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Transcript from my video, tl:dr don't watch it if you enjoyed WEP before


What - the - actual - hell - was - that.

As one of the most promising original animes to ever be released, wonder egg priority debuted in the winter 2021 and it stole the hearts of millions, with breathtaking bombastic visuals tied together with an interestingly fun yet gut wrenching plot line that had me hooked from the first few episodes. It started to become riddled with problems near the end, namely the frill arc and production schedules, but I brushed aside these transgressions because I just enjoyed it that much and I ... thought the message of the anime was much more profound; helping four broken girls come to terms with losing someone close to them. But what kind of hullabaloo did I just witness? I even had to bring in a stupid word like hullaballoo to describe the mess to stop me from swearing, it’s that flipping bad. I have a fruits basket the good the bad and the ugly ready to be edited, but I changed my entire day to rant about this mess.

For the story itself, it was a cluster mess. I felt like osananajimi no zettai makenai love comedy had a more cohesive plot that this, and it’s one of the most stupid things I’ve watched - video coming soon so stay tuned for that. So, after the 25 and a half minute recap, taking more than half the runtime of this ‘special’ more like ‘specially made to make you sit in a corner and cry’ , we learn that the girls were indeed successful in bringing their friends back. Personally I would have thought they’d go with the you’ve all experienced hardships but now you understand what happened and made some new friends along the way route, but they couldnt after the mess that was the episode 10 11 and 12 of the season. Neiru drops off adam and disappears but we dont know where. The victims seem to be saved but their parallel world version of the girls we knew, and these victims refuse to associate themselves with their corresponding friends, like koito literally tells ai to not talk to her as if they’re familiar with one another. We learn from sawaki that koito literally caused problems with a male teacher in her last school, causing that teacher to jump, and that she harassed sawaki saying that she’ll tell the school he did stuff to her and made him come up to the roof to threaten him further, but slipped off and causing her to take fall damage. Why.

Neiru tells the girls to get lost and goes her own way, and when ai tries to talk to neiru, the neriu she knew isnt the same one and doesnt seem likes the neiru we knew and loved. Momoe seems to for some reason still hang out with the girls ecven though she said she never wanted to back in episode 12? We learn that the neiru we met was neiru’s sister, and tanabe takes the girls to visit kotobuki who reveals that neiru was an ai like frill, but kotobuki created her, and the reason why airu, the human, yeeted herself is revealed to be jealousy. We further learn that neiru is stuck with frill in the wonder world. Interestingly the story still stands to get worse. Neiru calls ai but ai throws her phone away, and a timeskip occurs where ai transfers schools?, so Ai basically was like neiru is ai , there can only be one ai , so let me go away? And then seeing a gacha game homegirl decides to come back to save neiru by going to the acca’s and we get this ending, maybe signifying a season 2 but I hope not because at this point, I want to erase my memories.

To start off with what the actual heck did I wait 3 months for. We were teased for an extended episode right, spanning over 40 minutes and technically we did receive it. But what we got was 25 and a half minutes of blooming recap. It’s bloody ridiculous for a 13 episode anime to have a recap before the story ends, but I found episode 8 to be okay, since they had to outsource some of the work to meet time constraints for the actual episode eight but another recap? This anime got done dirty by whatever the hell happened in the background which I’ll get into shortly, but why in the flying jesus did they say they’re going to make an extended episode then? It was a waste of my time since I thought they’d actually add something in those 25 and a half minutes, and watched through it even though I remembered the plot so far, and I felt like I just sat staring at a wall.

For the mess of production, lets look at the details that’s available online. Key animation for this specially messed up ending was outsourced, and whilst this is not bad as we saw from jjk how great outsourcing can be, the mother of jesus script was finished around the start of this month. Wakabayashi had months to write an episode that was already supposed to exist - since episode 8 wasn’t supposed to be a recap- but it took him 2 months to make a storyboard? The layouts were finished June the 22nd, 7 days before airing and the key animation clean up was finished a day before it got released? It was only completed 15 hours before it was supposed to air. I have to give props were props are due, the animators especially the chines ones and kerorira in particular had to work their butts off to get this cluster out, enough to earn cited credits, but what the actual hell was the animation itself. Apparently wakabayashi had to be in hospital as well, but they could have pushed this back or done something else since a month to storyboard is ridiculous.

Wonder egg priority was visually stunning. Was. In the mess of the specially messed up episode , there were often moments where the spoken dialogue and the characters talking felt off-sync, like their lips moved after the sound, and there were a lot of scenes with very little animation at all reminding me of another certain anime finale which cloverworks was in charge of in winter 2021 that they made into a slideshow. Ai’s running scene was a massive headache to watch, compare this scene to this and see how much dynamism is in episode 1 compared to what looks like ai running on a treadmill in this. The 20 odd minutes were still plagued with MORE FLASHBACKS EVEN THOUGH WE JUST SPENT 25 AND A HALF MINUTES DOING JUST THAT. The sakuga was made like my dad and ran away. I spent the entire episode combing through it to try and see a bit of animation that reminded me of the previous 12 episodes, but I saw nothing. Hori san and miyamura kun had better animation than this mess, and it was basically drawn in someone's bedroom.

Lets end this with narrative plot holes before I lose more of my hair from pulling them out. As I mentioned in the summary. The entire special seems like it was made in a universe just to anger all the wonder egg priority fans. Remember episode 12 when rika was going crazy trying to get revenge for mannen? Lol she doesn’t care anymore, revenge is petty, who would want that? And then rika decies to disappear for the rest of the special. Momoe is apparently fine enough to be friendly toward the others and go hang out at karaoke despite saying in episode 12 that she wishes that she hadn't gotten involved with the girls. Neiru being an AI is slapped on our heads and then brushed over, like the girls don’t even discuss saving their friend, nor do they discuss how neiru was more human than AI. But Ai then decides to blank neiru when she calls, going as far as yeeting her phone off into the bushes when she could have blocked the number or gotten a new number? Then there’s the parallel world stuff, okay sure bring science into something that didnt exactly need it but we move, but what in science says that you can jump between dimensions, going as far as bring parallel world girls back but previous memories being erased? What is this the bootleg steins gate, steins goat coming to cinemas near you. Ai moves schools because she wants to, and a time skip occurs because why exactly? It crams in a flashback and her suddenly deciding to see Neiru again after an unnecessary timeskip because she saw a gacha game? And then there’s koito. Please for the love of god what the actual hell was that. Koito was built up to be a misunderstood angel, but turns out shes a lil psycho who loves torturing teachers for her pleasure and her offline event was more hippity hoppity my foot slipped off of this property causing her to take mad fall damage. They hyped her character up the entire season, and they made her a narrative focus of the story building her up and the problem doesnt lie with her being evil, it lies with how they just lobbed it at us and expected us to be like yeah that makes sense. No foreshadowing, no anything, just she slipped. Like who in their right minds would enjoy that. Don’t forget sawaki, the seemingly maleficent teacher who we thought was preying on koito when it was the other way around yet why did he behave like that? This anime doesn't really have an unreliable narrator, like sure you can't trust a hikikomori fully, but sawaki LITERALLY DREW AI BEING OLDER AS A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN THAT WAS BROKEN, but that’s okay right since he did nothing wrong and was being manipulated? Finally, let's not forget that frill was basically afk, like we saw nothing of her this episode, and acca and ura acca were like side pieces even though the entire egg theory was created by them? I thought this episode would be a conclusion of astronomical proportions, with teh girls fighting together to defeat frill using the knowledge they gained but instead they were like who’s frill and what’s and acca? They even went as far to make frill seem like a decent person, as she did nothing bad - and that bringing back neiru was teh end goal, not defeating frill as the thanatos warriors or whatever. Disappointment is the only word I can truly say.

My concluding thoughts can only truly be one word. Why? As honestly one of the most profound and breathtaking original animes that was overflowing with life, heart and creative freedom, this anime failed to deliver anything that could be recognised as a semblance of its former self. I can honestly say this is the most disappointing ending I’ve ever seen and I watched promise neverland season 2 from clover doesnt know how to works. All the characters felt alien, the messages were skewed to be something that reminded me of my younger days when I’d write it was all a dream, the conversations felts stifling and threw me off and it felt like watching something my nephew wrote and he’s 1. This did not decide to follow up from episode 12, instead we got an exposition dump of an episode combined with god awful animation, rivalling ex-arm (of course not but you get the point). A good story is similar to hunting, the patient tracking gathering the clues to the conclusion and the final episode should feel like that shot you’re about to take. Imagine you’re playing cs go, and you’re 1 v 1 when the rounds are 15 14 to you and you need to clutch the game, that adrenaline rush feeling is what a good conclusion should feel like. But instead of hitting that headshot and ending the game, you shot yourself instead, causing the game to end in a draw or in the hunter scenario you’re starving. It felt like my brain was starving. I’m not mad, I’m disappointed would be how I feel, but I’m mad as well so it doesn’t fit. I regret watching this and I would advise you not to ruin WEP by doing so as my rating dropped from 9 to 7 for the main series and I gave the special a special 4, one of the rating I use the least on MAL. If the rating on both MAL, Anilist and Reddit are anything to go by, most people felt the same way as me, as it flopped more than koito when she ‘slipped’.

What does it mean to sing with your heart?

As a central point of contention throughout the entirety of the just finished series, Vivy’s flourite eye’s song tries to answer this question through beautifully bombastic mind boggling narration spanning 13 episodes and I could not be happier that I got around to watching it. The season has had a star studded line up- maybe not to the quality of the winter 2021 season, but with furuba the final season, to your eternity, my hero academia and even nagatoro- san to compete with, combined with its relatively niche genre of idol anime, vivy’s was overshadowed quite a ... lot and being an anime original wasn’t really doing it any favours either, as pre-established fan base animes tend to be the ones that stand out season by season. But one thing I’ve learnt from last season as well as this one, sometimes anime originals punch much heavier than their weight class. Stepping into the shoes of its predecessor, wonder egg priority, vivys did a mighty good job of being one of the best animes to watch in the spring 2021 season, and if you have the time I would highly recommend you give it a watch as you’ll not be disappointed. WIthout further ado, lets get straight into, the good the bad and the ugly for the spring 2021 anime, vivys flourite eye’s song.

Lets start with the basics shall we. The blooming powerhouse of a team they recruited to bring this masterpiece was crazy to read through. For starters, this anime is created by tappei nagatsuki, the creator of re zero and the anime scriptwriter eiji umehara who’s dabbled in some anime scripts - like re zero once again, after the rain and worked on chaos child. Oh no no, don't think it stops there, since we have atsumi tanezaki, who’s the voice actress of arisa from furuba, futaba from bunny girl senpai - watch this video for the arc analysis of that- and so on and matsumoto’s seiyuu is none other than jun fukuyama, the man who voiced lelouch from code geass, the dr matsumoto is voiced by takehito koyasu, the man behind roswaal and much more. I could probably write an entire video on just the cast but lets save that for next time shall we? Just because they have a glamorous cast doesn’t mean that they’d be used well, but vivys exploited them to their fullest potential, birthing a brilliant anime.

Sticking relatively close to that topic, we have the character design. Illustrator Loundraw blooming knocked it out the park with this one, which is to be expected by the guy who did character design for both tsuki ga kirei and BLOODY CAN I EAT YOUR PANCREAS? Each design fits heavily with their personality, vivy a bright blue that contrasts with the rest of the world as she’s the one trying to correct the path and save humanity, estella really embodying the look of a nurturing and yet doting mother, grace with how caring her design was and even the blooming humans looks perfect, boringly human with no wacky hair colours that people seldom see in their daily lives. This anime plays with close up shots like this and this, where the detail goes from 1080p to like 10k 100 fps dolby atmos adobe rgb colour space or whatever and its bloody breathtaking honestly. Outside of the fact that they’re, undeniably, stupendous, they also enhanced the screenplay, emphasising the drama present which usually was the pressure placed on Vivy. Even though these scenes were flipping visually stunning, they were also uncannily eerie. The use of them was bordering on sending chills down my spine, and seeing such creative freedom given to produce such artistically brilliant designs actually blew my mind and I wish more animes adopt this idea and implement as well as this.

That leads me onto the animation. Lord please have mercy. The animation. God. It was perfection mwah bellissimo. The production is off the charts with the gorgeous vibrant art, fluid dynamic animation. The art is fantastic and ridiculously well structured. It made use of a broad combination of diverse palettes that together were better than the sum of their parts, and the choreography and camera angles were precisely to affect the story. This somewhat unique artstyle made full use of colour without making things too confusing and psychedelic whilst somehow embedding this cold, sinister nature to it. The action and fight scenes were extremely dynamic and intense laced with sakuga scenes here, there and everywhere, and you can feel the weight behind the hits, something most shounens forget to do nowadays. The anime pull no stops in the small details either , the scenes where Vivy is in her inner mind are delivered in a way that really captures her entire emotional capability, from her worries, her anxieties to her love for music and makes use of subtle changes in the room as the show progresses to show how she’s becoming more and more human on her journey to answer the linchpin question of the dramatic narrative. The facial animations are not skimped on either, as where most other animes take the easy route out by either blanking out character faces when they’re far enough or avoid animating subtleties like eye movements or lip movements consistently, this anime sticks its middle finger out at those conventions really bringing the entire cast to life, even if they are AI’s. Details like seeing the occasional HUD displayed allows us to see the world from the android's point of view, giving it a more personal yet again cold touch. Minor details like these contributed heavily to how immersive the experience of Vivy's world. It’s not surprising when you consider that it was the studio WIT who were behind the masterful art, who’ve managed to produce most of the attack on titan series. Thankfully, they didn’t take a page out of MAPPA’s book as the cg that was used - mainly on the older robots and even for matsumoto was stellar and pretty unnoticeable, really showcasing the heights that using cg could achieve.

Being an anime based on, well, an idol, namely vivy herself, the sound production was insane too, and the songs actually play a huge part into the overall narrative. The actual incorporation of the music into the plot and its use to show us her character development are some of my favourite things about this show. Every single performance was filled to the brim with an extremely catchy yet awe-inspiring tune and Vivy, regardless of how big of an audience she had, always put on the best performance she could, and the sound quality and The performances are always transitioned into well and they always fit the atmosphere and add value to scenes unlike a certain anime that releases every wednesday and I internally cringe at. Any guesses? Whenever that op played you’d hear me go as you like my pleasure - if you haven’t noticed by now I can’t sing- and the soundtrack was produced by another famous guy, you might not have heard the work he’s done though, since the series were relatively small like monogatari and haruhi suzumiya. Yeah small indeed. Other aspects of the soundtrack, which is odd to say for an idol anime, like the combat sounds, background music and thus the general miscellaneous sound effects were also handled with tender loving care too. This is one of the many reasons why I was initially drawn to the show, other than the other paragraphs I've already fangirled over yet it only got better with time, as the sound design continued to exceed my expectations and deliver a quality you’d seldom see in a hollywood movie, let alone an anime.

Before I end the ceaseless rain of praise lets talk about the characterisation with a focus on the main characters themselves, notice how I said main. Vivy is probably kuudere waifu of the year, and she’s a prime example of the “robot becoming a human” trope, previously held by isla from plastic memories. She goes through so many trials and tribulations, and little things like her gradually developing a close companionship with the blabbermouth wheatley looking ass Matsumoto, or her tendency to pick up tiny habits from her encounters throughout her 100-year journey making her feel extremely, well, alive. She starts off pretty much as an emotionless songstress who wants nothing other than to make people happy through singing, and by the end understands a lot more, herself,humans and the concept of emotions to such a degree that I questioned whether even I could understand emotions like her - answers a bit fat no. Her internal and external struggle is gut wrenching and her choice to part with diva and embrace vivy voluntarily was a massive gut punch of feels. The beginning when she was a wee confused lass who was only trying to persuade herself that she was fulfilling her role of making others happy turning into her getting slapped with reality when tatsuya follows grace into the afterlife and her being frozen - rightfully so, to how she forgot her memories and was living life happily reminded me of kaede from bunny girl senpai - analysis coming out soon - to her finally acknowledging that she is herself whether she’s diva, vivy, or just an AI was brilliant engaging. She goes from a person who wouldn’t shed a tear or even think about someone’s demise and questions their intentions to someone who empathises, sympathises and understands others to the point where she’s more human than I am, and I’ve been one for nearly two decades now. Combine all that with a cool, cold demeanor that sometimes lets escape moments of emotion encompassed in a charming yet charismatic design you get the biggest success in kuudere history. You can’t talk about vivy without mentioning the portal wannabe cg cube that is matsumoto, he’s a brilliantly fun and entertaining character that develops slowly alongside vivy. Throw in a bit of a jokester, a troll and a genius you get matsumoto, the all around dependable ally that has plenty of moments when he shines brighter than vivy herself. Matsumoto serves as a sort of opposite to vivy, an anti hero if you will, as he tries to speedrun the story since he’san AI of the future and has the knowledge of said future, setting the somewhat breakneck speed of the show. Whilst vivy struggles to save everyone, and ends up harming more than she saves - usually at least, matsumoto is more of a means to the ends kind of guy. He;s honestly one of my favourite characters of the entire series, since he’s annoying yet I can’t envision someone else who’s as perfect for the role as him, and his nagging and pestering were all done in good faith. There’s also the play on words with the names, for diva there’s obviously the fact that her name literally is that she’s a songstress celebrity, but the name vivy has aramaic origins, and mean strong woman. Interesting titbit for you there. Then there’s the relatively minor character arayashiki or the archive for the sub reading folk like me. In Mahayana Buddhism, Arayashiki is the eighth foundational level of consciousness which stores patterns from other forms of awareness and retains developments and thoughts to use in other lives. Interestingly, this draws parallels to what the archive does as it stores and interprets all datas from the AIs then decides what to do based on that information.

Let's finally get into the bad eh? 1900 words in and I’ve only sung praises, need to earn my keepsake for once. Sticking to the characters, remember how I said main character? The side characters are interestingly well-written characters, and the character interactions between them and others in the story were great, but suffer mainly from the problem that the interactions with most of the characters don't last. The anime is fairly episodic yet each arc ends with someone’s death and it falls quite flat, like their deaths don’t really mean much, it most of the time feels like okay sure they died. The side characters felt more like a stepping stone, a sort of character foil that pushes vivy to feel more human, but it felt extremely detached for me to watch them. I do get the tropes they were supposed to play, from the sibling dynamic showing us an inferiority complex with unequal allocation of resources, to familial love and compassion when watching someone important pass; a tragedy where one who wants nothing but the simplest things in life is forced into a destiny greater than herself, sacrificing one’s life for the many; a take on dependence in a twisted, yet also paradoxically the purest form of love conceivable. It's not a particularly an egregious complaint, as this aspect is hard to execute well for multiple characters, angel beats and the currently airing to your eternity being the only notable ones that I can think of that did it well, especially for otanashi in angel beats and the unnamed boy in to your eternity, and it can be argued that it’s part of the main overarching point of the series as we are supposed to be seeing their deaths from vivys somewhat cold calculating POV, but it's still fairly problematic as it decreased my immersion somewhat, especially considering the fairly often time skips.

Speaking of, that leads me nicely to my second bad point, the time gaps. Probably due to time constraints or even episode constraints, we’d have random blooming time skips thrown in where we’re basically introduced to a new version of vivy and it takes a while for me to re-assimilate with the new vivy on screen. The time skips effectively cut character development short, and the other characters are forced to suffer from lacking characterisation, with the world building aspect also taking a massive hit as technology advances a fair bit between the decades. Again this often overlooked area of anime really tones down the immersion, as one moment vivys fighting and saving the world, we then do not see what impact she has but we skip 20 odd year to another problem. If this was told from matsumotos POV, I would get it but its not, its told by Vivy’s and the 13 episode limit can really be felt. Even if the background scenery is vivid and well thought out, if the character doesn't interact with it and instead it changes with every arc then it gets fairly hard to empathise with situations. Would I have preferred they spend more time on world building? Yes. Could they? No, the story just didn't allow that to happen in a 1 cour run time and that for me is a fairly minor set back because the anime couldn't do much about it even if it wanted to.

For the first time since starting this series of the good, the bad and the ugly, I can’t really find a single ugly point about this anime. I could probably talk about how vivy sings in a different voice than she talks and has a completely different style of saying words from inflections and so on, but that’s pedantic. I could say the entire anime makes no sense since matsumoto didn’t need vivy at all since he was a future AI that had capabilities way beyond normal, but thats contentious. I could say that matsumoto was basically a cheap cop out for exposition or how he was basically a deus ex machina for the story to hang on to by but that’s just too fussy. I could say that the story had no emotional value, but that’s just subjective. I could also say that there’s no real meaning to the entire plot, no social, racial, trans human, ai to human commentary that’s explored in depth but whats the blooming point being that fussy. At the end of the day, that’s just nitpicking and I’m not comfortable to talk about those points for length when I literally can’t think of much to write about.

Vivy is undeniably a spectacular series. The dark nature of its themes intertwined with us knowing that the destruction of mankind is linked to one single wrong move combined with the drama that comes with it, makes this an edge-of-your-seat anime that definitely draws similarities to the likes of Steins;Gate and Re:Zero. Although this show might be about an idol saving the world, and won’t be up many people’s alleys due to it being idol-related, this show is definitely one to check out. It combines action scenes with enjoyable all out fights that contributed both to the story and viewing pleasure, smooth basically flawless animation sequencing, solid character development that builds on top of itself each episode in a kaizen sort of fashion, a fantastic soundtrack that was probably the best of the season and maybe even the year, who knows, and a story that permeates itself with brilliance. Whilst this story has been done to death, past death even, it will obviously draw parallels to the likes of steins gate, re zero and even erased, was executed with the utmost competence with a fresh yet somewhat flawed concept. Ultimately, there is nothing notable that really detract from the show. I wouldn’t recommend VIVY: Fluorite Eye’s Song to those looking for an easy watch and something to wind down to, watch something like seijo no maryoku wa bannou desu from this season if you’re looking for something along those lines, as vivy’s somewhat intricate writing style demands more than just casual attention; however, if you are willing to to give yourself up to dedicated 260 odd minutes to watching this marvel, and want a new number one kuudere, definitely give this a watch. There's a famous quote from HG Wells, the time machine, that I wanted to reference back in my steins gate video, but it also fits in here. "We all have our time machines, don't we? Those that take us back are memories… And those that carry us forward are dreams.” But I think vivy’s takes this one step further. What does it mean to sing with your heart? What does it mean to do anything with your heart.? It’s to use the past in order to get a better future by living in the present and that in my humble opinion is the true message of vivy flourite eyes song.

Fun stuff

As we approach the end of the spring 2021 season, many animes are coming to a close or at least a conclusion, and koikimo is one of those early animes that is officially finished, season 1 at least. Riddled with problems, and a sus concept, koikimo has raised a lot of discussions due to the nature of its story but in my opinion, despite its many flaws and shortcomings, it was a relatively enjoyable watch that I did want to tune into every week. Without further ado, lets get into the good the bad and the ugly for the spring 2021 anime, its disgusting to ... call this love, koikimo.

Starting off with the good as usual, we have the humour. I’ve probably mentioned this before somewhere, but I’m part of the faction who enjoys boke/tsukkomi comedy. Take araragi and senjougahara, mai and sakuta, where the entire concept is one party says something outrageous - the boke - and then a tsukkomi comes out of nowhere to shut that line of thinking down. In this anime its ryo who is the boke, saying outrageous and sometimes fairly creepy things whilst ichika shuts him down. The chemistry displayed by the pair in these scenes are lovely, and the humour had me dying from laughter a lot since, even though this type of comedy is hard to pull off, when done right it can elevate a story much more than expected, and puts a light hearted twist to moments, making the anime feel more airy if that makes sense.

Then there’s the character progression. This anime suffers from daily bog standard character archetypes at the beginning, a playboy philanderer who has so many one night stands he can’t count, and a school girl who doesn’t know what she wants in life, but the changes these characters show are nothing to scoff at. Let's start with ryo. He gets out of his damaging lifestyle of work, play with a woman, forget to eat etc. and becomes a much better person through Ichika and this was actually really nice to see. Ryo changed in a lot of ways thanks to Ichika as he started to truly understand what it meant for him to be in love in general, let alone be in love with her. We can tell that his thought patterns have changed as he’s become pretty self-aware of what he’s doing with ichika by the end of the anime as he does realise what he’s doing can be grossly inappropriate but also in the irrational realm of love which doesn’t make anything easier for him. He also quite obviously changes with how he treats women, going from a womaniser who didn’t accept valentines chocolates without saying a reason to a man who accepted ones that were truly heartfelt. We see his different attitude with arietty for example, best girl btw, as he had the opportunity to beat and delete but instead he answers her confessions honestly and tries to make amends. In other words, by the end of the anime Ryo has undoubtedly become a better person. This really redeemed an otherwise kinda gross overbearing character that was hella weird to like or even root for at the beginning, after his unwanted advances and his pedantic stalker like attitude from the first episode, the change really fleshed him out.

Then there’s the changes to ichika. She’s initially portrayed as this shy joshikousei who’s bloody average in all sense of the word. She truly has no distinction. Apart from her comedy, she didn’t really do much at the beginning, only rejecting the advances of ryo but she slowly changed as time dragged on. But as a character in this show, her role was executed quite perfectly all things considered. As the show goes on, ichika starts to be painted as a student with her own self-doubt and complications, as she struggles in school and with having someone like Ryo fawn over her. She’s unsure about her future, her present and her past but she keeps moving forward, trying to go with what she wants. She’s also got enough common sense to not just turn down the older man’s love confession, but also put him in his place which is quite funny in its own right considering the ten year age gap. And yet, as the series progresses, Ichika starts getting used to Ryo’s antics and lets him invade positively into her life. While it is bloody bad for a 27 year old to like someone who basically hasn’t even reached the age to go to university, you can quite easily see the kind of confidence booster Ryo’s actions have been for Ichika. Her doubts about herself don’t exactly go away magically, but she starts to accept them and work on them. We can often see that fIchika is slowly becoming happier and happier, lifting her head a little higher each day thanks to Ryo’s antics. When ryo made her the study guide when she was sick, she basically pushed herself to passing the exam with good marks to repay that kindness, giving her a boost and showing her what she can actually do if she puts her mind to it. We also see ichika slowly getting confidence in asking ryo out, and she becomes more confident in both actions - from the hug on valentines - and words - telling ryo to wait for her to be older so they can actually date, and she finally realises that she can turn her passion into a job, being an art curator, thanks to ryo’s meddling. She eventually becomes more assertive and starts striving for what she wants, and ryo was and is that gentle, yet annoying push for her to move forward.

The last good I’ll talk about is the ending. Navigating an ending for such a premise with a 10 year age gap between a teen and an adult is a tricky situation, not helped by the mushoku tensei effect, and the fact that there will be two factions when the conclusion comes into sight - they either get together discarding the age gap or they don’t discarding the entire romance portion of this anime. Whilst the latter has had some beautiful renditions, like garden of words and after the rain, this anime was not in the slightest as poetic as those two or as explorative so that option would have caused outrage as well. By taking the middle-ground, both sides are left pleasantly surprised, as it's a truly good ending where the characters are given time to mature before coming back and tackling the age gap without being surrounded by naysayers, whilst also leaving the possibility of a second season that can hopefully follow the side character’s stories more, as I truly vibed with them as well.

My last good for this anime is the animation itself, the art. It takes a more retro approach, that probably was chosen because the studio is broke but that’s a topic for another day, but the entire thing was painted in a fun cutesy style colour palette that was both visually pleasing and entertaining. The made use of flashes with character pop-outs so we can understand the emotions, the subtle washing of the backgrounds when the main duo were engaging in something romantic, pastel colours that really hit home with the shoujo them and so on. It was quite visually pleasing, and I really don’t think a larger budget would have done it any better as the sort of roughness of the bad cgi bystanders and the fairly sharp faces were definitely an attraction rather than a distraction for me personally.

Moving on, now I’m going to talk about the bad. Sound design. Let me get this out the way first, the op and ed were certified bangers no questions asked and the relevant animations for them were also brilliantly done, with catchy hooks and bright tones throughout. But the voice acting. The voice acting. SDAHJKDBJKASD. I’ll be honest with you, nine times out of ten I’m watching anime on my phone in bed unless I’m working on something. Koikimo dropped around 2pm in the UK so it usually dropped whilst I was in the middle of studying so I’d have my headphones on right. I have these decent noise cancelling ones for sony that I use to revise with so I played the episode and my ears bled. Okay exaggeration aside, the voice acting was mixed horrendously. The voice acting itself was good, but it sounded like they threw the seiyuu’s into a cave and forgot that echoes exist. Like my audio isn’t all that great either, but I’m a bloody student running a youtube channel for fun using a scuffed setup and even I know that I need to reduce the background noise so my voice can be heard clearer. All things considered though, when watching in a relatively normal environment - i.e. on a phone or speakers, with windows open and with a slight amount of background noise, it isn’t that noticeable and after a while listening to the voices, I barely even registered it and that’s why its in the bad and not the ugly.

Now to get into the ugly. Enabling. Ryo is 27. Ichika is 17. I don’t want you to forget that fact whilst I talk about this. Rio calls herself a friend to ichika and a sister to ryo, yet she doesn’t hesitate to essentially throw her best friend under the bus and give her private details mind you to her madly in love stalker like brother in the name of love because she thought it would be fun. Hmm. Then we got her own flesh and blood mother, who allows ryo to visit her when she’s ill, granted by accident, but leaves them alone by themselves and then gets on first name terms with the quasi weirdo whenever he comes over. Sure, it could be played off as ichika being tsundere since she doesn't explicitly want ryo to go away - by that I mean literally telling him sternly rather in a joke context- buts its still concerning. The only ones in this anime who seem relatively concerned are ryo’s dad, tamaru and arietty, with the latter two possibly having alternative motives for doing so but they still looked out for her nonetheless. Realistically, apart from those three and maybe ichika, ryo’s advances were basically allowed and without resistance it could be argued that they were more promoted by the others, but honestly, since it was ryo and the character progression eh showed when he wanted to distance himself after realising how overbearing he was to an underage teenager, we can see that everything he did was with good intentions and that if he was sternly told to not do what he was doing, he wouldn’t have carried on, but the point still stands.

To conclude, this anime was quite enjoyable as something to wind down to, with its funny skits, interesting characters that pushed each other to change for the better, and came to a ridiculously nice conclusion that was well-thought out in my opinion. The chemistry of the comedic duo to the light glimmer of warmth that permeated every scene through the pastel colour palette that is synonymous at this point with shoujos to the weirdly expressive facial features that accentuated the scenes, coupled with banging sound tracks made this a relatively enjoyable experience. This anime is not the greatest of all time, far from it actually, with a shaky premise that wasn’t truly considering the interpretation of the audience, but the grounded execution that delved sporadically into the problems of it did show some self awareness that was pleasant to see. This anime might not be for everyone, but if you like shoujo’s where the comedy is the main selling point with relatively strong character development, do give this one a shot. Remember guys, if you enjoyed this anime, it won’t be considered too disgusting to call this love.

-Review taken from the transcript of my video, do watch it on yt if you have the time!

TL;DR: 86 is like a more military centric attack on titan that delves into multiple separate perspectives at once and the story is tightly knit into an enjoyable relevant piece of social commentary. This review is a transcript of one of my videos on my channel. Watch this is you like military anime, such as AOT, Code Geass and Youjo Senki. Don't watch it if you don't like people suddenly getting axed off, seeing the harsh reality of the world or discrimination.

86 is breathtaking. The title is obviously some cheap clickbait, but the thumbnail does express my thoughts quite well, I do prefer 86 to ... attack on titan SO FAR and if you watch this video to the end, I hope you’ll see my perspective.

As the years go by, anime is straying further and further from being just plain manga adaptations to other media such as mahwa and light novels. Notable manhwa adaptations include tower of god and god of highschool and for the light novel side of things we got re zero and now eighty six and by god is it brilliant. Aniplex Japan announced back in March that the award-winning sci-fi/military/tragedy series Eighty-Six is being adapted by THE A-1 Pictures, famous for its work on your lie in april, ano hana and kaguya sama and is currently airing and is a must watch for those of you who have an attack on titan sized hole in your hearts whilst you wait for the second cour of the final season to air.

86 is probably the most relevant anime to be airing now, whether we take a look at the BLM movement and its attempts to dismantle the systemic racism faced by certain people, the protests against the Myanmar military coup that represent a struggle for non-military democracy, the Brexit protests in Ireland built on an imperialistic foundation, or the civil war in Yemen. Militarism is an ideology that stands directly in the way of racial and social equality and thus brings harm to normal people like you and I and the oppressed who are left to deal with the consequences.

I’ll be honest with you, I tend to stray away from most mecha animes since they tend to be cliche with overused tropes, with the last mecha anime that I seriously enjoyed being, of course, Code Geass and the entirety of that franchise since it had exactly what I love about anime, subterfuge and an intricate plot line which deals with the grey areas of life but for some reason I picked up 86, intrigued by its plot and watched the first episode and became instantly hooked to it.

For the story itself, it deals with a war between the republic of san magnolia and empire of giad which has lasted 9 years, with the empire winning at first using mechs, but then the republic clapped back with its own autonomous units, called juggernauts which are controlled by a handler. The Republic's government claims that its battle mechs are unmanned drones, so they're successfully fighting "a war without casualties," but this, as we learn, is a lie. The 85 sectors of San Magnolia are protected by fortified walls and a sect of soldiers known as the 86. The 86 are young men and women who, because of their skin color and ancestral bloodlines, are treated as less than human and forced into battle to die defending their country.

Vladilena Mirize, or Lena, our female mc, is a purebred alba- the most powerful race- who’s risen to fame of her unique commandeering abilities when she’s assigned to the spearhead unit, who have names eighty sixes, recognised for their service but one infamous for breaking its handlers mentalities and crushing those who oppress them mentally. Lena is an alba who does not believe in the blatant facism shown and as she tries to interact with the eighty six more and more, she further uncovers dark truths about the empire's contradictory ways.

From this quick synopsis we can already draw a lot of parallels to attack on titan, eldians being similar to the eighty-six, unfairly prosecuted for sharing a race with someone in their past, and the oppression of Marley being the same as the other sectors of magnolia. We further draw parallels when those eldians or eighty six are only given basic rights such as a name through participating in a war that they shouldn't really need to fight in. Both animes involve military strategy, subterfuge, extremely impactful and emotional scenes and both have that wow factor that depicts the atrocities of such fascism.

There’s also similarities to ww2, with magnolia acting as a step in germany. The albas are plae skinned silver haired humans, similar to the aryan identity hitler deemed to be the best race, and the others, or colorata, are treated as less than ideal. However, magnolia doesn’t adopt a demagogue approach as was seen in Germany but it does however idealise the act of using a minority population- the jewish or eighty six- as a scapegoat so they can ostracize them and then use and abuse them as cheap labour

Given this backdrop, racial tension is obviously the most prevalent recurring element of the story. Lena isn't deluded on the level of her peers, blaming an unrelated race for the so called demise of the republic, hell she even argues with their lax attitude which doesn’t reflect like they’re at war at all, but she is painfully, painfully naïve. This naivete leads to her butting heads with Undertaker and the other 86s that she serves as Handler for as they can’t deal with her having her head in her arse, again similar to eren back in season 1. They maintain their distance no matter the advances that Lena makes to get closer to the eighty sixes, giving one word answers as though they were your mum after you didn’t say her food was good. Slowly though, they get closer with Lena’s persistence breaking some barriers but to no avail when the going gets tough.

Sometimes, silence speaks louder than a thousand words, and Lena should have heard this quote before she ran her mouth about causing the death of one of the eighty six. She gets torn a new one as you can hear the rage and the wavering in her voice as she realises that she can't do anything and that if she tries to, she would only make the situation that much worse, breaking the bridges she tries so hard to build in the first place.

Sculpting an intricate plot like this requires some extremely deft world-building which is obviously helped by the novel but the anime so far does have this in the bag. The most interesting part of the anime, being a science nerd myself, is the para-RAID system. It assumes both the existence of a collective human unconscious and that there’s a technological way to establish a telepathic connection between people which allows not only communication at long range that can't be jammed for some reason but also some sort of sense of what the other person is feeling, depending on the strength of the resonance. This to me sounds like something straight out of fantasy, having studied neuroscience and psychology a tad but the way the anime artfully portrays this as something feasible to do with technology does deserve a good pat on the back from me.

Don’t forget the legendary Hiroyuki Sawano being the composer. Him making the music also sets the precedent of what’s to come as his work reaches legendary status. Sawano really heightens anything he does with studio Trigger to god-tier, and his work on AoT was (mwah) god tier. Though you've also got stuff like Aldnoah Zero and Guilty Crown made by him, I truly feel like dystopian military animes are when he shines the brightest.

I think the most interesting part of the show are the conversations and relationships, something I felt a bit lacking in Attack on titan. Shin and his crew are all considered subhuman and their quality of life is arguably lower than Lena’s, but they live a more honest lifestyle and make the most of it. They even eat real food, while the alba’s have synthetic(at least based off of Lena's friend mentioning real eggs and milk, while Shin's crew has chickens laying eggs). You’ve also got Lena who’s a privileged rich girl that probably has never struggled, but she hates the way others of her race act and hates the lies being told by the government. She tries to be kind and treat the 86 like people, but to the 86 it is just some girl coming in, thinking she is making their lives better by not treating them like shit. All while they are out on the battlefield dying and she is sitting safely in a chair. "Who are you to act like our savior?" essentially. And realistically, there isn't much she can do to save them other than reduce how many die.

I absolutely love the directing of this show. Having the whole second half of episode 3 from separate perspectives, with both 86s and then Lena's perspective really drives home how totally disconnected she is from the squadron, and also how powerless she is. I especially loved how the scenes focused entirely one one side’s perspective each time, giving so much attention to every character's personality and disposition towards others. It also enhanced the perspectives of the 86’s who felt really warm and relaxed despite their circumstances (contrasting the colder, high-class, sort of detached tone in the main city); and in Lena’s perspective she acted like a high school girl talking excitedly with new friends over the phone (adding more impact to the after credits scene). And then this being contrasted to seeing Kaie move into a bad position and be destroyed while saying "I don't want to die" and being able to do nothing about it was heartbreaking.

Attack on titan definitely did have these moments, but I honestly found it to be incredibly slow, which is okay in the world building aspect but I feel like 86 just does it better, mixing portions of intense action contrasted with light hearted fun and all in one episode. Attack on titans story has been more intricate, but with more than 4 seasons under its belt it's obviously going to be that way. I also feel that showing multiple different perspectives helps us to empathise that much more on an individual level with the cast and so their deaths are that much more impactful and leaves us that much more broken.

Speaking of, the official website is killer, it updates the dead or alive status every episode but I digress. Anyways I hope you understand why I am so far enjoying 86 as much if not more than attack on titan, as it's a brilliant piece of relevant social commentary that has what I think the pinnacle of clever direction and soundscape. That’s it for this video, let me know your thoughts down below, if you have any video recommendation do tell, otherwise like sub and all that and you already know who its been , signing out.

TL;DR: Concept is iffy, but executed well, and navigates touchy sensitive topics incredibly well and with tact. The direction it moves forward in will cause this show to either become a dumpster fire like Domestic Girlfriend or one that gets memorialized like A Silent Voice, and this is all on the shoulder of the studio.

If you haven’t heard or watched this before, HigeHiro, or HigeHiro I shaved and then brought a highschool girl home, is pretty much what its namesake says. Yoshida an office worker gets rejected by his crush of 5 years and in a drunk stupor comes home only to find a highschool ... girl sitting under a lamp, alone, teasingly showing off her panties and thus willingly wanting to exchange her body for a place to stay, when he invites her in and they start to live together, keeping to a wholesome relationship. We learn about her being a runaway from hokkaido and it’s been 6 months and it's implied how she had gotten to stay at people's houses. The series thus follows her and yoshida as they navigate their own complicated relationship and inner turmoil they face whilst yoshida also has other girls gunning for him.

I currently am enjoying the hell out of both the manga and the anime as it sells believable characters with down to earth feelings that make sense given their pasts and yet still incorporates the central themes quite well. It also teeters on a dangerous line between being something that watching will make you cry as you get arrested and something that will make you cry tears of wholesomeness. The relationships aren't toxic, there’s friendly rivalry and the character serve to increase each others potential rather than bring each other down, gotou allowing sayu to move at her own pace and yet make it a definite end goal, nishima telling yoshida that he might be confusing his feelings, yoshida helping out the rest of the cast and so on. It’s mainly a positive anime that sheds light on bad situations a lot of joshikousei girls have found themselves in living in Japan whilst remaining one that rather than criticize those girls, teaches them how to move on from that situation if they want to.

Spoiler warning right now for those of you who haven't watched until episode 5.

As a manga reader, I so far have been incredibly impressed for the most part about the adaptation, the scenes that were wholesome tended to have a warm haze around them, the cut content was pretty much the fluff that wasn’t that important and the impactful scenes did have that oomph i n them that made them hit right in the feels. The only gripe I have is that the conversation scenes tend to be extremely static and at times downright uncomfortable especially in this scene, and episode 5 was quite bad as the conversations themselves were good, but the movements felt extremely unnatural and slow. Apart from this though, I have not much else to say about the adaptation so far. The for sure havent Cloverworksed this adaptation by making it jargon so I’m incredibly thankful about that.

This anime sets itself apart from standard ecchi romance harems, which if you’ve seen it so far, it has the tropes from those genres, multiple girls wanting one guy, and the rest is self explanatory. This anime teeters on a fine line of inappropriateness but it usually does it to have an effect, for us to understand the feelings and emotions of the characters. This scene was incredibly disturbing to watch and caught me off guard but it was not used for fanservice, rather it was used so we can understand Sayu’s troubles and the trials and tribulations she’s had to face over the 6 months. Her indifferent, apathetic yet disgusted look in what's supposed to be something that is a relatively joyous occasion shows us how desensitised she’s gotten. It also serves as some foreshadowing as this guy is the same as this one, who's turned out to be her coworker.

Now to address the title of this video. The turning point has been reached and I can’t wait to see how it develops. Sayu finally had to come to terms with her past in her own way, and understands that she can’t just rely on yoshida, who’s too kind for his own good, instead she should face her past and make haste in leaving yoshida for both her and yoshida’s sake, and all it took was gotou to confront her, someone who was a third party who has only the interest of both parties in her mind and not just one of theirs as sayu and yoshida had been doing so far. She’s decided that she should move on and leave his house before long so she can go back and enjoy her joushukosei life rather than heavily relying on someone to get her through her life and it's a step in the correct direction.

Sayu definitely has a lot of problems. For one we can automatically sense that something is seriously wrong with her since she said that she ran away from home and yet she got along with her parents fine, which throws up some red flags. Sure she could have lied but if not what would make her run away from home and do the things she did transactionally? She also seems to be focused on being codependent, she seems to have no motives or will of her own, as apart from the scene when she wanted a job back in the first half of episode 4, she hasn’t actually asked for anything of her own, nor before episode 5 did she have any ideas about how long she was going to intrude in Yoshida’s home. She tends to find happiness in others and making them happy, namely yoshida of course, but that is extremely not healthy, since then your happiness is dependant on something you cannot control nor realistically have a say in controlling.

She clearly also has abandonment issues. In nearly every episode yoshida points out that sayu had a fake smile on, she fakes contentedness and masks her own emotions and thoughts in order to make the other person happy or less aggressive against her should I say. She admits to this smile being something she picked up as a habit and now its a reflex for her to smile no matter the situation but thats again extremely unhealthy as she coops up her own thoughts and emotions in order to have a slightly easier life that she can cope with. She thus lacks real emotional connection to anyone apart from yoshida, and now gotou and nishima, as it seems that for some reason she retreated into a shell where she had to minimise all damage that could be dealt to her.

Then there's the idea that she doesn't understand people being nice. Most people are nice for the sake of it, at least I’d like to believe that, and yet sayu thinks for some reason that people want something out of it, a transaction if you will. She’s made it clear that she doesn't understand why yoshida wouldn't lust for her, and whilst he admits the opposite he reaffirms that he can't do it without loving her, something foreign to sayu whos done it in order to feel needed, something which seems to be missing from her life. Yoshida does do a decent job at making her feel wanted, that she makes coming home a treat again but this introduces ambiguity as she now feels a dangerous mix of parental love and romantic love towards him, as evident by her still being jealous of gotou and the other women around yoshida.

As I mentioned earlier, the same guy we saw in the flashback is now her co-worker. He’s a major problem. Sayu’s entire effort of running away from her problems rather than dealing with them has finally caught up to her and now the peaceful life she leads is probably going to be thrown in turmoil. As I know what happens, I’ll honestly like to see the direction that the studio decides to take with it since it's quite graphic and disturbing to read, let alone watch. If they make this adaptation as well as the manga did, we have little to worry about. This interaction is definitely needed as it brings back the backstory that could have been disregarded and turned this anime into one that's unrealistic.

As I mentioned earlier, this anime is quite the gem, with it serving as a sort of story for those struggling with a lot of mental health issues and does show that no matter where you are, you can seek help and move forward in life and face your past with your chest held high. I don’t really think this season will conclude the story, given that last volume of the light novels that both the manga and the anime are based on are still being written but I hope it doesn’t take a domestic girlfriend route where the wrong messages are portrayed.

TL;DR Art, sound design and execution is one of the best I've seen matching the mood. Story is quite average. Falls flat because of its (so far at least) convoluted nature about revenge with not enough details about the characters being shown. The voice acting is brilliant, the art style is clean and sleek yet moody at teh same time whilst maintaining clarity during fight scenes. Speaking of they're animated extremely fluidly rivalling most shounens out there, with brilliant use of light and dark elements and flashing colours to accentuate scenes.

Story 6/10 - Basically a girl wanting to get revenge and to do so she ... joins a shadow organization that removes all opposition for the ones they support. MC is some crazy op person when she wants to be and outside of her work seems genuinely caring. The story is all over the place so it's hard to follow most of the time but maintains a lot of Japanese cultural references, what with being set in japan anyways. Really a tragic story about revenge and is an anime original so I don't exactly know how this is going to cope moving forward since the story has been shaky so far, with not much to root for since it's just dark with no reason. At the moment I'm not compelled to feel anything for the characters, merely just understand what they're feeling but I can't put myself in their shoes at all since the horrible direction they've gone in establishing links with the viewer - or lack thereof.

Art 9/10 - Breathtaking is the best way to describe it. Pathetic fallacy is used a lot, the background scenery is always dark and gloomy when it needs to be, almost painting a hue of darkness that emnates throughout the show and is light when it needs to be when the situation calls for a more positive scene, but still maintains a sort of eerieness as it contrasts to what we're used to. The fights are crazy, as though manga has come to life with thick brushstrokes that contrasts well with the sharp lines before in conversation-driven scenes.

Sound 9/10 - Again brilliant, BGM elevates scenes that much more with it empowering the emotions behind the scene and coincides incredibly well with whats happening. Music always maintains a thick deep undertone that is extremely murky with the op taking inspiration from traditional Japanese scores sticking true to the anime being a historical piece.

Character 7/10 - Characters are okay, somewhat unique and understandable for the most part, but due to lack of a coherent backstory and the dependency of revenge being a recurring motif without actually explaining why the revenge means so much detracts from the overall characters a lot.

Enjoyment/Overall 7/10 - Due to lack of a story that actually flows well, its hard to follow, but the animation and soundscape is mind boggling. I hope the anime takes a Christopher Nolan approach where it confuses us in the beginning but the redemption occurs later that makes everything coherent near the end. Have not got high hopes for that to come true but colour me surprised if that happens.

00 00Quote of the video - You can't rely on anyone but yourself abigail jones herself, the best girl of the show

TL;DR- Makoto edamame edamura, a modern-day, small-time con man in Japan, lives a life of crime after some unfortunate events happened in his life, going as low as pickpocketing and scamming the elderly. One day he pickpockets the wrong person, a seemingly clueless Frenchman by the name of laurent thierry, and it turns out that makoto himself was swindled and the police are now after him. He tries to escape the police chase, but ends up meeting the tourist again who introduces himself and ... the two go to LA to scam some more. Edamame had given himself the title of japan's greatest swindler, and in order to defend it, he ends up joining the scam ring run by laurent, with their eyes set on scamming a powerful movie producer who’s actually a mafia boss, and thus the series follows the pair with some friends from the ring as they scam bad guys and give others money. The anime has four cours, each dealing with a specific character and the backstory behind them with their intentions, starting with, obviously, edamame.

Similar-

Baccano!- Both great pretender and baccano are bloody confusing at points but are fast paced crime comedies that are incredibly fun to watch. Both are written to be mafia slapstick comedies with actual funny comedic elements not some ecchi i flubbed moments that anime has gotten inundated with. Both are exemplary in their uses of music, with jazz being a prominent theme that just oozes swagger when played. The casts in baccano are equally unique and explored as well as great pretender so they're pretty similar. The pacing in both are incredibly nice, with some lulls that make the action sequences hit that much harder. Baccano is less grounded in reality with great pretender having a story that is feasible but both involve people of multiple nationalities, multiple languages, multiple backgrounds and multiple races so keeps the anime fresh and different from the usual stereotypes of other nations that japanese anime tends to have.

Banana fish- Similar to great pretender, theres a main duo who complement each other by being polar opposites, one blond guy and one japanese guy who met in a country that isn't japan and focuses on mafia. Banana fish is much darker than great pretender , but still involve crime to a certain degree. By meeting this other guy, the main duos lives change, for better or worse we only find out near the end but they are both enjoyable to watch. Both have incredibly great art styles that are just as enticing as the other that brings the story together neatly. Each arc stands to be something that the viewer could learn some things about and is incredibly nice to watch. Banana fish is grounded in reality just like great pretender so you can sympathize with characters much more often. Also bana fish only has male characters which is something I thought I should mention so no fan service for you unless you're into that sort of thing.

Art- The art was absolutely stunning. The style and techniques used were breathtaking, that kept me engaged and yet attentive. The exaggerated colours used to depict certain things such as the background in LA was brilliant and the past being more of a grey, blurry tone was a beautiful addition. Character define is brilliant and intricate, from facial expression to how they talk , walk and blink. Art wise, I’d say this was the peak that could be reached for any anime released in 2020 or before, even going as far as to saying the art was more enjoyable that some of the movies released since the art was just… real yet different. The lines used are incredibly sharp and neat, the animation between scenes is incredibly the colourscape in entrancing and it's pretty much the reason I started to watch wonder egg priority, which you can see my rndwns on every time it releases, quick plug, but yeah honestly, great pretender is brilliant for its art. I'd say it's worth a watch even if you don't like the story just because of the art and music. I read somewhere that you could literally take a screenshot of any scene at any time and have it as a wallpaper and I couldn’t agree more to that.

Music- Well they got one of the biggest names in music, freddie mercury, for the ed song so i guess the music is good? Jokes aside, yup, the music is outstanding. There were a variety of music styles used which varied from arc to arc, but still showed some carryover in later compositions. The op is a band song, which sounds extremely fun to play - fun fact used to be in one until I gave up to start concentrating on school - and was a brilliant fun, catchy score that I could just vibe to, and have on repeat. The background music was stunning, keeping the scene interesting even if nothing of relevance was being shown. Again outstanding stuff.

VA- Voice acting stood out, since most of the scenes are dialogue scenes and the VA’s did them justice. Funnily enough, since this anime goes around other nations, they have a 4th wall break saying that all characters would return to speaking japanese even if they couldnt to make it easier which was much appreciated. Edamame’s VA spoke english quite well, and so did the others, and the reason as to why I mentioned this is because he has a flair on his english auto translated japanese from how he speaks english which was also shown on the other characters. That is to say, since the characters were auto translated into japanese even if they spoke english, the way they spoke english with their flairs and accents were carried over to japanese as well which was incredibly fun to hear.

Themes

Great pretender is nostalgia realised. When I say anime, what exactly comes to mind? For some, its the degeneracy the anime community can have, evident by the attack on titan fandom, for some its their childhood shounens that left a lasting impact on them, for me yugioh and dragon ball and for others its just a weird fetish, looking at you hanime watcher or even watchers of redo of a healer to be honest. But what they all share in common is that they are literally drawn pieces of story telling, another medium which we can enoy a story from. Anime lends itself to ludicrousy because, well, drawings don’t need to be real. But thats were great pretender divulges on a path set by only a few predecessors such as cowboy bebop. Great pretender is realistic, involves countries other that the usual japan, and has a lot of other stylistic cues, from eastern flairs, to japanese sharp lines, the western sceneries. It involves cultures and races all around the globe, edamame an japanese, laurent a french, the chinese mafia, south american child slaves, and so and so forth. The thing is, great pretender isn’t just an anime. It’s a gateway drug. A gateway drug into anime. Great pretender has a western story - crime thriller which the only notable ones are lupin and baccano - which is tied into the package of an anime. This thus appeals to the masses as literally anyone could watch it, providing you have the mental capacity of course, but yeah its brilliant. What great pretender tries and succeeds to be is a showcase of what anime could be if you find the correct one, one that can shatter you preconceived notions and ideals that you placed on it. By extension, it teaches you to not judge a book by its cover at all. Since if you just thought anime was similar to redo of a healer, great pretender slaps you with a soggy fish in the face and tells you to rethink it. It’s credits are basically taken from catch me if you can, leonardo dicaprio is mentioned, 007 is referenced and so on. Japanese may not understand these references, but as a westerner I sure as hell do. Now for me, great pretender evokes a sense of nostalgia, but not in the way you’d expect because none of the events that take place are similar to my life in the slightest, I’m not a conman, at least I dont think so, I havent fought in a civil war and so on and so forth. It made me remember the first few animes I watched, and enjoy them for their styles and cues whilst being an antithesis of sorts of what it's based on. It's so ahead of the curve, it felt like it was behind the curve at points. I don’t really know how to describe it well but yeah. Nostalgia is according to merriam webster a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition and great pretender does this for me. It brings old tropes in an unexpected new format that breaks tropes of the new format. Now for the science behind nostalgia, it has the effect of boosting one’s mood as well as increasing a sense of meaning in life. It also raises self-esteem and optimism for the future, which may be translated into why I enjoyed this anime so much. There are other studies that say that when engaging in nostalgic reflection, people report a stronger sense of belongingness, affiliation, or sociality; they convey higher continuity between their past and their present; they describe their lives as more meaningful and much more. Nostalgia is something that we should incorporate in our lives more. Nostalgia is shown through cynthia's past as she recollects her memory with her partner at the time, laurent as he recollects his work with edamames father and dorothy, makoto with his mother and abigail with her past before the war. Theres so much nostalgia inadvertently shown that evokes the same emotion in the viewer in a subtle yet simple way so I have to applaud that.

Thoughts

Great pretender felt like it got everything wrong about the current anime industries preconceptions and made those incredibly false whilst still being enjoyable.
It has a striking color palette set on an international stage with an easy to follow yet complicated plot that keeps you at the edge of your seat with the various twists and turns that it has. Each character has a distinct unique personality that doesnt stagnate but develops throughout the series whilst evoking a lot of reminiscing of the days past for me even thought it doesn’t try to be an anime that does so.

Overall, I enjoyed this anime as it just showed that you don’t need to follow something to stand out. If anything you take from this video, let it be the fact that you should engage in some nostalgic activities due to the benefits on your health it may have, and personally I’d start by watching this anime.

00 00 Quote- “Life can bring lots of hardships, but it’s always important to keep in mind that there are people around you who care for you, and are willing to help you through whatever you’re dealing with.” – Nagisa Furukawa

TL;DR- Tomoya okazaki is a third year high school delinquent with little to love in his life, his mother died, his father has fallen into gambling and alcoholism, he has lost the ability to play basketball, the one thing he was the best at, due to a shoulder injury and has only one person that he can truly call a friend. He wastes his high ... school life away, until one day tomoya meets a girl mumbling to herself on the way to school, and she turns out to be Nagisa Furakawa, a repeating third year student whose health has been questionable from a young age. They eventually become friends after Nagisa's pestering and Tomoya gives into his own curiosity, and ends up helping her achieve her dream- to make a drama club. He recruits many girls, and this story follows Tomoya as he helps the girls through their problems with a main focus on helping nagisa, and slowly comes out of the shell he had been handed.

Similar-

Kanon- Produced by the same company, kanon shares many similarities with clannad. For starters, the humour in both are extremely similar, with a lot of off the cuff gags thrown in. Humour is cut back in kanon, but still teh jokes when used are hilarious. Both anime’s source materials are from games and the adaptation ends up doing them justice with showing us each path in a great way. Both are about a main lead in similar bad situations that goes around helping girls. Kanon is more tragic, and the story of characters tend to take a much deeper and darker turn but both are as enjoyable as one another with good art and exceptional music. Speaking of the art, its better in clannad but adjusting for time, kanon is pretty exceptional in its own way.

Air- In both clannad and air, the main male lead is essentially aimless in life, walking around wasting his time until a female comes around and changes his perspective on things. She ropes this main character into helping her achieve her dreams, and through trials and tribulations the main lead becomes more comfortable with what he wants and his life. Both are slow moving at the start and set up the story in a way that is relatable which makes the sad scenes hit that much harder. They are based on visual novels by key, with a supernatural aspect being involved eventually. The characters are explained well, from their motivations to their past, which make the view sympathise that much more with them. With an equally enticing soundtrack, air stands up there with clannad for tear jerker stories centred on family.

Art- The art is extremely charming and it is perfect for the time it was released with great detail and attention was paid especially to the background scenery. The background scenery tied the whole mood of the arc perfectly, with sunsets representing conclusions, brighter colours signifying conclusions, darker shades signifying the deeper and more meaningful events happening and so on and so forth. The character art is also quite time specific, with big eyes and very angular faces which is weird for well 2021 but for its release that was the standard for them so no complaints from me. The scenes that hit hardest for me where the crying scenes, since they really did spend a lot of time animating those sequences and it shows. Animations on the whole were good, no major defects and character movements didn’t look too artificial so thumbs up to that.

Music- Both the opening song and ending song are thematically perfect, with both of them showing different faces, the opening feeling dramatic and the lyrics matching to boot, with the ending being the ever so popular light hearted dango song. The dango song is so darn catchy that as I'm reading my script I’m literally singing the song in my head. The background music was especially good, from spirited and happy moments to melancholic and sad moments, staying silent most of the time but having a massive crescendo effect in certain scenes.

VA- Voice acting was ridiculously good and appreciated as the voice actors took major cues from their characters personalities, with tomoya having a really sarcastic and cheeky tone and nagisas having that hopeful, playful tone. On the whole it was very good.

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this video, this is a friendly reminder for you to like the video if you like this video. subscribe with notifications on if you enjoy my content and comment down below what you liked in this video.

Themes

What is the main meaning of Clannad? The title itself is Irish for family/clan, and the show itself is a representation of family shown through tomoya's interactions. He goes from losing what little family he had been given, through the death of his mother and abusive/alcoholic/gambling father who he barely considers to know let alone be related to, and he has only one, maybe two he can consider to be friends with, being sunohara and kyou. Nagisa is the one that shines the light on his darkness, showing that she personally has bad health but she doesn't let what she has stop her from getting what she wants. Nagisa, teachs tomoya the joys of everyday life and invites him into her loving family that he never had – likewise, he was able to give her that last push that she needed, helping her climb the hill and reach for her dreams. Alone, they would have never overcome their problems, but together, they can become whole. Her parents are caring and seem mostly aloof but can be counted on through thick and thin. Nagisa essentially forces tomoya to become less dull by making him help her, and through this he gains friends, actually friends who care about him and he cares about, and develops deep intertwined relationships with many other. He takes a proactive approach to their lives, whilst maintaining what he thinks is his complacent attitude but in actuality the help he gives is helping himself, slowly but surely hes changing, opening his heart, understanding that his life doesn't have to be dull, understanding that he has to change to get what he wants, a family. Throughout this, he realises that family has a larger meaning, not the one that oxford languages has that is, all the descendants of a common ancestor, but that family can be found anywhere, that family can be found through friendship. Every single arc has family at its core.. It’s not done in a cheap cop-out way either that gets too cringey but one that feels natural, feels developed, feels nice and warm yet cooling at the same time. It’s very much rooted in a realistic set of circumstances that happen to have supernatural elements.ow that would be a great message to have, but clannad develops that further in after story which I won’t mention right now since I haven't exactly completed it yet. But from what I've seen so far, clannad establishes that family is what you make out of it, not some predetermined thing, label i should say that you are forced to live with. Clannad further uses family as it shows that love doesn't have to be one that is purely physical, this anime literally has no pg scenes and is extremely child friendly to the point where it becomes a sweet story that can be enjoyed by families with each scene having different meaning depending one where you are in your lives, as a child you might sympathise with kotomi’s arc, as it focuses on losing your parents which was a thought that crossed my head when I was younger and cried about for days because I was just that scared about it happening, as a teen you might sympathise with fuukos arc through the thought of holding your family back and keeping them from becoming something better just because you’re there, as a parent you might sympathise with nagisa’s arc near the end, the idea that you would sacrifice everything in order to make your child's dreams come true. The show thus encourages conversation between everyone, from standard teens who have yet to find their palace, their so called purpose in life, to families as each interpretation is not intrinsically wrong, it just changes with perspective. The lack of fanservice, the gentle undertone of comedy that remains grounded in reality, the bonds the characters make as they try to help one another with their problems, and ultimately, the romantic development between Tomoya and Nagisa – all of these things illustrates the point clearly that you can find your own family and you should define what a family is to you with those around you. The fact that Tomoya faces his own problems is the brilliance of this anime: not only are the main girl’s parents relevant, not only does the sunohara become a major character in the plot , but us, as viewers, watching the anime, also faces our own problems that we may have surrounding our familial identity. Family defines our identity by a large part, since our identity can be changed by external factors as well as internal factors according to a 2011 paper linked below, but we also define family. It's like that saying, you make your actions but in the end your actions make you. Family does make us more happy, by being with those we have mutual support for and solidarity against hardships we become more relaxed but again there are studies that show that friends can have similar if not better effect for people and their feelings, but again thats the beauty of it; like tomoyo understands we are not caged by simple labels, as soon as you allow yourself to be, you become a useless cog in tehs system that is your own life. You need to make teh change, you need to make the leap, its all up to you to find your own happiness not someone else’s.

Thoughts

Well after all that, what do you realistically think my thoughts are going to be? Yeah Clannad is brilliant, not only with the characters but the story, teh art, the music, the message and the ending of the first season - since thats all Ive watched so far, were all a perfect fit. Life doesnt have to melodramatic to enjoy it nor does it need to boring, we need to seek what we want when we want it, otherwise the chance of it coming to us is ridiculously low and we’ll just wallow in the pain. Now did I cry at clannad? No but I was close to. The only anime that ive actually cried about was funnily enough sword art online season 2 or 3 i believe but that was a dark time in my life, ill probably talk about it one day in another #ali episode so keep your eyes out for that. Honestly though, if clannad had been on my radar earlier, i know I wouldnt have watched it just because i used to be one of those kids, the ones that doesnt care about romance and drama, wants to watch a shounen like fairy tail or dragon ball for the comedy and the fights so i'm thankful that i watched this now when i'm more mature and understand my own position in life slightly better at least.

Overall, I enjoyed this anime as it did well to deal with familial identity which encourages the viewers to engage more with their family. If anything you take away from this video, let it be that you should give a call to those you consider a family or had considered as a family and check up on them from time to time as they could be to you what nagisa was to tomya, that light that rekindles the passion in your eyes.

Quote- “Having happy and beautiful memories won’t always bring you salvation. The more beautiful a memory is, the more painful it can become. It can even become terrifying. Both for the one who’s leaving… And for the one left behind.” – Isla


TL;DR- 18 year old Tsukasa Mizugaki has failed his college entrance exams, but by pulling a few strings, he nets a job at the world renowned SAI corporation which deals with teh production and management of giftias. Giftias are human like robots, they wear clothes, display human emotions, eat, sleep and retain their memories, but there's one catch, after 81,920 giftias start to disintegrate, ... and start to lose their memories and act out in violence.It is thus part of the SAI’s job to remove and dispose of the giftias at the ends of their lifetime, in a department dubbed the terminal service, and this is where tsukasa works. Those assigned to the terminal service work in pairs, one human -called a spotter- and one giftia -called the marksman- and together they provide the end of life care for giftias. Tsukasa’s partner is a giftia who at first glance seems to only serve tea yet warrant the respect of the terminal service no 1 office, and the story follows this pair as they navigate the myriad of emotions and feelings with essentially killing someone else’s loved one.

Similar-

Angel beats- Both series start off with a good few episodes that establish the structure of the world whilst hinting at something being wrong constantly. Throughout both series, the main focus goes from comedy, humour and mischief to regret, tinged with sadness and acceptance. They involve death in some way or another with plastic memories being the ‘death’ of the giftias and angel beats, well the death of every character. The character interactions are funny and unique and each backstory is quite interesting. The male leads also make sense with their feelings and their mannerisms and the drama hits you in the feels with both these animes. Both have a white haired listless main female that the main male eventually falls in love with. Angel beats has more action than plastic memories but that doesn't detract from the story one bit.Both are animated incredibly well with bittersweet endings.

WorldEnd: What do you do at the end of the world? Are you busy? Will you save us?
With a more enticing world that's more developed than the one in plastic memories, suka suka deals with similar topics in a more verbose way. The male lead is more fleshed out and is extremely down to earth and makes the decisions that are rational for most situations which convey the human nature of him extremely well. The sound track is, well, amazing and the ending is more bittersweet. Suka suka falls into the fantasy action genre whilst plastic memories is more slice of life and sci-fi. The love that develops is rational and the emotions portrayed make sense and both deal with making the most out of the limited time that someone has. Again the main female leads are extremely similar, from their mannerisms to how they react to situations, and there's more parallels but I’ll save that for another time.

Art- With extremely fluid animations, plastic memories doesnt disappoint one bit. Each character is designed extremely well, with discerning features and the movements of teh characters feel natural which is ironic as this anime has robots but hey who am I to judge. The background scenery is breathtaking and the anime felt like it had a haze around it that directed me to look at certain scenes, certain areas in more detail than I normally would have. A lot of care and detail went to animating the facial features and good on them for that since it made scenes have a much bigger impact. The use of changing background whilst characters were in long sections of speech kept the scenes fresh and overall it was a pleasure to see.

Music- The music does well to convey the overall themes of the show with a happy original soundtrack that had sad undertones that you could pick up on quite easily. The original soundtrack didn’t have many songs in the first place, but each was composed incredibly well. The opening song reflects isla, how she was confused at the start but content and then at the end of the opening song it reflects how isla was previously convincing herself to be content but the place she actually was content was with tsukasa. The ending was an emotional score that did well to reflect the overarching plot.

lVA- Voice acting was standard, adn each character’s voice actor and actress conveyed the character's emotions well, with islas showing the most change, from a more cold tone to one that conveyed warmth and regret near the end.

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this video, this is a friendly reminder for you to like the video if you like this video. subscribe with notifications on if you enjoy my content and comment down below what you liked in this video.

Themes

Memories. Memories is a major theme of this anime, with the title having it inside. Isla, as we find out in episode 2, has only about 2000 hours left when tsukasa joins and after that time passes, Isla as they know it will be changed. The outer appearance would remain the same, but the memories, the mannerisms, the actions she takes, everything else would change about her. But what are memories? Stupid question I know but what are they to you? According to oxford languages memories are the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information. To me its the anything in the past that I actively try to remember a lot over time, to someone else it might be interactions that have impacted on their lives. There are scientifically 3 types of memory, short term, sensory and long term. Sensory is something we don’t consciously make nor control, whilst the other two are quite self explanatory. Sensory memories are used in conjunction with the other two to understand the situation better, thus only a small part is stored, with the rest decaying quite quickly. Short term memories are those that are necessary to our situations but not to the future so decays slowly over a period of time and long term is one that we use quite often so is stored for a long period with relatively little decay over time. These three types were theorised by atkinson and shiffrin in 1968 and the theory was dubbed the multi store model. To erase these memories that a person makes would essentially be erasing their existence, their being, or killing them.This idea is reflected when tsukakas recommends to chizu to replace ninas OS and live together but he admits that her personality would change and chizu states that she’d rather die than change into someone completely different. I’d be of the same opinion as I really couldn’t love something that reminded me of another time of happiness in my life. Like, if I were in tsukasa's shoes, and I loved isla, it’d be a combination of what’s inside and out and without the inside bit, most of her appeal is lost, because ultimately you like what's on the outside but fall in love with whats inside, at least in my opinion. Memory decay is a real problem in the world, with diseases such as alzeimers being prevalent in our society, and a study done in 1959 following miller's magic number paper showed that memory decay is crazy fast, for short term memory as little as 18 seconds causes memory accuracy to fall to 10% from 99% as soon as the memory was made which goes to show the fragility of our memories. Most of the things we see in our day to day lives we forget almost immediately but we do have so called lightbulb memories- ones that we remember vividly no matter how old we are. For tsukasa this would be the first time he confessed, and got rejected or the time isla accepted him, and so on and so forth. A study was done into these meores in 1977 by brown and kulik, and these memories were found to occur most where there's shock or trauma.

Thoughts

Plastic memories did well to convey how our memories work and the reality of life, that the world will move on even if we aren't ready for it to. It took us on an emotional journey with extensive drama being involved but the end lesson was brilliant. Tsukasa was kind of a cheap out of a male lead, basically simping for isla at points, but we could see how hopelessly in love he was with her. Emotionally painful as it is to lose a loved one, nothing lasts forever, which Tsukasa learnt the hard way with Isla during the few remaining minutes of her lifespan. Tsukasa spends time thinking over what it's like for someone to have their lifespan predetermined, and comes to the conclusion that he'd make the most out of that life, and I think that’s the point of this anime well and truly.

Overall, I enjoyed this anime as it was a rollercoaster of emotions, with decent world building and a cliche story being implemented quite well. If you take anything from this, as tsukasa realised, make the most of the life you’ve been given by making some good memories that you can look back to in 10/20 years and think, yup I did well with my life.

Quote- – Shouma Takakura quite early on says this quote
“I hate the word “fate.” Birth, encounters, partings, success and failures, fortune and misfortunes in life. If our lives are already set in stone by fate, then why are we even born? There are those born to wealthy families, those born to beautiful mothers, and those born into the middle of war or poverty. If that’s all caused by fate, then God is incredibly unfair and cruel. Because, ever since that day, none of us had a future and the only certain thing was that we wouldn’t amount to anything…” and ringo has the opposite view ... to that with he depiction being “I love the word “fate”. Because, you know how they talk about “fated encounters”? A single encounter can completely change your life. Such special encounters are not just coincidences. They’re definitely… fate. Of course, life is not all happy encounters. There are many painful, sad moments. But this is what I think: sad and painful things definitely happen for a reason. Nothing in this world is pointless.” – Ringo Oginome


TL;DR- The takakura family is anything but ordinary; their parents are prime suspects in a terrorist attack and their sister is suffering from a terminal illness. One day Himari Takakura is given permission by her doctors to go out of the hospital and alongside her twin brothers kanba and shouma the three visit an aquarium, namely for the penguin exhibit. Here after shouma loses sight of her in the gift shop, she collapses and has stopped breathing. Somehow, some penguins come out and put a penguin hat on her, and she’s miraculously revived, the cost of which is to be found out by the two brothers. This hat desires an item called the penguin drum and in exchange for said item, the hat would spare himaris life and keep her alive until the brothers manage to get the item. The brothers are thus racing against time in order to bring this penguindrum to the hat, or risk their precious sister's life, all unbeknownst to himari herself. Will the boys manage to find it or will himari die?

Similar-

Puella magi madoka magica- Both share a similar animation style whereby the colourful and bombastic sequences are used to hide a deeper gruesome meaning. They both have a surreal feeling with a fark ambience that acts as a major dichotomy between the surface level cuteness that both animes portray. Both plots are very detailed and thus can be confusing but do well with the time they have to leave a mark on the watchers. Both have unsatisfying endings, leaving the viewer with the rights to decide what has happened with the limited clues provided. Both animes share the idea that their fates or their futures should i say need to be changed and the maui characters are trying their hardest to do so whilst laced with philosophical undertones.

Durarara!!- Both share the fact that the story starts off as a more slice of life anime that is used to set the tone of the anime, and then the rest of the story proceeds to shatter those preconceived notions entirely. Every episode in both animes serves to build and crush the last one as a gentle but obvious crescendo is present as the tension just builds and builds until it implodes near the end of the stories. Both play with misconceptions the viewer may have by implementing shocking truths that change the narrative of the story entirely and the story is told from many different characters perspectives, keeping things fresh and having less main character bias.

Art- As I touched on in the recommendations sections, the anime has an incredibly interesting art style that is used as a mask for the story to hide behind, under the pretense of being something cute, frilly and light hearted. The genre is laced throughout the animation, throwing random colourful images that contrast greatly with the scenery that detract from the scene in a positive way, changing your perspective and thus making the story more confusing and intricate. The weird angle shots are not too dissimilar to those in bakemonogatari- see my video linked in the card above if you want to watch that- in the fact that they make scenes less boring and feel out of place, just like the ideologies of this anime. Speaking of animations, the opening song spoils the entire animes plot from the get go, and the keen eyed of you may have noticed, but I only did when i was making this video. Major spoilers ahead and I'm going to combine the music section with the art section just because I can lol.

Music- For the op, it was brilliantly written and animated, and done from momokas perspective immediately before the bomb had exploded and killed her. So for the clues in the opening, there's ringo and flames, which is talking about momoka and teh price she paid for saving yuri from her father, the bird and elevator grate being tabukis pet and the grate being the takakuras paying the price for their parents actions, the medicine for himaris illness, the factory fan being the child broiler and the lyrics literally say teh ending, the boys go back to kindergarten boys. There's much more and I’ll probably create a short soon going through these in much more detail, let me know if youd like that, The ending songs aren’t anything to snuff at either, with 10 separate songs each with a catchy tone and the lyrics were quite good, and the animations always had the red string depicting fate prominently featured in it. The background music and sound effects were quite good and did well to add to ambrience of the scene.

VA- the voice acting is consistent in this anime, with no real stand out performances as all of them did well to depict their character emotions and feelings during each scene which made it more captivating.

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this video, this is a friendly reminder for you to like the video if you like this video. subscribe with notifications on if you enjoy my content and comment down below what you liked in this video.

Themes

Family plays a major part in this anime, considering that the main characters are in a family which they'd do anything to protect. The takakura’a aren’t really a family by norms, their parents have disappeared after being the prime suspects in the bombing which killed momoka 16 years prior, their not blood related in the slightest, and really their just a group of friends that live together without adult supervision. But this doesnt stop them from being a family and engaging in those activities. Simple trivial things such as sharing a meal becomes a comfortable and pleasant experience for these three as they can engage in those activities with the ones that they love and hold dearly. Each of the takakura family has been abandoned in some way or another, shoma and kanba were ‘caged’ and kanba was chosen by the fruit of fate, but decided to share it with shouma, essentially so that they could become their own family who shares their hardships, who shares their happiness and ultimately those who share their fate. Himari was sent to the child broiler as she was abandoned by her parents as she believed that himari would amount to nothing, probably because of her illness, but shouma decides to share his fruit with her, again choosing to share their hardships, share their happiness and ultimately share their fate. Thus their family became to be and they have become so used to it that they don't even realise that they aren't in fact related but act as though they are. Studies have been done showing that a good family relationship is key to having a good well-being, with many papers from institutions such as Harvard saying that “The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health,”. This was a study into 268 Harvard sophomores back in 1938 and have over 80 years worth of evidence to back it up. One of the researchers even went as far to say that “Our study has shown that the people who fared the best were the people who leaned into relationships, with family, with friends, with community,” which goes to show how important a family is to your health and wealth. As always check the description if you’re interested in reading these studies. The family goes as far as to share their parents' punishment, with them accepting that they have been abandoned by their parents being a consequence of the bombing and that the children need to pay the price for it. This is furthered as the fruit of fate can only save one person, initially kanba but after sharing said fruit with shouma who shared it with himari, the three are able to live together for a short period of time, but the brothers end up choosing to save himari, the one that they loved so much that they made the sacrifice of their lives for, again letting fate save one person. Here we can see the selfless love for their chosen family that the brother went through, and choosing himari was something that both brothers agreed was worth losing their lives over. Ultimately, we can’t choose our family but what we can choose is our new family, those who we want to be close, those who we choose to share our happiness with, our sadness with and ultimately, our fruit of fate with.

Thoughts

Mawaru penguindrum was a masterpiece and followed closely with the other work of the director and co writer, Ikuhara kunihiko, who made works such as revolutionary girl utena and a large part of the sailor moon anime. Produced by the same studio as baccano and durarara, this ultimately did not disappoint me in the slightest and was extremely lovely to watch and enjoy. This anime is not something you can turn your brain off and watch, it needs a decent amount of concentration as it brings in many parallels with the real world like the tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995, which I’ll link the video by crabe who helped inspire me to make this video. This anime did extremely well with its run time to leave an impression on, one of which many animes that have 40+ episodes fail miserably at. It stands to serve as a massive allegorical story about many topics that I won’t go into detail for the sake of run time but yeah, its definitely worth a watch

Overall, I enjoyed this anime as it changed my perspective on things, and did well to show me the importance of choosing our own family and the different yet interlinked versions of love that we can feel that majorly impact on our lives. If anything you take from this video, I’d say you should and vice versa appreciate those who choose to share their hardships with you, who share their happiness with you and ultimately those who share their fate with you.