in turn, helps Alicia develop her villainess character of note, thanks to Liz's ardent followers needlessly picking fights for everyone to pick a side they lean towards, not realizing that the manipulation exists at the very source of it all. Furthermore, Alicia being a commoner of note (again) proves that the Villainess is quite the softie in her heart, being the attention of the Prince of the Kingdom, Duke Seeker...which, come to think of it, she would be a lot like Katarina's character (when it comes to the love interest(s) at the very least), with her being followed and pursued by Duke after he wears off Liz's curse. And I have to say that for a villainess who doesn't get any more love than she thinks she does trying to play the perfect villain character (aside from Akuyaku Reijou Level 99 a.k.a Villainess Level 99's MC Yumiella Dolkness), it's very clear where Alicia's priorities are, though the edge in her villainy side does give her the much-needed villainess energy that whatever she's doing, it's all for said trope's greatness and nothing else. I respect that of Alicia's character despite the overwhelming challenges that she faces, like raising a village that is the land for the Kingdom's exiled people being kicked out for whatever reasons, and to have the young orphan kid of Gill and the elderly grandfather of Will acknowledge her good traits, they don't really care of she's the Villainess or the Saint; Alicia's a good-natured girl towards their well-being.
For sure, the rat race to stand on either Alicia Williams or Liz Cather's side for all of the bootlicking of the political drama, in hindsight, largely makes enough substance to stand out amongst similar contemporaries, and thanks to Izumi Okido's writing, it doesn't come up short with a compelling twist on the Villainess formula.
For years now, Maho Film has had many attempts at holding up its company vision of "wishing to create magical content that makes dreams," and while some series produced by the now 5-year-old studio certainly had that vision come through, its production values certainly have effectively come to a standstill, to a point that it threads between the fine line of mediocre to good. As it is with its last production of Fall 2022's Akuyaku Reijou nanode Last Boss wo Kattemimashita a.k.a I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss, the overall production barely stands out among the rest as works that just get the job done and nothing much, with no "magic" to offer. It's been that way ever since, and I'm sorry to say that Maho Film will never have something decent going forward when it comes to animation.
Just about any villainess show could be done with the least effort when it comes to music, and the show pretty much substantiated my claims that it just has enough to offer and not more than what was required. That said, while Liyuu's OP and Rin Kurusu's ED are decent songs, to me, it just feels like, yet another OST set that's just OK, but nothing memorable. Quite honestly, it's forgettable.
For a show of this calibre, I'm not saying that Rekishi ni Nokoru Akujo ni Naru zo a.k.a I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History is bad; it just needs time to cook its plot to a point that, like a boiling kettle, it boils over for the meat of the content to stand out in the long term. So, take what you will for a show that starts off slow but picks up steam when things are getting heavy that, at the end of the day, serves a quality Villainess anime in the making that's just right.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 23, 2024
Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles, Season 2 - What a dumpster fire of a sequel...how could this be the result of a work that despite being potentially average as it is, sink its teeth into something even worse?
Back in Summer 2021, a little show by the name of Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles came out, and despite all of its inherent flaws, I actually found that if you try to open the can of worms that is all of its cut content from the now 26-volume-long LN, there is an intriguing setup that novelist Yuri Kitayama had set up for the adaptations, let alone Season 1 itself
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which was quite the journey that I had 3 years ago reading both the LN and manga forms (though please dismiss the manga as Season 2's content is not brought there) that had the deepest riches of depth in its storywriting that was elaborately interesting, filled to the brim with potential to come when the anime got to that point.
And so it is, fast forward 3 years later to this Fall's sequel, and while the pacing tactic of the anime adaptation is still the same as the prequel, the content itself...is a whole other story that for better or for worse, was a slog to sit through thinking that the next 12-episode set would provide even more mystery to what Season 1 had perfectly set up towards, only to have it be thrown out into the garbage bin for choices that push more of its audience away from the series.
With Season 2 focusing on Volumes 4 and 6 to 8 of the LN, this part of the LN is unfortunately quite the slow burn as the plot now focuses on the 6 Wise Gods' prophecy of the Heroes being summmoned into the fantasy world. This only meant that Kirito-wannabe Rio a.k.a Haruto Amakawa's friends from Japan have joined him in the fray and not knowing what was going on, to connecting the dots between different groups of people that has or had an influence on his life, Haruto's past life, rather. Ayase Miharu, the Sendo siblings of Aki and Masato, as well as the Heroes of Hiroaki Sakata (assigned to Beltrum) and Satsuki Sumeragi (assigned to Galarc), all of which are primary people for Haruto to trace his past and link them to the present with the group of people that had similar experiences from Season 1 (i.e. Suzune Endo as Latifa), it's pretty much a Grimms' Notes version of the backstories that link everyone related towards Haruto in one way or another.
For sure this piece of the content SHOULD be interesting, but as you know that anime adaptations tend to cut a lot of content, and Season 2 is no different from its prequel, though I'd say that this portion of the story is quite straightforward to understand despite the loosening of the narrative for more down-to-earth moments that still has threats continuing thereafter to bring the wrench into Haruto's plans for the foreseeable future. This part here that Season 2 covers, is unfortunately, not the best it has to offer.
What made things worse is with the entire production itself. Back then, TMS Entertainment wasn't the finest studio around with a big budget to work with, but yet still can create works that don't falter, and are still decent at the end of the day. Even if Season 1 had production cooperation from another studio (which was the somewhat competent WAO World), it wasn't this bad, not even with its own in-house Studio 6 department that can actually churn out shows with good production cycles. Oh boy, not with Season 2 here despite having series director Osamu Yamasaki on the seat, while letting a no-name director handle the reigns for everything else, with the novelist herself having to help out in the storyboarding and series-scripting, all while the production is seriously hampered to the dozen that it bears all the marks of a cheap, low-quality animation.
If anything else, the deteriment follows with the music, as now both Aguri Oonishi's OP and Nanaka Suwa's ED are songs that you can just skip and pretend like they never exist. This is sad because Season 1's OST was virtually perfect, let alone Aguri Oonishi's Season 1 ED which was a great song, miles better than the OP that's found here. Oh, and that dual-audio voiceover language act? It's seriously jarring, and for me to say that Mushoku Tensei did leaps better than this, something's clearly wrong.
Oh, dear God, what did we ever do to deserve this blatant downgrade of a sequel? If Season 1 was already this bad, then Season 2 here is really the nail in the coffin for the series when it comes to its anime adaptation. I held out hope that for much of what the prequel was inherently bad at, there was a silver lining that could get me back to actually liking Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles again. But with how Season 2 turned out, oh boy...you're better off reading the LN instead for good measure.
Simply unbelievable...watch Season 1, avoid Season 2 and read the LN at your own pleasure.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Dec 22, 2024
MF Ghost, Race No. 2 - Slow to catch up, but the pace is getting better.
It's no secret that famed mangaka Shuichi Shigeno's MF Ghost was not the direct spiritual successor to Initial D as I thought, but then again, like said franchise, after the series has been given another season to spread its wings, I can finally say that I'm starting to understand the EV evolution to the old, carbureted engines that the sequel series here is going for.
With Season 2 taking the adaptation towards Volumes 6 to 10 of the manga, everything about the sequel season itself largely remains the same as its
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prequel season, with the same racers, same MFG race, with the exception of the octane exhilaration growing as the overall race gets tougher with each course presenting its challenges in a way that begins to separate the drivers by speed to skill.
Of course, Kanata is still the star attraction amongst the Godly Fifteen racers (the minority of which I can remember because of their given screentime) that has slowly become the tour de force that everyone must watch out for, because the English racer of Takumi Fujiwara's racing succession is becoming better in the long run, with his trusty Toyota 86 GT that has seen better days with improvements that make both car and driver the fearsome combo. As is the long run with rivals breathing down his throat, as well as the romance (that sadly Shuichi Shigeno just don't know how to write romance stories that well) between him and Ren Saionji on both the private and business fronts, a monster is in the making here, though the young Englishman still has aways to prove his worth as a man of substance.
The dream project of studio Felix Film adapting the series still remains decent with all of the action from the cars and drivers themselves, and it's largely the same as Season 1, so little improvements can still be done across the board. But the Eurobeat music is quickly becoming a distraction...or is it solely the fact that I'm quite nostalgic for Initial D OSTs to strike here, that still remains the question of its effectiveness. All I can say that Yu Serizawa feat. MOTSU's 2nd OP song here is worse than Season 1, you can't even call this song Eurobeat-intensified as it quickly loses it shine being a rock song more than anything, but on the flip side, Himika Akaneya has improved with her 2nd ED song to immense enjoyability that's on par with Season 1, it's the calm and cool EDs taking the stage for the sequel series, that's for sure.
With Season 3 on the docket, MF Ghost is not slowing down any soon as there's more than enough content to adapt at least 2 seasons' worth. But for now, Season 2 is an improvement over Season 1, but it still needs more to bite my satisfaction to say that the sequel series can finally stand on its own two feet that's separate from the juggernaut birthed from it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Dec 22, 2024
Let This Grieving Soul Retire — Man, haven't I ROFLed so much just for insignificant things that need not be escalated to a degree, but I'm glad that this show did to give its not-so-innovative take to a whole new level of insanity.
Maybe it's high time that we should admit that anime should be unadulterated fun once again? It's too often nowadays that the AniManga industry is selling too much of the seriousness, with series that invoke fun that's in-your-face isn't compensating much against the windfall of the ratio between it and the fun that you get for shows like Fall 2022's Kage no Jitsuryokusha
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ni Naritakute! a.k.a The Eminence in Shadow, providing nonsense in the face of comedy. This is novelist Tsukikage's Nageki no Bourei wa Intai shitai a.k.a Let This Grieving Soul Retire, a series that is very much inspired by said series, that takes place in the usual typical fantasy world, but still has all of the Cid Kagenou traits of BS ideologies that make it stand out.
The story of childhood friends who grow up to become notable adventurers themselves, this is the starting point of Grieving Souls, the group that would grow to become famous as the elite party, each and every member of which would become infamous for their own titular monikers. But in the modern day and age of the matter, where treasure hunters thrive by raiding treasure vaults to find relics all over the world (similar to that of your typical adventurers hunting for monsters shtick), and aside from immeasurable wealth, fame, and power, money is the root of all evil. And one person resides at the heart of it all: Krai Andrey, the 20-year-old man who leads Grieving Souls, as well as the established First Steps clan (that's made up of leaders from elite parties, friends, and foes otherwise) that all matters surround every fiber of his being, related or not. The one problem about Krai: as the title shows, he wants to retire from the profession, but due to his position, he can't exactly have the safe way out. And thus, so begins the level of bullshitery and insanity that this man has on his hands, being like Cid Kagenou to direct people to do things on his behalf, disguising the real fact that he's a blatant weak sucker who used other people to elevate himself to God-like status as the only Level 8 treasure hunter with his "Thousand Tricks" moniker. And I swear, this guy's the real deal when it comes to being a Cid Kagenou impressionist, more than anything.
However, don't be fooled by what the show has to go offering for the cast within Krai's circle of friends, because there are MANY. The First Steps clan may have been on both the receiving and rejecting end of elite adventurers who have come and gone altogether with their various parties, but most of them are no joke at all with their high levels and various expertise that make them the people who they are. The Grieving Souls party consists of people like: Level 4 hunter Tino Shade who has a crush on Krai; the Smart sisters of Level 6 hunter Stifled Shadow Thief Liz and Level 2 hunter Deep Black Alchemist Sitri; Level 6 hunter Thousand Swords Swordsman Luke Sykol (and many more who are not featured in the anime), Each and every member of the Grieving Souls is a force to be reckoned with with their various expertises, so much so that Krai WILL always force himself to avoid his own people as much as possible. Being a Cid Kagenou-like character only meant that Krai will and will not get into the graces of the parties, let alone the First Steps clan of leaders that see him as a vulnerability for his weak traits, aside from the Level 8 status being his "true" form of impression for just about anyone. From the clear yandere-ness (or even quite close to the point of Sadodere-ness) of Liz Smart being obsessed about Krai and undermining her disciple of Tino being the weak-ass sorry trait that doesn't match to her strengths, to the Undere-ness of Tino just being subservient towards Krai that she would do anything for him to accept her unadulterated feelings of love, this man's a meat shield for him and him alone, maybe even the luckiest fella to "swipe left" to almost every situation that he could wipe his dirty hands clean of and let loose himself, because he genuinely doesn't care at all, and wants nothing but love and peace in his life.
The madness of the delusion of Krai is quite up there, but beneath all of the BS in his life, his decisions being the troll that moves people to worship at his feet is quite the hilarity, despite his emotionless facade that's all but hiding most of his ulterior motives. If anything, character development by the masses plays a more important role in this show than the story itself.
The only negative point of the show would be its production; I wished that it could be better, knowing studio Zero-G can actually produce decent series alright. However, the staff team comprising of people whom are a bunch of no-names, that was the biggest fear going into the anime, and I can safely say that despite looking average, it gets the job done for the most part.
The music was something else, though. While it worked for the most part, I can't help but push it to the background, not because it's bad, but because it's distracting at times. This is especially with the use of the narrator (which actually adds to the hilarity of setting up the episode scenarios) that adds to the comedy factor of the show, which I can't quite stand at the very beginning, but ultimately getting used to it since it's used prominently. Both Lezel's OP and Pmaru-sama's ED are decent in their own right, though I can't say that I got invested in the rather eclectic visuals of either of them.
At the end of the day, if Nageki no Bourei wa Intai shitai a.k.a Let This Grieving Soul Retire is a Cid Kagenou impressionist anime, then that's what both you and I are here for in the first place. Despite the initial confusion of the terms (which you have to get used to understanding the larger-than-life "plot"), all is gone when you put the one key factor that'll make the series shine at its best: the manipulator that is Krai Andrey and his BS shmuck tactics that have everyone being trolled for better or for worse.
It's not a perfect show, but for what it is, it's comedy unhinged for the right purposes and typical fantasy on the other to invoke mixed feelings on its execution.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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