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Mar 21, 2025
Have you ever had that friend who actually changed the homework they borrowed from you?
Kudos to them for the valiant effort, but here’s the thing: if they have to copy, they're probably not that bright in the first place. Sadly, Kurakon’s author is that friend who will probably get you expelled from college for aiding academic plagiarism.
The assignment is due tomorrow morning and it is already 2 am. Kurakon picked up a dusty copy of “Nisekoi” from a second-hand bookstore this afternoon. No one will remember this old show, Kurakon’s author thinks to himself. But who cares if someone does remember? He has better
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things to worry about - escaping the authoritarianism of Turnitin similarity checks. If we cannot use synonyms, why don’t we just use acronyms? Just reverse some of the settings, no one will ever find out. Instead of having the male protagonist hate the family business, we will have him love it, so much so that he is willing to become partners with his female archnemesis. The duo were a couple? Just make them marry! It was the father who forced the male protagonist. Let’s just make it his grandfather, I am sure no one will notice the subtle word change. What about the duo doing everything to act like they are partners? Just have them do everything to act like they are not partners. Turnitin can suck it up!
Hmm… The similarity index is still at 90%. The highlighted words are: “Tsundere female protagonist”, “tsundere male protagonist”, “drama between tsundere couple”, “female protagonists who are secretly in love with the male protagonist”, “female protagonists competing for the male protagonist”, and last but not least, “the duo met each other when they were children”. Alas, sunlight is pouring through the curtain and the deadline is closing in. Kurakon’s author had no choice but to leave the premise at that.
Now we have the premise. To make it less of a plagiarised work, I got to diversify my sources, thought Kurakon’s author. He put on his best cosplay of Professor Utonium and starts indiscriminately throwing shit in, an insufferable female protagonist here, some braindead behaviour there, and some more incest bait just because why not. Well, at least he kept some of the fanservice parts out. There! The similarity index is now 60%. Great work!
Although Kurakon may escape the scrutiny of the similarity checks for the time being, it certainly cannot pass the AI detection tool. In Episode 3, Akane was sick, and Saito had to take her to the hospital. Of course, being the genius he is (because the prompt says so), he chose to rush Akane on foot because that was the fastest way possible. Here, Kurakon’s author must have forgotten to prompt ChatGPT that the duo lives in the modern age, where transport tools such as taxis or emergency services like ambulances exist, even in the mystical oriental realm of Nippon. Although Saito is in a way different league in terms of sheer memory and brainpower (he could even learn an obscure language in just one night!), he just could not remember his childhood crush’s face. In a surprising turn of events that no mortal audience could have predicted (unless you are Saito (sadly Saito himself could not predict it too)), that girl was, in fact, the one he saw every day at school and grew up with. It could have been a momentary lapse on the part of Saito, but being a prodigy who remembers every detail of his newly-wedded wife’s routine when pondering the whereabouts of a missing item, it is highly unlikely that this could have happened. I think the more probable reason is that Kurakon’s author forgot to write this bit in the same conversation, causing ChatGPT to forget that Saito was, as a matter of fact, a genius.
Jokes and rants aside, “Kurakon or: How I Learned to Stop Whining and Love the Cringe” led me to reflect on the seminal question of entertainment: is the ultimate purpose of television shows to entertain? If so, is there “bad” entertainment? Is it better to have a boring show than a show with lousy entertainment? In my view, I would always take a show like Kurakon over a boring show - At least I would have the motivation to write a review about it, rather than rate it a 1 and leave it at that. If you know how the anime industry works in Japan, anime is just an advertisement. And as an advertisement, Kurakon succeeded and made a great deal of impression on me, not to mention the fact that this anime has over 100,000 members on MAL. Let’s just be honest, 10 years later, you will remember how cringeworthy The Room was, but you will not remember how boring Transformers was.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Jun 15, 2024
“One Room, Hiatari Futsuu, Tenshi-tsuki.” has got to be one of the most boring and unengaging anime in recent years. Its tropes overused, its storyline lacking in tension, its characters unremarkable and generic, and its attempts at character development clumsy. What results is an anime that is plainly bad and forgettable.
One Room is about a high schooler (totally not overused) with a childhood friend (totally not overused) who encounters a kind angel and a bunch of supernatural kawaii anime girls (totally not overused), and go through their daily ordeals like going to work and studying etc (totally not overused). The tropes used in this anime
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can be traced back to the Mediaeval times when Shakespeare wrote his masterpieces: classic, overused, prosaic.
Speaking of the plot, one of its critical flaws is that there is practically no tension throughout the entire story. The whole anime is just them working, playing, watching movies, and going to the beach. There are no greater goals for the characters to achieve; never any disagreements or conflicts that the characters fight over, and let's forget any difficulties that might require the slightest effort to overcome. I could only recall one clumsy attempt at development: in episode 5, after the male protagonist meets Towa and Noeru, Tsumugi (being the childhood friend that, of course, has always loved the male protagonist but is too shy to confess, totally not overused) worries about having her dear boyfriend-to-be taken away by other girls who have supernatural powers. A mid anime might show how hard the heroine tries to make the boy notice her. A bad anime would just give her a bunch of lucky events and allow her to get closer to him without her even trying. Regrettably, the author went down the second sorry path and gave us a bad anime instead of a mid one. This could have been much better if he had explored what would happen if the characters discovered that Towa lived in the protagonist’s home. Could have. Instead, we get a porched attempt at demonstrating the heroine’s emotional change.
This bit of the so-called “plot” of this anime also brings me to another point: character development (or rather the lack of it). For an anime that can be properly called mid, you would at least expect its characters to make some sacrifices or have some change of heart. In One Room, there is no process of growth in the characters. The characters are content with who they are and live happily ever after. After closing in on the male protagonist for once, Tsumugi just leaves all her jealousy behind, and this plot thread is never brought up again in the story. The male protagonist’s character has been consistently flat for the whole 12 episodes with zero growth. Arguably, there is some growth for Noerell, but it is a clumsy attempt nevertheless.
But one may argue: that is a feature of nichijou animes! You can’t criticise an anime for its genre! What about Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, whose popularity and critical acclaim I need not elaborate on? The two share much in common: they both show the characters' ordinary lives; they are both comedies; they practically share the same plot: both protagonists meet a kind, caring girl with supernatural powers. What differs is that Kobayashi shows growth in its characters; its arcs create tension between the characters with a goal for them to achieve. Notably, Kobayashi becomes progressively more cheerful and outgoing as the series progresses. Granted, ordinary lives in real life can be boring; but in fiction, it is the author’s job to make it interesting and engaging to the audience. If the author of Kobayashi can write an interesting story in a nichijou anime, why can’t the author of One Room do the same?
The author also fails to use the story’s biggest preposition: angel. I mean, if you take out the element of angel and replace Towa as an ordinary girl who got lost, the plot still works. The author could have explored more on how Towa is not accustomed to modern, or even human life in general, instead of surface level stuff like not knowing what a cinema is (see episode 10). How would an angel cope with having a human body? Take advantage of the settings in the Bible! I am well aware that this anime is in no way serious, but hey, Kobayashi did well utilising its dragon setting; and the entire plot of Gabriel Dropout relies heavily on its angel setting. I can think of no reason other than bad writing for why the author failed to do so.
Another thing is that the fan service is just plainly unnecessary and distracting. It just adds another layer of cheapness to the anime.
Having read this long rant, you may be thinking: I watch this anime not to have a lecture on story writing. Why can’t you just turn off your brain, sit back, and relax? Sure, I can appreciate that sometimes we just want to enjoy an anime without the hassle of thinking, but using this apologetic reasoning to defend an anime is another thing. Under the same reasoning, the inherent qualities of an anime do not give it a greater value, and what matters is whether the anime soothes your mind. This basically renders any serious critical assessment pointless. Besides, a relaxing and lighthearted anime can also be enjoyable: refer to the Kobayashi section above.
All in all, One Room’s plot is practically non-existent, its characters have no depth, and there is no tension - a total car crash of a story. And it is not a car crash you can’t move your eyes away from: it's the anime equivalent of a car bumping into a fence at 10 km/h — a 1 for One Room.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Mar 28, 2020
In/spectre was destined to be a seasonal great show, only to be set back by poor execution, most prominently the pacing. It features a young-looking girl who is definitely not underage acting as an “inspector” of the supernatural world (pun intended in the title), investigating and resolving incidents for the spectres living in the wild. The anime focuses on a spirit who wanders at night assaulting people with a construction steel beam.
What impresses me the most is the author’s unique approach to detective stories. Though claiming to be a detective story, In/Spectre is not your typical Sherlock Holmes finding clues and stuff show. Instead of
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finding out the truth like what detectives do, our female protagonist focuses on finding the most plausible explanation of a certain scenario. This interesting premise is mixed with a hint of Japanese folklore and multiverse, placing In/spectre in a league of its own. What is more impressive is even with such a unique approach, the author manages to keep it intriguing enough to keep the audience on board—at least the story itself.
That brings me to the matter on the execution of the plot. The pacing is dreadfully slow, mainly because of its novelistic origins. When you have the literature standard of a novel in an anime, that certainly is an added bonus. However, the show becomes a boring atrocity when you bring along the sluggish pacing as well. It took the animators 4 episodes to finish off the first “snake” arc, as what I would call an introductory arc. An introduction that took 4 episodes to finish! What follows is a dragging plotline, where time is mostly spent on explaining trivial details rather than progressing on the plot, and the anime adopters are to blame.
Undoubtedly, In/Spectre has many edges. Its state-of-the-art themes and settings sure are refreshing to see in current seasonal charts; its animation is decent; its characters are intriguing, and its eminent writing is only seen in a piece of literature. Overall speaking, In/Spectre had a really bright start, but its poor execution had proven to be its greatest downfall. It could have been an 8 or 9 in my list, but some episodes are just plain boring, with too much exposition in place. With the poor execution in mind, I give this show a 7, with a remark as “the most disappointing show of this season”.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 28, 2020
Here comes the most anticipated show of the season—Once placed second at the anime hall of fame on MAL scoring an average of 9.16; the record holder of the first anime banned on Funimation because it was too wild for SJWs, sparking a shitstorm over the anime community, we present to you… Interspecies Reviewers!
Join these horny dudes on the journey to review hookers of every species. You will find yourself amazed by how creative the animation team and the author can be to come up with such crazy ideas, and most prominently, just how fucking far can the show go. Just when you think “they
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won’t go that far with that!”, it appears right before your screen. Nipples on television? Meh, piece of cake. What about bulges? Not a problem! Borderline sex scenes? We’ve got those each episode! BDSM-related stuff? Done without a sweat! Interspecies reviewers truly has boldly gone no animators have gone before—its limits are only to be bounded by your imagination.
Without a doubt, Interspecies Reviewers is the wildest and spiciest anime I have watched so far. Hell, Domestic Kanojo is just strawberry jam if you compare it to this devilish hot sauce. But what I like the most is how well the author manages to tease the audience with the explicit yet subtle content: explicit in the sense that its content was beyond the redline of a TV show; subtle in the sense that it touches on the bare line between ecchi and hentai, and the balance to that is kept perfectly, just enough to distinguish itself from another hentai. That shock when you see straight up hentai on a TV show is surely a bizarre feeling seldom felt in other shows, and this kind of weird sensation has kept me watching, craving for more—out of curiosity, but also out of pure “enjoyment”.
Interspecies is shocking, but not without delicacy. Although all characters are based on typical fantasy species, the author has embedded the usual settings and characteristics of each species into the world of sex. From their sexual preferences to their habits, each species has unique traits surprisingly matching with their stereotypical impression, paving the ground for good comedic chemistry based on racial differences. With nicely animated sex scenes and good comedy moments, hardly would you find any episode boring to see.
Apart from the carefully designed characters, Its sound design is also done with care. The background music serves the comedic moment well, the OP and ED is unique and catchy, and most importantly, the voice acting is heavily plot-oriented. I have to say the voice actors have done a splendid job for us male viewers.
Interspecies Reviewers have excelled on its job to entertain and to keep you watching. Usual shock dramas wear off very quickly, but this show has managed to keep the surprises novel and creative. A perfect blend of comedy, creatively designed species and tons of spiciness, combined with nicely done animation and tons of “plot”, makes up for a hentai not so hentai. I rate this show an 8.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 23, 2019
After watching Oresuki, I came to the realisation that, well, some anime's looks may be deceiving - just like the female protagonist in this show. Hid under thick clothing, something maybe more “ambitious” than you have originally thought - not just the story.
With its clickbait title, cliche-filled comedy with easily replicable character traits, I initially thought this would be another Saiki Kusuo-like anime, aiming to create comedy through messing with cliches. Notwithstanding its over-dramatic reactions and, though sorry to say, unsatisfactory animation quality, I quickly despised this anime and put on my coloured glasses. Driven by outrage inflicted by yet another wave of cliche in
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the first episode, I wrote around 400 words of unreserved criticisms, denominating it as another failed attempt to replicate Saiki Kusuo.
Time has proved me wrong. Totally wrong. As the plot moves on, the initial "female mains", namely the childhood friend and the student council president become exponentially less significant, serving as mere plot devices. Speaking of plot devices, the writer cleverly utilized the baseball match as one. After viewing the first three episodes, I feel like the dots have all come together, and start to type on my keyboard in a state of confusion and amazement. How well-hid are the hints!
Another point worth noting is the clever contrast between the seemingly innocent and the deceitful. Coming into the show, we all know that Kisaragi is a doubled-faced beta male striving to become a chad, who hides his true colours in hopes of getting some love from girls. His envy would be his best friend, who is a baseball chad who unintentionally took away all his crushes. The only one remains for the loser is a leftover girl from the library. Plot twist, Kisaragi is the one least prepared for such mind games compared to chad and leftover. He is all along a foil to hide the true mastery of the two; a sheer puppet on strings - quite like the viewers themselves, and myself too. We have been tricked, we have been backstabbed and we have been quite possibly, bamboozled.
Judging by the first 3 episodes, its greatest downfall would be the animation quality. Not only often do we see the characters are drawn disgracefully, but also the background and the facial expressions. It is such a disgrace to have this well-written plot spoiled by such poor animation. As for music, I think it's fine. Nothing too noteworthy in particular, nor anything to criticise on.
I guess you learn a life lesson every day - even when we are watching an anime - never judge a book by its cover. Oresuki has proven itself worthy.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 22, 2019
With every season comes a new waifu battleground, where everyone is on a crusade to extoll their seasonal waifulogy and battles fiercely with the heathens. Why not take a break and embrace the wholesome Takagi-san, where there is no war, but only love and peace?
The series features the day-to-day interactions between the main duo, Takagi-san and Nishigata, which revolves around trivial moments in school and daily life, ranging from visiting a small grocery store to throwing stones beside the river. Each episode is divided into several sub-episodes where they will hold small bets or “contests”, with Nishigata being the loser on nearly all occasions. Still,
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he tries every desperate mean to trick Takagi-san back but fails anyways. Bit by bit, day by day, their relationship grows from the little pranks they put on each other. The second season continues to illustrate Nishigata’s inability to retaliate and the ever-increasing intimacy with Takagi-san.
The immaturity of Nishigata can be pinpointed in the title itself. In Japanese, “-san” is usually used for addressing formally or someone you are not acquainted with, which is basically the equivalence of “Mr.” or “Mrs.” in English. The fact that Nishigata still adopts such a distant approach with Takagi-san even after a whole year shows that he is unable to handle conversations or even a relationship with the opposite sex - a perfect example of how carefully designed Nishigata is.
If I were to nitpick, the show’s greatest downfall would be its repetitiveness. Episodes after episodes of contests with very predictable outcomes are surely dull and boring. Retaining the same format, the story nonetheless showed some progression from the first season, with Nishigata evolving from not revenging at all to reminding himself of the humiliation through push-ups and constantly plotting back at Takagi-san.
It is crucial to bear in mind that Nishigata was merely a grade 7 student(grade 8 in this season). Immaturity, irrationality, and evasion from physical and verbal contact with the opposite sex are all undeniably traits of someone in Nishigata’s age, and that is exactly what the show depicted Nishigata as with panache. Aberrant the scenes may seem, they are nonetheless a genuine and authentic portrayal.
Takagi-san features an art style nuanced from the mainstream. The colour tone is mainly bright and vibrant with the doodle-ish feeling, which is not commonly seen in other popular shows. We can see that the animation is done with passion and care. The backgrounds are well-crafted and details are not compromised.
The opening “Zero Centimeters” is sung by Yuiko Oohara, who also sang Season 1’s opening. The endings are sung by Takagi-san’s voice actor, Rie Takahashi. Not only are the opening and endings catchy, but the background music also gives a youthful and upbeat feeling with its performance with recorders and a piano, fitting the middle school theme perfectly.
Takagi-san has transcended beyond your typical seasonal romcom waifu battleground. It remains one of my favourites in the romance genre for its simple yet meticulous depiction of some heart-tingling and face-blushing middle school romance and touches on themes seldom explored. Next time before you are about to dive into another brawl for waifus, why not take a break and fill your wholesomeness meter with Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san instead?
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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