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Feb 22, 2025
I read the Solo Leveling manhwa before even the show was announced. It was marketed to me as a power fantasy and I enjoyed it a lot for the exact same reason. The first season of the adaptation felt slow compared to the manhwa; too slow, in fact. However, season 2 felt like it upped the pace and something was happening every episode, which I commend them for.
I don't think Solo Leveling is the best thing since toast bread. After all, it is just a power fantasy. However, I think it's decently good and worth watching. It stands far above the usual isekai/fantasy slop. There's
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an actual story, the world is cohesive, the animation is good, there is no contrived harem, the characters don't make me want to press mute, the dialogue isn't repetitive to the point that I can predict the next 5 lines of conversation (which usually happens in the average isekai no matter how much they get glazed).
As for the story, I would like to mention that I'm judging it from the view of someone who knows the entirety of it. If I only knew season 1 and 2, I would have some complaints. If you are watching this without having read the manhwa, you might hate some aspects. So you might like the show less than I did.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 18, 2025
Angel beats has an amazing setting and an amazing ending. In fact, a one of my favorite endings. However, anything unrelated to those two things is mediocre. The characters are some of the worst I have ever seen. Almost all of them have one gag and that's their entire personality. Their motives are very weird too. The leader of the group is upset at God and that's why they have to steal food from cafeteria (?). Okay but why are the others following her? The animation and art style are also pretty crap. The opening theme is a banger but that doesn't matter, I just
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wanted to mention that.
The good thing about Angel Beats is that it's good at setting up some strong sad moments. There is a kind of sadness I only sense when watching something that Jun Maeda worked on. In Angel Beats specifically, it's loneliness. It's the feeling you get saying goodbye to people and being left behind. If that sounds appealing to you, I think you would like Angel Beats. Otherwise, I'm not really sure. It depends on your standards
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 14, 2025
The only thing that matters about "The Misfit of Demon King Academy" is that it does reveals in the worst way possible. Most shows will basically start with a premise which you can intuitively understand. Then, after you have understood the "norm", the show progresses and reveals something outside that norm to show how impressive something is.
The Misfit of Demon Academy doesn't do any of that. It pulls something out of thin air then tells you "ok please give a shit about this". It tells you "this is cool" and you're just supposed to accept that.
The best example is when a teacher does a magic
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circle, Anos (the MC) says "ok but its 4x better if you do this". Then he wiggles his fingers around changing the magic circle. The teacher then goes "Oh my God wow". This is where the show's creators order you to be impressed. Is it impressive? I don't know. I don't even know what the magic circle is or what it does. I guess I'll take the teacher's word for it.
Most of the show revolves around how Anos is cool. The pattern of the reveal above repeats a bunch of times. Although sometimes, at least it's convincing As for the plot, I don't really know what is the overarching goal or point. Anos is just doing stuff to do stuff.. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to even care about. Even the show isn't sure if it cares about the story because it just keeps speeding through it.
The only thing I will grant the show is that it's not boring. It's bad.... really bad. But stuff happens a lot so I didn't feel bored
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Feb 11, 2025
The Elusive Samurai seems to be a show that targets a young demographic (child to teenager). I would say that for adults and adolescents, this isn't enjoyable. For a young demographic this is maybe a 7. For older demographics this is a 5 or even lower. This makes it hard to judge the show because do I judge it for adults or do I take into account that it's obviously for children? In this review, I try to do both but keep in mind I am an adult.
The main characters are easy to understand; they are all young teenagers with "easily digestible" personalities and slapstick
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humor (which isn't funny). By easily digestible personalities, I mean that they don't really have any complex emotions or interactions between each other. The story arcs themselves also feel very simplistic, sometimes to the point of not being realistic or believable.
The characters, their age, their shallow personalities and the simplistic plot lead me to believe that this is a show for younger audiences. In fact, I am sure of this since I cannot see how anyone would like such shallow characters (but then again, anime characters are just mostly dogshit). However, there are some parts that make me doubt this assumption. First is the setting and the way the main story is framed. The setting is historical. The main plot is basically about gathering allies to retake the throne, which seems like a story for adults. Second, this anime doesn't shy away from showing blood. They regularly show decapitations and blood splattering everywhere. Third, the main villain seems to have a slight tinge of horror to him.
This is not to say that if a show has these contradictions, it is bad. For example, Happy Tree Friends uses very cartoony characters to make its violent gore even more jarring. In fact, I think the way The Elusive Samurai shows blood and violence in very colorful animation is a good thing. I loved the scenes where the main villain is portrayed as a terrifying monster who enjoys carnage. However, when you take that task you have to own up to it. You can't pretend that you are willing to mix in adult themes into your show and then give me shallow, boring characters with unfunny humor and a super simplistic story where every arc gets solved by the power of friendship.
Also, I'm not sure how much you can get away with saying that a show is meant for kids. For example, I could point to Over The Garden Wall and say that even though the characters portrayed are children, they did an amazing job of mixing in horror elements and accurately portraying how real children would behave. Alternatively, I could also point to an acclaimed Ghibli movie which are also suitable for children, yet I wholeheartedly enjoyed the characters that they crafted. So I don't even know if it's fair to say "it's a kids show, it's okay for them to have bad characters."
The animation is amazing a lot of the time. The first few episodes especially were very pleasant to look at. However, it's not consistently good either. The more episodes you watch, the worse the animation gets. There are a lot of points where CGI gets used. The horses in The Elusive Samurai are cursed; whenever a character rides a horse, they become a PS2 3D model of their own character.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 1, 2025
I am a very big fan of absurd humor in general and Kill la Kill is very good at it. The student council has enormous amounts of power. Normal, every day things are taken to very extreme levels with the characters all acting like it's serious and normal. This is by far the most important part, but sadly I cannot write a review in which all the jokes are spoiled.
The animation is good. The jokes are hilarious. The setting itself is funny. The characters follow shounen tropes, but I think that's necessary for the comedy. The fanservice is really high to the point that I
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couldn't readjust to seeing characters wearing normal clothes. Some people say that's the point, that it's a "parody" of fanservice. I disagree. In that case, Naruto fans can just say the cheesy dialogue is a "parody" of cheesy dialogue. Maybe every anime that has fanservice is now suddenly a "parody of fanservice". It's a cop-out answer. Not to mention, there are other parts of Kill la Kill which are way better parodies of fanservice than Ryuku going around in a skimpy outfit.
Overall, funny and entertaining watch.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 1, 2025
A lot of the discussion regarding this show devolves into useless tangents, such as whether your expectations got subverted or not, whether it was dark enough, whether it is overrated or underrated, the definition of a genre's deconstruction, the anime's performance on R34 and its moral implications on society, the definition of entropy, etc. Some of the reviews go so deep that you're left to wonder why there are so many unmarked spoilers.
In reality, this is all fluff. You don't rate shows based on how surprised you were compared to your peers, or a deep philosophical analysis of a 2D animation. The real question is
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"Is Madoka a good anime to watch?"
Madoka is an entertaining anime. It tells a decent story in a compelling way. It's good at building up suspense and mystery. You get the nagging feeling that something is wrong or missing, and you can't wait to learn what's up. The conclusion is convoluted and, in my opinion, unoriginal. However, I find it easy to forgive since the rest of the story was good.
The animation is experimental. Some people might like the way fights are animated, but I personally did not because it was difficult to tell what is going on. The good thing about a well choreographed fight scene is that it tells its own story by movement. In a lot of Madoka's fights, it was difficult to even understand basic things like who is winning, the scale of the danger, the momentum, etc. Outside of the fights, I do like the artstyle and how the rest of the show is animated.
The characters' actions, for the most part, feel very realistic. I've always thought that if I were in Madoka's shoes, I would consider the exact same actions that she does. Some people say that they act stupid, but I would say that characters are not supposed to be mindless robots that go with the 100% rational decision that you, as a viewer who sees literally everything, can come up with. In their context and in their universe, their actions are plausible and totally believable. Characters can have flaws and can make irrational decisions. The important thing is that they are believable and consistent with the character and their flaws. In that case, Madoka passes with flying colors.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 30, 2025
This is one of the only isekai/fantasy anime where I generally remember what happened, despite watching it a long time ago. It has a slow start, while also seeming goofy and cliche in the beginning. However, by the end I have found that they really put a lot of thought into the story. It's interesting, original and cohesive.
The characters aren't great, but the more you learn about the main character the more interesting it gets. The animation is passable. The setting is kind of boring. A lot of parts in the show were just too cliche for anime. However, it's all counteracted by how well
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the story comes together in the end.
Also, although it's not as egregious as other anime, I have to give an obligatory -1 for stupid loli gags.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 22, 2025
The title made me think this was going to be completely degenerate until someone told me otherwise. I'm glad this is the case. The characters and the plot are pretty good. It's an entertaining watch. I will be talking about some flaws below, but keep in mind these aren't egregious and the show is overall pretty entertaining.
I hated the stupid "oni-chan uwu" stuff at the start, but at least they justify that in some way. The justification might be an excuse to add that trope in, but it is what it is. Also, the incest baiting is not as egregious as other romance anime so
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I forgive it.
The show follows the format of Kokoro Connect, if you have seen that. Teenagers go through supernatural ordeals which are solved by a character's reassessment of his personality or behavior. It's a good formula, but the way they try to justify it in the show is really annoying. They have this genius highschooler character who throws some quantum mechanics mumbo jumbo in order to loosely explain what is happening. I understand what she is saying perfectly, but the explanations are very weak and they misrepresent the actual real life concepts. You don't need to know theoretical physics to see this, you just need to listen and put one and one together, realizing what she says doesn't really add up. It would have been way better to accept that the concept is supernatural and act accordingly. All these explanations just convolute the dialogue and in the end, you end up with the same conclusion: It's supernatural (except now it took more steps to explain and it failed).
Another problem is that I can tell this is from a light novel because there's just so much talking. I usually like light novel adaptations because a lot of the time they seem to be better in quality (just from personal experience). However, Rascal just barrages you with an onslaught of talking.
However, overall it is a pleasant experience. The show is too different from the average anime romance so this is guaranteed to be a breath of fresh air.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 19, 2025
Sometimes, you don't even expect much from a romance slop show. You just expect at least a tug at your heart or any moment that gives you a bit of dopamine. Needless to say, this show was so predictable that you couldn't even get that. Loser is paired with a hottie and forced to act like a married couple. Gee I wonder where the plot is gonna go. Also, a loser who only games all day is forced to have the most popular girl in class dote on him. Self insert much?
It actually is impressive how unremarkable everything is. I have watched a ton of
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romcom anime slop but at least there would be one MOMENT where I enjoy something. Whether it be ONE TRAIT that's interesting about a character, or one good line, or one joke. Just ANYTHING. There was none of that. Instead, there's the usual accidentally touching or peeking followed by stuttering and blushing yadda yadda yadda. Then we go through the motions of school life > romantic rival > summer festival etc etc. Can't wait till the *checks list* mountain, beach, inn, hot springs, school festival arcs. I'm sure those will be as exhilirating.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Jan 19, 2025
I was hesitant to touch this because I don't really like sports anime. However, I later learned it's a mainly a romance so I decided to pick it up. There isn't much to criticize about Blue Box. As far as stories or premises go, Blue Box is normal. However, it remains very entertaining with a set of very likeable characters. I enjoy how it takes typical romcom character archetypes and adapts them in more realistic and believable ways. All the characters so far feel and act like real human beings.
My personal favorite adaptation is Chinatsu. Chinatsu fills the nice, reserved girl archetype you see a
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lot on anime. This archetype is usually one that I find very dull and boring due to its lack of action, usually relegated to being a cardboard cutout for a girlfriend. However, Blue Box manages to make Chinatsu an interesting character specifically through her reserved personality. She hides her thoughts sometimes not only from others, but also from the viewer, which you can infer by reading between the lines.
Blue Box is great at portraying people's consideration and sense of distance. The characters feel like they are aware of the nature of the relationship between them and others, and act accordingly. This is hard to explain in words, but basically the way everyone acts falls into place. The way the characters deal with their insecurities, emotions, other characters, the way they hide things about themselves, it's all perfect. As a good practitioner of "show don't tell", a viewer can learn about Blue Box's characters even without them saying a word.
There is a lot more I can say about Blue Box's characters and how they interact with each other, but I might end up having to describe every episode I have seen so far. Therefore, all can say is, "characters great go watch now"
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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