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Apr 30, 2024
Girls Band Cry is one of the most grippingly realistic anime I've seen in a long time, and I don't mean that visually. What I mean is that this anime can and will make you feel things. It's quite similar to BanG Dream MyGo in its style of drama, with a dash of Love Live's presentation (many of the staff worked on Sunshine) and a heap of Bocchi the Rock's charm and relatability, all without outright ripping off any of them. Each character is extremely relatable, and the writer pulls off a cool trick by making them quite flawed people emotionally-speaking, but
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not doing so in a way that's infuriating. The main character in particular, Nina, is one who I think a lot of people would find annoying on first glance, but I honestly find her incredibly endearing, and this is coming from someone who is very much her opposite in personality. The anime also does a masterful job of playing all the characters off each other - they all have wonderful chemistry, and if shipping is your thing you'll undoubtedly have a field day here. The plot itself, while perhaps a bit cliché as it's the tried and tested story of forming a band, is well-crafted and enhances everything around it very well. It manages to take a cast of flawed characters and create an optimistic story about communication and growth.
The vast majority of potential viewers who took one look at the 3DCG visuals and immediately left didn't do so without good reason. The stigma against these visuals is quite well-earned and is accurate in most cases. Ironically enough for a style that is often considered more realistic in, say, video game contexts, 3DCG models often look embarrassingly unconvincing and frankly just bad in the vast, vast majority of anime that use them.
Thankfully, Girls Band Cry looks nothing short of fantastic. The characters are all wonderfully expressive in ways a viewer would expect from 2D animation. For example, facial expressions are ordinarily quite stilted in 3d shows in a way that just doesn't feel right. Whereas in Girls Band Cry, each face is created to perfectly fit whatever the character is experiencing, the end result being an anime that delivers on an extremely memorable experience, oftentimes with character's expressions rapidly shifting through them in a wonderfully convincing way in some shots. Now imagine the care shown to the faces being given to the visuals as a whole, and you can begin to understand why I say that the visuals are genuinely one of the best parts of Girls Band Cry. Yes, they are actually *that* good.
Visuals are only part of the presentation, of course, particularly for a music anime. Thankfully, the music is all great, too. This is the kind of music that, while it initially seems good but unremarkable, you'll want to listen to more and more each time you hear the song. It's very, very good, and it's dominated my playlists these past 2 weeks.
You may have noticed that you don't recognize any of the voice actors. That's by design. When production started way back in 2021, Toei scouted five musicians, one for each band member. These musicians are the ones actually performing the music, and none of them have ever voice acted professionally before this. Despite this, the voice acting itself is quite well done, and if you've already seen the show you probably haven't even noticed this if you weren't already aware. It's honestly an impressive bit of directing, and I think it adds a bit of charm and homeliness to the show. Particularly impressive is Nina's VA, who is just 16 at the time of airing, quite similar to her own character's age.
Girls Band Cry is overall one of the most unique yet still good experiences I've had in anime, even just 4 episodes in. Honestly, all the dismissals I've seen of it as a ripoff of something else are closer to compliments than I think these same detractors think - this show really is on par with the excellent shows it's being compared to! It's a shame many won't give it a chance due to the lack of localization, unless or until it blows up like I think (hope) it will. In the meantime, you'll need to get a bit creative to see this one in most parts of the world until localization reaches you, but it's definitely well worth it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 28, 2023
TL;DR: Watch this if the premise appeals to you or if you want a main character who is good at social engineering. If you don't like plot devices being handwaved away, you might not like this.
RouKin is evidence that the Isekai horse hasn't quite been beaten to death yet. The whole genre has been stumbling around, bouncing between increasingly off-the-wall premises for the past eternity (we're not that far off a decade now) as writers try to find something that both hasn't been tried yet and isn't mind-numbingly stupid. Most of the time they fall at this second hurdle. Which is
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why it's honestly shocking to me that RouKin's premise wasn't picked up on earlier. After all, the idea of setting up a shop in another world where you sell our world's items sounds pretty obvious once you say it out loud. But coming up with a cool and unique premise is not enough on it's own to stand out in this saturated genre.
Fortunately, RouKin is very solid overall. It's a goofy comedy built around fish out of water humor, which you're probably expecting. However, it's clear that more than just surface-level thought went into the humor here. Mitsuha isn't just some teenager selling knick-knacks in another world, she's carefully selecting items based on usefulness, what her target market would actually want to buy. And that's only a small slice of the amount of planning that went into this. There are entire episodes dedicated to it! These early episodes show off one of Mitsuha's most engaging traits, her ability to socially engineer her way into and out of situations to suit her own ends. The character is excellent at persuasion, and this comes across as surprisingly believable in the dialogue. The complications of these misadventures is another great source of comedy in the series. Not only that, the episodes still retain a sense of tension arising from Mitsuha's imperfect knowledge of the other world, as she overlooks important facts, helping to round her out as a character and keep her believable with some flaws, setting up more good comedy scenarios along the way.
There are flaws, of course. Most notably, there's a lot of handwaving of plot details at the beginning. The circumstances of how Mitsuha travels between worlds and how she got these powers to begin with are written off as a joke, which, while understandable (and pretty funny, at least to me), I can definitely see this bothering some people. The show takes its worldbuilding and premise seriously, but the plot devices that make everything work get a lot less care, and will fall apart under scrutiny, as I have no doubt there are inconsistencies related to this somewhere. If you're not out looking for them they'll probably pass you by as they did with me, but, again, this is an understandable and valid flaw with the show.
This anime has been a welcome surprise for me overall. I expect there to be more of a focus on Mitsuha's backstory in later episodes, as it's been intentionally left vague. My hope is that this will be better handled than the other main plot elements. Definitely excited to see where it goes regardless. If you think you might like this based off this review, then I strongly recommend you take the time to give it a shot.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 25, 2023
TL;DR: Beautiful visuals, passable animation, excellent world-building, generic (so far) plot
This is a cute little show that, regrettably, will probably get passed over by a lot of people who genuinely would have enjoyed it due to the animation style. I get it, most shows that are fully 3D CG like this are of questionable quality (though most of those are actually mixing 2D and 3D, which is the actual problem, though that's neither here nor there). But, honestly guys? The animation here is quite good. Admittedly animation quality isn't what I look for out of shows so maybe it really isn't
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all that great if it's your number 1 concern, but if your big problem is that you think the animation will make your eyes bleed, that's not going to happen here. The still images in particular look fantastic, being genuinely pretty while still reinforcing the otherworldly, alien feel the setting calls for.
The show's main strength is its excellent (so far) world building. Information is presented to you piecemeal, allowing for a gentle, natural understanding of the world to be developed within the viewer, while still presenting just enough information to understanding elements of the world relevant to the plot. The show is very good at show don't tell; what dialogue directly explaining the world exists makes sense for the situations such exposition comes up in. The plot itself is not unusual, but that's only because of the unmistakable similarities to Made in Abyss. I wouldn't call it a rip-off, though obviously a lot of inspiration was taken from it. Unlike Made in Abyss, the focus is not on exploring the giant thing they're descending (they get down it quickly), but on the state of the world on the actual ground. At the time of writing this focus has only just been made apparent so it's hard to really rate it. Most of these early episodes have been very character-focused, and in that regard our two leads are both likeable and enjoyable to be around.
To balance out this thus far positive review, I'd like to emphasize that so far the plot has been quite generic. It's a standard rescue the princess story, no more no less. Hardly something that'll set the world on fire. If you're not someone who can just vibe with some decently-written characters who are pretty cute together in a compelling world you're probably not going to like this. Let me also emphasize that Made in Abyss was definitely better in every way even at this early stage, so set your expectations accordingly, though that also doesn't diminish what this show does well. Made in Abyss lite isn't exactly an insult, it's honestly a fine way to explain what this show is.
This show is for people who want to drink in its otherworldly atmosphere or for weirdos like me who just enjoy good storytelling techniques regardless of the qualities of the story it's attached to. The worst I can see this ending up as is a forgettable, generic adventure story with some cool visuals to remember it by. And honestly, compared to the mountain of unwatchable garbage that usually pollutes the bottom of the MAL charts, that ain't a bad thing to be. If you're even a little bit intrigued by what I covered in this review, I'd honestly recommend trying this one out and seeing where it goes. It may be someplace wonderful. I'd certainly love to see it. Once the show wraps I'll be sure to update this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 30, 2022
If you are new to the Odd Taxi franchise, this is not the entry you should start with. Although it is a recap of the original series, due to it being a movie, much of the dialogue and mystery storytelling which made the original so great had to be skipped in this installment. So, if you are new, go watch the original. It is one of my 10/10s, and I would recommend it to anyone without hesitation.
You've probably seen the user score hovering around a 6/10. This mostly happened due to disappointment with what this movie ended up being. People
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were expecting a sequel (me included), and unfortunately that's not what this is. What the description says is accurate, it's a recap with a reveal of what happened after the cliffhanger final scene of the anime. Yes, I do think it's a scummy move to have cut this out and resold it, and this anime kind of deserves the pounding it's getting in the reviews for having done that.
That aside, however, I genuinely enjoyed watching this movie. It's an interesting recap as far as recap films go; the first 3/4ths or so of the anime is recapped using an interviewer as a plot device. The interviewer is talking about the events prior to the big finale with the characters, explicitly stating some new perspectives that you might have missed on your first viewing of the TV anime. Then, the finale is played more or less intact, with some new scenes added in as a nod to the final episode's reveal and some further acknowledgement of the TV anime's cliffhanger. Then the new scene of the cliffhanger happens.
No spoilers in this review, but if the reveal of what happens is your only drive to watch this movie, I'd say just look it up online instead. It's not worth sitting through the whole film just to see it. It's honestly nothing special at all, which is kind of a shame, honestly. If mean, they really had to cut that scene out and create this whole stink over *that*?
If you're interested in seeing a slightly new spin on this world and it's characters, however, it's absolutely worth watching this. For me, the new stills of the characters they showed in the end credits was worth my time by itself: I loved revisiting this series, and even if this is a water-downed Odd Taxi, it's still Odd Taxi, and Odd Taxi is great! So if you're ever considering a rewatch of the original, but are short on time for whatever reason, don't let the hate against this scare you off, deserved though it may be. It may not have been what you wanted, but it serves its purpose as a recap quite adequately.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 2, 2022
Let me preface this by saying that I do not consider a 5 to be a bad score. It’s just indicative of the lack of much of anything outstanding here.
If there’s anything worthwhile about this show, it’s the protagonist. Leon is an unlikeable prick, but only in the best ways. He’s the jerk you can root for, who fights against and humiliates the other unlikeable pricks, and he’s absolutely fantastic at it. The parts of the show most focused on him are easily the strongest, and I genuinely consider them to be worth sitting through the weaker parts to see.
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They’re really hype, satisfying in the same way that old, classic wrestling is.
Unfortunately, everything else is either average or it stinks. Which is a same really, there’s some good potential in this plot. Take the setting, for instance. The world the protagonist gets isekai’d to is matriarchal in its society, and is built upon a complex system of nobles, their spouses, and their paramours. With the exception of how important it is to get married in noble society, and of women being treated with higher standing generally, most aspects of this setting cease to become relevant after the first three or so episodes. In fact, the whole show falls over and dies after the first arc concludes; if you decide to watch this show, I recommend stopping at that point (I think it’s episode 5, whatever episode around there feels conclusive). The focus after that just kind of drifts toward what boring stuff the cast is doing until the finale, which is fine, but it kind of forgets to have the world inform what’s going on, so it becomes irrelevant. None of the other characters are anything special, either. They’re moreso tropes and plot devices than characters, and none of the later introductions are at all memorable. They don’t even set up the big bad at all. It’s just typical isekai garbage at the end.
Technical aspects are the same deal. Animation varies from not great to jank, music is pretty blasé except for the banger of an OP. Directing is hit or miss. Average is the word that keeps coming to mind for most everything in this show, minus the excellent MC.
It's a shame, really. Judging from what I’ve read on the original creators’ small pool of other work, this guy seems to have a real knack for writing characters like Leon. If you like the sound of Leon from what I described, or if you enjoyed his scenes in this show (they really are great), I’d recommend checking out his other books – they all have a similar premise to this, but hopefully they’re a bit better written.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Apr 14, 2022
If you decided to scroll down and read this review, you're probably someone who genuinely might love this show. This show really isn't for everyone, as the average user score probably let on. The whole thing is in CGI like the poster indicates, and on top of that this show is quite the weird one. But. I implore you, if you think there's even a chance you can get past those concerns, please give this show a try. Just a couple episodes. Because, based on the five episodes I've seen, this is a real diamond in the rough.
Most CGI shows
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that air each season are either garbage or nothing special. This is largely due to the relative inexperience of their creators - most are made by newer studios and personnel who just entered the business. Estab-Life is made by a more experienced crew, and it shows. It's directed by the same director as GochiUsa, and the script was written by the original creator of Full Metal Panic. It also has the creator of Code Geass in a planning role. All this points to quite a bit of promise in this production.
Of course, even talented people could make a poor product, but fortunately that's not the case here. Make what you will of the visuals - what you see on the promotional material is what you're going to get, same with the designs (though I should point out that this CGI is pretty high quality compared to the usual fare). Even if those leave you unimpressed, however, the real strength of this show lies in the writing and direction, which combine create a show that is, at its core, just really funny and really weird in all the best ways.
The writing is as bizarre as the synopsis would have you believe. It's fairly episodic in nature, with each episode being a new weird-ass adventure. The scenarios this show delves into are strange and make hardly any sense - and are also endlessly creative. The writers make good use of these wild situations, making each one quite memorable in its own way. But it's clearly been written with enough foresight for the plot to still build upon itself - a seemingly throwaway joke in one episode will be referenced and further developed in the next, for example.
The characters benefit greatly from this as well. Even though I rather enjoyed the first episode over all, I left it feeling like most of the characters were one-note. And while that might be true in a sense, they still have plenty of depth, it just comes from the unique and hilarious ways the characters express their defining traits.
Hopefully I highlighted what I found so appealing about this show in this review, and hopefully I convinced you to give it the time of day. I have it at an 8 currently largely due to how, while I overall quite love this show, must admit that the silliness goes a bit overboard at times, to the point that it's a tad distracting: this, along with the visual issues inherent to fully CGI shows, led me to that score. However, I'm genuinely considering upping this to a 9 depending on how the rest of this season turns out. Thanks for taking the time to read this, if you do decide to check this one out I really hope you enjoy it as much as I have!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 19, 2020
(TL;DR This would have been average had the writing been anything but trash for much of it; it’s actually quite enjoyable in an endearing way, because it tries so hard to be good. If you don’t mind storytelling incompetence, this might be worth the watch. It's only 12 episodes, after all.)
Crunchyroll certainly picked a fine couple of anime to promote for simulcast this season, didn’t they? Noblesse kinda gave them a giant pile of nothing, but at least this gave their viewers some fine entertainment value. Well, OK, maybe “fine” is not appropriate, but this show was nonetheless consistently among my
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favorite viewings all throughout the season. The reason for this varied greatly from week to week, because boy howdy was this a roller coaster ride of quality.
Like all good stories, things start off innocently enough. Yuusuke Yotsuya is an unpopular loser whose only skill in life is at video games. He holds a grudge against society for how his life has turned out so far and hates or at the very least distrusts everyone he knows. Suddenly, he is transported to another world that functions on RPG logic along with two of his girl classmates who have been there previously, where he learns that they’re heroes meant to save the world etc. He learns this from the Game Master, who is this reliably funny (no seriously, he’s actually funny) entity in the role of DM.
Much of the early discussion about this show was based around comparisons to KonoSuba, likely due to the early emphasis on humor, which centers around how laughably underpowered and useless everyone is because they’re so comically low-leveled, and Yuusuke has a hyper-niche (read: useless) character class to boot. Additionally, the instructions everyone was given are extremely vague and unhelpful, resulting in our heroes stumbling their way to success. A lot like KonoSuba.
Which turned out to be an unfair comparison to make, not only because KonoSuba is the best at what it does, but also because Million Lives isn’t really supposed to be a comedy: it’s a drama, people. See? It says so quite clearly on the sidebar. What do you mean you couldn’t tell; don’t you remember our protagonist menacingly saying he wanted to destroy the entire city earlier? Clearly this show demands you take it seriously. I certainly didn’t, though, so maybe that’s why the comedy was so effective on me, both at the beginning and when the show very occasionally got out of its bad-drama-induced stupors.
Because oh my god this drama is terrible and impossible to take seriously. I haven’t seen anything quite like it, really, because on paper it’s perfectly fine. Good, I dare say. But the execution, the way they adapted these ideas visually… it just didn’t work, to put it mildly. One scene from early on that sticks out in particular is when Yuusuke’s three women compatriots were captured by bandits. One of the guards says something to the other that implies that he’s going to sexually exploit the ladies as he opens the door and enters their cell, and then we cut to Yuusuke leading the rescue operation with the knights he spent the episode recruiting. When we cut back, bizarrely, the scene in the bandit’s dungeon is shot exactly like it was before we cut away. After a few seconds of not even acknowledging what went down before the cut away, it’s then revealed that the ladies somehow fended this guy off. Even though it’s already been established that none of the heroes can harm humans in this world without losing a ton of experience, but whatever I guess since they never address the consequences of this. This information was conveyed in a way that was supposed to be comedic, I think. This is a standard example of how this show executes its drama scenes. You saw how I mentioned this idea of the heroes suffering a loss of experience when they harm humans, even in situations where no rational person could say this harm was being done immorally. This is a fantastic idea to incorporate into one’s story, but, even though the idea had already been incorporated, it was completely forgotten in this scene, and in the greater story it doesn’t come up all that often outside of this arc.
And that’s the gist of the show’s problems, really. Writing quality is an especially important element of dramas, as your story needs to be at a baseline level of consistency to make your audience emotionally connect with your characters. The drama in this show feels so ineffective because issues like I described in the above example are everywhere. The elements to make the drama work are all there, and we intuitively feel like this should be affecting us more, but because they’re so incompetently assembled it just doesn’t work.
The characterization is in the same boat. Much to my surprise, despite the best efforts of the actual storytelling, by the show’s conclusion 50% of the main 4 characters had undergone convincing character development and had appeared to grow from their journey. So a thumbs up is in order there, I guess. Additionally, everyone has a perfectly serviceable backstory and acts in much the way you would expect them to, given those backstories. The problem is, not much is done with these backstories outside of giving everyone their shounen hero moment after they flashback and suddenly find the strength to break out of the cornered situation they were in.
And just when it’s enough to make me tap out, suddenly the drama ends and the comedy act returns. Comedic scenes are clumped together throughout the show, and overall don’t have much of an impact outside of the few episodes they’re focused on, but they’re a real godsend once you get to them. They definitely aren’t anywhere close to the quality of KonoSuba, but they’re still effective. They’re just like any decent shounen’s comedy, just a silly series of events that will probably put a smile on your face. Or at least make you less miserable.
So how did this show end up like this? A lack of experience is my best guess. I can’t speak to the writing quality of the manga, but what is notable for this anime adaptation is that the director (and most of the staff in general) are brand new to their roles. The director has only ever worked as an assistant director on a couple (by which I mean literally two) shows prior to this, and that is the entire extent of the experience that was brought to this project. Suddenly, the incompetence makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s hard to be angry with the directors in situations like these. It’s still a real shame though, because, although the manga is far from perfect itself judging from its MAL score, there are so many potentially great ideas bubbling below this show’s surface, in addition to its other qualities. The show looks pretty good in general, with great visuals all around and competent enough everything else production-wise.
Studio Maho Film likely assigned their staff with learning in mind. And while I think it’s considerably unlikely that the writing in each episode was produced chronologically (though maybe it was, I don’t know anything about TV production), I like to believe a lot was learned on this job, because I genuinely thought the final arc of the season was an incredible improvement that I really enjoyed watching, which is hopefully indicative of a much-improved season 2. The storytelling suddenly improved drastically, and it honestly became quite hype. This was of course immediately followed by a return to old habits as the show suddenly remembers how much of a psychopath Yuusuke supposedly is even though he spends 99% of the season not being one, but by that point the show’s tendency to do things like this became quite endearing.
I’ll be honest. This show is mostly complete trash, but I can’t help but kind of love it, even the unbearable drama. Not even in a guilty pleasure kind of way, I just genuinely love how hard it tries. It’s the epitome of the little engine that could this season. Said engine combusted into a fireball before even getting out of the station, but it kept trucking along anyway. You gotta respect that. In conclusion, I can’t wait for season 2!
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Oct 3, 2020
Ahiru no Sora is no masterpiece. In fact, it honestly barely even qualifies as good. For a shounen sports anime, it’s distractingly lacking in its visuals, the character designs are rather ugly, and on most technical details it’s unremarkable at best. If any of the above sound like dealbreakers to you, then give this one a pass. If you’re more interested in the journey only a long shounen can offer, however, read on. This show may be exactly what you’re looking for. As an aside, I have not read the manga, this is my anime-only opinion.
The show’s strongest aspect
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is how it nails its premise, one which is unique by shounen standards (though considering the age of the genre I’m probably wrong on that). Kurumatani Sora is a skilled high school basketball player who is hampered by his short height. OK, so maybe it’s not all unique in our world with Haikyuu, but what’s more interesting is that his high school’s basketball team consists of a bunch of hoodlums who don’t actually care about basketball and are only members since the school requires every student to join a sports team. The plot, rather than angling at Sora ejecting the punks and replacing them with different students who want to play basketball, takes the more interesting path as a redemption story.
Watching just how much these kids change from the anime’s beginning to its end is one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve had watching an anime in the past year. The transition these punks go through is incredibly seamless and natural. They don’t just become radically different characters between episodes, though of course some episodes create more change than others. I honestly can’t stress enough just how well done these characters’ evolution is, it’s absolutely the handsomest peacock feather in this anime’s cap.
The characters are enjoyable outside of just their development, too. They’re all actually written like people, and as a result I had no trouble remembering all of their names, no mean feat in a genre as saturated as sports. One set of characters I particularly want to draw attention to are, ironically enough, the team’s benchwarmers. Usually benchwarmers in sports shows are a bit on the dull side, even with more critically acclaimed shows like Kuroko no Basket and Haikyuu. But between how there are fewer of them then your average show and the shows’ character focus, the benchwarmers are as memorable as the rest of the cast. While this normally would be something I would point to as a negative, here it’s instead a testament to just how great this cast is.
Also good is all the show’s OPs and EDs. The songs are all enjoyable listens and the openings and endings themselves are very well put together. They’re more memorable than the show itself in some ways. You’d hope the first one, Happy Go Ducky, would be anyway, because that one’s from The Pillows of FL;CL fame. I know right?
Unfortunately, nothing else about the show is anything more than average. Your average episode is standard outside of the overarching story; just normal, sometimes goofy shounen stuff. Animation is adequate, but obviously cheaply made, which is harder to forgive when you’re a sports show and your main drawing point is supposed to be killer action shots. Lined up next to other stuff airing during this show’s run, the characters look rather distractingly ugly. Usually this isn’t something I pay attention to, and even in this case I didn’t particularly mind, but if even I’m noticing it then I can definitely see this being a deal-breaker for some people.
In every episode there’s a scene where a cool basketball scene action, and in every episode I failed to follow where the hell the ball was moving during these scenes. One moment the ball is in basketball man’s hands, the next moment it cuts away to basketball man doing some cool basketball-related technique in a dimension with no background, and then it cuts again to show basketball going into the net. It’s all really silly and tacky, and I don’t think that’s what the show’s staff had in mind as they were making this. It’s enough to communicate the point, but not much else.
Perhaps worse of all for me was that the writing beyond the main story line simply isn’t all that great. The jokes occasionally elicited a chuckle or so out of me, and the side stories could be heartwarming at times, but overall nothing really stood out. And that’s really the show’s biggest problem, nothing stands out, it’s just an average shounen that just so happened to nail its premise to such a degree that I could get through the whole thing. I honestly don’t have any regrets about watching it the whole way through, but it’s hard for me to recommend this to someone unless they’re looking for this particular kind of redemption story.
If you’re looking for a good redemption story with memorable characters and the visual aspect of anime is less important to you, this may just be what you’re looking for. Even if you just can’t get past how bad the show can look at times, I’d say it’s definitely worth checking out the manga at the very least if anything I’ve written here has persuaded you. You won’t regret it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Oct 2, 2020
TL;DR Super dumb but worth watching. Characters are fantastic and the show sells itself and self-aware very well. Has some decent writing outside of the overall plot.
Dumb is a pretty hard thing to get right in any medium. The line between self-awareness and incompetence is rather blurry to your standard audience and is often best left untouched unless the creator knows exactly what they’re doing. Suppose the author is self-aware enough to know that what they’re doing is, by whatever objective means of criticism exist, bad, but that’s the joke. Even if that’s the case, getting the audience to understand
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and go along with the joke is a tricky thing, and some members may simply be too dense to ever understand what you’re doing. Even if what you’ve made is secretly genius.
Incidentally, genius is one word that could be used to describe your lord and mine, Anos Voldigoad. The Demon Lord of Terror is basically as powerful as a being can be without actually being a god, which he’s apparently technically still subservient to though he does consider himself enough of a peer of theirs to attempt to broker deals and whatnot with them. In fact, Anos is so powerful he could probably actually beat Saitama. Quite the resume.
And yet he doesn’t feel the slightest bit unbelievable. As he begins to almost single-handedly upset the established order of the world he left behind 2000 years ago once he discovered how much of a dog’s breakfast his descendants had made of everything, I wasn’t annoyed. I wasn’t rolling my eyes so far back into my skull that I could see my brain writhing in pain, as I thought I should be doing as a critic. No, I had a big stupid grin on my face as Anos boldly proclaims how foolish his enemies were to think they ever stood a chance.
Conventional wisdom in plot criticism holds that this shouldn’t work. Power-fantasy stories are often disdained, and for good reason: their entire reason for existing is to tap into the desires of their often disenfranchised audience and give them the kind of power rush they crave, usually at the sacrifice of the plot or characters making sense, or otherwise squandering the story’s or character’s potential. An oft-cited example of this in action is Kirito from SAO (dead horse, I know, but he’s just such a well-known example): specifically, the complaint that he’s too boring, as he was written in a very general way so as to be a blank slate the viewer can easily identify with him and experience his power moments as their own.
Anos Voldigoad is nothing at all like Kirito. Anos is very much his own person. He has very clearly defined goals that are unique to him and the life he’s lived, not vague and designed to be relatable; for instance, contrary to the normal traits of demon lord characters in Japanese fiction, Anos’ last act before disappearing was to sacrifice himself to create a lasting peace in the world so that all people, demon and human and others alike, could live peaceful and fulfilling lives. Anos’ power has a huge impact on the person he was and the person he would become once the main story starts. He’s extremely confident at all times when he’s on screen, which not only makes him look cool, but firmly establishes him as his own person. A character like Kirito could never be portrayed as unerringly confident as Anos is without taking the risk of alienating their target audience, who need someone with at least some vulnerability that they can relate to. In short, he’s not strictly someone to relate to, he’s someone people aspire to be like, if only they were able.
The only reason he’s as relatable at all is because he’s almost immediately labeled an outsider upon reincarnating. He’s born into the lower caste of demon society (a caste structure he didn’t make) and the exam at the Demon Lord Academy isn’t capable of accurately assessing his power and mislabels him into the lowest possible category, which basically means society hates him. From there, the story’s direction is obvious: Anos must prove everyone wrong and make society good again.
So why doesn’t he just do this immediately? I’m certain everyone had this question once the extent of his power level is revealed, especially since it only escalates as the story progresses. The story never answers this: please refer to the first paragraph of this review, this is where the dumbness comes in (if this question disrupts your suspension of disbelief too much, here’s a good external answer for you: Anos is smart enough to get information before acting. Thank goodness he’s not omniscient, otherwise he literally would be a god). Here’s another biting question: Why doesn’t every evil SOB who challenges Anos immediately realize just how out of his league – nay, galaxy – they are? No answer for this one either, I can’t even figure a hypothetical one out. The story isn’t exactly made of Kevlar, it’d be more accurate to say it’s made of straw that wilts when it’s stared at. OK, sorry, I lied, it’s even worse than that. Very few things make sense when they happen because new powers are pulled out of the ether and the writers’ asses since the magic system is abstract enough that they can do that, though the writers apparently shared Anos’ confidence and just go forward acting as though everything is fine. You could fill a book just by tearing this plot apart, and I’m confident you’ll see just that somewhere on this very page. I’m being very positive about this show despite all this, and even I eventually started shaking my head at the absolutely dumbfounding lengths they went to to make this all come together. I gotta respect it in some ways, I guess.
Mysteriously, however, the writing is otherwise very good. Not the plot, but everything else is great. I can’t speak to the light novel at all, only that it appears to be the author’s only published work as of now. The main director has previously directed Prisma Ilya and, more recently, Bofuri, in the past, with both being rather entertaining shows in a similar vein of dumbness to this one, with a particularly strong main cast. Misfit’s other main characters are also an entertaining bunch, but notably they all have a great deal of depth as well. The twin sisters Misha and Sasha have an extremely engrossing arc early on in the show and remain great throughout. Each side character’s time in the limelight is used very effectively; rest assured, each will stay with you from episode to episode, even if you only watch from week to week as I did.
A testament to the writing’s quality is how it solves the problem of the unstoppable protagonist. Since there’s clearly no way Anos could ever possibly lose, how does each episode’s conflict remain exciting? The answer lies in the creative ways each enemy is dispatched or the problem is otherwise handled. Yes, you know Anos is going to win, but how, pray tell, is he going to win? The answer is usually not the enemy dying in a fiery explosion: villains are only ever punished in karmic ways, for instance, no one ever just dies and that’s it. Even when death is final, there’s always more of an impact than just someone dying; the character stays with the viewer in some way.
The world building is completely bonkers. It reminds me a lot of Fate in a weird way, which I think is likely because of the way it’s told. Previous events whose relevance is off the beaten path are only ever brought up when relevant to the main plot, and we’re only ever given enough context to understand that single event, nothing before or after. Thus, this world’s past must be pieced together like a puzzle throughout the show if you want to understand the whole thing, but the idea that this world has a storied and illustrious past is conveyed well nonetheless and does its job of making the history seem real.
The ending is as an ending should be: a microcosm of everything the show stood for. The wilted straw skeleton of the plot all but collapses as all the hype moments the writers built up (and some they absolutely did not build up) come together in one glorious, satisfying, and, most importantly, final climax. No sequel-baiting or “go read the manga idiot” here, the story is concluded, done, fin. The inevitable harem doujins notwithstanding.
Fortunately for the doujinshis, the girls are all really cute. Neither the show’s character designer nor the light novel’s has much of a resume, but the characters all look memorable. The composer has previously worked on Danmachi, which I haven’t seen yet, but if you have and you enjoyed the music, you’ll probably like this. The songs are used in all the usual anime hype ways, with one particularly awesome moment towards the end of the show which I won’t dare spoil for you here, but you’ll know it when it arrives. Needless to say, it’s dumb and awesome and good.
I know the topic of how dumb this show can be didn’t come up that much in this review outside the plot’s clear faults, but that’s because the show just does so well in preventing this from being the absolute train wreck this could have ended as. Without all the positives I outlined above, the strong main cast, the effective world-building, the solid episodic writing, Anos himself: without all these, this absolutely would have bombed and I would not be extolling its positives right now. In fact, I likely wouldn’t have even reviewed it, because then there’d be nothing to say about it, it’d just be another failed action fantasy to add to the moldy pile. Instead, it went beyond the bland kind of dumb called incompetence that so many lesser shows fall into. It was able to convincingly revel in its dumbness, embrace it, and turn it into something positive. It was able to convince us all (or me at the very least) that it is, indeed, self-aware. And by Anos-sama is it glorious.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 28, 2020
Talk about making up for a rough first impression. This show very nearly lost me during the first episode, all signs pointed to it being not worth my time, but I persevered to the end credits. Right when I was about to drop it, the post-credits scene of episode 1’s reveal proved how Deca-dence would be anything but boring. Standard and safe, yes, but not boring.
Quick warning label for the first episode: Deca-dence is entertainingly epic and goofy for all eleven of its episodes after the first one, heck maybe even including the first one depending on what you know going in.
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Not that the first episode is bad or anything, it’s a perfectly adequate opener, it just short sells the quality of the show a bit. Meta spoilers here, skip to the next paragraph to avoid. The first episode is deceitful regarding the setting of the show, it won’t really contribute much to the experience on just the first viewing, so I’d recommend coming back and watching it again after you’ve seen the whole show once so you can appreciate it a bit better, kind of like the first episode of Steins;Gate.
Once the story kicks off proper, you’d be forgiven for thinking Trigger made this, as it follows similar beats to Promare or Gurren Lagann (I know it’s not Trigger but the same people worked on it), coupled with a similarly vibrant color palette and art style, albeit toned down a bit to match the grittier post-apocalyptic tone. There’s no crossover between the production teams for this show or anything Trigger’s made (Deca-dence’s staff is all relatively new to the industry, VA’s not withstanding), but the inspiration is clear. It turns out that studio Nut took the right lessons from those shows, as Deca-dence does hit many of the same spots quite well.
The story’s your standard “Fight the powah!” journey; the powers that be are controlling the ruined world in a rather dystopian fashion and are reacting to things they cannot control in much the same way that yours truly reacts when he sees a spider crawling across his floor in the corner of his eye. We watch as our protagonists experience the effects of this from their own unique perspectives and ultimately strive to create a better world. Like I said, standard. The specifics of all this are communicated to us in relatively fun, entertaining, and effective ways. Even if you’ve seen this all before, which you likely have, it doesn’t really feel like you’re retreading old ground as much as you’re seeing a new version of it. There are many anime out there that don’t have this going for them.
And really that’s the whole Deca-dence package in a nutshell. It’s a journey down a well-treaded path yes, but it’s a pretty enjoyable one and that’s something I really want to stress. Of the six anime I finished this season, this was one of the easiest to watch; normally I’m someone who has to get into the right mood to watch something, but I was consistently looking forward to the new episode coming out every week. That’s really the best way I can communicate just how enjoyable Deca-dence is, it’s just well-written and well-made to the point where its lack of originality seems to almost be a non-issue. Actions scenes are exciting, characters are fun even when they’re simple, jokes land when they come up.
The main theme of certain people in society being bugs (in the programming meaning of the word, i.e. something unexpected and beyond the control of those running the system) is attacked in much the same way Gurren Lagann communicates its theme: very loudly and obviously. And while I doubt it’ll ever be as iconic as Gurren Lagann, it’s just as effective in getting the message across. The theme being front and center never took away from all the other values Deca-dence has to offer, and I’m sure this show will inspire some people in much the same way GL does.
I’d also like to quickly note that the ending was unfortunately a bit of a failure. The final fight preceding it was pretty freaking hype in all the usual anime ways, but once the story’s conclusion is reached and the epilogue plays, well, it’s quite accurate to say the lingering plot threads could be used to weave together a rope about as powerful as one of Superman’s hairs. It’s honestly a little embarrassing just how much is unresolved, and most of it isn’t nitpicks, it’s blatantly obvious stuff any member of the audience would be justified in demanding an explanation for. The creators were also a bit overly-focused on creating a golden ending where everyone lives happily ever after, the whole epilogue in general feels way to forced; more of what small children in the audience would want to happen, less of what the sequence of events making up the plot would suggest would actually happen.
Overall, though, I’m glad I watched Deca-dence. Even if this won’t be one of my favorites, being able to sit down at the end of every week and enjoy the concentrated goodness its staff Nut-ed (I’m so sorry) out each week was absolutely worth it, and I’d definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to just enjoy something simple but not garbage over a weekend.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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