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I can't believe this... I really can't believe this...

Naruto is a manga that has been running for 15 years, I still remember catching up with the first seasons of the anime back when I was 12, I remember skipping the dreadful filler second half from the original series and going straight to Shippuuden, I remember ALL of it and it is suddenly over. Wow... feels like an entire era ending.

Anyway, Naruto was one of the first anime series I have ever watched (Dragon Ball being my first), and even though I had lost my interest and enjoyment in it for a very long ... time (I dropped it REALLY early when I had just started Shippuuden, it just wasn't doing it for me anymore), I still made an attempt at catching up with the manga because people told me it was ending and I wanted to see my late childhood fall apart just like that.

As for the actual review, Naruto started out as a fairly decent shounen manga, it told the story of a ninja called Naruto that was treated like shit by everyone else in the Hidden Leaf Village because he had the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed inside him. At first, he's completely useless and kinda annoying, all he really did at first was yelling "I'M GONNA BECOME THE HOKAGE" like if there was no tomorrow. And for those wondering, the Hokage is the ruler of the village.

He later teams up with two other classmates alongside a more experienced ninja and form a team that does the jobs assigned to them, while at the same time, each character has its own goals and intentions. The most notable, other than Naruto, is Sasuke, an old childhood rival that had lost his family when he was younger, eventually leading to him carefully planning to take revenge on the person behind it. At first, they do some stuff as a team and it is a fairly enjoyable story that does its job in a decent manner. Nothing too special, but also something that I could watch and still get a kick out of. Yes, Naruto was a bit annoying as a character, but that didn't keep him from being likeable, and the same goes for all the other characters.... at least for a while...

Eventually, Sasuke runs away and the story goes on a timeskip, which wasn't really a good idea as the story kinda jumped the shark at that point. Filled with asspulls such as the 99 different forms of the Rasengan and the treatment given to side characters, the story past the time skip had a MAJOR drop in quality, which caused me to eventually lose my interest in the series. Not to mention the treatment they gave to Sasuke, which initially was a character full of potential, only for it to be turned into the most despicable one of the cast that SOMEHOW still does a 180 on his mood. One second he is planning to destroy the village, the other he simply agrees to help Naruto defeat the big bad because.... crap, I don't even know anymore, I really think not even Kishimoto enjoyed what he was doing anymore at that point, just dragging the story more than it needed for the hell of it.

And Naruto himself did not get any better too, he was turned into one hell of a Mary Sue that just pulled random powers out of his arse because he had to defeat the evil villain at the end of the day. For crying out loud, even the worst Fairy Tail asspull is not as big as a lot of stuff I've seen here. I don't even think this was about bloody ninjas anymore because, as far as I'm aware, ninjas wouldn't just summon meteorites in a Final Fantasy manner. Eventually, even Naruto's iconic "I'M GONNA BECOME THE HOKAGE" was toned down and that's when I realized that these characters were no longer what they used to be. What about the rest of them? Pffffft, they were thrown to the side after the so notorious timeskip, it's like they weren't even there.

Another thing I have to point out is that the story simply couldn't keep one consistent bad guy. The timeskip arrives and we are left with Sasuke running away to eventually become a bad guy, a psychotic ninja that wants to achieve immortality and a secret society dedicated to capturing the Tailed Beasts such as Naruto's Nine-Tailed Fox. Wanna guess which one was the real big baddie? NONE OF THEM! Sasuke? He becomes a good guy after a while. Orochimaru? Same thing. Pain, the leader of Akatsuki? Turns out he was a puppet after all. Tobi, the guy behind him? Same thing, a puppet as well. Madara? Not this one either. Black Zetsu, the guy that never had any spotlight? Nope, also a puppet! As it turns out (And here comes a big spoiler), the real big bad just so happened to be the entity that created the energy force they use in their battles? How, because she was somehow resurrected...

Overall, Naruto is a manga that does a fair job on the first part, but completely blows it near the end. If you wanna know if it's worth reading? Not really, unless you are planning to stop just before the timeskip begins

A few months ago, I was introduced by a few friends to an anime adaptation of a vocaloid series called Kagerou Project. It was called Mekakucity Actors and it was the story of a bunch of teenagers who had been given "eye powers" due to some accidents prior to the story.

At first, I wasn't all that curious since I didn't even know anything about vocaloid, but as I began to watch it, I also began to look for the source material, then the manga, the novels and finally here I am, a full-fledged Kagerou Project fan, and it was all thanks to this anime.

Story-wise, it ... does a fairly decent job. It takes the stories and characters found in the songs and it gives them a voice, puts them into dialogue and it does that in an amusing way. It starts out as a pretty straightforward story regarding a NEET called Shintaro who decides to leave his house for the first time in two years. From there, it starts getting more thrilling as it gets closer to revealing the truth behind the "eye powers" of some of the main characters, who formed a secret group called "Mekakushi Dan"

However, I will say that the story has a few issues regarding the pacing of the episodes. Kagerou Project is a really big series with a lot of content that Jin had to put in 13 episodes. Therefore, there are times when it feels like the anime will rush through certain plot elements or downright ignoring them. I won't deny that this can be the biggest problem with the story. That said, it's not something that I found to be a joykiller. Even with this poor pacing, most of the episodes still present a lot of exciting moments that will just make you forget the fact that a lot of songs that could have made it into the anime but sadly it was just turned into some short exposition to wrap things up.

Oh right, did I mention the songs? This anime takes a lot of covers from the vocaloid songs and puts them into the episodes. Songs such as Kisaragi Attention, Otsukimi Recital, Lost Time Memory and Ayano's Theory of Happiness (Sadly, this one is not as good for budget reasons) all made their way into the episodes and they sound amazing, a lot of those covers were really well made and they make up a fantastic soundtrack.

As for the animation, it's fine, I guess. It's definitely not bad, I really love the art style used, but the animation quality is not as good as other shows coming out these days in scenes that require a lot of detail, it's all incredibly choppy and it lacks fluidity. It's not bad, but it certainly feels like it could have been much better. Then again, this is Shaft, their animations usually feel rather unfinished, so I shouldn't be surprised

Overall, I had a pretty good time with this anime. Sure, the story feels a bit rough around the edges and it could have definitely improved from more episodes than just 12, but I still consider the story to be good and the overall anime to be incredibly fun to watch.

By the time I am writing this review, people are probably already discussing the first episode of Sword Art Online II and I still haven't watched it because, in order to write this, I had the brilliant idea of rewatching SAO in order to make sure that my fuzzy memory and bias for this anime wouldn't get in the way of judging it fairly.

One of the main reasons I feel the need to write the review is because I see a lot of fanboys praising it to oblivion alongside a lot of people who have this incredibly big hate boner for SAO, but I never ... see that much of the guys in the middle of all of this, guys like me.

With all that said, I guess it's time I move on to the actual review

Sword Art Online (Or SAO for short) was this incredibly popular anime back in 2012. Like, really, really popular. Heck, all of my otaku friends were watching it, it was the shit back then, an anime about a MMORPG? Back then, this was a new thing for us. There was the .hack series, but other than a few series like that, this wasn't a setting that was explored that often in anime. Now, looking back at these past years, it seems that this kind of setting has become very popular due to the hype SAO had back then. Yeah... the hype.

I'll be blunt right away: This show was overhyped. A lot of people, including it myself, were calling it one of the best series ever, something that, looking back it now, SAO isn't even close of being.

Animation and sound wise, it's pretty good. The art style used in this anime is incredibly colorful and captivating which is only further improved by an amazing soundtrack that knows when to stand out and when to blend with the atmosphere. I think that it's pretty safe to say that this is the best part of SAO. Sadly, the story ain't it...

This story has received a lot of criticism for the past few years and, for the most part, it is correct. The main problem with the story comes from the characters themselves and the way they are portrayed. You have Kirito who is your typical shonen protagonist, except that this one is incredibly overpowered to the point of making many Mary Sues out there hide in fear. Yes, he is a really big Mary Sue, he is the kind of guy who has no problem facing most enemies and quickly solves the situation with one lazy swing from his sword. Not only that, he is also that "swaggy" character who gets all the ladies, and that doesn't help him becoming less of a Mary Sue at all....

His personality is ok, even if he needed maybe a tiny bit more of humor to balance out his serious attitude. However, on the scale of shonen protagonists, he's not that different from what we've seen personality-wise, so it's not a really big issue.

The other main character is a girl called Asuna, who Kirito met inside SAO and has teamed up with. In the first few episodes, Asuna is a bit of a badass character, but then her Tsundere senses activate and she quickly becomes a pretty girl who falls in love with the main protagonist. Look, I don't have a problem with she being total Tsundere, I don't have a problem with the romantic subplot (for the most part), I just have a problem how sudden this transformation felt. One second she is kicking ass and the next she is cooking a fucking meal... and trust me, she doesn't get better later on.

Overall, I found the characters in SAO to be poorly written for the most part, which is definitely the worst part about the story and can be a pretty big joykiller for some. However, the characters are the only part about the story that I would consider a joykiller because I found the rest of the story to be fairly decent.

At the end of the day, I don't hate SAO despite my big problem with the characters because, despite all the harsh criticism, I look back at it and find myself to be entertained by it, which at the end of the day is all that matters, and I ask myself why, why did I enjoy this if it had such a big problem?

The answer lies in the other side of the story, which is the story itself .

SAO is the story of a few people trapped inside a MMORPG that they must beat in order to leave. It's a fairly promising premise that always left me hyped for the next episode. I strongly believe that, despite the bad characters, the writing did a fantastic job in capturing the essence of a MMORPG. Stuff like the quests, PVP, crafting, raids, guilds... all those little elements that pretty much became a staple of the genre are there and they are portrayed in a pretty accurate way for the most part. I have been an avid MMORPG player ever since I was 11, so I know how those work and the way it was portrayed in SAO at first made me feel right at home. The story at first had a structure in which Kirito goes on multiple adventures, meeting a lot of people, which for some felt like filler, but for me was perfectly fine because those who have played MMORPGs will know that this is how they work, a lot of them don't have a scripted way of going through the game, you just explore the world and participate in any quests and events you find along the way in order to grind XP and level up (World of Warcraft, Guild Wars...), and since their goal was simply "beating the game", I don't see any problem with the story structure being about Kirito travelling to random places and doing things that are completely unrelated to most of what previously happened. Besides, it actually contributes towards world-building, a really good thing to do in a MMORPG setting since the worlds in those games are so big that the players are always tempted to explore them and see all there is to see.

That said, I can only say this about the first story arc that takes place inside SAO, after that we have yet another story arc taking place inside another MMORPG which is complete and utter shit.

In this second arc, all the mechanics that make up a MMORPG are completely thrown out of the window and they are instead replaced by a boring story about Kirito going from point A to point B in order to rescue Asuna. Yeah, you heard me, she is no longer a badass, now she is a bloody damsel in distress. Not to mention that Kirito remains completely Mary Sue in this arc, maybe even more taking in mind that his swag increases alongside the amount of fanservice (Though I will admit that there was one fight that actually didn't make him look like a Mary Sue since the opponent actually felt worth the time)

In the end, I don't think that SAO is a masterpiece nor do I think that it's utter garbage. It has a lot of problems, but it's still a fairly enjoyable series that is worth at least giving a try if you are interested in the MMORPG setting. Other than the characters, the second story arc is also a big issue, I can safely say that if the anime was just about what happens in SAO, the score I would be giving to it would be much higher, but since I have to take in mind all of it, my overall score from a more analytical point of view is a 6/10