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Finally got to watch Gridman Universe, and my GOD, what an ambitious, self-indulgent, and beautiful mess that was, lmao.
So here are my rambling thoughts about it.

A meta-commentary on storytelling, writing, fanservice, and most importantly the stories we tell ourselves to live, the movie tries to do maybe TOO much, but it all makes sense in the context of what the previous two series tried to do.

The movie starts with Gridman's cast living their normal lives after the events of the first series, while the school festival approaches. Yuta is thinking about confessing to Rika, while Rika and Utsumi are writing a script for their class ... play, that will be about Girdman. As they are the only ones who remember what happened, they want to tell the story, but their idea keeps getting shot down by the rest of the class as it "lacks realism".

That script is the main element of the film that allows it to make all the meta-commentary that the first series was so loved for. SSSS.Gridman was both a love letter and a deconstruction of the Tokusatsu genre, while Dynazenon was more about its characters. This franchise is always walking a fine line between realistic character interactions and bombastic Tokusatsu spectacle, and this movie was the perfect way to close the connection between those two disparate elements.

Just as Akane created the world of Yuta as explained in Gridman, Gridman seems to have created the world of Yomugi, Gauma, and Yume. None of them are "real" in an absolute sense, but as the Kaiju girl says in one moment, humans are "the only species with the power to believe in fabrications".

The movie points out how we as humans process everything through storytelling. We love stories for a reason. And even in our daily lives, we tell ourselves stories all the time. We create narratives about the things that happen to us, so we can make sense of them and create meaning in our lives.

But, just as Yuta is doing throughout most of the film, we sometimes think that what "happens to us" is the only thing that can happen. We forget we're the protagonists of our own stories, that we have agency, and that we too can "make things happen".

The movie made me think about so much, both about storytelling and about my own life. Is it perfect? Hell nah. The first half is super funny and sometimes creepy in the best possible way, while the second half veers into the purest form of fanservice you could think of. But it was still fun! And that's also the point.

In the end, they do make the play about Gridman, and people don't really get what Rika was trying to get across, but they laugh a lot!
Stories aren't meant to be understood by everyone, but writing is a means to understand yourself and others better.

Hell, I'm writing this for myself, because I needed to process this film. There's SO MUCH to unpack here!
So yeah. I loved this film. It stands for everything I love (and everything that I don't love so much) in the Gridman franchise. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

This was a perfect closure to one of my favorite franchises in recent years. I loved to visit these characters one more time. And I probably will come back at some point, when I need a narrative about giant robots and fabricated humans to make sense of it all.

I don't how much of this story is inspired by personal experience from Fujimoto. But it sure as hell made me wonder...

Sorry, but to make a review of Look Back, I first gotta talk about Fujimoto himself.

First of all, many already love him, so most don't talk about it, but Fujimoto's style is pretty scribbly. I love it because of that, but I can see it totally affecting his own self-esteem as an artist when he was young. And so he writes Fujino, the main character of the story. While her friends love her manga because it's clever and fun, she gets discouraged when another ... kid, Kyomoto, starts making comic strips for the school paper just like her. He doesn't write clever stories, he just draws backgrounds. But they're awesome backgrounds. And Fujino's art seems "amateur-ish" in comparison.

That's as far as I'll go for the story. I'll get into Spoilers later, and I'll let you know, but I wanted to keep talking about Fujimoto himself.

When I first read Fire Punch, I wondered if he did the backgrounds himself. Given the style he draws characters with, I doubted it was him, but rather some assistant he had who could do awesome backgrounds. I wonder if he'll comment on that at some point. This story makes me wonder if he had an assistant to whom he was very close. But either way, I could see this was very personal for him.

Then there's also the obvious KyoAni reference, which makes me wonder if he did this for himself or for them. Maybe for both, but we'll probably never know. That just makes this story all the more affecting.

***Spoiler ahead***

Kyomoto is obviously the reference to KyoAni. Not only the name but also the reason for his demise. The guy with an ax who'd just keep screaming he had stolen his idea. And the most important one, this One-Shot was published exactly 2 years after the KyoAni attack. Some people say maybe Fujimoto had a friend in KyoAni. I don't know. I don't think I'll ever know. Maybe he was just inspired by them, as many of us are.

"Look Back" is a One-Shot that is better appreciated when one is familiarised with Fujimoto's previews works. There are visual references to both Fire Punch and Chainsaw Man, but I think the most prominent is the door. The same door behind which lies Denji's trauma in CSM. In here, the door represents the same. In that last scene, what Fujino sees is definitely a fantasy, a "what if" she imagines in her head to cope with trauma. She feels guilty for Kyo's death. She wonders what's the point in drawing anymore. Then a comic strip falls back from inside the door. she looks at it, being oddly specific, and then she opens the door. But Kyomoto is still dead. The comic strip was just sticked to the window and had fallen at that moment. She accepts her trauma.

That's when the name look back makes sense. She looks back (literally) and sees Kyo's shirt with her autograph, a memory of their childhood. And then she remembers why it is that she started drawing manga at all. It's not fun, it's a hassle, it's so much work... but she did it because of Kyomoto. Maybe this, too, is a KyoAni reference, and how those people were a real inspiration for Fujimoto.

And then he stands up, wipes his tears, and goes back to work. He's gotta finish Chainsaw Ma... wait, no... it's Shark Kick. Or was it?

Was it Fujino or Fujimoto?

Anyway, I hope they're both okay...

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke.

(First of all, let me start by saying that no, this is not a One-Shot. This is a full volume, but it's not available, at least not on the internet. I had the chance to buy a physical copy in Spanish)

Heroes is a bit of a departure from Inio Asano's regular style. It's definitely as dark and cynical as his previous works, but it's way more sardonically comic than anything I've read from him, while also being pretty cartoonish. Even more so than Dead Dead Demons.
In that vein, ... I assume this might be one of his most alienating works (or will be when more people get to read it), but the themes he deals with are not new. They're basically the same as in Dead Dead Demons. How people will always unite against a common enemy, often not even stopping for a second to ask themselves if what they're doing is actually right.
After finishing it, all I could think of was that quote by Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". Sounds good on paper. Even necessary to know. But Asano knows the hypocrisy in which people can fall, sometimes even unbeknownst to themselves. With this work, is like Asano was asking his audience "What makes you think you have the wisdom to tell Good and Evil apart?"

It starts as this silly story about a bunch of misfit Heroes, fighting against "Darkness". The first half is basically episodic in nature, where they defeat Darkness but it always comes back somehow. At some point, someone says "Even if we defeat darkness, as long as people start taking sides, there will always be someone to hate". And it just goes to show the cynical view Asano has of this era of opinionated people, who never get to any agreements, but somehow always have something to say. The fact that some parts feel like a meme makes this manga feel even more current (just as Dead Dead Demons).

On the whole, it's a pretty bizarre and darkly funny manga that nonetheless manages to tackle heavy and current themes on morality. I kind of wish it was a bit longer, though. And the comedy at the beginning almost makes the darker implications at the end feel too depressing. But I wouldn't have it any other way with Asano.

I'm going to end this review with another quote by Burke, just because I feel it really connects with the themes present in Heroes:

"Whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design. They are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. Where men are not acquainted with each other’s principles, nor experienced in each other’s talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy.[...]. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

I'm sorry, but this is going to be more of a rant than a review. This will mostly be about the last episode, and why I don't think it ruins the whole anime, as so many others do.
This is actually aimed at the people who already watched the anime, and if you haven't, I think that you should go watch it and form an opinion of your own, untainted by what other people think you should think about it. Go and watch it with an open mind (if you like character dramas, and are okay with characters so realistic they even tend to be unlikable ... because they remind you of the stupid mistakes and you've made in your own life, and even call you out on your own self-sabotaging behaviors) and when you finish, come back here to read. Because, obviously HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD.
Here I go:

OKAYYY... So people are hating on the finale, and I can totally see why. But I wonder if... Mmm...Okey, let me break this down in parts because I just can't...
First, I would want to know how easy people get their own opinions changed by "the general opinion". Last week I was super excited about this ending, and then heard people saying that this was going to be the last episode (I thought there were 18 as many others) and that that would mean this would cramp up an incredible amount of material into 24 min.
So, YES, they did cramp up a LOT into this episode, and I did feel that. I came in totally expecting to hate this episode, and maybe it was because I'd lowered my expectation, but I also... just kind of liked it? Yes, it could've been better, but come on, people, learn to put your expectation on check when it comes to anime. You know how the industry is.
Even for an episode that went through so much in so little time, I felt it did more than decent as an ending for this story. The story is about characters that are as human as I've seen them in an anime in a long time. And yes, this means that most of them aren't actually likable. I was in for the Shinako and Rikuo ship because they started out as people with a bunch of personal baggage, and they were doing some serious advances in changing as people (I didn't like any of them at the beginning), and then they break up. I get it, people, you're disappointed, and feel it was all for nothing, but to me, it's just two people that realized that they didn't have to change to be in a relationship at all. That they were forcing something that wasn't meant to be, just because they wanted to do it a long time ago.
And all it took was for Rikuo to see Shinako chase after Rou. Yes, people. Emotions change like that. He realized he didn't do that for Haru, and that that might have meant that he still loved more Shinako than she loved him. So why keep fighting, when you're still the one putting more effort? when you're also hurting the one you're dating just by being with her? And when you realize that someone liked you since before you even started putting your life together? Rikuo even admits something in this episode that I had kept thinking the whole time: That they're too similar, and that they shouldn't be worrying about what the other is thinking. They're both introverted people, and yes, for a relationship, that can be pretty exhausting.

I don't know, maybe people don't want to read between lines. Or maybe it is because they actually think Rikuo is an asshole for going straight to Haru after breaking up with Shinako. I mean, he says to Haru "Shinako dumped me", which makes him looks like a total asshole, but we know that's not true. He was the one that told Shinako that they shouldn't be together. But again, he was nervous and he said he didn't know how to explain. So he said Shinako dumped him. Maybe because he felt guilty? who knows. But he was doing what he thought was right. Was it rushed? Yes. And Haru herself was not very much explored in the anime, which makes it even less satisfying, but her being completely infatuated by him, I feel like both their actions made complete sense.

We don't see what happens with Shinako and Rou. I don't think we're supposed to think they started dating. Just that they fixed their broken relationship. So on the whole, this finale does what it can to wrap up everything without leaving loose ends. What bothers me is that they accelerated the pacing this last few episodes when the ones in the beginning were so slow. Though they were still rushed if we think how many manga chapters they were adapting in the first place.

I only read the first volume of the manga before the anime. I wanted to be an anime-only, so maybe that bothers some people too. Fans of a manga will defend it till death for it to have a Faithfull adaptation, for better or worse. And since I saw the first episode I knew it would get rushed, because the first episode IS THE FIRST VOLUME. So I also had my expectations in check, but I prefered to be an anime-only. So, as an anime-only, I say that I really enjoyed this finale, even if it had more of the flaws the series had since the very first episode. WOW. How dare you anime, ending with the same flaws you started with?

Anyway, I'm reading the manga now. I enjoyed the anime, but I know the manga will probably be much better. Does that mean the anime is bad? Hell no. Does a rushed ending means the anime is bad? Well, if you think that, you probably didn't like it all along. Think about it.

8/10

O Maidens is unfiltered Mari Okada from beginning to end. And that is precisely why this has been such a divisive series. You either hate it, or you love it (as I did). But to understand why that is the case, we have to take a look at how Mari Okada approaches melodrama, and how this anime is a perfect example of Okada’s best and worst qualities.

First, let’s start with the bad things. That would probably be... the dialogue? Look, Okada's dialogue is like listening to peoples thoughts. With that I mean that is like the characters that she writes always say exactly what's on ... their minds, but without the filter that allows a normal person to really know what is normal and what is not normal to say. This results in a lot of scenes where it feels like people are not talking like real people would. Though Japanese society is very different in culture to any other country, I still feel the dialogue in Okada's works is a bit exaggerated. You'll know what I mean if you watch the first few episodes. Also, as most people are aware of, Okada is known for writing melodramas. That means big emotional outbursts and people screaming out their feelings, resulting not only in exaggerated emotions, but also in exaggerated situations. You will see what I mean by that in the last few episodes.

After all I just said, is easy to understand why anyone could not like Okada's work, and mostly this one, that displays many of those issues. But I still feel like it’s worth watching. Why? For the same reason a lot of people still like Okada.

Now, let’s talk about the good things. And that is obviously the characters. Is funny, because I've always thought that to write great characters you need great dialogue. But Okada is kind of an exception to me. Why is that? Because Okada has a tremendous understanding of how human emotions work, especially adolescence emotions. Every character in O Maidens comes from a very different background, has very different worldviews and experience throughout the run of the anime very different situations. Each of them truly feel like they could be a protagonist in their own story, but by colliding each story to one another, it elevates each one of them even higher than they ever could if it were just the story of “one girl".

And the dialogue is, well... unfiltered; as is Okada. This gives room not only for a few over the top scenes and turn of events that are as ridiculous as they are hilarious (because yes, great part of the comedy in O Maidens comes from just how ridiculous it can all get), but also for incredibly frank conversations between the girls sometimes. Kazusa's problems are universal, and I think anyone could relate to her insecurities, but all of the other characters have at least one scene where there are great observations on their own very unique perspectives. Sugawara saying that men always decide on your personality just by looking at you when you're pretty, without taking into account the real you; Sonezaki getting infuriated by discovering that you cannot change who you are in middle-school when people have already decided what to think of you; Momoko experiencing the difficulty of coming to terms with her own sexuality when she’s surrounded by crushing heteronormativity; or Hongou being unable to tell the difference between the media she has consumed about sex and love which shapes her understanding of relationships and social rules, and the way things really are (I'll talk about that a bit more later).

All of this incredibly sharp observations on very different personalities and situations wouldn't be possible without the Okada touch. That unfiltered dialogue that wouldn’t work in any other story. You could say that it’s a flaw that plays in favor of the shows priorities. In a way, it defies all we're taught about "show, don't tell", but it tells such interesting, important and true-to-life stuff, that I don't really care about it. Okada's writing is always a bit ludicrous, but it always has this balance of silliness and thoughtfulness. What she has to say is very real, even if the way she says it isn't very realistic. (btw, I believe that's why her style works more on fantasy settings, because we can suspend our disbelief more easily than in this kind of stories; a good example being her movie "Maquia")

As for the male characters... this is where it gets tricky. I feel like the only relatable male characters are Izumi and Amagi, and the only one of those that actually plays an important role is Izumi (whom is really complex, and even though he makes a lot of bad choices, his actions are always understandable). As for the rest… they’re obviously the main reason why this series has been so controversial. First there’s Saegusa, a character that is blatantly portrayed as a pedophile in the anime, and is the former abuser of Nina, and while she claims that he never laid a finger on her, he obviously said some things that deeply affected her way of thinking and her self worth. Then there’s Yamagishi, a professor that becomes the advisor in the literature club the girls are in, if only because Hongou knows a dirty secret of him that could get him fired; they also get entangled in a very unhealthy relationship in which she is hitting on him, and he doesn't do much to stop her from doing some very inappropriate things for a girl her age, even though he could and he very much should. And oh wait… I forgot Sugimoto. Sugimoto is just kind of an asshole.

Now, there you have a proper reason why anyone would actively dislike this show. Mostly Saegusa and Yamagishi. But, just to be crystal clear here, the anime NEVER encourages the behavior of this characters. Listen, this are things that are cringy in a way that is beyond awkward, but the anime portrays them as the negative things that they are. And as hard as this is to accept, this things happen in the real world. More people that you would normally think of have probably suffered from abusers, be it physically or psychologically. And the “girl that falls in love with the teacher” is something as clichéd as it is realistic. If you’ve ever been to school at all, you’ve probably heard some stories like that.

Saegusa himself is nothing in the story more than a psycho that manipulates Nina to fulfill his own twisted curiosity. The relationship is obviously harmful to Nina, and it’s very clear from the start all of the weight she is carrying in her shoulders because of him. While he never “touches her” in a physical sense, he’s the reason of all of her insecurities, and these are portrayed with upmost empathy. I feel like is so important for a show to tell this kind of stories. They are unpleasant, yes, but they need to be spoken of. The fact that there is a pedophile in the anime doesn’t mean the show is promoting that kind of conduct, but rather it's creating consciousness around how hard it is to overcome this kinds of things, and how downright harmful and perverse it is.

As for Yamagishi and Hongou, they’re both portrayed as deeply self-loathing people who wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing if they didn’t hate themselves so much. And Hongou herself is just kind of confused as to what love and sex really are, because she’s been conditioned by the literature that she's consumed in her life, which is, to put it bluntly… porn. She’s obviously going to have some distorted ideas about relationships, love and sex, and that is partly why she gets into such an unhealthy and awkward situation. But as I said, the series demonstrates this with the utmost empathy towards its characters. It never asks you to feel good about what they’re doing, but it makes you understand “why” they came so low in their lives to be doing it. And by doing it, I mean they just play a kind of “will-they-won’t-they” game throughout the story, because the series never goes as far as to make them do something that they’ll regret later. And that I have to admire.

For a series about 5 girls that want to know more about sexuality and sex, the series is surprisingly restrained in what it chooses to show, and I wouldn’t take it any other way with the themes it deals with the storylines of both Houngo and Nina. Their stories never reach any outcome that would convey the wrong message. I don’t want to spoil anything, but again, the series portrays these relationships as toxic as it can, without delving too much into adult content territory. Is an incredible balance to achieve, and that is the main reason I would recommend this to almost anyone. As I said, this stories should be told, and they’re not comfortable to watch sometimes, but this series balances that by being restrained about its heavier themes, and compensates it with other three different stories that are more upbeat at the same time, so it never feels too heavy handed, neither too light hearted.

Though, wait… Momo’s story isn’t so upbeat. And I wanted to get here. Momo’s story is something I’ve been wanting to see in an anime for a long time. Most of the times that an anime portrays a gay character, it will probably make several other characters gay. This isn’t to say that I dislike those shows (I really liked Given, and literally everybody there seemed to be gay), but the story of the gay character that isn’t reciprocated isn’t something that I see a lot in anime, and is also something that isn’t too far away from reality. Momo’s realization of her own sexuality is followed by sense of isolation that is never truly resolved in the series, and that is only heightened by Sugimoto’s role in her story. Sugimoto represents everything wrong with heteronormativity. How he misinterprets Momo’s politeness for true attraction, and then blames it on her for not being clear about her emotions, implying that she is somehow weird for not feeling attracted to him. Is infuriating, and is true to life. Momo is a great character, and her story is something that I really appreciated in the series.

Speaking of which, O Maidens usually speaks about good intentions creating misinterpretations. I think that also applies to the series in a meta-sense. Many people didn’t like how it handled its themes, even though I doubt Okada was approaching them from a mean-spirited angle. That’s just not her style. I think people just didn’t like how frank it all sounded. I said how characters sometimes don’t speak like a real person would in O Maidens, but Okada herself never went to school (she was a truant), so she’s writing here about a very specific time and place she never really got to experienced. By knowing that, is enough for me to forgive some of the most glaring issues about dialogue and unreal situations that happen in the anime (and again, it’s a frickin' romcom most of the time, so just try to laugh along when it gets ridiculous), but it also surprises me how much she got right about the social dynamics and insecurities a teenager goes through in school. Okada really, really understands people. And that is the main reason why I loved O Maidens.

Each character has a great character arc. (I didn’t mention Kazusa’s nor Rika’s storylines, not because they aren’t well made or good, but because they’re the characters that go through the most normal conflicts a teenager goes through, and I wanted to talk more about the heavier, more controversial aspects of the series, and why I actually liked them). Not everything is resolved smoothly at the end, but it shouldn’t be, because life isn’t like that. Nonetheless, characters grow and learn every single episode, their mindsets and perspectives changing as they learn more about others people’s thoughts, sometimes through those frank conversations, and sometimes through their literature club activities. Because, in the end, literature is about that. Is about seeing something through the lenses of someone else, and learning empathy because of it. And as the series progresses, each character grows closer to a better understanding of the people around them, and a better understanding of themselves.

And I’d dare to say that so did I.