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Jun 27, 2021
A confession:
I feel a great need to wear surgical gloves as I type out this review, for fear of the shame trembling out from my fingertips and leaving a residue on my keyboard. Indeed, I've used this keyboard to lambaste a great variety of anime, and regardless of the words I've chosen, I have always taken to these reviews with a measure of pride. However after finishing Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san, I looked down at these keys, lovingly decorated with the vinyl Harry Potter stickers I bought on Etsy last year, and felt tangible embarrassment for the first time. For a moment, I couldn't believe that it's
...
actually my job to watch and write about crap like this. I publicly set the show to 'dropped' because I didn't want my co-workers to see me watching it. Maybe I need a break. Or maybe the industry as a whole needs one, because I weep at the thought of the collective time it's wasted with series such as this.
Summary:
Let me skip right to the apotheosis of this review: This show is cheap smut in everything but name. While there are a handful of self-deluding holdouts who pretend Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san has comedic value or narrative worth, the overwhelming majority of people who watch this show do so because they like the idea of being emasculated by an imperious woman. I've admittedly shared a similar fantasy since finishing Living History (2003), but that was an incidental, natural reaction to a stellar book. Nagatoro is, conversely, a shameless treadmill of fantasy-enabling gestures with no goalpost or meaning. From start to finish, the intended way to enjoy this show is to project yourself onto the frail, insecure, and utterly doomed male protagonist as he is incessantly tortured by a salacious girl. It subsists entirely upon that preexisting interest, and never once dares to venture beyond it.
Simply put, it is a 12 episode-long lobotomy and it would be a waste of time to write about any particular scene because they all consist of the same premise: Nagatoro teases “senpai”, and a mistake or a misunderstanding results in the teasing being slightly more lewd than she intended. Roll credits. That's it, genuinely. There is no further context to be extracted from this shameless carnival of a series. I've covered it all.
For all intents and purposes, that's my review. There is, however, a pressing matter that deserves additional study. I am of course referring to the blistering controversy surrounding the show's localization: If get one more email about Nagatoro saying "sus" I'm going to drive my tesla straight into the fucking sea and scream the whole way to the ocean floor.
For the love of god, leave me alone. I know already. I had to watch for three days and nights as you animals argued about whether or not that specific localization choice counts as a war crime. I nearly ripped my eyelids off when my former friend Esposito drunkenly called me to ramble about “ethics in anime localization” because he was so pissed off about it. Let me clue you all in on a really scary fact: You have every reason to be worried about localization, because Moscow has been influencing it for years. I have seen some extremely malignant and untrue lines about the United States in anime subtitles, such as “It's an illegitimate settler state” and “their infrastructure sucks gorilla balls” (slightly paraphrasing). To spread their propaganda, hostile agencies target huge media platforms with undiscerning audiences, and anime is #1 in that category, closely followed by Marvel “movies”.
But the thing that finally spurs you all to action is a character in this dumpster-fire of a show saying "Sus"? I don't know who or what is responsible for that one insignificant line, but I can promise you that it is, cosmically, the least significant issue you could ever have with subtitles. You need to be worried about the real problems, like unknowingly reading anime subs funded and influenced by notorious Russian mob-boss Semion Mogilevich. Ever wonder why you started humoring dangerous, economy-destroying ideas like nationalizing the hospitality industry after watching Little Witch Academia? You are not immune to propaganda. Direct your vigilance to a rational place.
Conclusion:
Despite all my issues with Nagatoro, I can still recommend the show to the emotionally immature young men who comprise its target audience, although I'm not sure how they'd ever get around to it with so many Marvel movies and first person shooter games keeping them busy. As for me, I'm going to wash my hands of the show, because it's bloody dreadful. Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san gets a fat and definitive 3/10 from me.
Please don't watch it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jun 5, 2020
Preface
The lights in the theater breathe back to life and the mobs of slobbering children begin to surge out of their seats, spilling into the exit lanes with reckless abandon. Still sitting betwixt the undulating streams of moviegoers, you stare vacantly at Zootopia's credits as they crawl up the screen, paralyzed in a state of sheer misery. With Kesha's abominable music roaring through the now-empty theater, you slump down into your seat, crushed under the weight of your own dejection. Alone amid the maelstrom of scattered popcorn and nondescript viscera, you wonder if you should just end it all right here and now. In truth,
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the only thing keeping you going is the confidence that you'll never have to experience a dog-shit 'animal society' story like this ever again.
Or so you thought...
Enter Beastars, the decrepit anime version of Zootopia that only the most depraved of weeaboos and furries asked for. Mathematically sharing the exact same amount of spunky bunnies, corrupt Lion Mayors, and lazy social metaphors, Beastars is quite possibly the feeblest and most derivative narrative of 2019, relying almost completely on a veneer of animal allegory to tell what would otherwise be a repugnant and unwatchable story. So thorough is my discontentment for this show that it took me months to find words adequate for summarizing its long list of affronts. I've been a writer since, arguably, before I was born, and yet my affinity did nothing to protect me from the proverbial writer's block constricting all who describe the incorrigible.
It was only at the nadir of my journey, where selling my Tesla stock and diving headfirst into a wood-chipper seemed preferable to thinking about Beastars for one more second, that I had my epiphany. Hastily, I gathered my notebook and limited edition Gryffindor quill, intent on doing the unthinkable: I rented Zootopia and watched it again, knowing that the only way to indict Beastars was to indict its inspiration. I began taking notes in earnest, and like the rising dread one feels before vomiting, my thoughts on Beastars slowly bubbled to the surface during Zootopia's 1hr 50m run-time, ascribable at last. What follows could have easily been my final testament.
A Fundamental Rule
When constructing an alternate reality as a direct analog to the real world, a writer must project an acute understanding of their setting's chronology, and respectfully articulate where and how it diverges from real-world history. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're writing a story set in a modern time where humans never domesticated animals, and the combustion engine was never invented. It only stands to reason that nearly everything about your setting will be starkly different. History plays out in a completely alien manner; markets and economies, should they even exist anymore (god let's hope they do), will function in an entirely different paradigm. If you're willing to put the thought and effort in, this hypothetical premise might produce an interesting and dynamic universe. Done lazily, and it might come to resemble a grotesque facsimile of the Flintstones, where the world miraculously looks and functions the same as usual except vehicles are driven solely by using your two legs. “What about airplanes”, you ask? Go fuck yourself.
Animal Planet
This necessary component of world-building is what's missing in the hollow core of Zootopia and its lesser cousin Beastars. In both cases we're presented with a world that is virtually indistinguishable from the one we live in, despite being shared by thousands of sapient species for all of history – each with their own instincts, physiology, and dietary needs. Indeed, Beastars rejects its diegetic responsibility to build its own history and setting, instead opting to supplant human beings with anthropomorphic animals and have them prattle about in a near 1-1 replica of the real world. The instant you have the gall to ponder how and why everything looks the same, you begin asking very uncomfortable questions, such as how WWII played out in the Beastars universe, or how the economy doesn't buckle trying to provide for the litany of different species operating in it, or if there's also generic high schools full of dolphins, sharks, and jellyfish doing equally uninteresting things under the sea.
Delve too deep into the flimflam and your questions become even more existential. For example, you might start to wonder why a wolf is shacked up with a dumbass Labrador Retriever character, despite there being no humans to domesticate wolves into dogs. The rabbit hole goes on for an eternity from here, and regrettably, I can not bring you back from the dull void you must now embark on. Beastars doesn't expect you to ponder these questions, and it doesn't leave a smidgen of satisfaction for those who do. Whereas Zootopia did the bare minimum by depicting the wildly creative architecture required to house a variety of differently-sized animals in one city, Beastars offers up little more than the occasional sight of a mouse-sized door or chair. It's for this reason that we can consider Beastars the apogee of shitty world-building. Instead of capitalizing on its infinite potential and telling a story in a rich alternate reality, it plants us in the same high school we've seen in millions of different (and usually better) anime series.
Beastars doesn't take risks and foreshadow an aquatic invasion spurred by encroaching sea levels, or depict a world reeling from the grip of Marsupial Fascism. Instead, it drags us through a deranged story about a troubled loner struggling with his simultaneous desires to eat and fuck his bunny friend, which I don't find particularly relatable or compelling. And that brings me to the denouement of my theory - the very heart of why I hate Beastars with every fiber of my being: The characters are only animals because the relationship between the two leads would be beyond disturbing otherwise, and Beastars likely wouldn't have been published, let alone adapted, if they were humans. And maybe that would be for the best, because Beastars is truly the lowest on the food-chain of stories.
Conclusion
I can't say that I was invested in a single plot point the show offers up during its school drama spiel, and when the Lion Mafia is suddenly introduced into the story to add tension, I was somehow even less interested. If this show accomplishes anything from a narrative standpoint, then I wasn't able to see it because I was too distracted by its nonsensical setting. I sincerely believe that this show is only liked by people who want to have intercourse with the wolf or the tiny rabbit character; or at least I certainly hope that's the reason, because I can't comprehend enjoying Beastars on any other merit.
I've been burned by awful animal stories too many times, and quite frankly, I'm at my limit. I went through it with Zootopia, I went through it with Beastars, I went through it with the original Dr. Dolittle. And now, just in case I wasn't already sufficiently miserable, Satan himself has risen from the depths to shit out even more garbage in the form of Brand New Animal, which I'm urged to watch every day via the emails you relentless goblins spew at me. In the deepest shuttering of my conscious, I picture the boardroom where yet another no-talent hack is currently negotiating an anime adaptation of The Office where all the characters are talking animals. Oh wait, it already exists and it's called Aggretsuko.
I'm tired. My friends see it on my face every day. Beastars has taken from me, and I expect I'll resent its infectious memory until the day death comes to relieve me. I'm done.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Feb 9, 2020
As an ardent connoisseur of visual media, you inevitably develop a refined and intrinsic sense for genre, one which allows you to quickly identify any titular work with an abstraction of its parts. Just as an engineer might recognize a machine's function solely by the arrangement of cogs inside, a practiced aesthete will know what a picture in motion will look like long before arriving at the last frame. In my case, I could immediately tell that K-ON! ultimately exists to deceive and disenfranchise its own audience, preying on them as they try desperately to fill the hole left behind by the traumas of life
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and the onslaught of time. Within minutes I was dreadfully aware that this show is a one-way track to even deeper depths of sadness.
K-ON! entices the dregs of society with the promise of carefree musical fun, so potent and enchanting that you'll forget we're all on a burning rock hurling towards Armageddon. But when really analyzed – when looked at as an actual work instead of a liquid injection of "kawaii" BULLSHIT – K-ON's strain of happiness is quickly seen as a disingenuous sort, only believable in the mind of someone who has never had a real human interaction and never plans to. Without going into detail about the barely-existent plot, K-ON! can be summarized as a comatose fever-dream in which literally nothing bad or troubling ever happens - except this concept is played straight and as though existence in such an intangible bubble is relatable.
In fact, while K-ON! is technically about a group of musicians trying to hone their skills and make something of themselves, the plot is largely incidental to the real purpose of the show: Watching cute girls doing cute things in a perfectly controlled environment. K-ON! is painstakingly crafted to exude warmth and comfort down to the atomic level, positively reaming the viewer with a thunderous torrent of cutesy antics and adorable interactions. Our charming cast enjoys a delightful existence of care-free music-playing, snack-eating, and group hugs - all in the cozy alcove that is their club room, which is kept at a perfect temperature and insulated from the Mormons.
I can't understate just how utopian this show is. Their world is so perfect that we can only assume the fossil fuel industry is nominally taxed and Elon Musk has finished the Hyperloop, ushering in an era of unprecedented prosperity for all. If it sounds like I'm pitching a good time right now, then congratulations, you've fallen into the same trap as the sorry souls before you. No matter how high your spirits are when watching this show, you're still going to be dragged kicking and screaming back to the real world each time the credits roll, no happier or more fulfilled than you were before. Where other shows can leave lasting positive effects, K-ON! will leave you listless and empty every time you finish an episode and remember the Hyperloop isn't real. All that has changed is that you have another unfillable craving on top of the preexisting ones: The craving to watch K-ON! so that you may forget the coldness in your own bones for another twenty or so minutes.
The reason for this lack of a long-lasting payoff is that K-ON! is too perfect. So peaceful and content that its highest peaks are still too low. No matter how well one can suspend their disbelief, it's always evident when something is too cheery to be real. Nothing in K-ON! resembles a world that can exist. No person depicted exemplifies a state of mind that can be fulfilled. The show is utterly devoid of genuine humanity, which principally requires that our happiness is scraped from the underbelly of a world that is always working against us. Happiness is granted in K-ON! - inherent and inalienable for all its characters. In truth, the entire series is an artifice built for the sole purpose of hooking lonely and vulnerable people in order to sell merchandise and a wealth of music that is not fully listenable in the show (which is an admirable fiscal pursuit worthy of respect, but we're talking solely in artistic terms at the moment).
Indeed, I knew from the start that the most memorable part of this show would be seeing my own tired and miserable face staring back at me in the TV's reflection when an episode ends. Where in K-ON! the layman will find warmth and comfort, the dilettante will find a crushing, perennial emptiness not unlike the kind felt when Obama left office. Where the uninitiated will see cute girls drinking tea, eating sweets, and playing instruments, the critically inclined will see aliens masquerading as a malformed idea of human beings – ones who are entirely unburdened by the cruelty of reality and the consequences of living. The nauseating barrage of platitudes on friendship will ring hollow because they are spoken by surrogate characters who have never felt pain and will therefore never feel love.
However 'cute' Yui, Ritsu, Mugi, Mio, and Azusa may seem to you, they are ultimately an insidious trick. These nonliving things prattling about the club-room represent the zenith of lies fed to us by Kawaii culture and the Kremlin agents who invented it to keep us docile. As the complicated nature of the real world wears you down, you will be continually tempted to alienate yourself from reality and return to K-ON! so you can experience a synthetic and addictive brand of happiness that the real world lacks.
As the minutiae of each nearly-identical episode recedes and coalesces into a single awful memory, you will stare vacantly out the window and think back to a distant time when there was more to life than this; painfully conscious of every solitary second you've spent watching K-ON!
Ultimately, I'm still glad this property exists because it created a multitude of products to buy, thus stimulating the economy. But nevertheless, if you're even considering watching this show, then that probably means your spark has gone out. It would behoove you to try reigniting it elsewhere, because make no mistake:
K-ON! is a show meant for the dead.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jul 20, 2019
[Part 1: Introduction]
As the dwindling wine swashes to and fro in my glass, I struggle to find a uniting thread atop which Hunter X Hunter's myriad arcs can be described. The series is a jovial but deeply confused hodgepodge of conflicting themes and narratives, some so starkly different from the last that they'd be better suited for an entirely different series rather than a single continuity.
This may be less noticeable when watching week-to-week as originally intended, but when binged, Hunter x Hunter is not unlike a train wreck - except instead of being over in a flash, the viewer must watch in horror as
...
each train-car crashes into the next in agonizing slow motion, eventually coalescing into an infernal scrapheap from which the original shape of the story can no longer be divined. Just when you think the blaze is past its zenith, another train-car comes careening into the fray, exploding the shattered remains of the story all over again.
To accurately summarize Hunter x Hunter as a complete work, we'll need to backtrack all the way to the beginning and appreciate the series for what it was before it meteorically spun off the rails and hurled itself towards an excruciating demise. It won't take long since Hunter x Hunter was only good for a short time.
[Part 2: When Hunter x Hunter Was Good]
Hunter x Hunter, as any narratively-educated person would tell you, was best before it introduced the bullshit anything-goes superpower known as neen. Simple in form but satisfying in execution, the series originally focused on boy-genius Gone Freecss striving to follow in his mysterious dad's footsteps by acquiring a hunting license; a privilege also coveted by the initially strong supporting characters, Kurapika and Killua. Using only their natural aptitudes and signature tools (fishing rod, glowing eyes, and skateboard, respectively), Gone and co. set out on a varied adventure full of interesting challenges and encounters.
What any seasoned anime viewer will immediately appreciate is the relatively grounded action and progression. Without getting overly specific, Hunter x Hunter diligently ensures that each enemy and obstacle is overcome diegetically, utilizing the environment, the tools available, and the characters' inherent wits. From Gone outplaying Hisoka with his trusty fishing rod, to Killua utilizing his past as a skateboarding mercenary, everything in the first arcs of Hunter x Hunter feels earned. Abilities and talents remain strictly within the universe's realm of probability, and the power-scale develops organically as our characters progress through the Hunter Exam by the skin of their teeth. THIS is how you write Shōnen.
Watching the tension developing between Hisoka and our main cast was an absolute joy, and experiencing the theatrics between the Hunter Exam and the Heaven Tournament arcs left me consistently surprised and delighted. All of this eventually culminates in a beautifully animated fight between Gone and Hisoka, which I wholeheartedly recommend as the 'true' conclusion to the series, because it all falls apart shortly after.
[Part 3: When Hunter x Hunter Went Off the Rails and Exploded]
Everything you just read gets thrown out the window when neen is haphazardly conceived and shoved into the story out of nowhere. With no previous indication of its nature or existence, this half-baked power infects the characters at every turn and transitions the story from a sensibly-scaled adventure into an unholy whirlpool of tropes 'borrowed' from other series (especially Alien). Over the show's infuriatingly prolonged run-time, our characters will slog through battle after battle with other neen-users, most of which utilize wholly silly and unsatisfying abilities.
(Kurapika is the biggest offender here, utilizing immensely powerful magic to summon, wait for it... chains. CHAINS. Tell me with a straight face that somebody who uses reality-bending magic to summon run-of-the-mill chains is cool. You can't, because they aren't.)
What follows is simultaneously everything and nothing, because each subsequent arc is little more than a contrived set-piece without any real purpose or thoughtfulness. One arc will feature our characters entering a video game (not a joke), the next will have them fighting a xenomorph/Cell knockoff in a fictionalized rendition of Australia, and so on. Each previous arc is immediately forgotten upon the introduction of the next, and with that forgetfulness often comes abandoned characters and unresolved plot threads. One of the worst examples of wasted potential in serialized history.
I would elaborate on the voice acting or soundtrack, but there's really nothing of note in that department except for Hisoka's performance.
I can strongly recommend the first three or so arcs to anyone. I can only recommend the others to someone who is hospitalized and has nothing else to do (but only if you're not in critical condition because this trash could kill you.)
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 29, 2019
I genuinely cannot comprehend a bigger waste of time than watching a movie about a 'witch' who does nothing but fly on a broom. They don't even have a wand. They don't cast any magic. They waste their monumental supernatural abilities on delivering useless trinkets in return for pitiful wages. This isn't inspiring or empowering on any remote level, and having been in an open relationship with a third-generation wicken for several years, I find its depiction of witchcraft to be wholly unconvincing.
What's more, the director seemingly forgot that the cat could talk about three quarters of the way through the film. For a
...
movie with such meticulous detail in the visual department, you'd think an editor would've caught such a glaring gap in the script. Oh well, it can't be helped I suppose.
Good animation, everything else was appalling.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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