Back to Kuliluky's Profile Kuliluky's Profile

A show I dropped back in the day when I started watching anime, upon coming back, I've enjoyed it a lot more than I expected.
Back in 2017, I was put off by the somewhat excessive nudity and strange artsyle. This however fades progressively into the background and the plot takes a higher priority.
The show itself is strange - corny and consistently fascinating, somewhat satirical but seems to take itself very seriously, the characters one dimensional and yet with interesting agendas of their own.
The artstyle is fine, somewhat exaggerated at times, and the soundtrack is great - Blumenkranz is a gem. The characters lack ... some complexity, but there's interesting enough chemistry and relatability in them.
A comparable show to Kill la Kill to is One punch man, which is also a satire of typicall fighting anime with a surprisingly similiar plot progression. However, where OPM keeps fun and lighthearted, KLK turns fairly serious and in my opinion suffers because of it - what remains of the original inserious aspects (looking at you, Mako) clashes with the more serious aspects and the jokes miss more often than they hit. Regardless an enjoyable experience, I recommend pushing on even if the clothing choice of the first couple of episodes might discourage you.

Firstly, just to clarify, I am a casual anime watcher. I have up to this point watched only about four anime and don't necessarily care about deep storyline and characters, basically all I care about is enjoying it. And while I understand that somebody like me shouldn't really review shows, considering I don't have much to compare them to, I believe I can still tell, whether I've had a good time watching a show or not. And that's exactly what this is about. If you came for spiritual ascendancy or mindblowingly deep processes, this anime probably isn't going to be too enjoyable to you.

Having that ... clarified, we can move on.
So, the show. Basically what it's about is the coexistence of Kanata (protagonist), Noël (shy girl), Rio (cool leader), Kureha (tsundere) and Filicia (platoon captain). I'll soon go into the detailed explanation of the characters, but let me firstly cllarify where the story's taking place. In a very special version of post-apocalyptic Earth (mix of Japanese and European cultures) have nations formed again, and Kanata belongs to Helvetia, where she joins the army (to learn how to play the bugle) and is assigned to the 1121st platoon to protect the town of Seize. There she meets the other four girls in her squad.

Characters:
Some might complain the characters are one-dimensional and unoriginal, I've however enjoyed them as you can't find extremes in reality. Also while all of the major characters are women - which could be taken controversially, mainly as the story revolves around the military and army - I like the decision, as men in main roles are usually just kind of boring and bland, maybe too complex, and the decision of using girls just makes it feel more like a happy time without any big conflicts and slow paced sections.

-Kanata - Incredibly energetic, moe AF and the kind of childish character that we all like and find in every second anime show. While the trait is overused a lot, I still didn't feel like she was just a bland, unoriginal character in there to provide "cuteness" and feeling of energy into the show. She is shown to have a decently well made history and I kind of like how she just joins the army for to me an extremely minor reason - learn to play the bugle. It nicely empathizes her character in a way.

-Noël - A rather more serious character, basically the opposite of Kanata - although first shown as sleeping, she isn't a lazy character (as also seen in every second show), but rather a technically educated individual with shy traits. She spends a lot of time repairing the Takemikazuchi - an ancient disassembled tank their platoon was assigned. To me she was one of the most sympathetic characters with also a well made background on how she used her knowledge.

-Kureha - a tsundere-type, often complains that Noël and Kanata don't take their work seriously and don't act like soldiers. To me probably one of the weaker characters, as I don't remember her background ever being mentioned and she just isn't too fun, on the other side, she's more believable then Noël or Kanata.

-Rio - Described as the cool girl hanging out with FIlicia, she is a character most of the others look up to. Teaches Kanata how to play the bugle and keeps the team together, fights for them if necessary.

-Filicia - A rather passive character, doesn't do much, but she leads the platoon and is very often through camera angles shown to quickly change expression from a troubled one to happy and polite when speaking to Kanata or Kureha.

The art is fairly nicely made, just like the soundtrack, I actually kind of like the combination of European/Japanese culture or at least the European culture as percieved by the japanese.

The biggest point to me as mentioned before made the enjoyment of the show.
I absolutely loved how set back it was, just the five of them enjoying their time with their extremely outstretched personalities. Kanata being just moe and energetic all the time, Noël a bit antisocial, frank and repeatedly showing how much knowledge she has. Kureha getting mad for Noël and Kanata being laid back, them not following the army protocol like addressing them by their ranks etc. Rio had her own business to attend to, yet she found herself some time to be an example to the others and Filicia dissimulating her thoughts and problems.

In the end [a minor spoiler alert]
The roman soldier spoke german, and as I can speak german pretty decently myself (not native speaker though) I could pretty much understand what the roman soldier said, even though her accent was way too exaggerated, but had difficulties understanding Yumina due to her heavy japanese accent. Still find it funny though.

To anyone wanting me to say, witch one of the "sides" i'm in, I'd take the positive one. Probably.
Firstly let me start off with this: Usually when I start watching something, I almost immediately know I'll like it.
To SAO, I'm not certain whether the concept came from it and was generalized, but the story seemed quite predictable

//STORY - 4//
Starting off with the story, the concept is somewhat unoriginal and predictable, but the story is literally twisting in so many ways that it is very hard to say what is going on.

... //SPOILER ALERT//
Generally speaking, the idea of such VR device is fairly spread out, in fact so much, that I can't in good faith say it's original. Being trapped inside such a device is probably the first idea that comes to your mind and the addition of having to complete the game to get out really doesn't help too much. Outside of that, I've enjoyed having explained how the device works (mainly in the beginning) and for some reason loved Asihiko Kayaba's line about the floating iron castles. It left me with a feeling that he wasn't actually that bad of a guy.
I'm sorry, but the second arc just left me staring at the TV waiting for it to end.

I could go on and on, but to cut it short, let me just say, the story was a failure and if that's the reason you're considering watching it, just don't.

//ART - 8//
Would rate the art even higher, loved the massive structures and green plains in SAO, but immediately as Alfenheim came up, my first reaction was: I don't like the art (wtf were those wings?).

//Sound - 9//
Aside of the most drastic type (battle) of music, it was barely audible, subconsciously creating the atmosphere. As to that I have almost no objections and the opening and ending theme songs are still playing in my head

//CHARACTERS - 2//
Oh boy, here it goes. As you can read most of my objections on other reviews, let me cut it short.

//SPOILER ALERT//
Kirito - Basically no character aside from some deep thoughts, love towards
Asuna and the need to help (cute) girls trapped in the game. And defeating
bosses basically solo
Asuna - A character with a fairly good potential, but she was WAY ALL OVER THE
PLACE. I'm sorry, but really almost nobody mentions it - she starts as a shy girl
hiding under a cape (Dandere/Kuudere) has that point at he end of the first
boss, where she just turns Deredere I suppose (?), then meets Kirito again as
Tsundere leading personality, falls in love with him - Deredere again (genki girl)
and lastly takes the role of damsel in distress with a tsundere personality.
Yui - Seems to be mentioned rather rarely, however, she reminds me a bit too
much of Wesley Crusher and ridiculous attempts at being cute (mommy, daddy etc.)

//ENJOYMENT - 8//
Despite all of these negatives, I feel the Anime has accomplished its role in my case, that being not to spiritually enlighten, but to simply entertain. The whole thing isn't that much unrealistic (as far as I'm concerned) and It's nice to have ideas about it sprouting, mainly in comparison with other sci-fi anime, witch seems to be mainly concentrated on the apocalyptic scenarios.

Lastly, I wanted to talk about the second arc, but let me just say it kinda takes a weird turn, isn't really worth watching AND MAINLY DESERVES A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL.

That's about all, I give it a solid 7 as I've enjoyed it, but can see why someone doesn't have to and also because I cannot rate arc 1 and 2 separately