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Feb 5, 2025
This show is a grand slam failure in all genres it tries to execute. The first is the supernatural alien aspect. Dandadan features exciting action sequences relating to paranormal and occult phenomena, almost out of nowhere to keep the audience engaged. Rather than say that this show engages with the theme well, I'd say it's a segway towards the chaotic action sequences and settings that the author wants to get to.
This brings me to the comedic part of the show. The show features low-brow, boring penis jokes and other extremely unfunny and uninspired manzai bits in between the supernatural fights and scenarios. Ayase's Grandma is
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also coincidentally an eternally youthful woman (maybe? dropped it before I could figure out) which I have to assume was only there to further accentuate the boring ecchi humor that happens. Haha isn't it funny when big boobed Grandma is out there wearing barely anything to show as eye candy? It kind of deflates her whole serious spiel about respecting the dead or whatever she just spoke moments before. That level of humor gets bizarrely brought into the supernatural sequences. While the show does try to be serious sometimes, dealing with themes that supernatural would bring about, such as curses and people living through terrible fates to become the monstrosity that they are, a lot of it gets taken away from the vast majority of the show that tends to lean towards playground levels of humor and dialogue interaction. While the show tries to bring some edgy themes, the shounen aspects dominate it so immensely it might as well be a footnote if anything.
Yes, the shounen aspects of this show rears its ugly head a bit too far as well. The Ayase and Ken duo get themselves in all sorts of situations that would kill anybody else, but because of plot armor and random powerups, they're able to survive. The fact that Ayase and Ken defeat the most powerful enemy in the very first arc and then deal with the less powerful entities is a testament to the lack of care about actually setting up any sort of actual fighting system or powers. The show doesn't focus on this: it's more that the supernatural creature of the arc will simply lose out while Ayase and Ken will miraculously clinch a victory. The show is quite self-aware of this fact, considering that it forces to rush Ayase and Ken through to fight while poking fun at themes of protagonists training while the enemy patiently waits.
Minor spoiler ahead:
The other crappy aspect of this is the concept of forgiveness. Again, crude shounen logic sweeps chilling acts of cruelty under the rug for the show to keep its lighthearted tone. This is most obvious when Ayase and Ken decide to forgive a certain spirit and seals them in a doll. Then, that spirit, who was going to kill Ayase and Ken, has killed many other people, is now just a defacto mascot of the show and "is now good" and helps them out without any sort of further explanation.
The show fails to manage the theme of supernatural because that was never the focus to begin with. Despite all of the fights and supernatural plot points, it doesn't want to engage with it at all. After all, supernatural is scary. It's spooky. It's supposed to be horrifying. This is indicative of how most of the things Ayase and Ken interact with are mired in tragedy. However, that would fail to keep the lighthearted aspect of the show alive so none of this is focused on.
Finally, Ken and Ayase are quite a terrible romantic pairing because their characters are both trash, the character development between both of them are elementary, and again, just a lack of focus on actually fleshing anything out to be relevant. I'll focus on Ken because he's definitely the biggest culprit of this. Ken's a typical loser guy who has no friends and turns to the occult to make friends because he can't develop social skills. This gets emphasized over and over again because why not? Ayase's depicted as a cute girl falls in love with Ken quite fast not for any redeeming qualities of his own. Ken's an easy character for people who have no friends to project themselves onto similar to how it's easy for people to project themselves onto isekai protagonists reincarnating into another world and they build a harem seemingly out of thin air. Even with Ken's terribly boring character profile, the main problem is that Ken never changes. Despite going through life-changing events, winning fights, and building up camaraderie, the next day he's still a loser thinking about "huh I bet she doesn't want to be friends with me anymore." Cut the BS saying that the show just wants to be realistic about things. Yeah, I think every single thing about this show is pulled out its ass but yeah, I think the character profile and psychology needs to be super realistic like a TV drama. Ayase carries the entire relationship. Even when Ken is moping about or ignoring her, Ayase sticks with him anyways. Why? To really hammer in the wish-fulfillment in the show maybe? I really don't know why the author made it a point to make Ken such a loser where he resorts to blabbering about the occult and arguing with Ayase in their very first conversation because Ken can't make any real conversation. Of course, this gets even more accentuated when another girl joins the group and Ayase starts getting jealous of Ken being with another girl....how fun.
If you want to watch a actual supernatural show that's still very shounen but also retains a lot of horrific value, I'd recommend Dark Gathering.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Feb 4, 2025
It's quite disgusting how Blue Lock, the literal best-selling manga of 2023, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, is yet unable to get the budget to animate the sequel to a highly successful, well animated season 1.
Despite a lot of glaring flaws, shounen logic, and a host to fast paced development, I still gave Blue Lock a generous 9/10. Because ultimately, the good points shone through that much. If season 2 had as much budget as season 1, that would have cemented Blue Lock as the best soccer show I've watched by a long shot.
Yet, we got glorified slideshows? We can go ahead
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and point fingers. 8Bit, the studio did not give enough budget for this show. The production committee of the anime are full of scumbags. True. Executives only looked at what they could skim off the top and give to the peasants? Yes. Eat the rich? Probably.
Ultimately, similar to how Blue Lock's only objective is to win and score goals as cold hard results, the result here, regardless of any processes involved is the complete abysmally animated season 2 of Blue Lock as a result of the animation studio budget planning committee trying to scam the viewers for all they're worth off a successful franchise.
I understand that the storyboarding is actually still quite good. For the few high fidelity scenes that the show had animated, it was amazingly good. The voice acting, artstyle, pacing, and storyboarding were golden. The only problem is animation budget. What a shame. I think the ability for the studio to put literal slideshows and piece together to be honest, a half decent sports show is quite amazing. Still, that's all it is. Great storyboarding, scripting, pacing, and original material churned out to be mediocrity itself. What a shame.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 31, 2025
To preface, Ranma ½ holds a lot of nostalgic value to me. I've read the entire manga series and watched all of the anime to completion, all over a decade ago. It was perhaps the first major introduction to the genderbender genre for me at the time, which I still enjoy to this day. I think for the time, Ranma ½ was definitely great, and even decades later, it's still good! I believe that.
However, what does the modern adaptation bring to the table? For all the praise I just gave Ranma ½, it's very flawed in the modern day. It's a typical slapstick rom-com trope
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with some genderbender elements that use characters that fall in love with Ranma's female and male form to create comedic effect, as well as the perverted old geezer trope to further propel the ecchi humor. Akane and Ranma never get together until literally the very end because otherwise, how would the rom-com even function? Even my favorite characters like Shampoo, to be honest, aren't amazing.
To say that Ranma ½ is trope-ridden and of no value also doesn't seem to be fair, though. It's kind of tropey because other romantic comedies took inspiration from it. At the time, Ranma ½ was quite fresh and unique. I mean it was literally released in the 1980s. So to say that Ranma ½ shaped the landscape of the genre for generations to come is not an exaggeration. Ranma ½ is still a good anime, no doubt about that.
So, with all the rambling, would I actually recommend the Ranma ½ remake? Probably only if you're a diehard fan or never introduced to the series before. I do agree that the remake is just better in every way possible. Animation quality, voice acting, pacing, coloring, storyboarding, sfx, and more. However, it's ultimately a remake. If you've watched the original 160+ episode run with OVAs and read the manga, the remake doesn't bring anything new to the table. As someone who has completed that journey, the remake is nice and it's cool to see some it animated superbly well, but I wouldn't actually watch it myself since it's all the same. If I've never watched the series, I'd probably drop it because it's not amazing. Since I already watched it, I'm, dropping it because I don't want to watch it again. I'm just curious who the hell the actual target audience is. These remakes are getting a bit out of control.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 29, 2025
Maou 2099 has a lot of potential, but lack of execution really kills a lot of this show that failed to live up to its full potential.
I just love the setting. A reboot of a classic Demon Lord vs Hero. What happens if the Demon Lord actually loses and he gets defeated by the righteous hero? Well, he gets resurrected in a strange, unfamiliar sci-fi world with technology so advanced it might as well be magic. The concept of magic and technology fusing to be magitech is not an uncommon theme nowadays, but the way the sci-fi setting is handled is great. AI powered familia
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devices power a lot of the logical processing that takes place when trying to create magic, and there's a real reason why Veltol, our main character is unable to use it. The device was made intentionally to exclude and become incompatible with higher level deities and entities so that people like Veltol would be at a massive disadvantage in the future, where their mana reserves and magical prowess are much less pronounced due to advances in technology. While you don't get to see a lot of the world as worldbuilding isn't exactly the focus, just the basic explanations of how the world works makes sense in the scope of the story. There's backdoors in the familia, there's "aether hacking" on magic devices, there's the ubiquitous prevalence of technology in order to apply for jobs, buy groceries, and do day-to-day activities. The setting doesn't go so in depth as to lose focus on the story, but good enough and makes a lot of sense in order to set the story up for success.
And despite the sci-fi setting, it pays so much homage to the classic hero on a quest to beat the evil Demon Lord entity. Demon Lord Veltol and Gram are very classic archetypes intentionally crafted that way. Veltol is an arrogant, strong, ruler that wants to defeat humans so as to rule over the world. He uses strength to obtain territory, and while he's not stupid, he's a bit naive and narrowminded sometimes. He demands obedience as the supreme ruler of the immortals, and yet also cherishes his subordinates and truly wishes for both humanity and immortals to thrive in the whole wide world. He's the very definition of what the personality of a typical demon lord would be in a hero's journey type of story. Gram is similarly the hero archetype where he finds kindness to be the greatest virtue. He's humble, fearless, and knows his destiny is to destroy the great evil that is Veltol. Along his journey, he gathers like-minded comrades to vanquish the great evil. This basic set of personalities clash and evolve with each other as the story progresses in a very meaningful way. The motif of hero and demon lord keeps on getting revisited throughout the entire series as Veltol and Gram slowly change.
When Veltol fights and gets defeated by Hero Gram, he's very much the older, wiser, and jaded veteran while Gram is the young hero with all the aspirations. Veltol scoffs at the idea of humanity, friendship, bonds as absolute power appeals to him much more. Yet, when Gram defeats Veltol, he has to accept the fact that he truly was defeated by such "unnecessary ideals." Despite his unwillingness to accept defeat, he acknowledges Gram as stronger fighter, and respects him for it. Yet he's still unconvinced with such explanations that "glimmers of life" and hope were the reasons he lost, and with those thoughts, he vanishes.
Yet, when Veltol reawakens, he's in more of an infantile state. His personality and memory are intact, but he's much weaker, lacking faith, power, and subordinates. He's a ruler with no subjects and power. Veltol, in his weakened present day self, can't solve problems with violence. He requires diplomacy, relationships, and more. His perception changes as he encounters betrayals and loyalty alike. He has to adapt to the new world, change his worldview, and re-evaluate his previous self and ideals. He's forced to face the present day reality that is magitech and all the strings that come attached with such a product.
Meanwhile, while Veltol does his own awakening and reimagining, Gram lived through all life had to offer for over 500 years. If Veltol is learning new things all the time, Gram is now the jaded veteran with more experience in his belt. Lacking even a reason to fight, ironically, Veltol, his sworn enemy, is the only person left in the world that genuinely respects him.
And then they meet. If Gram was the hopeful hero and wanted to make changes with a bright future ahead of him and Veltol was the dispassionate ruler, the present day have the roles reversed. Now Veltol's the one with a hopeful outlook in life while Gram seems to have lost reasons to fight as the Hero. 500 years made both of them forget their grudges against each other. Instead, perhaps that 500 year bond is the only thing that's left in the 500 years time.
Then, finally, Veltol bows his head to Gram. To borrow his power and to save his vassals, he's willing to ask his greatest enemy in the past to aid him in his cause. With the roles now reversed, Gram's the weary Hero that doesn't believe Veltol can achieve anything, while Veltol's the one with idealistic goals, ambitions, and innocence. While Gram berates Veltol for his statements, Veltol refutes with "I have the solutions to all the problems, not just one! For I am Demon Lord Veltol! And this World is mine to rule!" With those words, perhaps Gram sees his past self in Veltol, and maybe just to help the weak getting exploited as Hero Gram always had done, he joins hands with Veltol to save the city.
If you've read this far, you can tell just how much I enjoy the Hero vs Demon being reimagined in this world and setting; it's very fun to watch like that! No edgy protagonist, protagonist with harem, convoluted sci-fi plot, or OP MC. It's a Demon Lord and Hero reuniting after 500 years in a completely different world.
I won't write about all the flaws too much or else the review will go on too long, but there's a decent amount of them. The main problem is the pacing. A lot of the fights are really poorly paced with dialogue and fight scenes. There's way too much dialogue and it really makes the potentially tense fight defuse too much. The story is also pretty mediocre. There's always a lot of action and people fighting and dying, but there's never any true buildup. Usually, when there's city level fights, there's different organizations involved, personal armies, or people that Veltol recruits. In this show, it's kind of just Veltol and his crew alongside Gram fighting the like 2-3 enemies that appear. The scale of it all just doesn't really make sense, and the buildup for all of the fights are really bad. For example, a story arc about investigating artifacts to unlock a secret vault just devolves to the evil guy revealing himself and none of the previous setting, worldbuilding, or characters even matters. There's a complete lack of story when it comes to investigations, character interactions, and so on for the scale of the actual plot at hand.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 29, 2025
I've had this on my manga backlog for multiple years. In fact, whenever I get to picking up the first chapter, I drop in the first few pages even before our MC transfers to Tokyo because to be honest, it's really boring.
Do you know about like isekai anime where the MC gets hot slaves that fall in love with him for no reason and he just gets a harem for the fun of it? It's really cringe because it's literally just male wish-fulfillment and it's extremely obvious. This show is like the female version of that. Our main character is very much a "badass female
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boss" that sobers up and literally becomes a cool character after a single episode of character development. And she gets paired with a handsome, badass crazy guy. Don't worry though! She's the only one to rein that guy in and he just happens to fall heads over heels after her after she decides to make it her goal to get revenge on the guy for insulting her!
It's a powertrip and I think we all know it. All the violence, Yakuza, characters, do they matter? All they serve is really to highlight how badass the male lead is, or how badass the female lead is. The entire world revolves around them obviously and it's just a poorly written romance between then with fighting and stuff in between. It's shallow, doesn't really make sense, it's idealized and romanticized versions of what an edgy toxic romance really looks like. To be honest if this were realistic at all I think Kirishima would start beating Yoshino like starting episode 1 or raping her or something.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 15, 2025
What am I supposed to feel? Anything at all? Why is a show all about character development and dialogue so formulaic and filled with generic problems and dialogue?
I don't care that the wife reincarnated as a loli kid. I don't care about the husband. I also surely don't care about the daughter. I don't care about the wife's personal family situation. I have zero empathy for characters that have such basic and minimal personalities that can be reduced to a few pet traits.
What do you really know about the husband in this show? That he got really sad over his wife's death? Not
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really, right? You the viewer didn't actually experience that. You were just told that.
I'll relate to the movie "UP" since it deals with similar themes. Why is the movie impactful? Because Carl Fredricksen, the husband in the movie has to deal with the dire consequences of his wife's passing, and that shows through his bitter personality, outlook in life, and so on and so forth. What about this show? Bro the guy literally gets bailed out and now he's happy. That's cool and all, but personally speaking I'm more just indifferent and bored for the guy than anything else. How could I? The narrative starts with the husband finding his dead wife reincarnated.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 15, 2025
For an anime original drama, I'll be honest: it's way better than I could have ever expected. However, that's all. it still doesn't compel me. However, I will give credit when credit is due. The show was able to embed themes about fishing and life in 1 season and wrap it up quite nicely. It's a great show when it comes to creating realistic character development, I'll give it that.
For starters though, NegaPosi Angler has a strange relationship with fishing. On one hand, there is quite a lot of fishing, and there's a lot of knowledge about fishing as well. There's a constant influx of
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new information about fishing or ways to fish that the show tries to incorporate. At the same time though, it also seems a bit shallow at times. I wish the show could have been more in-depth about how the actual process of fishing actually is. For example, the show never really goes into preserving fish or gutting fish. The process of descaling and fileting different types of fish depending on size, firmness, and physiological structure matters a lot and it's also a fun topic to explore when you're a fishing show. While again, there is a lot of things about fishing, I felt like it never came together. For example, there's some topics about high and low tides, best days to fish, and different types of luring methods, but there was never any compelling demonstrations of fishing that I found to be particularly engaging despite it being entirely about a show about fishing. Similar to how the show never shows the viewer how the fish is handled, it also never shows how a fish is cooked. Cooking fish you catch is a very fun aspect of fishing! There are so many various dishes depending on the type of fish caught, freshness, and so on and so forth. If there was a in-depth guide or ways to cook different types of fish in unique ways, that could have been fun too. How about catching shrimp, crawfish, or sharks? I mean to be honest, the possibilities are completely endless in terms of fishing. Yet, the show really only sticks to surface level explanations of how fish are caught and that's about it. It's a little depressing.
On the other hand though, I really have to say that the show is quite well crafted when it comes to drama. The story is the best part of the show, and I have no complaints. While kind of edgy in the beginning, honestly, the story really comes together near the end in a fulfilling and natural way. The way fishing enters our main character's life makes him more confident in the road ahead. I won't spoil anything, but despite it being a dramatic show, the characters are superbly crafted, the dialogue well written, and the pacing makes a lot of sense. 10/10 story.
That's however, kind of only concerning more serious parts of the show. Characters are frankly not fun to watch when it's slice of life mode. Takaaki, Hiro, and Hana are very good characters when it came to the more dramatic parts, and that's also true for the slice of life I suppose. Takaaki and Hiro have a good relationship, as Takaaki always looks out for Hiro and kind of helps him out of his rut. Hiro is the main character and despite depressed, tries to get himself out after Takaaki extends a hand. Hana is a great, lively 17 year old who actually acts the part. She's obsessed with fishing, acts to her desires, brings in a positive attitude, and overall surprisingly childish. The other characters are all pretty bad. They either just don't have much impact or are just plain boring. This is especially true for Machida who has a really boring episode dedicated to his personal life that no one cares about.
However, I don't think the slice of life really does the show justice. After all, the slice of life is mid as hell. Again, just going to highlight Hana here to prevent spoilers. She's 17. And she acts the part. She's a bit of a kid, and that's even true when talking about the drama. She's not savior, she's not a love interest, and she's only human. She obviously cares for her friends, yet also doesn't step into any boundaries. Overall, she's there for support, but also understands privacy. Great character honestly. I'm not doing her justice.
Lastly, let's talk about presentation and pacing. Again, this show is king at that. Hiro gets saved by Takaaki at the very beginning of the show. The fact that the show never actually shows this to the viewer is just great. I really don't care about watching something like that. The fact that the show basically never shows flashbacks until absolutely necessary, and only shows it for a few seconds when someone briefly mentions their past is amazing. The brevity of the situation is shown in only short, realistic bursts of dialogue of heart to heart. This show just gets it. The show actually presents good dialogue without relying on flashbacks as a crutch and instead only mentions them as minimally as possible to the viewer. The show is great at that. When Hiro gets saved by Takaaki, all we know as a viewer is that Takaaki was desperate to save him. Is it really then necessary to show a 2-3 minute scene about that? Not really, we just need to know that Takaaki saved Hiro. That's all. Things like this are stuff I appreciate a lot. 10/10 presentation.
While I don't like to rate a show based on categories they performed on, this show is a special exception since it's so polar opposites when it comes to aspects I love and hate. The pacing, storyboarding, presentation and drama and realistic characters are really good: 9-10/10. The slice of life and fishing which still takes a lion's portion of the entire show is a solid 4-5/10. While I would love to say that the dramatic part of the show makes up for the slice of life, because of how they are portioned, they just don't. so 6/10. I wouldn't really recommend it ultimately.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 8, 2025
What is the main issue of this show? I really can't suspend my disbelief at the setting sometimes. Generally speaking, I wouldn't say I am very picky when it comes to worldbuilding. After all, complaining about how physics just doesn't work with 3DM gear in Attack on Titan is just an "erm actually" moment and doesn't actually affect anything. However, Kabushikigaisha Magi-Lumière fails to even pass my low expectations.
It's magic in modern world! The problem is quite apparent once you look at even just the first few episodes. The show is a profession-type show, with the main focus being the logistics of how magical
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girls fight Kaii (monsters) with their magical powers. The way the magic is generated, the pipeline towards subduing kaii, and overall the general worldbuilding surrounding magical girls is the focal point of the story. They even use code to generate magical spells in this world. That's all and good, but that also means that if you're going to be so focused on the development of magical girls as an industry and profession, it's got to be a bit more than just Sailor Moon logic. After all, with Sailor Moon, the plot is that "our heroes --magical girls-- have magic powers and can transform." That's perfectly fine for what Sailor Moon was trying to achieve and I am satisfied with that explanation. This show obviously tries to go more in depth on how the magic actually works, so on and so forth. Thus, if you focus on it, you need to flesh it out more.
So begs the question: there's a LOT of blatant plot holes or worldbuilding the anime just decides to never explain or show to you. For example, how does the magical girl industry actually operate? We can go back to even just the adventurer's guild in a classic medieval fantasy as an example. Adventurers take on quests based on their rank, and these quests are issued out in conjunction with the adventurer's guild. The adventurer's guild is a third party entity similar to a contracting company where they accept requests from all sorts of individuals. Even the government will commission adventurer's guild to serve as mercenaries or to clean up monsters in the area.
Here's the thing though: even this simple explanation of how adventurers work is not extended to this show with magical girls. After all, what does the government have to say about this? I have to say that some novels and anime make governments omnipotent. For example, the government being able to predict when monsters appear and issue people to address the issue immediately. In this show, the government doesn't even exist. The show kind of just assumes that a capitalistic privatized magical girl industry would actually be a good solution for a public safety concern that governments would probably have large regulations or control over. At the very least, it would be a mix of privatized and public magical girls depending on the pay and location. Anyways, you might say this is a huge nitpick, but it ties into the main issues I have.
For how in depth the show goes onto looking into how magical girls perform magic and how they exterminate monsters, I really dislike how the show never bothers to explain how the industry came to be in the first place. To begin with, magic can clearly be used with harm as well. How are magical girls controlled and how are magic girl criminals handled? It'd be kind of fun to just see how let's say, see how magic brooms and wands are programmed with failsafes to not target humans under any circumstances, and how the history of that came to be. That's kind of the charm of these types of shows in my opinion; being able to focus on how things came to be in a fun but sort of realistic manner. For a show that has episodes showcasing magic conventions on how to deal with monster mutation and how the pipeline of creating spells from code to the actual field is emphasized, there are still very large holes in logic like this is commonly shown in this anime, which doesn't really make sense for what the theme of the show seems to be. I'm only focusing so much on these sorts of things because the anime clearly wants to be realistic about some things. Such as the fact that in a privatized industry, there's proprietary spells, software, and equipment that they use. And that such proprietary software and information is licensed out to magical girl companies. When you have dedicated research labs towards in-house magic development in companies and have a large amount of exposition and worldbuilding surrounding it, sorry if I also expect to have some semblance of how the industry actually works when it comes to government intervention and public safety.
All other aspects of the show are fine. The show was fine to watch. It's just large leaps in some logic and storytelling makes the show a lot worse. For example, in one episode, Kana has a perfectly functional broom while her partner, Koshigaya broke hers and is running out of power. Since Kana is a beginner while her partner is trying to do the heavy lifting in this episode, is it not normal for Kana to swap brooms so Koshigaya can do her job? Instead there's a crisis with a clear solution but Kana never wants to pursue that line of thought. You might argue that Koshigaya wouldn't be able to reach in time but it's clear that in the next few frames that Koshigaya is able to push off the building and land right next to Kana to do the exchange, showing that it was possible. Instead, Kana inexplicably just does a risky move that she's never done before and crisis averted. Strange.
Other ways the show is just straight up awful is how Kana is portrayed in the first episode. "huh, I really need a way to hammer into the viewer that Kana has good memory. How do I do that?" In an inconsequential scene, Kana is able to memorize all of the previous customers' orders in a coffee shop because the barista forgot their orders. This scene is so shoehorned in just to show how Kana has good memory it's ridiculous. The scene was only crafted to showcase that Kana is smart. It's not the fact that Kana has good memory that makes the scene bad, it's just that the scene was only created to show to the audience the in such a straightforward and forced manner that makes it bad. Could it not have been done more subtly or elegantly?
Anyways, I have been bashing the show but characters aren't so bad outside of Kana's first episode and how her character is introduced. The episodes themselves are frankly average but enough to retain interest. There doesn't seem to be much of an overarching plot so it just makes the episodes focused around magical girl monster extermination and how magic can be applied in different ways. I did think the special effects and CGI were a cut above normal to be honest, and the animation quality isn't the greatest but good enough. I enjoy how the anime blends the CGI and 2D animation. Only in far shots is CGI used for the main characters, and most if not all closeups are hand animated still which is good. The show clearly understands that CGI can be used as a way to save money, but when shots matter, they won't use it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 6, 2025
This is one of the few webtoons that have a distinct artstyle that is very different from modern clip studio webtoons we see today. Evident from the nascent stages of webtoons from as early as 2014, it certainly brings a certain charm with the solid art and coloring that actually makes the webtoon have an artstyle I don't hate.
It's also gag which I love. Too bad all the jokes fall flat. If it's straight up not ecchi/harrassment or slapstick, 4 Cut Hero sticks to elementary levels of comedy that you would find on a playground. Unfortunately comedy based on "haha I touch boob" or "main
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character is an otaku" can really only go so far.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 2, 2025
Someone who writes like this...how do I say it? It feels a bit insecure.
Now this might be a complete personal and biased attack but that's just part and parcel of it being my review. Writing in so many different characters with different relationships doesn't make me be more enthralled with your world and people around it. Instead I kind of just find every character to be shallow since all the interactions are one off, and once a character is introduced they are reduced to a few pet traits mainly because there's too many characters to go through. If you wanted to world build buddy,
...
maybe slice of life comedy romance isn't it. Maybe write high fantasy or sci-fi.
It screams lack of confidence since the author is worried that the main pairing and story would be too plain and he wouldn't be able to keep a reader's attention for so long since there's not enough material for him to think about. He'd be right. I mean, this is why oneshots are so common and also easier to write. It's easier to write a 9 different one-shots than it is to sustain a 9 volume long-standing series.
When you keep on writing in more and more side characters, you can sustain a series for longer. You can kind of avoid the main storyline or issue and create more trivial side characters to lengthen a story, and that's basically what this guy did. A simple 3-5 chapter story got lengthened to a 32 chapter run.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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