Back to MGDawson's Profile MGDawson's Profile

What can I say about this train wreck? Villain power creep with "we win" pawn powers; the heroes who seem to have gone from seeming like a powerful army protecting peace are now a mere resistance movement against evil, and worst of all having the arch enemy magically return from a near death state.

What sort of lame ass, half baked story telling is this? After the investment in watch hours of the previous series, the story likes screwing over the heroes time and time again. If there's no hope in the story, there's no point watching it.

Art, audio and the animation is as good, ... if only the story didn't take a left turn into the ditch, bounce off and plunge into the lake of an abomination it turned into...

My Hero Academia, for me, has become a worse Attack On Titan; rumbling on without any real feeling of a conclusion... except there IS one for AOT.

Season 6 looks to have two main arcs, episodes 1-14 and 15 onwards, and while I enjoyed 1-12(ish), this season has seen some oddities in pacing, and it's increasingly feeling like the "bad guys" always get the upper hand; like the school bully punching the class weakling for the 14th time for his lunch money.

Art, music and other characteristics are on par with other seasons but I've noticed a tendancy to use either more focused segments of movement ... and reduce overall movement, or a "repeat" of animations for certain frames. Not sure if this is due to a redirection of funds towards the more action intense scenes, but there's some scenes which feel a bit bland compared to the rest of the show.

While I commend the anime for it's good character and background art, character voices and music, I sadly can't recommend the anime with the atrocious storyline, and the slow, meandering path to get there - and the awful personalities or qualities of the main cast.

The characters seem very trope-y, and their personalities are very 2 dimensional and it seems to take a lot of episodes to flesh out either backstory or give information that would've been better as an almost introductory "the story until now" episode.

As other commentators have said, there seems to be a lot of "fluff" in the series, and this could easily ... have been condensed into a 12 or 13 part anime without much issue, from what I've watched so far. Nisekoi 2.0, IMHO, but without the gravitas to make me want to continue watching.

(Spoilery) Okaasan online is an Oedipus complex harem where the son is surrounded by characters the mom approves of, despite being poor characters for the sake of story telling (even the son so much as summarises this in ep 2)

The redeeming features are the art and sound - the scenery is beautiful, the sounds mixed juist right. The voices can be a little grating after a while, but I found Porta adorable.

By episode 4, it became clear that the moms were given OP weapons and abilities... which don't even compliment each other (magician mom/daughter, swordsperson mom/son, etc.) so there's not even compatible traits.

The story ... telling seems lazy and very trope-y, which is also something I thought of some of the characters - Wise and her mother in particular.

Oresuki started off as a harem anime with great potential for bucking the trend. However, any good credence it started off with was lost as the episodes went on, and by episode 10 I feel like it's lost its way and become somthing trope-y.

It weaves an interesting romance web, and then spoils it by linking everyone into it, which is it's major downfall.

Although the VAs, sound, art and production value are generally good, there are occasions when it doesn't quite mix properly, or where it's clear they skimped on art or animation, or prioritised some aspects over others.

In the end, it wraps up as ... being a promo for a second season or OVA, which, for a 12 episode run with as much content packed in as it has, could've been played out far better by stretching the first 8 or so into a longer run and saving the last few for a special OVA or small, second series. Instead, it's pacing ends up turning it into a steaming pile you wonder if it's actually a salvagable or redeemable anime.

The best part about this anime is the sound and music - and sadly, everything after that is not good.

The background is a rich tapestry, yet the anime presents it almost like a kid's drawing in comparison - and it's also delivered in a rather lacklustre way. There's far too much told through flashbacks with no real reason. Is it to empaphise with the MC?

Which is another point - she's shown to be a competent fighter, well stamina'd and reasonably sturdy... until the end of episode 1. After that her aiming is horrible* she seems continually out of breath doing anything but walking, and ... after the initial story telling seems to be dumber than a stick of butter.

The other characters - the many, many other characters - appear for maybe 1 to 2 episodes and are never seen again. None of them get any (or minimal) character development. We see the director in action... for about half a minute. And don't remind me how awful the "home" soldiers are. Worse than stormtroopers for both aiming and not hiding in cover!

The pace is awful - and as previously mentioned, the amount of flashbacks don't help. It's all rather doggedly slow, possibly hinting the 24 episode run could've been better written, and condensed slightly.

The art is well done, although I did notice a lot of repetition of certain animations, and there wasn't a lot of flow/smoothness in action in some scenes.

Honestly, unless you want to punish yourself I'd suggest staying away.

Fate: Apocrypha is a Fate anime not made by ufotable, and it shows.

Story wise it deviates from the usual format to a 7v7 "fight for the all powerful" that whilst keeps everything roughly together, still has a few hiccups along the way. There's a few points which don't always make sense (e.g. not recalling your servant when suitable, the different power levels between the servants, the weird "you almost killed their master... and yet you haven't attacked them yet?"....

Art is overall very good although the stretch to a 25 episode series shows, from the slightly plainer (in places) character art, simplistic animation in places, ... re-used backgrounds (and probably animation), basic backgrounds etc. clearly show Ufotable's superior quality. It's also very view-able in some of the fight scenes.

Audio is so-so. There's some very nice audio mixing, and some great background music, although towards the end (esp. 18 onwards with the church/religious music) it was getting very repetitive, almost to the point where it felt like they were putting music in to get their money's worth. The characters had a wide range of accents, punctuation's and variety, so no complaints from me.

Although I did complete it, the anime could've benefited from either a shorter run, or an improved pace & more storytelling; and again, Ufotable does this better either by having defined separate segments or entire episodes for this. The characters were generally a good mix although they did start to get a bit trope-y and same-y as the story rumbled on.

Definitely NOT a watch for the first-time Fate fan, but for those who want a different story line, this is definitely one you shouldn't pass over.

I'd love to be able to recommend this anime, which deals with quite a lot of adult themes compared to other school-based anime.

HOWEVER, the MC is poorly written and has conflicting morals, the harem-y aspect doesn't quite work, and frankly the pacing is awful at times (some elements end quite quickly, others take too long, and some elements are broken
up across episodes).

Some characters seem to be a bit OP and better written than some, and others don't fit IMHO (such as the bar owner).

It has quite good art and music, shame the rest of it is lacking and doesn't quite 'add ... up'.

Whilst the production values and themes covered are exemplary, I had to drop this anime after 3 episodes as the slow story telling and main character were annoying me.

The art work is fantastic, the general episode format good, but there seems to be too much of a focus on dance shows/competitions and the whiny main character, who unlike Shinji from NGE, got himself into the mess by proclaiming to want to become a pro, and then complaining (even if it was only internally) that it was too hard.

It's an anime that could do with a shorter season, a better focus on relationships, and a ... less wimpy mc.