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This season; the boy won't be raised; the cutes lack the hows; Chika doesn't dance. But.. even Haddaway will get to know what tsundere's heart disease is. *Oddly loud Rick whisperer meme* "It's war. He is referring to the war part. Ch [burp].. check the title, it's in there somewhere."

**Disclaimer: Miko is a very capable person and we all love her very much. You may disagree but know that no one's gonna call you a homie where I am from.

Without further ado,

The first 3 episodes are mediocre. After that Kaguya returns to its track with witty humor and new direction. The author seemed to ... be lost for a short while when he couldn't figure out whether to start strenghtening the already existing cast members with details or try and expand the universe of this series. At the end, he end up doing a fair amount of both by choosing the latter route. Let me explain. Person named Miko (who is very capable and we all love her very much), was added to our main cast, and she comes with a very different type of personality all around. The genius in this is not just that she adds color and diversity to the main crew, but actually she is able to pull out entirely new sides from the other cast members with her raw personality and behavior, adding character depth onto the original main characters. At first I was highly disappointed by the route the author chose, but after realizing that he was able to kill two bird with one stone, I can only conclude this with one phrase: good job, my man. Although the poor start still exists.

Based to my experience with rom-coms (and I have lot of that even if I say so myself), many romantic comedies are, at best, one season miracles. They do not have enough potential to last long, the author's caliber doesn't tend to be much (after all, romance is the easiest genre to write and that's often the reason why this specific genre was chosen), and quality drops are a common occurance. Kaguya manages to avoid this to a decent extent. It looked like the series was bound to go downhill, but the recovery was quick and now the humor is more spot on and more accurate than in the previous season. However, weaker parts do still exist. Such as Ishigami's past story which is incredibly poorly written. He saves an ignorant girl who is ignorant because she is ignorant from a bad guy who is bad because he is bad and then everyone turns against Ishigami because they are sheep. I cannot make it sound any more linear or black'n white than it already is because that's how black'n white and simple-minded it was.

What the series does well, it does well. One of the most magical parts that the core idea of the series allows it to do is entirely rekt down romance cliches. When Kaguya's story has a cliche story event, everyone knows it's an overused romantic gimmick. The characters know it, the author knows it, you know it. The way this is executed is not by any means a parody and it's also not a situation where "the author knowing it's cliche doesn't make it non-cliche". No. What this is is pure situational awareness. One of the best examples of this is a locked shed scene from this season during which both parties involved assume it's a preplanned scheme by their "opponent in love". This is one of my favorite scenes from the entire series, both seasons covered, because our main characters outwit themselves with overanalyzing. It's a classic shoujo formula, utter simplicity, a zero brainer, but it's made efficient and delivers in a way that can only be achieved by this anime. The way this entire scene plays out is not even brilliance, rather: It's pure rationality and logic to a point where it becomes art. You don't even need Kaguya say "how cute" in here, because let's face it: at least 40% of the audience said so themselves, and out loud.

As it is, this season has its downs and weaker moments. Criticism follows. The humor is superior to S01, but the same can't be said of everything. Overall, while the pinnacles; the best scenes, might reach higher grounds, I have to say S02 wasn't as solid as the previous one. The director also suffers from clear lack of ideas in certain parts, the OST is nowhere near as fantastic as it was in S01, and moreover, many scenes are very quiet. BGM is either at minimum volume or there is none. This really does lessen the atmosphere. Scenes where our main characters just sit around a table doing nothing are a good example that prove all of the points above, and these scenes don't really feel like Kaguya, but some other lesser anime. S01 radiated. You could see the love, passion and effort that was put into the anime from almost every scene. S02 comes with scenes that aren't treasured in such manner anymore. Overall: S02 is a good sequel, and certainly much better than what the beginning hinted, but in all honesty, I think it could have easily and very realistically been better, and I cannot do but wish that it had. Its flaws and shortcomings do not ruin the anime, but I think these things are very important to acknowledge because they are part of this season. To me, it felt like there was someone in the backgrounds yelling "let's cut some corners, no one's going to notice."

I remember it well. Back in 2011, when webtoons were starting to get popular, there were two names that echoed louder than the rest: 'Tower of God' and 'Noblesse'. The debate was real as everyone was arguing over which one is better. And here I stand, 9 years later, trying to decide which one is worse.

Tower of God is essentially Korean Naruto with Bleach-swords. The entire first act is a fast paced exam-training-rescue arc hybrid, and that's pretty much how it differs from classic Japanese shonen, which take their sweet time doing each of these one at a time. The idea for the story can ... be figured out by reading the title: Reach the top of the tower and you will become something of a God. The motivation for our main character to attempt this very thing is to rescue a girl. The means that allow him to do so are a different deal and that deal is rather lame.

This is how it goes: Certain princess is "feeling bored" so she gives our hero a sword, and this sword is actually alive - at least in some sense - and "it" happens to be kind of a shotacon so she (the sword) gives our main character undeterminated amount of power which he can now use in certain situations when the convenience is due. And all of this happens because he is "kinda handsome", at least according to the sword-shotacon-spirit. I guess kudos for the author for not even trying to hide the lameness that exist among this work. Of course, friends are also very important and just so happens to be, this exam side of the act forces our main character to form a team consisting of two other nakama (whom he has never seen before), so naturally, Sasuke-Kurapika edgy guy - who is also a walking keikaku doori with tragic past story - joins the team along this 3rd dude who is flamboyant, arrogant, GAR and very loud - and plays the role of a comedic gag guy. Together this powerful trio do some highly predestined stuff and thingies as we, the audience, are watching them advance while the not-so-great mystery unfolds.

To more thoroughly cover the character section: Yoru -our hero- has almost no presence and his resolve is pathetic when considering his reasoning, Khun is apparently super genius but all he does is succeed at everything and anything so effortlessly that it comes off as bullshit (excluding that one scene where he can't figure out a riddle and instead experiences random PTSD flashbacks because it wasn't his time to shine due to a joke the series wanted to deliver..), Rahk's entire existence is so comedic that he has no real value as a person, and Lahel (the girl that needs no saving but Yoru still wants to save) has no personality because she is essentially a mystery element who needs to be "kind of a cold bitch" and cannot ever make logical sense, rational decisions or explain herself because otherwise the story falls apart.

What the series does well are the side characters. By no means are they very strong and fascinating individuals from stand-alone perspective, but what the author does with the side casting is smart because they end up serving the entertainment factor of the show. Many side characters have gone through thorough planning to make them appear fascinating from the first glance. Their design and small tweaks in behavior give the series heart and personality to surprising extent. This is done in a manner that were you follow these characters for a long period of time in a long journey, you'd end up realizing they aren't amazing at all, but when they have insignifant roles in small parts of the story, they are right in their element.

The animation and art style is certainly the only thing those who consume shonen series have never seen before. Most of everything else varies from copy-pasted formula and overused trope to downright macro-filling as things such as originality and fresh, new ideas are absent entirely. Naturally, that's not to say that the series is doomed to fail and cannot be entertaining. The execution among the nu-art certainly make the series stand out from majority of classic shonen titles that have come out in the recent years, but that's exactly all the newness there is to experience. Other factors massively bottleneck its art style which impact isn't given in the first place. Personally, I enjoyed the art style and art directing a great deal - even in all of its simplicity - but those who do not approve of it will have much less anything to look forward to as the story and character factors have little no praise-worthiness in them, rather, they appear very flat and contain much fewer strong points to hang onto - entertainment wise.

Speaking of entertainment, the series seems to have been build with one single request in mind: "Whoever is watching this, just please try to have some fun with it." This is the message I got. Many things are entirely forgotten, such as the main characters actually forming bonds. It just happens for some reason and by the half way mark of episode 03, these guys are already prepared to take a bullet for each other. If you ask questions like how, why and when, be prepared to receive nothing but "yeah, iunno" *shrugs* as a reply. The series doesn't seem to think that such things are of importance. It isn't afraid to cut at any corner or cop-outs its way towards whatever it wants to do next. This serves the pacing and perhaps makes the show more easier to get into and digest, after all, it asks practically nothing from the audience and 0 efford is required as there isn't much substance to follow nor are there things you need to actually wait to get. On the downside, the series only aims to be mediocre and hopes you will enjoy it regardless. There is no great reward you can get by continue watching it onward, but it will consistently give you the same level of fun that it can.

By the way, when I imply it comes with good pacing, I specifically mean the flow of the individual episodes. One massively important thing to note is that there is hardly any plot progression or character development to be seen at any point in the series. Moreover, the series doesn't really try to build anything or foreshadow the next step it's going to take. Heck, it doesn't really even seem to fully plan the current step that it's already taking. If you look at it in that way, then the pace is quite horrid. Basically, the more you zoom out, the bigger the picture you look at is, the worse the series appears. Zoom in and you might as well find at least something worth your while.

One thing the series does quite well is use its comedy to paint scenes that would be entirely stupid if taken seriously, as comedic. I already mentioned the series doesn't try to hide its lameness, but it does hide its own immaturity rather well, if you will. For example, I don't really like riddles, but it took me about 7 seconds to figure out how to solve the beginning of this part of the exam. The raw idea for that scene was entirely idiotic, but at the same time, the actual conclusion end up being that only a total idiot could figure it out. This was a real hilarious 'ouch' moment for me as I figured it out and instantly claimed it idiotic. After that, the show tells me if you knew the answer, you're also an idiot, and I actually end up laughing at it and at myself. Alas, I can't agree with the statement, but that don't mean I can't enjoy its attempt at wit. :^)

To conclude the previously mentioned: The art style leaves more room for different interpretations whereas the story and characters come as they are and they really aren't much. It's common criticism to say that anyone could have written Tower of God's story, but to be more accurate here: many already have written it. The series is such a huge deja vu experience that watching it for the first time feels like rewatching. I guess it feeling familiar and welcoming are among its pros if you want to look it that way, but overall I wouldn't give it much credit for achieving something like that.

Overall, to make my point stand out even more: This series has very limited amount of good going on, but for me personally, its pros were enough to keep me entertained for most part and actually made me care for the series on some level. It's still pretty shitty tho, so be warned, but that don't mean it can't be fun for what it is. Do keep in mind that it's supposed to be brainless fun aimed for teenagers. All things considered, I conclude this series is not as good as average anime and therefore it's bad.

Imagine a series which comes with One Punch Man's humor, attitude and fight scenes and combines them with Mob Psycho 100's heart, love and kindness. Scissor Seven is a Chinese anime produced by Netflix and you should watch it English dubbed. And when I say you should watch it, I really mean you should, because Scissor Seven is absolutely fantastic. This anime is pure joy to a point where it could as well be labelled antidepressant.

Our story centers around a scissor-wielding, shapeshifting, hairdresser/assassin who is ready to kill any man, woman, or child for mere 88 bucks. Except he never does that. Vast majority of ... the stories are humor filled life lessons where, instead of doing his job, he ends up quite literally doing the opposite of killing. During his sneek-peeks into his victim's life, he learns about his victims, makes his own conclusions, accept these victims as who they are, and instead of ending their lifes, he ends up making a difference in their life. Be it a pair of lovers separated, family being torn apart or even suicidal person planning to end her own life; our main chacters unites, fixes, and heals. And he does that by simply being a reasonable, good person.

The series is entirely humble, it shows massive respect towards human life and greatly values the awesomeness of its characters, but in the same time, there is a complete absence of flamboyance in the narrative. The series is almost slice of life with its execution as the only party who gets to actually realize how great of a person our main character is is esclusively the audience. The outcome is pure awe. This series doesn't spoonfeed anything as it very clearly and entirely trust in the audience, showing mad confidence in its own content. I have nothing but respect to give in return.

Enjoyment-wise, I watched Scissor Seven in a good time because it was exactly something I needed to cheer me up after a shitty day, and when combining this with how good the show actually is (I already rewatched the entire thing to ensure I wasn't just hyping it for no reason), I can only say that my personal experience with this show was nothing less than blissful. It is heart-warming, fun, and so kind that it still feels weird to have discovered a true gem by simply browsing Netflix for 2 minutes. I highly advice to give this series a try, because it might just as well bring some life into your day and cleanse away your worries.

**To briefly give my 2 cents about the sequels: The 4 extra episodes are loyal to S01 and very well worth a watch. S02 is vastly different from the previous season and overall it may be a sequel but it surely isn't a spiritual sequel.

Beastars is an anime about prejudices, self-discovery and life under idealistic totalitarian rule where carnivores and herbivores supposedly dwell in harmony, and all of this takes place in a certain school's drama club. Everyone is already acting and then they try and act some more.

**Before we continue, in case you lean to the right side and consider yourself red-pilled, you most likely are at least on some level avoiding this anime like plague. I had my fair share of skepticism before going in, but I conclude this series is not driven by any pre-set political agenda. Social commentary exists, you can take it as ... political satire, call its world building neo nazi enigma, see the similarities to Stalin styled communism, laugh at how it practically labels food chain fascist, acknowledge the furry-relations, or entirely watch the series as an independent, stand-alone work that may have real life influence to back it up, but rather than preaching already discovered answers, it raises questions. It creates thought-provoking situations and presents them from multiple different perspectives, leaving room for the viewer to make their own interpretation. More than anything, it is what you make of it. What do we call this? Showing respect towards the audience.

There are three main cast members who all are vastly different from each others. They each have their own complex and shallow sides, inner and outer personalities; the one they are inside and the one they show to others, there is a clear portray of each individuals' self-image, fair bit of awareness of what their self looks like to the outside eye, even inner monologue filled with reflecting exist, and the list goes on. The character-centric focus is highly psychological while the presentation itself is partially toned with philosophical questions. This level of detail and accuracy is highly uncommon for anime characters even in psychological anime series. There is more depth, detail, planning and polish that one would expect or let alone see at first glance. The cast members all come with self-awareness and ideas that come from within the person. There are no moments in the narrative where a thought or piece of behavior seems out of place or controlled by the author behind the 4th wall. While some of the supporting cast members (such as mixed breed rabbits) clearly appear as devices in the narrative instead of being sincere individuals, the main cast members do not come with any type of compromises.

Our trio consists of Legoshi, Louis and Haru. Legoshi is the main main character, a cautious and sensitive wolf who faces prejudices that are about his supposed wolf-like nature. He aims to counter this by censoring himself and acting almost like the polar opposite of what is expected of him. This causes some inner psychological struggle and visible bounce in forms of his nature overwriting his supposed raw personality. Louis is a deer whom seems to have not only overly egotistic behavior but narcissism, superiority complex and manipulative skills. His ego is no less than enormous, but what makes him vastly different from common student who is narcistic is that his near flawless self-image carries thru making wide masses around him actually genuinely believe he is the greatest person alive, which is due to his skill to manipulate people on individual level and in masses but still not entirely limited to this. On a side note: I'd love to see how he puts on a buttonless t-shirt considering those massive antlers. They never explain that.

Our last main character is Haru and she is perhaps the most disliked character. She is a rabbit and literally a slut. She sleeps with everyone and is widely hated by girls for supposedly stealing their men. She is the most controversial character in the series and many seem to despise her. Despite her getting bullied, assaulted and violeted, it seems to be rare for viewers to feel any sympathy towards her. I think that's her true genius, because most people - at least in my generalization - love attention from the opposite sex (or their sex of interest) and are more than willing to make love with sexually attractive people, but we do not appreciate this feature in others. This is the viewer's moment to reflect. Haru is a bit pushy self-victimizer, and her ideas seem to be some type of double edged sword where she'd want to see someone see her inner personality, but her outer behavior tends to ratiate only the slutty features she has. She is practically a self-caused illness, but this is still fascinating thing to follow, because she is nowhere near a weak person. By weak, I mean both: not weakly-writter nor the opposite of strong. Without her the series would definitely not be the same, and she is essential because what makes the cast so incredibly strong is not really their stand-alone personas, but how they interract with each others and develope relations. In these moments, when you have high understanding of these characters, even their smallest actions come with profound slow-burn effect.

As far as the writing goes, the premise and world building are basically wit wonderlands. The psychological side is accurate and clever, the animal prejudices -which are used as metaphoras- along the societal structure and way the world works, do not only have their real life relevance and political satire factors in them, but do hell of an impressive job creating the anime's very own universe. One of its main ideas seems to be that healthy ideals do not necessarily create a healthy, functioning world. When a wide portion of society doesn't feel well, it tends to backlash, leaving room for extremist, anti-government activity, havoc and, more specifically in this case, create downunder societies and black markets for the products that are banned. Where's the funny in this, then? Because the herbivores blame those who cannot digest this; not the nu-food nor the bureaucratic bs and paints them the "bad guys."

The actual plot could be said to come with its fair share of simplicity, and certain events play out with some level of convinience, which shows that not every bit has been thoroughly planned to hold water (this is the series' sole biggest weakness), but as a whole, its writing has "attention to detail" type of approach, and when considering this, it's quite hard to give justified criticism of its shortcomings when they come out as attributes rather than flaws. However, it should be noted that some of the story events are heavily slice of life oriented, and during these fractions, the series can side track from its actual main content quite a bit. In case you cannot accept more baseline vanilla plot events that are simply beautified with detail, it may be hard to find Beastars' story significant and it may not appeal to you. If you can look past this rather niche and superficial issue, I promise what you see is a brave attempt succeeding and living up to its potential. I can only try and imagine the moment when the author wrote this and realized it's actually good. I am sure not even she planned this all to work so well in her favor. It all just kinda happened, fitted together like compounds of a vaccine. For this reason, it may be easy to overanalyze the series: give its intellectual side more credibility than it deserves. But on the other hand, the lack of strong inprint from the author makes the series seem far less pseudo-intellectual than majority of series that are supposedly aimed for smart people. More than being a tool thru to which the author tries to prove her own genius, Beastars does what was already once said: leave room for viewer's own judgement.

Some of the questions this raised in me were: Is equality the first step towards inequity? Are societal norms and values the very roots of human double standards? Can a person truly escape the mold that shaped him? Was Mufasa from Lion King actually wrong (you must take your place in the circle of life)? And most importantly, why do we so rarely get anime series that not only show us multidimensional characters, but tell a meaningful story? My final judgement: AOTY.

Due to the nature of the second season, the third season was bound to have a weaker start. Even so, with 2-cour duration it had all the time it ever needed to pick up the pace and improve, or at the very least build a solid foundation for this fourth season.... But it didn't do any of that and now we're more or less back to square one.

The classic shonen series have never exactly been the most flawless type in the arsenal, but few of them have struggled with their arc and tone shifts to the same extent with Boku no Hero Academia. While it's ... not uncommon that old story arcs become history and the new current arc gets the unconditional focus, it's rare to see a series which transition is this awkward.

Once again we start our newest season with a recap filler, followed by a build up phase which I'd like to metaphorically compare to the act of someone trying to restart a fusion core after it's been poisoned. It's slow, boring and drags on, and it would be faster to just shut it down entirely and try again. I find myself asking why exactly am I once again stuck at watching this series like it's a new slice of life IP when it's supposed to be a BTS on full roll and come with some type of smoothness already at this point. Instead it repeatedly falls into its own trap, repeating this cycle each new arc to a point where it has become tiresome and feels like a task. The sad part being that this level really seems to be what the series is now aiming to achieve, not even trying to be better, just settling with utter mediocrity and being okay with that. Will it ever maintain some type of stability instead of sawing up and down like Tesla's stock? At this point I very much doubt it will and, based to the lack of hype, it's safe to conclude that I am not the only one. You could literally start watching this series directly from season 4 and only miss the parts where the series was still entertaining to follow.

For years now, manga readers have been echoing that this fourth season will be the best one because it supposedly covers the best arc. While this is entirely possible in term of writing and characters, after all, there is still very little development thus far and the story board has now infinite different possible routes to take, I can't help but to be very skeptical about its delivery due to Bones' vision with the series. For some reason, our director's idea for the action sequences is to make them drag on, pause them, make them overly dramatic, play spoon-fed flashbacks from events that occured just few seconds earlier, and.. simply make them feel like a tease without any reward to be had. Why not make them like, you know, thrilling instead? Remove;tension Add;idle time! This series currently would really need some more classic shonen tropes and less of this nonsense that ruins the flow of these scenes entirely. The writing itself is still far from impressive and quite dull. "We, the selected few, are looking for this specific guy." And 2 minutes later "Oh, look, it's that guy. Sup?" The story board is just weak. If the plot was a line, what it does is put one dot next to the ongoing line and immediately connects it. There aren't many people on this planet who cannot do that. Not much room to be impressed.

To continue with the lack of development: It's really making this series problematic. When I am looking the characters now versus what they were in the beginning of season 3, I do not see much growth. In the beginning of last season, the characters were acting highly comedic and the feelings related ponder was also used as a running gag. It was lame and just a waste. During end season, the focus was in drama, and what this did was show us fractions of different sides of the cast, sides we had not seen before - like proving that these sides also exist. And now we are once again looking at characters who could be removed from their current timeline, get the "relife treatment" (current self send in the past shell) and there wouldn't be much differences to spot. Send Naruto from the beginning of The 4th Great Ninja War into Pain Saga and see how history is rewritten. Do this with Deku and be prepared to listen to Initial D's OST, more specifically 'deja vu' on repeat. ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ It's not even a mystery~yy~!

The characters really don't seem to carry anything special with them from previous arc to next. This is a huge difference compared to other shonen titles and perhaps the reason why - at least I personally - as a viewer, am feeling very distanced from the series. It's not resonating with me on any level anymore. Be it Deku doing a smash the 9th milliont time, Bakugo yelling at 135dB or Uragravigirl being too close! with her body, none of it just has its charm anymore at this point. Rather it feels like some outcast, once-upon-a-time-famous celebrity is trying to be relevant with gimmicks that got old a decade ago. If I was the editor, I'd have adviced this guy write an arc where Deku stops being useless, Bakugo is forced to go on an anger management meeting, Uragravity actually does something to move the relationship onward -- like there's a filler I'd watch, and also give the frog girl all the screen time because she is the best girl. The series is at a point where I don't prefer the canon, even at times when it tries to distant itself from these same goofs it has already overusen.

As it is, I do believe that this season is going to improve since it's unlikely that it would dwell in its slower parts for 2 cours, but I also find it as unlikely that the series as a whole is going to improve for the better, or that I'd personally start caring again. New high peaks may occur but the same errs are bound to exist forever since the characters' lack of improvement seems to be something like a reflection of the author not learning from his own mistakes either. I'd say it's now a good time to lose hope with this and start looking for new titles to fill the shonen quota with something that has a bit more -- or preferedly; a lot more heart to it.

[This review contains spoilers, because I wasn't able to explain why I didn't like this movie without speaking of specific story events and character roles in the narrative]

Tenki no Ko tells us the romance story of runaway kids who kinda like each others but not really and then they start fighting against adults and opposing society because it rains all the time.

I found it very hard to relate to these youngsters because they feel like lifeless cardboard. Our main male lead ran away from home and got himself a gun which he uses to threaten people and pimps with. And our main female lead is ... living alone without parents and fighting against the child service by working as a... well, she is working for the pimp and she is a child. Why something like this was written for her backstory is something I entirely failed to understand, but at least it makes equally much sense with the male lead's backstory.

The story itself consist of story events that are a highly random collection of separate ideas that are not tied to each others in any solid way or form. The male lead's life is saved by a dude and after that he starts working as his assistant/maid. Most of the story that occurs before this specific event is just about wandering around the town doing nothing. The parts where he works as a maid is entirely about slice of life stuff which cannot be called really anything more than pointless filler. After meeting the main female with her pimp, he tries to save her even tho she doesn't ask to be saved. Whilst doing so he gets beaten down and repeatedly hit in the face by the pimp until pulls a gun on the pimp. This, for some reason, impresses the female and they start hanging out.

Unfortunately the cops are onto him because he is a runaway with a gun and also onto the girl because she is raising a child on her own while being a minor, so things turn south until she sacrifices herself to stop the rain. Because she is now gone, the male lead and the small kid the girl was rising start fighting against 6 gun-wielding cops with their fists and win, and just so happens to be she didn't actually sacrifice herself but the actually meet again and then the movie ends. This is the story and relationship development in a nutshell.

There is lot of stuff in-between these events, but to sum up why I didn't like them is going to be brief: Every new story event that occurs is more unlikely and improbable than the last one. Every single adult character in the movie works as a tool in the narrative and their existence is limited to creating false tension. Their actions are the combination of logical errors and plain stupidity, and it all exist so that the story would reach its preferred ending.

I am not truly sure what Shinkai was thinking when making Tenki no Ko, but I can conclude that it surely was not a written epic or how to respect his audience.

In terms of art, this is identical to his past movies and it feels especially old and tiring to watch with this type of content. Perhaps I wouldn't complain if there was something praise-worthy in other section. Like, to be fair, some of the weather related symbolism is quite nice and specifically few scenes towards the end are beautiful. It's just that these thing really don't carry the movie and feel highly insignificant compared to all the things which it does in a manner that could be called offensively bad.

I really didn't enjoy this movie. The story board was a complete mess, writing horrendous, the world building and the supposed societal system in the work make no sense whatsoever and the way the movie and its character relations are build is just a plain how-to NOT. It tried to provoke some cheap anger reactions from audience with pimp-assault injustice and whatever other (supposedly) good kids vs. the world setup, but all it got from me was some lols and weird faces. Overall it's an incredibly weak work with surprisingly poor writing and zero respect to give to its audience.

Only cynical criticism can save us from the gooey sentimentality and naivete, but sometimes rarely a series too precious to deserve this treatment appears, offering nothing but genuine entertainment to a point where its own shortcomings start to seem very insignificant compared to its strongest merits. I may have a soft spot in my heart for this series, but all the things I found to be problematic within the work are still covered here in this review and explained why I think they can be forgiven, because even with all of its problems, this is -in its own way- one of the greatest series seen ... in the era of modern anime.

The story itself is nothing to write home about. Boy experiences a dramatic event which entirely rewrites his life, after which he starts walking this path that is the combination of ongoing rescue arc and revenge tale. I wrote this sentence in about 6 seconds, and I assume the writer did his version in the same time. If you remove the script, what is left is quite an awful idea on paper. Had the show been done by any other studio, it'd have great potential to be unwatchable. But it's made by ufotable. And they remind us of one of the basic philosophies of anime that goes as follows: Anime is exactly as good as its execution. Which, in this case, is something that very accurate matches the definition of "epic". This is one of the rare series where the obscure statement "doing it right" can have universal meaning, because from artistic point of view, there is not much room for different interpretations.

A lot can be said about the animation and art, but perhaps the most essential part is how immersive they are. The visual style can be absorbed to such extent that there is no room for multitasking or side-tracking. Every frame is like a painting, and every sequence and scene delivers because they have been polished beyond belief. Due to this, the series deserves 100% of its viewer's attention. This is the type of content that makes it hard to look away from the tv screen, because if you do, you're likely to miss something amazing. Overall, the quality combines things from 3 highest peaks of anime art. From it's color scheme and art design, Yaiba, at its best, can be compared to Katanagatari (which, I personally consider to be the highest peak of raw art in anime, and I don't compare anything to it lightly). From its fluid animation during action scenes, it's not far from the best of the best AKA One Punch Man. And from the small/even subtle details, its level of polish comes close to Mahou Tsukai no Yome. Seeing all of these combined and come to life inside a series that follows the classic shonen formula and maintains its quality for two continuous cours is something I never expected from this industry: it's simply not realistic to await something this outstanding/this beautiful to come, and because of this, the series is not less than a masterpiece from its artistic side - and becomes one of the rare must watch titles from 2019 for this reason alone.

Yaiba's music and the use of the music in action scenes is simply stunning. I wouldn't change really anything from this department. OST choices are uncommon, yet efficient and highly fitting. Among the better things from this department is not really even how good the songs sound as standalone pieces, but how well and to what extent they are used in the series. Sound mixing stands out because the job is done in such respectable manner; beats play loudly, adding to the tension and atmosphere, and further serving the immersive effect and making the series captivating. OP and ED are praise-worthy as well. As a person who owns LiSA's entire discography, I cannot be but pleased to hear her twice in almost every episode. They have been setting me in the right mood/mindset and fixing it before/in-between each episode (I marathoned this series in 2 sections instead of watching it weekly). I don't think voice acting really deserves an analysis here because the seiyuu industry is very tight and talent is consistent there, so I will just say that seiyuu choices have been smart. Most of the time the voice goes well together with the character in question, maintaining a certain harmony where the person behind the character does not stand out but, rather, fits in.

To sum up the production: Yaiba is among the highest peaks of audiovisual achievements in anime, but it doesn't only have godly production values: it also never falls into doing compromises. Moreover, anime, as a medium, has widely entered the zone of advertisement platform where original works are becoming scarce and ultimately adaptations based on manga are just a side product of the original. But Yaiba itself is an improvement over its sauce, and for this reason it has all the rights to exist and is deserving most of the praise it gets. This is very clearly a work driven by passion and love for the animated medium, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Our cast itself doesn't do anything too great at any point. Their charm really lies within what they don't do instead. In every way, the cast is non typical for a series that follows classic shonen format. Tanjirou, our main lead, is a kind soul whose lawful "good guy traits" are not pushed to the realism of annoying moral soldier but limited so that it only happens to a respectable, genuine extent. This dude has some chill in him, but also totally different, down-to-earth type of serious side of him exists and it can best be seen in forms of the strong bonds he has for his own sister and the friends he makes along the run. What makes following his adventure and role as the main lead so pleasant and different from the usual is his inner balance which makes scenes that resolve around him appear rather neutral, keeping the focus in the events and visual art instead of being affected by Tanjirou's personal ideals. In many ways, he seems like a nameless video game main character thru to whom the viewer (player) experiences the series (game). I found this type of character approach to offer incredible entertainment value in Yaiba's case, because the series can be its raw self instead of being a reflection of the so called "heart" that many shonen series are famous for.

For readable length, I will not go in depth with the other cast members, but I have found none of them annoying. Zenitsu is kind of a fujoshi bait, a real cowards and a whine even, but the way he acts out/how his personality is delivered made him my 2nd favorite character in the series. Inosuke (the boar head dude) is what Kacchan from Hero Academia should have been. Nezuko (the sister person) is just criminally cute. What I really appreciate about her is how her entire character -with its traits, behavior and personality- is told visually. Let me repeat what I already said: It's all about the execution, and it even makes the characters come alive. To briefly also cover the villains: after the beginning, lots of planning has been put into them. Not all are super memorable, but some still will be bound to be used as an example of good design by me in the future. Outside very few expectations, all of them were still enjoyable to follow in the given moment.

Since Yaiba's writing itself is not super stellar, to put it lightly, the next two paragraphs will be covering some of its major problems as promised, and commenting on to what extent they are a problem and how&why they can be forgiven.

The first impression is incredibly bad and off putting; The first 5 episodes are hideous, the build up phase literally sucks, the prologue should've been a backstory narration at later point in time, how the story starts rolling onward rises more questions than answers, episodes 6-7 are still subpar. The start is slow and very far from impressive, the story kinda just has to exist for the events to play out, otherwise it's highly meaningless. The main character has a superpower that works as a deus ex machina thru the first cour. The comedic reliefs and strong personalities of the assisting main cast can appear impossible to tolerate for some viewers. There is a long list of reasons to not find this show as enjoyable as I did, but even when acknowledging these issues, I don't think any of them are severe enough to actually make this anime any less than great. The beginning is hard to forgive, but most of the other stuff not. After the start, the author clearly does not even attempt writing a solid main plot for the series, but instead utterly focuses on polishing these fight scenes and his characters, which essentially are the entire point of the series, writing-wise. When the series so heavily centers around them while the main story itself is a secondary factor, it doesn't become hard to actually appreciate the things that are mastered here instead of complaining about things which are besides the point when taking in consideration the bigger picture and the approach of the show. The assisting lead characters are more preference based question, but even comedic reliefs centering around these personas are more of the sort that come from within the characters, being part of their genuine personality instead of purely existing as an attempt to make the audience chance their mood/laugh, which so many similar series fail to do in genuine/believable manner. In this case, I didn't have any problems with the approach of the comedic scenes due to this reason. I could complain that some of them are unnecessary, but they still were not badly made.

The directing itself is a mixed back and inconsistent at times. It's like there is a respectable concept, but no solid means or ideas on how to deliver it, so they just kinda throw it in there without any type of build up and hope that the visuals will do the rest/carry it. For example, almost every single character introduction is just a teleportation. Dude/girl/monster appears from nowhere and be like sup. Then they fight or have a chat. That's it. There is very little vision and continuity to be seen, in fact, there is almost no content prior the main event (fight) at all. Another poor thing the series uses specially in the beginning are cheap devices that exist in purpose of adjusting the story or lead it to preferred direction. Literally NPC's appear and lead the way. They try to give an explanation, but it don't even matter, because the explanation could as well be "literally NPC's" and it wouldn't make a difference. These may seem like small things, but this is how the entirety of the story is constructed, developed and moved onward. It's simply not very solid way to lead the story and needs to be taken into consideration. Action-wise, the flow is splendid thanks to this very same attribute covered above, but story-wise, these events are based on coincidences, and that level of writing surely doesn't get my appreciation. As was already said: It's clear that the series doesn't even try to offer a substantial story where these events would be standing on more solid ground, and I do have to say that when there is no attempt, it cannot really be seen as a fail either. For example [[coincidence-based story events]], our mc literally just runs into a forest and meets people and monster because, for some reason, all of them are dwelling in the same place. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure gives a magnificent explanation why this happens in its story; stand users attach each others, and at the same time, there is always a possession of something physical or even mental (knowledge) that is of interest and therefore gives legit explanation why randoms meet each others in this manner. You can call it bs and not buy the explanation, but it still makes perfect sense and follows the series' own inner logic. Here it's like a bar gag. "Soo, you come here often?"

These complains are something that I hanged onto during the worst parts (in the beginning, specifically), but after that, the series became pure art and entered the zone of genuine entertainment, having little to no annoying problems at all in the later episodes. In short: Kimetsu no Yaiba is not a flawless anime that's based on flawless writing, but it is pretty damn close to flawless art and flawless execution of its own flawed story. While appreciating imperfections may be a hard task, it's not hard at all to enjoy Yaiba for the few things which it does so incredibly well, especially when those are its main event. Now I hope that 122 episodes later, this can have its place as the 2nd best shonen anime. As a final verdict: No matter what you think of shonen anime in generally, I highly recommend giving this series a go, because Yaiba is not just a shonen done right, it's an anime done right: Art done right.

I really thought this was going to be different from your typical small deal shonen series. The first two episodes were fun as heck. Supernatural firefighters fought against flames with axes and machine guns while nuns tried to tame them with "holy water". Exactly the type of nonsense I am into, easy to enjoy, I thought.

But then the show showed its true colors. Incredibly unfitting and unnecessary ecchi fanservice and boob fondling. Soulless comedic reliefs. Dialogue is constantly masked as story-telling/backstory narrative in a manner so pathetic that it seems like a parody, whilst lessening the genuity of the characters. Illogical story events are there ... pushing the narrative in preferred direction. Teleporting villains. Asspulled mystery elements that seem to exist just so that the series won't entirely fall under monster of the week formula, and to give the audience at least one reason to watch the next episode -- yet entirely failing to stop the series from feeling repetitive. Build up and world building are greatly missing, making the series very flat and its content insignificant.

Then we have the directing which deserves its own paragraph, or two (more specifically three), because it's seriously goddamn weird.

Scenes are missing entire animation sequences, and scenes play out so randomly, so quickly and so illogically that it almost seems like there is no continuity. This because the directing is all over the place. We're jumping from scene to another either at ludicrous tempo or alternatively waiting for one unnecessary long to reach its end, because it can go on forever. So incredibly many events occur in every episode, they are filled with content, but afterwards, it feels like you didn't really watch anything. It's entirely mixed back and lacking vision to an extent that it makes the entire story board seem way worse than it's on script.

The creativity and overall style is a bonus, but when obviously half-assedly created scenes (such as the entire mid section of episode 3) exist in the meantime, things become super inconsistent, and, more than anything, the high points appear as try-hard attempts to create style-over-substance content. This is how the style stops being a bonus and becomes the only good thing to look forward to, but, unfortunately, very often it's not even worth the wait. In case you have no idea what I am referring to, let me explain what I've spotted:

There are even scenes which come with insanely detailed and fluid animation that are followed by a mid scene still wallpaper (with absolutely no artistic relevance to the scene itself) and then continued with legit animation one second later, but with production values that seem to be from totally different anime. They skip up to 30-second-long scenes by implementing in-between stills in this manner. It's lame and so painfully obvious. You could take 50 screenshots from episode 4, and have people guessing which anime they are from and no one would guess they all lead back to one single series. The artistic approach changes between One Punch Man Season 01 and 02 from scene to another. I can't recall seeing anything this extreme before and I surely don't see this as a good thing. In fact, it made me feel dizzy. I don't think I could marathon this show without legit needing to vomit. It's simply too much to take. And needless to say, with all of these, things like tension and atmosphere are returning 404. Show me the man who planned this disaster and I will kindly, yet firmly, ask them to stop. This is not how you do anime, Jesus Christ.

I could list down more issues and I could forgive some of these to certain extent, after all, it's not like modern anime doesn't come with their own problems, but the point is; there are no strong pros here. Only wide variety of beginner-level mistakes, some experimental directing which is totally gross and very little anything to counter these problems with. What we have at hand is yet another serial production shonen that shows no heart or passion. Perhaps Bones should have been in charge of this because they currently produce the most consistent art work in the industry and Fire Force would really need some. To be more accurate, there are no problems with the audio. SFX, BGM and seiyuu work are all decent (tho, I wouldn't have picked this voice for the nun), and especially the sound mixing stands out for positive reasons, because in action series, the balance of music and SFX is highly important, and it's nailed here. But that's a mild solace.

The characters never had potential personalities, but in the beginning they seemed to be quite a fun bunch of folks due to their insane firefighting techniques. I was hyped for the entertainment value of this partially mindless action and thought it could carry the series. Now we have neko-eared fanservice girl, religious waifubait (with everlasting, ever-so-subtle blush on her face), and firefighter teenager with jedi-sword. Boooo-ring. Personally, I care very little about any of them. Solid reasons to care have not been offered, and I haven't found alternatives myself. The dialogue is really not helping either. Most of the potentially interesting side characters are becoming invisible and their potentially entertaining sides being pushed away.

Then we have the real mc who doesn't have much going on. Devil but actually a good guy who wants to be "a hero". Basically copy-paste of Ao no Exorcist. The lack of factors that make you care about him, make him relatable or worth of caring about further makes the series feel more distant and less significant. MC is the type of character whose persona is cut down to naivete due to his moral compass, but even that side of him can only be found deep under his skin, because this dude's presence is almost nonexistent. Even if the massive room for character development gets realized, you just won't see anything new. After these few episodes, I can say this with utmost certainty, because when so many basic things are wrong, seeing improvement that leads all the way to the other end of the scale is lottery. The cast is not impressive, and the delivery even less. The "villains" have also reached a point where they can be completely dull and unconvincing. At worst, they feel filler-ish. "I came here to be beaten by one of the main characters, so you folks can do his character introduction."

I expected much more from the man who created Soul Eater, because I enjoyed that show enough to watch it twice. And I really hoped this would be the first David Production show -that is not Jojo- which I could approve of. It momentarily fooled me into thinking that this was going to be the case, but it changed my mind fast and looks like it will not be doing that again. Not even slowly. I conclude that everything that was worth of my time in this series has already been shown because it just keeps getting worse. It's a real shame because the backdrops, original design, and color pallet really had some fantastic things to offer at times. + the ED is my personal favorite from this season, but what can you do.

Anime series that are exclusively aimed for adult audience have been disappearing from this medium faster than top anime lists on the Internet have been overtaken by overrated seasonal garbage. That's quite a tempo. Long gone are those days when maturity meant more than throwing in couple gore scenes and tagging the production with an R. Vinland Saga is not a blast from the past. It won't automatically please every soul that mourns for what anime once was. Nevertheless, Vinland Saga is already one of the most successful series from this ongoing decade when it comes to combining maturity with mainstream appeal.

[Story and characters]

The ... story of Vinland Saga may be very frustrating to some viewers because some of its characters are naive moral soldiers whose pseudo-noble ideals and philosophies do not go hand in hand with how the world works. "Chaotically good" men figuratively shoot themselves in the leg. Their very way of thinking is their cause of death. Personally, I find this to be very satisfying, because it is fair representation of survival of the fittest. You get what you deserve. In shonen series, those who yell their nakama bs out in the air and plead to "what is the right thing to do", are usually called main characters. In Vinland Saga, they are called soon-to-be-corpses.

The core idea is very much the usual Viking story. Exploration, culture, dawn of the new age, fights and violence. Manly men, strong female characters, philosophical wits and inventions that were relevant during this time. All of these sides are very well implemented inside its own story line which is build around the characters in a manner that yells high quality. Since our main character is a growing child who is influenced by different people, we get to see lots of contrast, and even such things as how the living environment affects the growth of a child is not left unnoted. I am personally huge fan of this concept and that's yet another thing which is dealt masterfully here. Minor flaws are present. Some unrealistic power-levels distant the series from realistic feel to new-long-jump-world-records-in-full-viking-gear ehhs. It's not a perfect story that does nothing questionable, but it's very strong and splendidly polished.

So far, the main points from story department fall under respectable quality, and the characterization has surpassed my critical expectations. Strong build up phase has created one solid foundation for rest of the story, leaving lots of room for improvement in future episodes. On top of that, it only seems to be going for better. It's linear, logical and coherent. Something which seems to be an impossible task for so many modern series is absolutely nailed here. Vinland Saga has chosen the golden path which can, realistically, realize its potential. Characters-wise, entirely new, anime-exclusive story events have been added to fill in missing links and add substance onto these personas and their reasoning. Basically the opposite of filler content that can be found in source material. Respectable decisions regarding this anime adaptation have been made, and I salute Wit Studios for showing that they do care about their anime.

[Production]

The values are high no matter how it's looked. Not heavenly since sloppy CGI reminds of its existence once in a while and character movements come with copy-pasted frames to a point that it stands out, but to this medium standards', these values are nothing less than high peak. Episode 05 time stamp 3:19 (Amazon). I mean wow, has even Ghibli managed to create such stunning forest backdrops? These stills are wallpaper-tier, probably drawn by Japanese Bob Ross. Simply mind-blowing work. However, I will focus on commenting on its approach and presentation instead of praising the raw audiovisuals. Some people will really not like what i will say here, but I have decided to say it anyway because I don't think anyone else will and because this is my honest opinion. Do keep in mind that the following is not "why the art sucks 101", but rather "how the series could've been better".

When people talk about anime art, their judgement is almost without exception limited to the technicality and fundamentals of drawing and animation. But one important factor tends to be forgotten; its message. The content of Vinland Saga does not go in harmony with its audiovisual presentation. There, I said it. The manga offers layers of maturity that are invisible in this adaptation. The art style does not resonate with the world of Vinland Saga very well. You cannot tell this story with rainbows and unicorns and expect it to present itself flawlessly, but this is what was more or less done. If the series was exclusively about human co-existence with nature, I wouldn't complain, but this is also about human conflict, war, societal structures, and characters who are enraged and too angry to die. The content can be dark, gritty and very adult, but it surely don't look like it.

This is truly unfortunate because it shows us to what extent maturity is avoided in the modern industry. Even the world building is greatly lessened due to the series feeling more-or-less like an AOT clone instead of its very own thing. It's not a direct copy-paste by any means, but you really don't need to be a genius to see the similarities either. It's clear that Wit Studios chose this art approach solely to build mainstream appeal and enter the shekels game. Even the character design is way worse than it should've been. Just compare it to the tv series 'Vikings' or newest GoW game. How awesome are some of those celestial bodies compared to whatever you want to call an entirely yellow anime beard that looks the same as bishojo hairs from Kuroko no Basket. What I meant to say here is that the production feels unfitting, out of place and very teenager. It's simply not ideal. This happens when popularity is chosen over art.

To sum my point up: There is this saying that goes like this: "Art matters, visuals are secondary." Scarce is the amount of series that present this philosophy as strongly as Vinland Saga. The production does not ruin this show by any means. It can be overlooked and forgiven, but, nevertheless, it requires the viewer (or at least myself as a viewer) to adjust: accept a compromise - and blocks Vinland Saga from entering the tier of Godly anime, and I think this is a very important factor to acknowledge. Since pros and cons are a thing, some decisions that are improvement over source material have also been made, such as the lack of caricature-like comedic reliefs, which honestly no one needs to see in this anime and I am glad they have been left out.

[Enjoyment]

We have light novel adaptations and guilty pleasures. Most modern anime is only watchable ironically. The chances for ground breaking anime series vary from slim to nonexistent based to production year. Must watch titles from current production years are counted with one-hand fingers. When looking back into anime history with historian-goggles, this is not priority nro. 1, but regardless, this is quality time and I cannot recommend it enough for seasonal watchers who seek relevance and modern high-points instead of past gems.

[Final verdict]

This could have been an OG Berserk-tier masterpiece if it was made by dedicated studio such as Geno Studios, which have made the most mature anime series seen in several years (at least in my opinion), Golden Kamyu. Wit Studios have simply never dealt with anime that is mature in the way Vinland Saga is, and perhaps that's why the outcome is far from what I personally thought was possible. Some better decision could have been done to please the core target audience of the manga. But none of the things I criticize Vinland Saga for are enough to make me think that it's not a good anime. In fact, it's already among the better things from 2019. If you do not enjoy this anime, please consider reading the manga instead, especially the parts that this anime will cover are phenomenal. In case you do enjoy it, that makes two of us.

Dr. Stone is an anime about this teenage Senkuu dude who is very smart. 10 billion percent smart. He has read few at-least-hundred-pages-long articles about agriculture, watched 2 if not 3 primitive technology videos on youtube, and the amount of chemistry classes he has skipped by 9th grade can possibly be counted with one hand fingers. Damn I wish I was this smart.

Dr. Stone is also about this other dude, Taiju Ooki, who is the opposite of this first dude, being a person who has average fit and is not a nerd. This dude is actually capable of doing very physically demanding tasks such ... as chopping fire wood, crushing berries with his bare feet, and throwing rocks that weight a ton a quarter mile in the air, not to mention the wide variety of other tasks from this 'manly shit' department. Damn I wish I was this manly.

Together these two dudes will re-inhabit the world after everyone has been turned into stone! They are Adam and Eve! And they will survive even if it kills them! (That's legit what they say, no joke). If only the smart dude had been as passionate about human biology and being alive as he was about those other three things he kinda doesn't suck at, they might have chosen a different reference to use here and a different phrase to yell out loud, but who cares! It's time to re-start human development from the stone age!!

Before continuing, there are two things that should be noted.

1) The idea is fantastic
2) Nothing else is

The story is quite literally just garbage. Out of all the things the story approach is comedic, and out of all comedic approaches the comedy mainly consists of either penis jokes, virgin comedy, or sequences which entirely rely on voice acting where our main characters yell and act so damn anime. It gets tiring after a short while and in generally appears incredibly generic. This is the type of content that could be used as an example of what people who do not watch anime think anime is like, because it's just that bad. The story also contains some drama, which is beyond fake and so dreadfully-horse-shit awful that it's ten times funnier than the comedy. Meaning it's absolutely impossible to take any of it seriously.

Rest of the story is exactly as shallow and superficial as its comedy and drama, filling the widest portion of the air time with irrelevant filler and dialogue that has no substantial value. Story events, drama, comedy: all of these exist for the sole reason that something needs to happen because nothing else is happening in this content-lacking, empty shell of an anime. Since these events are to such wide extent executed with over-reactions, the characters' personalities disappear, and all there is left are these clown-shells who do stupid things and try to make the audience laugh, or alternatively have monologues that are masked as dialogues which consists of 1st grade science lessons. It's dreadful to witness.

Especially big muscle dude seems to have endless stamina when it comes to being noisy and annoying. He yells in every single scene like Asta from Black Clover or Eren in the earlier Shingeki no Kyoujin seasons. As for me, he is way more annoying than either of those two examples ever were, because his character is cut down to dimensions below superficial. His thought process and way to think are the combination of plot device that solely exist to slow done the pace of whatever-the-hell is happening and counter-nihilism. His ideals are fake and impossible to respect. This dude's awareness level is the one of a chicken who keeps running weeks after its head has been removed. I hate him with passion, and he makes the content, that is already downright terrible, damn close to unwatchable. The humor sucks, the story barely exists, the word "pacing" feels almost alien after 6 episodes and the characters are the polar opposite of genuine humans. Quitting is a legit option with these cards.

There are also few other characters who... are given a lot of air time, but I won't talk about them because they are somehow even worse and I am trying to forget that they exist. They can be summed up with singular words: love-interest and baddie.

The production itself is bearable, but does nothing to carry the lacking content. Looking and listening to it doesn't offer any specific entertainment value. Animation is avoided during action sequences, backdrops consist of still nature and it has very little variety. In generally, characters are the only elements that ever move. It looks rough and non-fluid: like everything is literally made of stone. Occasionally close-up shots of waves or fire are there, but most of the time not. The rest consists of camera roll-overs (if not complete stills), dust that blocks elements, facial close-ups + empty background macros that are used in purpose of avoiding animation. The macros are incredibly cheap and pointless. If you compare the macros from Dumbbell (another seasonal show), you can see that those are polished, fitting to the series and contain actually some detail which shows that someone actually cared what they look like. Here no one clearly gave an f for these could be loaned from shutterstock. The character design is the only mildly original piece of art work here. Especially the color pallet makes the thing look outdated and something you have seen too many times. Looking at this only makes the series more boring.

I haven't found any legitimate reason to like this series. I was even unable to laugh at how bad it is because this might as well be the most idiotic anime produced in recent years. The only mildly entertaining thing about this anime is this one power-lifting scene related to boulders at which some people, specifically those who have played Resident Evil 5, are bound to laugh their asses off (or maybe it was just me), but other than that, nothing. I am utterly surprised Dr.Stone has been so positively received by the anime community, but I guess even this type of zero-effort series can get a free pass as long as it's not labelled isekai.