- Last OnlineSep 18, 2024 12:58 AM
- GenderFemale
- BirthdayNov 3, 1989
- LocationRomania
- JoinedSep 10, 2007
RSS Feeds
|
![]()
Jan 28, 2022
Watching this in 2022 while catching up to shows from the past few years, Goblin Slayer is very different from what I had expected given the outrage and discourse I remember from 2018. I was genuinely expecting episodes and episodes of girls getting raped and a generic hero swooping in to save them and growing his harem of broken but grateful bishoujo, but this is very nearly the opposite of that: Goblin Slayer is the story of a mysterious, stoic, focused MC who only cares about one thing: exterminating goblins. A girl he saved is following him because all her friends were killed by those
...
goblins and she has nothing else left; they go around killing goblins, whether or not they save anyone is incidental, and they get joined not a by a harem but by three genuinely interesting side-characters (two of whom are guys).
Goblin Slayer has some incredibly nice worldbuilding, it presents genuinely intriguing mysteries, the cast has depth and the MC really carries the show (as he should but as MCs rarely do) - but at 13 episodes with the pacing taking its sweet time, with no plot to resolve this season, there is absolutely no way Goblin Slayer can end on anything that is not an anticlimatic "go read the light novel", and it was about halfway that I realized this. What I am trying to say, Goblin Slayer is not a bad show, but it's a *pointless* show. I am writing this about a week after I dropped it, and I already forgot most of the individual story beats in the first half - calling them forgettable is a bit harsh, but they don't tie together with any greater plot... so end up forgettable.
On the "not a bad show" front, the music sounds really good, especially the OP and ED; the lyrics to the OP song are cheesy but the song itself sounds great, and the animation for the OP looks fantastic and underscores what I assume will be the theme of the story later (whether or not the gods play dice). The episode animation is also polished and pleasant to watch.
The rape everyone was talking about? It's there, mostly in the background, used to make Goblins seem monstrous and dangerous in a way just killing or maiming people wouldn't. It's not glorified, it's not really shown onscreen (for the episodes I've watched at least, episode 1 was the extent of it), and the show makes it clear that it's an awful thing. So why not just use something less awful? This is a show about a main character doing his best to commit ethnic genocide against a "lesser race", including their children, the premise would absolutely NOT work with anything lesser. This isn't a tale of personal revenge, although that is an element yes, it's a story of someone recognizing a problem others are downplaying or ignoring and dedicating their life dealing with it, so for this what the goblins do had to be equally larger than any other threat *and* endemic to their species (as in, every goblin participates in it).
So my final recommendation is this. Watch it if:
- You're looking for something easy and actiony to watch, that doesn't ask for your full commitment
- You like the premise and will read the LN later
- You want to know if the LN is worth reading
Avoid if:
- You want a complete story and you don't care to buy the LN after
- You don't like this kind of gamey fantasy, this won't be the story to convince you otherwise
- You take a strong objection to either rape or ethnic cleansing not being handled with utmost sensitivity. The second more than the first.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
 0
Love it
 0
Funny
 0
Confusing
 0
Well-written
 0
Creative
 0Show all
![]()
Jan 14, 2022
I never watched the original Fruits Basket anime, but I read the manga when I was 14 or 15; it was the third manga I ever read and I honestly believe it changed my life, made me a better person and helped repair my relationship to my family. This show, from the first season to final one, is very nearly a perfect adaptation of it. If you are young, if you have not watched a lot of anime, then I won't hesitate to dearly and warmly recommend you watch it. Please don't let my negative review put you off, it's not aimed at you, go
...
watch the show because it might just create a miracle in your life.
The reason I am writing this review is as an alternate viewpoint. Unlike the me a decade and half ago, I'm a working adult closer in age to Shigure and Hatori than I am to Tohru so re-experiencing this story felt completely different to what it was the first time. Let's take it bit by bit:
The theme Fruits Basket explores is cycles of abuse and it shows how we continue hurting each other, over and over again, and the only way to break out of it is to take initiative and respond to the abuse with kindness and understanding. You can divide the cast in a few categories: the kids, the young adults, the abusive parents and the dead parents. The Sohma family is profoundly broken and toxic, everyone is suffering, everyone is to some degree sympathetic, and the show takes the perspective of the kids and the teenagers as they navigate this. If you are a kid or a teenager yourself this is fine, but where rewatching the show caused dissonance with me was that I automatically took the perspective of the adults and almost every one of them are massive assholes, or dead, or otherwise really... not good people. The world of Furuba is cynical to the extreme, and it's telling you to accept that the world is ugly and most are abusers but you have to love them anyway - and that anyone could be an abuser, it's only a matter of circumstances (whether or not this is wrong is arguable, but it IS extremely cynical).
The story continues following around the Sohma family and exploring their individual histories of abuse and how they grow past that... which is nice, but abuse and crimes do *not* get punished, ever, they get forgiven. An example: there is a certain character who hospitalizes several main cast members, emotionally abused at least two children for years to the point one of them was nearly catatonic, physically abused several children and teenagers over the course of the show... and more things, and this character is forgiven. He's also not the only awful person. Another character, seeing their younger sibling (by about 10 years?) be abused and slowly dying inside, rejects them until the sibling grew up and grew a more positive attitude via Tohru, then they want to mend the relationship and be friends. Another character cheats on the person he loves with that person's parent. Another adult (late 20s) falls in love with a highschooler and this gets like 2 minutes of development over the course of the show, the rest of the time is just them pining for each other. Nobody ever apologizes: the Good Person Thing is to turn the other cheek and make up, you have to accept everyone, change comes from you and it's selfish to have expectations. When I was a teenager growing up in a difficult family situation this message helped me accept my parents as they were; as an adult at an age where I could have my own kids, this message genuinely makes me want to puke.
Regarding characterization, the kids all act very mature and adult; the adults all act like how teenagers imagine adults act - they use big words and have long flowery dramatic speeches and are all very absorbed in Adult Person Drama, which is the same as teenager drama except the adults have the freedom to slack off and the privilege to push the kids around. What I'm trying to say is, all the dialogue coming from the adult cast (except Akito) is weird in an uncanny valley kind of way and the kids themselves act way too mature compared to how you'd expect emotionally immature teens who are dealing with trauma to act (and I'm not kidding about this, the only person shown to have a job that's not 90% a hobby is a teenager). About the main cast, Tohru is a Holy Virgin Mother who is perfect and resolves the trauma of a dozen characters by just existing in their vicinity, and yet she is also impossible to hate even as a viewer so props there. Kyo is your regular tsundere. Yuki is great though, no complaints there, his story and character is complex and his trauma was the one thing that made me cry again in the 70 or so episodes of the remake. Shigure was... an unexpectedly awful person but as a character really interesting, once you accept that he never grew past the mental age of 15. Another besides Yuki standout is Akito, who is very fun to watch with his narcissism (which the show of course does not acknowledge: mental disorders don't exist, everything can be solved and healed with a hug from Tohru).
I also have a few YMMV dislikes that are very subjective but I still want to mention without going into them too deeply:
- Everyone gets paired up.
- There's not a gay person in this whole cast, everyone is not just paired up but paired up in a straight relationship to the point where it's statistically weird that absolutely everyone is straight. The show tried to bait a bit with Ayame, but walked back on that.
- Akito's character arc involves her discarding her androgyny - stories like this are fine, I just don't personally like them.
One more important thing that I need to bring up, the sound: the sound mixing in all seasons of this was awful to the point I thought my headphones or laptop were broken. A lot of Furuba doesn't have background music, just characters talking over silence - in those scenes, if you're wearing decent-ish headphones, you can VERY clearly hear where a voice clip recording ends and another begins (there's some very slight white background noise when characters talk that just cuts to complete, blank silence for a moment when the voice recording ends). This isn't an issue in scenes with soft background music, and I've never heard anything like this in other anime, it was incredibly jarring and was probably one of the reasons I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy the show. The bad sound rating is for this, the OP/ED were fine or really good in all seasons.
With this review I don't mean to attack anyone's first experience of Fruits Basket or the nostalgia for the first experience back then, these are just my personal thoughts on the three seasons of the remake. If you are an adult and plan to watch this without ever having read the manga back then, or if you didn't like the first season but want to power through because the rating is great, please keep in mind that this show might not be for you (just like it wasn't for me) and sometimes it's fine to drop a show you don't enjoy even if it's popular and genre-defining.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Oct 19, 2021
It's borderline insulting to associate this steaming pile of filler with the main show. It has none of the charm of the original and even makes the original seem worse because it points out some of the weak points that S1 and S2 covered up, making the whole of the Tensura anime series a net worse experience than just skipping these episodes.
Story:
There is none. This is filler. Even the recaps of the main series are more important to the story.
Moreover, it completely ignores S2 part 1 despite airing after it, so if you *have* to watch this, make sure to do so before S2 (not
...
between the two parts of S2 when it aired); otherwise the flow of the show is completely ruined.
Characters:
All of them are reduced to a single character trait for the sake of gags, and the gags didn't even have the decency to be funny. It focuses far too much on all the girls and the NPCs fawning over the MC without him *doing* anything, making Rimuru feel like a weak self-insert harem protagonist with no personal agency.
Art:
The girls are cute. They didn't really put any effort into the details on the guys though. Even Rimuru looks... bland. The animation is vastly less detailed than in the main series.
Sound:
It exists. Didn't notice anything good or bad.
This is one of the worst anime I've ever watched, and I've watched a lot of anime. Avoid this unless you *really* like filler. I wish I dropped it earlier.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Sep 21, 2021
The very first thing I want to bring up, which was my misconception based on the trailer and the poster and the reason I avoided it: no, the titan does not rape the MC. Their relationship is fine, sweet even.
The second point, if you are not already a BL fan, don't watch this. Full stop. Not recommended. Avoid. So with this said, my review is aimed squarely only at other BL fans who know exactly what they are getting into.
As a BL fan, think of this show as one of those short 2-3 chapter BL yaoi manga that have a setting squarely aimed at having
...
the two MCs who embody a kink have sex - this time the kink is "size difference", with some sex pollen also in the mix in the second half and exhibitionism in the first. It's not that the plot of this show is weak - it has more plot and worldbuilding than it has any right to have for the sex vehicle that it is. If anything, the setting is overambitious: this whole anime is less than 2 20-minute episodes (without the ED each episode has about 4 minutes), how much characterization, story, worldbuilding, relationship development can you even squeeze into that airtime??
That said, it's also NOT a good show. The relationship develops far too fast, setting details are never explained (how exactly can a male titan get a male human pregnant?), the airtime is practically nothing yet they still managed to fit sexual assault in (not between the MC and his love interest), the titan is just a generic perfect dreamboat. The production values are awful, it's a borderline slideshow; the ED song sung by the VAs is bad.
It's important to bring up that this anime aired in a specific context though: a market starved for BL adaptations, where a lot of us will take and appreciate anything. That this exists is in and of itself a small miracle, despite the issues above.
The end result: it's fine.
Generally speaking, I'd recommend this anime for the following audiences:
- You like short yaoi stories and have a high tolerance to "plot? what plot?"
- You are starved for BL and are willing to forgive its issues
- You just like listening to VAs make sex noises and having pictures to go with it is better than a drama CD.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Jan 26, 2020
This is a short review of sorts for both seasons.
The novel The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is about a character named Wei WuXian who is a bit silly, not at all serious but has an extremely dark past as the founder of a demonic branch of magic, and about his developing relationship with his long-time friend/rival Lan WangJi; although it is ostensibly a murder mystery, the real mystery is how WWX ended up "falling to the dark side" and how that meshes with the goofy, playful character we see him as. The novel over the course of about 550k words (for reference, The Lord of
...
the Rings had 480k words) lays a path of breadcrumbs that slowly unfolds a tragic backstory and that constantly recontextualizes all events that were presented before it, and by the end it completely dismantles who we thought WWX was as a character. On re-read, several interactions that seem light-hearted suddenly have a a sad edge and you feel like you cannot criticize anything WWX ever chose to do, because holy shit please let him be happy.
Compared to the novel version, there are two big differences in the anime: the romantic development has (almost) all been cut out; Lan Wangji is just there, there's not much point to him.
And that the main flashback events have been moved into one big chunk in the first season, which makes sense in a way. The flashbacks also stop at the point where they'd start spoiling later revelations in the novel, so watching the first season is a decent enough entry point.
As for the second season - its main issue is that the staff of the anime have read the books and this *shows*. It's a fantastic adaptation that identifies all the heavy moments and puts appropriate stress on them: if you have read the novels. If you haven't read the novels, I can't imagine the constant angsty flashbacks and the constant sadness surrounding WWX feeling anything but trite. Also, the anime moved a lot of flashbacks from late in the novel into the first arcs - if you liked the first season and have not read the novel, I strongly recommend doing that before watching the second season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Aug 4, 2010
Just... wow. I just finished it and I'm blown away. I haven't cried this hard at an anime since I was on the last episodes of Clannad After - FC hit strings I didn't even know I have. From the moment Gretha remembered she was Mel, to Helga and Duma's little bonding session - and Thoma, oh god, Thoma. Just - I was sobbing and still feel like crying when I think about it.
Sakamoto Maaya as Mel was fantastic. This is the second time I've ever cried for a side character - the first time was Shiroe from Terra e, and even Shiroe was set
...
up as a main character for two episodes. Her voice brought so many feelings to life in her. I've never held her as the voice acting goddess her reputation holds her, but now suddenly I'm not sure anymore.
But the biggest star in this anime was Junko Minagawa as Thoma. When Thoma started bawling, it was impossible not to be pulled in along with him. Crying is often annoying, agonized tearful screams mostly unremarkable after a few hundred anime, but that - that-
...
The theme songs, those beautiful, heatwrenching theme-songs, they couldn't have chosen better ones. Having Aghi sing the ending in some of the episodes was also a stroke of genius - especially because he had no singing voice to speak of.
Of course, this anime had bad sides too. Heaps of them. The directing was almost amateur and the script was somewhat cheesy. Unsurprisingly, the director wrote the script too, along with one other guy, and also unsurprisingly neither of them had anything remarkable on their resume - except for this.
I was never sure what the series composition guys were for what exactly animation directors are for, but after watching this, I think I understand. This anime is their work alone. Checking their resumes on ANN, it becomes even more evident - only one of the three series composition guys doesn't have several good series listed; the other two, Hiroshi Fukutomi - storyboard on LoGH and Law of Ueki, and Katsumi Terahigashi, who worked on seven episodes of Durarara and several of Cardcaptor Sakura and Umineko (which again had script trouble). I want to say more here, but I don't know how to explain it - something about the series, something they must have done, because you can feel it strongly, saved it from the bad directing, and so well that you just stop caring about it and just enjoy.
The script is salvaged by the excellent use of music. I'm planning to hunt down the OST after I write this, but it wasn't the music itself that did the trick (some parts of Kara no Kyoukai still bored me out despite Kajiura Yuki's score) - it was the use of the music; it underlined every single line spoken and made it jump out and grab you, pulling you in. In some places it was overpowering, reminiscent of .hack//SIGN, in others it was rather subtle, but it always felt perfect.
Also, on the art: it's not perfect, but it's wonderfully haunting after it grows on you. Greecia is just plain beautiful. Still, it's not the best ever seen and the series could have benefited possibly from more budget here - to compensate, it has a definite character.
I'm not sure whether I can even give the director points for the original story, since it's eerily reminiscent of Please Save My Earth. It lacked some of the dilemmas that made PSME worth reading, but, on the other hand, at least it handled the ones it had very well. I'm glad Soran wasn't an abusive ass, I'm glad Love Rival #1 for once wasn't a dick towards everyone and that his bottled up emotions erupted realistically, and furthermore I'm glad that they didn't spend much screentime angsting over the local Yamato Nadeshiko and made her have a personality beyond that. And it was sher genius to have Thoma not be [X], but [Y]. (Spoiler?)
And nobody had tragic pasts beyond what the plot required them to! Ok, Soran did, for, like, half a minute.
Fantastic Children is what I wanted Please Save My Earth to be, but I wasn't expecting that when I started watching (I was seriously expecting a vampire series), and it went above and beyond that.
I gave this one of my rare (maybe not so much these days that I have an idea of what to seek out) 10 ratings. In spite of its misgivings, it deserves it, in heaps.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
|
