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Feb 17, 2025
Arifureta Season 3 — The penultimate calm before the storm that's the midway point towards the climax of the adaptation of its final volumes. It's both good and bad at best (at this point) really...
It's safe/tumultuous(?) to say for a few years running now that novelist Ryo Shirakome has had his series being lambasted by the overall planning of its absurdly poor and lacklustre adaptation, that it will still feel the same regardless of how many seasons have gone in the years since it first arrived on the anime scene back in Summer 2019. But with 5 plus years gone by and 2 seasons down
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the drain with a 3-year gap in between each of them, does Season 3 at least redeem some of the misconceptions the anime community had for Arifureta as a whole?
With the newest season of Arifureta being a rather lengthy 16-episode season, this, at least to me, is a blessing for the series up to this point, because the AniManga industry has, for years, "perfected" the art of compressing LN adaptations, so much so that content can be taken out of context if you never (or don't bother) to read the source material. At least for this case, it's more of being the exception to the rule, that the producers somehow saw the error in their ways and attempted to do some damage control to the series to bring back some of its glory and finally give the people what they want: an honest-to-goodness adaptation of a work that has been heavily criticized in many ways that we could not think that Arifureta would recover from such missteps. But here we are, and at the very least, the redemption arc starts from here onward.
Anywho, with Season 3 covering Volumes 7 to 10 of the LN, we're at the midpoint mark heading towards the climax that Ryo Shirakome has been cooking in the process, which is just as you'd expect: the fight between good and evil in this rather large Isekai adventure to save the weak and make them strong, and kill the narcissists who know no better. But instead of going straight to the Final Boss, we take a breather for the training arcs that have been brewing since the very beginning: the rabbitwoman of Shea Haulia, as well as Hajime Nagumo's own classmates in becoming strong as they face the endless labyrinth trials. Tackling Shea's worries is the easiest matter of the two for Hajime and the gang to counter, because it literally involves her entire Haulia Tribe and the postmortem of events that led to their tribe being ousted by their own demihuman group still reeling from the effects of their fight against the humans, and the liberation of redemption that the rabbitmen under Shea's father Cam's leadership are not as useless as they think. Once that is done and dusted, then come the trials of the Great Tree as Hajime and the gang attempt to surpass and overcome their weaknesses and insecurities in order to save those worth Hajime's time to be brought back to Japan.
Once again, to survive in the ever-so-unforgivable fantasy world is to never ever underestimate Hajime Nagumo, for his exploits at this stage of the game are now more serious with his non-BS attitude, alongside his harem of Yue, Shea, and Tio, as well as the remainder of the classmates whom he deems are worth at least salvaging and useful to his endeavour of eventually going back to their original world. At least on the end of his classmates with Kaori, hero Koki, and the rest together with him, they've seen the bad and should expect even worse going deeper into the rabbit hole, because anything and everything could smear life or death throes at any time should they ever be even the bit careless. Hajime is not a man who'll spend time needlessly; he has places to go and execute his plans at the soonest because, to him, time is opportunity, and this saying rings true when he has the responsibility for keeping everyone together, safe and sound. He's not the edgy character that we've come to know since the very start, (no) thanks to the barrage of betrayals he's suffered from the get-go, which teaches him to only value the people that see him otherwise...which in turn, earns the affections of not only Yue and Tio in prior seasons, but greatly to much effect for both Shea and Kaori, especially for Season 3 here.
I need not re-emphasize the elephant in the room that is the overall production of the series, and even I'm tired at this point to say that asread. will never honour what Arifureta was supposed to be animation-wise, even when support studios like White Fox (for Season 1) and studio MOTHER (for Season 2) were there to help the lacklustre studio achieve a somewhat presentable look to the series, even by the slightest details of mediocre to average animation. If anything, don't ever count on the animation to help elevate the series' climax whenever it comes.
The music...is somewhat also another point of uninspiring. Somehow, every season's OST just gets even worse than the last, and at least on the point that Void_Chords always have the time to shine collaborating with MindaRyn for the 2 OPs this season, which are decent songs at best. The EDs, on the other hand, are a whole other story, with DOBERMAN INFINITY's K-pop and iScream's J-pop songs just being plain forgettable at best (though the latter is the better of the 2).
Overall, Season 3 is just the stopgap measure right before the very climax of the series to date in terms of Arifureta's adaptation, and I completely understand if the minimalist of efforts are done here just so to push the heavyweight of the tank onto the final leg of its journey, because "it's not (just) how you start, (but) it's how you finish". If (I believe) this is (to be) so, the staff team better be ready to deliver the epic finality to the series and give its all to give Ryo Shirakome's work its much-needed redemption from its horrible start to the polish it woefully deserves for its final season.
As of this moment, Arifureta is palpable and no longer the bad apple that it once was in its own infamy, so much so that if you've been wanting to give this series a go, it's still not too late to do so.
The wait now lingers upon the final descent...
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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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 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 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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Dec 22, 2024
Reincarnated as an Aristocrat, Round 2 — This Isekai has evolved into something better, and I can finally say that this is quality Isekai...though with a set of quirks that still lags it down.
It's safe to say that since Spring of this year, novelist Mirajin A's Tensei Kizoku, Kantei Skill de Nariagaru a.k.a As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World, has actually a lot of things going for it that makes it a quality "Isekai reincarnation" story in the making, though it wasn't fully realized when it seems that the series is taking the split-cour treatment to have
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both seasons air just a season apart so that the quality of the anime can be improved upon. And just after its opening notes of 6 months past, here we are back again on the second inning of the series, which dives straight into the menaces of wartime democracy. The question here for Season 2: Did the Appraisal portion actually improve on this portion of the series? And I have to say that it's a yes, though it's more of a wary "yes" than anything.
With Season 2 focusing much on the Missian war arc, at this point in time, Ars Louvent and the gang, after having the former's father pass away, have a good notion for the son to move on to better things ahead. He and everyone must prepare for the impending war at hand to progress Missian as once an autonomous country that, with the setbacks of its predecessors, divided the land into provinces, each their own, back to solvency and harmony once again. That's quite the lofty goal coming from a reincarnated young boy, who's now a Lord in his own right and leading people beneath him to ensure that friend or foe, everyone deserves a second chance in the pursuit of harmony. The thing is, reality is not so simple as to follow one ambitious dream, as the battle between good and evil has its drawbacks, with sacrifices having to be made as each person sees issues differently, specifically the rivalry between the Salamahkia family, to which the clear divide between brothers Couran and Vasmarque has drawn this war to a stalemate to unite Missian altogether. One must go, and the other will live on to see his dreams be realized once the generals have been culled, once and for all.
You can pretty much take my overall thoughts about Season 1 and apply it here, because they haven't quite addressed any significance about the characters themselves, though in this season, Ars got quite the upgrade that was sorely needed with his Appraisal abilities on the people that he hadn't yet met (which still is the focal point despite all of the war going on). Some people will like to lament that Ars's character development deteriorated because of the wartime subterfuge that he's not used to, and while I agree this to an extent, the son having his father Raven teach him about warfare back in Season 1 being the kicker to prepare for what Season 2's content lies ahead solves only half of the experience as a boy that's the equivalent of a peace treaty paper. But still, you cannot discount that Ars has been given proper development in the face of adversity when innocent lives are on the line from the pledging towards the loyalty of a young one who technically is only half-prepared on his wits for battle, despite his intelligent mindset thanks to his one and only valuable skill.
Putting the series in a split-cour format only will result in constraints in production, and sadly, Studio MOTHER and series director Takao Kato were wholly underprepared for the amount of time they had to spruce up Season 2 being heavy on the action department. It's very telling when sacrifices have to be made to make the non-stop, endless battles interesting, and it shows when production went sloppy at certain moments of the season. Season 1 looked better by a mile, but that's because the action wasn't as prominent as is the case for the sequel here.
The music, however, took a nosedive here. I don't know what it is, but while the OST remains consistent (as it's ever been), now the OP and ED songs have become boring as well. Not to shame on PassCode and Yuki Tanaka for their efforts, but Season 1 clearly wins this by tenfold.
When all else fails, the story will make up much of the experience, but don't count Tensei Kizoku, Kantei Skill de Nariagaru a.k.a As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World, in the same shoes as a similar show in its regard: last season's Shinmai Ossan Boukensha a.k.a The Ossan Newbie Adventurer. My criticism is that Mirajin A did improve on some things (like Ars's Appraisal skill) that make the series stand out, but like Season 1, it inches on key events to help make the difference that, depending on your outlook, will either shine or wither.
For me to say that Season 2 was pretty much like the first, but on the deteriorating side, I was hopeful that it could be a small improvement to aid what Season 1 had set up, but ended up having mixed feelings about it. It's still as tolerable, with the discretion that your mileage will vary on how you critique the series to begin with.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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