Just generic, empty, masochistic hentai trash that might occasionally catch the eye of elitists looking for a different kind of art, an "art" of art, formally drawn outside the common standard in a somewhat realistic design style, offering what they're looking for, even if they think it contains something more — but it doesn't, definitely.
I'm dropping this even though it's only 2 episodes of just over 33 minutes each, totaling around 1h 7m, because what we actually get beyond the art is: crude and static animations, constant, torturous repetitive movements, horrendous audio out of sync with the portrayed characters, terrible and utterly embarrassing voice acting
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Nov 10, 2024
Juvenile Detention Center
(Manga)
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Not Recommended Preliminary
(2/? chp)
Spoiler
When I come across action/drama/school webtoons where the synopsis also tends to include revenge/delinquents/bullies and vandals, my initial assessment is negative. This may seem rude to most people, but it's merely a materialization of feelings due to habits shaped by repeated stereotypes included in so many media, which have also influenced the real world—a fixed, unchanging connection that sadly remains as the most primitive and instinctive reality of this world. So perhaps these are just my own errors, but these are my opinions, and there’s nothing to be done about them.
South Korea is a country with many demands and stands out in "social laws," by ... which I mean those created by society, though one could also refer to those legally implemented by public authorities. Social laws are the ones that judge and create problems based on standards about naturally diverse people. The lack of self-awareness and freedom is more than recurrent, leading to various types of complexities and challenging relationships between people. Legislative laws, on the other hand, exist to correct these errors or at least attempt to do so. The idea of full efficacy is impossible to claim entirely—no one really knows—but the representations made through "art" sometimes tell us a lot, and yet so little at the same time. This is because, in all attempts, what always happens is either it's very exaggerated or very unrealistic, and sometimes you get both in one. The country has a so-called excellent child protection system, where, in rare cases, what happens to our protagonist here would likely never occur. He was sentenced to three years for nearly killing his father, a man linked to a small gangster faction. The possible reason he was imprisoned could be due to his father’s intervention, but firstly: his father was debilitated, and secondly, he was part of a small gang, not influential enough to interfere with the court through third parties. This tells us that it's merely a failed attempt to push real boundaries to create entertainment through a bloody piece where the protagonist is suddenly very strong without reason. In this context, he would never be imprisoned, especially since he had suffered domestic violence from his father all along and even had a witness in his favor. This is exactly what all similar works look like, with similar details. These works have a certain popularity because these themes are prevalent in the country and occur on a large scale, but my main issue with them is the lack of meaning. Usually, they succeed in representational ideas, and that’s precisely why I don’t entirely hate Manhwas—they contain many truths about South Korea, unlike the many lies told by other media, which is positive. However, within the same context, something drives me crazy: the fact that all these works become so popular and well-rated precisely because they represent people's inner feelings, and readers sympathize, which is enough for them. But the problem is that the lack of results/meaning doesn't solve anyone's problems, and we gain nothing new from it; we continue in an endless cycle of ideas, and none show us a different vision or perspective on these matters. They are simply representations that serve for affected people to relate to and applaud the work because, for them, that's all it takes due to their current state. To them, this is like salvation, even though it’s not; they constantly rely on works like this to keep going, dependent instead of healed. The Juvenile Detention Center described in the work is a facility for minors who have committed various crimes, but for some reason, they look much older than they should. At 18 or 19 years old, they look in their 40s or more. If it were just one or two of them, fine, but practically all of them? The answer to this is that among these manhwas, the intention is to make them look older to draw more attention from readers in fights and also to try to make the theme mature (even when it shouldn’t be). It also conveys a representation that, given what they are, their older appearance would make sense due to their life experiences, but this does not contrast with reality. It might contrast with aging and disfigurement, but not exactly with all proportions of the human body; I'm referring to the overall visibility of the person when seen. Thank you for your attention.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Oct 17, 2024
Ao no Hako
(Anime)
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Not Recommended Funny Preliminary
(3/25 eps)
Spoiler
Despite having an absurd visual quality, good art, somewhat functional humor (sometimes), charismatic (but nothing original) characters, and a seemingly strong relationship, connection, and interaction between them, some are not enough, and others are completely annihilated by the need for support from other non-existent characteristics.
Ao no Hako came with the intention of impressing fans of Sports and Romance in one go, without caring about any notion or development of either genre. This is neither a romance nor a sports program, and I have four definitions for it - Artificial, Predictable, Coincidental, and Generic. I won't explain in detail because there's no need to waste time ... saying this to people who don't understand where, how, why, or what the problem is with them being included in media created by human hands and why they exist. If you understand, you'll understand what I mean with few words; if not, you won't, that's it. Two beings of the opposite sex who "practice opposite sports" (and no one knows why), the boy had a "real" crush on the girl, and she "only had a crush on herself," "her goal," "her sport," "her future," "her life" (just that). I can call her someone who would never reciprocate to him, but for some reason, she is super nice, charismatic, seems to care so much about him, and seems to like him a lot, even though it has already been clear and evident that she didn't see him as a focus as he saw her, but for some reason, she is similar to him. He admired her "effort" (her), and that made him strive harder to go to nationals like "her" (as "her" desire), completely depersonalizing himself, having only her as his sole objective in mind (here we have a generic average protagonist of RomCom/Harem). "Suddenly," amid this, he discovers through his mother that their families knew each other, and "suddenly" his mother knew that her family was going to move, "suddenly" telling her son (as if he would care, as if she knew something that would impact and move the story, as if she knew the girl wouldn't leave and would live with them there, but even knowing that, didn't tell, just to move the story and impress, as if she wasn't a character, making everything silly when it's shown as if no one knew about it). This happened moments before he ran desperately to find the girl who was "coincidentally" training when she could not be for some reason, and he, finding a reason (excuse) for her to stay (because he is obsessed with her and not with what she does, will do, achieve, or whatever, his admiration/desire for her is just external), decides to philosophize things, and he embarrasses himself for the thousandth time (because it's funny to see him humiliating himself every time, isn't it? hahaha) because she says that only her parents are going, that she will stay at a known person's house (and for some reason she also knows nothing, despite seeming not surprised when it's revealed. These coincidences seem to want to denigrate the protagonist's image). From then on, they are under the same roof, and the rest is all very predictable. There will be this romantic development between them without any sense of beginning, middle, and end, without any logic or sense of reality of a relationship, a connection that seems to grow but is nullified by its artificial start. There will also be the pink-haired girl, somewhat tsundere or whatever, who is the only one with true feelings for him, or at least seems to, and at some point, probably towards the end, will reveal her feelings to the protagonist and be rejected because he loves the other one from the beginning. But we don't know if his love will be reciprocated, and if it is, it will be out of pity, or at least that's what it should be, analyzing the circumstances. What we know is that there is a hint of a love triangle or more than that, and the pink-haired girl was clearly in love with him from the beginning, and we and the plot's characters already knew this, except for the protagonist. This is expected since her fitting into the story was typical of RomCom, which Ao no Hako doesn't stray far from. The romance doesn't present anything original, much less healthy. The relationship between Taiki and Chinatsu (if you disregard the attempt to make her so pleasant as a person and look from the real point of view of the thing) is outdated and can signify a bad example of how a relationship should be. It's the same case as many romances out there; the main male character is extremely submissive, but the reason for this is that he has very low self-esteem when he compares himself to his beloved because he creates a perfectionist image of her in his head and sees himself as much inferior. With this, she becomes unreachable for him, and he ends up creating in his head that he must give his best to meet her expectations (which he himself created), so his love will be reciprocated. Besides this idea being one of the causes of unbalanced, unstable, toxic, unhealthy relationships and the non-correspondence of feelings by one of the individuals (causing suffering to the unreciprocated, ego to the non-corresponding, and waste of time for both), it overshadows the functional and healthy idea of being yourself and not needing to give your all to be reciprocated, much less for someone who doesn't return your feelings (inside or outside of a relationship). The toxicity in Ao no Hako exists because instead of the main girl clarifying her feelings about him (that she doesn't feel something for him, in my view), she continues "deluding" the protagonist with behaviors that simulate genuine reciprocity or interest, making the protagonist remain confident that success after his effort to surpass her will win her heart, even though at the end of the race there is still a chance of him being rejected by her. My conclusion about the romance and its toxicity is based on my notion or maybe just an idea that women have an ease of sensing when a man is interested in her. Based on this, there is a probability that Chinatsu knows that Taiki likes her, making her behavior towards him psychological abuse, as she has the opportunity to end the situation briefly whenever she wants by informing him of her true feelings, preventing him from suffering, making an effort, humiliating himself, etc., for no reason. Not doing so makes her behavior abusive. On the other hand, if she did and even inclined the protagonist towards psychological treatment, it would not only be a good deed and an act of true friendship but also a true demonstration of interest, reciprocity, concern, care, etc. My first problem with the sport was definitely it being overshadowed by the romance and placed as Plan B for profits in case the Fluffy audience (larger quantity) is not satisfied with our main couple and starts to hate the program, leaving it to the Athlete audience (smaller quantity) to prevent the author's bankruptcy and bad reputation (an impossible act if the romance was not pleasing since real sports fans would know just by noticing that Ao no Hako is not effective/functional as a sport, it completely escapes the ideal representation they seek (a reflection of reality)). The second problem stems from that: the romance was flawed but exists (even if artificially), the sport not only fails but is non-existent in terms of what a sports and team work needs to be considered a sports and team work. Sports, like any hobby, lifestyle, or career, are deeply driven by passion, which you can also call addiction. When it doesn't fit into this, you can call it artificial because what is driving the person are interests, and that's exactly what happens with Taiki. He is not passionate about Badminton; he is passionate about Chinatsu. All his idea of going to nationals and his effort was thinking of her to reach her and get her approval, and not only him but all the characters do not represent or convey real feelings of attraction to the sport. They seem super static regarding their wills, desires, and reactions to the sport. Also, Taiki only played because schools have physical education classes, and many times you are pressured to choose a sport. So much so that there are hundreds of anime, manga, and light novels that at some point have a scene of the introverted protagonist who is bullied having to attend classes even if he is regularly violated by the third-year bullies behind the scenes. Furthermore, the reason he trained until then was because his school is integrated into a sports program that promotes students' chance to compete in nationals. This means that there is a possibility of people being interested in the career only for what it provides, such as fame, attention, superiority, money, etc. I can define sports by comparing two well-known media, Baki and Ashita no Joe: Ashita no Joe is childish, poorly finished, poorly drawn, without depth, without art, without atmosphere, without energy, without weight, and with a terrible representation of sport. Although people defend it by saying that Joe is an incredible protagonist, that the intention of the work to show the growth of a young delinquent in precarious situations of a precarious period through fighting to become a completely different person is amazing, I find it extremely foolish to make this a sport. For me, this is a context that does not connect to the other, and to begin with, it is not realistic at all. Ashita no Joe seems weak, with weak intentions and nonexistent motivations because Joe never cared about sports. And how is it possible for a weak child to appear to be inserted into a universe where she scares adults, beats adults with just one punch in a horrible and silly fight resembling children's comics, winning despite not seeming to have such capacity because she is a child. After this "little fight," Joe is seen as amazing, and that's the basis, Joe is considered amazing because somehow he is special and therefore everyone thinks he is special because he seems special despite not seeming so and not really being so, but he is seen as a potential profit in a time of poverty, used to make money through fighting. In summary, all this is artificial and staged, pieced together, random, nothing with real intentions or motivations, impulses, desires, or whatever, that is my opinion about the acclaimed Ashita no Joe. Baki is not exactly "good," and I would say that I don't have "affection" for the work, but there is a differential and something that bothers me when I see it being downgraded compared to ANJ. Baki's idea is somewhat random too and can be repetitive or boring as many things are, but it is among the best sports I can imagine because it uses a very rare definition in the attempts to demonstrate what true sport means. Despite inconveniences like the characters seeming to have powers and being extremely exaggerated, that is exactly what makes it interesting if you consider its portrayal, it is as if the author thought of making a real representation of the desires and imaginations of fighters in their highest state of testosterone, considering that in a possible idealized world by them when they are "crazy," they would be extremely exaggeratedly strong as if they had powers because that signals the release of hormones in the form of hatred, anger, fury, it is a form of natural and necessary release for the well-being of men and a representation of their competitive desires to be stronger and the strongest among the strongest, it also signals in the background a state of perseverance and resilience. Another interesting point and also the main problem of elitist fighting sports like ANJ is that they intentionally want to do something that is intelligent, that is really incredible, that needs to be incredible, intellectually impressive, philosophical, for people to applaud and say: "look how different it is!". Among the worst things that happened in this community, one of them was when the elitists started using their extreme exacerbated reasoning to find philosophical gold in simple genres that should be simple, like sports. I'm not saying it should be bad, the idea of being simple is because in real life sport is simple, because real life is simple, things in real life are simple, but clearly being simple for us intellectuals will not be enough, so it needs something more, for me and for them, but something changes between me and them. For them, philosophy enters sport, and realism does not matter, for me it can be simple because I understand that the reality of sport is simple, but I expect it to be more realistic than simple, portraying the external and internal reality (characters) of sport in real life above all else. About the team, there is really not much to say, it is the same as the sports part itself, as the characters' relationship with the sport itself seems so artificial, any team play relationship of theirs becomes artificial too because as their desires, goals, motivations, and emotions are so artificial and non-existent, random, their techniques, ways, and elaborations of playing together consequently become empty and opaque. A small comparison between Ao no Hako and Hanebado: The characters in Hanebado have stories and connections to Badminton that involve good and bad situations, meaning they have both positive and negative feelings about badminton, their own team, and their opponents. The peak would be to show the deeper side of both sides in the same proportion (both externally and internally - with a greater sense of realism) or at least, at the minimum, put coherence in the extreme negative that overshadowed the opposite in this case, something the series failed to do and ended up bringing some more problems to the surface. It also has an incoherent positive side. In the context of Ao no Hako, Taiki does not seem to have any coherent connection or story with badminton (basically the opposite of what I approved in Hanebado), and Chinatsu, despite being the daughter of a middle school basketball player, has the same artificial expressions and the insufficiency of real/true flowing desires of the other characters in the plot. There are also the non-existent background characters, regardless of which sport they practice, they don't seem to be in connection with what they practice or with each other. What scares me the most about all this is that they all seem so firm about the sports program while at the same time not caring. I questioned what they do then, and, ironically, it is as if they had hired a large team of professional athletes without experience and knowledge in acting and romance to simulate spectacular school athletes (for some reason they are spectacular and experienced even without previous progress) participating in an epic school sports program. Two of them would have the extra role of being the generic Fluffy main couple of RomCom, one being the rejected tsundere, and the other two being the "cool guys," but they were paid little due to the entire budget being used in animation, so they decided to get back at them. Thank you for your attention.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Oct 8, 2024
To Drown In You
(Manga)
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Not Recommended Preliminary
(6/? chp)
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Just another manhwa with some readable features but ruined by common major errors such as bad writing, inconveniences, genre tropes, constant shock usage to drag the work as long as the author wants, characters without their own personality and unstable in their role, with their words and actions far apart, yandere bait flowing from the mermaid with inexplicable and inconvenient personality change or dual personality and inexplicable and inconvenient supernatural events.
This work contains an interesting background in terms of the protagonist's psychological story, and his initial relationship with the mermaid seems interesting and creates expectations for a good development between them. In the beginning, the ... mermaid seems to be a character well-placed in the plot, which is perceptible visually, sentimentally, and emotionally. However, all these details are lost right from the start due to: The setting being in the real world with humans and supposedly having the inexplicable existence of just one single mermaid graft that should be in an old children's fairy tale (which was a source of personalization for young girls of the early generation) or in the urban legends of the mermaid's song (which is just an old form of interpretation and invention of a nonexistent supernatural entity in real life about how women have the power of seduction and attraction, control over men using their voice (song), appearance (beauty), movements (dance), and behaviors ("guide" (making the man copy her out of admiration) or "mimic" (she subtly copies him to stand out and attract attention, drawing him in, similar to the viral term "pick-me girl"), something already extremely outdated. ↓ x - The sudden personality change of the mermaid - x - ↓ victims, deaths, and shock ↓ Initially, she presents herself to us with a normal, sad, melancholic, and harmless expression, only to later reemerge as cold to her victims and obsessive with the protagonist. The possible explanation for this is the trauma she obtained by losing trust in the protagonist since he "abandoned" her when events changed in his life after his father died, his mother became incapacitated, and he had to live with his uncles, leaving the mermaid behind. The distrust would have made her possessive and obsessive with the protagonist and cruel to the point of killing people to defend/protect him, but not to kill him, which is strange because the real result would only be positive and negative feelings towards the protagonist, not towards other people. The idea of her killing people was something added in to try to make the genre work and fill the void with deaths, blood, impact, shock, mystery, or whatever, to try to keep this 'web of things' alive and moving, using a very common unreal trope: the sudden personality change of an innocent person to extremely aggressive due to a trauma, leading them to kill people coldly and endlessly to protect the one they love obsessively. It's totally out of context and reality because no one goes through such a drastic change after a trauma like that; you either already have symptoms or you don’t. To build such a character, it’s necessary to show signs beforehand, which isn’t the case here and usually isn’t in other cases either, as all attempts to represent 'yanderes' are the same. The first person who created this made a mistake, and others repeated the same mistake with secondary intentions: to successfully sell a product designed to satisfy sadomasochists’ fetishes and thereby make their work popular. ↓- x - inexplicable supernatural - x↓x- inexplicable mermaid↓ Our protagonist found the mermaid in a cave near the sea on an island, and she said that, just like him, she also didn’t have a father, which I understand as her being the only mermaid on the planet. And throughout the story, it’s forgotten that she is a mermaid, and that’s it; no one cares where she came from, how she appeared, what connection she has to the story, or anything. The only thing that matters here is that she 'jumps,' 'navigates,' 'leaps,' 'transports,' or rather 'teleports' in some way from one place to another, somewhere that apparently contains plumbing, but which seems like a sea at the bottom, or who knows what (something simply incomprehensible for us mere humans to understand) to protect her beloved. And the most incomprehensible thing about this was her first 'teleportation.' The protagonist left a remote island and went to live in Seoul, and incredibly, the mermaid found him, managed to move there, said she missed him and that’s why she came back, even though 6 YEARS had passed. She only missed him after all that time, right, no problem here. And to wrap up my comment, before he left the island, she didn’t show up to him, so I don’t need to say more, that’s enough. Thank you for reading.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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