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I went to see this in theatres today, and overall it was a pretty fun day out!

Someone in the group was completely new to the series, and luckily she could follow along just fine between the movie and looking over a brief overview.

On the other hand, I'm completely caught up on the anime and currently reading the manga, so I had some basic expectations that were reasonably met. I was pleasantly surprised with more Bond than I bargained for, since the trip during Season 2 left him back home. And overall, there's arguably more action in this movie than the entirety of the series ... so far, which isn't particularly something I was looking for but also not a criticism against it... just something different in regards to a movie format as opposed to the meandering, funny day-to-day the main series is known for.

Lil Anya and Bond still cute. Lloid and Yor still amazing. The plot starts rolling by eating a piece of chocolate the government is after, so you know it's your Spy x Family shenanigans. Solid addition to the series.

I've been doing a deep dive into Araki's other works, since I've really taken to "Jojo's Bizarre Adventure" as one of my favorite series. I've read a number of his other manga, and since my personal tastes don't often go into the action/SciFi/Psychic powers/Government Conspiracies kind of stories, I would say I would have preferred other lesser-known manga of his to either continue or be adapted into OVA like this, such as "Cool Shock BT" and "Gorgeous Irene".

Plus, as I read Baoh's manga beforehand, I can't help but feel that there were impactful scenes that didn't make the cut into this short OVA. Some extra ... details behind the fate of Ikuro's parents, and an entire section where Ikuro and Sumire are taken in by a kind elderly couple. Sadly some of my favorite scenes, from an already very short manga.

That being said, being what it is, it's hard to not recommend it. There are certainly people who enjoy this genre of action more than I do, and it's so short and leaves you with little reason not to give it a try. The main character is powerful, intimidating, and the story is the type of gorey you would expect from the "Jojo's Bizarre Adventure" mangaka. It's a very "you get what you came for" SciFi experiment 80s/90s anime feeling, and for something less than an hour long I can't really ask for more.

I initially found this manga as free chapter updates on the Viz Media app and just finished rereading it for a MAL challenge stack. I intend to buy the collection of digital volumes at some point as well, as Moriking is a very light and fun read that I will probably want to revisit sometime.

It's not really story-driven, and in my opinion, it drags a bit at the end so maybe it should have been a little shorter. But all the same, it's goofy and I enjoy the premise ("hello, I am human-bug and I'll be living with you; others will want to fight me, ... don't worry about it") and the characters a lot.

I never understood this reoccurring thing I'm finding in anime/manga/games from Japan where characters have a hobby of collecting insects and possibly pitting them against each other, as it's apparently just a hobby common among young children?! But my cultural ignorance in this area aside, it really is a short, funny series that has all the "summer vibes" neatly packaged in a few volumes. It's simple running gags for a comedy manga and I'm happy to have found it. No masterpiece, but just... chill, anthropomorphic bugs.

I would like to have something more insightful as the apparent first review of this manga, but really it's just kind of cute and about what you would expect for a single volume's worth of AU Fluff.

This manga takes the majority of fan-favorite characters from Final Fantasy XIV (in particular, Alisae and Alphinaud take center stage) and plops them all in an AU where they all attend the same academy together, some as teachers and some as students. The students and faculty are further divided between the Light and Darkness classes, being brought under the same roof as a school merge. From there, each chapter ... delves into a new situation that can play on the quirks of the characters and the rivalry between the Light and Darkness classes. A beach chapter, a school festival chapter, and so on.

As someone that had spent a good couple thousand hours playing the game prior to having to take a hiatus due to technical issues... I had a good time overall. It was fun, light, and you didn't need to think too deeply about anything. You see faces you probably haven't seen in forever, depending on where you are in the game. And if you haven't played the game... well, in that case, the only appeal this manga will have for you is generic cute fluff with a slight fantasy element + moogles, as none of these characters will mean anything to you at this point.

I have just finished Redo of Healer tonight, looked through MAL and discovered that this manga existed, and read what chapters were translated to top off my night!

As opposed to the revenge-porn series that this IP is based on (which I enjoyed in its own right for the anime, to let things be clear), this manga explore the same characters is a wholesome sitcom environment. The harem aspect is oddly still present a little, but everything is so lighthearted and cute, without any ill intent for anyone. It puts the biggest impact "redo" possible on the entire reality-warping scenario to go from well... what the ... original was... to a cute smalltown cafe. It's glorious to see. It's a nice thing to have the best of both worlds sometimes.

It's a shame, that for such a short manga, only roughly 4 chapters have been translated so far. But I did really enjoy what I saw.

Well, this is an awkward one to review, mostly for the misconceptions about it I had going in. Really wish I hadn't gotten into any MAL forum debates about it until the series finished airing... and it took me a while after that to get back to it, admittedly. Right off the bat, saying it here: the plot is a rape victim getting revenge by raping his rapists. This series is "ecchi" in the sense that there are sex scenes that would make this hentai except for the fact that no one's privates are shown, but believe me there is nothing comedic about this series. ... And both "regular" sex scenes and rape scenes are explicit (especially if you watch it uncensored), so know what you can handle going in.

So, right off the bat, here are the couple of things I was mostly arguing with other people about in terms of this anime, mostly having episodes 1-3 to work with at the time:

1) "This anime isn't misogynistic." And I still stand by that, to be honest. Horrible things happen to people of any gender or sexuality if they also happened to have abused this man, and I don't think it can get much more egalitarian than that. Gender-neutral revenge. The most "misogynistic" thing in this series, in my eyes, is that this happens to be an anime with a growing harem, but that's not exactly what made this series so infamous to so many people.

2) "That the rape scenes depicted weren't sexualized, in that this wouldn't work as power/rape-fantasy porn." And I ... GUESS this still applies? This is the point that grew the weakest as I moved forward because I had only watched the first 3 episodes at the time, in which the brutality of Keyaru's torture methods was at his peak.

And that's the thing... I watch quite a bit of different "fantasy" hentai myself, and I can certainly say that your standard "groper on a train" porn doesn't hold a candle to watching fingers get individually crushed, healed, and then crushed again and again. Like, I cannot see someone looking to this series for the purpose of jacking off. The majority of this plot, especially in the earlier episodes, felt like just watching someone being torn down, broken, walking down the path of revenge, and seeing how dark things would get for everybody. Seeing it all through the villain's perspective, like how Death Note had us follow Light Yagami, except we are dealing with crimes of rape specifically... and rectifying it with more rape.

Which is another aspect people will fight over that I honestly just can't see being so pressed about. The main character is a rapist, yes... but mostly a rapist of other rapists, HIS rapists. No, I don't feel sympathy for this main character's victims... because they are abusers and rapists. It comes down to your individual morality, I guess. But I can't say I looked down on his goal for revenge by the end. In fact, when the anime was over, I was slightly disappointed that his revenge on one of the dudes that raped him, one of the creepiest men you'd ever see, was later on in the series, not to be animated at this point. I was hoping this show would have it all tied up neatly at the end, but I guess it was simply written to be a longer series.

So I can say I was fully onboard with the plot of the revenge train. And to contrast that, the plot of the growing harem was... an odd one, and personally a choice I wouldn't have made, had I been in the writers' shoes. It really plays into a lot of people's perceptions of just being a male power fantasy and wanting to control women... to elaborate, a couple of people in the harem I get because they are brainwashed rapists that he is toying with as a personal form of revenge... the other few members of the harem, though, are women that he said JUST the right words to get them to agree to join him, putting his silver tongue to work. So outside of the "toy" members of the harem, it just seems greedy and extra to have that many women at his disposal. And if any episodes of this series play into the idea of the sexualization of rape, it wouldn't be in the rape scenes themselves, but in the "consensual" regular sex that the group has on the daily. So yeah, I didn't get a hint of that early on, but the bigger the group grew, the more I realized what kind of show this was.

If this were to be purely a dark fantasy explore the psyche of the trauma of a rape victim seeking revenge and how he would just kind of emotionally deteriorate because of that as I had thought was happening, this would be a 10/10 psychological thriller show, no question, and I would probably be unashamed to be its biggest fan. Unfortunately, though, that's not the beast that this series is. But that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable. So, I accept the fact that this is a harem show. Sex for both pleasure and for torture - that's what this is at the end of the day. The beginning of the series explains what it can in terms of Keyaru's power and the timeline of what's happening, and that was an interesting hook at the start. But at the end of the day, this series wants to give you sex, blood, murder, trauma, all delivered in a way you haven't seen before. The fact that I made the mistake of thinking that there was a legit story buried here in Keyaru's character that I kept wanting to follow him for was in itself the show working its magic, showing a spectacle, a trainwreck, that you can't look away from. If you're the kind of person that can stomach it, it's a great time. Love it for the hot trash that it is.

*Also: Anime America Hot Trash Award, 2021
Hells yeah

There was no reason not to bring this adorableness over to the Western Blu-Rays. My roommates and I were watching this after having rewatched the series and movie, and honestly, this would be a great foundation for an Ein-centered anime short series. Certainly a better new idea of what one could do with this IP than what they had been doing at Netflix.

The art style is simplistic and storybook-like, though it is more like a picture book slideshow than anything actually being animated. For how short and sweet it is, that just adds to the charm.

Cowboy Bebop has a myriad of reasons to enjoy ... it, from Spike, Faye, and Jet's backstories and life philosophies to the depictions of corruption in the system and how the future may be bleak and breathtaking in equal measure. This short, however, is for the fans that want to take a backseat with Ed and Ein and just spend a moment looking at something cute and funny. Easily found on YouTube, for those looking for a place to watch it. No subtitles are needed, as the short is without dialogue.

So... this is pretty odd.

First and foremost, this special is at a disadvantage compared to reviews of the series for each individual season. When you review a show like this season by season, it is more often than not just about the general vibe from popcorn-watching these shorts, just binging a full hour or more with this anthology. If one story doesn't appeal to you, then you can see if the next one in a couple minutes is more your speed. If all of them were just ok and none stood out to you, then you could just cozy up with the vibes and ... start playing the next season. At least, that's how I've approached this show until now.

This individual special was something of a chore to find, too. I did way too much deep-diving amongst the more"alternative" methods of streaming before realizing that it was wedged in the middle of last season on Crunchyroll, lol. Thanks, guys. OVA or specials like this don't warrant a different category? Anyway...

The story was mid. Was ok. Not great, not awful. Somewhat reminiscent of the Ring. What I found most distracting was the video format, as its aspect ratio is, in my mind's eye, somewhat similar to that of a TikTok video. Or a webtoon. Just very vertical-oriented, in contrast to the typical format for the rest of the series.

I don't know if there are any other concrete reasons behind this choice, though I admit I can kind of see from an artistic standpoint how the more elongated view parallels that of the well, but... the internet ruined such a format, in my opinion, to be anything but a manner or vertical recording, as that's how my mind seems determined to interpret it. The effect is somewhat lost and just sadly becomes more jarring, and not in the good way.

Other than that though, well... another Yami Shibai episode.

You want more horror shorts? You got more horror shorts. I don't see the complaints of the decrease in quality. The art and story-telling feels largely the same to me throughout, with minor differences being that some seasons feel more atmospheric and some seasons having more gruesome art design for whatever the story was about. That's about it, unless it's a season that has a gimmick (like last season following a pattern of animals from the lunar new year celebrations).

I will say that this season finished on the idea of a horrible "100th Story" being told, which would have been so much more fun and ... meta a story to do like 30 episodes ago, lol.

Overall this is just more Halloween fun times.

I feel like I actually like it more than others here, and that's not saying a lot. Honestly, as far as anime adaptations go, I much prefer the dark comedy shorts that came before it. That series had characters we knew and setting, puzzles, monsters etc to toy around with that felt really fun. This is trying to take the concept into a more theatrical story, and it just doesn't work.

At the opening of the movie, it starts with the folk tale of the Oni and I couldn't begin to describe my RELIEF when it changed character focus to modern kids because the kids in ... the folk tale all looked the same with the same shaved head and I just knew that if it stayed like that I wouldn't be able to tell anyone apart.

But then the actual movie gets going and it's... weird.

The story itself, in the beginning, I don't have anything against it. It has a strong start with a meta take that the Ao Oni we're familiar with as a freeware game is canon in that universe and some kids believe it's based on a local folk tale, and they want to investigate. So far, so good.

The art looks very on-the-cheap. With the Oni it can very much be argued to work to its advantage what with the poor photoshop manipulation being the jarring aspect that created that level of discomfort in players in the first place, but every other character just looks stiff and slow. Even blood I think flowed out more like chunky ketchup. It feels like all the real art budget went into the flowers.

And the story for the flowers... I mean, we're watching Ao Oni, not Ib. And overall, without getting into spoilers, I feel very dissatisfied with it as a semi-origin/power system for the Oni. I don't know if anything like it is touched on for the Ao Oni origins manga, but regardless it would have been lore better left in its simplicity. While I thought the plot was solid if a little basic for me in the beginning, the plot developments later just left me scratching my head in both confusion and disappointment.