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JoinedApr 22, 2020

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May 29, 2020

Kidou Senshi Gundam AGE (Anime) add

Mixed Feelings

Let me preface this by saying I'm using the system accurately here. When I say 6/10 I mean it was an okay show, but nothing too special. I still personally think it merits watching, and honestly I'd give it a much higher score overall if not for the ending bar, but we'll get there later.

Story: 7/10: Nothing too terribly special for the most part it's a typical Gundam story except the bad guys are aliens. I will say that the Flit/AGE 1 arc starts off pretty bad. The first 2-3 episodes were pretty good, then it drops off until the last couple episodes ... IMO. AGE 2 actually had a pretty engaging plot IMO, and is by the far the best arc o the show. AGE 3 had some potential story wise, but is largely brought down by it's protagonist. AGE-FX was pretty unmemorable story-wise. The ending drags down the overall rating. If it weren't for FX I'd give the story a 8.

Art: 7/10: The art was generally pretty clean during the action scenes and the regular scenes were usually pretty good too. The only things I hold against it are: 1) I didn't like the art style. Common complaint I know, but the more "kiddie" art style really didn't do it for me. 2) Sometimes it seems like the animators were trying to see how much they could get away with. Like in one scene an enemy MS opens fire on the good guys! ....Only to harmlessly shoot in a circle around them. Other times characters might be half animated when talking at a distance. Which isn't unusual anime's commonly do this to save budget clearly, but AGE will linger on these scenes sometimes; once even having a minute and a half conversation with the characters half drawn. It honestly just felt like the animators were trying to see if anyone cared enough to stop them.

Sound: 6/10: The OP's and ED's are generally pretty good. With some real standouts like OP 1 or ED 2, but that's about it. The only track from the entire OST I remember is Unmei no Saki he and that's mostly because it play during the most memorable scene of the show.

Characters: 7/10: This show takes place over 3 protagonists and 4 arcs. It stands to reason that a lot of the characters don't really get fleshed out too well. That said the show did have some outstanding characters sometimes. Certain characters like Woolf or Dique who do end up making reappearances in AGE 2 are surprisingly well thought through. Especially Dique since he gets practically no screen time, and is usually a joke in AGE 1. On the other hand other side characters like Emily don't end up getting the attention they should throughout the show.
The protagonists are generally handled well. Flit started off kind off annoying, but ended up as my favorite and was a lot of the driving force for me to watch the show. How he progresses from AGE 1 to AGE FX was really the most interesting part, and I maintain that even though the focus shifts to different characters in the other arcs Flit Asuno is always the main character of the show.
Asemu is also a great character, and solidifies AGE 2 as my favorite arc overall. Though they did make a little bit of a weird choice for his character in AGE 3/FX, but even then he was still great.
AGE 3/FX had the worst protagonist which is why I give the characters only a 7. Honestly a lot of the ratings on the show take a hit from Kio. The only thing he didn't really effect was the sound. Kio Asuno is your typical Shounen protagonist screaming about how "War is bad!" without offering any real solutions. He's also an extremely powerful X-Rounder (Read: Newtype) and isn't too terribly interesting. The only thing he really had going for him was his relationship to Flit. AGE 3 does actually end with the possibility that Kio would have to grow up, which was really interesting, but it was immediately shot down by the Deus Ex Machina that is AGE FX.
The main villain of the show also provided a very interesting comparison to Flit, but unfortunately the show never really capitalized on that.

Enjoyment: 8/10: Despite my various issues withe show I found it overall pretty entertaining other than AGE FX. It's worth watching if not just to see how Flit and Asemu change throughout the show. Also, AGE 2 was just plain good.

Overall: 6/10: While would say it was an entertaining show I wouldn't say it was a GOOD show. It's clearly got issues in terms of both tone and pacing, but overall it was enjoyable to watch nonetheless. I'd probably have given it a 7/10 or maybe even 8/10 if it wasn't for FX.

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Apr 23, 2020

Promare (Anime) add

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I've seen a lot of people complaining about the pacing or the fact that it's been done before, but I have one question for you? "Who the hell do you think we are?!" Honestly if you were expecting this to not be a TTGL rip-off in some way shape or form you're out of your goddamn mind. I mean, the MC looks like Kamina it should've been a pretty big red flag guys. Now a lot of you say "Well TTGL did it better!" No shit. TTGL was 27 episodes long; OF COURSE it did it better. Now for a movie with a runtime of ... just under two hours I feel Promare did fine. People seemed to be expecting some kind of blow you out of the park philosophical Oscar bait, but Imaishi and Nakashima have never done those kind of shows. If you were expecting a lot more than giant robots duking it out for the fate of the planet that was on you.

Story 6/10: despite what I just said I DO agree that the story was kinda iffy. I just don't think tat it's a bloody deal breaker. I wasn't expecting the story to wow my pants off, and honestly the story that the movie did present was good enough for me. I've seen several people complain that it was nonsensical, but honestly as long as you paid attention during the film it made enough sense IMO. The movie generally spells out the plot points; even the weirder shit towards the end.

Art 8/10: The film's actual animation is pretty good. Both 2D AND 3D looked good. Especially during the action scenes. My only real complaints is that backgrounds looked kinda shitty, and sometimes it looks like they're saving on budget by half drawing people in.

Sound 8/10: It was nothing Super special, and I still personally think Sawano peaked with Unicorn, but it was pretty good and it fit the movie well.

Characters 7/10: Another Facet I've seen people complaining about is characters. But honestly, what did you want? It was a movie with a run time just under two hours. Galo was clearly gonna be a Kamina expy. Lio could've been elaborated on yeah, but the movie was moving pretty fast as it was, and frankly I don't feel that it hurt the movie too much to not know more about him. We can understand both of their motives well enough from what we were shown. People also complain about the female lead. I say, "Have you EVER seen anything from Gainax?" like, what were you expecting? This is kinda their MO. Kray was also pretty good for what he was. I'm not gonna spoil it here, but he was SUPPOSED to be that way the movie makes it PRETTY clear.

Enjoyment 10/10: Is Promare perfect? No. Is Promare a really freakin' fun movie? If you let it be. Yes the plot was rushed, but I feel like it added to the movie more than anything else. This movie SHOULD be moving at break neck speed. It wouldn't be right for the film to sit around and take it's time. The film's all about being hot blooded and charging forward, and that's just what the film does. As long as you knew what to expect I'd say Promare was a pretty good movie.

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Apr 22, 2020

SSSS.Gridman (Anime) add

Recommended

I've noticed that a lot of people failed to realize TWO BIG THINGS about this show. Firstly, YOU WERE INTENDED TO WATCH ALL TWELVE EPISODES. The show REALLY doesn't work if you stopped at like, episode 4. I know, it starts off pretty shaky, but it DOES get better. Secondly, it's based off of a freakin' Tokusatsu show, of COURSE there's going to be a lot of Gridman shows up and kicks a Kaiju in the dick. They establish pretty early on that it's in the same general vein as Ultraman. the amount of people who didn't get that is ridiculous IMO.

Story: 9/10 SSSS.Gridman starts ... off somewhat shaky leaning pretty heavy into the monster of the week format and not much else. Once you reach about episode 6 though the main plot kicks off, which is where I feel Gridman really starts to shine. the twist in the end of the show was fantastic IMO, though a lot of people who watched it didn't seem to understand it.

Art: 9/10 There isn't really anything too standout about the art to Gridman IMO, but that doesn't mean it's not great. The 2D AND 3D are both well animated and I don't recall having ever seen any glaring animation errors.

Sound: 10/10 This was one of the really great facets of the show. There's no background music when the great are just sitting around talking. That might sound weird, but it's really great. It makes conversations in the show feel more genuine, and puts emphasis on the soundtrack when it does actually run.

Characters: 8/10 They're not super or deep or anything for the most part, but they're still generally entertaining. A lot of people clearly watched a couple of episodes and then either A, stopped watching, or B, decided they hated the show then continued to watch anyways (for some reason). I've heard all sorts of weird allegations like "Yutta is an edgy teen"(Were we watching the same show?) or "Akane was there for fan service"(Dude CLEARLY didn't finish the show) but if you actually watch the show all the way trough these aren't really true. The only characters I felt were kinda neglected were Glasses guy (whose name I cannot remember) and Rikka (who kind of gets a plotline of her own?). I've also seen people hate on Alexis, which clearly shows they really weren't paying attention when the show explained who Gridman was.

Enjoyment: 10/10 It's not a perfect show, but it's pretty damn close IMO. TBF I do enjoy watching Tokusatsu though, so this show was kind of already in my strikezone. Overall I'd say it's a fun show, but if you're going to watch I'd recommend keeping a open mind and watching the whole twelve episodes. Honestly you've probably watched worse 12 episode shows.

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Apr 22, 2020

Blassreiter (Anime) add

Recommended

If you're like me and you're here reading reviews for the show to determine whether or not it's worth watching I'll ask you a couple of questions. Do you like/know what Kamen Rider is? Can you stand heavy use of dated CG? Do you take issue with characters being introduced just so they can be killed off? If any of these are deal breakers for you Blassreiter is probably not for you. It might sound like I don't like this show, but that's not the case; it was just a unusual show. It didn't age terribly well, and it had some odd writing quirks. If ... you've ever seen Kamen Rider you probably get why I made the comparison.

Story: 8/10: Blassreiter had the potential to be a really good show IMO, but it's biggest fault was that the sow didn't know what it wanted to do with itself. All together too often we get episodes that basically feature a freak of the week or otherwise don't contribute in any meaningful way to the plot. Which is even worse since this show could have easily stripped away these episodes and been a 12 episode show.

Art: 7/10 The actual 2D visuals are pretty good IMO, I never saw anything that made me want to gouge out my eyes, and there weren't any jarring moments of "Holy crap that had to be intentionally bad" (All eyes on YOU Gundam AGE) The 3D CG was pretty terrible at first, but I got used to it fairly quick. The fight scenes can be a bit of a clusterf*k at times, but you can still generally tell whats going on.

Sound: 4/10 Both OP's were pretty good and I liked the ED's well enough, though they were pretty unmemorable. As far as the proper OST goes there only 1 track I ever really noticed playing, and it's not even that good. The only reason sound gets as good of a score as it does is because I rather liked the Dub.

Characters: 7/10 I really wanted the characters to shine, but they mostly fell flat. Gerd was really interesting, it's mostly downhill from there. Amanda was hardly an actual character, she was mostly a set piece to other peoples character arcs. I hated Malek for like 90% of the show's run. He could've been semi-interesting, but they end up re-using a lot of his backstory for Joseph, which was intentional, but I still feel like it hurt Malek. I did rather like Hermann until the last few episodes. He was supposed to be hard headed but there limits to how far you can take that. Let's not even get STARTED on Zwölf they were just there to pad out the show, and it would honestly been better without them. The most interesting (I.E. The ONLY really interesting Characters IMO) were Joseph and Xargin. I can't really go into what makes them so interesting without spoiling the show, but it had an interesting take on handling the main characters being religious.

Enjoyment: 7/10 I WANT to score it an eight, but honestly the ending was bad enough to dial back my enjoyment. Blassreiter is by no means a perfect show, hell a lot of the time it has more going against it then it does with it, but overall I still think it was pretty fun, and even had some good ideas; even if they didn't really execute them very well.

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