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Jan 18, 2025

S-Rank Monster no "Behemoth" dakedo, Neko to Machigawarete Elf Musume no Pet toshite Kurashitemasu (Anime) add

Recommended

Preliminary (4/12 eps)

For clarification, I have read the Manga for this.

This is a very Anime kind of Anime. That is to say, there are a number of stereotypes that are directed towards anime. In the case of S-Rank Monster no "Behemoth" dakedo, the specific stereotypes that fit are, characters being overtly sexualized, and characters that are openly perverted. This is an egalitarian perverted anime though. It has muscled men walking in nearly nothing along side the women who also walk in nearly nothing. Aside from the Cat/Behemoth, The main characters are all women, so they get the majority of the screen time. It's full of fan service ... and ecchi. I want to lay all of that out at the beginning. If what I have described is not something that you think you would find enjoyable, then it is very likely that this anime is not for you.

The basic premise is that the Main character used to live in this same fantasy world as an honorable knight. After being killed, he was reincarnated into a feline monster known as a Behemoth. Behemoths that have matured are among the most powerful monsters in this world, and are widely feared. The character is freshly born, so he looks more like a small cat or kitten. While exploring his newfound home inside a dungeon, he encounters a dragon, narrowly escapes death at the hand of that dragon, and is found passed out and wounded by the Main Female character Aria, who then takes him in. Aria then gives the name Tama to the main character. Tama is incredibly grateful towards Aria for saving his life, and having previously been an honorable knight, decides to return the favor by pledging to follow and protect Aria for the rest of his life. Aria is an Elf, and in her home village some people have pet monsters known as Elemental cats. Aria was saved by an Elemental cat when she was very young, and as a result has an infatuation with them. Thus we have our setup. An elf with an unhealthy fascination towards cats, and a Knight in the body of a Behemoth, pretending to be a cat.

The story is simple and straight forward, relying heavily on fantasy and anime tropes. They live in a city with a Dungeon, and they make money by killing the monsters in the dungeon. They will later go on adventures to other cities, and dungeons, and grow strong together. Tama's character is largely that of the OP protagonist who can gain the abilities of the monsters he defeats. The other characters are mostly kept simple with occasional character moments, but are mostly there to be eye candy for the audience. If you can get past (or enjoy) the ecchi scenes, and the erotic nature of many of the side characters, this can be a very fun time. The story is not perfect, but it's not trying to be. It's trying to be a power fantasy with very attractive characters fighting monsters, and over coming challenges, and having fun together, while typically being dressed in armor and clothing that covers about as much as lingerie. It's ecchi.

I find that most ecchi anime are annoying. They sacrifice the plot for the ecchi, and either don't take themselves seriously enough to make anything feel like it matters, or things matter so much that the ecchi doesn't feel like it has a reason to be there. Ecchi often has a main character so insufferable that it feels like they were designed to blueball the audience. This is usually accomplished by being so dense they never make a move a successful move on any romantic interest, or being so overtly perverted that none of the romantic interests will give them the time of day, often either of those is paired with being so dense they can never read the room, so they never move the romance along when they should. This anime is not like that. The plot remains simple the whole way through, which allows it to be ecchi when it wants, without getting in the way. The story still takes itself just seriously enough to make the stakes matter when they need to. The main character is a cat, so they can't screw things up so easily by saying something stupid, and the characters generally aren't so annoying that it ruins your enjoyment. Fights don't suddenly devolve into sex scenes, and the overtly sexual scenes are mostly placed where they would logically make sense, such as cleaning up after returning from the dungeon. There's a lot of bath scenes.

When compared to the likes of really good fantasy anime like Frieren, or Dungeon Meshi, this anime falls flat, and by my rankings would be a 6.5/10. It stays higher than a 5 for not contradicting itself, or having characters that are oblivious to everything around them for no reason. For an ecchi anime though, this is exactly the kind of anime I want to see. It delivers on what it tries to deliver, and it doesn't ruin it by being annoying, or having a stupid plot that can't keep track of what it has established already. The world building is light, but competent, and the story is fun, though simple. Overall I give it a 9/10 in comparison to other Ecchi anime. If every anime was at least as good as this one, I would at least be able to sit through them.

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Nov 10, 2024

Sayounara Ryuusei, Konnichiwa Jinsei (Anime) add

Recommended

Well-written

Preliminary (5/12 eps)

Relatively generic reincarnation story. Not especially original, but doesn't do anything really annoying or offensive either. It's about a Dragon that was tired of living, who finds a reason to live again after being reborn as a human to a loving family. The Main character isn't a pervert, or perfect in every way. He's just a guy who was a Dragon in his previous life, so he has all the memories of being a Dragon, and sometimes uses the powers he used to have when he was a Dragon. It's your standard medieval power fantasy. It isn't going to blow you away, but if all ... of that sounds interesting to you, you'll probably have fun with it.

I'm not very good at writing reviews, but I felt compelled to write one for this. Have you noticed that all the other reviews for this anime are negative? When I saw that I thought for sure this must be pretty bad. Usually even the shows that are genuinely a 4/10 still have at least one or 2 positive reviews, but this anime didn't have a single positive review before mine own. I don't understand why. When something is SO BAD that no one write a good review for it, there's usually some obvious signs. I looked at a couple previews, and a promo video that Crunchyroll posted, and it just didn't line up. I've seen a lot of trash anime. I unironically enjoy a few anime that I know are trash. So when I started watching this I was keeping my eyes open for the telltale signs of middling or obviously bad story telling that would be deserving of 100% negative reviews.
And they were not there.

The antagonists have believable motives. The protagonists don't just know things they shouldn't, and they have so far been consistent in how they react to situations they encounter. No one pulls something big out of nowhere without some build up to it. None of the characters walk the line of a specific trope so hard that it's mind numbing. This is a pretty decent, although standard power fantasy, with characters that are enjoyable, and fun. They aren't deeply written, but they don't need to be. That isn't what the story is trying to do.

So why all the negative reviews? Well, the most consistent complaint is that the writing is perverted. I don't see that, but I think I know why they are saying it. A Cow Woman sells her own milk, and her Husband is proud of the quality. This matters for a fraction of an episode, and is barely important to the plot. To add to the horror, there are characters that drink the milk. That's it. That's the reason. The Village where the main character lives has Beast people living there, and one of those beast people is a Cow Woman who sells her own milk. They don't sexualize the Cow lady, she just dresses like a normal villager. They never show how she gets the milk, they never hyper focus on it, but the Village gets their milk primarily from her, and her Husband is proud of the quality of her milk. The part where it matters is a contest between 2 characters to see who can drink the most milk, but this happens because of a challenge to someone who is new to the village, and is used to help that person grow more comfortable with the rest of the village. It is not used to sexualize the Cow lady. This is tame when compared to so many other things I have seen in many other anime. I could theorize the reasons for such a strong reaction, but it doesn't matter. The point is, that's the only weird thing this anime does that would make sense for the strong reactions they gave, so if that something that will bother you, Now you Know.

To wrap it up, this has decent animation, and the story is reasonably well paced so far. The action is sparse, but fairly well done when it does happen. The production doesn't have any glaring issues, and the voice acting fits the characters. Overall it's 7/10 for now, and I'll update that if I think it changes as I watch more episodes.

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Nov 28, 2022

Solo Leveling (Manga) add

Recommended

Spoiler

This is a great story, especially at the beginning. Unfortunately it doesn't maintain the quality the whole time, especially at the end, where it felt a bit rushed. When you like something you really want it to be as close to perfect as it can be. While this story generally gives it's characters respect, sometimes it teases a greater purpose in the plot (Hae-In Cha, and Esil Radiru also deserved better) but then they never actually matter that much. So when interesting characters that could have contributed a lot to the story, just stop existing in the story after the Main Character is done with ... their particular section of plot, you get a little salty that your new favorite character didn't get more screen time. Just keep in mind that I still recommend the story.

After reading that, you might think this story sounds pretty mediocre. The thing is that I actually really enjoyed this story. It has a lot of really interesting ideas, and for the most part it delivers on those ideas pretty well. A reality where people gain D&D like fantasy powers, and are basically superheros is a compelling enough concept. This takes that concept, and adds the ultimate power fantasy element by making the main character the only person who can gain experience and level up. The main character starts as literally the weakest person to still have enough powers to register as someone with powers. There's the promise of seeing them grow, not only more powerful, but as a person as well. It is very enjoyable to see them progress through the story, and slowly realize their potential.

Unfortunately that leads into my biggest complaint with the story. You saw me bring it up in the first paragraph. The main character is usually the only character that we get to see grow, and become something greater, throughout the course of the story. Now not every character in a story needs to be important, and it's fine to leave side characters to do their own thing and have the story move on. The issue is that a lot of characters show up and act like they will matter a lot later on, only to get sidelined before ever doing anything that matters. There's is so much potential for a lot of these characters, many of which were fan favorites, but they feel like they were dropped before tying their interests up, which makes them feel a little pointless, or underdeveloped. As an example Jin-Woo Sung has like 4 different potential love interests that show up throughout the story, and not a single one of them ever actually goes anywhere despite being teased throughout the story. They exist to be saved, or to be easy on the eyes, and rarely anything more. Supposedly in the web/light novel Sung Jin-Woo does actually go somewhere with one of them, but that's not in the the Manhwa, so it doesn't count for the Manhwa.

I mentioned a character "Esil Radiru" in the opening paragraph, and she is a great example. Sung Jin-Woo liberates her people who exist in another dimension that he can visit. She aides him in finding his way through this dimension, and she shows that she has a great level of respect for him, and is a valuable ally, with potent abilities. In chapter 88, once he gets what he wants from her dimension, he leaves her, and he never returns to her dimension ever again. He even tells her he might return some day, implying to the audience that the story intends to come back, but it never happens. Each arc has many characters introduced, and named, as if the world is living and breathing, and they will continue to exist, and could come up again in the future, but the vast majority never do anything meaningful after the arc of their initial introduction.

All of that said, In the end, all the relevant plots get resolved, and there's aren't any glaring holes to point at. However if you grew attached to any character besides Sung Jin-Woo, or a hand full of others that are necessary to the plot, you'll probably feel like a few plot holes still exist. They aren't really important in the grand scheme of the story, and they won't matter to most of the readers, but for those of us that wanted to see these characters, or side stories, get tied up, it will feel lacking. It really would have helped if the story just popped back in once or twice to see where they are when all is said and done.

Despite all of those complaints, and all of the hopes I had for various forgotten characters, it is still an enjoyable story. The end felt a little rushed, and possibly leaning towards being a bit generic, but it executed it's premise without any major stumbles, and stuck the landing. It's an exciting ride all the way through. Although I complain a lot about characters rarely showing up again in any meaningful way, when the story does feature returning characters, they almost always have a good reason to be there, and they play a fitting role that makes sense for who they are in the story.

Overall, I give the story an 8/10. Pretty enjoyable. I hope the anime does it justice.

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