Is it fair to give a show a relatively high score only because it is better than the shows that air alongside it? To anyone it has been common knowledge for the past few years, that new anime are not as good as the old classics. With more than half of the new shows coming out being terrible comedies with a bunch of weebs being their target audience.
So, when a show comes out that goes completely against the norm, and showcases a new ingenious idea, that is actually entertaining and can be analysed with more praise than critique, do we automatically start calling it
...
the greatest of all time? Start giving it perfect scores? "Saviour of Anime"? Don't we all rank this show on the same list that we ranked the best of the best. The same list on which we ranked Gintama, Full Metal, Steins;Gate? Is this show really worth a 10/10 on that same list ?
Unarguably not. One Punch Man was unique, it had an amazing production value, the characters were brilliant, but it is nowhere near a perfect score, not even a strong 80%. For a few reasons. It has major story flaws, major pacing problems, major character development problems, etc. All of which should be avoided when thinking about 'the best' show.
The One Punch Man anime aired for 12 episodes and the manga is still going with multiple volumes, yet the show doesn't sway away from the one same joke it always uses. Which in itself makes this no different than the close minded anime about a dense dude and his harem. That being said, the joke itself is a creative one and enjoyable, if it didn't occur in every single episode.
But if that's all that One Punch Man was, it would be worth of a <5 score, however One Punch Man doesn't only use the idea of the One Punch as a joke but also adds some depth and a tremendous amount of epicness. With the beautiful animation, amazing soundtrack and outstanding cinematography it makes the One Punch better than any other multi episode fight.
Now many people like to claim that One Punch Man isn't meant to be analysed critically because it is a show that doesn't try to be in detail or in depth. I would argue against that. I think that One Punch Man was intended to do just that but in an unorthodox way. And I am fully aware that the original author didn't have big plans for it, but is clear from the mood it sets that it does take itself and the plot it contains very seriously. You can tell this by looking at how it never jeopardizes certain story lines for cheap comedy or for the sake of temporary sub plots. Not to mention it also has scenes where the characters are actually trying to be politically and morally correct. Though, it's as about as serious as an anime can get.
Story: 6/10
In a fools point of view, One Punch Man's story only revolves around finding new villains and waiting for our hero to come and save them. This of course kills all suspense that can be created with hyped up villains or their feats. It does in the first few times add a sense of suspense on whether the enemy is going to get One Punched or not, that perhaps has our main character met his match. For this 12 episode run, that can only be said about 1 or 2 villains out of the many many.
This point of view is foolish because it doesn't see the new major plotlines that each story arc unveils. From the time the main characters become official heroes, to the time of them ranking up, or meeting other strong and relevant super heroes. This sense of new things happening can and does make One Punch Man an engaging show. Except for one problem. The pacing. In the 12 episode run we got introduced to tons of interesting characters. Characters that could have a successful anime of their own, but One Punch Man only goes as far as introducing them. Hyping them up, but never doing anything significant with them. This I also felt was a problem in one of the greatest anime of all time, Hunter x Hunter, but because of the simple difference in run time even Hunter x Hunter eventually reached a point where it had to climax the hype it had built up. One Punch Man never did. It can actually be said that it started downplaying the hype near the end, where some of the more relevant characters get reduced to doing inferior tasks.
It has a common discussion among the internet that One Punch Man is a parody of all shonen anime as it attempts to do the exact opposite of the typical 'never give up' scenario. I can neither agree nor disagree to this statement because I think that the authors original intent is a determining factor. Though I can say that it did not appeal to me as such. It was more of a show that is trying to convey something simple while doing it in an exaggerated method. Perhaps the trait of never being satisfied with what you have or not worrying about how others view your actions only how you do? To each their own I suppose, but those things are clear themes in the One Punch Anime. Which is another reason I would argue that One Punch Man is not a 'turn your brain off' anime. This and also because, if you do decide to pay attention to detail you will slowly loose track of the story, with the vast amounts of characters being introduced every now and then, with each having a role in the bigger picture. Lagging attention will prevent you from keeping up with most of them.
Characters: 8/10
There are a few character names in One Punch Man that a viewer will actually remember. The important main characters, the characters who have obvious names relating to their superpowers or your random favourite character. That limits the number of memorable characters to extremely little compared to the amount of potentially good characters in the show. The show introduces a massive amount of characters, each with their own names, super powers and unique design. Each with their own allegiances, roles and enemies. Yet more than half, or rather 90% of these characters appear for a fraction of episodes. Even some of the important, high ranked individuals only appeared for a maximum of 10 minutes in the entire show.
The main characters however also get less screen time than usual. This is because though the side character get little to no appearances, there are so many that it adds up and cuts away from the main characters time to shine. The main character usually appears at the end of an episode to finish off the bad guy while his side kick come during the middle and attempts at fighting the villain.
Talking about the side kick. One of the most interesting characters in the show, who had a flashback that was only teased in the anime, and has only been mention once or twice in the Jump manga, is treated far too unjustly. He has lots of potential to become one of the leading stars of the show yet is turned into a ploy for the animators to animate an actual fight, as he gets utterly destroyed by almost all bad guys.
Also the use of anime tropes to quickly develop a certain character in One Punch Man is not a rarity. From overpowered old dudes, to loyal samurai, to whiny lolis and everything else, One Punch Man uses the fact that we know the character traits of certain types of character tropes in anime, to not develop the character as an individual. This is not always a bad strategy, as it is effective, but it takes so much away from the character that I would want to see be important one day, if madhouse ever makes a sequel.
Like I mentioned before, the music in One Punch Man really does build up tense moments in which failure seems inevitable, but that feeling can only last for the first few episodes, until you realize that the main character will literally One Punch, anything and everything. But the interesting thing about this is that, One Punch Man actually does go out of its way in letting us know that he actually can't One Punch all his problems away, that sometimes he needs to use his wit for situations that can't be solved with strength. But that aspect was visited once briefly and never again, but nonetheless did help with some great character development.
The characters in One Punch Man can at most times be flat characters because of how little we see of most of them. The main character I can safely say for sure is a flat character, but soo much potential to change. If he ever goes through something that can change him as a person, and it is legitimate, it could make for one of the best anime moments of all time, but that's just my wishful thinking.
Production: 10/10
Everyone's favourite, Madhouse delivers yet again. With some of the best animation in anime existence and an amazing sound track, One Punch Man has one of the highest production values of all time. It makes watching the show exponentially more entertaining. The way each keyframe is animated for big moments, is so smooth and done without much help from CGI effects resulting in a beautiful motion picture. Most of the fights that actually take place, are animated beautifully with much thought put into each movement to make it as dynamic as possible.
There are some scenes with some of the best cinematography I have ever scene in anime. The usage of lighting and still images along side of battle effects and sparky anime colours was done so well, that you can't even complain about the characters being too colourful.
All in all, I have no complaints with how Madhouse handled the production of this show, with the exception of how the transferred it from the original source material. But it's unfair to judge a show based on how it compares to the source material, so lets leave it at that.
Enjoyment and Overall Score: 8/10
One Punch Man is a nice breather from the below average shows we get in anime lately, but it is no where near the best show to ever exist or even the top 20 or 30. It was entertaining. It wasn't a show that I would go out of my to watch again nor was it a show that I really looked forward to all that much, other than waiting for the manga scenes to be animated. The anime community rode it's hype train because it has a large manga fanbase, it was leaps and bounds above average animation and sound, which leads to any onlooker being interested in it. That being said, I think it was overhyped, but I have no problem with that. It's nice to see people enjoy something that much every now and then, especially if that something is not Sword Art Online, but rather a relatively good show. I do however have a problem with it being so high in the Top Anime of this website, beating anime that are far better than it, when I know that most of the high scores are given with only hype in mind.
I watched the show, I liked it, I would recommend it to anyone if they specifically asked for it but never as a must watch.
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Feb 17, 2016
One Punch Man
(Anime)
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Is it fair to give a show a relatively high score only because it is better than the shows that air alongside it? To anyone it has been common knowledge for the past few years, that new anime are not as good as the old classics. With more than half of the new shows coming out being terrible comedies with a bunch of weebs being their target audience.
So, when a show comes out that goes completely against the norm, and showcases a new ingenious idea, that is actually entertaining and can be analysed with more praise than critique, do we automatically start calling it ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 28, 2015
Boruto: Naruto the Movie
(Anime)
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For something that can use the Naruto name to basically make people watch anything, The Boruto Movie wasn't all that bad. Though that being said, this movie did everything you would expect to see in a Naruto movie, or rather have already seen in Naruto.... seen far too many times. To put it simply it was unbearably cliche.
Before I continue, let's talk about target audience. I hardly doubt that anyone who hasn't read the Naruto manga to it's fullest will be going out of their way to watch this movie that is indeed set after the events that occur in Chapter 700 and even ... after the Naruto Gaiden. So obviously, the only people that are going to be watching this movie are going to be people who have invested a great deal of time with the Naruto franchise. Which is something this movie definitely made a note of. It showed tons of cameos from almost the whole main cast of Naruto doing something completely obscure. Just to have people start fanboying when their favourite character appears on screen. With that and having Naruto's name in the title of the movie, the movie could've been some romance between Kiba and Ichiraku's daughter for 95 minutes and the studio would still make profit. So needless to say, I went into this movie with very low expectation, but during my watch, there were times where I was actually enjoying it. Story (4/10): The story is so freaking cliche it make me want to cry. Boruto, is having family troubles, Naruto gives a sort of pep talk and they're friends now, Boruto messes up, they break up, final fight happens, and they're back to being friends. That's the main story. It was boring, I hated everything about it. But there were certain premises in the movie's setting that I sort of liked. This is going to get a bit spoily, so read at your own risk. The scientific ninja tools that they had were one of the really cool things this movie introduced. Being someone who has been following Naruto for a long time, it mind boggled me how much these new ninja tools changed the power system in Naruto. It was like, everyone had their own pair of sharingan. Everyone was the Copy Ninja. But for some reason the movie shunned on it, which was a big let down. Also, the bad guys. They could have been really interesting, actually they were interesting, but we hardly got any of them. They came, they rekt, and then in the next 15 minutes proceeded to get rekt, and that was the end of that. They were somehow related to Kaguya and Kaguya's plan of creating the White Zetsu army, which was hardly explained. Leaving out the motives of the antagonist like that = bad, bad writing. Characters (4/10): The main character of this movie were, Boruto, Naruto, & Sasuke. Naruto and Sasuke went through absolutely no character development... sort of. In Naruto's case, in the beginning of the movie he turn in to a douche bag, but then by the end of it he was back to being the same old Naruto, it's like reverse character development. Sasuke didn't change at all. Boruto sort of had character development, since by the end of the movie he stopped being a idiotic prick, but since he was a prick the whole movie you can't really like him, which turns into not caring about him. The supporting characters were pretty much the entire cast of the Naruto manga with their kids. Sarada has changed. She was a lot better off in the gaiden, she had the good components of both Sasuke and Sakura. Now she has just turned into a less dramatic Sakura. She isn't a prick though, like both of her parents were. Her trying to be Hokage is cool, but that's from the Gaiden, and the movie really just adapted it. Mitsuki, was the sarcastic asshole. Which is totally awesome because you don't get that in Naruto. But he had almost little to none screen time. The other kids were the same, they made small appearances to show that they exist. Though I must say that the kid using the bugs (not confirmed to be Shino's son), has a badass character design. The other characters from the original Naruto manga, made small cameo appearances, but weren't all that important. Shikamaru & Hinata were the only one's who actually tried to do something against the villains, of which Hinata's attempt was off-screen... something I don't I'll ever understand the reasoning behind. Oh... and then there were the Kage's. I hate them. I mean like why do we need to care about these guys, apart from Gaara, they are all fodder. I wanted to see Lee fight some bad guys not freaking Chojuro. Who the fk cares about Chojuro? Anyway, yeah the Kage were there, and they were somewhat important. The bad guys were really bad. Not as in evil, as in just bad. There purpose was glossed over and they weren't all that strong either. Just the fact that they had to use only taijutsu against them, (AND THEY STILL DIDN"T BRING ROCK LEE FOR THE FINAL FIGHT). Enjoyment (8/10): I did somewhat enjoy this movie, despite its many faults. One of the reasons was because of the high production value. The animation was absolutely brilliant and fluid, something Naruto is usually not so good at. The action scenes were some of the best I have ever seen in anime, and definitely the best Naruto has ever offered. As a long running Naruto fan, I did enjoy seeing the character as adults, though I did feel that some of them didn't change much. Overall (6/10); The movie was pretty bad from a critical standpoint, in fact it was terrible. But considering its target audience and how bad it really could have been (see Naruto: The Last for an example), it did a somewhat mediocre job. And hence should get a mediocre score.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 24, 2015
Rokka no Yuusha
(Anime)
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Rokka no Yuusha is an anime that stood out to me from all of the other 2015 Summer anime. Most of the anime this season were either Echii, Action, or Harem, and some a combination. Rokka no Yuusha, though brought a genre that I personally enjoy quite a lot; Mystery/Suspense. The first few episodes would lead you believe that the show is a typical show about defeating a main villain with the help of your comrades, but you will soon realize that the purpose of this show, or at least this season is to solve a mystery.
Other than the Mystery genre, Rokka no Yuusha also ... incorporates good action scenes, romance scenes and even psychological scenes (somewhat). Though usually, adding too much stuff into one anime, doesn't turn out well, but in the case of Rokka no Yuusha, the anime eventually did decide on what genre was going to be its main theme, with the other attributes added in there for a better production overall. I will review this anime in four categories; Story, Characters, Production and Enjoyment. And I should probably mention that there are anime spoilers in this review. So... Let's get started. Story: 8/10 At first the story of this show seemed to be about defeating the Demon King (oh God, that name), but it soon turned into who is the seventh brave. Though I assume that the real story is still to defeat the Demon King, but this season decided to leave that out, to create some hype of potential upcoming seasons. And I am completely OK with that. Finding out who the seventh Brave was, was the biggest reason I would watch this anime first on the days it would air. Rokka no Yuusha for me was just the right length for the type of story that it was. And for the fact that it only focused in one conflict after the first few episodes. Suspense was built each episode, and it was possible to make predictions for each member of the seven to be the fake. There wasn't an obvious answer until the later episode, which even then wan't even close to being certain. Each of the 7 were likable character (with the exception of Chamot), and the final reveal would be shocking no matter who ended up being the fake. The mystery component of this anime was its best. It was a witty way of going about things, and it worked really well, something I really enjoyed to watch every week. Other than that there were other components that were included in this anime. There was romance between Adlet and Fremy, which I found to be likable and developed just enough, for the length of this anime. There were some amazing character interactions, but I will save that for the characters section of this review. Characters: 10/10 Something has to be exceptionally good for me to give it a 10/10. There were some vivid characters in this show and each of them were interesting in their own sense. Each of them brought an interesting component to the story, and I have no complaints in how they were handled. The ones that needed a backstory got a backstory, and the ones that were fine without one, stayed without one. A good example of anime that gave each of their characters a backstory is Akame ga Kill, in which none of the backstories were memorable, nor were they stories, just events, and the length is to blame for that. The only way to have each character have an interesting and memorable backstory is to have a long running anime, like One Piece. I am not going to write about each of the 7 major characters individually, because it is mostly all going to be positive critique. Instead, I will keep this short and talk about three character individually; The Biggest Idiot in The World, Half-Demon Inuyasha, and Yandere Princess. First the lead, Adlet. Some might think that Adlet is a generic hero from every other Shonen anime. But, I see Adlet as nothing more than a normal person, that is just talented and likes to boast about it to boost his confidence, very relatable for me. He calls himself "The Strongest Man in The World", because not only is he physically fit, but he is talented in all forms of combat. Adlet has trained hard to get where he got. He wasn't born talented like a lot of heroes are in Action anime, nor does he have hidden potential that he can unlock when the going gets tough. He also isn't dense and is outgoing about his feelings, (someone actually confessed in anime? Blasphemy). All this makes Adlet someone you want to cheer for, someone a lot of people can relate to and in essence a good likable character. And the love of his life, is Fremy. The half fiend born to a Fiend mother and a human father. What I like about Fremy is that she isn't a goody two shoes. She wants to achieve her ambitions and normal morality isn't going to get in her way, or so she would like us to think. She does have a soft side, which is always nice to see in characters like these. In the end through the influence of Adlet, Fremy does end up becoming a lot more softer, which is pretty much what you would call 'character development'. Fremy's backstory was hardly explored in this season of anime, but everyone knows that it will be shown at some point in the future. As for me, I would be completely happy if it wasn't shown at all, only hinted at. This will let the viewers imagine their own perfect backstory for Fremy, which I think always works better for characters like her. One good example would be Gintoki from the anime Gintana, where his backstory is hardly explored, but everyone expects it to be legendary. Now for the last character that I want to talk in depth about is Nachetania. Yeah, she's a bitch. But that makes her so incredibly interesting to watch. She was my bet for the 7th brave since the time she destroyed those tablets, but seeing her deceive those guys, like some smartass, and then go Yandere on Adlet's ass, was one of the best moments this anime season. Nachetania was sort of a likable character in the beginning of the show, but then she was the 7th brave, and you realize that you wont see her on the good side again, mixed feelings really. And you know that because of all these opinions on Nachetania, she is a well written character. I would also like to mention her behavior as a princess. From a typical anime, you would expect Nachetania to be either super spoiled or super kind, but Nachetania was just super confused. She wanted good but didn't know what was bad. And her morals got a bit messed up, which again, made her interesting to watch. The rest of the main character of this show are also very interesting likable characters, but it is going to take too long to talk about all of them. One statement I would like to say is that they were all explored just as much as they needed to be. No one was given too much boring attention and no one was given too little. Oh and there was that other cow girl, The Saint of Blood or something. She didn't exist. Production: 7/10 There were lots of scenes in Rokka no Yuusha that were animated beautifully. They were smooth and HD, but there were a lot of scenes that were not. There was lots of inconsistency too, characters would loose their face structure every now and then. There were no soundtracks that stood out in particular. They were actually below average in truth, but the anime worked fine without them. As for the Openings and Ending. Endings were ok, I didn't watch them after the first time because they didn't really catch my attention, but the first opening was amazing, and the second was very much not. The art style in Rokka no Yuusha was one of my favorite things about the anime. The character designs were all beautiful with the exception of Cow Girl that came in the end. This made the anime that much more worth it. Enjoyment: 9/10 The mystery from the anime was the biggest form of enjoyment when watching this show every week. But there were lots of other things, that I have already mentioned; Character Design, Characters, Action and Animation. The show is very fun to watch. You are always left predicting who the seventh brave is by the end of each episode, while enjoying the events that transpire within the episode. Surprisingly the action in this anime, and the powers of each characters are also amazing. The powers are extremely unique, and the combat scenes are very fluid. It really is an anime everyone should watch. It isn't hard to understand but is smart at the same time. It has amazing characters, and a great mystery component. A must watch, for lovers of all genres. Final Scores: Story: 8/10 Characters: 10/10 Production: 7/10 Enjoyment: 9/10 Overall: 8.5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 23, 2015
Akagami no Shirayuki-hime
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
I am reviewing this show after the final episode that aired a few days ago. Akagami no Shirayuki-hime, translated to Snow White with Red Hair in English, was a romance anime running in the summer anime season of 2015. It was the only romance anime running in the season, or at least the only noticeable anime to have romance as its main genres. This I believe is the reason the show got the kind of views that it did, as it was the only choice this season for the romance enthusiastic.
Let's get started. This time around there will be four categories that I will score ... separately and collect their averages to give a final score out of 10. The categories are, Story, Characters, Production and Enjoyment. I decided to remove production from the bigger category of Enjoyment, because I feel like it deserves its own section and also because, just because the production value of an anime is high doesn't mean it is enjoyable. Please tell me if there is anything else I should change, this structure is still a work in progress. Story: 3/10 There was no overarching story in Akagami no Shirayuki-hime, referred to as Akagami from now onward. Each episode or a pair of episodes has its own conflict that in the end builds up the characters as individual characters and their relationships with other major characters. Though having episodic stories does not automatically mean that the anime is bad with story, though to have it done right, a very unorthodox method of storytelling has to be used. I am referring to the classic anime Mushishi when I say this and the exact opposite would be that thing called Nisekoi, in which episodic stories do not work out, even with an overarching story line. Akagami however did not tell its tale in the way Mushishi did and did not have a main plot. Everything just happened, one after another. There almost isn't a story for me to score, and in all honesty I gave the story a score of 1 when I first started writing this review. I increased it after realizing that the main focus of this anime is to build a relationship between Zen and Shirayuki. The building of Zen and Shirayuki's relationship is actually kind of weird. The relationship itself is actually very nice but the way it developed, and how the writers decided to play it out, is a bit wobbly. I have to assume that there are a lot of timeskips in the 12 episodes of this anime. Though there is no significant mention of them, it did feel like a lot of time had passed after each side arc. The way that played out, was quite confusing, and it would have been better for them to state how much time had passed in some way after each event that took place. This actually ended up causing a bit of problems for me when it came to character and relationship development. I did not know for how long had Shirayuki and Zen known each other for by the time Zen ended up confessing his feelings. I would assume that it was months, but no information was given and because of that I couldn't asses the type of relationship Zen and Shirayuki were having. I could talk a lot about how bad the story component of this anime is, but to put it simply, there was no clear cut story to this anime. It was episodic, in the type that Slice of Life anime are written. Characters: 8/10 I knew that the story of this anime was going to be very... shit, at around episode 5, but I continued watching the show for two reasons. One being the characters and the other being the production value, which I'll talk about later. There are three main characters of the show; Prince Charming, Disney Princess and Obi the G.O.A.T. Shirayuki, is the lead character. At first glance and at an overall look she is an extremely generic Disney princess type of character. Ordinary village girl, that happens to be very beautiful and kind, and ends up having the prince fall in love with her. But the thing is, Shirayuki's character is so extremely generic that at this point it is done on purpose. You would expect here character to be just your average damsel in distress type of character, but then all of a sudden she does something unpredictable. For example, the time she jumped from the top of the tower into the water below, or the time she made a good escape attempt from her kidnapper. This makes Shirayuki a very interesting character to watch. Not only that but in nature Shirayuki is a normal girl, she jokes around, she gets angry, learns new things, gets embarrassed and basically behaves like a normal person would. Which also makes her a likable and relatable character for some. Then there is her Prince Charming; Zen. He is again a typical Disney Prince, that likes being out of the castle exploring rather than sitting in his castle signing papers and being served high class tea. Though unlike Shirayuki, Zen doesn't throw loops in that character structure of every Disney Prince. Instead Zen is like Shirayuki, a likable and relatable character.... most of the times. But of course, Obi is the best character of the show. Not only because he is absolutely hilarious, loyal but he also doesn't give a shit about any thing at all. There is a lot of mystery left unsolved for Obi by the time this season ends, but I do expect it to be explored more in upcoming seasons. What's really amazing about Obi is that he is slowly falling in love with Shirayuki. But it's different than Zen. Originally it seemed as though Zen fell in love with Shirayuki for her looks, which isn't something I would want to complain about, but the fact that Obi is falling in love with Shirayuki slowly because of her actions, puts shame to Zen (sorry this is just me talking about my favorite ship). The supporting characters in this show are surprisingly good for only 12 episodes running time. That's mostly because they were all made to be likable characters and most of them follow tropes in anime that everyone sees quite often, and because of that we can fully understand the character's personality without even seeing much of them. There were no characters that I felt needed to be explored more, which I feel is always a problem in short, seasonal anime. Each character was given enough time for what they were worth and how interesting they were. Obi being the only exception, who didn't get enough development, but I am fine with it because it adds mystery to his character and gives me something to look forward to in new seasons of this anime. Production: 8/10 The animation for Akagami was amazing. Even among the marvelously animated shows running this season, I always get impressed by the art style and animation that Akagami offers every episode. The art style in the first episode reminded me a lot of a Hayao Miyazaki film, especially the way the backgrounds were drawn, but it slowly faded away from that and everything started looking more computer drawn, though still well done. The VA for Shirayuki was the only VA that stood out from the show. The way she handled the comedic scenes vs the serious scenes always matched the type of character Shirayuki was. And if you already didn't know the VA for Shirayuki is Saori Hayami who has also done some other amazing voice acting roles and is also the one who performed the anime's opening theme. The opening and ending sequences for the show are just average, nothing that stands out. Enjoyment: 6/10 Because of the episodic nature of the show, there was a point where everything became boring. There is a point in the show where you realize that everything that is happening is most likely irrelevant to everything and will never be mentioned again. Also the redundant use of Shirayuki's morals about her path, got to the point where it was annoying to listen to. Other than that, I did feel the need to come back to the show every episode. To enjoy the characters and the beautiful animation that Akagami offered. Final Scores: Story: 3/10 Characters: 8/10 Production: 8/10 Enjoyment: 6/10 Total: 6.3/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 3, 2015
Akame ga Kill!
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
I decided to review Akame Ga Kill because I want to keep the pattern of reviewing one good anime and one bad anime. Since, last time I did a review of Psycho Pass, this one is going to be on Akame Ga Kill. Or better yet, “Akame Did Not Ga Kill…. but absolutely everyone else did”.
Akame Ga Kill is a Fantasy/Action anime that aired in the summer and fall seasons of 2014. With 24 episodes it became one of the most popular and hyped anime of the year. However, by many it was considered the MOST over hyped anime of the year, because a lot ... of it was very poorly done. In this review I will break Akame Ga Kill down into three categories; Story, Characters and Enjoyment, score those categories accordingly and give out a final score. Since too many peeps have been complaining about the scoring system, I guess I’ll change it now to scores out of 10 for each category. Let’s get started. Story: 4/10 The story of Akame Ga Kill is very simple. Evil government doing bad things, looking good, and the good guys trying to stop the government, doing good things, looking bad. The show tries to seem very deep in the first few episodes, but even an idiot will eventually realize that either it’s just trying too hard, or the target audience is a bunch of 12 year olds. Akame ga kill reviewAkame ga Kill is more of an episodic show than the story idea might make it seem. Every episode or two there is a new enemy for the night raiders, the ‘good’ guys of this show. The new enemy has a super strong weapon, or Imperial Arm, as it is called in the Akame ga Kill world. By the end of the episode or the few episodes after that, the enemy has been defeated, and in most cases one of the main characters has died. It is a bit repetitive, but that isn’t that much of a problem. The biggest problem for this show is its ending and the mismatching of the setting vs the story. The ending of Akame ga Kill was an anime original or so I have heard, but I am not here to review the manga since this is an anime review, so that is no excuse. At around episode 20, the night raiders started preparing for their final fight. The villains had been hyped up, and a crazy battle royal was about to take place. But that hardly happened. The fights were very rushed and hardly had any meaning to them whatsoever. The biggest question is, how the empire just moved on after the fall of their king? Oh and most of the powers of the main villain of the show was unprecedented and only appeared on the episode he was defeated. Here is a question for the people who have already watched Akame ga Kill: Looking back, would you describe Akame ga Kill to be a dark show or a fun show? Yeah I know, I’m confused too. Akame ga Kill switched from being super dark and gory, to complete comedy. Now having a bit of both usually makes good contrast, but you generally have to choose one main genre. Because of the quick switches, all the deaths in the show were no way as emotional as they could have been. The serious scenes weren’t taken seriously. But if you were in for laughs, then I guess it works. Characters: 7/10 Surprisingly enough, there are 4 characters in this show that are labelled as ‘main’ characters; Tatsumi ga Kill, the best character, the one who is important enough to have the show named after them and MINE!?? Mine was a main character? WTF!? So Tatsumi is the main lead for the show, but the show is named after Akame, and she also pretends to be the main character in the openings, just because even the people making this, know that Akame would have made a better main character. Akame had a pretty generic yet extremely over hyped backstory. And without getting into too much spoilers, it was about her sister. There was conflict which was ultimately solved with a one on one fight, not even ‘talk no jutsu’ style, just a fight. And if I was really getting into the picky details, I would say that Akame’s character is very inconsistent. She is sometimes very dark and mysterious, and I’m fine with her being caring, but then she take a 180 and turns into a comedic character. But that’s what the whole show is, so it’s unfair to deduct points again. I talked about Akame first, but as you might know and as I said, Tatsumi is the main character of the show. Here is the best way to describe Tatusmi; Shonen Super Hero. Yup that’s it. He wants good, hates bad. Friends die, he gets mad. Gets powers, beats people. Very, very generic. That being said, I did like Tatsumi’s imperial arm. Not only for the design and the idea but also for the story behind how he got it. Maybe because I liked that character he got it from, we’ll talk about that in a bit. Before we talk about Mine, let’s talk about Leone. Leone was definitely a likable character, her balance between dark to comedic was actually very well handled. Even when she was angry, she was still using sarcasm in her speech, keeping to her character. Unfortunately, even though she was one of the main characters, her backstory and character developments were overlooked for other supporting characters. (SPOILER START) Leone’s death was the most emotional one for me. She was the friendliest of all the night raiders but in the end she died alone, best part in the show (SPOILER END). Now there is MINEHHH!! Mine was the another extremely cliche tsundere. Other than that one part where she was important, Mine barely had any character development or importance as a character. I am very surprised that she was one of the four main characters for this show. (SPOILER START (Yeah I’m going to do this frequently now)) Mine’s death; VERY VERY CLICHE. I cannot imagine it being more cliche, the only thing it was missing was a “NOOO” by Tatsumi (SPOILER END). Though Mine’s character was absolutely trash, her Imperial Arm was very original, ironic isn’t it. Nowadays, it is very hard for people to imagine up new and original superpowers, but in Mine’s case, it was something I had not seen before. Though why is it called ‘Pumpkin’? There are a lot of important supporting characters in this show. Too many for me to get into much detail about them and too diverse for me to generalize them to one statement. So Ill just talk very briefly about some of the ones that were either pretty good or pretty bad. First is Bulat. He was one of my favorite characters of the show, but after looking back at it I realize that he only had 2 episodes of screen time, so why did I like him? Because he was a carbon copy of one of my all time favorite anime characters, Kamina from ‘Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan’. They even met the death reaper on the same episode of their respective anime. Also after realizing this, I also noticed lots of other inspirations in Akame ga Kill from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan, now that isn’t a bad thing, but with Bulat and Kamina being exactly the same, I can’t really call Bulat a good character. Next up, there is Lubbock. He was also one of the more likable characters in the show. He also had a well animated Imperial Arm, my personal favorite. I wish he was more important though, because he was definitely better than Mine. Chelsea and Rajendra were also very nice characters. They also balanced their dark and comedic characteristics pretty well, (if only that could be said about the anime). Though Chelsea’s Imperial Arm was extremely cliche while Rajendra’s was extremely badass. There were a lot of extremely minor characters that I had lots of interest in, but I think since the anime was cut short compared to the manga, those characters were left out, pity. Now that we’re done talking about the gud guys, lets talk about some antagonists. First we have “Big Tits Elsa”. I will say this without hesitation, Esdeath was easily the best character of the show. Unlike ALL the other characters, she wasn’t all about making the kingdom better or following orders. She did what she did because she wanted to do it. She liked killing and she liked being superior to people. Though she wasn’t a complete bit*h, she was nice to her soldiers and was willing to try out new things. Which is why she had a love interest in Tatsumi, because Tatsumi had been blessed by ‘Kirito: The Harem God”. Even till the end Esdeath stayed completely true to her character, while going through some extremely minor changes that her love for Tatsumi made her experience. I was extremely glad, she didn’t turn goody two shoes on me in the end, that was not nearly enough time to have someone like that go good. Best character of the show right here, definitely made it much more enjoyable to watch. Esdeath also has a squad. This squad exists to fight the night raiders head on. And it was really weird how all these guys were ‘good’ people being manipulated by the government, but none of them noticed squat shit about the obvious unjust the government was imposing on its people. In the end, most of them were just discarded and barely played a role in the final fight. The characters were likable but undeveloped. Oh and did I mention they are called ‘The Jaegers’. The other two villains of this show are the kid prince and his uncle. The kid was extremely unimportant and got an ass pull in the last few episode, to add some relevance to his carcass. Now his uncle, he wanted money, food and women (Period). Yeah, these guys were not major characters, but ended up being the final villains. Whatever. Enjoyment: 7/10 With all being said and done, Akame ga Kill was a very enjoyable show. The story was lacking, the characters were not developed enough, the dramatic scenes were trying to hard, but I was still watching every episode as soon as it would release. That’s because the show had SOO MUCH potential. The setting was so brilliant. I loved it very much, though I feel it wasn’t used properly at all. In the end, though I was left a bit disappointed, I was very intrigued by the idea and kept on getting hyped up every now and then. The animation of this show was brilliant. It was very consistent in keeping everything smooth and making badass scenes look badass. I also enjoyed the fighting scenes of this anime. Especially when Lubbock fought, because of the nature of his Imperial Arm. The art style though, was not matching of the story I think. It was very colorful. The dramatic scenes were dimmed in saturation, to not seem so bright but looking back I can’t take those scenes seriously because I keep imagining those colorful hairstyles. The anime is very gory when it does get dark. The comedy on the other hand was pathetic. The gore from this anime was a very nice touch, that I enjoyed very much, but I felt in most occasions that it was forced, mostly because the nature of this show. Now see here, I keep on coming back to the fact that Akame ga Kill had a mismatch of genres that it couldn’t manage, that in honesty is the biggest flaw of this anime. The OP and ED are ok I suppose. The OP I didn’t skip too often but the ending I skipped usually, though it wasn’t horribly bad, it just wasn’t worth the time is all. It just wasn’t my taste. Final Scores: Story: 4/10 Characters: 7/10 Enjoyment: 7/10 Overall = 6/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 31, 2015
Psycho-Pass
(Anime)
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There are many different opinions on the 2012-2013 hit anime, Psycho Pass. Though, after looking at forums discussing this anime, and other online reviews, there is something very common among the fans that enjoyed the show to its fullest and those who were left a bit disappointed. Going into Psycho Pass, with high expectations, expecting it to be like your favorite sci-fi classics is a big mistake if you wish to enjoy the show. The show is only just good, it is nothing special and expecting it to be so, will leave you disappointed after you discover the truth. In any case here is my
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review on Psycho Pass.
Story: 7.3/10 The Psycho Pass story is about a future Japan, where everyone lives in what they think is a perfect world. Everything in this world is calculated by a system, dubbed the Sibyl System. The system calculates and determines what is best for society and also punishes potential criminals, before they even commit acts of evil. Everything seems perfect. However there are always those that are itching to be free. Depending on who you are the Psycho Pass story will leave you with different impressions. If you are someone who is a major fan of Sci-fi and psychological fictional stories, than you have definitely seen many others like Psycho Pass. But if you are someone new to this genre, Psycho Pass is very appealing and a great gate way to this world. The thing is that, these types of stories are still very appealing to many people. You could almost say that people just can’t get enough of them. And for that reason, I cannot give Psycho Pass too much trouble for having a… as you might say, cliche story line. However, lets talk about the pacing. The first half of Psycho Pass is very slow, to a point where I would say it’s boring. Though it definitely starts kicking, in the second half, only the very patient get that far. Psycho Pass uses the first half to show the viewer its setting and introduce them the characters. But because of that ‘boring’ first half, the second half was that much more enjoyable. Picking up the pace and only focusing on the main ideas, because all the nitty witty stuff had been taken care of. You just need patience to get through the first half, and then sit back and enjoy the awesome ride that is the second half of the show. Characters: 8/10 First lets talk about the character designs. There are many who will talk ill about Psycho Pass’ bland character design, however in my personal opinion I liked the designs. They were simple and almost realistic, they didn’t distract you from the bigger picture or leave you with any expectations about the characters (for the most part). I leave it up to you, on what you want to think about the character design. There are two main protagonists in Psycho Pass; Kougami and Akane, there are quite a few supporting characters and one main antagonist; Makishima. Akane Tsunemori, is the female lead of this show, and the character from which the story is told. First thing I want to get out of the way is, how much hate she was getting while Psycho Pass was airing. Unlike the other characters, her design was to many people very unappealing, not just bland. I have no idea, why? Unfortunately, I cannot imagine why many people think that way, because I think on the polar opposite, I think the design was very appealing, and for once wasn’t just there for the sake of fanservice. Akane is a very innocent person, that is just too nice to be a police officer. But she is apparently so perfect that she was allowed to choose whichever job she wanted to, because Sibyl figured that she would be good at everything she does. But little did it know, that Akane would be the one of the biggest nuisances that Sibyl ever encounters. Through out the show, Akane is very conflicted on whether she wants to trust Sibyl or not. She knows that the Sibyl system is very convenient to society, however she can’t excuse it for literally killing innocent people. Eventually Akane turns from a very innocent police girl to a very depressed police girl. Character development? Yes, but also no. Because by the end of this season, Akane might have matured, but she never solved her inner conflict. Though, she was the main lead, her problems were put aside so that Kougami’s could be solved, and that was indeed a bit… meh. Now let’s talk about Kougami. Kougami is a your typical, save the day hero. Yes, I know, he has his own inner conflict and he’s really badass, but that’s just an upgrade to what Ichigo is. However, he was a very likable character and season two was very boring without him. If we talk about development. Kougami went through it. But a lot of it was off screen, and he really just solved everything with some kicking butt. His opinions were in truth, just simple. But that’s the type of character he was. A typical hero, with typical views. There are quite a few supporting characters in this series. And truly this is where the series takes a big hit. The supporting characters for this show are really neglected. Most of them are very interesting but we just don’t get enough of them. Some of them either get an episode of development or none at all. There is of course, Ginoza and his dad, which do get a bit more developed. And those were some of the best moments of the show, shame more characters didn’t get that type of treatment. There is one main antagonist for season 1 of Psycho Pass and his name is Shougo Makishima. He is someone that the Sibyl System is unable to judge and he uses that opportunity to fight the system by committing crimes and not having to worry about getting caught. Just his existence is a fact that even the Sibyl System is flawed, but he isn’t just happy with that, he wants to show it off. Anime Snack DiscussionLike many anime villains, Makishima isn’t just all out ‘bad’. His intentions are definitely good, but he just goes about them in a very wrong way, taking the lives of innocent and what not. Makishima is presented to us, as being very philosophical, he occasionally quotes real and well known scholars. But a big problem is the fact that, that’s all he does. Quote them and move on. He doesn’t take his own advice is what I’m trying to say here. You expect him to, and that sort of feels a bit incomplete. Anime Snack Discussion Enjoyment: 7.6/10 Like I said before, the first half of Psycho Pass was pretty boring because of its slow pace, and I definitely would have changed that if I was doing it over again. However, the production value for Psycho Pass was extremely high. Even though it wasn’t a classic harem or echii anime that gets lots of money, it still used up a lot of budget, and I worry if it made much back. The animation was very high quality, and there were rarely any lazy scenes or mistakes. The openings and ending are some of the best of all anime. There is a significant amount of gore in Psycho Pass, and it is definitely not a show for the weakhearted, but for anyone who can handle it, that gore touch is a very interesting concept in the show. The action scenes in Psycho Pass work really well with its setting and the animation. But if you were in for a psychological show that could be a downside. Psycho Pass does have lots of action/chase scenes, holding true to its Sci-Fi genre. Though the show was highly enjoyable, nothing from it stood out. The openings and endings are its best card against other classics and that’s why the show didn’t appeal to many people. It just isn’t fun watching the same story in a less impressive way. Final Score: 7.6/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Aug 31, 2015
Sword Art Online
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
I recently though of doing random anime review on here, and I had to choose Sword Art Online for the first one, because this show is very special to me. In the sense that I have not ever seen a show that is this comically bad, yet so popular.
The reason for Sword Art Online’s popularity, I believe, hides behind its interesting concept to the anime fanbase. A virtual reality game which you can almost physically be in, though not really. It is the dream of any gamer, and there are some idiots in this world who might even be want to trapped in one. It ... is not a rare fact to anyone that the majority of the anime fanbase consists of regular gamers. Turning Sword Art Online into their ultimate fantasy, add in a vibrant harem of hot chicks and it’s perfect. Story: 2.7/10 Whomever wrote the scrip for Sword Art Online, was very confused about the genres he was going to focus on. Sword Art Online starts off as a dramatic anime, which emphasizes death and the hard loss behind it. The drama in the first two episodes is brilliant, but do not get your hopes up, because everything else is very disappointing. After the first two episodes we get lots of girls. And all these girls fall in love with our main character; Kirito. Why do they fall in love with him? Because he has been blessed by the harem God, that controls the feelings of all women, anime. Anyway, these girls get one or two episodes on them, in which they are saved by Kirito, fall in love with him, and then Kirito just straight up walks out. If they didn’t appear later on in the series, I would have thought that all this was filler. The main objective in the first half of Sword Art Online is to beat the game, in order to escape. Now being trapped in a Virtual Reality Game, where almost everyone carries weapons and there is no government, you would think that escape would be a pressing matter. But nope, let’s go fishing. Because every gamer loves fishing. After the first few episodes escape from the game is no longer a concern for the main characters, but building a nice family in their teenage years is. The ‘main plot’ comes back midway and is solved in an episode or two, and then completely thrown out for a new plot, which is a complete rip off of every Mario game ever made. Oh and involves incest… fml. You know the scrip writers are not very bright when the word BEATER comes from the word BETA TESTER and CHEATER, put together. What. The. Fu*k. Characters: 1.9 (It doesn’t deserve a 2) There are three main characters in Sword Art Online; Harem King Kirito-chan, Mary Sue and Incest Fanservice. I will also talk about supporting characters as a whole and the two main antagonists; “I forgot, lelelel” and Professor Evil. (Don’t worry if you don’t get the character jokes, it’s just to make any Sword Art Online fan feel bad) First there is Kirito, also known as Kazuto Kirigaya (Don’t care if I spelled that wrong, because that’s how little significance this real name has), who is the most badass man to ever walk planet Earth, and gets all the gamer girls. No like seriously, everyone he meets. Even Kein. Kirito is a character that is insanely strong, even stronger than the game itself. He is possible the man with the biggest plot armor in all of anime. Like what happened in the final fight of the first arc?? Even in the second arc, like how did he win? How did he become the GM outta nowhere? Through the power of Love and Friendship!!! There really isn’t much to say about Kirito since he doesn’t really do much, character wise. All he does is: save girls, beat bad guys, and go fishing. He’s the strongest Sword Art Online player, and for the convenience of the plot, did it by playing solo. Now I don’t play many MMOs but even I know that, it just doesn’t happen. He is literally there to just solve every problem by himself, even if he can’t do it, he does it, because fu*k it. And he always comes out unharmed. And the worst part is, all his fights are won through him slashing his swords really hard. There are no tactics, no surprises, just “AAARRGHHH”!! FRIENDSHIP POWWAAAHHHH “STAR BUST STREAMMMMM”. Kirito Dies… Lol no, he lives… Then there is Asuna. She starts off as a very badass female character, something you do not get in anime a lot, but then gives all of that up so that she can cook for her husbandu. No seriously, why did Asuna waste time learning how to cook, while they were trapped in a life threatening game. Makes you wonder, if they ever wanted to escape in the first place. Other than Kirito no one in this series actually does anything, including Asuna, so cooking for him and providing us with fanservice was the only reason she existed in this anime. then for the last main character of the Sword Art Online series. His freaking cousin. The only reason Suguha existed was because Asuna didn’t have bigger boobs and because incest was the only thing Kirito was missing in his harem. And sure, marrying your cousin is acceptable in many cultures, maybe Japan, but she lived with him like his sister. His actual fu*king sister. She fell in love with her brotherly figure. That shit is messed up. Even in the second half of Sword Art Online, where she was important she really didn’t do anything, except tell Kirito where to go, and how to play. Not much to say. The supporting characters of this series, don’t really need to exist. Yui is dues ex machina for every situation. Klein, despite having potential in the first half, never comes back again until the next season. There is Kirito’s harem which got one episode to get Kirito’s wand, and then never appeared again. Basically these characters could be replaced with walls and nothing much would change. Now lets talk about the villains. First villain; Kayaba. He is the one responsible for creating this world, where he wanted the burden of death to also exist in games, like it did in real life. Why? The writer couldn’t think of anything and so Kayaba actually, forgot why….. I’ve heard rumors that SAO was written while the author was 16 years old, I think he might have been 5 tbh. The next villain is Sugou. He wants power, money and women. The End. Kirito beats him with bullshit. Shitty villain, shitty character and shitty ending. Enjoyment: 8.4/10 The animation, scenery and music are actually very well done is Sword Art Online. The production value for this series was really high because, even though the producers of this anime did not know how to write a story, they knew the type of stuff people will watch and invest their money in. And hence they used a lot of money because they knew they were going to make a lot of money. And most people cannot argue that the show was indeed enjoyable. It was actually entertaining. Even more so entertaining, when you realize that it’s really bad and can laugh at it while watching old episodes to write reviews on website >_>. The action sequences in this anime are just fine. They don’t really stand out, specially for an anime with ‘Action’ as one of it’s genres. And they are very bland, in the sense that Kirito just fights with his swords. Though it is a game about swords, I expected more imaginary powers, like in an actual fantasy MMO game. Final Results: 5.4/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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