Back to Magnamist's Profile Magnamist's Profile

I'd give DitF a solid 7. It's worth a watch, but do not go in expecting your usual Trigger stable of hype and ott amazement.
The story is bad, but the art and sound are both top notch; the character development is well done, even if it seems to have stagnated towards the end, and the story wasn't irreedemably bad (certain decisions in the writing made it decidedly worse). I'd recommend it if you enjoy mecha, some teen romance drama, and other trigger works.

Now for a more in-depth review:
Darling in the Franxx had a lot of potential, but a lot of what you think might happen ... probably won't come to pass. Many in other reviews think it was predictable and boring, which is utter horse shit because the plot developments towards the end were almost impossible to predict if you only consider the foreshadowing etc in the show. To avoid spoilers, what I CAN tell you is that this is not a Gurren Lagann, Code Geass esque mecha action series. There is no rebellion coming, so don't go in expecting it and leave fully disappointed, like I did. It's a show fully devoted to it's characters, some more than others, and little else.
The Mecha Action peters out in DitF; with vivid action scenes the norm in the first cour, things change midway to become more slice-of-life and teen romance drama. Action does make a comeback in the final 'arc', but it is never again as well done as it was towards the beginning. The art is, however, still top notch. The characters' expressions were vivid and actually showed the emotion they probably felt, the character design felt inspired and the mechas, or at least Plantation 13's Mechas, looked individualistic and more importantly different from other mecha shows. The Klaxosaurs' design is where I'd laud the art direction the most; they look absolutely amazing, and as alien and terrifying as they should be.
Sound was well done, with the OP song, despite not changing the entire 24 episodes, never getting old. The tracks in the series all highlighted the moments well, and the hype scene towards the midpoint was definitely one of the best scenes of the entire year.
The show seems to favor character development more than action however; approximately 50-60% of the show was devoted to the characters rather than any plot developments, and while this was welcome in a genre that often simply has cardboard cutouts as their characters I felt they spent too much time on them, where they could have been furthering the plot.

Overall, DitF sets out with an ambitious goal, and ultimately fails miserably in achieving it. It is a good series, and is worth a watch, but its writing and structure makes big promises to the viewer, and then fails them utterly. Prepare for this if you intend to watch it.

I don't really understand why so many people liked 'The King's Avatar' so much. It seems to have all of the makings of what a good anime should have, but it doesn't deliver.

The story is that the protagonist, Ye Xiu, has to quit professional e-sports because his team has forced him into retirement. He was underpaid, cheated out and was of course the former ace, and is replaced by some cocky newcomer, who is paid more. Ye Xiu then wanders into the nearest internet café (around 2 streets away, literally the first one he finds) and finds some work there.

There is no more story to ... this anime. 'The King's Avatar' seem to conclude whatever it wanted to tell you after episode 1, and then proceed to spend the rest of the season raising Ye Xiu to Kirito levels of over powered.

The format of the typical episode is as follows: Ye and his party members find some sort of problem (be it beating a boss raid, dealing with people who don't like them, or... well, that's really the only two scenarios that seem to show up). They hit a snag (or may not) and deal with it. They win.

There is no real suspense because you know that Ye Xiu, the 'God of Glory' (Glory being the e-sport they play) cannot lose. He has won every championship, is indisputably the former MVP of his old team, and was called the best player of the game by some. There is literally no way he can lose in a scrub server, even when other e-sports teams try take him down (because apparently he plays some broken class, called an 'unspecialized', that borrows skills from all other classes, and only he is good enough to play this; in fact, he even calls someone better than him except for the fact that his APM isn't high enough, why can't that guy play an unspecialized?). Ye Xiu knows he's OP and is accordingly cocky, and wins every game regardless.

With how massively overpowered he is, and since he was paid so little, it leads you to wonder why in the world his old e-sports team even let him go for someone who is seemingly an order of magnitude worse than him, and is paid more than him?

Did I mention that the one internet café he goes to has another amazing Glory player (who he teaches because obviously she is only good mechanically but needs his help in tactics), he finds a noob online coincidentally who apparently has amazing mechanics that rival pros and has e-sports greats help him (including aces of other teams) beat high scores?

I may sound over the top, but honestly, how an anime that does this terribly dealing with a sensible plot is beyond me. The only thing I got out of these 12 episodes is that Ye Xiu is amazing at the game, and that despite being forced to retired unfairly he will come back to the e-sports scene (in his mid-20s, I might mention). The first part happened in episode 1, and the second part will presumably happen in season 2 or 3.

The art is definitely good. The reason a lot of people got hooked is the trailer that had very good visuals, and indeed, the fight scenes are pretty well done. Sometimes other sections aren't as well done (like backgrounds) which can jar a lot with the fight scenes. While they reuse a few scenes a lot (like Ye Xiu flying around with his ninja shunpo), its excusable as they have A LOT of fight scenes, and all of the ones I recall were well done. Sound wasn't memorable, but still decent and fit the series.

There is no characterisation (I mean, unless you count one player learning how to play the game a bit better thanks to God Xiu as their character growing), and most people are fairly 1 dimensional. The game itself also seems to be terribly balanced (you can steal people's weapons? one of Ye Xiu's party, a professional e-sports swordsman, steals another player's orange rarity weapon after killing him. How the hell is that balanced?), and nobody knows Ye Xiu's face because as an e-sports player he hid it (which seems impossible, considering you play e-sports games on a stage usually with a camera trained ON YOUR FACE, they even show him playing on a stage in the last episode). This leads to nobody believing him when he tells them he's really good, and being super amazed when he is. Game screens don't show a game window, but scenes from the game as shown in the anime, so while I'm not really sure how they can control these characters so precisely, it works decently because the producers don't have to worry about the controls making sense; it's not meant to, and that's fine.

Overall, the King's Avatar had very good visuals, a decent sound track, and... nothing. Pretty much everything else was terrible. I don't know whether the novels were adapted badly, or whether it reads better, or if some of the plot holes are explained somewhere outside the anime, but as an anime, the King's Avatar is bad.

Musaigen no Phantom World (aka Musaigen) was pretty much universally hated for some reason, even acheiving the great status of being the worst rated KyoAni show on MAL. Which is a shame, because it wasn't that bad at all.

Musaigen is about a kid (Haruhiko) who knows a lot of useless info but is pretty weak physically, along with his side kicks (who are all female). They all have special powers and are able to see figments of human imagination, which can affect physical objects and living things after an accident with a company that was researching them. These special powers vary in power, and ... while he doesn't have a particularly powerful power it's above average, and they go around 'sealing' these 'Phantoms' before they become a big menace.

This is pretty much the entire series. They are part of a school club that rewards them for taking care of middle level to easy phantoms, and they get to earn some pocket money while helping out the police (who take care of the stronger phantoms). Each episode usualy deals with one phantom somehow messing with either the characters, or someone else who they help as part of their 'job'. Which isn't very bad at all, since it does this pretty well. There are episodes centered around each character, there's a decent amount of character development (for 13 episodes) and you grow to like most of the characters.

Given that there is one male main and 4 female main characters (5 if you count their weird mini fairy sidekick) there's a fair amount of fanservice. Which is usually ok, it's not too excessive, but sometimes can get annoying. An example would be the first episode, which was part of why everyone everywhere decided it was utter shit, and was sort of unfortunate for the series.

Being episodic, it still had an 'overarching story' during these, where they mention a few things that happened in past episodes and was hinted to be part of a wider plot. This culminates in the final episodes, provding sort of a story end for the series as a whole, and at least concludes it.

The art was very, very good. The designs were pretty decent, but what shines the most was the art for the special powers, which looked great. Explosions, energy waves, heck, even energy swrods were handled very well. Sound was pretty decent as well.

The main thing pulling the series down is simply its attempt at a final story and attempts at character building. The ending was sort of cliché and honestly not very well done, and for a cast of 6 characters, there simply weren't enough episodes to flesh them all out, leading to all of them getting some development. Other than that the anime wasn't very bad at all; some parts were mediocre, some good, but overall it was a very decent series.

Musaigen wasn't a very bad series at all, just had a lot of tropes and clichés used before thrown in that seemed repetitive to the viewer who watches this sort of anime by the dozen. Ignoring the high hopes people apparently pin to KyoAni, this show wasn't by any means a masterpiece, but was still a fun watch.

Finally, I can write a review!
I don't usually do these, so pardon me if I step on any unnamed conventions.
No spoilers in this review.

First things first; Aldnoah.Zero was one of the much-hyped animes Summer 2014, mostly cuz of it's tag (Let justice be done, though the heavens fall) and Urobuchi having done a few episodes. All I knew about him was that he wrote Psycho Pass (which I liked), among others, so I didn't pay much attention to that. It's about an alternate timeline to our Earth, where a hypergate to Mars was found on the Moon in the first moon landing. Earth then colonized ... Mars, had a falling out with it, and initial war. This eventually stopped and leads us to the setting, an uneasy truce betweeen UEHQ (United Earth HQ) and Vers (Mars. Why they named it Vers, I have no clue). And, if you haven't guessed it yet, it is a mecha anime.

STORY: 8
The storyline of Aldnoah.Zero seems generic, and extremey mundanely so. A war between Earth and another planet involving giant robots, controlled by high schoolers? Seriously? And really, this was the reason I wasn't about to give this a shot. However, there are several things different here; a few other themes are put in here. A theme that I would say is bordering on Racism, where the 'Versians' consider themselves superior to the 'Terrans', along with a bit of other stuff that I can't really define.
The selling point however, is that this is basically Gundam; but before you get all huffy and leave due to OP mechs killling small fry, it's Gundam in REVERSE. Our hero, the high schooler, has the puny useless mech, while the opponent has the OP mech that is apparently unstoppable. A bit like Code Geass' Lelouch, using smarts, they take down the mechas to beat them. And, at least in the first two OP mecha's cases, I was astounded as to the brilliance of the protagonist.
Which, unfortunately, brings us to the worst part of Aldnoah.Zero:

CHARACTER: 3
Characterization is dreaful in Aldnoah.Zero. The protagonist, Inaho, has, as a youtuber I do not recall so aptly put it, "The emotional depth of a brick". He NEVER changes expressions, and is absolutely deadpan about everything. Attempts at characterization fail miserably, and potential love interests don't even seem like he likes the girl until it is specifically pointed out by a character, as if to say, "Look guys, I know you're supposed to figure his out yourselves, but since you can't, here you go, those two are totally a couple despite one guy never even smiling and seemingly not caring about her; It's totally legit". Rayet's arc was completely unnecessary and could have been used to either make her more likeable (or done more with her than give the audience cheap sob stories) or to develop the protagonist, Inaho's, character instead. They just succeed in messing up characters instead and ruin them. The characters (except Inaho's sister, Captain Magbaredge and Lt. Marito) where not at all likeable and I found it hard to care about them at all.

ART: 10
The art in Aldnoah is outstanding, it's a veritable feast to the eyes. The mecha's special effects and explosions were great to watch, and the landing castles' descent was truly epic.
Well. Yeah. Art was awesome. On to music!

SOUND: 10
The music in Aldnoah made me play a few songs on repeat. Especially the song that plays at the descent (I say cry (lol people thought it said 'fry')) and the OP, I must admit. The OSTs in general were great and it was annoying to find out that the sound track hadn't been released yet at the time. Should have been released now though... I ought to go play it on repeat ^^

ENJOYMENT & OVERALL: 7

I think enjoyment and overall go hand in hand, don't you? Aldnoah.Zero is a great watch, although undoubtedly will not make your list of favorite anime. While I hope the issues I had with it (characters plz) will be fixed in the next season, it annoys me to no end that the final episode was a cliffhanger designed to shock and force the reader into watching the next season (airing winter 2015, so next January). However, unless you are a hardcore anime fan, or any kind of critic, in which case you will be appalled by the characters and think a 7 a generous score, you will probably enjoy it, and I'd recommend you giving it a shot.

What can I say? Log Horizon is basically something like SAO and .//Hack, but it is at the same time completely different. While SAO goes off on several tangents completely unrelated, think Lisbeth and Silica, Log Horizon stays focused on the MMO side of such a situation. Assuming you know the basics of the story, lets begin!

There are obviously a few faults to Log Horizon. The reason I voted this that high is a) it deserves more love and should go up in the anime list and b) is leagues better, in my opinion, than some of the stuff coming out these days. The main ... glaring fault in it is that many of the characters seem perfectly at ease in their new environment, the former MMO 'Elder Tale', now their world. No one panicked, there was no mass hysteria or anything, and frankly, this was done much better in SAO's episode one. However, it is becomes apparent that they haven't forgotten their situation but have attempted to adjust.

The first few episodes of Log Horizon are there to establish a setting. It starts out slow, which unfortunately lost a few watchers, explaining basic MMO concepts and features, introducing the main cast and so on. Around episode 5 it picks up, having finished a sort of prologue and begins the main story. If you hang around until then, you won't be disappointed.

There are several plot twists that were actually fun to watch, of which I only managed to guess two. Log Horizon also focuses on the premise of 'politics'. If you think about it, it is obviously pretty important, given that the several thousand in Elder Tale have no overarching law governing them. Anarchy is obviously an effect, and this is what the protagonist attempts to solve. This was actually pretty refreshing from the recurring theme of violence solves everything that seems to come up in Anime. It may sometimes get slow, but if you bear with it you won't be disappointed!

Art wise, there is certainly quite a bit more left to desire. While Log Horizon's art is in no way bad, in fact it is very well done, it is not very good either, going more on mediocre. It does not really affect your enjoyment of the show. Several special effects were done pretty well, especially skills of the players, but other than that there wasn't any real eye candy.

Sound, I felt, was pretty good. Unfortunately I only really pay attention to the OP and ED, and in this case both were nice. The OP had several English lyrics, and the tune in general was nice. I tended to skip the ED though. The OSTs were all good, but the fact that none really come to mind show that it isn't anything extremely amazing.

Characterization is one of the strong points. Shiroe's development isn't explicitly shown, but his slow growth from introvert to leader is done very well. Several side characters are also done pretty well, but some were neglected, like Naotsugu and Nyanta (btw this guy is weird... Nyanta that is. Idk why). And the romance in this has left much to be desired; in that the little that is there isn't done very well, especially who likes who. I felt that it didn't really fit with the series, they should have gotten most of it off.

Log Horizon is one of the better series to air recently. While it certainly does lack in some areas, it overall more than makes up for it. Consider watching it, chances are, you'll be pleasantly surprised.