My wish was... what was my wish again? What are we doing here anyway?
Selector Spread WIXOSS is the second season of the card game anime franchise WIXOSS, and a sequel to Selector Infected WIXOSS. It is a deconstruction of the card game genre, with focus shifted not on the game but on the psychological plot of the show instead, making it one of the more unique stories around in the anime these days. Does it deserve the praise for being deep and different?
This review MAY include SPOILERS from the first season.
Plot:
Ruko Kominato, a Selector - girl who has the ability to own a living LRIG
...
that grant wishes - parts her way with Tama, her previous LRIG, after losing the final battle. Fulfilling the wish, her opponent, Iona, becomes Ruko's LRIG in Tama's place. While living her normal life, she is again dragged into the Selectors' world, and vows to get Tama back and fulfill her old wish - returning every LRIG to her former selves.
The concept of WIXOSS was very well done in the first season and was the strongest point of the show. It was a clever and interesting idea of having girls battle each other in a card game to either fulfill your wish by winning, or destroy it by losing. The psychological effect it had on players reflected to the dark atmosphere, and the mystery behind this system kept the audience thrilled.
However, Spread does not do that. Although Infected had its mistakes in storytelling and plot holes, it was pretty consistent. Spread keeps the same mistakes the first season had and made tons more. The end result, to summarize, was a chaotic pile of mess. The plot in this show had no direction. It was supposed to further explore the nature of the WIXOSS system, but it soon went off the rail with multiple sidetracks. Simply put, this anime tried to rely on worldbuilding, be like a fairy tale, and have deep and thought-provoking psychological moments about people's will to sacrifice or gamble for something they seek, but in the end nothing from these things work out.
The game itself becomes even more confusing, and as in the first season, the rules are not explained at all. Granted, the show is not about the game but what's behind it, but you often find yourself scratching your head, not knowing what the hell is going on. This is the polar opposite of other card shows like Yu-Gi-Oh!! or Cardfight Vanguard where the sole reason of the anime is to promote sales for real life cards, and thus having focus of the show on the gameplay. While those anime are criticized for having a bullshit plot, this anime should be bashed for having bullshit gameplay in the same way. It would have been somewhat fine if rules were fully explained atleast once in the show, because the game itself, while not having much focus on, is a vital point of the show.
The problem with the main plot is that it didn't know how does it want to solve this out. Everything seems messy. There are so much things going on that you don't have an idea which are important and which are not, and the story's flow just kept changing randomly. From Akira's internal struggles to Ulith's plan, to Tama's retrieval, to Mayu's "defeat", the show had no consistency and either forgot its side stories (the incest) or tried to square up everything in the end. There's much more plot device characters in this season, mainly because the anime tried way too much at once (imagine Tokyo Ghoul) and just wrote the characters' stories off as fast as they were introduced.
Characters:
The characters of Spread are also much weaker than their Infected counterparts. The main reason is because you get the same amount of episodes (12), and have twice as many characters and twice as many conflicts. While Infected centered on 4 characters, with only 2 of them having a personal goal that the audience could follow, the second season doubles the count and gives almost every character a conflict that needs to be solved.
Starting with the biggest disappointment, it's Yuzuki. She was hands down the best character of Infected and one of the best of the entire year of anime (and I'm not even kidding), and basically made the show alone in the character department. Her incest story with her brother was beautifully told (one of the few instances where incest is done right), and she herself was a vital point of the progression of the story. In Spread, she is put in a useless position, being a LRIG. Since Hitoe seldom fights anyone in the show, we practically don't even see her do anything at all. It's not her fault, of course, but the show simply just coldly murdered its best character.
Aoi Akira, the maniacal Aki-lucky model girl, is one of the main reasons why the show turned out to be so pretentious at points. As a character, she is fine and her loss of sanity is detailed well but boy, she does not fit the show at all. Even with all of this attention thrown at shaping her character, she does nothing to the plot. All she did was just mess up the atmosphere so much it was almost impossible to take this all seriously. Same thing with Chiyori, a girl we saw just once in Infected and who gets a considerably increased amount of screen time. She is the polar opposite of Akira in terms of character, coming out as a childish and funny middle-schooler. Chiyori was a rather interesting look from an another side of the spectrum, bringing in some light in a relatively dark atmosphere, but she also does nothing to the main plot and nothing would have changed if she wasn't there.
Hitoe doesn't change at all from the first season, being a companion and best friend of Ruko. Her character is actually an improve from Infected as she is not a plot device anymore made solely for the purpose of showing the audience what happens when Selectors lose, but on the other side she is still pretty underwhelming and she does not have much influence on the plot.
Iona and Ruko's relationship is the most explored one in the show, but there is one problem with it: nakama power makes everyone friendly and forget their differences fast. The contrast was supposed to be the main point of their relationship, Iona being the antagonist of the first season and Ruko being the nice girl, but that contrast is lost quickly. Iona's motives and her character change are contradicting each other and she comes off as a badly written character, with script writers clearly going for the easy way and just having a different character change for the sake of cooperation to move the plot forward.
Finally, we have the two antagonists of the show, Ulith and Mayu. I can immediately say that the show shouldn't have had two villains. Ulith was the better one, because it was more believable and her story didn't come off pretentious like Mayu's. As I said, one of the main reasons why the plot of the show crumbled is because it wanted to chew way too much than it could swallow, and having two villains at the same time was too much. Although Ulith is the better one, Mayu's story is unskippable and if sacrifices were to be made, the show should have had scrapped the protagonists' struggles with Ulith. Instead we have Ulith story which is forgotten in the end and doesn't have much relevance overall, and Mayu's story (the main plot) which is plagued with plot holes and generally weak.
Writing:
Speaking of weak, we have the writing. Being the weakest point of the first season, you bet it's not a strong one in the second as well. That is true, however it's not as bad as the plot's nosedive. You still have girls crying and whining over the same god damn things, level 5's out of nowhere, stabbing people with a knife on the side of the chest (really, what the hell was that supposed to mean? And the victim is okay at the start of the next episode!). What's worse though is that the show added in such pretentious dialogue (or, rather, monologue) that it was a pain to listen through all of that. Suddenly, the anime turns into a fairy tale that is narrated by one of the characters in the most pretentious way imaginable, with dialogue such as someone "entering me", "I can feel her inside me" and so on. Trying to enjoy the show at this point is something excruciating.
The saddest part is that every single element of the show had massive potential. It was only the lack of focus that led WIXOSS to ultimately fail at almost everything it tried to present. It feels like so much has happened, but nothing of value. The anime is labeled as "psychological", but it has nothing that you could consider "thought-provoking". It's not enough to put some girls being tortured in a dark setting and call it "a psychological anime", you have to have more power in it. However, there are no tasteless fanservice or forced comedy, so the anime has that for it as it doesn't have any distracting elements that don't serve the story telling.
Animation & Sound:
Animation makes up for some of the show's shortcomings though. Choreographically the battles look amazing, the effects look splendid and the art style fits both action and slow paces. My only problem with it was how noses were drawn, it felt like there's no nose but a hole in it's place instead.
However, the sound department was weaker. There's one track that keeps on playing whenever there's a "sad" inner monologue going on, which gets boring pretty fast. The rest of the soundtrack is unmemorable. The battle music is way too dubstep-ish and doesn't fit. The voice acting is okay for the most part, but the fact that there's so much crying and squeaking in this show takes some points away. Chinatsu Akasaki did a wonderful job at voicing Aoi Akira though.
The OP of the show - "World's End, Girls Rondo", while decent, is not as good as Infected's opening (atleast it didn't have ep 12 sound editions to it as the first season's opening did). The ED meanwhile is beautiful and is one of the highlights of the show, and one of the best of the season.
Summary:
Selector Spread WIXOSS needed more episodes. The concept was there, the conflicts were there, the characters were there. There was just too much stuff to solve in 12 episodes. For a psychological anime, it's not deep or thought provoking. For a magical girl show, it is way too chaotic with its' presentation. For a card game show, there's no rules given. The abundance of plot holes and plot conveniences make it really hard to follow the plot.
It is sad that Spread was a disappontment compared to the first season, since I liked the show, and the fact that to an extent Infected succeeded with such a formula was one of the biggest surprises of the year. Unfortunately, Spread just didn't know how to get to the end. Do I recommend this anime? It is a unique show, and it is a deconstruction of a genre, thus having a much bigger value than most of your generic seasonal anime. However, it is not fun at all. If you like something out of the ordinary and uncommon, give this a go, otherwise, don't bother with this and go with Sailor Moon for your magical shoujo anime.
Final Verdict - 4.3/10 (changed as of 01.13 - previously 4.7)
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Jan 5, 2015
Selector Spread WIXOSS
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
My wish was... what was my wish again? What are we doing here anyway?
Selector Spread WIXOSS is the second season of the card game anime franchise WIXOSS, and a sequel to Selector Infected WIXOSS. It is a deconstruction of the card game genre, with focus shifted not on the game but on the psychological plot of the show instead, making it one of the more unique stories around in the anime these days. Does it deserve the praise for being deep and different? This review MAY include SPOILERS from the first season. Plot: Ruko Kominato, a Selector - girl who has the ability to own a living LRIG ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 28, 2014 Recommended
Our surroundings shape us.
Barakamon is a comedy slice of life manga adaptation of the same name. It follows a story of your average shut-in protagonist thrown into an entirely different countryside setting, and how said setting changes him. One of the better actual slice of life shows airing these days, it's not all flowers and daisies but it definitely went the right way. Plot: Seishuu Handa, a famous calligrapher gets sent to a remote island after misbehaving in a calligraphy contest. There, he starts learning to adapt to a different lifestyle, while he develops his own new writing style. The plot is rather simple and nothing we haven't ... seen before - the protagonist winds up in a completely different lifestyle and setting and must learn to adapt to it. The execution is what counts though, and here Barakamon separates itself from other similar titles. The anime took an episodic direction with every episode delivering a different type of slice of life message(s), which all of them together are linked to the main plot element which is Seishuu's new developing calligraphy style. It's effective, but it has problems. First of all, the calligraphy itself didn't have as much influence to the story as actual interactions happening between the characters, and it was sort of pushed to a secondary role until the final couple of episodes, and its appearances, bar from a few, weren't anything you could describe with more than a word "average". Second, the actual metaphors and symbolism were sometimes very very forced (for example, like episode 2), and even gave out a pretentious vibe. Most of the slice of life moments in the show were actually slice of life-ish and give lots of food for thought, but as the show progress on you notice that nothing actually happens with all of those moments, as the main character doesn't have any chances to show us what has he learned until the final episodes. Characters: Individually, the characters are the weakest part of the show. Apart from the protagonist, they all suffer from extreme lack of characterization and development, and are just thrown in there to have numbers and create specific events. Naru was the biggest disappointment of the show, but it wasn't so much of her fault as it was for the other characters that kind of stole the spotlight from her. The first episode was insanely well executed and it only had 2 characters, Naru and Seishuu, driving it forward, and if anime had less characters but more focus on the remaining character views on the world and personalities, it would come out as a much more enjoyable watch. Now, we have a mixture of characters who are basically the same, for example, the children in the show, apart from getting separated by a quirk or two, all act in the same way. They don't have any unique elements to seperate them apart, they don't have any problems specifically tied to them, and are just there for the main character to have funny interactions with them. Same goes for the teenagers, although they have a little bit more traits separating them from each other. Truth be told, they are plot devices. Moving to a brighter side of the spectrum, we have the main protagonist, Seishuu. He is an extremely generic and cliched character, but receives tons of development as the entire anime is devoted solely to make and show him change. I am not saying that he's a bad character, it's just that he's very uninteresting. We have little to no backstory of him, so we cannot really reflect on it and compare his former, pre-island self to his current self when the anime ends. His rival, Kousuke is another good character and one of the few which are distinctively different from the others. His perspective on the situation stood out and he was definitely a good addition to the cast, fitting into the comedy, but sadly he doesn't receive enough focus. I felt the main problem of the show is that the learning process is one sided. Everything in the anime just dances around the main protagonist, and the end result is that only Seishuu gets reasonable development. The setting itself didn't change at all and wouldn't even notice if the calligrapher never went on the island. The side cast could have learned from the interactions with their Sensei, but they didn't, and I felt that Naru would be the one but she ends up just like the other characters. It really looks like the anime is basically Seishuu and the plot devices, but luckily enough, because of the amazingly executed situations, we won't remember this show for that. Writing: And that is where Barakamon goes on full throttle: the character interactions. They are just absolutely amazing. Despite the fact that the characters aren't unique and they all feel like they were tarred with the same brush, their interactions and dialogues with each other are a joy to watch. This was the best element of the show, which also sets up for some hilarious comedy. It doesn't feel monotone or gets repetitive, since there's tons of side cast characters in the show for Seishuu to have funny conversations with, and they differ every time. As a take on the lives of normal countryside folks, this anime is amazing. The atmosphere is portrayed very realistically and it definitely has a significant presence when you are watching the show. None of the elements are explored much though, as they all serve to the protagonist. Fortunately, lack of elaboration is not so much of a problem, because those tiny bits are indeed executed very well. The comedy, if it's not through character interactions (teenagers + kids with Seishuu or with each other), can be a hit or miss. Anime sometimes tries to force comedy rather than making it splash through the normal flow, and that is especially evident with some specific characters (fujoshi girl's fujoshi, Seishuu's mom). However, the show executes some natural elements really well and use them to great comedy success, like Naru's katakana reading and children's oblivious nature in general, which fits greatly and works to the atmosphere's advantage. Unlike some of the other "slice of life" shows, Barakamon doesn't have any shameless fanservice, and I'm glad that they didn't try to include it with the comedy. One other thing that I would like to mention is how well Barakamon can close its episodes. It feels like there is a climax of epic and cool in each episode right when it's about to end, and you get to listen to the great ED of the show. Unlike shows like Attack On Titan, where it also aims to end the episode on a high note, it doesn't use shock factor or constant cliffhangers. Animation and Sound: The animation is rather simple and typical, uses a lot of bright colors to aid the funny and sweet atmosphere of the show to a degree. The character designs are easily distinguishable from each other and everyone looks different enough to select them out right away (sad that they didn't ACT like that aswell). The calligraphy looks nice but that wasn't enough to get me interested in it. The soundtrack, while not having so much of rememberance, fits the show well with it's "happy-go-lucky" nature. What is great about the sound department is the voice acting. There's so much good to talk about the voice acting that I don't even know where to start. Okay, they actually got kids voicing kids in this show. It feels so real listening to the conversations, they were like a melody to your ears as they also delivered a magnificent performance. And the biggest highlight is the dialect. It made the anime so much better and atmospherical, and was one of the main reasons why dialogues were so well executed and fun to watch. That was an amazing experience, and I'm not exaggerating. The opening is well, cool. Great music with great visuals. Aids to the atmosphere a lot, and is a great introduction to set you up for the ride. Second best opening to Tokyo Ghoul of the summer 2014 season for me, and I guess there's nothing more to say about it. The ending, though, is just magnificent. I already talked about how well Barakamon manages to close out the episodes and this is one of the main reasons why. The overall combination is amazing - you have a great opening song to get you in and a great ending song to escort you out. Summary: Barakamon is one of the few slice of life titles with actual slice of life. It has an amazing atmosphere - one that will be remembered for a while. Lovable characters, even if they're not explored enough individually, create some very enjoyable situations. The comedy is sometimes forced, but never feels repetitive. Not everything is done right in the show, and it does have execution mistakes here and there, but overall, it is a title I would recommend to watch for everyone, either to examine an interesting take on how surroundings change people, or just to relax yourself after a hard day and enjoy the spectacle. Final Verdict: 6.7/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 26, 2014
Zankyou no Terror
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
If you had a tough childhood, blow up an atomic bomb.
Zankyou no Terror is an original psychological thriller show. It is a different take on terrorism, and received massive hype during its airing for supposedly "thrilling" and "realistic" execution. However, what's the anime really about? A couple of kids running around bombing stuff to solve their problems. Plot: A video on the internet regarding a mysterious group called "Sphynx" gets the attention of Japan after unknown people destroy a Tokyo Government building. Nine and Twelve, children with number codenames and the masterminds behind the terrorism act, begin their game of riddles where the result of failure is ... a bomb detonation, while leaving subtle messages behind the bombings. The plot is seemingly very intriguing and unique at first, with the audience starting to wonder what's this all about and what's the point behind it. Sadly, that ends with the premise. Nothing really important happens from the main plot in this show. It's summed up very easily - a bunch of kids are playing a riddle game in hopes for someone to come and solve their problems, all of this with a bomb twist. The way they wanted to make this all happen is incredibly stupid and unlogical, and it just becomes obvious that explosions exist for the sake of explosions. There's no real depth or a message this anime wants to translate: everything is just extremely shallow. We get no idea as to why the main characters wanted to approach the situation this exact way, or how the hell did they manage to do it. It is praised as being "very innovative - exploring the society's problems in a unique way", and dear god that's just so wrong. Despite the popular belief, and that the anime thinks it has that, there's actually no terrorism in this show. "Terror" as a word means "to frighten". "Terrorism" - acts that are intended to create fear, are perpetrated for a religious, political, or ideological goal or for demands. None of these things apply to the show, sans the last one which is so subtly hinted that it is impossible to derive it in such a way without relying on massive amount of plot conveniences. (which this anime uses for god knows how many times). Fear doesn't exist in the show, because there's no global perspective - it feels like the bombings are just an everyday thing and nobody cares much that their lives are constantly in danger. So what do we get? A useless plot element. It is just suprising why the characters don't do the first logical thing possible and instead create an extremely unlikely plan that is almost sure to not work (but because of plot convieniences, that becomes possible) and has the exact same result in the end. Characters: The characters of the show suffer from being one-dimensional and uncharacterized. The main protagonists, Nine and Twelve, have their own personality traits (Twelve being sweet and easy-going, Nine being serious and determined), but that's about it. Their backdrop is hinted to be something extremely horrible, but it is never elaborated in the show. Instead, the fragments of their backstory just randomly inserted, and it is impossible to actually guess the scale of importance of the events in their past until much later in the anime, when it comes off as very disappointing and underwhelming reveal. The main problem with the protagonists, though, are that they just don't fit to be terrorists. The show attempts to please the casual viewers by making the main characters a pair of teenagers that are super smart, but it forgets to also give enough of a motive for them to start doing what they're doing this exact way and not just going to the police and tell them what the hell happened in their past. The pair is joined by Lisa, who receives a lot of attention early on, but nothing happens with her character. She joins the duo simply to be a plot device and to drive the conflict of Five and the protagonists the way the anime wants to it to go. She has her own personal problems, but they're not focused on, and she just comes off as a dull character with a clumsy trait. She receives no reasonable development and apart from one scene, extremely irrelevant to the story, so it's really sad to see the potential and the focus shown to her early on being wasted. Next on we have the antagonist Five. Okay, she is an extremely stupidly written character. Her motives are contradicting, she gets the same cliched antagonist traits and actually is irrelevant to the end result. I personally have no idea why she was needed in the anime, most of the logical inaccuracies happen around her, and she is a fresh air of "generic" in a rather unique anime. The anime just wasn't fit to include a character like her, and that can be witnessed in her last scene in the show which was probably the stupidiest thing I've ever seen in anime this year. The best character of the show is Shibazaki, and he's a friggin plot device. That's how sad it is. He is the "plot convienience" Sphynx was searching for to fulfill their insanely unlogical and impossible plan. Shibazaki gets some character development, has some sort of a character backstory that is somewhat believable and reflects on his current character quite well, but he gets pushed into a side role after Five is introduced. His personal drama wasn't elaborated much, but he was the only character on which "the rule of cool" worked. It was much more enjoyable and believable to watch him solve the riddles than witnessing Sphynx presenting them (why so serious?) The side cast doesn't really exist in this show. Everything revolves around 4 (5 with Shibazaki's sidekick) characters in a story that actually has the entire population of Tokyo in direct influence. All other characters are just plot devices that are there to assume a certain position and for the anime to have realism in this aspect, but they are completely irrelevant. And since the next segment is going to talk about how there's no realism in this show at all, the above point becomes moot. Writing: And here we go. The most pretentious anime of the year. Let's start off with the impossibilities. It is IMPOSSIBLE to have no casualties after you destroy such a massive building. 9/11 had around 300 people killed on ground level, excluding the firefighters which is another 300. Total number of injured people was 7000. Here, we have no casualties even though the entire evacuated group happened to be next to the building when it exploded, and a mere 50 injuries. That's just so bullshit and immediately kills any immersion. You have a girl jumping from the 4th floor on the ground and she doesn't even get her legs broken, let alone a scratch or bruise? Are you seriously telling me two teenagers stole a friggin atomic bomb from a mass security nuclear facility? And are you seriously telling me the government took 0 actions to find out more about that and locate the stolen bomb before the attacks started happening? And it's just the first episode, guys. There's atleast dozen occurences of straight up impossible and illogical bullshit in every episode. It slows down between the second and the fourth episode, and that's where I thought the anime could actually be good but shit hits the fan again when Five is introduced and we witness the greatest chess game ever - using airport terminals. Moving on to the riddles, the whole method is stupid and over the top. The duo needed the exact guy who was willing to research them this exact way, and they found a guy not only willing to do that but who was also a part of an incident which involved someone affiliated with their problem - what are the odds! We are never shown how they plant their bombs or how they manage to create them - everything already seems to be completed and in place and then we just need to wait for a boom. The pair are terrorists, but it was cringe-worthy watching them go nuts over a bomb which couldn't be defused, and that they could be labeled as murderers. The fact is that if this anime followed any string of proper logic, they would already be murderers at the very first bombing. The thriller part is done very, very weakly. The whole thriller is that the audience doesn't know what the characters know but don't reveal because TENSION! That's not thrilling to watch, that's just f*cking frustrating. Their whole story is very predictable, it is very obvious that something happened in their childhood and they wanted revenge but there wasn't enough motive to start blowing stuff up, as the scale of events in their childhood wasn't so bad or shocking, and they were probably too young to understand all that. We have no information on what happened inbetween their childhood and the present events, and the duo talks like the Rising Hope Academy thing happened yesterday, when in reality anyone would most likely forget it over time (and sure as hell wouldn't start blowing up the city). The anime tries to make everything complex and mature and deep but everything comes out so messy that even a 10 year old child could write a more fluent script than this. There is just way too much to talk about in this section, but I need to keep this short enough and not to spoil anything. The anime is not clever, it is pretentious. It tries to be something that it's not, and tries to be something that it fails to be. Since the show relies solely on being "logical" and "thrilling", if there are no other elements to get hooked to, you simply cannot enjoy this show because it's not "logical" and "thrilling". The only thing that is positive and worth mentioning is that there's no fanservice in this show. The comedy is very very little but it doesn't fit, but because there's almost none of it that's not a problem. Animation and Sound: Credit will be given where credit is due. Animation looks salad in this one, especially the explosions. The character designs are okay, although Five looks like a clown for some reason. What I would like to talk about more is the soundtrack. Yoko Kanno nails one yet again. It is the best soundtrack of the year, with amazing piano arrangements and dramatical music fitting perfectly with the atmosphere. Standalone songs, such as "Hanna", are just amazing to listen. Overall, soundtrack is the only thing I really enjoyed in this show, and I have no complaints and arguments against it. The sound is also well made, the explosions sound realistically, especially in the last episode. The only complaint I have in the sound department is the awful Engrish and subpar voice acting in general, although Shunsuke Sakuya did a good job voicing Shibazaki. The opening to the show is beautifully animated with decent music, but strangely enough, it doesn't fit with the anime at all. What is overlooked is the ending to the anime, which is simply animated but has some beautiful music and I ended up enjoying it way more than the opening. Summary: Zankyou No Terror is the definition of a pretentious anime, and a victim of the Code Geass R2 syndrome. It is overhyped because it is "different" in execution and the themes. Mind if I tell you, that being "unique" is not automatically being "good"? It has an amazing soundtrack, but I suggest just buying the OST album instead of watching this, if it's just for the music. Overall, a disapponting watch, but if you want something pretentiously clever you could check this out. Final Verdict: 3.9/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 25, 2014
Free! Eternal Summer
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
There is a limit to how much weight can a single shark lift.
Free!: Eternal Summer is a sports comedy slice of life show and a direct sequel to the first season, Free!. It is a reverse moe trope anime, with moe tropes found in girls given to the guys instead. Usually dubbed as a fanservice show for girls with swimming as a backdrop, does it have anything more in it? The answer is yes, it does, but not so much. Plot: Another summer comes and the swimmers of Iwatobi and Samezuka High School swimming clubs are once again in a rivalry. It is the last school year ... for Haruka, Makoto and Rin, and they have to make their career decisions and find out how much the passion of swimming can help them in the future, all in meanwhile an old childhood friend of Rin's appear to spice up the situation. The plot is pretty simple: the characters start swimming and battling each other again while some of them sort out their personal problems and look forward to the future. The problem is though that KyoAni forgot how to make good drama. We witnessed that in Chuunibyo, we now witness that here. The anime fails to have a clear indication of what it wants to be, hovering around fanservice, sports and drama, and does neither well. The main plot element of the story, swimming, is not of much relevance, since the only thing driving it are characters wanting to swim a relay (which by definition is stupid and more on that later on), and is done horribly wrong, and as a sports anime it fails to create a climax and general hype. Characters: The cast from the first season returns with some new additions and a little bit more development on some, so I'll introduce them shortly: Nagisa, Makoto, Rei, Gou (Kou), Miho on the Iwatobi side, Aiichirou, Momotarou on the Samezuka side are the basic one dimensional characters that can be described by a pair of personality/motivation traits, and are used mainly as plot devices, comic reliefs or assumes a cliched position (like teachers/mentors in Gou and Miho). That's a lot of characters. That's 6 characters in a show that has like 10 total characters that are atleast relevant of some sort. Excluding Makoto, none of these characters get any development apart from simply getting better at swimming (but there's no perspective provided, so that point is irrelevant). Next on the list is Sousuke, a new (old) Rin's friend. His personal drama was the best in the show, and he is the only character where I could understand why he wants to swim the relay so much. Sousuke is a nice addition to the anime, helping the 2 mains develop and having enough characterization for the audience to care about him aswell. Moving forward we have Haru. Oh, I personally hate him so much. As the main protagonist he is extremely shallow and unimportant to the story for the most part. The problem with all silent protagonists is that usually they don't show any emotions, meaning that there's no room for characterization from their perspective. You just don't who they are exactly, you can't relate, you can't care for them. "I like swimming because I don't know exactly" doesn't give me enough information to care for you. However, Haru's lack of emotions did not go unnoticed by the rest of the cast and ended up being a prrety decent plot point to spark things up. Fortunately, Rin saved him by dragging him to Australia and telling to develop the f*ck up, and he did. And it was actually believable. It doesn't change the fact that he was the worst character for 20 episodes, but he got a legit ending for him and is one of the rare cases where the silent protagonist turns out okay. And here we have Rin, by far the best character in the show. He gets a huge amount of characterization, development, and backstory. In contrast to the other one (or at max two) dimensional characters of the show, he is miles ahead of them. There's nothing so much to talk about him, other than everything makes sense in regards to his character and personalization. All of his actions are completely reasonable and reflect on who he was, who he is now and what he wants in the future. However, he can only do so much alone, and he's not even the main protagonist, only a deuteragonist and even an anti-hero in the first season. If the anime was centered around him, boy that would have ended up so much better. The problem with most of the characters again is the lack of characterization. The members on each team exist solely to form a relay, and otherwise are irrelevant. Motivation alone is not proper characterization, that's just a personality quirk. Some of them are so shallow, like Rei and Momo, that it is safe to say that they are just plot devices. Also, their girlish behaviour to reflect on the reverse moe nature of the show just doesn't work. All those blushes and cute moments should be left to girls, as it ruins other aspects of the show that are rather serious, like coming out of age. Furthermore, there's only like 10 characters in the show, the rest are 0 dimensional people that are there for the realism. Where are the other swimmers? Why is it only focused on 8 people when there are thousands of different kind of athletes? Global perspective? The perspective of the best? Nah, those don't exist. Sadly. Writing: And the swimming is as bullshit as ever. KyoAni, if you wanted to make a sports anime about swimming, please research on what the hell you are trying to create, because swimming does not work that way at all. It reminds me of NASA using the "Armageddon" movie as a training program, where they asked the trainees to present all the scientific inaccuracies in a 150 minute film. A total number was 168. In this anime, I counted atleast 60, and with the first season combined that would be well over 100 swimming inaccuracies. That is, ladies and gentlemen, a lot. It's so much that you can safely say that the swimming is executed poorly and without any logic. Having a 12 year (and counting) swimming career experience, this completely destroys any enjoyment I could possibly have had from the races and swimming bits in general, and it saddens me that this anime disgraces swimming so much with its inaccuracy. I will tell you right now, don't get the idea that this sport works like that because it definitely doesn't. It's not K-On where everyone can just take a guitar and form a band, it takes years and years of proper practice and only the select few are successful, something that this anime failed to show us. Moving on, the comedy is pretty simple. We have two comic reliefs on each side, Momo and Nagisa (Nagi is more of a pseudo). The jokes are mostly reactional, like Gou glancing over muscles, the teacher giving her literacy analogies, Nagisa's playful personality induced character interactions, basic stuff that can be assigned to be a specific character trait (sadly some of the characters are only defined by that single trait). It is not distracting, and it is funny and nice at times, so the comedy's fine. The drama is sometimes mishandled by a long shot (Nagisa runs away from home), or sometimes hits right on the spot (Sousuke's struggles), but the biggest problem is that it is not focused enough, and the anime is not long enough to cover and expand on every plot element. They did have 25 episodes over two seasons but only Rin is the one that got enough focus as an actual character. There are a couple of illogical things in the show not regarding swimming (as much as I loved episode 12, them going to Australia was just whaaaat in terms of logic), but for the most part it's okay, since the anime doesn't try to have deep and complex situations and instead restricts itself to simple problems. There are no parents in this show (again), apart for them being mentioned, and I already wrote once that parents are an important piece to developing the personality of the characters, as they are typically the ones that influence children the most, and that especially applies in a coming out of age anime such as this one, where our characters face a dillema of what the future holds for them. As for the actual competition, they overuse the "power of friendship" way too much and that symbolism sometimes destroys immersion (like the last episode.... yes, I came to see them swimming with the dolphins, totally) Animation and Sound: Once again, KyoAni gets the animation done right. It's always a pleasure for the eyes to watch works animated by this company. I have a slight problem with how swimming is animated though, as everyone swims exactly the same and there's no variety at all, and on top of that the hand movements do not look like how it is presented in the show. It doesn't have much of an effect of those who don't know swimming that much, but it is a problem for those who have been a part of competitive swimming or follow the competitive scene. The character designs are okay, except the fact that they made Rin's teeth like that to show us that he's kind of an antagonist in the first season, and that totally goes out of character in the second one. The blushes and cute boys doing cute stuff is well, reverse moe thing, you can't say much against it but they don't do anything to serve the narrative. The soundtrack is unmemorable, the sound itself is pretty okay. The swimming sounds well and that's about it, nothing much to talk about here. What I could talk about though is the amazing decision to hire Aussie voice actors that speak with an Australian accent instead of getting some local japs to do their bad English gibberish impersonations. That was one of the highlights of the show for me and I was just stunned at the amazing English that was spoken here, something that is very rare. That bit alone made the Australia episode so much better (and one of the reasons why I liked that episode in particular so much) The first OP for the show is very manly but otherwise forgettable, same with the second ED where instead of that you get fanservice pondering, cool but uninteresting. They made it better in the first season. Summary: Free!: Eternal Summer is a rare case of a show which not only does the first season justice, but actually surpasses it (well, the first season was below average anyways). If the swimming was executed well it would have been a really good anime, sadly that wasn't the case. Apart from the KyoAni visuals style and fanservice for girls, there's really no reason to watch this series. Everything has been done elsewhere and better. Still, this might be your average jack-of-all trades anime where nothing stands out (and some elements stand out as bad), but overall you find it enjoyable enough to follow. Final Verdict: 5.2/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 23, 2014
Ao Haru Ride
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
Welcome to the Vanilla cafe. Would you like to pre-order a vanilla pudding with vanilla toppings from our vanilla menu?
Ao Haru Ride is a shoujo romance slice of life manga adaptation of the same name. It follows a story of a curious high-schooler girl wishing to find out what happened to her crush from three years ago and why did he change. It has "generic" and Kimi ni Todoke written all over it just from looking at the cover, and going deeper, it further proves this statement. Plot: Futaba Yoshioka is your average 1st year in high school, who wishes to change herself and find new friends. ... She stumbles across her middle school crush, Kou Tanaka, who has changed his name to Kou Mabuchi. Shocked to find his personality completely changed, she starts testing her feelings for him, all in attempt to find out what happened to his old self. The premise screams vanilla and generic all over the place, and it is just as it looks. It is your average shoujo romance with a double unrelated love triangle introduced later on. There is just nothing driving the romance forward and it uses cheap gimmicks in an attempt to move it further but it is really an uninteresting story once you get familiar with the characters. The main love triangle feels very artificial and is only there to make some progress, and the secondary love triangle isn't explored at all. The plot devices the anime introduce to kickstart an event are quickly forgotten. And, in the end, nothing happens. It is extremely predictable from the very start and not engaging. However, for an anime that is entirely character-driven, plot shortcomings aren't as important as in other shows. Characters: The story follows a group of 5 teenagers. Starting from the worst, we have Murao, a silent and self-centered girl that later is not like that, for some reasons hardly mentioned. She is bland and uninteresting, but is a main piece of the second love triangle, as Kominato has a crush on her, and she has a crush on Kou's brother, Tanaka-sensei. Kominato himself is just a friendly and energetic guy, nothing else to say about him, he's not relevant at all. Yuuri is a shy but sweet girl who is a piece of the main love triangle, but it feels like she is just a plot device thrown in to escalate the plot. She has some sort of characterization and personality though, so she's not a bad character per se, but really underwhelming going against the main duo. Tanaka-sensei, Kou's brother, is an important character in Kou's personal drama and life and manages to have some good characterization in relatively short screen time. And here we have our main duo, with the main protagonist Futaba going first. Futaba is a rather curious and gentle girl who has a crush on Kou but starts questioning her feelings after meeting him, after she got supposedly dumped by him several years ago, and circles around Kou to find out more about his changed personality. Futaba is not a great character by herself, as she is rather simple and two dimensional at most, but the best part about her is that she makes some great character interactions with Kou and the rest of the squad. There's nothing special about her, but she is the one that moves the story forward entirely by herself. Kou is the best character in the series, surprisingly because he acts as a pseudo-plot device for Futaba. His personal drama and personality change is done very, very well and is the biggest highlight of the show. He has an "I don't care" mentality and acts like a typical jerk, but for some reason the group constantly tries to get along with him instead of leaving him alone. His story was predictable, but executed well after all, and is the only part of the show that didn't come off as bland and boring. (like the rest of the show) For a character driven show, only two characters are relevant to the story at all. And that is really bad. At first you would have some sort of hope that you get to see a lot of interesting character interactions and different approaches to romance from different characters and how they react and develop from it but in reality, once you get familiar with the characters (around half of the show), all of them, except for Futaba and Kou (and plot device Yuuri) become completely irrelevant. And that is not how an anime should treat its cast. There was a limit to how much Kou and his story could have carried the rest of the show, and he alone couldn't quite reach the top. Writing: For the comedy, it is simple reactional stuff over and over again. Something happens, characters react and you are supposed to laugh. Basic, but it actually works better here than other shows since you have some sort of attachment to characters and most of the comedy comes from at times funny interactions between Futaba and Kou. There's no fanservice to keep you interested, and although it doesn't ruin the narrative by being there, which is a good thing, the show actually got boring mid-way through so I don't know, maybe they should have had that? There's not so much slice of life to talk about, but Futaba's wish to not be labeled as an outcast once she experiences that in middle school is done quite decently and worth mentioning (along with Yuuri's situation, although she is just ruined later on) There aren't any obvious writing mistakes, apart from the extreme overuse of wind in dramatic or tense situations, but I would like to mention that the show rather quickly and completely forgets a rather interesting plot device in "making the main cast the class representatives" which could have sparked some more interesting situations to happen. The anime didn't use the potential of some of the introduced elements and instead went along with the most generic and uninspiring way possible - a completely vanilla romance with no backdrops or anything else for you to care about. Didn't like the romance? Tough luck, there's nothing else for you here. Animation and Sound: There's nothing so much to talk about the animation, the art looks good but the chibi-looking face expressions were sometimes unnecessary and distracting, and made the show's comedy look like trying too hard. The soundtrack is worth mentioning as having a few emotional pieces and rather well timed songs. It is easily the best technical aspect of the show, and you should look forward to the official soundtrack release. Another mention is Yuki Kaji in his role of Kou, which was executed outstandingly. I rather have him voicing these kind of characters rather than screamy kids (Eren, Satomi), cause here he can unfold his full potential. Summary: Ao Haru Ride is just an extremely cliched and generic title. The execution is decent, however it could have been better, but there are just no other hooks or interesting elements or setting to keep you interested, and it gets boring half-way through unless you absolutely love the characters. Not everyone's the same though. If you like Shoujo romances, then it's definitely a watch. It is not a bad show, but it is not a good one either. It is right down the middle, and that's why it deserves the rating it gets. Final Verdict - 5.3/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 21, 2014
Aldnoah.Zero
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
"Let Justice be done, though the trainwreck rolls."
Aldnoah.Zero is an original sci-fi mecha anime about an intergalactic war between Terrans and Martians. It was highly anticipated because of the superstar names under the ones who made the show, A-1 Pictures, Gen Urobuchi as the original story creator and script writer and Hiroyuki Sawano making the soundtrack. However, the creators and hype don't guarantee a good anime, and we witnessed that in full bloom here. Plot: After a Martian princess Asseylum Vers Allusia comes to Earth in attempt to form a friendly bond between Terrans (Earth habitants) and Martians (Mars habitants), she is assasinated during a parade. Outraged ... Martians launch a massive attack from Mars to Earth in attempt to annihilate all Terrans. The story follows a group of students with a military unit as they try to survive the war against the superior Martian mechas, Aldnoahs. The war plot is fine for the most part, but there supposedly was another war 15 years before the events of the show which ended with massive consequences. The Earth is already in an apocalyptic setting, but there's no exploration of it at all. The anime starts destroying the setting in the very first episode without any establishment at all. The results? You don't care about what's going on! The story is extremely predictable. It was sure as hell that the princess survived, and that Martians themselves participated in the assasination. The show attempts to have tension, in the early episodes following a "villain of the week" format. The problem is in the extreme differences in mecha power, with Aldnoahs basically wiping the floor, so it takes a lot of plot armor for our protagonists to overcome the enemies. So much that you barely care what's going on, because no matter what the odds are, our heroes always win. Characters: I've mentioned "you don't care what's going on" a few times in this review already. Well, this is the section where everything starts going downhill, with the characters. Billions of people die, but our heroes don't care at all. They witness a genocide right infront of their eyes, but the level of apathy shown was so high I didn't think it was even possible. The worst care scenario is Inaho Kaizuka, the main protagonist. I really thought his lack of emotions or personality was a plot point and there would be an explanation as to why he doesn't give a shit when his friends die infront of his face, but there wasn't. He is a silent super smart guy that wins battles using anime's insanely stupid logic and flawed physics, and forms a sub-harem with chicks he travels with, because girls must be interested in the main character at all times for no reasons given. Moving forward, we have Inko, Calm and Nina, completing the student group, once again having surprising level of lack of emotion, but not so much as Inaho. Yuki Kaizuka is the overprotective nee-san of Inaho, who also acts as a bridge of connections for the group to get into the military unit. Rayet is another girl that joins the fleet later on, and she was part of the group that was told to assasinate the princess, but her father is slaughtered infront of her eyes and all she does is blink. Lieutenant Marito was the most laughable attempt of character development through PTSD I've seen in this show and anime in general for a long time, the potential he had from episode 1 was huge but he ends up being completely irrelevant. Ending the 0 to 1 dimensional characters is Magbaredge, the unit's leader. Things are more interesting in the Martian side, where we have a deuteragonist Slaine acting as the protagonist there. He formed a bond with the princess being her teacher about Earth, but even he is a one dimensional character whose sole purpose seems to be saving the princess, and having a one to two personality traits. Saazbaum is a plot device, has some sort of reason behind his actions but they're not explored. Princess Asseylum was the best character of the show, as she is the only one who gives a shit about people dying everywhere and has some sort of personality. The villains of the week of the Martian sides are just 0 dimensional dolls that have insanely high amount of pride and disgust for weaklings and they all lose because of that. So much potential wasted! The problem with the characters is that you just don't care about them. Most of them are just emotionless puppets or plot devices that are there to just be there or just to move the story forward. Marito, Saazbaum and Asseylum were the only ones who had some sort of internal conflicts and were the only ones who were affected by this tragedy and that had influence on their actions (and not that they had lots of time to get decent amount of exploration considering everything that was going on), but the rest of the cast? Genocide is an everyday thing, guys! It doesn't even help the characters that they get Urobutchered in the end, it was just a sad attempt to create drama and tragedy. Writing: And here we get to the most awful part of the show. The writing is just ludicrous. There are millions of instances of plot inconsistencies and defying logic of physics and common sense, so much that you cannot take it seriously. Plot holes were just glaring throughout the entire anime, and even if the anime does get a second season in attempt to gloss them over, they just destroy any sort of fluid continuity or attempts to care about the situation when they just flip it over 360 degrees with introducing a new plot device or solving the issue with deus-ex-machina. The characters don't help either, there is no global perspective of humanity and what do they do in this situation, or how was their life inbetween the wars. Everything that we know comes from the characters that the story follows, and they are just awfully apathic, effectively making everything useless. If the characters don't care, neither does the audience care. All of the battles between the Terran fleet and the Aldnoahs consist of the Martian Knights being overconfident, playing a "cat and mouse" game and getting Jerry'ed. One moment they destroy entire cities just upon landing, and in another moment they get shot from a pistol and explode. It is extremely hard to take fights seriously with such huge power disparity between sides, with the weaker side winning all the time because of defying logic of physics or just because of plot convieniences. Not to mention, the Aldnoah concepts of power are extremely stupid with such advanced technology of theirs that they just can't crush a piece of metal can that is a normal mecha the Terrans use. The audience is led to believe that the Aldnoahs are supremely powerful, but that never happens in the fights for some reason. At this point, I just wanted the writing crew to try and save the fights by introducing a super-powerful mecha equal to Aldnoahs to give to the main protagonist and try to have cliched, but atleast logically reasonable battles. However, the anime does stay away from unneccesary fanservice and doesn't try to have comedy out of place. They do have a pseudo-comic relief character in Calm, but the themes are not butchered because of it: it is trying to be a mature story without any distractions, and they do a good job at telling a story without the need to throw boobs at you every 5 seconds to keep you interested. Animation and sound: I have to give credit where credit is due, though. Animation looks really solid in this one. The character designs are okay, the mecha designs are okay. Even the CGI looks fluid, to be honest. However, sometimes (and especially the last episode) the action is just so quick you barely know what the hell is going on, what was damaged and what was not. It should have toned down the tempo during fights so you can clearly see what happened or what is about to happen, because considering the power inequality between sides you may reach to wrong conclusions after an attack happens. Hiroyuki Sawano is often found guilty for overusing the same tracks over and over again in the soundtrack. He did it with Shingeki, he did it with Kill La Kill, and Aldnoah is no exception. However, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The grandiose scale style of Sawano's music fits perfectly with the action, and it was one of the main reasons I still followed this show after so many shortcomings. And yes, he uses a lot of German lyrics in this one too. The opening sequence is pretty basic, it has nice visuals but a really generic and lackluster music to go with, it gives a big Fate/Zero vibe. The ED to the show, "aLIEz", is Sawano's one of the best tracks created, and it especially fit in the demolition part of episode 1. The other ED, A/Z, is pretty basic and unmemorable. Summary: Aldnoah.Zero is a rather failed attempt at creating an exciting mecha battle show with tragedy, as it is lackluster in both of the categories. It ends in Urobutcher's style, on a cliffhanger, and barely resolves anything. As with all Urobutcher shows, a proper characterization of the cast is non-existant. The second season is scheduled to air in January 2015, so atleast that has going for it, which is nice, but in all honesty, after this first season there shouldn't be lots of expectations going forward. It is just an another anime with overblown hype, with medium thinking that famous names grant a well made work. They don't. And I only enjoyed the soundtrack, and which is the only good thing this anime can provide. Final Verdict: 4.2/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 19, 2014
Tokyo Ghoul
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
Please tell me, what is the monster inside of me?
Tokyo Ghoul is a dark action supernatural manga adaptation of the same name. It was one of the more hyped anime for the 2014 Summer season, due to the success of the manga and the proposed themes. It is an another take on the survival sub-genre, one that is really popular nowadays in the West, however fails to have a clear direction of where it wants to go with it. Plot: After a ghoul - monster that has superpowers and devour humans for living - attack, Ken Kaneki overgoes a surgery that makes him a half-ghoul, half-human ... creature with one red eye. He must become accustomed to the new world he's thrown in, as the tensions in 20th Ward arise with increased ghoul and dove - ghoul investigator - activity. The plot is pretty basic and simple but the premise looks really promising and you expect it would deliver a thrilling experience on what it takes to be a ghoul and how to survive in the cruel world. And that's where it ends. Soon enough it turns out to be a ghoul gang turf beef anime where the "good" and the "bad" ghouls fight each other for territory while the "police", the doves, try to eliminate them, and it starts playing out as a shonen. The psychological aspect of the show, after the first three episodes, quickly becomes forgotten. Kaneki's demised encounter is made to be just an excuse to introduce us to the ghoul world, so much that he almost acts as a plot device. The anime tries waaay too much at the same time, introducing plot devices and characters that hardly get any explanation at all. They desperately wanted to include everything in the show, focusing on nothing specifically and ending incomplete. There's no direction, hardly any foreshadowing, and everything is just a big mess. There are a couple of distinguishable arcs but but they overlap each other and don't seem to have any significant importance. The ghouls are made to be either "good" or "bad", the good ones being ones that don't kill people but instead eat the already dead ones, and bad ones being those who kill for fun, and are just made to be bad so the characters could disagree and hate them and spark up conflicts. It could have been an interesting ideology and morality clash between sides but yet again, the series fail to flesh out the aspect. Characters: Tokyo Ghoul is one of the rare anime that I would safely tell that the main character is the best one. Ken Kaneki, the protagonist, is just your everyday student, and then everything changes when the ghoul nation attacks. He is dubbed a half-human, half-ghoul creature, and acts sort of a bridge between two worlds. Sadly, that aspect is not focused on, and he doesn't seem to have much importance in the story as he's just a throw-in piece to get the audience accustomed to what is going on. What is good about him though is that he develops a pseudo-double personality, with Rize, the eccentric ghoul that tried to kill him but died instead and got her organs replaced with Ken's, acting as the ghoul part of him, and Ken acting as the human part. The double-personality part is really well done, but didn't receive enough time. Then we have your obligatory cliched characters that you'll quickly forget: Touka, the female interest and a pseudo-tsundere that has the most development out of the rest of the cast, but otherwise unimportant; Amon, a dove that acts as a representative for the rest of the investigator squad and is the only other character that receives significant development, when his motives for killing ghouls and the view on ghouls are questioned; Mado, a one dimensional villain dove that kills ghouls because he thinks they must be eliminated; and a ton of other insignificant one-dimensional characters or villains that are just there to catalyze the story forward. In all honesty, the side cast of Tokyo Ghoul is the worst part of the show. There are maybe 2-3 characters that are important to the story at most, the rest are completely irrelevant, in addition to being one dimensional. The bad ghouls are all made to be sadists: there's absolutely no variety between them, and no backdrop as to why they are like that. Meanwhile, the good guys only show up to infodump you or to save the protagonists, and have no personalities of their own. Tragedy is an important part of the themes and the story and it is quite frequent in the anime but it is really hard to care for characters you barely know about. Writing: I wouldn't say that Tokyo Ghoul has bad writing but it's certainly below average. There are plenty of inconsistencies and jumps in story telling, and quite a few things that don't make sense at all. For the first couple of episodes where the anime was still slow, writing was decent, but they dropped the ball the moment the gladiator show was introduced. There is no ground level perspective presented: even though the main character is a representative of both human and ghoul societies, we are not given any idea on how ordinary humans feel about being killed everyday by superior species. It plays out as just a normal and obvious thing and no one seems to worry much about ghouls' existence. Since the story is focused on so much and yet on nothing, lots of interesting plot devices left unexplained and you only know about how they work based on assumptions. For example, Quinques, the weapons that ghoul investigators use, are supposedly from Kagune, a ghoul's organ that acts as a superpower, but it's not explained on how they are able to use them, how exactly do they get them or why. The ghoul's nature is hardly explained as well, resorting to a simple "they need human flesh to survive" explanation, even though their Kagune is a very cool and interesting superpower. The limits to said superpowers and varieties are not mentioned. As for the genres and atmosphere, Tokyo Ghoul manages to create tension rather successfully - it doesn't have shameless fanservice or stupid comedy just for the sake of it, and tries its best to deliver the message (again problem being that there's just far too many messages to be delivered). There's not so much of a mystery though, since there is no foreshadowing and lots of things are introduced on the bat that you have to care about or you won't be able to understand what's going on, therefore there's not many expectations that some big revelations are about to show up later on. Animation and sound: There was a huge hiatus going on when the show aired regarding its massive censors on gore. Yes, that was actually a big thing. The censors killed a lot of fun, and it was a mandatory for a dark, almost horror anime to have excessive gore, because there were more than enough reasons to have them. It's not like the gore happened off screen - it was blurred out with black or even worse - changing the color palette to full green whenever a gruesome fight scene occured when it was impossible to just blur our the gore. I thought a lot about how much gore was needed for this anime and how much should we care that it was presented this way, but from a storytelling point of view it's not too much of a worry since you definitely know that gory stuff is going on, you just don't see them. The animation itself during fights is well done, especially in the final episode. Character designs are made to look really emo, which coincidentally plays out to the advantage of the dark atmosphere. The voice acting is decent, with Miyano Mamoru pulling off an exceptional performance voicing the gourmet ghoul. The music is pretty okay, no stand out pieces but they do fit in the situation. All in all, apart from the censors, art and sound don't have anything wrong in them. About the opening and ending, the ED is very basic and generic with a couple of still-frames of the characters changing while the song plays. However, the OP is currently the best of the year - it has AMAZING animation and exceptional music, and does everything that a good OP should do - mirror the atmosphere of the anime and foreshadow the characters. It is more emotional than the anime itself, and I definitely recommend to check it out. Summary: Tokyo Ghoul draws many comparisons to Deadman Wonderland, but it's much better in execution (that's not saying much though). It has a lot of interesting ideas but there's none that are given enough focus. The manga fans are screaming that the adaptation ruined the franchise, as the original material is actually very slow compared to the "too fast" anime version. It should have had atleast a dozen episodes more to avoid being so rushed. This again proves why 2 cour anime are usually superior to 1 cour. Even so, it still was one of my favourite anime of the season, because tastes, and not because it was objectively good (because it was not). If you like survival genre, or dark settings in general, you could check this out, although don't expect much. Final Verdict - 4.6/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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