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Jun 27, 2016
Sailor Mars Crystal Season 3 is much more than our sailor scouts fighting evil by moonlight or winning love by daylight.
This show offers enjoyment beyond pressing your face against your mousepad trying to peak up a sailor skirt, as though it were a VR anime. The "Death Buster" arc is without a doubt one of the most entertaining arcs in the iconic series. It is pretty obvious that Toei cared more about this season compared to previous seasons of Sailor Mars Crystal.
This arc is one of the favorites of any fan. I remember watching Sailor Moon S and welcoming the new scouts into
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my dorky little heart. Crystal Season 3 makes me relive all those feelings from long ago. Uranus and Neptune are the newest stars in this part of the story. They had their planet blown up many years ago and they are lesbian lovers. They are as close as they can get. They share the same burden and want their princess Usagi to live in peace. The outer planet scouts want to help the main scouts, but they would rather front all the work and do things their own way. They have a strong determination and work well together because they are strong. Pluto works with Uranus and Neptune because she is a fellow outer planet scout. Pluto agrees with using the same stern methods and she is one who wants to get the job done as efficiently as possible, even if there are innocent lives taken. The main scouts want to work with the outer planets and have no unnecessary deaths. The two ideologies could not coalesce and there became an underlying hate towards the two factions. The depth of the two factions is predominantly over the treatment of Sailor Saturn. The Deity of Destruction (Dave Mustaine of Megadeath would be pleased with her nickname) has the power to destroy planets and she was the one who destroyed the home of Uranus and Neptune. Sailor Saturn is a martyr character done correctly. She is more than the "I'm going to sit here and whine" martyr. She gets work done. She fights the beast that takes over her body. She handles the way her father experimented on her in a good way. She smiled very little, but it was always at emotional parts. It is awesome that more people will be exposed to these characters in Crystal Season 3.
Thank you Toei for caring about this season. Do not get me wrong, Toei is still Toei. I am convinced not a single person at the entire studio can draw ankles. My favorite pair of ankles belongs to Sailor Venus while she is posing after her transformation. Chickens would ask her if she skipped leg day. Then there is a funny part at the end where Sailor Moon repairs the city and Tuxedo Mask says something like "She is repairing the city" while the city behind him is in shambles. Thank you Toei for having the watercolor-style backgrounds that we were used to seeing in the original series. I love seeing Usagi's house look like it did in the first couple season of the show. I love the absence of CG. The girls had no respect for bones in the first 2 seasons of Crystal and they were not only flexible like rubber, they had the same luminosity. This eyesore has been remedied and redone with 2-D drawings and they do the show justice. When you are watching repeated scenes, you need to have those scenes be the best they can. Toei delivered on the repeating scenes and every single move was beautiful to watch. The attacks were taken to a new level. Yeah, Sailor Mars is always the best. The snake-eyes along with the black jagged lines scene is awesome every time. They did such a great job on making the attacks look good that Sailor Mercury looks like a badass. Yeah, mission accomplished on that one.
I am happy to see this show get love and attention. I plan on reading work by Naoko Takeuchi because I am a fan of the Sailor Moon series. I am happy to be getting teased for a next season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jun 19, 2016
Remember when "Lost" (American Live Action Series) became an omelette of horrible ideas? "Bus Show" creators must have thought that was good writing and made a show out of it.
*Spoiler Alert*
The cast is one of many assaults on one's sanity. The characters as I recall are listed like this: Harem Gay, Harem Gay's Best Friend, Love Interest (sometimes Bow Girl), Pikachu, Uzi Chick, Military Guy, Pirate Jack, Other Jack, Larry (refer to Phoenix Wright), Execute Girl, Soy Latte (actual name), Small Beard, and Black Dude. There are a ton of other people, but no one cares. This show damned itself by having such a large
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cast in such a small show. There were attempts to make us relate to and like this enormous cast. Unfortunately, you cannot have character development or character-viewer relations built between so many people as quickly as they tried to make this happen. They failed at both jobs.
How are all these interesting people together in the same place? They took the bus to a village where they wanted to make a commune of dysfunctional kids. This village is something something Nanaki something something ghosts from your past something something giant tit. Yes, a literal giant tit haunted Military Guy. He is not the only guy with a stupid background and a stupid spirit/inner demon. Our resident hard-ass Small Beard is terrified of Thomas the Tank Engine with googly eyes because he was laughed during work because his failed plans. The giant penguin and Horde mount are debatably the most legitimate inner fears. The sheer amount of stupid ideas made me feel like a brain surgeon was giving me a noogie with grip tape. It hurts.
The only hope for the show after episode 2/3 was to go full slasher flick. Cheesy slasher flicks are easy to execute and no one expects a good twist at the end. Instead Black Dude isn't actually dead. He was talking to a guy he called God who was a researcher on the village because he was interested in bullshit. He could have studied manure and accomplish more than what he did.
In the very end after everyone made peace with their inner demons and after one of the kids have to say that it is some random chick that was the bad guy all along, because they didn't specify that well enough, they sang a song called the Unlucky Hippopotamus. That is what every unfortunate viewer of the show is. An Unlucky Hippopotamus. Congrats.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Apr 11, 2016
“Ajin” is the “Batman: Arkham Knight” (PC) of anime.
This show is broken. The show visually assaults your eyes. Visuals are important in visual entertainment. Dismissing visuals in visual entertainment is like dismissing food at a restaurant. You may be influenced to go somewhere because the service rocks, but you won’t go if the food is horrible. The visuals are incompetent at best. I’m going to put this in terms that many people on this site will understand. Some gaming companies restrict games to 30 frames per second (FPS) because they want their game to be more “cinematic”. People complain that games below 30 FPS is
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not suitable for many games. Frame rates under 30 FPS is regarded as a sign of lacking quality. “Ajin” took this concept of low frames as being cinematic and ran with it. They tried to be super cinematic with frame rates dipping below 10 FPS. In scientific terms, this does not even pass the critical flicker fusion frequency. Human eyes/brains register 24 FPS as a fluid motion. Movies are usually shot in 24 FPS and repeat frames to synthesize a 30 FPS motion. Please have the courtesy of doing a little research and finding out what the bare minimum is for entertainment targeted for humans. This is the first time I have ever had a headache after watching something. The manga has more frames per second than this horrible adaptation.
The show is so horribly animated that the studio acknowledges their professional impotence. I’m not talking about how the 5th episode is deservedly named “Trash”. Although in that episode Satou regenerated an arm, pulled his arm out from under him, and shot a dude in a literal 1 frame. In chapter 19 of the manga, Satou was supposed to fly a plane into the building. They knew they couldn’t animate an airplane smoothly so they gave us a different alternative. We got an explosion and Satou riding the building down. The concept of him riding the building down was legit, but it is wrong. People will argue that the animators were being sympathetic towards Americans by not showing the plane like how Pokémon did, but there is another scene where the animators pushed the action out of the scene. Earlier in the series, a train hit a car and pushed the car out of the frame so they could blow the car up without having to animate it. There was a helicopter that blew up off screen because effort is too much to ask for. If the animators cared about their “art” they would not allow the “please buy our DVD/Blu-ray” halfway through every episode. This ad goes on for a full minute and takes up nearly half the screen. There are reasons that this advertisement doesn’t show up in other shows. Any self-respecting animator would be outraged by the blanketing of their animation. People try to defend CG when it is poorly executed in shows they like, but that is being a zealot. Quality doesn’t have sacrificed because the animation style is being experimented with. Over 2 decades ago Aardman Animation, the studio that brought us the British anime “Wallace and Gromit”, has made clay move far smoother than CG because Aardman Animation actually cares about their work and puts time into their art.
The show does deserve some credit. The orchestrated pieces are put perfectly in place. I like Japanese Justin Timberlake in the intro song. The creators of this show are probably good with the ladies, because the mood is set for every scene. Satou is a great bad guy. He wants the world to burn and he has a great personality. You understand his rage and malcontent with how humans have treated him and he wants back at them. The show is best when Satou is around. The story is awesome. Everyone who has seen the anime or read the manga will agree that the story is cool. Corrupt government, explosions, stands (black ghosts), and Satou are all great things to have in a storyline. Great job on the story for knowing who is interesting and when they are interesting. Most people watch stuff for the main character, but Kei takes a backseat in the story so the show can focus on the larger issues.
In the end, the show is a failure. Polygon Pictures horribly executed an adaptation. It is ambitious to animate humans with CG and the studio is not technically adept enough to execute smooth motion with it. Polygon Pictures joins the ranks of the garbage studios. Studio Deen, Idea Factory, and even KOO-KI could make this show better than Polygon Pictures. It makes me sad that the promotional videos for the new “Berserk” anime will also look like an unfinished project. Guts, if he were real, would bitch slap all those animators in the face with “Dragonslayer” for disgracing the well-deserved number 1 rated manga on this site. Real fans hold standards to their favorite series. If the anime does the manga justice, you should love and cherish it. When they fail at it, the fans should voice their disappointed opinions. Fans do not change their profile picture to a character from the show while rating and reviewing the show at a 10 when they have only seen 4 episodes of the series.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Mar 30, 2016
Ever wonder what it was like in 1966 when Star Trek released and everyone was like "gee willikers this beautiful"? This show will do that to you.
The quality of this show is on a tier unto itself. The animators are showing off how strong they are the entire movie. The visuals are always the first thing that draw people into a show because it is the first impression. Describing the animation as "eye-candy" does not do this film justice. No detail has gone unnoticed. I want to watch this in the dub version because I want to sit down and fully appreciate everything as much
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as I can. The reflection caused by the mirror in the make-up case moved up and down on Yukino's chest as she opened and closed it. I am a detail-oriented Harley rider. I am pretty much in a fraternity filled with anal-retentive old men, those guys could not find a flaw in this animation. Every sound was accounted for. The music and sounds were able to stop your heart when they wanted to. The atmosphere pins you down in a lusty immersion. As much as I understand what it was like to be in every moment, I could all but smell what was going on. This is the first time I wanted a scratch and sniff card so I could smell petrichor and chocolate and vicariously live in the moment.
The only drawback was towards the end of the story. The ending was a bit cheesy, but it reminds me of European movies where they have an ending where you need to think and discuss a true ending with someone over a cup of tea. I like open endings, but this didn't execute it perfectly. This didn't go full French/Italian movie on me and stop a movie mid-sentence, but it wasn't completely fulfilling for an open ending either.
There is one special moment for me. The dramatic conversation on the staircase was a very human moment. I have certainly been in a sobbing mess while love/hating someone. Most people who have been in relationships can all relate to this feeling. People move on and learn how to be strong because of moments like these.
There needs to be more "Slice of Life" shows like "The Garden of Words". I want more real life situations and real emotion. I could not give a literal single fuck about a high school girl who looks like a 10 year old girl with tits. There is nothing special about that entire concept. A boy who falls in love with a stranger over a period of time while he pursues an obscure dream is more relatable than girls make a band or wait for (season) festival. My life always has stuff going on. I want to see more life in this genre. This is among the best of it's kind and I hope that other writers take note.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Mar 23, 2016
10/10 for 13 year old boys!
I knew the show wasn't gonna be good when the entire first episode was comprised of boob grab jokes. I chuckled the first time and then I stopped chuckling after the 3rd one in the same episode. Upon watching the second episode, I thought they showed us tits because they knew episode 1 was a flop. Without fail, we got tits on every episode after that. I love some tig ol' biddies, but you can't run a show off of those alone. And they knew how to compensate for all the huge tits. I like me some small titties as
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well, but I don't care too much for girls that look like a dolled up 10 year old boy. It is a little creepy, at the very least, seeing the tits of a girl that looks like she belongs in grade school. Then saying she is the oldest one doesn't make that alright. It is still not cool.
This anime has a few off topic things worth mentioning. I have never seen a lack of facial features consistent throughout an entire series. Noses are not optional, we need them. The main character is the first delinquent without a personality. I love how delinquents are always given a decent personality because they have more freedom with their character. This was clearly not the case with Akiharu. This is also the first time I have ever seen a few episodes subbed and then decided to swap out to the dub version. There comes a time where you say "fuck it, we are doing it live" and change to the dub because you know the show can't get any worse. This is the first time I ever felt bad for a voice actor. They got some people who seemed sleep deprived and asked them to read the entire script in one sitting and record it. Money is money and we all like food and shiny things.
With all the bitching I have done, I still give the show a 4. It is bad. There wasn't anything that particularly pissed me off. The show was a generic boob and scoot. This strikes me as a show that I will show my 13 year old son and he will love anime because of it. When he asks me about women and their bodies, this will be a worthwhile instructional show. I will get my ass kicked by my wife if/when she finds out. Everything will be worth it in the end though.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Mar 18, 2016
Man always strives for a challenge. Climbing Mt. Everest, landing on the Moon, and finishing Joshiraku are some of the arduous accomplishments ever achieved.
The show is mislabeled as a "comedy". If puns and cultural jokes are all you have to lean on; hire a writer. Don't be so proud that you can't dismiss your own faults. The only thing more revolting than the jokes are the dorks that pretend this is funny because they want to be weeb level 1 million. I understood a couple of the puns in Japanese and they weren't good. I pretty much have a PhD in Dad Humor. Timing and
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delivery is everything in these types of jokes. The words themselves don't make it funny.
I think this is a type of "going outside simulator". This is appealing to people who are incredibly bored and are not happy with life because they choose to do nothing with it. This is saying a lot because nothing happened; EVER! This may be used as a way to waste time. There was an ever looping joke(?) that was a screenshot to tell us that "This anime is full of ordinary dialogues so the spectator can really enjoy how the girls are cute". There is enough source material to make a second season; do you know why they didn't make one? Because it is poorly constructed and it wasn't well received in Japan because the Japanese didn't even find their own cultural jokes funny.
This show is a 2 because of 3 reasons. Kigu is a palatable character and she made me smile a couple times. I like how she is borderline clinically insane. The dark thoughts and rock jokes got old, but that is par for this show anyways. The music was decent. I like the opening and closing songs quite a bit. I downloaded them and I blast them at the gym. The last reason this isn't rated at a 1 , even though the first word I would use to describe it is "appalling", is because I hate Girls und Panzer and I wish for that to be my only 1 and dropped series. Hooray victory by default!
The floating bare ass in space is symbolic for what this show is.
I recommend this show to people who want to cut themselves, but are aware that cutting is socially unacceptable. Dear contemplating cutters, now you can hurt yourself equally while no one will be none the wiser.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Mar 9, 2016
The Trashy Harem Movie I Have Been Waiting For Has Finally Arrived.
The movie started off strong with an opening song and Yoshino losing her mind with glow sticks. At that point (about 1m30s into the movie) I realized that this show was made for the fans and I was right. The fan service level was easily 9000+. The movie kicks off with the announcement of 6 dates with the main girls. Let the date begin. Shit is about to hit the fan and Shidou is tasked to save the world in the only way he knows; make all the women happy! There was some cute
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ideas in the dating part and silly jokes. Did you like Shidou cross-dress for Miku? You get more of it. There are cameos for all the minor characters, some more major than others, and they make you smile because they live up to their personality.
After the dates end, the action begins. Not that kind of action that you are thinking of you pervert. Remember Shidou takes being harem-gay to a whole new level. Ricky Martin and Elton John enjoy pussy more than Shidou. There are more explosions and action in this movie than you Facebook page this 2016 election year.
Shidou the hero embraces his inner Emiya Shirou and goes full suicide mode to save the girls in a dramatic ending. When a certain girl dies; it is more sad than when Ash Ketchum let his Butterfree go.
The only unbelievable moment in the whole series continues in this movie. 6 girls all like the same guy and they all get along somehow. This is the only thing I will call bullshit on.
In the end, Tooka dress-up makes up for any flaw in this movie and it is a must-watch for any fan of the series.
COME ON SEASON 3! We are only half way through the Light Novels and We need more!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 22, 2016
This show was a 10 while simultaneously being a 4. Add them together and divide by 2 and BAM!!!!!!!!!!!! This show is a 7.
"Better than Ping Pong: The Animation" - 0207xander
If you liked Golden Boy, this is a must-watch. I shamelessly like lowbrow and no fucks given entertainment. I watched this with friends. We all loved the first 3 episodes. The one liners are funny. The show started off strong with yelling "viva libido" and the show thoroughly had my attention from there on out. The horribly out of place baboon head on the student body was hilarious. Then they doubled down on one
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of the best jokes I have seen in quite a while and made a character with a horribly photo shopped dog head.
If you are into parody humor, this show provides plenty. The Bruce Lee scene is great. The Sailor Moon sceptre twirl with the great "Pi piru piru piru pi piru pi" made me smile every time. etc. etc.
The cast was unique. The cast was full characters with little humanity in them. People cannot act like Dokuro. If people thought like her, they would probably be dead. Most characters in other shows are comprised with people with a little bit of character so they stand out a little. None of the people in this show were believable and that is admirable.
I enjoyed this trash. Watch it with friends. The show isn't made to be watched by yourself in a thought-provoking manner so you can inspect the deep intricacies of life. This is ridiculous fun that can be appreciated by most people.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 21, 2016
I happened to make a report on "Parasyte" in an intensive writing on comics book class. Citations below. Enjoy.
Maxim of Man: Our Natural Order
Great stories go beyond entertaining people. Stories can be used for encouraging people to think for themselves and provide insight to how people think. Parasyte-The Maxim provides insight on how people act as an individual and as a collective. This series can be watched passively and absorbed as an action series. However, the true meaning of the show is a psychological thriller that constantly reminds you of humanity. We are all under the influence of media. Everyone
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is networked in ways that public messages stretch across the country and change our behaviors. Othering groups is a way that people have united. The humans and the parasites in the series view each other as the inherit opposition because they are different and do not understand the thoughts of the opposing species. Fantasy stories are open-minded and do not follow a straight line of any ideology. Parasyte shows viewpoints from an omnipotent view. You are forced into the minds of different characters with different motives. There is a left-wing politician who is a bit overboard in his conservationist ideology. Although he seemed borderline psychotic, there were a few points in his last speech that had a nugget of truth to it. We are all familiar with being human and acting as what we perceive to be normal. Deviance from our social dogma is infringement on a social contract. We have all signed this contract with our first breath and this contract is applicable to the day we die. There is an underlying duty for all of humanity to behave in ways that validate what it means to be human in terms of ethical behavior especially.
Everyone knows that that there is an invisible code of conduct that we must abide to. Dr. Zuleyka Zevallos, PhD in sociology, says that this creed is created by the “[s]ocial institutions such as the law, the media, education, religion and so on hold the balance of power through their representation of what is accepted as “normal” and what is considered Other.” (“Defining Otherness”). Parasyte-The Maxim covers power of both the media and law. People often think about how the media refers to music and movies and how these sources of entertainment shape our culture. People overlook the power of the news and how information is processed and given to the public. Lies and distortions of news has caused numerous deaths. Captain Carl Otis Schuster, NAVY intelligence officer during Vietnam, wrote an article in Vietnam Magazine regarding the Tonkin Gulf incident. Capt. Schuster wrote, “There were 122 additional relevant SIGNIT products that the Phu Bai station had misinterpreted or mistranslated many of the warnings…These mistakes led U.S. destroyers to open fire on spurious radar contacts, misinterpret their own propeller noises as incoming torpedoes, and ultimately report an attack that never occurred” (Case Closed: The Tonkin Gulf Incident). It took forty-four years for this information to come into the public view. This “incident” was a lie that got the USA involved in the Vietnam War. This war led to the deaths of over one million people. Parasyte covers how the media is guided by the government, and they are allowed to release censored content that is government approved. When the parasites first landed on Earth they were embedding themselves in humans. If these parasites took control by fusing with the brain, they would become the human and the life that inhabited the body before the hosting is no more. The parasites were cannibalistic. There was a sudden flux of humans killing other humans and eating them. The media was not allowed to cover the subject until there were too many murders to overlook. The murders were then said to be committed by a serial killer. Understandably, some people were paranoid by these deaths that they chose to stay inside and parents kept tighter surveillance on their children. It was intriguing to see how the supposed actions of one person, according to the media, would terrify people to the point of living in fear. The media had an element of control over people and when they left their houses. The media then made it further into everyday life when they learned the nature of the parasite. The government allowed the media to tell people about the parasites. If the parasite took control of the brain, it would have complete control over the host and every piece of the host was an extension of the parasite. There was a silly public trend that was encouraged by the media by having people walk up to their friends and pulling out a single strand of hair as a part of a greeting. If you happened to pull the hair of a parasite, the hair would shrivel up and die. This greeting was a way of finding out who has been infested. We can look around today and see dumb things people are doing because it is popular. Twerking is a public trend that has worked its way into the dictionary. On a darker note, people have died taking selfies. The media is as strong as the law when it comes to social forces. Laws define what is acceptable behavior and differ depending on which borders you stand within. Laws are in place to make sure that people follow a social construct that is beneficial to themselves and to the government.
Electing representatives that believe in similar philosophies is one way of pulling the societal norms towards your beliefs. If you have enough representatives in a country that believe a certain way, you can relieve the stress of the “Otherness.” Dr. Zevallos said, “Dichotomies of otherness are set up as being natural and so often times in everyday life they are taken for granted and presumed to be natural. But social identities are not natural – they represent an established social order” (quoted in “Defining Otherness”). Otherness is clearly seen in gay rights of the British Isles. The battle for gay rights in Great Britain has worked in steps because the people elected representatives that leaned in their social views, away from wanting to govern homosexuality. Homosexuality was punishable by death in England from 1533-1861. The Buggery Act of 1533 was passed under the rule of King Henry VIII and was a civil sodomy law that grouped homosexuality and bestiality in the same group. Even though the act was repealed in 1828 they continued to hang people for homosexuality for another three and a half decades. Doctor Rictor Norton believes this medieval law to be a basis for modern law. (The Medieval Basis of Modern Law). It took until 1967 for homosexuality to be decriminalized to a mental disease and homosexuality was legal for people aged 21 and up. Homosexuality was equalized with the age of consent, 16, in 2001. There is still a bit of a stigma of homosexuality and residual thoughts that still lie in modern Britons. The kingdom has evolved towards being more open as a whole. These changes happened because people wanted these social standards to change. In the universe that Parasyte took place in, humans saw the parasites as the others and wanted a complete eradication of the species. They did not think for one moment about how the parasites may be able to benefit mankind. The parasites were an alien race that saw only logic and had no feelings. They saw eating one type of food to be far less barbaric than eating a variety of lives to sustain their own life. The humans and the parasites shared a similar goal because they were the only two races to seek evolution that were known about. They could have worked together but reactionaries saw this as an immediate threat to humanity and wanted to kill the aliens without hesitation. Upon finding out that there were parasites that had taken politicians as hosts, the government had launched an attack on the parliamentary building and faked a mad shooter. The military created a scenario where they were able to lockdown the entire building and scan every person as they left the building in a controlled manner. They corralled the hosts off in corridors and killed them and blamed the gunshots on the supposed shooter. The commander of the operation had shown an irrational amount of hate when he saw the first parasite die. He smiled as he rambled on about how these aliens were not life forms, but machines operated by demons. He led a zealous crusade within parliament to gleefully kill every alien he could find. The aliens mutually saw humans as a threat because humans are recognized as the dominant species of Earth that wanted to protect their own way of living. The parasites did things in their own interests of preserving their own lives and saw humans as the others. The parasites had created a caste among themselves where they held themselves above humans and deemed them as expendable because they were an inferior species.
During the raid on parliament there was an esteemed environmentalist who saw similarities with the parasites and made an alliance. Sasha Simic, a progressive writer, states the obvious but misconstrued notion that “Superheroes can be reactionary – but they don’t automatically have to be. In any case stories that treat superheroes as reactionary can also tell progressive tales. Genre does not dictate quality, nor profundity, nor politics.” (Sasha Simic’s A Critique of the Gotham Programme). Parasyte covers a few progressive topics. There is a a mayor named Takeshi Hirokawa. He was a sympathizer of the parasites and worked with the parasites in power. This man was a bit crazy, but made some progressive statements with his final speech that even the most anti-authoritarian members of society understand. People are toxic to this world and we are killing this planet. There are too many people, we will hit a ceiling in terms of sustainability. He raised questions about value in predators. Hirokawa was a populist and created safe havens for the parasites to feed on humans in abandoned buildings and underground parking lots. The mayor saw nothing wrong with there being a creature that was above humans in the food chain. He thought it was a healthy occurrence that the aliens came to Earth and controlled the human population. One quote that is hard to dispute is “Enviro-conservation measures are all skewed in favor of benefiting the human race!” Saving the Earth is synonymous for prolonging humanity. The politician would see the recent one-child policy of China as a smart move towards bettering the Earth. There is a finite amount of resources available to us and we need to decide how to use them. Is there a way all of humanity can pull together and decrease our need for resources? There are many ways of saving resources; some are more humane than others. China had an infamous one-child policy is one way of making our resources last longer. There are alternatives to such radical ideas of population control. Norman Borlaug, known as “The Man Who Saved a Billion Lives,” is a good example. This American saved a projected billion lives by engineering high-yield wheat crops (Norman Borlaug – Biographical). These crops took less water and produced more food. There may be some truth to the words of Hirokawa, but humanity is adaptive and we will survive for as long as we can. Change is the essential process of all existence. Humanity pulled together to make us what we are today; the best this world has to offer. It is a pleasant thought that humans will live forever and spread across the galaxy like in Doctor Who, but we will likely end on this planet. Earth will keep spinning long after we are gone as it did before we cropped up. An inevitable end to humans is nothing to stop us from being altruistic.
Reiko Tamura was an alien that had experimented with her body and had a baby to understand the stages of childbirth. She had the original intention of dissecting the child after it was born, but grew fond of her baby and developed human instincts. Chris Yogerst, a professor of film and communication, makes a point that “[stories] themselves come from a good place. The belief that people are capable of real altruism is inescapable, human, and the farthest thing from inherently fascistic.” (Stop Calling Superheroes Fascist). She started to love humans. The aliens felt a level of betrayal and felt it may undermine their existence. Her fellow parasites who had caught wind of her appreciation of human life attempted to kill her because she was the other. After bonding with her child she grew an animalistic love and need to protect her child. She was the first parasite to have a real laugh and feel what she believed to be love. She underwent the most otherness in this anime. She was hated by her own kind because she sympathized with the humans and started to behave like a human. She had turned back on cannibalism and started to eat human food. She was hated by the humans because she was an alien. There was no safe place for her in this world. When the government discovered her secret, the detective sought what he believed to be a necessary investigation. The human detective tried to take her baby away from her and she stabbed him with an appendage she turned into steel. This proof of her being a parasite was enough for her to be executed in the park while protecting her child. She was one of the stronger parasites and she could have fought back or fled, but she chose to use her body to save her baby. She talked about starting off as a parasite and ended human as she could get. She thought it was poetic that she began to love humans and her baby was worth her life. She knew her human baby would be better raised by the protagonist Shinichi because he understands humans and parasites. Shinichi has a parasite named Migi that lives in his right hand and Shinichi is in control of his body. The actions of Tamura are seen as heroic to the audience. Human selflessness is in every story that I have read because it is a characteristic that people admire. People see altruism as heroic. It is the recognized duty of a hero to be serving.
Parasyte – The Maxim tells a beautiful story with many lessons to take home. Otherness has led to not only ostracization, but to death. People feel exile in their own land. Social constructs dictated by government and media contort the way people think. When people control the way people think, they have control of an entire society. We are also reminded that entertainment isn’t intrinsic of its genre. Trends are not concrete truths in the same way how correlations are not causations. We see more than our share of bad days on the news. There is rarely a story about the Borlaugs of this Earth. There are people who care about the wellbeing of our future and innovate the way we live without radical ideas. Believing in heroic characteristics and loving characters for them can lead to a better place to live. Entertainment is supposed to go beyond asking if someone has seen it and then ending with a casual agreement about it being cool. The best stories I have ever come across ask me to think about myself and about this world. Both the manga and the anime of Parasyte has exceeded most stories and it creates an instant stimulating conversation between anyone that has enjoyed it.
Works Cited
"Norman Borlaug - Biographical." Norman Borlaug - Biographical. Nobel Prize, n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2015. <http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1970/borlaug-bio.html>.
Norton, Rictor. "The Medieval Basis of Modern Law." Rictor Norton - Gay History & Literature. Rictor Norton, 15 Apr. 2002. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
Schuster, Carl Otis. "Case Closed: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident." History Net Where History Comes Alive World US History Online. History Net, 8 July 2014. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
Simic, Sasha. "A Critique of the Gotham Programme: Marxism and Superheroes." Dream Deferred RSS. Dream Deferred, 30 Sept. 2014. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
Yogerst, Chris. "Stop Calling Superheroes 'Fascist'" The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 03 Dec. 2013. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
Zevallos, Zuleyka. "What Is Otherness?" The Other Sociologist Analysis of Difference By Dr Zuleyka Zevallos. Other Sociologist, 14 Oct. 2011. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 21, 2016
Damn Near Perfect
You should enjoy the little detours. To the fullest. Because that's where you'll find the things more important than what you want. - Ging "when not being a horrible father" Freecss
Hunter x Hunter is an outstanding show that deserves it's spot on the 'Top 5 Anime' list on this website. The animation was gorgeous. Mad House puts love into their work and it shows in Hunter. The characters are lovable and you care about them. Every main character is amazing. The show will have you laugh because of the well written humor and tear up because people you care about will die. Just
...
the sight of Gon tearing up will pull at your heart because you know him as having the personality of a happy puppy. When this show is at it's peak, it is a literal 11/10. I binged about 80 episodes in 3 days because I had time off and that is how I chose to spend my time.
The series doesn't have one great story. The series is full of great stories. I loved everyone's story and what their plans are. I love the execution of the stories. Kurapika losing his mind when seeing the Scarlet Eyes was heartbreaking. The cocktail of anger and depression is felt by the people that watch this scene. The voice acting was top-notch and conveyed human emotions perfectly.
This show has done something no other show has ever done. I loved the training arc! Yeah, I personally hate those things, but the main training arc alone was better than most other complete series. If there was an award ceremony held by yours truly; Hunter would win the "Holy Shit You Entertained Me During A Training Arc And No One Has Ever Done That In The History Of Forever And Midg3tLuv Is Impressed" award.
The only thing stopping this show from being rated 10/10 is a block of about 30 episodes in the Chimera Ant arch. It felt like the show was catching up to the manga and they pulled the emergency break and brought the pace to a screeching halt. There were numerous ass-pulls that were infuriating. Anthropomorphic animals being born with clothes that has plastic/metal on them, while being in a country that doesn't allow those things, is asinine. There was horrible character development for the bad guys in that arc. I have seen Gungi boards in my nightmares and I refused to go back to sleep because I saw enough of that board in one large block. That horrible drawn out "development" of Meruem is disappointing. No one cared about the Koala, Octopus, Crawfish, Snake with sunglasses, furry, or any of those characters introduced around that time. This is a major flaw in an otherwise damn near perfect show.
The show ended at a good time. The main goal of the show, Gon finding Ging, was completed. There are more stories that need to be finished, but that will never happen. If Yoshihiro gets off his ass and decides he wants to finish what he started, I will gladly pick up the manga and continue my Hunter binge. I don't want to finish everything in my head like it is some sort of French film.
This show is deserving of your time and I had no regrets powering through this amazing show.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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