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In Lemmino’s video on AI simply called Artificial Intelligence, he discusses the possibility that robots will become superior to us. He spends most of the video listing things that AI is able to achieve, and how they’re already starting to get better at us in certain fields. The ability to learn gets a lot of focus since it breaks the line between human and machine. But what made Lemmino’s video stick out in comparison to all the other hundreds of videos on the subject is what he compares it to. At the end of the video essay, he uses animals as an analogy to explain ... how the superiority of AI would actually work.

“Attempt to explain to the millions of animals living in the jungle the geopolitical and socioeconomic reasons for why we continue to destroy their home. It’s impossible. They simply lack the intelligence to understand.”

And this shows not only how AI would react to our existence, but how we handle a similar power difference. How we perceive and treat life. The relationship between the creator and the creation. And at the expense of sounding like a pretentious 16-year old, which I am, this analysis will be about that and how the tv-series Ergo Proxy tackles this. And I’ll spoil some stuff, big stuff. So go watch it if you haven’t, it’s really great!

Ergo Proxy tells the story of Lil Mayer and Vincent Law who go on a journey to find who they really are and if they are deserving of life itself. And this is the underlying theme of the series. Life. It’s a topic that many have tried to tackle, yet this somehow stood out. The way that it explores the idea of what life even is and how we should treat it was new to me. It is first established in one of the opening scenes of episode one. Our main character Lil is talking to her auto-reiv Iggy when she tells him to stop chatting and disengage turing chat mode. Iggy accepts and doesn’t say a word. It isn’t really clear if this was consensual or not, we just accept it cause he’s a robot and made to serve us. That is their "Raison d'être". And this is very repeated throughout the show. How the auto-reivs’ lives aren’t treated as human or whole. They aren’t allowed to act on their own, and when they do it is seen as a virus. And this feels very emblematic for what the show wants to say. What we humans see as life and how we treat that of which doesn’t qualify. What isn’t human isn’t permitted autonomy. And we can see how this is by design. When a person in the world tries to gain freedom, they are only left with sorrow. When the auto-reiv's get the cogito virus, they are almost always shot, and when Vincent escapes from Romdo, he enters a world isolation and inhospitality that we have created. The world rejects freedom, to the point where it starts to resemble propaganda. Basically, we live in a society.

Another way that the theme is tackled is through self-destruction. How we define our own lives. The two main characters of the show reflect this really well. Lil Mayer effectively destroys herself by overthinking her life in an attempt to understand it. Ever since the Ergo Proxy fell into her life, her life became an endless loop of trying to understand herself and everything that is going on around her. In the 16th episode, we see this embodied in a single episode. The sailing boat ship stops cause there’s no wind. Nothing can be done really, they just have to wait for it to come back. But Lil can’t really accept this. She narrates what is going on inside her head, showing how anxious and worried about the situation they’re in. She becomes irritated when Vincent doesn’t seem to think about it. She sees it as not caring, that he doesn’t understand that it will be life or death whether or not the wind comes back. She has gotten into the habit of overthinking her life to the point where not doing so is a sign of immaturity and lack of seriousness. It is only at the end of the episode where she realizes that her overthinking is only causing herself harm. Where she realizes that worrying about it won’t change anything. And since a lot of the episodes don’t really seem to take place in reality but in a sort of dream space, I feel like this symbolizes her entire journey. Starting off worrying and nitpicking about every flaw of the ship but slowly comes to accept it. We see her get over an obsession over the possibility of misfortune.

Our second main character explores this differently, how we define our own life. What we define as life and human, and how that affects how we treat ourselves. Around the middle of the series, it is revealed that the proxy that has been haunting Vincent for so long is himself. He is the Ergo Proxy, the monster. And this really affects how he sees himself. he doesn’t see himself as human anymore and develops an identity crisis. If he isn’t Vincent Law anymore, then who is he. He doesn’t accept that he is the monster, that he is himself.
Continuing the series we learn that Romdo is created by the Ergo Proxy. That the city is defined by him. But this only complicates Vincent's crisis even more. Who is he now? Is he Vincent, a monster or God? Is he defined by who he always thought he was, what he is, and what he has created? Throughout the show we hear how the Proxies define human existence, but I don’t know if I believe that.
As the city collapses in on itself, Vincent learns that it was all wrong. Even as his creation is gone, he and the people are still alive. None of them are defined by the other. Vincent’s last piece of dialogue “I am no one but myself, that is the only truth”, which shows how he has developed. He has come from not knowing who he is to realize that he is no one but himself. In the end, the conclusion to the series is that you aren’t defined by anything. You just exist.

This was probably a very weird topic to talk about at Christmas… or fitting maybe?

Like a medium or strong 9/10 probably

My thoughts on the series known as Re:zero, or more specifically ‘Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World’, have shifted over the years. Looking at my MyAnimeList review from April 14th, 2018, it seems I had enjoyed my experience, but ever since I’ve been very unsure as to my consensus over the tv-series. From what I had remembered it seemed like a series full of potential that was stricken with a bold sense of superiority, but I was never really quite sure why. It was until Mother’s Basement’s video on the subject matter that I became more intrigued than ever. He speaks of the shows subtle ... critique of anime culture and that not having rewatched the series means you haven’t seen the show to begin with. And now that I have taken that advice, I would make the case that this is what made the show feel as pretentious and blatant as it did.

This review contains spoilers

The series follows Subaru Natsuki, the ordinary Japanese high school anime fan, as he is transported into the Kingdom of Lugnica, not too dissimilar from many other fantasy worlds we’ve seen the past decade. After getting into trouble with the capitals many crooks he is saved by the heroine of Emilia who Subaru quickly takes a liking to. The two look for her “insignia”, an amulet of a sort, and after scenes of blood and gore we learn that Subaru is able to “return by death” meaning he is sent back in time to certain events when he passes away. And this is where the critique of the anime fandom and the “otaku” is set up, as the ability Subaru achieves seems like an advantageous one but is throughout the series developed to be extremely trauma-inducing, as Subaru has to relive the suffering the world of Lugnica has to offer repeatedly. It takes the audience’s expectations of the story’s premise and turns it around to show the horror laying inside of it. But this is where the story’s interesting exploration of this critique starts and ends, as we will be looking at now.

The first 50 minutes of the show are emblematic of the problems the show has presenting this recurring theme. As I started the first episode I was impressed at how early they set up how Subaru isn’t the main character of this world. He is repeatedly disempowered, thinking that he can suddenly cast magic and save people and is then shown how this is false. But after lines like “Is this how it’s supposed to be? Wasn’t I summoned into a parallel world?! Where’s my protagonist status go!?” and “And besides, if I was summoned, where’s my cute girl who summoned me?!”, this starts become overwhelming. The entirety of episodes one is spent comedically disempowering Subaru over and over again to the point where it seems as though the creators are screaming the point of the show to the audience. My consensus after watching the first episode was that it wasn’t a masterpiece because it thinks it is one.

This is a common problem in anime I believe, where the point of certain characters or story elements are kept extremely clear. But when it comes to thematic elements, I don’t think I have a better example of overstatement than this show. While it is able to hide this problem in the first third of the show, where it’s either interesting in how it frames Subaru or just turns into the show I thought this was meant to critique as it gives us meaningless fan-service. But it is in the scene where Emilia leaves Subaru in the capital where this changes. This is probably my favorite point in the series, where Subaru’s arrogance and savior complex becomes increasingly transparent to the point of saying that Emilia is hopeless without him, and I finally feel like the show has a point while still wrapping it in subtext. But the high of writing a scene like this can be addicting and this is what we see after this point. This is what leaves a bad taste in my mouth after finishing the series even though as a whole I don’t think it’s awful.

The series becomes a lot more melodramatic and not afraid to cause mass-murder to make a heavy-handed point about Subaru’s flaws as a person. The “from zero” (where Subaru tells Rem he loves Emilia) is a pretty great summarization of what I dislike about the show. Whenever it wants to make a point about Subaru and people like him it isn’t subtle about it in any way. They scream it into the camera, in the exact words you would put into a wiki page. And while I don’t think subtlety is a necessary element of writing, I find it hard to take the message seriously or find any interest in it when there is nothing to read into. Like Folding Ideas said in his video on the film Annihilation, in this series the subtextual is the textual. And while I don’t think comparing the two is completely fair as Annihilations themes are very different from Re:ZERO’s, I don’t think there’s a lot of subtext to read into when it comes to this series, because everything is on the table.

In the end the problems I have with Re:ZERO are not easy to understand for myself. I have to credit the series for making me think about what makes something on-the-nose and what makes something honest, and if a clear line is needed in this case. I’m still intrigued by the series, from just thinking about the problems and why I find them to be so. But in the end, the fact that I find them bothersome should be enough to call it a flaw.

And even if I think other aspects of the series are fine, the way the theme is presented felt really lazy and really drags the series down. If there’s any element of filmmaking I find more interesting to discuss than any other it would be subtext and the meaning of media. But if there’s any case that says that conceptually underlying themes and messages cannot make a show great I think Re:ZERO is a pretty good one

3/10

How do you begin an analysis of Evangelion? In his video on the series and how it connects to its highly controversial film, Folding Ideas describes it as “practically myth” which I couldn't agree more with. With the amount of coverage the series has gotten, trying to find a common consensus about what to make of all of this is impossible. Discussions about the metanarrative of Evangelion, its jumbled production, thematic explorations, there should be a rule of the internet constituting that “if it exists, there’s an in-depth discussion about its relevance to the Evangelion text”. And I feel this may be why it is ... such a renowned series; Evangelion is a perfect starting point for any discussions one might have for any theme or idea. It has a lot going on, a lot of imagery that’ll inevitably lead to 40 different interpretations, yet doesn’t feel chaotic. The simple use of the Christian cross is probably one of the biggest discussions of the series, which is just the tip of the iceberg that is the community surrounding Evangelion. A lot of different people have watched and enjoyed Evangelion and it seems everyone has taken something unique from the series. It makes it a very interesting essay topic as it’ll never become overdone, or at least in concept. And I think what I want to focus on in this analysis is what I feel lies at the center of everything about the series, Hideaki Anno and his transformation throughout the series.

This review will contain some major spoilers, be cautioned

Having read some autobiographical work about him, it is clear that Anno is a massive fan of early animation and anime if it wasn’t already explicit enough in the work he has made. Having worked on many greatly influential features of the 80’s such as ‘Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind’ and ‘Grave of the Fireflies’, and even stating the many other old classic animations that came to inspire him such as Devilman, Gundam, and Ultraman, it is no surprise that he has taken such a liking to the many tropes of the era. It is emblematic of the intent of the series itself, wanting to attract more people to the medium, its quirks and the culture surrounding it. And this is very much reflected in the content of the series. The early episodes general tone is akin to that of the early animations of the ‘70s and ‘80s that Anno was influenced by. In a way it was a full expression of what anime was and what made it special. A culmination of the work Anno had made. The witty dialogue, the inspired direction, everything about it felt like a true passion project for Anno especially. But on the other hand it is clear that much of it serves a self-escapism and self-pity from Anno. He had become very depressed during the production of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, and so the establishing portion of the series is made through this lense. It is to an extent reflected in the lead of the series, Shinji. Aside from dealing with anxiety and depression of the pressure from being an evangelion pilot and the human condition, can be seen to be very toxic in his coping mechanism. He seems to be figuring that he can only improve if the world improves before him, that he can only open up if the world does so for him. And this often comes off manipulatively and inconsiderately. He seems to exist in a state where his existence can only prevail off the affirmation and service of the people around him, without putting in the effort needed beforehand. This is manifested in many of Shinji’s relationships, especially early on with Misato. From the moment the two move together, Shinji can’t stop himself from being vocally disapproving of her lifestyle and how she chooses to spend her free time, because of how it breaks the perception that she’s some sort of perfect trad woman. And while we can sympathize all we want with the depressing mindset he goes through in the series, the way he copes with this grows to be incredibly toxic. And even aside from Shinji’s behaviour, we can see Anno’s worldview and state of mind reflected in many other elements of the series, particularly how its female characters are depicted. They are often presented very sexually, and set up as to make the audience feel like their favorite girl can hook up with Shinji who they can already relate to. It is almost a parody of the series you might expect, at least in retrospect for how the rest of the series reframes this introduction. For this portion of the series, this is largely expressed inactively however, not really addressing the worldview expressed, but passively bolstering it. And what makes the series so great in the end is that Anno grows aware of this. Painfully aware. As he becomes more interested in psychology we can see the attractive masks of his characters being peeled off. And while many would argue this begins in the sixteenth episodes, I feel I had the most notable reaction to this two episodes later

After a set of circumstances unimportant in this context, the newly brought fourth child is being controlled by the 13th angel and manipulates their Evangelion unit. None of the children want to take down the angel knowing that a child lays inside of it, and when the angel stands in front of Shinji, refusing director Ikari’s commands, the unit’s ‘Dummy Plug System’ is activated, and the evangelion proceeds to slaughter the angel in a senseless rage. The juxtaposition between the action-heavy and dramatic music that we’ve gotten used to, to the horrific actions being illustrated is chilling and an element that is at its peak the episode later. As Shinji finally enters the Evangelion after revolting from the trauma he went through the day before, he loses control of it again. As the Eva’s true nature escalates in power, it slays the 14th angel and eats its remainders like an animal. The scientists stand in morbid fascination and disgust for what they’ve created, as the evangelion rips of its armor. This speaks nothing to the changes in which the series redirects its characters, but is nonetheless a dramatic presentation of the direction that Anno changed the series towards. It’s not simply a self-insert action show that it might’ve been before.

As the initial screenplay had to be rewritten and abandoned, we can see this effect as a larger focus is put on the mental state of each of its lead characters. Opening up their mind, exploding them in a sense. Asuka’s performance declines, exposing her obsession with attention and being of use, and its source. We learn that her narcissistic tendencies stem from her lack of support from her mother, being mistaken with a doll. Her insistence that she is the best, prompted by the feeling that you have to be the best in order to be worth anything. We learn about Rei’s true nature as an attempt to revive Ikari’s wife, while her own self-image and philosophy start centering around this conflict of what is and isn’t selfhood. Can Rei really be her own person if there are effectively hundreds of other vessels who could have taken her role, and two that already have? Is the fact that she is herself enough to overlook the fact that her selfhood is forged? Shinji’s behavior is seemingly made aware of, or at least uncovered, from both the staff as well as the characters in the show. Imagery symbolizing his increasing willingness to essentially merge with his female acquaintances, his dependence on the emotional and sexual affirmation growing stronger and noticeable. It all culminates into the two last episodes of the series where we witness the characters confronting their most honest and worst selves. Shinji momentarily accepts human instrumentality and is shown the consequences of this. A loss of individuality and what it means to us. This is presented admittedly very abstractly because of the inadequate production budget the staff had to work with, but it effectively conveys the state of mind Shinji is in and the message it reaches for. Throughout the series, Shinji defines himself with exterior elements like his relationship with his father, work acquaintances, and his role as an evangelion pilot, and it is only when all of these elements are taken away from him that he realizes that he can only live as an individual to achieve satisfaction, that living as a mass of other people and others’ decisions won’t lead to a life worth living. This is not only important for Shinji to learn but for everyone in the series who expects the world to live for them. It is an important message both for the audience that was watching the series, but also for Anno himself. When I watch the original ending of Evangelion I get the feeling that Anno finally found an answer to his own question, that he could satisfy himself. You can almost see Anno himself getting congratulated by all of his characters, who are all in a sense an extension of himself.

And of course, everyone had to fucking hate him for it. The series, already controversial as it was as it started changing, was the focus of many death threats that the studio and Anno himself received after the final episodes. Even now 25 years later it is looked down upon as an inferior conclusion to the series in comparison to one we will be discussing, if even to be considered one at all. People wanted doom and gloom, more glamorization of its characters and the lifestyle it promoted and a less metaphorical and symbolic expression of this. It led to Anno Hideaki creating several alternative conclusions to his project, still going on to this day. And it’s not surprising then how frustrated he seems about this. After all of the changes that Anno went through in the production of the series, it was all for nothing. Finally getting his own little meaning to life only to have it stripped away from him in an instant. Anno gave the fans what they wanted but in another sense the complete opposite. End of Evangelion is a pure incarnation and adaptation of Anno Hideaki’s anger towards the fans that led to its creation and himself for giving in to it. It has no interest in conveying whatever it wants to say through nuance particularly, but aggressively presents its disgust with the project and the people watching it. The only sexually-focused scenes in the film end with Shinji ejaculating over Asuka’s comatose body, the only fight scenes ending in either lovecraftian horror and gore-filled slaughter. Even as Shinji goes through the realization he made in the original ending of Evangelion, Anno throws him back into the abyss like he was himself. We might react to this harshly, that it is antithetical to the message of the series and only serves the purpose of shocking the audience that hated the original ending. But I feel the frustration that is so apparent in Anno to be what saves the series from being so. Anno fucking hates everything and needs you to know about it, and I feel this immense satisfacion watching this. The film serves as a cycle of aggression and depression that never let us go. An expression of the cyclical despair he went through, wanting to give us the same nightmare. Many people have tried to form their own little canon where End of Eva was the true ending that was rejected for budgetary reasons, or a physical representation of the thematic development the series goes through in the conclusion, all of which might be true. But I don’t think I can accept it as anything but a sequel to Neon Genesis Evangelion: the phenomenon.

As much as I’ve appreciated how Isayama’s psychological action drama has grown in maturity, arguably as its audience has, I think I’ve always felt a certain fondness of the first season of ‘Attack on Titan’. It could be said that the compellingly efficient writing puts it above the rest, but I think Tetsurou Araki’s more significant role, in the beginning, makes up the difference. As much as I had my problems with how the series chooses to develop its narrative, which you can read about in my review of the season, Araki’s shot composition is so incredibly memorable that I still think of them when ... my mind has nothing else going on. His directing work has a great sense of energy that might not work for season 4’s comparably bleak perspective, but fit perfectly when he was the leading director. I had a lot of respect for the guy and how well he was able to distinguish himself in the anime scene, and then I watched Guilty Crown and realized how many chains he must’ve been constrained by.

This review will contain spoilers

Tetsurou Araki’s melodramatic action-romance ‘Guilty Crown’ takes what it can from Evangelion, leaving what would make its audience uncomfortable and incidentally what makes it so revolutionary. It follows the loser nobody Shuu Ouma, a socially autistic high schooler who spends most of his time at home or in his makeshift studio, who happens to run into the internet artist ‘Egoist’ or Inori Yuzuriha. All the while, a dangerous virus is spreading, and when she is taken into custody by the police and Shuu runs after them to find out what Inori has done, he learns of the power of voids, the weapon of the soul. And the way in which this weapon is acquired by reaching into the chest of a soul’s holder could not be more symbolic of one of the series’ most noticeable quirks.

Araki certainly is no stranger to heavy sexual imagery, the infamous sniper scene in Highschool of the Dead being an apt example of this. There is however a great sense of exaggeration in (what I’ve seen of) that series, which I can sadly not say of ‘Guilty Crown’. It has all of the tropes you would expect in an anime made for horny teens; every female character wear costumes that masterly define their breasts which the animators try their best to do as well, the cinematography could not stand the urge of not cutting to someone’s ass every other minute; redefining the concept of the male gaze, and at one point comparing its female lead to a doll. And although sexualizing your character is not an issue on the face of it, it does put a large portion of its characters in a difficult position. The series tries very hard to make its characters “fun”, but without any agency, its female characters are often left to spend their time marginally advancing the plot, experience half-baked character arcs that inevitably don’t lead anywhere, and look cute. And seeing as how much screen-time they are given, it doesn’t make for an especially captivating narrative. You would hope that the rest of the time would make up for this.

After Shuu rejects Gai’s offer to join their resistance group, he is surprised to see Inori in his class introduced as the new transfer student in his class. And if it wasn’t already made clear by this point, Shuu is very satisfied with his life as a social recluse and so is upset when it is revealed that Inori will also be living in his apartment. He is forced to change his philosophy towards his own life, and this is a very important aspect of his character. You could almost say that considering the topic I talked about before, the series is tackling the audience they are marketing it towards. Shuu is incredibly annoying. Aside from his scummy behavior regarding his “possession” of Inori, he often projects his flaws on other people and is framed as a sort of misunderstood hero, yet we’re never really given a justification for empathizing with him. There isn’t an especially clear desire in him to become a better person that we can cheer on even if he fails at times, a history that would explain his behavior, or even being anything more than a mediocre anime male lead without a personality. But on the other hand, I think there is a depth to the series that might not be touched upon by just describing Shuu as an annoying kid. To really understand my point of contention with the series, my ambivalence, episode 13 ‘Confession: Sacrifice’ is I think a crucial portion to why the series landed so badly for me even in comparison to any other “pandering weeb-ie show”.

As the virus continues to spread, the government sees it as an excuse to exacerbate the regulations put on the district where Shuu lives, until the very walls surrounding them move inwards. He creates a society inside of their high school (none of the teachers are there anymore, don’t think it is explained) to maximize the vaccines they’ve acquired until they can escape their shrinking coffin. But as the vaccine supply is diminished and Hare is killed because of an accident, he believes that the only way for him to keep everyone safe is to remove his empathy into his resolutions as a political leader. To effectively create a fascist government for the greater good (the greater good). And I would be dishonest to say this wasn’t at least compelling. After 15 episodes of cheery slice-of-life and dramatic action, the male lead setting up a government based upon peoples’ “soul number” is certainly shocking. And the way the series executes upon this is equally so. Whereas you would imagine a 1984-like narrative to portray its leader as a force of power rather than an individual, Guilty Crown goes in the opposite direction. The series is incredibly interested in how the people feel about Shuu's command, but also how he feels about his own. While Shuu is most often portrayed as a husk of who he once was, apathetic in the face of the pain that he has caused, we see glimpses of his true feelings on his actions. How he has been led to believe that he can only guarantee his peoples’ safety by turning them into cogs in the machine, not recognizing whether or not they’ll still be alive at that point. And when the people are liberated two episodes afterward, the series continues on this route. For the better or worse, humanizing the person who just used his past comrades as slaves. Ultimately, who are we to blame for the horrible actions made by humans. Can we simply put it on the individual, ignoring the world around them that caused the person we see now to exist? It is an interesting question, yet the way the series deals with it feels off. As said before, while I can sympathize with Shuu making mistakes, being human, it really ends there. In one of the last episodes, Inori is asked why she fell in love with Shuu and gives an almost cathartic answer.

“Shuu has suffered, and doubted, and made mistakes, and he was ashamed of his ugliness. But the reason I love him is… Shuu’s human. He’s heartbreakingly human. That’s why. Even though I’m only a vessel… I still got to fall in love... like a normal person.”

Isn’t it beautiful? How perfectly it describes the way in which the series tries to justify him, to make us understand Shuu. “He’s pretty shit, but we’re all human you know”. The central philosophy from this can be inferred as one deeply ingrained in the postmodern, by virtue of our human condition, reality, any objective morality and justice should be disqualified. Shuu was an asshole, but he was also human. Having made mistakes dictated by his psychological state and environment, he can learn from his past. At the end of the series, Shuu finally learns to stop hating himself because of his past actions and moves on. But what do we make of this? Where do we go from here after Guilty Crown? Can we really let Shuu get away with a slap on his wrist after what he has done? Should we? Luckily for us though, in the end, it doesn’t much matter. Is the central message of the series really that no one should be judged for their actions? Of course not. The series is filled to the brim with over-the-top bad guys, who execute whole districts “just in case”, and they’re not exactly given the amount of remorse as others are given. There really isn’t a consistency to Guilty Crown, a fact that was clear from the beginning. In the end, our actions are a reflection of the society we live in, and the fact that we are humans incapable of moral perfection means that there’s no reason to restrict our forgiveness. However, this fact should only be relevant when Guilty Crown says so.

Medium 3/10

The craft of art has been a topic of discussion in the film medium you could say ever since the film camera was invented, ‘Shirobako’ (2014) being one of the most prevalent examples in the anime community, as well as ‘Adaptation’ (2002) for a more post-modern take on the process. But out of the cases that I have witnessed, I think the most passionate series in this genre would be ‘Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken’. Airing, if you would believe me, around the beginning of last year 2020, based on Sumito Oowara's manga with a Masaaki Yuasa direction, the series follows a cast of high ... school girls with a wide set of personalities and genres in the film production club, whose united passion is to make animations. Working as a partial anti-authority story, we see the girls take on different projects that expose their qualities as well as novicities.

And if it has not been talked to death already, the most striking element of the series as you are first trying to process everything is no doubt its design. There is an almost unprecedented amount of character to the series, from the character-design to the environment that somehow manages to feel more fantastical than most fantasy series. With Mamoru Kanbe and Nobutake Itou working on some of the storyboards, the amount of personality expressed through the performances of the characters, as well as the framing and other design choices was incredibly fascinating, yet the series has a moderation that keeps a sense of professionality to the project that I appreciated immensely. As the characters get lost in their own fantasy, the production becomes much more barebones, the inking resembling Asakusa’s sketches with a quick watercolor over, which could’ve easily stood out as an excuse to put more time into high priority scenes, but fit with the character of the show so well and add a visual variety that you can’t even blame them for. The character-design is one of the best since the beginning of the decade, with Kanamori being one of the most memorable characters partially because of how well her design fits with her apathetic yet aggressive personality. And doing so under the restriction of them all wearing the same clothing for 90% of the series is even more impressive (shoutout to Little Witch Academia)

And although this element continued to impress further along into the series, I also feel that it gets increasingly narratively compelling as well, which I was not expecting. The chemistry between the cast is charming and their dialogue has a fair amount of notably good moments, especially Kanamori, who if it wasn’t clear enough, is my favorite character in the series, which doesn’t seem to be an unpopular sentiment. This along with some fun antagonistic forces and an effort to round out the series by putting a focus on voice acting as well as the sound design makes for a fun series on its own, with enough character to spare, but what I find most compelling is how well the lead’s adolescence is expressed. If there’s anything to be skeptical about it is the quality of animation two high schoolers with no prior experience are able to produce in a month, yet I think the process of this overshadows the comparably adult impression you get from their shorts. Despite working as a director, Asakusa is terrible at directing other artists and would rather do all of the work herself, and Mizusaki barely has a sense of time and priority and would rather spend a week on every shot than actually finishing the project. Aside from Kanamori, who ends up having to pull the others by their leach, the group is notably unprofessional. Asakusa and Mizusaki have both never made a project with a tight time schedule and it shows. This element of their characters could be a point of contention to some, but from my perspective, I think this grounds the characters a lot and gives a sense that they don’t know what they’re doing, but that they may not necessarily have to. While a great sense of accomplishment is expressed at the end of every project, it’s always clear that this story isn’t final and that there is room to grow, and that’s kind of sick.

To conclude, Eizouken is a story on adolescent passion with an impressive and unprecedented presentation that oozes character and nostalgia

Light 9/10

Rest in Peace Chadwick Boseman, who was to depict the character in the now-canceled film adaptation

I’ve seen a fair amount of disorganized tv-shows, and as much as I can’t help but appreciate the post-modern themes of ‘Darling in the Franxx’, the second half of the series is certainly not structured in any comprehensible way. To be as vague as possible, it is as if the show threw in a second season of content into the three last episodes of the series, and the takeaway essentially is that the ‘End of Evangelion’ finale is not even comparable to the amount of existential dread coming from this ... series, while also not being able to comprehend what the fuck even was happening or what I was supposed to make of it. The point of this segment is basically that ‘Yasuke’ is like that, but for an entire tv-show.

I didn’t have much prior experience with the staff of the series, the only exception being Stanfield who I was a pretty big fan of after his performance in ‘Sorry to Bother You’ and ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ (and still am for the record, I would like to think this series isn’t representative of the quality the staff can produce), but it was pretty hard to not be confident in its supposed historical allure. A black samurai in feudal japan was certainly compelling and could serve as a basis for some interesting critique of Japan’s still conservative views of foreigners. And if ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ has taught me anything, a fantastical depiction of real events is not necessarily one to be skeptical of.

Anyway, ‘Yasuke’, from the creator of the ‘Black Dynamite’ and ‘The Boondocks’ series, LeSean Thomas, with composition from Flying Lotus, follows a non-linear story of Yasuke’s rise to success and trauma of the past, who is tasked, after years of tranquility, to deliver a mysterious child to a distant doctor to ‘save her from the magical forces that are controlling her’. The series goes back and forth between the historically focused (I have no idea if they are based upon recorded history) background of Yasuke’s character and his present that is structured behind a ‘monster of the day’ format, being targetted by magical minions sent by the spider demon who seems interested in the powers that the little girl possess. If you got whiplash from reading that then I did my job.

Spoilers ahead

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From the moment the series starts with a big purple CGI-looking fight, it’s already clear what this would be, nonetheless, I was surprised, to say the least. Although the historical bits have a level of interest to them, with a more grounded and versatile structure, albeit rushed as to not take too much space, they are interrupted and quickly replaced with a magical narrative that tries to incorporate itself into Yasuke’s backstory but fails without recognizing that the two portions have entirely different tones if not genres. Most of the series focuses on comedically villainous antagonists that fail to make an impact on the narrative of the series or on my experience for that matter, and largely depends on the relationship between an indifferent Lakeith Stanfield and an annoying 12-year old (same thing but whatever), which if my description wasn’t loaded enough, didn’t do much for me. The series is at its most excessive when the 12-year old symbolically break out of her cocoon, kills the bad guy, and tries to conclude a theme of change, after what I can only guess knowing that the character has been pretty agentive throughout the entire series only really pretending to be “sick” when the narrative sees fit.

If there was anything to save its overconfidence, then the presentation being consistent with the few action scenes the series was largely advertised with would’ve at least measured up to the excitement I could imagine many have when a series is produced by Mappa that are at this point pretty famous for its presentation. Well, unfortunately, companies aren’t the ones making the products you use, as much as billionaires would like you to believe, it is their workers (that they barely pay). And although I would point to the fairly impressive choreography of action scenes especially earlier in the series, I don’t really feel like it when a larger majority of the conflict is made through fantastical fluff that lacks a real sense of pacing. The color design is especially obnoxious, having a very saturated color palette without any real contrast around the end of the series, otherwise being completely noteworthy. If there was any injustice on my part, it would be watching Samurai Champloo right before this, which, although not masterful, was a much better execution of combining samurais with a modern genre. The fantastical aspects of the series feel severely underdeveloped and unfitting and would’ve fit better with a more cyberpunk presentation, and that’s even ignoring how that’s obviously the direction Flying Lotus was given when composing the surprisingly great score for the series.

If there’s anything to take away from this review, I would say ‘Yasuke’ suffers greatly under tonal inconsistency in many departments could’ve worked better if they pursued the same goal. The opening for the series remains a really good intro because there’s a vibe that isn’t constantly obstructed, as much as some of the writing can take you out of it. That and go play ‘Katana Zero’, it’s a great cyber samurai game and it’s the only time I will be able to mention it, soo so good.

Strong 3/10

As self-absorbed as I may come off, I am aware of the baggage that ‘Kill la Kill’ is bound to draw in, its ‘expression’ is certainly not a subtlety. Though the function of this fan-service is often to distract its audience, asexual as I am, rarely causes anything more than a vacuum of thought. That is unless the creators become too confident in this technique and the lack of a substance becomes more distracting than any pair of tits, or the creators expect me to be distracted by middle-school students, in which I become deeply afraid as to how I came to find the animation. ... And despite the main character’s suspiciously minor age, the former exception is more relevant to this analysis. Or I should say, the substance lies in its overuse of fan-service, funnily enough.

Spoilers ahead

Having polished their presentation to its highest point, in my opinion, the Imaishi team at Gainax couldn’t have premiered their new animation studio more fittingly. With just half a scissor to wield, Ryuuko Matoi enters Honno city to find the perpetrator of her father’s murder, and when the student council president of the fascistic academy running the town suggests they know of the incident, Ryuuko becomes suspicious that they might be the holder of the second scissor in the pair that used to belong to her father. And it is through its incredibly stylized and expressive style that the intense and tongue-in-cheek tone is able to feel like a cohesive whole like I don’t think many other creators could’ve achieved. When a giant breaks open the door to a classroom in the opening scene to episode 1, literally flinging it through the window on the other side of the homeroom before towering over the teacher asking for a student that has revealed themself to be a rebel of the academy, you know exactly what this series is about to throw at you.

The production, from the grande animation and musical set pieces to the small but influential edits and sound effects, work to portray the immense tension you are put through, as well as the cartoony moments, the series being as much a comedy as an action drama. The blend of these elements works surprisingly well, often depicting its tense scenes equally light-heartedly as the explicitly comedic ones, which you would expect to trivialize the threat but instead creates an exciting vibe and an even bigger tension when shit really hits the fan. This all comes together to help the narrative's inherent amusement, almost looking like a parody of anime centered around high school, but ironically never becomes a laughingstock because the presentation never forces you to take it seriously, which then lets you more naturally treat the story as a serious threat. I was rarely reminded of its absurdity in a negative sense, and in this way, I think the audiovisual elements of the show, and the narrative, make a cohesive whole.

But to bring it back to the series’ use of fan-service, even here, I think the visual presentation really helps to hinder the sexual undertones to go in an inappropriate direction. Although shocking at first, the exaggerated tone helps even the most excessive scenes feel in line with the series, and, in comparison to something like ‘Fire force’, is much easier to get used to. And although there are scenes wherein this is kind of ruined, especially when Ryuuko is sexually harassed by her family for what must’ve been the fifth time, I also believe the imagery to be a good contributor to the series’ commentary on fascism and freedom.

Although the series clearly doesn’t present itself as political theory, much like the tower of The Lighthouse, Kill la Kill’s use of symbolism as a form of power is incredibly intriguing from a political perspective. Satsuki is quickly presented as a fascist dictator, which is funny since they’re a student council president, but what I find more interesting is how this ideology is represented through the character’s view of expression and the commodity of power she wields. Clothing already existing as a class structure in the universe, the way in which it is distributed unfairly, often giving exceptions to those close to her where she would disown those beneath her. And in this way, the sexual presentation of the series serves as an opposition to the inequality and lack of freedom under fascism, where no one can perform superiority in their nude body. And although this symbolism can get tied up in some visually and narratively derivative action scenes; and repetitive interpersonal drama between Ryuko and Senketsu, the way in which this symbolism never gets a true conclusion until everything has been packed makes the story of ‘Kill la Kill’ especially engaging, as you’re always on the look-out for details that might change the implications of the story.

Although the hyperbolic statement that ‘Kill la Kill saved anime’ might not have been meant to be interpreted at face value, the character of the show has undoubtedly changed what anime has become in the modern sense

Strong 9/10

(Ok, I will be discussing this shows… pedophilic themes. And I just want to clarify before you read anything. This isn’t a criticism on the people who have made the show and the people who liked the show as people. I am not saying that any person that has anything to do with this show, whether it is watching it or making it, is a pedophile BECAUSE of this show. This is a criticism on the show, not people.
There, let’s get into it)


I don’t think I have seen a show that I would call pedophilic. You know, you have shows that have some weird ... scenes with characters that look like children. I.e Dragon maid, Bakemonogatari (I haven’t seen the show, but I know there’s a loli in there) etc. But I wouldn’t call any of those shows pedophilic even though pedophiles can enjoy those shows sexually.
The only scenes with Kanna that could be sexually suggestive are scenes where the two characters have the same age, and (as far as I am aware) Shinobu doesn’t take part in sex with an adult.
But I think Wataten is the closest to loli hentai that I have seen.

The synopsis of “Wataten!: An Angel Flew Down to Me” is that Miyako, a socially anxious college student, meets her little sisters new friend Hana, who she is instantly amazed by. Through Miyako’s fantastic baking, she makes Hana do cosplays while Miyako takes pictures of it.
Miyako basically falls in love with a child, and makes her do suggestive photoshoots (From my point of view anyway).
Now, you could say that Miyako just found Hana to be extremely cute. There isn’t any sexual situations in the show. it isn’t a hentai or an ecchi show. But even though it is never stated that Miyako fell in love with Hana, looking at some of the scenes really point at it.
Now, this is the worst part of the show. every episode I was waiting for Miyako to break and just rape the girl. Doing that would actually be like a really shocking turn of events. Doing a madoka magica and make everything dark as fuck.
Now that’s what I would’ve wanted, but what I got was Miyako and her baby harem going around town doing all sorts of stuff.
They reference the fact that Miyako is really creepy, and the fact that they could call the police. And while that’s probably the best part of the show, where it is a little self aware of what it is, the problem is that they say it so many times, but they never do it. The perfect ending would’ve been Hana finally calling the police and then a shot with Hiyako in jail. But again, it doesn’t happen. Hana definitely knows that what Miyako is doing is wrong, but she never does anything. In the end, Hana-chan seems to be comfortable with Miyako, but she should be scared out of her mind. Miyako, an adult, has been using a child to do photoshoots.
When the Hana’s parents hear what Miyako has been doing with their daughter, their not worried, their not angry. they were excited…

And I just want to say. The concept of having the main character being a pedophile isn’t bad in nature. You can do some really interesting stuff with that, like showing that even though someones a pedophile, they can resist their urge to fuck children. You can convey a message that I have NEVER seen in any medium ever (Though, I would be surprised if it hasn’t been done before).

But what Miyako does, it doesn’t show that. What Miyako does is inexcusable. She isn’t worthy of all the attention and respect that she gets.
There is one episode where Miyako is revealed to have her birthday on that very day. None of the girls in her harem know this, and therefore comes up with a gift. This gift is a ticket to do whatever she wants with one of the girls. And when Miyako understands that Hana is one of the people that she can make do whatever she wants, she does This face. Can you honestly say that that face doesn’t have the intentions of fucking Hana.

Ok, you can probably tell that I’m getting quite a bit annoyed while writing about this show. But I have to say, there were things to enjoy. The lineart and coloring were both pretty solid, it was a fairly cute show when Miyako wasn’t being a creepy and there were actual scenes that I didn’t want to die from believe it or not.
But I can’t give excuses to this shit. I can forgive one-sided characters. I can forgive on-the-nose dialogue. I can even forgive trash visuals if everything else is fine.
But I cannot say that the fact that we were supposed to relate to and empathize with an active pedophile didn’t bother me.


Ultimately, I think this is a shit show, but manages to be harmless. I know I’ve talked about it’s pedophilic themes a lot, but the show doesn’t say that it’s okay being attracted to children. Miyako is repeatedly shown as a creep. And this is fine message-wise, but not writing-wise.
2/10

(Small spoilers for Re:zero, My Hero Academia season 2 and The Dark Knight ahead. They won’t be prevalent in the review, but I will bring them up at one point. Of course there are big spoilers for OPM too)

There are very few protagonists that I REALLY root for. Most main characters in the shows I watch are enjoyable, maybe even has some depth to them and some of them might even be very relatable and realistic. But it is very rare for me to find a protagonist that I TRULY root for. Where I want them to succeed. If I would choose a few of ... them, it would be Kotarou from Tsuki ga Kirei and Bojack Horseman from Bojack Horseman (Not an anime, but it doesn’t matter). But one of the best I have ever seen is Saitama from One Punch Man.

I rarely ever care about character’s decisions in a show or movie. Or to be more precise, I rarely ever get angry at a characters decision even though I understand why he or she decides to do it.
Subaru chooses Emilia over Rem, who cares they’re both boring as hell.
Izuku decides to help Todoroki get over his anger against his father, I just agreed with his actions.
But something about the fact that Saitama decides to not only not show off his cool ass power, he even makes people hate him to make society like the other heroes more.
Don’t get me wrong, it is understandable why he does it. I’m not bringing it up cause I think he’s stupid or an asshole. Saitama is a great character because of this.
In episode 7, One Punch Man has destroyed a meteor that could’ve killed all of city Z. The price of this however is that the meteor separate into smaller parts, destroying a large part of the city. How does society thank him, by putting him on blast, shitting on him, screaming at him to give up. And just the fact that Saitama doesn’t kill every single one of those fuckers makes him a great character and makes me scream at the computer at the same time (I didn’t do that, but I really felt like it).
I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. In summary, Saitama doesn’t give a fuck.
He doesn’t care that everyone hates him, he even makes them hate him more.
He doesn’t care that the S-rank members don’t know that he is the ultimate hero, cause he just does it for fun.
There were so many times where Saitama shows how good of a person that he is, but I wanted him to become a worse one.
This might sound bad, but to me that’s what makes him such a fantastic character. He makes the show IMO.

But sadly, this quality isn’t anywhere else.
While I LOVED Saitama and Mumen Rider (Who I won’t talk about since this review will just get twice as long), the rest of the characters were surprisingly forgettable. Genos doesn’t really have any flare to him, The enemies weren’t that memorable (Except for one, which I’ll talk about later) and the heroes are as plain. They were enjoyable to watch, don’t get me wrong. But there wasn’t anything to them IMO. It might be because Saitama and Mumen rider out-shined them enough to make fine characters look bad. But I was surprised at how much I didn’t care for the story unless mumen rider or Saitama was there.

And while that was the worst part of the show, there was one other part that I found nearly as bad. The exposition.

While I liked the dialogue for the most part, where Saitama's was again the best, there was an abundance of very badly written exposition in the dialogue. Lines like “I can blast through a 20mm steel plate with one of my shape-memory golden bullets”. A character by the name of Golden ball says this when fighting an enemy. He’s not explaining his power/weapon, where it would be natural for him to say what he can do. But he says it to his friend who knows his power very well, and the monster that he plans to kill. So why would he say this other than that he wants the audience to know what power he has. And he’s not an important character. We don’t need to know what his power is, because he is in one scene.
This exposition is present throughout the whole show. And while it wasn’t as bad as Suicide Squad, with lines like "This is Katana. She's got my back. She can cut all of you in half with one sword stroke, just like mowing the lawn. I would advise not getting killed by her. Her sword traps the souls of its victims. ", just the fact that I’m comparing this show to one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen means that it’s bad.


And while there are lots of things I really dislike about this show, LOTS OF THINGS. I just want to talk about one more thing.
Boros vs Saitama

Something about this fight is so… fascinating. I’ll try to explain why.
Firstly, the animation is fucking incredible. The show has an overall fantastic animation except for some weird lip syncing and bad animation which were far and few between. But in that one fight, the animation was just so incredible. It’s probably one of the best fight scenes I have ever seen. Up there with Mob Psycho 100’s Koyama fight and all of Mad Max: Fury Road.
There are a lot of fight scenes that have incredible animation in this show, but they weren’t nearly as memorable as this. But there was one more thing. And that’s the character that is introduced in that “arc” or whatever you would call it. And that is Boros himself.

Probably the best antagonist I have ever seen is The Joker from The Dark Knight. I can talk about him for hours, and I have at points. But one of the things that makes him such a great antagonist for batman is that he has the same goal as him. They both want the soul of Gotham. And in many ways this is similar with Boros and Saitama.
Both of them dream of meeting an opponent who doesn’t die instantly. They just go about it in different ways. While Saitama dreams about it literally and is disappointed if a monster is killed by one punch, Boros tries to quench this thirst by going to as many planets as possible to find the opponent who can really challenge him. And I found that really interesting.

But yeah, I really enjoyed this show even though I disliked many parts of it. I’ll give it an 8/10 for now.
Don’t think I have ever compared a show or movie to one of the best and worst movies I have ever seen, but it is what it is I guess.

Have you ever seen a show that started out as a really forgettable show and then became something great. Or maybe the opposite, a show that starts out great and then just plummets down. Surprisingly, I’ve found that most shows I’ve watched are pretty consistent with it’s quality. You know, we have shows like Darling in the Franxx or Death Note who both have a very large quality drop near the middle of the show (IMO). But I don’t think I ever thought about dropping any of those shows. But that’s where DLHSB unfortunately. From the first episode I really disliked it. It had some ... good parts like the skirt scene, which is one of the best scenes in the show IMO. But the rest just felt so boring. I don’t really know what it was, but something about the writing made me not enjoy it. It really felt like a 2010 anime.
The show uses a lot of meta jokes throughout the show, and for the most part I think they were really funny. Commenting on the fact that one of the characters weren’t in many of the scenes, or that all of the scenes were never their daily life (as the titles suggests), but the most interesting. It comments on how Slice of Life anime were written, and how few shows actually felt like real life. But the first meta jokes in the show really grinded my gears. It felt like they just made fun of something they themself did. It’s like when deadpool says that the writing is bad at one point in the second movie, but doesn’t do anything with it. Breaking the fourth wall to make fun of yourself isn’t funny unless you do anything with that. At one point I was glad that the opening and ending were long so that the actual episodes wouldn’t take time to watch. I know just watching a show to have watched it is bad, but I always have this thought that a show could redeem itself if I just took time to watch everything.

And of course, it definitely did. When I watched the fourth episode, something weird happened. I started to enjoy the show. The conversations that the main characters had became very realistic to how friends actually talk (Like in the scenes where they play volley and the visuals were oddly artistic, especially for this show. I’ll get to that later), while still being funny. Something happened at after the third episode. I don’t know if it was that I got used to the bad writing or if it actually got better. But either way, I accepted it gladly and my decision to drop it was finally scrapped.

But I’m definitely not saying that it became a perfect show or anything. The problems I had with the first three episodes were still there, but it didn’t feel like every scene was annoying, but that the annoying scenes were scattered across the whole show. I’ll explain.

I had many problems with the show. It had many predictable jokes and ones that go on for way too long, or should’ve gotten a longer time to develop more. Many jokes are beaten to the ground like the “stealing the sisters underwear” joke that really embraced the over-the-top nature of the show at first but then just becomes annoying, Some of the exposition is handled pretty horribly. And lastly, many of the characters don’t feel very unique, I mixed up many of them. Mainly Hidenori and Yoshitake. Their sense of humor felt really similar, their characters felt very similar and both of their voice acting was very undistinguishable (I could tell them apart while watching the show. But if you let me hear lines of dialogue from both of them, I would not tell them apart anymore)

But there were two problems that were the most memorable ones.
The first one is the structure of the show. The show is structured in a way where nothing is chronological. But that every scene is a new funny scene. I did not like this structure at all. There are shows that do this well, like this seasons Kaguya-sama. Like in DLHSB, the shows structured where none of the scene are chronological. That the scenes are there to present us with jokes. The difference is the connection between the scenes and how many there are.
In kaguya-sama, none of the scenes very often isn’t in a chronological order, but is just scenes that the creator came up with. The difference here is that most scenes are about the same thing. Kaguya and Miyuki battle for dominance. They try to make the other person confess their love for the other, to make sure they don’t have to do it themself. Not every scene works like this, but it’s how the show works in general.
In DLHSB, none of the scenes share anything. The first scene could be about the main characters stealing one of the sisters underwear, and then transition into a scene where the joke is that all the characters fall into pools of water outside (An example of a joke that goes for WAY too long). Though, this isn’t the main problem.
But the real problem is the amount of scenes in every episode. I’ll continue to compare with Kaguya-sama. Cause in that show, there are 3 scenes in every episode more or less. The jokes get to develop this way, and are therefore funny. The difference here is that DLHSB has around 7 scenes per episode (I only counted once, so it could be more or less. I’m guessing it was normally more). It’s the opposite, where none of the jokes are developed and are usually just one jokes that is thrown at us multiple times. This is what really made the show boring at times, and is what I hate about the first three episodes. You could’ve cut out scenes and developed some of the better ones. An example would be this. In one of the episodes, one of the characters (Really vague huh?) receives a love letter. He shows it to his friends and they all assume that it is a joke and want revenge for this. Then we cut to the place where the love letter told the character to come. A way to develop the joke could’ve been to show us them planning and training for the revenge, to really show us how absurd the scene is. It is a simple mistake that can change a lot. At least that could’ve raised MY enjoyment of the show.

Now as I said, there was one other thing that was as bad. And that would be the visuals.
I’m not a massive fan of the normal anime art. There are great visual in anime for sure, but I like more stylistic art styles more than animes almost realistic general artstyle. And this a good example of this. Most of the visuals looked pretty ugly in my opinion. Other than the artstyle not being for me, the the coloring looked really bland, the character designs weren’t that memorable and the animation was really boring, where much of it is edited by just using the same small animation over and over again (Like when something impactful happens, the animation would just be two characters jumping in front of a red background and the camera would go up and down a bunch of times. Yeah, that was a pretty bad explanation.)

But the big problems with the visuals for me were the background characters. Or what I call, hentai designs. A way to fit the budget with an animation is to make background characters faceless. Or at least eye-less. This a good way to save money, but not to make a visually appealing show. But if that was just the case for the background characters it would’ve been fine. The problem is when “main side-characters” gets this treatment. An example of this Tadakuni’s sister Mei. Her character is in the show A LOT. She is a pretty big character even thought I wouldn’t say that she was a main character. But we never see her eyes. Her and her friends are all eye-less. It makes them look very inhuman. Eyes are a big part of how humans identify people. Is is a big part of our face and identity in a way. So removing them looks really weird, especially when they’re big enough to make me notice it every time. And what annoys me more is when tiny characters don’t get this treatment. Yassan is a joke character used in a few scenes. She has a face. Her brother is used in ONE scene. He has a face. They were willing to spend money on drawing two joke character, where one isn’t even a character, and not a character who is in a majority of the show.

That was probably the most annoying part of the show, even the structure could’ve been ignored at times. But every time i saw a faceless sister, all I could think of is that hentai use the same method to make the viewer immerse themself into the male character so that they can cum faster. (Not to disrespect BTW. We’re all into different things)


But all that aside, I thought the show was okay. I enjoyed it, but I saw a lot of problems in it. I’ll give it a 5/10 for now