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It's not an easy anime to comprehend the underlying philosophy of but its short and easily digestible once you do get it.
They achieved carrying out that message, a ton of aspects of the show are incredibly impressive.

You don't get much background of the characters but I like that, shows often get forced into doing flashbacks of a characters past and it comes across as inorganic, I had zero points where I felt something was forced in this show, I had an easy time watching it, that's why I rate it so high. The art-style is also quite impressive, the ability to mix in the weird ... traditional setting of the financial district with the more modern flashy anime style I believe is no small feat. The show didn't need that much complex animation but even at points they did they were able to provide the quality I expect from a top rated anime.
The music doesn't stand out as much but it's good, and that could be said of everything else, the story was good, the dialogue was good, its just a shame it's a short series.

Here are some reasons for watching;
- you like anime that explore philosophical concepts
- you aren't a finance student
- you have lost people in your life
- you overextend yourself in everything you do
- you're just someone who likes to explore different aesthetic

Reasons not to watch:
- you don't like short anime
- you prefer to have lots of character development
- you enjoy being in the present more than the future
- you have a toxic father
- you have schizophrenia

This anime has a lot of subtext, during this review my aim is to reveal some of the scenes to perhaps enrich your perspective of which some wisdom may be helpful and applicable to your life, I'm not going to bore you with too much detail so lets jump right in.

Les Fleurs Du Mal
The story was inspired by a french poet who wrote a book of poems about the influence of industrialization on large cities, as a critic he's not afraid to touch the darkness in his works, just like in the anime where the protagonist Takao Kasuga admits that he doesn't really understand the ... full meaning behind the poems I believe it is just as hard for us readers and watchers to really get it, the reason for this is that none of us really lived through that period and few of us experience the same feelings the work is trying to bring forth. Because of this disconnect you have to really try to put yourself into the shoes of a social reject. Nakamura.

Puberty
Our story starts with a nerdy boy who is infatuated with a girl in his class, he pays a ton of attention to her and puts her on a pedestal despite not knowing what kind of a person she is, without having ever talked to her, she seems oblivious to him, and his friends make fun of him, the artstyle seems to bridge a gap in attractiveness between all of the students, which I really like, their facial expressions too give you some information about what kind of a person they are and out of any anime these characters actually look japanese in their expression and in their contour, this removes the need for a spectrum of hair colors to show differences, however there is one character that jumps out just because of their hair, which is a very important character in the show, she stands out just like how some people IRL stand out coloring their hair, both the character artstyle, the extremely beautiful detailed backgrounds of the city and the other touches create a strong link to our reality, it tries its best to set itself above fiction.

Takao is set up as a character that is proud of being different, maybe even a little self absorbed thinking himself to be better than his friends because he reads books, this is an important contrast to what is to follow because one day when he goes back to class to fetch his favorite book, the gym clothes of the girl he's infatuated with drop in front of him and he feels the temptation to explore them, there is undoubtably something sexual to it but he doesn't want to admit and still looks at his infatuation as pure love.

Nakamura, the girl with the red hair, who openly insults her teachers, appears to know about it but it is unclear whether at some point she's made a calculated guess or if she really saw him take the clothes, since she's sitting behind him, she would have caught him looking and deduced it was him purely from his behavior, she waits to tell him she saw him take the clothes until they meet on accident and only when she can use it as blackmail, Takao being weak runs away that first time, he's trying to keep himself from turning into the pervert he is, but fails. Nakamura is excited by this and tries to get him to partake into these sinful behaviors and asks him to tell her how it feels. She thinks of him as kindred spirit a deviant one.

Takao's parents start to find out that their son is acting strange, coming home late because of nakamura's influence, his dad is the more patient of the two and attributes it to puberty.
Here the idea is that Takao having been a good boy towards his parents has started to change, but I believe the most important thing to take from this is that his puberty started through the discovery of a dark aspect of himself, an aspect that Nakamura is very familiar with and she is the one who seems to act as his evil mentor spurring it on or if you want to use the theme of the anime she is causing it to bloom. Aku no Hana.

God's Trial
During one of their meetings in the library Nakamura inadvertently causes a connection between Saeki and Takao, causing them to start talking, It's not something Nakamura thought would happen but she seems to celebrate it when Takao is successful in asking her for a date, ofcourse the celebration is because she can torment Takao by making him wear those gym clothes on their date, she also reveals that she's intent on breaking the walls the prevent him from seeing himself like a deviant, he's still resisting that he is a pervert and fails to tell Saeki the truth, it seems like on their date Saeki has never really had a boy confess to her and she takes this as something dear to her, which is why the nature of this date isn't so vibrant or special yet she still wants to make it work, Saeki comes across as a dreamer, a person who pictures a fantasy in her mind, just like Takao's fantasy of her being his angel, his muse... Saeki's fantasy is just as naive, she sees him as special because he is the first one to ask her out, later Nakamura seems to also reveal something about Saeki, that she deep down wants to have sex with Takao, how she really knows is unclear, Nakamura says that she looked like she wanted to have sex. From this you have to ascribe some kind of knowledge to Nakamura, the knowledge of the distasteful aspects that people hide underneath their ideals.

This idealism and crude disgraceful nature stands against each other and while Takao is in agony over it Saeki is not, her's is perhaps more acceptible, in the same trend she seems to be accepting of Takao's perverted nature and tries to love him like he is. This is interesting, it's almost like she is able to surpass this agony, she's willing to erase the guilt that Takao feels with how she behaves, she's also not corruptible, there's a moment in the forest where Nakamura undresses Takao in front of Saeki almost to tempt her desire of seeing him bare, it's not a good time for that but it also does nothing to provoke her, saeki stands her ground and is only interested in whether Takao wants to come with her or Nakamura, This scene is a crossroads between returning to civilization and giving into nature this is what it is really about underneath it's Nakamura against Saeki, These parts of the story are also beautifully supported by the music at the start of each episode.

Exodus
In the ending we get a little bit about the cause of all of this suffering, the wave of suffering that rippled through all the people connected to Nakamura and Takao started with a broken household, there's not much explanation it's left open and perhaps rushed but if you wonder how the flower took roots this is the most obvious answer, I haven't read the manga. There are a few moments throughout the story where you see Nakamura unleash her pain by screaming, and she is visibly relieved and happy after they vandalize the classroom, perhaps she is special, is it common for people in pain to orient themselves towards destruction? Maybe it's the fact that all of this was beyond her control, maybe her satanic reactions are because god dealt her a bad hand. It's an open ending, there are flashes of the future as they both lay on the ground, a future that isn't a future, a future that only further breaks down their lives and the lives of those around them,

Definitely not a happy ending, but hey it promises a part 2, maybe it gets better, I'm actually fine with this ending, a happy ever after story would have detracted from the theme.

The positive take is hidden, god gave them both another chance, but they had to sacrifice a part of them, the part that they wanted so hard to be free. Saeki could do it, she's an actual angel in this story. Light in the dark


The Actual Review
The artstyle was something to get used to, but I understood it as a design choice to compliment the theme and it wasn't hard to adjust to it, I think it added value since I was able to more easily differentiate characters from each other, I wouldn't mind if more studios started to take Rotoscoping seriously, maybe optomizations could be made since it seems like some scenes were slower than others, perhaps it's not something that should become a default because that would take away from the artists who want to create characters different from human contour, or the ones who want to focus on personality rather than looks.

The story was simple but good, it did the job in trying to convey the philosophy behind the poems, the ending lacked a lot of depth and it felt rushed I'm not sure if that can be as easily forgiven, they could have added more romance too, the relationship between Takao and Saeki lasted for like 2 seconds, perhaps it shouldn't have been put into a mere 13 episodes and been given a larger budget, because this anime would definitely be able to get a cult status, the artstyle is a hurdle for that so maybe they should have made compromise there, I'm glad they didn't but also mixed about it.

The music was good, it felt like they def. had talent there, it was unlike anything I'd heard before and it worked, it gives you the chills when it was supposed to, the little variations also kept you listening to it with every episode. I think then ending song was supposed to represent beautiful dysharmony and I wonder if this is an actual genre or if this was just something they came up with just for the show, you have to be really talented to create something unique on demand. I have mad respect for whoever did that.

Overall this anime is going to be bland to most people, I don't see many of you be able to enjoy it, but I consider it an important voice that people who want to understand the world should listen to, usually that only applies to those who have suffered greatly from the same type of moral boundaries but maybe it's even more crucial to people who haven't, they could learn something that they aren't subjected to it could help them understand and plan to interact with those who are. If learning lessons from philosophy is ridiculous to you perhaps you appreciate the mention of Baudelaire and consider this an excuse to get familiar with his work and derive it's secrets this way, be safe and don't fall into temptation or do I don't really care.

The first 4 episodes are a decent continuation of the first season, it's not as good but it keeps you interested in what's next to come.

After ep 4 it quickly goes downhill it reminded me of the later dragged out spreadsheet episodes of neon genesis so I assume they got in financial trouble or something.

No development during the hostage arc, they just brought in some quick convenient patches to fill the holes in their narrative and then kept explaining us why they wrote them which ruined immersion and the whole OVA for me.

An example of this is their repeats of why paku wasn't able to ... tell anyone, them explaining that gon and killua are valuable hostages because the leader was captured.
There's way more if you pay attention, the entire ending was like this, adding undeveloped details for convenience.

Everyone has their thoughts about what makes a good anime.
For me the best anime are the ones who have philosophy lessons hidden behind the story. That's why I like this anime even though it has obvious flaws elsewhere.

If you are not aware, most stories have a message underneath, whether the writer does this consciously or not I don't know.

I believe this one tackles the meaning of life, or at least it tries to.
You have Aruka going through different stages in her life, from the emotionless robot who simply follows a code to someone who through suffering and pain grows into a balanced human being.

I say ... balanced here, since it pushes the acceptance of all emotions, even the bad ones. This is more or less the philosophy that the pleasure gang is about.

It goes through the acceptance of your dark side and your dark past too, as well as accepting death.

With revenge, I don't think a lot of people will have understood this but if you take revenge you are only taking away from the world, the person who you inflict revenge on is just like you, a traveler finding their own path. You can't really fix them but they may have a purpose later on in life, Aruka actually realizes her mistakes of killing people, not everyone does but they have plenty of opportunities to determine this for themselves, even if they continue their "wrong" path they still create lessons for other people.

I think the first tragic death (with the guy who was trying to get rid of towns who farmed the spirits) showed how selfish someone can be in pushing their own morality upon others, so even if you think something is wrong, you should let other people realize this for themselves so they make up their own moral code.

By taking this philosophy you're kind of letting suffering happen, in a world like this it's the strong ones who survive, and that's how evolution makes sure we stay a robust species.

TLDR: make up your own code, and let others do the same

Thanks for coming to my ted talk, have a good whatever the fuck you're doing :)

This movie doesn't add anything to the series.
However, it does a good job at providing fans with more content while it is still enjoyable to watch.

I respect any sequel or movie that doesn't screw up even if it doesn't manage to improve anything.

Dislikes:

1) The "kami-sama" insecurity skits which make Yuuta look like an ordinary harem MC. They kinda made up for it with the punchline at the end but that wasn't worth it really..

2) Some of the emotional scenes didn't have as much weight to them, especially the last ones, I don't really know why but it didn't move me. Perhaps it's because the ... wording wasn't powerful enough or maybe because they moved too quickly.

Likes:

1) I Loved to see the relationship between Dekomori and Nishihiko, the fun they were having felt so real and a really good move forward from how they acted toward each other previously, seeing them finally open up towards each other.

2) Details, like the addition of a second umbrella and the scene where they meet at the end waving their arms and hands toward each other with windmills moving in the background, those were really cool. I think they lacked a little bit of power for everyone to notice but I'm happy they were included.

1) They do not judge good or bad.

What this show does really well is show a spectrum of good and bad from the get go and not making it very apparent, most of these characters show their own morality. For many other shows it feels like "good" or "bad" is just painted on them.

You could've made this about anything really, heroes and demons was something that didn't matter to the story, you could replace it with any sort of faction that didn't have a clear divide between good or bad.

They didn't really talk about the heroes or demons much but I don't think that's a ... bad thing, but I guess there are a few people who like their story to be filled and have every gap be ironed out, but I kinda like that they left out all the history crap. And I don't think it would've been at all important.
It just leads to bad intros like we're kinda used to where there's a character that suddenly without any prompt starts a monologue of 20 minutes filling you in with what happened in the past.

2) A less naive dominance dynamic.

This anime also features a more realistic subtle dominance relationship between the characters, which is something others shows are very brunt with.

A good example of that is the relationship between Basara and Takigawa, there's no conversion of good or bad but just mutual benefit, actually almost all of the characters are permitted to have their own choices even when there is a master slave dynamic.

The relationships with the women are more subtle in the way that it's not that they have to obey, I mean there's still the usual protagonist's aversion to perversion but the master is actually the one who is more a slave to his slaves having to protect them from all their problems. I'm not sure if many harem anime do that, but I've seen many where it's just: "now I can make you do my bidding, but I'm scared of being a bad guy so I won't"
Here it's like: "I'll free you from your worries, fix your problems, just build a trusting relationship where you let me act perverted."
I don't know but it seems more realistic that way.

There was a joke about chocolate that I hurt my cheeks with by smirking. There are some nice details in the conversation dynamic. The sexual aspect of the story kinda hints at a mature writer who had some experience in the field, (at least compared to other anime of this genre) but you may disagree.

Another nice "realistic" touch was the timing in the "fanservice" scenes, while they were quite hard to watch, I kinda like how it speaks to the imagination, and I guess that was more of the point behind them. It gave you ample time and a good idea for you to imagine the rest with.

3) Smart characters.

It cringes me in a lot of anime that obvious links aren't made and it makes the characters seem dumber than they should be, I was impressed at least two times where they were able to put links together that I didn't notice myself but would've made perfect sense.

4) The "mistakes".

They do the above right but then at other moments in the story it feels forced like the scene isn't built up enough for them to go a certain direction, I think that's in line with other reviews saying it's "all over the place" but I'm not sure because that's not a very detailed opinion.

Other stuff that they did bad (IMO) was the brother sister thing, I don't think it was necessary in this story, and it feels more as catering to a wider audience.
Simply saying "you're part of our family now" would've sufficed, especially when they have an orphan backstory going for a lot of the characters.

Also Mio's character.. I don't know.. she was annoying, there's like no good thing about her, she's kinda useless really, it's not very clear why from a human standpoint why anyone would want to protect her, but I guess love is blind and she's got those boobies and her hidden power as a motivation to keep her around. She made me emotional with her cries for help but I didn't like her, as is clear with these words.

5) the ending.

The ending scene was very powerful.
I mean It just felt like a guy who was comfortable with his more darker side in that scene and it took me by surprise to see that in the father since at the start he acts normal and more like a typical good guy. But it all fits since he's earned some sort of god status. It's nice that they convey it like that.

The same with Basara becoming more of a sadist, they are showing a wider more mature spectrum of good and bad as explained at the start of this review, it provides something unique and that's why I would recommend it.

now go watch it, you ウィーブ

In short:
There are elements of genius in this anime, but it isn't well executed for most people's expectations of anime. It's worth watching and especially so for individuals that like to think about our future as a society and the problems we are going to face.

More:
You watch this anime for it's ideas mostly, anything else surrounding those ideas isn't so good.

The anime is about the dilemma we face concerning our future with robots and AI, it uses unique ideas since most anime like this have one super AI trying to take over, where this one lets AI battle themselves and it makes for a more ... interesting story-backbone overall.

You'll definitely get triggered and ask yourself why they didn't just kill that person, and according to some abilities of the characters this whole story could've ended much sooner.. but i guess we can't have the perfect anime and we can only hope the creators can learn from their mistakes.

The concept of "analog hacking" is an interesting one, i wouldn't really have thought of something like this and would rather have envisioned a physical AI takeover like in most anime, it's thought provoking and i think they designed this anime to share their view, which is why they are adding three recap episodes.

This anime takes itself seriously, "Memeframe" was chosen because there is another definition for the word "meme" that fits the company name more than perfectly.

meme
noun
1.
an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.
2.
an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.

Gave this a bad rating although i enjoyed it. It starts off really interesting but like so many anime fails to deliver at the end.

The story is weak, basically a lesbian relationship that gets stretched by challenges, it teases you with the promise of two people getting together which is common in other anime too.

The thing is that there's not really a backstory to one of the main characters, leaving you to wonder why she is acting this way, and it's never explained apart from her saying that it's just how she is.

There were parts where it got interesting, but it just went unexplained.
Holes in ... the story, that frustrate you.
Characters that seem to know everything from another character when they just met.
A highly unpredictable character that is unpredictable without reasons.
So much more that's wrong with this anime.
All to arrive at a "they lived happily ever after story".

To be fair, there are things like the interactions that felt really realistic and they did a good job on those and i found it at least enjoyable to binge watch this, however it's only worth watching this when you like to be teased with relationships, and don't mind being disappointment in the end.

Spoilers -->>

The part with the pink haired juvenile wanna be pimp confuses me the most, how does she know just by looking at Mei that she'd kiss just about anyone, and that she's twisted like that. And WHY in FREAKING hell does she just casually get away with blackmailing her into being a hooker and instantly gets forgiven by yuzu. ALSO we don't know how Mei dealt with her "client" either, no way in hell that he's just gonna walk away from free sex like that.

The fighting scenes are quite good, especially in the first part, they start you off with the premise of a good anime.

I liked the most when they started to portray the villains as normal people too, not too many anime do that.

However, the story doesn't check out. Characters know things they shouldn't have been able to know multiple times and it got me out of it to the point where i felt like i had to drop it.

Maybe i shouldn't have dropped it so soon, but it triggered me too much.
Didn't really feel like it would be worth pushing trough either.

The anime is mediocre from the start, it jumps in without explaining and you'll get confused at first.
First episode isn't that good except for the surprisingly realistic battle.

It's really special, it uses time as a resource to really add weight to everything that happens, events aren't rushed just to keep your attention.

There seems to have been a low budget, and they handled that perfectly, it didn't feel like there was filler at all, everything was balanced and they focused their efforts on the most important parts.

One of the best things was that everything everything was REAL, for example: the dialog made it so there didn't ... need to be an excess of talking, sometimes there was just silence that said more than would be possible with words.


****** SPOILER ******


The voice actors reactions were solid, when Manato died i wasn't really connected to him and it didn't move me, but then the scenes came with the group reactions and i burst into tears as well, the weight together with the voice acting, it's amazingly powerful.

Altough the plot was pretty weak and everything was mediocre i still think of this as a masterpiece for what they managed to do with it.