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I feel like Monster is just some big inside-joke and that I'm the only one who's not in on it. How could so many people like something so terrible? I'm honestly baffled that this could be in the top 25 anime. Monster in a nutshell: the beginning was perfect, the library arc was great, and everything in-between was abysmally slow. Monster's plot could have been good, but after being dragged through the mud for so long it lost sight of itself. Tenma, who began as an excellent character, slowly devolved into a flat character (including Johan, who never really changed). Any and all drama/intensity was ... lost due constant repetition ("welcome home" the most obvious occurrence) and the random unexplained nature of events. I was watching this show with someone else and there were many moments I considered joking about something that would happen but figured it would be too stupid to even joke about so I'd shut my mouth, only for it to happen sooner or later... this included the ending. Originally, I had watched 40 episodes, dropped it, then came back to rewatch it many years later to see if I had just been missing something (it was worse than I could imagine).

Monster is a show for those who want to think they are smart; for those connoisseurs who like to smell hot garbage with a hint of gobbledygook, and is just stupid enough for the average viewer to buy into.

Condensed form of Nacho Libre, which is a great movie (actually for some reason it is really low on rotten tomatoes... if you like the style of humor it is the tale of a great man though). The plot is 95% the same as Nacho Libre (except for the role of the female nun and minor details), with the same scenes occurring in this short movie. If this was an original OVA, 6-7 is justifiable because it actually would have done a great job at creating a short engaging plot with unique visuals. As it is, it is essentially just a 10-minute movie recap you ... can find on Youtube. That said, I did find it entertaining and funny at some moments.

The cover looks sick, and based off the first chapter it sounds like it could make a really good dark seinen. But after the first page, it is essentially just a gantz knock-off mixed with elements of sword art online and bleach. Don't read it, I only read it to see why another reviewer gave it a 7.
Plot is thrown out the window and boils down to "the real game was the friends we made along the way". This is something someone would write if they couldn't think of anything minutely original and just thought "I'll throw in random copied stuff, then never finish it". ... The only excuse would be that the manga says "end of part 1" but that makes sense, because it was bad so they abandoned it.

Plot: The plot is that they are constantly stuck in alternate world and if they want to leave they must drag two other people into the game. Supposedly there is an overarching purpose to the game but everyone just wants to kill each other and make money instead (except for some big group). Neither plot elements are explored in any depth; they also did not explore the consequences of "you die in the game you die in real life", so no "high stakes" whatsoever. You may be asking how the plot concludes then? Well it doesn't. They literally just show a bit of the world then cut to the people at a cafe where he says, "Because of the game, I made true friends!"

In regards to the challenges the characters face, I don't see how they could be described as exceptional, pretty standard Shounen challenges. I will say though that one of the challenges is about the tale of Princess Kaguya, which is only semi-interesting because it is about Princess Kaguya...

Characters: The only growth is that he "made true friends" which was slapped on in the last chapter, but they were already friends before hand... so there was no character growth (except for 1 side-character who was "hiding her true level like Kirito"). I also found it slightly amusing that the main-character's sword was like Ichigo's "Zangetsu" as in the sword was talking to him and was like "Yo, I'll lend you my powers" whenever he was in a sticky situation, but that dynamic was not explored much either.

Art: I do not judge based on art, but it is clear that it is slightly below average. P.s. the cover image is a scam, nothing remotely like that occurs.

Enjoyment: The only enjoyment from this is that it ends quickly and the fun of reviewing something that you know is bad (I only finished it for these reasons).

I think that about sums it up.

An unwise man once said, "Wisdom lies in the mystique, but do not mistake that for wisdom." If you are here for thought-provoking material, make of that what you will.

You may say art is subjective, which it is, and that Genius Party is a "showcase of animation", but that is by no means an excuse for making it out to be better than it really is. I personally like strange art styles, but I never really hold that as a factor of if I like an anime/manga, unless the art is really bad or really good. The art here wasn't exceptionally bad or good.
Side note: ... the description says "thought-provoking stories", I disagree with that standing.

Gala (3/10): On a surface level, this piece seems to be striving for the same style as Ghibli, yet results in the feeling of a cheap knock-off. The music was fine but not exceptional for an anime (you can find good soundtracks even within the worst of shows, I find tracks that I really like in literally the worst shows I've seen). The plot is interesting at first and seems like it could be something good, but by the end tries to cheat its way to meaning by having a “twist ending”. This twist is not justified due to the “secret world of...” having a completely different landscape than the ending (let's just say the land went from lush earth to barren mars). The ending went to pot (literally).

Moondrive (6/10): This was funny at times and had a fine plot. The ending was also very fitting.

Wanwa the Puppy (0/10): A 13 minute animation about a kid being chased, with weird art.

Tojin Kit (5/10): This did have a plot and was thought provoking in the sense that it made you wonder about the world and what is going on within the story, yet it left the viewers without any explanations and there was seemingly no deeper meaning. Good art.

Dimension Bomb (0/10): Yeah I can see why it's called dimension bomb, it really bombed. Zero substance. There were characters, yet no characters. "It's hard to put into words how ___ it is" because there is nothing for you to base your rating off of; an utter nothingburger.

13/50=2.6 stars=3 stars (even using MAL's least of 1 results in 15/50=3stars)

Personally, I thought OG Genius Party was average 5/10, and for some reason thought "Beyond" would be better because it has higher ratings? But Beyond consists of 5 "stories" that "could not be included in the original".

TLDR: If these did not make the cut for OG Genius Party, what does that say about them? They aren't good. These stories were bland and not thought provoking (an exception being Tojin Kit).

I was scrolling my public library catalog and then I came across this. I had to read it because I like Lilo & Stitch, very good Disney film/franchise. Going into this I didn't really have any expectations other than Stitch+manga=good, but this didn't hold true. In a nutshell, this is just a retelling of the original L&S, but with a Samurai in feudal Japan instead of Lilo in Hawaii. This is basically just a mash of L&S and A Man and His Cat (which is much better). Some notable things I didn't like was that the characters were rather flat, it just rephrased jokes/occurrences from ... the original series, and that the art was contrasting (not that the art was bad per say, but that Stitch contrasted from the rest of the art, he stood out). It could have potentially been interesting if rather than Disney character design for mostly flat colors, if depth or other details were added or character design was altered. I was also confused on the timeline of how this would fit into the main series, because how could he escape to Earth before then (and how would they still be alive), so I just figured it was a retelling.

I wouldn't recommend for someone who hasn't watched L&S because the movies are just better. Even if you do like L&S or have seen it before, I would not really recommend unless you are curious about it or think Stitch is cute.

When I started reading this I thought 'wow I’ve never heard of this' so I immediately went to youtube and watched a 2 hour documentary about solar car racing, which was much more interesting than this [I recommend watching that. If you plan on reading this then watch it after] it had heroes/villains & action & many plot-twists [yeah it was a good documentary, guesstimation of 8/10]. A large part of solar racing seems to be the in-depth work in regards to the engineering that the team goes through in making/designing the car but this manga seemed to skip over a lot of that. The ... characters were fine and motivations & backstories were well done for the two main characters (7/10). I would have liked if they had given more details about solar cars and racing in general, I also didn’t like that they had a completely inexperienced driver lead them to victory because it didn’t really make sense [one of the other drivers was an f3 driver] he did ride his bicycle but they didn’t really show him learning how to race [at least the co-driver practiced racing Suzuka circuit in a game, but mc didn't].
Overall, 6/10

Going into this I did not realize I was reading a one-shot, but rather thought this was the first chapter of another manga with the same name. A few pages in I began thinking, this seems awfully cliche, it must be a one-shot because how could there be 3 volumes of this, if not I'm dropping it; let's just say I'm glad it was a one-shot.

It contains a couple cliches that dissuade the reader from wanting more from the manga, but the main one is ancient evil sword. This sort of began the story with a sense of medieval fantasy akin to King Arthur. Maybe ... if you like that type of story it is your cup of tea then.

If the story was drawn out longer it could have potentially added some twist/originality but it would most likely be the immortal guy wandering around and the possibilities aren't really what it should be ranked for.

I think the enjoyment with this manga hinges on whether one views it as discriminatory or not. From my understanding, it seemed that the author was objecting to the discrimination against the Buraku. If you look past whether you view the story as derogatory or not, the story and characters are decent enough for a revenge plot, with fleshed out motives and well drawn art. The only flaw I really found in it was how ridiculous the crippled fighting was. Also, the inspired story Shigurui, shows just how much better this work could have been with the crippled factor majorly toned down, therefore the 7/10.

Early ... on in the work you can tell why others may not have found it distasteful; the "racism" which is technically inherited classism. I did not see it as being anti-Buraku but instead it showed how unfairly they were treated (if one who discriminated against the Buraku saw this, I think it would show them how ludicrous their viewpoint can be).

It makes sense that if a man’s entire family was slain due to classist discrimination that the man would have much rage... It also makes sense that by the kindness of 1 man amidst the corruption that he was able to control that hatred, yet even then he was looked down upon by those around him. Rather than it being derogatory towards the Buraku this piece seemed to show the evils of the rest of society and it was very interesting learning about this historical issue.

Worst OP movie. The concept idea was once again good as a treasure hunt race, but then IMMEDIATELY discarded as a non-treasure hunt and replaced with typical shounen hero battle scenes (to no surprise). As soon as the treasure is shown, you immediately know what Luffy will do when he gets it... and then everyone is shocked.

Characters: 1/10
The "cool" past characters that they threw in were essentially just there to draw in attention and acted as no meaningful substance to further the non-existent plot of the movie. The perfect example of my frustration with the characters is the following:
A new side-character was introduced with an ... explanation of their Devil Fruit, oh that's cool it MUST serve some IMPORTANT use later, no... it did not... it was used as an otiose summoning of a past "cool" character.

Plot: 2/10
In a nut-shell: giant evil dude claims he is strongest and they fight him. OP movies keep overusing this trope, but this was the most cliche villain characterization. As other reviews have said, "It really follows the synopsis", that is NOT a good sign in a movie. If the synopsis quite literally spoils the whole movie, there is clearly something wrong (if you claim the treasure was a plot twist, that is ridiculous cause it was clear instantly as to what would happen to it).

Sound/animation: standard for OP

Comedy 2/10: (which OP is known for)
The comedy fell flat as if they were not trying to be funny at all. 2/10 because the movie was so ridiculous that I found myself yelling AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH with them as they punched for 15 CONTINUOUS SECONDS. True story, I was very bored and it was very funny.

The only 2 good moments in the movie was when the OP started playing (not a huge OP fan, but that made me tingle) and when a character was beginning to have an "emotional moment" but it was cut short to cram in more action scenes.

A. Illogical. B. Weak characters and motivations. C. Bad crazy characters (coming from someone who enjoys crazy)

Just because "It's not like da school and da shounens with da cliche characters" does NOT mean it is avant garde and some amazing show, it literally just means it is a different genre... unlike some reviews for this tend to claim. Also, if you use shortness as an excuse, a lot of trash things could be given leniancy, the show simply did not perform well enough to warrant it being any longer. This did have potential, yet the potential was squandered.

Characters 5/10: Reverse character development for protag Juu-sama, ... started out as a tough guy who "would take someone on in a fight whenever" and even searched for and confronted a mysterious serial killer, but later digressed into a weak-willed persona and didn't even step in when a crazy lady was attacking someone at the end and instead sends faithful servant to deal with the "crazy lady with a knife". The characters have a few "philosophical conversations" and that is enough for people to claim they have depth (although I did enjoy a few quotes such as "even crazies have their own rules or something" and "everyone is insane so they don't realize how twisted the world is" but those are fairly normal crazy quotes). The servant girl aspect was interesting but was never expounded upon and mainly used as a stepping stone to move the plot forward.

Plot 3/10: The first episode's plot begins well and is enjoyable, until the whole reveal is bungled out of nowhere and dumped onto the viewers. With the horrific murders taking place, you would expect an insane villain, but surprise, that does not happen. The episode had no conclusion and did not even show what happened to the villain. The second episode's plot was even worse, with the conclusion yet again being spoon-fed to the audience with a similar conclusion as the first one but then something funny at the end but they should have actually gone through with the *plot-twist*.

Motivations/crazies ?: Illogical. There was no depth behind the craziness. With literally "stringing" people up and setting off explosives, you would not expect such flimsy characters to be behind them.