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May 25, 2021
What's your problem? Whatever it may be, step into his clinic and Dr. Irabu might be able to help you out with your issues.
In the anime Kuuchuu Buranko ("Trapeze"), the extremely eccentric psychiatrist Dr. Irabu, his multiple personalities (or are they?) and the beautiful nurse Mayumi who literally blurs the line between 2D and 3D help people overcome all sorts of crippling psychological issues all with a single vitamin shot, like a journalist with OCD who's unable to work because he believes a stove left on or a lit cigarette in his trash will set fire to his building at any moment, a guy with
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a permanent raging erection due to massive stress and a man who constantly has to keep his urges to randomly destroy shit around him in check. Each and every episode deals with a different patient with a different issue and goes through their entire past and journey towards rehabilitation, and all those stories which are seemingly disjointed and random are actually subtly and tightly interwoven from the very start as they play out non-linearly over the course of ten days, from December 16th to December 25th. An example of this is the very first episode, where the yakuza dude who fears pointy objects appears in a scene even though he isn't introduced until episode 7, where the very same scene plays out with full context. There's also proper explanations of whatever ails our characters done by the charismatic Dr. Fukui who pops out from the side of the screen and all kinds of medical and psychological trivia to be found.
The anime's visual style is incredibly unique. Combining traditional animation with shots of live action actors and objects all painted in bright colors, its almost psychedelic style wears its emotions on its sleeve. You might think it's a pretentious, artsy anime but it's far from it. Kuuchuu Buranko has no pretensions aside from filling you with genuine happiness with its optimistic, upbeat nature. You won't be able to stop smiling once the (very good, just like the OP) ED theme starts playing prematurely whenever a character's story reaches its conclusion and their real lives finally begin. But how does Irabu accomplish all of this only with a vitamin shot, which he's always hot and bothered for and excited to give? Always very, very creatively, as he gets people to truly embrace their flaws and overcome their problems before they can even notice instead of running away. This moral is what the anime is all about and it does it very well.
Kuuchuu Buranko is a goddamn genuine masterpiece (possibly the very best modern Toei work) and it excels in every field (especially when it comes to narrative, I really wish there was more anime where the lives of various characters who've never interacted slowly mix and intermingle like this) with tons of heart poured into it. Even if you don't seek media specifically to feel good, watch this, because it WILL make you feel good anyway.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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May 25, 2021
In Neo-Saitama, a futuristic shithole full of neon, ninjas of the Soukai Syndicate run rampant in their evil intent. The home of the salaryman Fujikido Kenji is broken into and his wife and son are brutally murdered by said ninjas, and just when he's about to die, he accepts into his body an ancient ninja soul full of power, Naraku Ninja. His mind clouded by revenge, Ninja Slayer sets out on a journey to slay all the evil ninja in his path to the head of the Soukai Syndicate.
Thanks to the (partial, in this case) animation style lifted directly from the much more popular Inferno
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Cop (both from the same studio), many might think of this anime as a similarly absurd rehash, which is very wrong. Unlike Inferno Cop, Ninja Slayer plays itself completely straight from beginning to end, despite feeling like a parody all the time, with its absurdity being perfectly natural with only one extremely amazing fourth wall break through the whole thing. The action and humor are pretty solid, and so is the incredibly gratuitous fanservice, which borders on parody levels sometimes. Which it does, at least once. The story and characters are solid, and the principal animation is consistently stunning as well, which means the money saved from having characters fighting mostly as static frames was put to good use. The soundtrack is also phenomenal, with a really good OP theme and 26 different ED themes by various artists.
Ninja Slayer is a parody and love letter of some kind to many 80's and 90's action movies and anime, and despite what it looks like from a glance, it's an extremely solid action anime worth tons of fun.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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May 25, 2021
In the short anime Honto ni Atta! Reibai Sensei, a small class of students receives a new teacher: the occult-loving Kibayashi Juri who speaks with spirits and yokai and who promptly summons the spirit of Oda Nobunaga into the body one of her students (permanently), burning down her classroom as their new school life begins.
Most episodes revolve either around the various classmates (some of them being an hilariously poor girl, a delinquent who kinda looks like a Cromartie High School character and an adorable aho-genki girl) interacting with Kibayashi and sometimes with the science teacher Nagara-sensei, her rival who doesn't believe in the occult, thrown
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into the mix. Be it hosting a mystery hotpot party or infiltrating a mysterious inn in Mt. Cat to help their friend from another class find her missing cat, this teacher and her class never have a peaceful day. Let's also not forget the 4 or 5 episode long subplot revolving around the feline characters. There's Kuroneko, a male black cat with an extremely adorable voice who has a fateful encounter with the very own King of Cats and the three really cool space cats from the We Wanna Conquer Earth Squad who came to Earth in order to rule it with an iron paw.
There isn't much to say about the animation, it kinda looks like it was animated in flash and is almost slideshow-like... except for the last episode which is very, very special and different, but that's something for you to find out. I wouldn't call the animation bad either way, I think the budget style fits this kind of anime well. The three different EDs are all amazing too, especially the last one, too bad they're very short. There's not much character development either if at all, but there are some small interesting moments where certain characters break out of their archetypes.
All in all, this is a really good short with some laughs to be had and it's worth watching for Kibayashi's and the cat's designs alone, they're all very cute.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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May 25, 2021
CGI. It's everywhere in anime nowadays, and some of them are made entirely out of it. Curiously, CGI exists in many forms, such as VRchat-based and MikuMikuDance-based anime. One of such MMD productions is Gdgd Fairies. This anime shows us the mental struggles of three little fairies called PikuPiku, ShiruShiru and KoroKoro (or more accurately, pkpk, shrshr and krkr), friends who gather everyday on a giant tree in the Fairy Forest to play around. In a formulaic but-not-quite manner, almost every episode starts with the fairies getting together for tea time, talking about their day, fun things they did or trivial things they've noticed about
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their daily lives. This always sparks a small discussion which goes completely off rails once their minds start brainstorming all kinds of solutions to scenarios they've cooked up, such as "Need an unusual hobby with a twist? Why not watch theater buildings instead of the actual movies?", all illustrated humorously.
Afterwards, it's time for the Dubbing Lake, where the girls switch through dimensions on the other side of a lake, TV style. The problem is, since they're merely watching a reflex of the other side, there's no sound. And so they dub over whatever's on the other side of the lake in turns, from a naked Saitama-ish dude farting through the skies to a fat lady dancing in lingerie as buildings collapse around her. This segment is highly notable for one reason: The voice actresses are not specifically in-character; they're ad-libbing through the entirety of each Dubbing Lake. We get to see their raw selves laugh, crack studio in-jokes nobody could hope to understand and say (hilariously) awkward things constantly with no script, with their characters animated accordingly. In the second season, the Dubbing Lake is replaced by a similar segment with even more ad-libbing goodness.
Finally, we have the Room of Mental and Time, a magical room which amplifies the powers of the girls, allowing for infinite possibilities. At the end of every episode, the trio comes up with some kind of seemingly simple game or challenge which always descends into absolute chaos. This includes lauching themselves out of cannons to see who can knock over the most (not real) old men in a straight line (for reference, krkr knocks over 749 old men!), figuring out how to get people to watch your livestreams by showing them some magic, and doing a scavenger hunt while bungee-jumping from space. Again, this is a MMD anime, but if you were to watch this segment alone you'd think it was actually made in something like Garry's Mod due to how creatively crazy it gets with its usage of the 3D models.
Using the format to do things that would be impossible through regular animation and with a really special kind of narrative where we get to see the voice actresses bond with each other well beyond their script, Gdgd Fairies shows us that CGI doesn't exist solely to cut costs (CGI cars and the such in 2D anime are absolutely disgusting by the way) and that in the end, substance reigns over style especially in a medium where not everything can afford to look good.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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