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Oct 13, 2024
I speedran and skimmed through basically the entire manga in 10 or so minutes after deciding that I could definitely not watch the rest of this show for how mediocre it is.
And it basically ends up being what my predictions were in the first place: it's very middling. For a show about gender norms and the backlash that ends up following if you go against societal and cultural expectations, it really doesn't dive too deep into any themes. In fact, you can say that this series plays it so safe and lacks the engagement one would expect when talking about gender norms, sexuality, and everything
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else that it makes you wonder why the show decided to do it at all.
"I want to be me!" Is the ultimate summary of the series, but I can't seem to think about how little the series engages with the culture of it all. You can make the argument that a romance/melodrama show doesn't need to have any social commentary, and while I would agree, but if you're going to make a series like this with the focus on drag culture and everything you'd think the author would do something more about it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Oct 13, 2024
As a whole, I find it a bit weird that the this show is actually about VTubers. It honestly does seem like something that would be better if the show was about livestreaming content instead. From the way that characters actually look exactly like their VTuber model to the fact that it's about an unhinged girl that's not maintaining her image, it does seem like that variety livestreaming content fits the theme of this show a bit more.
Even so, that's not exactly the reason why this show sucks. The show sucks because the comedy isn't funny. As one might expect from a slice of life
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comedy show about VTuber's, the characters, dialogue, and comedy are the highlights of this show. The problem comes very quickly: despite us following the lives of VTubers, it doesn't feel like any of the VTubers are real human beings, including our main character Awayuki. Rather than say that you get to know Awayuki and her fellow VTubers, you kind of just are consuming the content as a viewer would, except it's in an anime form. It's almost like stream highlights from VTubers with nice animation.
It does feel like the show would make more sense if it followed VTubers in both their streams and in their day to day life, it being an anime revolving around them, but that doesn't happen. So what you're left with is literally stream highlights from a fictional group of VTubers, being completely reliant on the streams themselves to be the star of the show.
The problem is that I find some random guy drinking Asahi Super Dry's and cooking fish (kudos if you know who I'm talking about) to be more entertaining than Awayuki's entire personality being that she slams down Stro Zeros and acting unhinged and immature as I'm sure for content, but also because that's kind of what her base personality is too.
Since the anime is so bare bones and only tries to focus on the VTubers and their streams, nothing more and nothing less, it's a very risky type of show where if you don't immediately like the VTubers and their chemistry together on stream, the minutes drag on and on.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Oct 12, 2024
Mayonaka Punch is a surprisingly well structured anime despite it seeming like it was trying to cram in too many characters into a 12 episode season.
First of all, I just love Masaki's character development. It's very thought out and as a result, Masaki is a beloved character. The first thing we get to know about Masaki is that she violently punched her fellow co-streamers when they were all livestreaming. And that's it. We don't see the buildup, and we only get a few vague reasons why it could have developed to that point. But, it's not shown. And I love that. Because ultimately, does it
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matter? The reason for Masaki punching her fellow Hype-Sisters doesn't matter. The thing that matters is that Masaki is thrown into internet drama, hate, and separates from Hype-Sisters as a result. She can't record herself due to her anxiety about online comments.
The next time we see Masaki talking about herself, it's not just about a random flashback to get the viewers to understand the main character. Instead, it's because she's frustrated with herself and self-aware about her attitude sometimes. With her dreams of making a big NewTube channel over, she's torn. But because Live wants to helps, loves her, and potentially because Masaki wanted to let it off her chest, she starts telling Live about herself. Her past. It's not just some omniscient viewpoint of the viewer learning about some random flashback, it narratively makes sense since Masaki is actually explaining her past to somebody else.
Ultimately, with help and support through the entire season, whether it be from her family, her former co-NewTubers Hype Sisters, and of course, the Mayonaka Punch crew, Masaki battles the urge to want to be on camera and the anxiety that comes with it. It's not just people saying "just stop thinking about it!" It's not just about Masaki "summoning the courage." But it's about Masaki slowly warming up to the idea with supporting friends while also being forced eventually confront herself and her own feelings about being on camera. This subplot about Masaki and relationship with NewTube, showing her face, and wanting to be accepted by the internet community is quite brilliant for an anime original, and it's all you need to know about the quality about the rest of the show.
It's above average in most things: the melodrama, the characters, the art, and the plot as well. One thing that was clearly lacking was some of the character development for side characters, especially the likes of Tokage, which felt like the story just didn't really focus on her at all due to the lack of episodes in the show. This definitely hampers the character interaction and cohesion, but with a good foundation with Masaki, Live, and Ichiko, the other side characters fit in fine. Thus, a solid 7/10. Worth a watch
Random Aside about Girls Band Cry -- feel free to ignore if you haven't watched that show:
I'll compare this with Girls Band Cry just because both are similar in having a low self-esteem MC, proactive second lead trying to help the MC out, and both trying to make it big in the entertainment world, but the execution can't be anymore different.
Nina comes from a similar spot with Masaki. Masaki runs away--gets pushed aside by the Hype Sisters and moves out. Nina's running away from home, going to school in Tokyo because she couldn't stand her family and living environment. With not so subtle flashbacks, we understand Nina was bullied and can't interact with others. Momaka, her idol, notices Nina and wants to form a band with her-- very similar to how Live is proactively pursuing Masaki and wants to create a NewTube channel with her. However, the similarities stop there.
What's even the reason for Nina to not want to form a band? Low anxiety or whatever. Umm, Nina then proceeds to have melodrama with her other bandmate and makes up within an episode. 3-4 episodes later she's encouraging other people, and somehow Nina basically fundamentally transforms as a character and all it takes is Momoka to give her pep talk for two episodes. It's so much more flat than the more realistic timeline and journey Masaki goes through. Plus, no matter how you slice it, shoving crappy flashbacks about Nina's past to supplement character development is just low effort. Despite Mayonaka punch being more lighthearted, less drama heavy, and about damned vampires, the character development regarding Masaki is much more prominent than Nina in a show that's more serious, melodramatic, and supposedly all about character development.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 3, 2024
The show is crap. The main issue is the inability to construct a reasonable story. Some minor spoilers from the first episodes ahead.
It's an SAO type story where people are trapped in a realistic VRMMORPG game. So original. Anyways, a lot of the problems is the inability to create many stakes. The anime clearly gamifies a lot of things. That's pretty normal, since it's an actual game. The problem is that the result is something incomprehensible.
Haga, our main character is meant to be debugging in a game where he's trapped. Apparently, that will bring him back to the real world. What's the basis for this?
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If QA testers were actually trapped in an alpha/beta version of a real VRMMORPG game, there'd be direct lines of communication. The whole worldbuilding regarding debug stones is dubious at best. I mean, servers are running right? If not, how is the game functioning? There has to be some sort of global/server wide message that would allow for admins to communicate with debuggers. It...doesn't really matter. This is just one of the many problems.
Other problems are just with the story itself, such as the framing of morality and conduct. For some reason, you're led to believe that the devs that are trapping the players in the world are the good guys, and the bad guys are the people that are going crazy in a video game they can't get out of. Uhhh, isn't that literally the basic plot of SAO? That the dev purposefully puts people in a video game and makes them complete it without dying? Apparently killing literal NPCs really means that you're a bad guy, and having Stockholm syndrome for the devs by working like a slave without any reward means you're a good guy. They really don't disguise who is on the bad side or good side either. Let's just have the bad guys wantonly killing NPCs for entertainment to really drill into the viewers that they're the "bad guys!!" Jfc. Plus, even this bit of logical is inconsistent. The very first episode you witness swarms of NPCs dying due to a story setting in a quest that has to be fulfilled. The devs seem to be even more coldhearted than the other debuggers and "bad guys!" Plus, you witness firsthand NPCs being revived by the "meta AI" admins so at this point, you're killing copies of pixels. Do you feel morally wrong slaughtering pigs for meat? How about stomping on goombas in super mario? This is slaughtering 0's and 1's. I don't get it.
There's also just glaring issues with power levels. The only reason why our main character is in any threat at all is due to him not wanting to use his OP powers. Granted, there's a slight plot reason why, but then there's just random stuff that happens, like "meta AI." Uh-huh. Apparently AI that control the world can't restrict players at all, and their only goal is to "complete the game development process." Very convenient. It's as if these OP AI are just being completely nerfed so there can be some stakes at hand in the story.
Plus, the QA testing doesn't even make sense. There's an entire episode about discovering collision detection on walls, but to be honest, that's probably not even in the scope of a game tester's job. QA testers would just be discovering and testing different scenarios. For example, like in the first episode where Haga is documenting weird monster behavior or trying to bypass quest requirements. However, collision detection and testing wouldn't be done by the likes of Haga. It'd be automated in some unit test cases or some sort of automatic end to end testing that would use an object to detect collision breakpoints or something. Overall, I find the theme to be boring, very surface level on all levels when it comes to characters, concepts regarding QA testing, and worldbuilding. Additionally, the story is told in a narrative that doesn't even make sense. The foundation in which this show stands on is illogical to the point where I cannot suspend my sense of disbelief.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Oct 2, 2024
Dungeon no Naka no Hito is a surprisingly well-made anime about the logistical management of an artificially made dungeon.
It's a slice-of-life sort of fantasy regarding the management of a dungeon. Does that interest you? You're in luck. It's a robust work that's quite varied and doesn't get boring.
After all, there's a lot to cover. How does an artificial dungeon refill its chest, get rid of garbage, and design levels? Why is there a lot of magical power flowing through there, and how is there a seemingly infinite supply of monsters?
Overall, there are a lot of things to talk about as we see Clay and
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Belle interact with each other. I'll also be damned if there's anime talking about the management of much more mundane things such as local shops and restaurants, then you can surely pull off a dungeon management type of anime as well.
And, of course, characters certainly play a large role in anime. Clay and Belle are employer and employee, but as the two interact with each other, a blooming friendship also occurs. Clay's a typical adventurer, trying to discover the mystery of her father's whereabouts. Her goal seems to be to get strong enough to reach her father's level. On the other hand, Belle is a more relaxed dungeon master, but as a result of that, is lonely and reclusive as a result.
Both Clay and Belle seem to have reached near the pinnacle of human ability, Clay being a world-class thief/rogue while Belle a world-class mage. Rather, it's their other departments they seem to be completely clueless about. Neither character has much social interaction due to their lifestyle, and despite their human nature to socialize, they never had the opportunity to or were too scared or anxious to deal with other people. Thus, the slice of life of managing a dungeon gives a good backdrop for character exploration, development, and understanding of characters better. Of course, the dungeon development in its own right is interesting, but the characters complete the story.
The way the story deals with more mature themes is also quite consistent. While Belle and Clay are both perhaps good-natured, they also don't shy away from death. After all, it is a fantasy anime about dungeon clearing. A dungeon by nature is a death-churning machine, and thus people will die. People will also reveal their ugly sides when faced with desperate situations. Punishment by death is sometimes necessary in a rule where the iron fist is the strongest, and both Clay and Belle are well aware of this. Belle and Clay are not completely clueless and innocent to the world around them. They know the rules of the world and live by them too, and they don't think so pure-heartedly that they think discourse is the only way to solve a problem. Rather, they've more than fulfilled their physiological and safety needs through personal experience and strength, and the show more focuses on their social and self-actualization needs instead.
The show has a solid foundation of decent characters, and while I would like more side characters, it's good enough. The episodes flow seamlessly despite there not being a huge overarching plot, the anime still consistently produces good-quality episodes and I'm never bored of Clay learning more about the dungeon. I also quite immensely appreciate that no CGI was used for monsters. The animation quality is simple but effective.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 1, 2024
Game adaptations are definitely an interesting medium. One way or another, they're very loose adaptations of their game counterpart due to the game in nature being a completely different experience -- usually spending tens of hours to complete. How does one adapt those hours of gameplay into a mere four hour adaptation?
Mobile games, in my experience actually tend to have the most success. Surprisingly, the production value of mobile game anime adaptations tend to be the highest, with a solid plot that the original game might not have been able to produce in it's mobile medium. Examples can be Rage of Bahamut Genesis (only season
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1 let's be honest here) or Magatsu Wahrheit: Zuerst.
Tensui no Sakuna hime? It's a console game. Still, I don't judge. The first six or so episodes were good, especially the first 3 or so. It's about farming on a remote island, with a main character that acts spoiled, but slowly comes to age as the story progresses. Whether it be doing minor chores, taking on major responsibilities, or acting as a mediator, Sakuna-hime goes from a pampered spoiled god to someone that is shouldered with a bit of responsibility as a Goddess of Harvest. Sakuna-hime is a great character that's multifaceted and experiences many dynamic changes due to the challenges and hurdles she's forced to confront.
However, that's where all the magic stops happening. When the show becomes less about character development and farming, then it starts going downhill. Suddenly, a show about farming and developing land and character interaction becomes some third rate shounen anime about beating the evil god. Of course, this theme about demons looming around is certainly a theme that was always behind the scenes, but to so suddenly only focus about fighting was a wrong move. You're subject to the most one dimensional villains with self-righteous dialogue from Sakuna-hime and the rest of the cast that it's sickening. Yet another cliche-filled dialogue about how "we have to stop the cycle of hatred," and yet none of the main characters are forced to make a difficult moral decision. Rather, despite letting go villains and evil-doers constantly, the issue resolves by itself. By "forgiving everyone," Sakuna-hime and her people are able to still easily be absolved of any consequences due to plot armor. The final boss is similarly boring plot armor fights where feelings and sentiments are more important than the fight itself.
Additionally, I never said that the side characters were good. Tama is good just because he's mentoring/a close companion of Sakuna, but the rest of the characters -- especially the human ones -- are extremely cliche. Kinta was supposed to be a reclusive, polemic yet perhaps misunderstood or kind character that could have been explored a lot more than it should have. His whole arc with Yui kind of makes sense, but it just seems quite rushed and there's not enough exploration into the character relations afterwards for me to care. In fact, after Kinta's and Yui's character arc, he kind of just becomes a completely different character, which is to say he becomes a nice and generic side character that never contributes to the plot again. Tauemon, Myrthe, and Kaimaru are also similar in that there are some surface level descriptions of all of them, none of which are going into depth, and they also similarly contribute literally nothing to the story other than sometimes functioning as a plot device to a Hero's Journey.
If all of the human characters were likeable, the slice of life farming with some fights and magical happenings could have carried the entire show for 12 episodes, but unfortunately that would require good writing capabilities. Instead, if you slap an already failing cast of side characters and shove them away to make way for a generic and below average shounen show about beating the big bad boss guy, it's still slop, but you can get away with the terrible writing you had in the initial half of the show.
Art was fine, probably above average definitely when it comes to character design, details, and renders, but it was quite obvious that 90% of the budget was focused on the first few episodes where the visuals were quite a few notches above the latter parts of the show.
Overall, an uninspired anime adaptation that could have been great if it focused on character development and better writing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 25, 2024
Ramen Akaneko is about the slice of life of our main character, Tamako working in a ramen shop operated by cats. Is it particularly comedy oriented despite the silly premise? Surprisingly, not really. It's just a serious slice of life story about a part timer with cats substituting people working in a ramen shop. Naturally, they have their feline propensities, such as grooming themselves, being...cats, etc.
If you find that fun, that's good. To me--well--it's basically just a generic slice of life show. There's some workplace melodrama, sometimes there's some character development, but to be honest, the cat stuff is so surface-level that you could
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potentially rewrite this entire story with humans replacing them and it would functionally be the same show.
The anime is very cheap looking because it is. There's blending of CGI and 2D, both are well below average and sub-par. I kind of found it funny to look at in the first few episodes before figuring out they were just blending low poly CGI models, and to blend them together, they use similarly low quality 2D renders of the characters so the blend isn't obvious.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 11, 2024
It's a typical Shounen.
Let me ask you this: are you 13? Have never watched any shounen show ever? Do you enjoy shounen tropes? If the answer is yes to at least two of them, then this show might be a good watch.
Yet again are we thrust into a world where our MC is a unique individual who is in a symbiotic relationship with the "enemy," but because of "plot," where he's simultaneously seen as an asset to humankind but also despised as a individual who is fused with something dangerous and needs to be watched or something; he's in a "unique" situation where he's
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kept watch by other people whilst fighting monsters.
Ughhhhh....it's so generic. Our MC is 32 but honestly, he acts like he's 14. His only goal is to fight monsters with his crush? Best friend? Childhood friend? I never got that far because I didn't care at all, but it seems like he suffers from inferiority complex and then is bestowed OP kaiju powers. Now instead of internalizing his inability or trying to improve himself, he gets an OP powerup that nullifies his pathetic past. "WOW!! He's Literally me!!" -- typical viewer or something.
Comedic panels and storyboarding is done without any thought and instead just slaps embarrassing or facetious attitudes in serious moments only for it to ultimately work out for our MC because he's got plot armor.
Whilst it'd be interesting if our MC had an iota of personality or wasn't a complete goody two shoes, this is not the case. His entire personality is "I'll protect my friends," and that's about it.
Phenomenal setting and story. Definitely not copy pasted tropes. Kaiju are trivial to kill and there's not a sense of crisis or even anyone dying despite the show emphasizing that this is a big deal. 3/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Aug 27, 2024
This is an overall review of the show. I don't like this genre at all. Shows with an ecchi/harem setting that focuses around rom-com in an isekai world is about the most generic thing you get with Japanese shows. Yet, I bow my head down to this show anyways. It's the best of it's kind.
Why is it so hard to get this type of show done right? Well, most of the time, the girls are just lovestruck idiots that get themselves in embarrassing situations with the MC and they're so infatuated with the seemingly generic/boring protagonist that it brings a lot of wish-fulfillment vibes. Examples
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could be Tate no Yuusha or Mushoko Tensei. I mean, if the main character's supposed to be some loser that got reincarnated, then why the hell is there so much wish-fulfillment going on? At least make him like, extremely handsome, charismatic, likeable or something. It's...as if the show's selling point is you projecting yourself onto the main character whose extremely successful with little to no effort and as a result, you feel fulfilled.
So, Konosuba dodges this. After all, Kazuma is a loser virgin who also is obsessed with women. Despite being surrounded by beautiful woman, there's this vague veil surrounding the relationships between the other characters in his party. After all, it's a rom-com. Let's be real, if there was any actual coupling go on, the comedy and story would fall apart. Of course, the women in his party play into the comedy as well. None of them are proper ladies who act cutesy and feel embarrassed when holding hands. Well, maybe a little, but in this show, they're more known for their other attributes. An archmage that can only cast a single spell, a crusader that can't land a hit, and a useless Goddess. If I had to go into each character in-depth, this review would go on for ages.
The manzai is impeccable. It uses the settings and character to their full extent. There's some teasing and ecchi scenes that pair nicely into the tsukommi that Kazuma frequently delivers. Sometimes the party will argue with each other over simple things, laze around, or they'll actually be doing questing. The natural flow of dialogue just is so fun to watch sometimes. And the animation studio knows it well enough too. The comedic timing, the facial expressions that are blown out of proportion, and the voice acting match the tempo of the manzai. I actually read the first volume of the light novel series, and it's rare I say this, but the novel's just really unfunny. There's no extra detail that the anime misses, and in fact, due to the voice acting, animation, and attention to detail, the fairly average/cringe scenes in the novel comes to life. It's not like the anime is super high budget, but the way the storyboarding is done fits the dialogue and scenes.
Finally, the actual story. And when I mean story, I just mean the quests that Kazuma and his party take on, or the people that they end up helping out are actually fun scenarios. It's not something boring like "killing a dragon." The encounters that Kazuma has and the way he deals with situations keeps the anime fresh. Sometimes he'll actually be trying to kill demon kings, and sometimes he's helping them cover their track so they escape detection. The show is at it's best with its mix of character development, comedic scenes. and a bit of a vague overarching plot of the party trying to do something.
I used to vehemently deny that shows like this could be fun to watch. After all, it's kind of cringe. However, I evolved past that. What's fun is fun. Even this genre can produce some miracles. I won't lie that it's cringe as hell to watch this, but it's quite enjoyable nonetheless.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 20, 2024
Yeah, Tokyo Revengers is like, a lot better. And I don't even think Tokyo Revengers is good. It's just that this show sucks
Similar to Tokyo Revengers, I'm not looking for anything crazy. I'm looking for delinquents fighting each other in turf wars or whatever, with slice of life on the side. Yet, I don't even get that. At the very least, with Tokyo Revengers, there are quite a lot of stakes involved, including people dying, people switching allegiances, and overall a lot of drama/melodrama that happens.
Dude, what does this show do? it reduces fights towards being on the neighborhood watch. How lame. Like, it's cool
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that these people are protecting and stuff, but dude, delinquency is probably a bit more than just being in a neighborhood watch. Yanki culture is interesting and I'm unqualified to go ahead and talk about how it came to be, but on a surface level, isn't it about being cool, fighting other gangs, and riding bikes? Dying your hair, rebelling against the current social order, and wearing your fashionable clothes? This show doesn't embody any of that "yanki" culture that I mentioned. I'm not even sure the author decided to pick that theme to begin with.
And onto the next point: I just cannot stand character development. Over the course of just two episodes, you get lectured by an author self insert character: Kotoha. Even if not an author self insert, it's really just a plot device that throws out boring aphorisms onto the clearly mentally unstable main character, Haruka. You can't possibily think that shoving some stupid tragic backstory and then him getting immediately healed of like decades of mental abuse and self loathing with a few words of Kotoha is going to make me like either character. It's cringe. I didn't sign up to getting lectured by Kotoha about how you can't judge a person by their cover or about how "nobody chooses to be alone" and then Haruka relating super hard too and and bam his mental trauma is 99% recovered. Couldn't there be anything more...natural? I don't know, Haruka maybe spilling his heart out to a friend after he loses a fight, or maybe to his love interest. Nah, I think just him getting psychoanalyzed by Kotoha on the first few episodes is good enough guys.
Like, I hate to say it, but that's kind of the reason why isekai/fantasy genre would fit this show and characters better. Wouldn't it be a lot more of a seamless process if our MC decided to protect villagers from an orc attack, or if he decides to finally rid of his indecision and mental turmoil by seeing a tragic invasion of evil minions? Anything but this...
Tokyo Revengers at least embodies the theme of delinquints and rolls with it, for all its flaws, and the characters, despite not being the best, fit their roles and don't immediately stand out as the worst shounen trope filled garbage.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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