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Sep 4, 2023
I have no idea what season 2 is about, but this feels like a ten-episode prologue for what's to come. To give you an idea of what to expect, this feels like One-Punch Man for 10-year-olds but with an incompetent, amnesiac assassin rather than superheroes and monsters. The music is literally the same in every episode. The humor is amusing at first, but it gets really annoying after the second episode.
Personal recommendation: if you're barely interested in watching it, at least do so with any dub you understand and play it while multi-tasking on 1.2 or 1.5 speed. That's what I did. You won't be
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wasting so much time if you do so. But if that still doesn't sound good to you, feel free to skip this show entirely.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 15, 2020
Attack on Titan's Final Season is less than one month away and my rewatch marathon finally reached the point where the truth starts to come out. Season 3 plot has an entirely different tone for the anime, presenting new themes and threats disguised as new sadistic characters, corrupt governments, false kings, and...almost no titans.
This season reveals A LOT of new information about the mysteries of this world, and it's not a simple plot twist that surprises you and then moves on. This new information changes the future of the story in some really interesting ways. As I said above, this season has almost no titans,
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and the main enemies this time are humans. Normal humans. And the focus of the plot is the current fragile state of the civilization inside the walls, being controlled under a corrupt government that is determined to keep the secrets of the real world from the population. A very unexpected turn of events, if you asked me the first time I watched this season.
While the secrets revealed in this season conform some of the highest points in the anime so far, this season has also some of the lowest points. For starters, the way the plot is introduced is very repetitive: Eren gets kidnapped for the third time. And it's not just a momentarily kidnapping like in the previous seasons. The whole plot revolves around the squad finding Eren, and it's a bit repetitive. The pace was also off sometimes. A bit rushed during some episodes (compared to the manga) and a bit slow in others, especially in the final three epilogue episodes.
The more grounded plot gave also some interesting development for some characters. Like in the previous season, Historia gets more focus in this season and becomes a VERY important part of the story, revealing her past and the involvement of her family with the current state of the world. Levi and Erwin also get some interesting backstories that play an important part in this and the next season, and Eren is not the same annoying kid from season one anymore. And since the enemies are humans, the rest of the cast get to make some moral decisions that change them, like killing or torturing people and becoming fugitives.
The quality of the animation and sound is as good as usual. BUT the soundtrack of this season might be my least favorite of the anime so far. Sure, it uses some old songs we already heard in previous seasons. But the new songs introduced here are not as epic and emotional as Counter Attack, Ocean Eyes, Youseegiggirl, or Apetitan, and they lack something compared to those I mentioned. Plus, there are two new songs that don't fit at all with AoT: K21 (a frenetic orchestral song with English rap on top of it), and Zero Eclypse (a song that sounds as if it was sung by Christina Aguilera). They could have used orchestral versions of songs they already used before, like Barricades instead of Zero Eclypse, since it's Historia's theme, and it would have sounded a lot better. But still, they at least used some of the songs right and hyped up some other scenes (like the final scene with the Survey Corps).
Also, the opening song for this season is very different from the usual songs. Instead of having an epic orchestral rock anthem, we have a slower, warmer song with a more emotional and nostalgic tone. It's not bad, but it kind of does not fit with the serious tone this season had. At least the credit song was made by Linked Horizon, and it is the best credit song so far.
The tone for this season was more serious than the others, but it had some minor comedy moments than didn't fit at all, and only made some characters look like cartoons. So for someone who doesn't like forced comedy like myself, it was a bit annoying.
All in all, this season of Attack on Titan takes a rest from the usual conflict with the titans, changing its focus with an interesting plot and revealing some major secrets that expand this world even more. It might feel like a completely different story, but it's a pretty good interlude and prelude for what comes next.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Nov 11, 2020
One of the things I like about anime is the originality of their stories. If you told me some years ago that there is an anime about a former soldier girl who lost her arms in the war and now has mechanic arms and writes letters for a living, I would have laughed. Maybe because of how absurd it would have sound to me at that time, mainly because I didn't watch anime back then. But now, as someone who enjoys watching more and more anime on a daily basis, I'm impressed by the originality of Violet Evergarden. That and the beautiful story, animation, and
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soundtrack that accompanies this plot.
The story follows Violet Evergarden, a girl who grew up as a soldier and never quite understood human emotions. She starts a journey to comprehend the meaning not only behind those emotions but also behind the words "I love you". Each episode teaches her a new facet of human emotion helping different side characters. These are all separate storylines contained in their respective 20-minutes-long episode, but you can see how Violet grows with each experience. And this journey is such an incredibly well-written emotional rollercoaster. It leaves a few unanswered questions tho, and it bugged me a little bit.
One of the strongest points of this anime is the animation. Boy, if this is not the most beautiful animation ever made then I don't know what is. Every character looks good in every scene, and the way the animators made the movements of the clothes, hair, water drops, hands typing in a typewriter, paper sheets, grass, everything you can imagine, is outstanding. This is one of those cases where the dividing line between Animation and Reality gets blurry, reaching an unbelievable level of detail and realism. The environments are also beautifully painted and everything fits so well in the composition, and the post-WWI-inspired setting is a great design. The only thing I didn't quite like was the design behind some characters, like Iris, Benedict, and Cattleya. They looked way too modern and...distracting, and didn't fit with the post-world-war-inspired setting.
The sound is also outstanding. One of the most beautiful soundtracks I've ever heard. And they even added the sound of the typewriter to some of the songs, and it sounds great. The voice actors also do an incredible job to portray the emotions, and the sound edition makes everything sound so real like it was actually recorded there and then in a real setting with real cameras and microphones.
As I said before, this anime plays with your emotions over and over, and some of the episodes are masterpieces in the deepest meaning of the word. The way they portray human emotions and sad situations is heartbreaking, but at the same time, heartwarming, and that makes watching this anime such a beautiful experience.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Nov 6, 2020
Ever since I started watching anime two years ago, Parasyte: The Maxime is one of those that stands out. My favorite genre of movies/TV shows is science fiction, but ironically, I haven't watched any sci-fi anime so far (maybe Code Geass or Dr. Stone are the exceptions if those can be considered sci-fi). Parasyte fills that void, and it does it REALLY well.
The story here is one of the most mature I watched so far. At first, it might seem pretty simple: body-snatchers alien creatures come to Earth and start killing humans while hiding in plain sight. But this is much more interesting than a
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regular '90s sci-fi movie with that premise (curiously enough, this is adapted from a manga from the '90s). As the story unfolds, different philosophic themes come up, like what's the difference between the parasites and humans, how parasites develop human personalities, how humans become savage creatures with no emotions, and even it has some ecological themes that they may seem like they come out of nowhere, but fit well with the overall messages and themes of the series.
The characters are very well fleshed out, both humans and parasites. Shinichi and Migi, the parasite, have nice chemistry with each other, and as I stated before, both personalities are changed throughout the series (the parasite creature becomes more human, while the other loses his humanity). The rest of the cast is also a nice addition. They serve their purpose within the story and it breaks your heart to see what happens to some of them in some scenes. Still, there are some that could have been more fleshed out in my opinion.
The art and sound are very well made. The designs of the parasites are thrilling and very well animated (the fight scenes were brutal), and the human characters had a lot of emotion in their faces and it looked natural (and the girls looked cute too). The backgrounds looked very well painted, though they overused the CG generated characters for some scenes and they looked really bad.
The emotions of the characters were really well portrayed by the voice actors too. I'm going to jump with the majority and just say "Next to You" is a beautiful song, and every scene it was played in was enhanced by that beautiful piano riff. Even when it plays during a dark, thrilling scene it fits perfectly and makes it even more memorable.
Overall, Parasyte is a great anime with a far more interesting story than the initial premise hints, told at a consistent pace and tone, and featuring a nice cast of human and alien characters. It might leave a few unanswered questions and end with some cryptic explanations, but is a highly enjoyable and recommended anime for those who are looking for a more mature anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Oct 25, 2020
Attack on Titan's rewatch marathon continues with another intense season plagued with some of the best, most shocking moments of the whole anime so far. More pieces are added to the puzzle, and at the same time, more questions are formulated.
Story:
This season, which streamed four years after the end of the first one (I can't imagine waiting four years for this), takes place right after the events of its previous finale. The story here takes a darker tone and presents new threats to the remaining humanity inside the walls. The strong point here is the way it's narrated, surprising you and making you binge-watch the
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whole season in less than two days. Most of the events here are completely unexpected and shocking, and I'm not using the word "shocking" lightly.
I have to admit, as much as I love this season, even after watching it three times, the truth is it doesn't have much story. There's no storyline that takes you from point A to point B. Almost the entirety of the events in these twelve episodes happen in the span of no more than two days, and it's nothing more than that: shocking events happening one after the other. Is that a bad thing? Not at all. Still, I can understand why people watching this anime gave up and dropped it after this season. Presenting more questions and offering cryptic half-answers might not be enough for those picky watchers who can't take the intrigue and mystery this show is so well known for. If you really want answers, you need to watch season three. Now.
Characters:
One of the things I loved from this season is the way they put the main characters aside and focused on developing some side characters. Eren, Mikasa, and Armin took a backseat and gave Sasha, Connie, Krista, Ymir, Reiner, and Bertolt some space and time to further develop and get to know them more. The thing I love about this is the fact that some of these characters I just mentioned were used as comical relief in the first season, and seeing them being the focus of not just one episode but almost half of the season is simply amazing. And it's not simply giving them some subplot, some of them are now an essential piece in the whole story.
Of course, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin are still important, but they don't get much development. Still, they have some really important moments that will impact their further development.
Art:
Attack on Titan's popularity was also mostly influenced by its great animation and design. And even four years after, this season maintains its quality. It even feels more polished. Not only the animation is incredibly fluid, but even the still frames look good, with a nice style of lines and on-point lighting and rendering.
Sound:
Hiroyuki Sawano keeps doing his magic here. New epic songs and leitmotivs are added to the already epic and emotional soundtrack we know and love. Songs like Apetitan, Barricades, Youseebiggirl, and The Weight of Lives play during some of the best scenes, turning them memorable and making you play those songs in your head even after the credits roll.
And talking about credits, that Ending song is so creepy, and even to this day, I have no idea what is the meaning of the images we see behind the credits.
I still have the same issue I had with season 1. Even though I love Barricades and Call of Silence, I think the English lyrics don't fit in this soundtrack. They could have played an instrumental/orchestral version of those songs and the scenes would still have the same impact and emotion they already had. Maybe even more.
Enjoyment:
When I watched this season for the first time, I was blown away. I even binge-watched it in 2-3 days, even though I wanted to go slowly with it. The same happened the second time I watched it. This time, I forced myself to go slowly, even watching other anime in between, and I kept a more objective mind than in my initial experience. I remember I cried the first time. That didn't happen now, but it still made me choke up and blurred my eyes a bit. The shocking moments are still so enjoyable even knowing what's about to happen.
Overall:
This season of Attack on Titan has everything the first one had and made it so popular four years before: incredible animation, epic soundtrack, an intriguing story with shocking moments, and some very well developed characters. Still, the story this time fills more like a series of intense events string together rather than having a whole arc throughout these twelve episodes. And if you are eager to find answers, you'll be glad to know you still have the third season to find them.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Oct 16, 2020
With Attack on Titan: The Final Season coming up very soon, it's time to start the rewatch marathon of the first 3 seasons. This is the third time I watch this anime but never got into writing a full review. So I'll do my best to write as objective as possible.
To be honest, this is the anime that got me into watching more anime, so I might be a bit bias. But I got to admit, even though I loved it, I always thought this season was maybe the weakest and most boring of the whole series. To my surprise, I realized this season
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was way better than I remembered it. Sure, the story can look quite simple and straight forward during these episodes, being the reason for, I believe, many people dropping this series and never watching season 2 (besides the four-year hiatus of course). But I can't help to be admired by how well crafted this series is right from the start, foreshadowing and presenting right on your nose storylines and elements that were finally revealed and explained in season 3. Putting the bias aside, let's delve into the actual story.
There are two major arcs in this season, and both are very different from each other. The first one starts with the shocking two-part episode that kickstarts the whole plot and sets the tone for the rest of the series. Sure, it has the very common formula of the main young character whose story kicks off after watching his mother die. But it works really well in this series. After that, we have some filler that serves as a prelude to the first major arc and adds more depth to some characters, with a little comedy here and there regarding side characters. This is the arc that presents the first plot twist and strengthens the story. It has some minor plot holes, but it's a pretty intense and explosive arc that makes you get hooked with the story.
I remembered the second arc being very boring and slow, but I was wrong. Here we get introduced to a new Titan that, in my opinion, is the most terrifying and brutal Titan in the series so far. The plot twist in this storyline is very predictable and can be seen from pretty far away, but I have the feeling it was intentional because there are a lot of obvious hints that give you the answer, and when the plot twist is officially revealed, that scene is still shocking and intense. This arc also presents even more questions regarding the story of the series, and most of those questions are not answered until season 3.
Some people say Eren is an annoying main character. And they are right. In this season at least, he is an impulsive kid with anger issues that is always yelling he will kill every single titan in the world. And the fact that he gets titan powers doesn't make him more interesting either. But he has some really good character moments that shape his personality for the rest of the series. There are characters that are far more interesting than Eren, like Erwin and Levi (even more if you watch his OVA). There are also some little moments that might look insignificant but they add a lot to their personality, like Levi seeing his whole squad dead in the forest, and then watch Petra's body drop off the cart; Jean realizing the Military Police are cowards that never saw a titan in their life and do nothing when they find them in the city; Hange feeling humanity lost after the attack on Trost because after all the deaths they couldn't learn anything about the titans, but at the same time, Erwin sees it as a victory for the Survey Corps DESPITE the deaths of hundreds of soldiers. There's no much character development in this season, and there are some that I personally wanted to see more of (like Annie), but at least we get presented to a great cast with the potential of having pretty good development.
The visual style of AoT is so characteristic and beautiful. The color palette of the scenes is so well picked and the environments are masterfully painted. The animation is also a really strong point in this anime because the sequences were the soldiers fly around with their 3D Maneuver Gear are insane, and the scenes where the Female Titan annihilates the whole army during the second arc are brutal. I'm also a fan of the design of the 3DMGs, the army formation in the second arc, and the whole design of the walls and cities.
We can't ignore the music in AoT. It's simply impossible. Hiroyuki Sawano makes an amazing job composing the thrilling, emotional, epic, and memorable soundtrack of this anime. Watch some of the most shocking scenes on this season and you'll see the music will be stuck in your head even after the credits roll. My only issue with this soundtrack is the decision of adding singed rock songs to some scenes. They are not bad at all, they intensify the scenes and makes them more memorable. But I don't feel the English lyrics fit the tone. You can put an orchestral version without lyrics of songs like DOA, Reluctant Heroes, or Call Your Name and the scene would be even better.
The voice actors also do a magnificent job to portray the emotions of the characters in such extreme scenes. It is really hard to imagine the physical and emotional pain some of these characters suffer throughout the series, but the whole cast makes you feel it with their jaw-dropping, chilling performances.
This season was such a great start for this anime that turned out to be one of the best, and I can't even imagine how it would have been to wait four years to watch the follow up in season 2. And even after watching it for the third time, it still is an incredible rollercoaster of emotions watching it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Oct 7, 2020
The Promised Neverland. An anime everyone watched and talked about last year, and still, I ignored it completely. The reason I ignored it was really stupid, to be honest. I don't know why, but I mistook this for Seven Deadly Sins, an anime I'm not even remotely interested in watching. But putting that anecdote aside, let's talk about this great anime.
Story:
The plot is nothing new (a bunch of kids/teens being held somewhere without information about how the outside world actually is), but still, it does a great job of making it look interesting and different. The first episode starts as a sweet kid story, but
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suddenly in the end all the intrigue and mystery kicks off and makes you want to binge-watch the rest of the series immediately.
This first season still leaves a lot of unanswered questions, but it's an excellent start to an (I hope) more complex story to come in future seasons.
Characters:
The best part of this series lies in the cast. The three main characters, Emma, Norman, and Ray, are very interesting and have great chemistry. They are at the top of the class, getting the highest scores in everything. Each one is very different tho, but they complement each other really well. Emma is the heart of the group AND the house, who cares about everyone and is always there to have their back; Norman is the brain of the group, the most calculator and strategist of these three; Ray is the other brain, but he is the one that makes the other two realize when they are wrong and rethink their actions, and he also has a really interesting backstory. These three are the best trio I've ever seen in any anime so far. The best thing is they are still kids, and they act like kids. It's not like those kids or teens you see in other anime that talk and act like 40-year-olds or make you forget they are still kids. They have flaws, they are scared, they worry about each other, but yet they try to see the bigger picture and keep themselves together despite the terrible things they discover.
Isabella is another great character. Not to spoil anything, but she is the main antagonist of this season, but her character is more complex than it looks like. On one hand, she cares about the kids and wants to give them a happy life; on the other hand, she is part of a sinister scheme that pretends to kill these same kids. At first, it might look like a facade she acts to avoid suspicions, but her backstory makes her a really interesting character with a complex duality and a sinister aura around her in every scene she's in.
Art:
A1 Pictures. Simple as that. They never disappoint. The character design is great, and the facial expressions and body language are really well animated here. I said Isabella has a sinister aura around her, and that is something they accomplish really well thanks to her character design. She really looks like a caring mother but at the same time like an ominous woman.
The camera makes some really well-done movements (like following a character through the corridors or having a first-person view of them walking upstairs), and everything, from the CGI to the hand-drawn characters, looks really well in those shots. Also, the lighting in some nocturnal scenes was really dynamic and made the whole scene feel more dramatic.
I don't remember seeing any CG character, and that's something I really appreciate. There are some scenes where a lot of kids are running around, jumping, playing tag, and they look very good, almost like a Ghibli film sometimes.
The only thing I didn't like was the look of the house (which was made with CGI). It looked very flat during some shots, especially in exterior shots.
Sound:
The voice cast made a terrific work. Emma's voice was on point, and her emotions were very realistic. You can feel the sadness, despair, and fear in each character's voice. And, needless to say, Isabella's voice is haunting, which worked really well for the character. My only issue is that, in the case of Ray and Norman, it was obvious they were voiced by women, which is not bad at all. I like many anime characters who were voiced by women. But in this case, they still sound like girls who are forcing their voices to sound like boys. But anyway, they at least made a good job voicing their emotions.
The music in this show is also really good. There are some beautiful theme songs for certain characters, like Isabella's Lullaby, which is my favorite song in the soundtrack and one I keep listening to over and over again.
Enjoyment:
I really enjoyed this show. It was darker and more mysterious than I expected, and it shocked me at times. It also managed to make me care about the characters and feel something for them. I'm looking forward to seeing how it follows, and I'll definitely rewatch this when season two is released.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 7, 2020
After almost 4 months I'm finally done watching Naruto and Naruto Shippuden. I really liked the first series and I was looking forward to binge-watch this sequel. But I have to admit I have mixed feelings about this. I'll start my review with the few good points this anime has:
STORY
The plot is very well crafted. It's funny because the first series ends with a three-year time skip to prepare and train for a specific event. But the story in this second part changes completely after the introduction of new characters and plot twists, with a new level of world-building, more complex storylines, and a more
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mature tone. Each storyline fits well with the overall story, and some backstories and motives are gradually revealed, helping with the intrigue and mystery for the most part. It's nice to see how each arc feels different. It's not like they are constantly increasing the stakes or giving us epic fights all the time. It takes some episodes to cool down and at the same time build-up to the most important parts of upcoming arcs. Even though it gets really stretched out and over-the-top on the second half getting close to the finale (which I had a lot of issues with it, but I'll talk about that later), but it has its epic moments nonetheless.
CHARACTERS
Just like the story gets darker and more complex, the main characters have great development and you can see how they are more mature than in the first series. They are not the same reckless, annoying kids. Most of the characters have enough screentime to develop their arcs, and we get to care about them when they are dying. Even characters that I found annoying in the first series I like them now, like Sakura for example. Some side characters have an amazing impact on the story, and their respective arcs develop and close really well.
Of course, there are a few new side characters that I hated and I wished they were killed off every time they appeared on screen, like Karin or Suigetsu.
SOUND
The music is pretty good, nothing extraordinary, but it fills the scenes very well. It has it's heavy, frenetic rock songs for the epic moments, thrilling and sinister songs for suspense and mysterious moments, and sad songs for the emotional and heartbreaking moments. The typical shounen music.
One song that I want to highlight is during a certain fight scene where, instead of playing battle music, it plays a heartbreaking song that fits the feeling of betrayal and sorrow of the character.
The voice acting is also on point. Each character has its own personal tone, and they get enough emotion when the scene needs it. There are also characters that have an amazing voice, that no matter what they say, they sound really good, like Madara.
Now the negatives:
ART:
Not exactly a bad thing, but I need to point it out. Visually, the quality is very irregular. It varies from incredibly dynamic (in very few battle sequences), to decent most of the time, to very cheap and bad. It's easy to tell when an episode is animated or drawn by different artists because even the style of the lines or the color palette changes very often. As I said the best animation is in the action sequences. These are very dynamic and intense, especially when they involve hand to hand combat. But they are rare, happening once every one hundred episodes.
PACE:
The pace of this show is really slow. It drags too much during most arcs. What can be told in one or two episodes takes four or five. The conflicts are action-packed, yes, and they get their proper build-up. But once the battle starts, they hit each other, then one of them makes a monologue, then hit each other again, then we see a two-episode-long flashback in the middle of the fight, and then they fight again and the battle is over, just for another battle with higher stakes to start right after it.
The overuse of flashbacks does not help. Around 40% of the anime is filler (which I totally skipped), and the remaining 60% is the main story, but 20% of that main story is just flashbacks. We constantly see full scenes from past episodes and recaps, sometimes taking a whole episode's length just to tell us something we already know.
Just to put an example, the "final conflict" starts around episode 320 and it literally ends in episode 458 (with a lot of fillers in the middle). And even though it has it's epic moments, it's just the enemy outsmarting the heroes with every move, getting even more powerful each time the battle reaches a fake climax and making it seem like it's about to end, just to start again with even higher stakes and more flashy superpowers. It gets really exhausting. I binged watched this part not because I enjoyed it, but because I wanted it to end soon. And even when this arc reaches its true conclusion, it ends in the most anti-climactic and disappointing way possible.
SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS:
I don't know how to call this subject, but what I want to talk about is the chakra, ninjutsu, and all that weird stuff, which is my main problem with this series. For starters, I'd like to say I actually found it very interesting how each character used their chakra in different and unique ways, and that's something I enjoyed from the first series. But the problem in this second part is that sometimes these characters get overpowered to an absurdly high level. They get powerful enough to do absolutely anything, even becoming immortal, resurrecting the dead, or create massive asteroids to destroy everything. I don't really know how all this works, but it seems anyone can become some sort of god. They say the Jinchuurikis are powerful because they have a special type of chakra. But then these get easily sweep off by some random, powerful dude. There's also no apparent limit to the amount of power a character can get because even when they are running low on chakra, they suddenly develop or create a new Jutsu, more powerful than anything we've seen before. And even after they use that superpower and get considerably "weaker", they keep fighting using powerful jutsus.
The battles feel also really different now. In the first series, each encounter was filled with tactics and strategy, and each character used their chakra and unique jutsus to take advantage of the situations. But here the fights are reduced (I don't know if I should use that word) to rap battles between ninjas showing off who has the most powerful Jutsu. We even get to see Mechas and Titans fighting. It's literally as if the author said "Oh, you think this character was powerful? Then watch this guy power up!", "Oh, you thought it would be that easy? Then watch how this boss fight enters stage 2!", "You though the enemy was outsmarted? Then watch him move to plan C, D, all the way to Z every time the heroes make a move!", "You though the series would end here? Then watch how I stretch it even further with some over-the-top, random new threats that have nothing to do with what we've seen so far!". As I said above, the only good battles are the hand-to-hand combats, but they are very rare.
While I praised the development some characters received, I have to admit I have a serious issue with the villains of this series. They are uninteresting bad dudes with extremely powerful Jutsus and crazy abilities that seem to defy all rules of this world. The only interesting villains are the ones that turn out to be not truly evil in the end or are evangelized by Naruto, and then they die, with a few other exceptions (like Kisame and Sasori). And while a lot of people seem to love Madara Uchiha, I have to admit I hated him and found him really uninteresting and absurdly overpowered.
OVERVIEW
While I don't love or hate this anime, I find it an entertaining show with some interesting storyline and characters, great fight sequences intensified with a good soundtrack, and a continuously expanding worldbuilding. It also has some really emotional death scenes that made me tear a bit, and that's something I can't ignore. BUT the pacing issues, op characters, and over-the-top battles made this show difficult to watch at times, especially after the second half of the series. And even though I didn't like the final arc(s), the last two episodes (478 and 479) were somewhat emotional and they hit me.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 30, 2020
I'm not a big fan of teenage dramas. Even if I enjoy them, I always finish the movie/tv show and feel depressed. They tend to have an effect in me that reminds me of my depressive teenage years or makes me think "what if I've done this instead of that?", or I relate too much with the characters and feel the same as they do. This is not the case with this anime. This is probably the ONLY teenage drama that made me smile instead of leaving me depressed and knocked down on the ground (or my bed). Instead, this anime made me smile almost
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throughout the whole season, and I was always eager to watch the next episode.
Like many other watchers, I heard or watched videos or screenshots of this anime, and I had the wrong idea of what was it about. Fanservice, harem, bizarre comedy, etch. But then I heard and read a lot of people saying they were surprised by the plot and that they even cried with this. So I was intrigued. And what pleasant surprise it gave me when I started watching it.
I did not expect at all the sci-fi/supernatural elements in this anime. In fact, that was the main reason I was so intrigued and interested to keep watching. This elements give an interesting turn to some common teenage afflictions, like feeling ignored, invisible, the unhealthy custom of expecting things to have a different result no matter how many times we do the same thing, the bullying, the effect it has on your self-esteem, etc. These issues feel accurate and relatable enough, even though they are surrounded by a supernatural, fictional environment.
The character design and animation are very nice. Each character compelling and charming design aspects that were according to each one's personality, even though some were a bit anime-generic and clichés designs. But still, every character looked beautiful (especially the waifus). And yes, the promotional posters with Mai dressed as a Bunny Girl are complete clickbait.
I don't have much to say about the soundtrack, I barely paid attention to the music. I can say it never felt off, and it fit the pace and tone of the overall series. The opening song is one of my favorite OPs of all time. Period.
I really liked how the managed each character in this anime. I was afraid it was going to be a harem anime, but fortunately, it was not the case (even though there are some teasing and tension between more than one female character with the main guy. But as I said above, each girl had a realistic affliction portrayed in a very appealing and interesting way.
I wish I could say more about this anime, but that's all I have. I didn't love it as many people did, but I had a great time watching it. It gave me blurred eyes at times, but I didn't cry.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jul 18, 2020
I never had such a mixed review like this one. I found this movie on Netflix, and I was interested in it because of the art. Recently I heard the film's theme song "Uchiage Hanabi" and it also got me interested in watching it, since I really liked the song. Anyway, my expectations for this movie weren't high due to the fact that I knew almost nothing about the story and there were no familiar names involved in it. So I gave it a try, and I was... confused during the majority of the film's length.
I understood what was happening, but I was thinking
...
"where is the story going to now?". It went back and forth, jumping in time and it got weird and psychedelic during some scenes. It was hard to tell if what was happening was real or some sort of dream. All in all, the climax of the story is nothing extraordinary and there is no plot-twist to explain the weirdness of the narrative. It turns out to be another romance story.
As I said before, the art of this film got me interested in watching it, and it didn't disappoint in that aspect. There were some scenes that were very well animated, and the overall look of the art style was appealing to my eyes. But it got ruined with the overuse of CGI and the weird compositing with the backgrounds in some scenes. There are moments where the entirety of the scene is animated with some weird CGI, and it threw me off.
Again, I liked the theme song, and the rest of the soundtrack is good too, maybe the best part of the entire film. I have not much to add to this aspect, not an excellent or outstanding soundtrack, but it was nice.
None of the characters were appealing to me and they were kind of annoying throughout the film. The main characters were kinda flat and there was no backstory that made me interested in them, especially the main guy. The rest of the cast are just arguing all the time about "are the fireworks flat or round?" and it gets annoying pretty quickly.
I don't like giving bad reviews or low scores, so I'll give it a mixed score. I didn't hate it or consider it a bad film, but I didn't enjoy it either. If you are into romance mixed with sci-fi/supernatural themes and you want to watch it, I won't try to change your mind, but don't get your expectations too high.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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