Back to Playbahnosh's Profile Playbahnosh's Profile

[TL;DR: A lighthearted romance romp with an interesting gimmick. While the art and animation leaves a lot to be desired, it's easy on the eyes and on the kokoro as well. A fluffy "boy meets girl" slice-of-life story without incessant melodrama and surprisingly real, heartfelt moments. It's short and sweet, only 12 episodes, it's an excellent choice if you are looking for something warm and fuzzy to watch on a Sunday afternoon!]

I like stories that don't try to be more than they are, and Pseudo Harem fits the bill perfectly. A light slice-of-life romance anime without all the fluff. The gimmick this time is "why ... would you need a 100 girls in your harem, when you can have one with a 100 personalities?". Not in a clinical sense of course, but that she is a very talented actress who can switch character tropes on a whim. Tsundere-chan, Imp-chan, Spoiled-chan, Cool-chan, Demure-chan, you'll never know who you gonna get. It's like dating a dozen different girls at the same time, but without the guilt! It's a match made in heaven, especially if you are into that sort of thing.

The anime is very light on fluff, we are jumping from vignette to vignette, straight to the point, and while it's great to have a story with progression which is never boring, the change is sometimes quite jarring. Not giving the audience enough time to immerse themselves in the scene, jumping from a heavy romantic moment to comedic relief and back again is a bit of a whiplash sometimes. Which is true for the writing as well, the anime switches gears faster than Takumi in Initial D, as we often go from emotion-filled tension to slapstick play-acting and than back again in seconds, just leaves your head reeling. That being said, the scenes and dialogues are great, they smell very "based on a true story" and easily moves you in unexpected ways. I love the fact the humor is also very light, no low-brow toilet humor or needless raunchy fanservice bs, it's all very "safe" which doesn't mean it's colorless or boring but it lends itself really well for a lighthearted romance story like this.

Now, I do have to mention the art style, which is also really...um...light. It's very basic, light pastels and absolutely no needless lines. Especially the backgrounds sometimes look like they've been outsourced to the nearest intern and the quality can be very inconsistent between scenes. The low framerate and janky animations also follow suit. It's not terrible, but it's obvious the anime was made on a budget, and while it doesn't really detract from the enjoyment much, they could've done a lot better.

All in all, Giji Harem is a really enjoyable little romance story without any of the huge rollercoasters of bigger productions. The gimmick is interesting and fun, the story is nice and steady, the characters are cute, the humor is totally non-offensive, it's a really safe bet if you are looking for something light and fluffy between all the melodrama-drenched heavy stuff. I wholeheartedly recommend it!

[TL;DR: Largely forgettable romantic drama. It's the worst kind of story: whips you up with it's starting premise and leaves you hanging. It's really cute and enjoyable in places, builds up with a nice and steady pace, but ultimately fails to deliver on it's promise. Don't get your hopes up, the novel/manga isn't any better either. Only watch this if you don't mind getting a story without any payoff.]

I basically never leave spoilers in reviews, but I WILL spoil the end to this one, because it's just so infuriating!
Kimizero is the worst blue-baller anime I've watched this decade. It shamelessly ropes you in at ... the start with the most blatant whale-hooks you've ever seen, builds up a nice story through 12 episodes and then leaves you hanging forever...

The basic premise is in the blurb up there, but in short: asocial gamer nerd (who else) falls for the most popular gyaru bimbo in the school (naturally), loses a bet and forced to confess to her (of course), at which point she actually agrees to date him so the rest of the plot can happen. She immediately drags him home ready to jump him, at which point he pulls the ultimate virgin move and pumps the brakes because, you'll never guess this, he "wants to wait until she ACTUALLY wants to do him". You know, for realsies. And she just goes along with it, because this is actually new territory for her. You know, the gyaru bimbo who shagged half the school already is perplexed by the one gormless loser who DOESN'T immediately want to jump her.

All sarcasm aside, this is where the story gets surprisingly real. See, sex is something she just took as par for the course, because all the assholes she dated so far jumped her at the earliest possible opportunity. Then, of course her presenting no challenge, all of them lost interest and dumped her in short order. So she took sex as something guys did to her in a relationship, something inevitable. That's not to say it was [oil producing yellow flowery plant], no, she was fully aware and consenting to all of it, she just took it as something... mundane.

And then along comes the nerd in shining armor and tells her that HE needs actual feelings to be involved. He wants her to actually like him, have feelings for him. He wants the act to, you know, MEAN something. And that completely takes her off guard. A gut-punch right in the kokoro. That he wants to actually EARN the one thing she's been giving away for free all this time. And this act of completely implausible chivalry opens up a whole new world for her. A world where she is not just a sex toy to be used and discarded. A world where she actually matters as a person.

And the rest of the story is her basically re-learning what a relationship really is, what it means to actually like someone, love someone, what it means to care about someone and being cared about. That physicality is not just a thing guys do to her, but it actually feels a whole lot different when real emotions are involved.

...or at least that's what I would've wanted to happen. I would've loved to see THAT story. But no. What we get is a completely formulaic, dime-a-dozen romantic drama with way too many coincidences, forced melodrama resulting from stupid misunderstandings, and an ultimate payoff that never comes. We get all the usual highschool romcom set pieces, the school festival, sports day, summer festival, winter break, christmas, inevitable beach episode, etc, etc. We get side characters with their own romantic difficulties just to spice things up and there ARE some interesting stories too, but not fleshed out enough to really care.

As for our protagonists, they are actually really cute in their awkward attempts at romance, with the guy trying his damndest to please and her feeling actual love probably for the first time. At one point she actually starts to regret her past something fierce, lamenting all the "firsts" she gave to ungrateful assholes and now can't experience with him, which actually felt really sad. But ultimately they do hold hands, have dates and kiss, while not "first" first, but the first with actual love involved, which really makes the whole thing worth it.

The one thing I will give this anime is that the serious moments are actually NOT ruined by terrible writing, badly timed slapstick or low-brow fanservice. All the important parts are handled with tact and care in a way I haven't really seen in other romantic anime. It feels like this story actually happened to someone out there, and if I'm gonna be honest, it probably did. Many times, in fact...

As for what it all leads up to, I'm now going to spoil everything even BEYOND the anime, so if you don't wanna get spoiled and want to get let down all by yourself, then stop reading right now!

Okay? Good.

So, the very crux of the whole story, our cute couple ultimately doing the thing they put off for so long, the thing that would put the crown on all the effort, the very thing the whole story is about...well...it never actually happens!
Not in the anime, but not in the source novel either. In the novel, the part that takes place after the end of the anime, there is a massive inexplicable 2-year timejump. Ryūto is now in college, still dating Luna, and thankfully both Ijichi and Nishina manages to sort out their relationships with Yamana and Tanikita, which is all well and good but...while not said outright, it is heavily implied Ryūto and Luna NEVER ACTUALLY DONE IT. Not once. Which is followed by ANOTHER 2-year timejump in a later chapter, where nothing continues to happen on that front. This is not to say that sex must be the be-all-end-all of a relationship, but come the frack on, it's not only implausible but pretty much impossible that two dating healthy young adults just skip shagging altogether for FOUR YEARS. Especially when the entire story revolves around the damn thing. It's really infuriating when you get through a whole season of anime AND now up to 9 chapters of a novel, only to be slapped with essentially filler. As Sean Gaffney of "A Case Suitable for Treatment" put it, sticking to the moral of "slut-shaming is bad" is admirable, but "Just because you’re not having sex doesn’t mean that hand-holding should take 60 pages."

In closing, what started out as an interesting premise for a romantic drama ultimately devolved into a meaningless nothingburger. What could've been a very intriguing and heart-filled journey or self-discovery and the meaning of feelings in relationships turned into a cookie-cutter slop with unnecessary melodrama and filler BS that leads nowhere.

[TL;DR: A beautifully made, albeit extremely generic and bland romance story with cardboard characters and terrible pacing. Thanks to Madhouse the anime looks and sounds amazing; too bad it's wasted on a boring and frankly cringe story as this. Only recommended if you really have nothing better to watch.]

I really wanted to like this anime. I truly did. Awkward nerd romance involving video games and such, it sounds right up my alley. I had fun watching Wotakoi just last week, so I thought this would be more of the same. I couldn't have been more wrong...

First of all, the anime has basically nothing to do ... with video games. Referenced in the title and the main selling point of the story, video games serve as mere background props. Akane, the main protagonist, is not even a nerd, just a generic college student who gets roped into playing some generic MMO. Aside from a handful of scenes where they talk on the in-game chat, we learn nothing about the game, or really any game or anything connected. I mean, that's fair to a point, not everyone is a huge gamer or necessarily interested in the culture at all, but the anime makes it feel like games and nerdy stuff (again, the main selling point of the story) is nothing but unremarkable plot devices, relegated to just a trendy gimmick to exploit, which - being a nerd - feels pretty damn offensive.

I could forgive an anime being tonedeaf like that if the story was actually great. But it's not. First of all, the main love interests, Akane and Yamada, have exactly ZERO chemistry. They have absolutely nothing in common, save for a single video game, and they would've never even met if not for her ex-boyfriend roping her into playing right before dumping her. Akane is a wordly college student who...well...has a friend(?) who she talks to sometimes, I guess? Being the most characterized character in the whole show, we don't really learn much about her at all, since 90% of the runtime is about her hopelessly fawning over the titular Yamada-kun.

Speaking of whom, Yamada is a hardcore gamer who...uh...plays video games a lot. Yep, that's basically the only thing we learn about him in the whole show. Oh, and that he is incredibly, insanely, unbelievably pretty! The anime continuously hammers home the point just how much of an amazingly cute boy Yamada is, with characters extolling his godly good looks left and right and scenes where squeeky fangirls line up to confess to him everywhere he goes. Too bad he has the personality of a medium-sized brick. I mean, hardcore gamers in general are not exactly known to be social butterflies, but Stoic Stickbug Yamada is just taking it a little too far. A bland, brash, absolutely asocial guy with the emotional intelligence of a doorstop, who's only remarkable trait is how much he DOESN'T wanna be involved with Akane, makes for a very unbelievable love interest. And it's not even the "oh, he doesn't know his own feelings" or "doesn't know how to express himself" kinda thing. No, he's obviously just plain not interested in dating, period. And it's not like he hides this fact either, what with turning down confessions left and right and even outright saying that he is completely disinterested in romance.

But that won't stop our obvious self-insert heroine, who is dead determined to get him in a "I have no filter, so I'm gonna bug you until you love me" kinda way. Discounting the absolute forest of red flags of a college student woman desperately trying to date a high-school boy, the whole thing comes off as disingenuous. It really feels like the author has never been in a relationship and just took two unlikely characters, put them in a trendy setting and went "Now kiss!". There are just too many wild coincidences, accidents and the meddling of side-characters that force the two into awkward situations where Yamada needs to play the reluctant hero, and at the end something just suddenly flips in his head "I love you now, I guess". The whole thing is just so artificial, factitious, like someone who only experienced romance on TV, or a 4-year-old playing with dolls. I don't use this word often but I think "cringe" is the adequate definition here.

The ONLY saving grace of this anime is Madhouse. The production quality is through the roof! The art style is beautiful, amazingly animated and directed, I would expect nothing less for one of best studios in anime. Too bad it's all wasted on this terribly artificial snoozefest of a story. I'd only recommend it if you are a fan of Madhouse or you have nothing better to watch.

Thanks for reading!

The first thing that popped into my head when I saw this is "why?".
There was absolutely no need to remake this anime, as we already have the 2008 rendition, which still stands the test of time to this day. The art and design is beautiful, the animation is great, and since this is not some edgy action anime, frame rate and CGI doesn't play here. The VO and localization team is the same as well, and bring about the same quality.

What [b]did[/b] change is the characters themselves. In the original, Holo is a dignified albeit fickle goddess with surprising bouts of vulnerability hiding under ... her austere and beguiling nature. While Lawrence is an experienced and shrewd merchant who wouldn't take her shit, but is also mesmerized by her often playful nature and incredible insight. Holo is intrigued as to how Lawrence could treat her as an equal and wouldn't just succumb to her godlike power and feminine charm, and Lawrence's empathy and compassion instinctively wants to protect the fragile heart hiding in her hard shell of animalistic pride and ancient wisdom. It's this delicate power dynamic that makes their relationship so interesting and fun.

In this new version, however, everything goes out the window. Holo is presented as an angsty, hormonal teenager throwing tantrums, while Lawrence comes off as a total pushover. Gone is the amazing banter, the masterfully crafted back-and-forth between the unstoppable force and the immovable object. The depth and charm of their characters are replaced by awful caricatures. Holo the unstable tsundere and Lawrence the simp. Even the upgrade in art and animation doesn't trade for killing the soul of what made this anime great.

My suggestion is, stick with the original 2008 rendition of Spice & Wolf.

First, there was isekai. Then when people got bored of that, came the joke isekai that made fun of the whole thing. And then came the anti-isekai, the genre deconstructions that turned the whole premise onto it's head, etc etc...

And now, we have the post-isekai, where the rules go straight out the window and whatever happens, happens. I mean, this is one of those entire-paragraph-title anime that says all you need to know right on the tin. Dude gets isekai'd, wakes up in another world, but instead of embarking on the Hero's Journey or having some weird/funny ability or modern day technology, he just has ... the ability to kill anything instantly. Period. That's it. No chanting, no straining, no casting, no flashy animations, the guy just says "Die!" and the target just keels over, dead as a doornail. No explosions, no dragged out screaming and deathrattles, no bursting into sprays of blood and guts, just...dead. Works on literally everything. Hordes of bad guys, dragons, gods, unimaginable forces of evil, whatever it is, just gets unalived at the drop of a hat. No drawbacks, no limits, no rules, the guy literally just kills things, anytime, anywhere.

If that sounds insanely boring, well, it is. But it's also pretty entertaining in a weird way. The MC is as bland and bogstandard as it gets. He is also the most reasonable and likeable MC I've seen in basically any isekai, ever. He has one simple goal: he just wants to go home. He doesn't want to engage in any of the isekai fantasy otherworld hero's journey pseudo-video-game BS, he doesn't care about heroes and monsters, good vs evil, gods and demons, ethics and morals, one world-ending armageddon or another, the dude just simply wants to leave. He is not a murderous psychopath, a fish-out-of-water idiot, a flamboyant edgelord or some weird mix of these, he is just a simple dude who is over all this BS. He is not violent or angsty, but he is not over just straight up killing anything that threatens him. The one other skill he has - other than instant murder - is he can sense if anyone wants to kill him, and of course kill them right back whatever or wherever they are. This, aside from making him basically immortal, just removes any and all excitement when you realize just how low stakes are.

The rest of the story is just an incoherent mess. What makes the whole thing funny is just how desperately everyone else around him is trying to make the whole fantasy video game isekai stuff happen. Medieval kingdoms, dragons, spells, heroes fighting demons, leveling up, zombie apocalypse, resurrecting unimaginable ancient evil, blademasters, wizards, tournaments, you can find basically every single trope in here. And the MC is just over all this, he literally walks right through all that with a "no, thanks". I mean, some insanely powerful ancient evil keels over mid-monologue, dead, because MC was bored of their BS. It's stupid and very funny at the same time.

They try to cobble together some semi-coherent backstory, the MC being some ultimate alpha-omega embodiment of fate or something, but even the anime gives up halfway in a "whatever, you don't care, we don't care" kinda way. I mean it doesn't really matter, does it? The MC is just it's own plot device, pointing out just how ridiculous the whole concept is, which I can totally get behind.

In summary, is this a good anime? No. It's aimless, boring, incoherent and bland, cramming as many isekai tropes in a single anime as humanly possible and setting it all on fire. This anime doesn't just turn the isekai to 11, no, it rips off the friggin dial, stomps it to pieces and then pisses on it. There is fun to be had, watching the MC completely disregarding all the implied rules and laws of isekai and just side-stepping all that stuff. If you can turn off your brain and take it for what it is, it could be a reasonably fun time.

[TL;DR: Excellent insight into the world of anime creation. Great art, animation, industry insight and some drama to spice things up. If you ever wanted to know how the proverbial sausage is made, Shirobako is highly recommended!]

What Bakuman is to manga and New Game! is to video games, Shirobako is to anime. It's the quintessential industry piece, and eerie look behind the curtain to see how what you are watching is actually made. The anime mainly follows Aoi Miyamori, a fresh face at Musashino Animation's production staff and her dream to fulfill the promise she made with her four high-school friends to produce their very ... own anime one day.

As we know, anime - while being reasonably popular in it's own right - is generally not the main medium for stories, rather than a vehicle to popularize and further market the original work they're based on. Being remarkably harder and vastly more expensive to produce compared to printed works, an anime adaptation is often a reward for a manga or novel series doing well in sales and popularity. While there are notable exceptions to this, anime kinda always played second fiddle to other forms of entertainment, being the follow-up or companion piece rather than the main act. While generally used as a marketing tool for domestic sales in Japan, they couldn't keep this beast caged forever. The exponential rise in popularity of Japanese animation overseas has led to, among many things, the creation of this very website. However, while being a widely recognized and respected medium, anime by it's nature is very hard and expensive to make, and most anime to this day are produced at a loss, the cost of which the production companies usually hope to recoup with sales of the original work, merch, sponsorship deals, live events, product tie-ins and the likes...with varying degrees of success.

Shirobako completely sidesteps explaining anime's place in entertainment history, business or popculture, and instead laser-focuses on the production aspect and inner workings of an anime studio and it's denizens. We follow the day-to-day work at Musashino Animation and see what it takes to bring a story from an idea all the way to the TV screen. It's very interesting to see how storyboards and rough sketches become animated, voiced, living characters on screen, telling stories in beautiful detail. Dozens of artists, engineers and production staff working tirelessly day and night to make this magic possible. Like clockwork, all the different departments working together to each bring their part of the whole: characters, backgrounds, animations, special effects, ADR, sound and foley work, post-production and editing, all coming together to form something more than the sum of it's parts.

Of course work like this comes with it's fair share of hardships and pitfalls, which are in full display in the anime. Impossible deadlines, scheduling conflicts, personal issues, technical problems, mistakes made during one point or other, and of course the production staff desperately scrambling to keep this speeding train on track, mercilessly hurtling towards the air date of each episode. Being on schedule usually means you forgot something, as we watch Miyamori and co putting out fires left and right, pulling one all-nighter after another, barely seeing the inside of their own homes, just to bring the latest episode of your favorite show to your TV screen each week. One has to wonder if it's at all worth it, to give years of your life to such hectic, mentally exhausting, stressful and ultimately pretty thankless work, and the anime asks this very question on more than one occasion through some excellent character work and their relationships during the show. They say only weirdos and crazy people work in anime, because they are the only ones mad enough to go through this production hell to bring these stories to the screens of millions worldwide. The ultimate reward for all that is....to each their own. The dream of honing your skills, to become a professional, to watching your work on the big screen, to see the smiles of fans everywhere, to making a living doing what you love. It's different for everybody involved. But the one thing tying all these mad magicians together, is their love for anime.

As for the quality of this very anime: it's great! Shirobako, while not doing anything remarkably exceptional, is a really good anime. The art style and animation is nice, the sound and music - while nothing special - fits the theme well. The characters and stories are no doubt greatly based on real life people and events, and while dramatized for effect, you can feel their heart and soul in it. In fact, for the keen-eyed, there are several easter eggs from the anime industry at large, like popular anime, animation studios and even artist cameos like Hideaki Anno (Evangelion), Ichiro Itano (Mr Itano Circus), Hiromasa Ogura (background artist), Masao Maruyama (president of MAPPA), Masahiko Minami (president of BONES), Mitsuhisa Ishikawa (president of Production I.G), Seiji Mizushima (Fullmetal Alchemist director), Naoyuki Onda (Berserk character-designer), Takeshi Nogami (mangaka of Girls und Panzer), Takashi Ikehata (director of Genshiken) and some others.

In closing, all I can say, if you like anime as much as I, do yourself a favor and watch Shirobako. You might enjoy the overall story or characters much, but the insight you'll gain into the inner working of this medium will make you appreciate the efforts all the men and women working tirelessly to bring you your favorite stories on your screen in it's full animated glory.

[TL;DR: A weirdly compelling sci-fi action-schlock that ultimately fails on executions. The cool premise, the art and design are all thrown under the bus by awful animation, terrible dialogue and abysmal writing. At least it's short, and there's Bunny Miku, so it's not all bad. Might worth a binge on a boring afternoon, but don't expect a life-changing experience]

Tonkatsu is one of those adaptations that makes you go "WHY?". Why was it made? Who was it even made for? For the fans of the source material it's very lackluster and undeserving, and for everyone else it's confusing, trashy and short (the latter of which is ... a blessing in this case). It's not that Tempura's story is bad, it's just obnoxiously poorly realized. Which is a real shame, because there are seeds of a really cool story and universe underneath all the trash.

I mean, the basic premise is good...mostly because it was good in all the other - much better made - versions of it. It's the quintessential "unlikely bunch" story, where a group of misfits with violently different personalities are forced into a situation where they have to put aside their differences and learn to work together in order to survive...yaddy-yadda. I mean, we've all seen this before hundreds of times, because it's a good premise...when done right. But this story's success is hugely dependent on the quality of characters, where they all have to be well-written in their own right AND create a cool group dynamic....and sadly that's where Karaage fails first. Our five main protagonists are anything but good. Their uniqueness is barely skin-deep, the series does a really bad job at making them even remotely interesting or likeable. I'm not sure if they are better realized in the source material, but they are shamefully shallow in this adaptation. We have our stubborn "stay out of my way" Japanese dude, the loudmouth British girl, the buff meathead American, the "why can't we all just get along?" Swedish guy and the stoic charisma-vacuum Chinese girl. It doesn't help, that the rest of the supporting cast are even less memorable or interesting, save for the bunny version of Hatsune Miku as the AI, who at least brings some very out of place levity (and shock value) into the mix. So unless you are particularly fond of badly animated anthropomorphic animals, you won't find much to enjoy here. Speaking of which...

One of the most egregious failings of this series is the terrible, cheap visuals. Don't get me wrong, the art, the character and world design is pretty good! The sci-fi stuff, the space ships, the tech, even the animal people and their gear is pretty well made. However, it's so poorly framed and animated it just ruins the whole thing. I'm not particularly fond of full-3D-CGI in anime at the best of times, but Kushiage makes even these cool designs look bad. All the badly framed action shots with abysmal framerate and animation even made me dizzy when it went on for too long. Like watching a cheap slideshow, it all looks rushed and flimsy. It's either that, or basically still shot-reverse-shot talking heads with barely any animation. The weirdest part is, the only thing that looks halfway decent is the bunny-ified Hatsune Miku AI, that looks really cute and well animated in basically all the scenes, which is a jarring contrast to the rest of the visuals. It's probably a brand deal thing or something, but I digress.

On second thought, I won't go into detail on the awful writing/dialogue and the plothole-ridden, incoheren story, because I could go on for many paragraphs. Even if the basic premise and story elements are great, the whole things fails terribly on execution. The only good thing is the voice actors at least gave it their best, considering the pathetic writing they had to work with. It doesn't help that the CGI character designs don't lend themselves particularly well to nuance and facial animations.

I'm very hesitant to recommend Nankotsu. It's short, only 6 episodes, so it won't take up your valuable time, and there is some cool design and a decent story hidden in there somewhere, but it's sadly barely watchable, and there are tons of way better made series out there you could watch instead of this one. It's a shame, because I REALLY wanted to like Teppanyaki, because I'm a sucker for good sci-fi stories, but this one, sadly, didn't make the cut. Thanks for reading!

[TL;DR: if you've watched the previous season, this is more of the same with even more insultingly shallow emotional manipulation, pointless timeskips, arcs that make even less sense and a story that lurches forward aimlessly like the knocker zombie it is. TYE had all the ingredients for a great story, then went and jumbled it all in a horrendous mess. Season two continues the trend of screwing up wherever possible and ruins whatever little interest there was left in the show.]

"I failed to save everyone again. It's all my fault they died...AGAIN" could be the tagline of To Your Eternity, it is as true as ... it is completely nonsensical and contrived. Fushi - the utterly hopeless godlike alien device - continues it's reign of useless moping and blasé self-flagellation, while introducing a huge drop in animation quality, even more annoying one-dimensional characters and trope filled set-pieces, which leads up to a finale that retroactively retcons any character development that might've happened during the two seasons.

I'll say it again: To Your Eternity is not just bad, it's insultingly, infuriatingly bad. I can excuse a show that was built on a bad idea or cheap production quality, but this one was NOT! To Your Eternity started out amazing! The basic premise of the show was great, interesting and fresh, only for the writer to go and drown it in a swamp of nonsensical bullshit, terrible pacing, awful tropes and cheap melodrama. The second season ramps up the "emotional damage" to 11, stringing along all those in the audience who've fallen prey to its shallow, manipulative tricks.

We pick up the story with Fushi in self-imposed exile on an island, where it spent the last 40 years(!) basically feeling sorry for itself and playing in the sea. It fought the knockers whenever they showed up, then...ate them (for pure shock value, nothing else). What it didn't do is what it should've been doing since day one, which is train, figure out its skills and abilities and learn how to fight and defeat the enemy. Then a descendant of Hayase magically shows up. Remember the totally unhinged, disgusting villain from season one who would go to any lengths to defeat Fushi and murder its friends in droves? Yea, turns out they are the good guys now, who formed a shady cult that worships Fushi and fights the knockers. Or...maybe not, because they poison Fushi and immediately get its remaining friends (who also magically showed up) killed for cheap shock value. Oh, and it looks like even the knockers got tired of Fushi's pathetic martyr complex, because they started killing everyone in a zombie apocalypse. To which Fushi immediately springs into action and...proceeds to do absolutely nothing for hundreds of years. Well, that's not entirely true, he did get fat and read some books on cooking or something. No, seriously, I WISH I'd made this shit up.

*** I'm sorry, but I can't just leave this hanging: Dear writer! This world had no established rules, the "knockers" were as ambiguous and mysterious as it gets, basically a blank slate, you had the opportunity to create unique, interesting and varied enemies to challenge Fushi (and the audience) in various ways and you went with fucking ZOMBIES?! REALLY?! Literally the least imaginative, zero-effort, done-to-death garbage that ever graced popculture, and… Oh, the fleshy tentacle-monsters, yea, absolutely no one had done those before either... Jesus F. Christ, after such a great start, how did this show degenerate into such an enormous black hole of creativity and imagination, it just boggles my mind.

It’s not enough that we get some of the worst, nails-on-chalkboard annoying characters we’ve ever seen, the show spends an inordinate amount of time building them up, only to tear them down in service to cheap melodrama and emotional manipulation. Bon, Echo, Kahaku, all interesting characters in their own right, built up, and then simply made into unbearably shallow plot devices, without any real agency in the story.

And then the last arc of the season happens, and I gave up all hope on this dreck. After gaining the ability to see ghosts from convenient plot device Bon, Fushi somehow learns to literally resurrect dead people, and goes on to undo two seasons worth of story and character development in an instant. We’ve seen Fushi completely sidestep important plot points before by whipping out some heretofore unseen magical power (like new technology, magic weapons or teleportation), which was terrible in it’s own right, but when even death has no consequence in a story, it is truly and utterly fucked. Now all the suffering and sacrifice of those who have fallen or given their lives to a greater cause, to save others, the loss and pain of those left alive, are now all made meaningless. All the consequences, lessons and character building from experiencing the human condition is now null and void. But hey, that cute girl March is back, so it’s fine, right?

Fushi’s nature and abilities have always been left purposely ambiguous and unexplored, but the story found ways to break even those few existing rules just all the damn time. These godlike powers are incredibly inconsistent and only serve plot convenience. At one point Fushi can create objects, raise entire buildings, castles out of the ground without breaking a sweat, it can teleport all over the place, change forms, sense everything, etc. But when the plot suddenly needs the stakes to be raised, suddenly it starts struggling, bleeding, passing out, etc., seemingly telling us “see, he’s only human” even though it is not, and that’s my other huge gripe with all of this. Even the writer seems to have forgotten, that Fushi is not human, never was. It is a device, a construct, created by Robe Dude to - as we later learn - serve as a replacement to him. Robe Dude, the creator, never acts human. He’s pragmatic, methodical, completely indifferent to the suffering and destruction in the world, as his goal is for Fushi to rise above all that shallow human emotional crap, all those “precious lives” it failed to save anyway, and finally start to utilize its seemingly infinite godlike powers properly. But it never does. Fushi acts like a moody child, throwing decade-, even century-long tantrums, shaking its fist at the clouds whenever it lets another dozen or so of its “friends” die for obvious shock value and cheap heart-string-strumming. It’s utterly stupid if you just stop and think about it for a second. For starters, The Nameless Boy, its first human, is just one of its many forms, and everyone seems to have forgotten that he really lived, he was a separate person, and not Fushi’s “real” form. After the first episode in season one, we never see the Boy as his own person again (or Joan the wolf for that matter). The Orb was imbued with human form, human-like intellect and behavior, but it still is not human, it was never born and will never die. Also, its intellect has been stuck at a human level, even though Robe Dude himself said that it could be capable of so much more. It’s a huge disservice to the story to not explore this intriguing concept. To throw the whole thing to the wind and just treat Fushi as some dumb isekai hero with magical powers is beyond stupid.

Again, if the show was inherently terrible, chiché and cheap, I could’ve simply just ignored it. But even in the second season there were glimmers of great ideas and fresh takes that ultimately led nowhere and fizzled into boring, tropey, manipulative trash. It’s as if this was written by two different people: one who came up with awesome ideas, and another who then went on to squander them all in the worst ways possible. There is a third season coming, and I have no idea how they could possibly ruin this story more, but I’m sure they will find a way...

[TL;DR: A great idea, squandered, again. A novel concept with huge possibilities, that ultimately fumbles and collapses under its own weight. What starts out to be a genuinely interesting and captivating journey into the philosophical and scientific nature of the human condition on the surface, is slowly peeled away to reveal a disappointingly bogstandard, trope-filled mess, full of boring melodrama and cheap emotional manipulation. Points for trying, the art and sound is good, some ideas are straight up great, but the end result is ultimately disappointing.]

To Your Eternity is infuriating. Not so much because it's obvious failings but because it squanders a really great and ... unique concept - again - that could've been otherwise made into a similarly great story. It is not the first time Yoshitoki Ooima - the original creator - did this, as her previous creation Koe no Katachi (A Silent Voice) was a similarly high-concept idea turned into a shamefully exploitative, manipulative, emotional black hole. To Your Eternity takes a similarly interesting, out-of-left-field concept to draw you in, and then holds your emotions hostage while it feeds you meager scraps of world building and some occasional character development.

[Minor spoilers ahead. No specific plot points, just overarching themes and some out-of-context stuff]

Credit where it is due, the core concept is a really interesting one. Our protagonist, as it were, is a device. The Orb, that starts out as a small white ball, is an empty shell that has the ability to take on the form and function of whatever it comes in contact with, and it’s unceremoniously thrown into the world so the rest of the plot can happen. Now, as far as basic premises go, this was incredibly intriguing and filled with a huge amount of possibilities. However, the way how the device works is not made exactly clear, as the story repeatedly breaks its own rules regarding how this replication mechanic functions. Fushi - as the device comes to be referred to - is immortal, can mimic living beings, animals, and even humans. Not only that, but it can also create inanimate objects, seemingly infinitely. However, these awesome godlike powers have a weird plot hole, in the form of intellect, or rather the lack thereof. Apparently Fushi can mimic an animal or human in perfect anatomical detail, but not the brain or even genetic traits or instincts like...eating. Right in the first episode we can see the device has to be taught to eat, even when in the form of a wolf, which by all accounts should instinctively know how to do. Even me, someone with only a layman's level understanding of biology, genetics and behavioral science, this already rubbed me the wrong way. The device can utilize SOME innate traits and instincts of the form it takes immediately, but VERY selectively. Like walking, complex motions (like walking upright on two legs, jumping, etc.), hearing, sight, scents or even the concept of sleep are no problem, but not eating, reacting to danger, or any of the very basic instincts of living creatures, that are in fact not learned behavior, but genetic, evolutionary traits they should instinctively do. Also, as it is immortal, it can immediately heal any injury, but only when it serves the plot.

In fact, all the device's abilities are seemingly only there to serve plot convenience, as they are incredibly inconsistent throughout the series. Sure, I can chalk most of it up to writer's choice and suspension of disbelief, but - try as I might - it's hard to take a story seriously that can't even be trusted not to break its own rules all the time. The writer essentially sidesteps this issue and drops the REAL nature of Fushi the first chance she gets. As soon as it can be imbued with human traits, feelings and behavior, the story throws its entire basic concept out the window, conveniently forgets that the device is, in fact, a device, and starts treating it as a human, albeit with limited mental faculties. At that moment, we lose The Orb - the construct - as the protagonist, and get Fushi, the moderately retarded orphan child with superpowers. That's when the anime goes from a highly intriguing concept piece to a mediocre isekai and loses all it's soul and purpose.

That's also when the shameless emotional manipulation, jarring changes in tone and the trope fest starts. The story regularly shelves Fushi to introduce a slew of new side-characters, build them up, make them cute, relatable, easy to care about for the audience, only to use them for bad jokes or fabricated melodrama. Much like her earlier works, the creator is not above using underhanded tactics to elicit catharsis from the audience. Using various human conditions, like small children, the elderly, mental and physical disabilities, disfigurement, needless cruelty and abuse, that all could be part of a well-written story in the right context, but here, it only serves as cheap emotional manipulation in a sort of “look, how sad that made Fushi” kinda way. And all that, of course, gives way to tropey “I have to save my friends” and “I can’t let them get hurt because of me” type faux-heroic set-pieces that all end as we all already know how they end, killing off the odd side-character for some cheap tugs on the heartstrings and to serve as motivation for a device that shouldn’t need any.

The infuriating thing is, that the writer is fully aware of what she is doing! The Orb’s creator - the weird space wizard dude in the black robe - regularly reminds Fushi of its purpose: “to preserve this world”. The story introduces the laziest, no-effort antagonist I’ve ever seen: a purposely ambiguous “enemy” that comes out of nowhere, and is seemingly tailor-made to fight the device...but only when it’s convenient to the plot, obviously. For most of the time it’s happy to twiddle its proverbial thumbs and let the various storylines and montages unfold, and only strike when Fushi is good and ready to receive its next dose of drama-drenched reality check. Robe Dude often makes it a point to tell Fushi, that it needs to get stronger and learn how to fight the enemy (as it is its singular reason of existence), and to move on, to let go of its human attachments as these only serve to impede this progress. But since Fushi is now fully treated as a human, it defies its creator and starts acting like “Default Good Guy Hero Anime Protagonist”, with impeccable morals and ethics, who blames itself for all the wrong in the world, wants to save absolutely everyone and spirals into a mopey-ragey depression when some of them are killed off for blatant shock-value. And Robe Dude just goes along with it. No, seriously. He feigns some anemic resistance, but eventually just becomes an “enemy radar”, only there to warn Fushi when the enemy conveniently decides to attack at the Worst Possible Moment™.

I think I ranted enough about the failings of this anime. Mentioning the lackluster season finale, the overblown villain character, the way everyone just goes along with Fushi’s superpowers without a thought, turning one of the most intriguing characters (Robe Dude) into a one-dimensional plot device, or any of the rest would just feel like adding insult to injury. In the end, what To Your Eternity is, is a great concept blatantly squandered and turned into just another cliché’d, manipulative melodrama. Would I recommend watching To Your Eternity? No, I would not, unless you like cheap thrills, bad writing, surfing plot holes and watching a great idea devolve into bad soap.

[TL;DR: Excellent conclusion to an excellent series. Join Mob, Reigen and the gang for one last hurrah, where we get to say goodbye to a truly great story and characters. If you liked Mob Psycho I and II, you can't miss this one! Highly recommended!]

It is a rare thing in anime that a series fully adapts a manga and actually stays true to the source material. The anime adaptation is usually just a publicity stunt or a "reward" for good ratings for a popular enough manga or light novel, it's often not taken too seriously. The Mob Psycho anime, however, goes above and beyond, fully ... adapting the source material and staying with the original story and art style.

The story of Mob, his scam artist "master" Reigen and the odd ensemble of characters is one for the ages. Funny, intense, sometimes sad but also heartwarming. The characters are diverse and fleshed out, with their own personalities, strengths and weaknesses, and most of them do get enough screen time to be worthy additions to the story. The fight scenes are action-packed, well animated and intense, without going overboard with the violence, blood or grit. The character driven, more introspective, feel-y parts are also very well made and effective without too much forced tears or incessant melodrama. Even the humor is smart, witty and funny without resorting to bad slapstick or low-brow fanservice.

I'm sure just like many others, I would love to see more Mob Psycho, but sadly, the manga is finished so this is all we're going to get. At least we got to have a truly satisfying conclusions to the story, unlike hundreds of other - otherwise really great - anime, that never got similar treatment. It's a bittersweet end, but at least one we have. There is some tiny hope for some small, original OVA shorts or specials/spinoffs, but I think Mob Psycho already got the five star treatment it deserved.

If you liked the previous seasons, you'll love this one, and you get to see the conclusion to a great story! Highly recommended!