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Does it even need a spoiler warning when nothing has happened?

It feels like the whole part 1 setup baited the audience making the anime seem a lot more than what it is. Some people will say "it was a spy anime that became a slice of life" and that is an offense to the genre, since dramas based on real life will have conflict, and this one is just happy, fluffy family moments. As a lot of people mentioned, part 1 focused a lot on Loid, while this one is just whatever, and Yor is just forgotten, left behind.

The kind of "plots" this series brings ... us are awful, mostly. I enjoyed the dog one, however the ones forcing "romance" all the time are annoying. Yuri, the worst character of the story, an incestuous asshole obsessed with his sister will appear sometimes and I guess you'll have to endure him. Useless to the plot, useless as a side story, useless to everything.

The other one, Damian Desmond has a lot of screentime, way more than Yor. Too bad since he makes it unwatchable. This annoying kid does nothing but bullying Anya and she will always have to interact with him because of "the mission", and without a plot it seems nothing more than a stupid excuse to make this scenes take place. At some point you realize this is just a bunch of fillers and since you don't like it you can skip the entire thing. But yeah the story will force this unhealthy relationship between six year olds as a romance. No, I didn't take any spoiler if there is any, but it's quite obvious what they're doing.

The new one this season, Nightfall. I liked her appearence when she first showed up and expected something more driven to the "main plot" (as if there was any) but it wasn't. Her entire character is to be bound to a male figure, all she wants is to fuck Loid, that is her entire motivation. May be funny at first but I got bored of her quickly. That is how straight people portray attraction and romance. While Loid and Yor, the only healthy couple, is completely forgotten and undeveloped. They barely interact.

Quick note, if Anya's purpose was making the audience want to have children, Damian is an advertisement to use condoms. Japan's population will stagnate this way.

So it's this way. There is no plot, unfortunately, and the next seasons will just be more of this, or at least for a while. This anime sells.

Do not confuse me as a hater, please. I like this anime, and therefore I wanted something more than the basic.

I didn't have much expectations for an anime from 2004 with no chance of being continued. Watanabe is a renowned director for Cowboy Bebop but I watched his recent work Carole & Tuesday that he didn't seem to have much freedom working on, so I was uncertain about Samurai Champloo. The anime turned out to be surprisingly good.

This anime was like a journey, to be honest. Each episode had a very own story, from start to finish, featuring interesting characters that are remarkable despite having appeared only once. Some of these arcs are boring, some are very good, but it's certainly something out of the ... mainstream. Samurai Champloo brings back the historical Japan, the end of the samurai era, how minority groups like the Ainu and Ryukyu islanders were treated, and even had an episode with a good LGBT representation which is very rare in anime. This anime showed to the outside world the overlooked aspects of the Japanese history and how dark it was even before World War 2, and how its societal system and the Western invasion affected the lives of people like our main characters, each one of them coming from different backgrounds.

Samurai Champloo is one of those "it's more about the journey" kind of stories. It's not very comedic or ultra dramatic like some of these tend to be, each episode gives you something to reflect. Well, it was boring sometimes, but I feel like this anime is an unique experience, and having 26 episodes is a delight. Anime is currently in an era that dictates that everything needs to be mainstream, everything needs to sell a lot and everything must have 12 episodes only. I can say a lot of out of the norm anime that were cancelled and rushed to fit 12 episodes that were never seen again. Something like this would never be produced today.

Although it could've been a lot better. It's good that we have a closure, but this one should have been longer, like, it's the only actual plot from the beginning to the end. Fuu's father only appears in the last episode, and his past is only mentioned briefly. He is not a "final boss" sort of figure but he is a terrible person, yet you don't have any strong feelings about it, not because he is a sick man, but because he is shallow.

Honestly, when we first saw Kariya, there were some hints that he was the samurai Fuu was looking for, and I thought he was Fuu's father for a time. But he wasn't. It would've been expected that Kasumi was a badass samurai and the final villain of the series? Maybe, but better than what was given, at least. This adds to Fuu not having a role in the closure besides being the most active character in the story and having focus in most of the episodes. Mugen faced his past enemies from Ryukyu, Jin had a duel with Kariya who caused the death of his old master, and Fuu sort of was there. Disappointing, beucase, although I love Jin and he is my favorite character, I wish Fuu had the larger role in the ending.

Eeach one of them had a closure, at least. And they part ways, of course. Why? The anime doesn't elaborate, even after it was clear they are friends. But I wasn't expecting something different, to be honest.

Rest in Peace Nujabes, the main responsible for this anime being so good.

Really cool anime overall, very unique. It combines a known premise (girl wants to be a successful musician and has to face the music industry) with a really original character that is Kongming. He is really random and comes up with wacky, absurd, smart strategies that are really good to see when he has good and realistic motivations. And it's really great for a comedy anime.

And he doesn't need to be the main character for this anime to be great. Eiko is the protagonist and her story hits so hard that you even forget that Kongming is also in the anime sometimes. It has a ... perfect combination of comedy and drama.

This comes a lot when Nanami and Eiko are on screen. They find each other to give us good music and cute scenes of them both, but also because they needed each other at that time. Eiko needed to find her "soul" and develop her music, and Nanami needed to find a path besides Azalea and her love for music again. And their relationship goes beyond making music, they really show affection for each other and in this sense their song "I'm still alive today" portraits it perfectly.

Besides looking this great, the anime rushes some things in the end and takes off some of the quality it could have had. I have two main issues with this besides it having many more.

The minor one is how they didn't give a closure to Eiko and Nanami in the last episode. Yeah she met the group wearing normal clothes and that's cool but there was no solo scene of them both and that makes it look incomplete, since they were the focus of the series for the entire second half and that is impossible to deny. Yeah there could be a season 2 and this wouldn't be an issue anymore, but excluding this the anime could close here perfectly, so I don't know if a sequel is coming.

The major one is how they solve the conflict with the villain. The guy put them in a Babymetal situation (Azalea has so many Babymetal references that it's impossible not to relate them) where they have no freedom, can't go out with their friends, can't appear in public, can't make music for real (autotune and artificial music production are something Babymetal is really into recently), are treated like objects PLUS they are forced to wear ridiculous BDSM suits.

He forced them to be his puppets and exposed their bodies to millions of people, and what is the closure? He continues to be their manager and they even THANK him afterwards. I really tried to erase that scene from my head.

Still, it's the best music anime I've seen, and the music is really great in this one.

TLDR: Boring, pointless and disappointing.

Watching the first episode and a clip with Azusa and Laika before the series I thought that this anime would have them both as protagonists. They have a good development and the first episode is great. However in the second episode and forward things got weird.

The slime daughters plot was okay and sure a cast with four characters have space for development, but I noticed the huge amount of characters in the OP and there would be more joining them soon. So yeah, episode 3 came throwing Laika into the corner and giving us a Walking Tits character with an overload ... of fanservice scenes. And episode 4 and the rest is more of it.

In conclusion, there is no story. There is no conflict, and when there is it's solved right away. It's simple enough to be a kids' show, but if that was the case I wouldn't be making a review out of this. The amount of sexual referrences makes it not be suitable for children either.

And there's queerbaiting of course. Walking Tits is there with random scenes of advancements on the protagonist and teasing, that are just to show her boobs bouncing. This anime doesn't even develop the characters' relationships. Laika is not even Azusa's friend or apprentice, they barely talk and she acts like a maid all the time. The daughters are there for fluff just like the rest, because nothing happens. All the plots that would make this an actual story are discarded.

I feel like I dodged a bullet. What a waste of time.

There are a lot of anime that are ruined by queerbaiting, and Aquatope is another case of this.

This 24-episode-anime has a lot of scenarios, arcs and themes dedicated to develop the relationship of Fuuka and Misakino, being that the main focus of the story. A relationship developed in a way that, if one of the protagonists was male, they would certainly make this a romance. But, since it's two girls, they'll pretend that homoaffective relationships don't exist and force this as a friendship. Well, they actually do it with more than one couple, that makes it more bizarre.

First, I'll talk about the other aspects of ... Aquatope. Its setup is quite simple, a slice of life drama in a coastal small town that spends a significant time talking about aquariums and sea creatures. That's interesting, well, if you're a marine biologist.

Our protagonist Misakino has a plot of trying to pursue her dream and saving the family business. Her non-stopping dedication to fight destiny is what makes her a good, interesting protagonist. Our other main character is Fuuka, a girl who failed being an idol and is now questioning her path in life, so she encounters Misakino, a girl she finds really interesting and who gives her a job and a place to live.

"Sometimes the best way to solve your problems is to help someone else" - Uncle Iroh, Avatar.

Misakino and Fuuka meeting is shown as something fated to happen. Fuuka was ashamed of going home after being cast out of the idol group, and she didn't know what to do or where to go, so finding the Gama Gama Aquarium was a way to start over her life, since she also found a place to be and people she could be friends with, one of them being Misakino.

That one, differently from Fuuka, has ambition and dreams she thinks that will be achieved if she fights for. And that's what Fuuka also wanted to feel and have for her life, but she doesn't have it right now. And she admires Misakino and is interested on her as a person too. We see this construction leading to this being shown clearly after a few episodes.

In the first episodes we focus a lot on their work and that Fuuka is really trying hard to help Misakino and the aquarium. In episode 4, she realizes it. She is dedicating a lot to help Misakino because she wants to know more about her. And Misakino feels the same, and then we have a heartwarming scene of them becoming closer and understanding each other.

And after that they grow closer every episode. It’s really beautiful the way they care about each other, always sticking together no matter the situation and how they demonstrate affection by words and physical contact, teasing that they felt something more. Their relationship was being like this for 9 episodes, until they decided that Misakino saw Fuuka as her dead sister.

They wanted to portrait their relationship as something closer than simple friendship, but at the same time didn’t want to make them a couple because, well, anime producers seem to deny the existence of love between two girls a lot.

So they make Misakino never overcome the death of her parents and her unborn sister, and she starts saying that she likes Fuuka as a sister and wants her to be her sister. This is so weird to watch not only because of the context given but also because it’s unnatural, people in real life don’t talk like this.

And it goes further with Fuuka saying “I can be your big sister” you’re the same age, for god’s sake. So, they had all this development of their relationship, teasing a lot of times that they liked each other romantically to discard it and force them as friends, or “sisters”, call what you like. If one of them was a guy, it would need 10% of this development for the anime to throw them as a romantic pair.

Between the two guys of the anime, Kuuya and Kai, I also saw something like that in a minor level. Mainly Kuuya, who was shown as someone who never liked girls, rejecting someone interested on him for not liking her and later being bullied because of it until he dropped out of school. Not only that, he enjoys the company of men more, specially Kai, the one who understands him the most. And Kuuya will even blush and be timid while next to him, and say things like “drinking is better next to handsome men”. Queerbaiting. Well, this subplot was also discarded, as Kai was thrown as a love interest for Misakino that he barely had scenes with, and Kuuya was just left there.

Aside from the queerbaiting, that isn’t much to say. This anime is sometimes a drama, sometimes a feel-good story, but the arcs by themselves are very standard. Well, if Gama Gama’s supernatural effects and that red-haired kid were well-developed, maybe it would be better in that sense, but it isn’t.

The scenarios don’t actually matter, and you see this in the second half, when the characters change where they work and live and there is a lot of new people and situations in the series. Almost no one is interested on fish or aquariums, and it's not what drove the story either.

It's Misakino's pursuit of her dream, Fuuka's need to find herself and how these two grow close together, having a story of finding your soulmate. The relationships between these characters is what made this anime so special in the beginning. With them having disappointing endings it's just an empty shell of a story about marine biology.

Honestly, what is even the point? Even marine biologists watching this wouldn't like that much focus on their area. If it's just a dump of information without a story you'd rather watch a documentary.

The animation is good, and I like the artstyle. As for the sound, it didn’t have something out of the ordinary and the songs were okay. And the side characters were generally good in the beginning, but later on there were some that were really annoying. I also liked the cute scenes, even when afterwards they meant nothing.

Anyways, making Misakino and Fuuka girlfriends, or giving them a natural development of a friendship, wouldn’t make this anime a masterpiece worthy of a 10, but it would improve it a lot, since they were the main focus. That ending with them being like that and separated because of drama was just disappointing, and a waste of what could’ve been an amazing story.

Once again, if one of them was a guy they surely would've made them a couple.

This anime was quite a surprise. First because the story was a lot darker and more complicated than it looked like in the beginning. Second, because the ending surprised me. Still, I don't think it's a masterpiece or the best of the season.

Bad aspects:

I like this show as much as I like the Thai series "Girl from Nowhere", because they are very similar in one point: A small problem appears to a character, their obvious solution for it is killing.

In Oddtaxi there is three types of characters: Total assholes being psychos sometimes (Nikaido, her manager, all gangsters, the other cat idol, Odokawa's parents, older Daimon, ... Baba); Airheads that are too easily manipulated (Kakihana, Imai, younger Daimon); and the normal ones (the comedian, Gouriki, the other idol) that have few representatives. Odokawa himself is a mix of all three types, but he is a good character. At the end, at least.

All of this "complete assholes tricking complete idiots" dynamic was tiring after some episodes, and there were characters that I was really hoping for them to die just for how cartoony evil or annoingly stupid they were (that's hippo that I'm talking about).

Good aspects:

The ending had one of the greatests plot twists I've seen. Because there are a lot of anime where the characters are humanized animals and you won't question the nature of that. But this one did it, also giving us an amazing, unexpected closure.

I was also worried that they would romanticize some of the Assholes/Psychos but nah, the anime also shut my mouth with that. All of them got what they deserved, except one, of course, but there's more to the story than just what we've seen. Overall it was a good partially open ending.

The animation was also good but I don't like the OP and ED.

Picture this: You're a new girl in high school who only has two friends, trying to meet new people. You had a friend who liked you but you didn't feel the same, and you don't feel this passion for anyone, you're aromantic, possibly asexual. Then you meet this guy at school, he is part of the student council and seems like a cool dude. You talk to him for a bit, but there's nothing personal about you, you're not even friends yet, you JUST met him. Still, he already touches you, grabs next to him and stares at you in an uncomfortably close position and ... says that he is in love with you. Creepy, right?

Okay, he might be weird but it's okay if he knows that you just want to be friends with him. But this guy won't stop there, he will throw all his insecurities into you, he will call you to help him as a pre-condition to be close to you again, and then, during a normal conversation, he will suddenly kiss you. A person that he met ONE DAY AGO, WITHOUT CONSENT when you clearly show that you're uncomfortable with it. Then, this guy will carry on like nothing happened and will continue to go after you.

Well, sure he is creepy and obsessed with you, and suddenly kissing you without consent puts him in another level of stalker. He is definitely a perv, and who knows what he may try to do with you later on. Your relation with him has no basis, is clearly forced and no one should root for it.

Now, change this "guy" to a girl and you will have Yagate Kimi ni Naru, a anime people love to praise as the best yuri of all time despite having an abusive, nonconsensual relationship that comes out of nowhere. Just another case of an abusive romance that people love just because it's two girls in it.

It's disappointing when it ends with them not kissing but I'd rather watch one like this than one where they rush their relationship to physical contact just for fanservice.

The Great Pretending that this anime is a well written story about con artists making well-crafted schemes and not a giant mess full of nonsensical plot twists and protagonism.

The Great Pretender was in fact a good anime in the beginning and it quickly became one of my favorites. The first season is worthy of a 10, with great schemes and character development put together in three interesting cases. This anime was very creative and stood out of the ordinary with fresh new ideas and characters with well constructed personalities. And it even chose a Freddie Mercury song for the outro! What could possibly go wrong?

Season ... 2 happened, giving us a very risky storyline that could go both ways: 1 - Give the anime an epiphany and improve a lot with a great story that may have been unexpected when you started watching but had been slowly building up to this point, or 2 - Putting it as a giant bait and resolve it in an edgy, disappointing way of ruining the show.

This arc was supposed to be Laurent's story as we finally get to know his flashback and why he is the way he is, and it all makes sense. With all that has happened in his childhood and after losing Dorothy, he basically gave up his soul to become a smart, unbeatable scammer who takes down gangsters, monarchs and rich bastards. All of that so he could avenge Dorothy in the future. This is why he is so selfish, arrogant and careless for the people he likes, he gave up on his human emotions with the trauma he suffered long ago.

This adds well to Laurent and Makoto’s duality that makes them as perfect antagonist and protagonist. They work together, but Makoto is constantly trying to outsmart him and failing, and always falling into his schemes, over and over again. Laurent likes the boy, but because of his past he is not attached nor shows any sign of true friendship towards him, seeing him more as a tool for his schemes. And Makoto eventually gets tired of it.

Makoto’s development is different from the rest. He starts as a low-level scammer who is actually a good guy, and he has a good heart, as we see in his interactions with his mom, Salazar, Abby and Cynthia. He has good ideals and wants to come out clean to live a normal life, something that Laurent’s team has taken from him a lot of times.

This is why Makoto is an interesting character in season 2. He has always been easily manipulated by the people around him, mainly by Laurent and recently his own father, and now that he works for Suzako, who besides being a TERRIBLE person who sells children, manipulates him really well and he is with someone who actually shows any care for him and treats him like family. And after all he’s been through, he had all the development to hate Laurent and to be what this season teased a lot of times, a villain who would outsmart him.

Laurent may be somewhat of a good guy in the series but he is an antihero, as he screws over murderers, gangsters and people who are actually terrible, having unusual means for that. And by that I mean using Abby, Cynthia and Makoto as tools just so his plans can work. As an example, he knows Abby is suicidal and takes advantage of it to put her in risky situations that may result in her death, because she doesn’t care about her life. And we also have Makoto, whom he plays a lot with.

Makoto went through a lot during the series. He was a petty thief in Japan who had to flee the country because of Laurent, who also got him involved with narcotraffic, then he got tricked for the first time for trying to do what his moral compass said and denounce the international scammers to the FBI. After that, he tried to come out clean, spent some time in prison and tried to live an honest life as a mechanic, but Laurent won’t let that happen, he will set up a fake mentor for Makoto to look up to and believe that he is rebuilding his life, just so he could be completely broken when the truth is revealed afterwards and accept working for him again.

Even so he tried to do the “honest part” of the work by just being a mechanic, but ended up playing a major role in the scammers’ plan against the brothers and almost died for it. Once again he tries to come out clean, but Laurent sets up another plan and makes Makoto get into it. After that, one more time Makoto tries to live a normal life but, surprise surprise, Laurent manipulated everything so he could accidentaly join the Yakuza and become a tool to Laurent's plan to avenge his wife.

At that point I would have become paranoid with Laurent, and this is Makoto’s case as well. Many times he tried to be an honest person, just so Laurent could break his moral compass and show that there is no escape from him. After years with this guy and three schemes, he is told that his only purpose was to train for this big scheme of avenging Dorothy. And because of the father he hates, who also happens to be Laurent’s best friend.

In his last attempt of being a good person, Makoto tries to free the children that Suzaku is trafficking, just so his father could betray him. Then he has to watch two of his friends die in front of him, kill his own father and be left alone for MONTHS, without any information from Laurent nor knowing the truth about Abby and Cynthia. And Laurent planned for it to be that way, it all made sense in his head as he clearly underestimated Makoto. He believed that he would never turn against him, and even if he did, he would not manage to outsmart him.

Don't get me wrong, they may have forced the opposit but Suzaku is a TERRIBLE PERSON, she SELLS CHILDREN. And by choosing to stay on her side, helping her and liking her, he is choosing the dark side. And it makes sense that he does so. Because Laurent showed him that there was no escape from the life of crime, lied to him and played him like a toy, over and over again. And, because of him, Makoto is living the way he is. He has all the reasons to HATE Laurent and has the perfect construction of a protagonist turned into a villain. And this leads to the final scene.

The scene where Makoto betrays Laurent. He follows his plan of defeating both companies and stealing their money, and then brings up an armed group to surrender them and protect Suzaku. And what could the french scammer do? He didn’t think about this at all, he was trying to avenge the love of his life, the only thing he cared more than schemes and heists. He was hallucinating with Dorothy on his chair, Dorothy talking to him, and even bursted into anger in the end by attempting to kill Liu to avenge her death. His only trace of humanity was also his fatal flaw, and Makoto took the chance to finally outsmart him.

Then he has his own Kira moment, he laughs and give us a speech that sums the entire series perfectly. Con artists are supposed to be lone wolves and independent, but when the hard times come, they will sacrifice everything for the group. Oz let himself be imprisoned, abandoned his son and wife and let her die alone just so he could help Laurent avenge Dorothy. And he is honest about the scammers, even though they’re in the right here, as you know, he is working for a woman who sells children. He finally confronts his dad, Laurent and the group and shows that their actions towards him had a consequence. Just so, in his arrogance, he makes a mistake and dies.

I wish that was the ending.

What happens next is a bunch of nonsense that shows that this is not a single story. Rather, a lot of different stories squished into one.

They wanted to do Makoto’s bastardization and revolt, but also wanted to make a happy ending where the protagonists can all be friends and make a possibility of a third season.

They make all of this be a plan, and it makes no sense. Makoto showing his true feelings and hiring an additional group to throw off one of his allies makes no sense. Their reactions and the unnecessary acting of all that makes no sense. Makoto’s character construction of becoming a villain and Laurent messing up his biggest plan because of his decay into madness and the trauma of losing Dorothy, all thrown into the trash.

The second season had other problems like Oz’s introduction and quickly redemption with his son that ends in a betrayal that is very predictable for how fast the entire thing is. Another one was the recycling of the first arc’s fakeout deaths of two main characters who turned out to be alive and working together with the person who killed them.

And also Makoto’s second meeting with the father he supposedly killed, not acting surprised or shocked, that tied up in a 2-episode flashback sequence without explaining anything of what was happening in the current time. And don’t forget that Makoto, who spent months imprisoning and training child slaves, doesn’t get that mentioned at all afterwards, as they force us that he has never done anything fucked up like a villain would do.

Talking about Oz, I gotta mention that he is the absolut worst character of this series.

He neglected his family for decades, didn't care about his wife dying in a hospital bed, didn't care to go after his son, hid the truth from him, and that's just him on the "good side". He worked for the chinese mafia for YEARS, dealing with human traffic and helping Liu and Suzaku SELL CHILDREN, and it's a huge thing to justify by saying that somehow this was part of the Avenging Dorothy Master Plan. All of that just to make Makoto's final confrontation with him a complete JOKE and make him instantly forgive him afterwards.

But, yeah, for me the thing that ruined this great anime was The Great Fanservice at the end and the discarding of what could have made this anime really stand out. And also they bringing up the first three villains, Cassano (narcotrafficker, murderer, rapist), Ibrahim (scammer, pedophile, murderer, crippled Lewis) and Coleman (scammer, thief, manipulator, ruined Cynthia's boyfriend's entire life) as friendly and living happy, wealthy lives, just to ruin the first 3 arcs. And also Dorothy being alive this whole time, just to shit even more on this season's story and to take out the sense of Laurent's motivations.

By the way did I mention that they bring up human traffic, romanticize the person who does it and this whole plot is totally overshadowed by the revenge one and literally NOTHING happens to the traffickers afterwards?

The first season was good and I recommend it, but the second one was a huge awful mess. It's like a pizza cutter. Too edge, no point.

Between this and Yesterday I think I won't watch anymore animes whose titles are references to great songs by legendary musicians. They tend to turn out terribly.

Shingeki no Kyojin used to be my favorite series. It was actually the anime that made me get into manga, and being so interesting I read it all quickly and catched up until the latest chapter. It was really good, I was very excited to read it monthly and I’ve been doing it since 2017, four years ago. Thus, the reason why I, as many people, have a strong opinion about SnK.
If you’re a Eren stan or a fanboy who can’t take criticism don’t bother reading this, and if you feel like attacking/ sending hate just because I have my own opinion, go ahead and ... do it, you’re the one losing your time. Here I’ll talk, among many things, how SnK ruined itself and romanticized nazism.


I won’t be long talking about the good aspects of the manga, because each one of them vanished after the Marley arc, and the bad aspects overshadow them significantly. I still consider season 1 and 2 really good and season 3 a masterpiece, but after that it’s an entirely different manga. Almost none of the characters resemble their original selves and they seem to be killed and replaced by clones with entirely different personalities during this timeskip.

The most basic example of this is Floch, a character that we got to know only in later season 3. And there he showed to be a very human character, someone unwilling to die for wider ideals, and he hated Eren and his group’s selfishness on saving Armin instead of Erwin. Post-timeskip, his personality is gone and he is Mikasa 2.0, just an edgy minion of Eren who is willing to do anything for his master.

Unfortunately this did not happen only to minor characters, but also to almost everyone. Jean, Armin and Connie, whatever story they have before was discarded just so they could become Eren’s submissive bodyguards. The guy went out on his own to attack Marley, made them do a mass killing of innocents, caused Sasha’s death and imprisoned them. After that they decide that the best thing to do is to protect him and fight Reiner’s group because, suddenly, “Eren is our friend and he has always tried to do what is best for us”.

This is basically pissing on their friend’s grave and on the build up for this characters. Their actions should have an impact on them, I mean Reiner spent seasons regretting his actions and wanting to die after realising what he did by breaking the walls. These are characters that we have followed for three seasons, that have a strong moral compass to do what’s here, and as Hanji obviously says “genocide is wrong”. While Reiner is someone who actually feels that, with these guys it’s just “Oh we did the thing, right? Eh, whatever, let’s stick with Eren he used to be a good friend”.

And this should affect Armin the most, as he was the one to destroy entire neighborhoods with his colossal titan. Armin by himself is one of the manga’s greatest problems: He went from a genius to the dumbest character in the entire series who is also horny for a girl in a coma. Everything about Armin in season 4 is forced, as he is constantly defending a mass murderer lunatic who caused her friend’s death, imprisoned them and abused their best friend since childhood.

This is ridiculous because you think that even if Armin didn’t turn against Eren after doing a mass murder in Liberio (which by itself is already stupid) he will realise the truth at some point. But, well, he doesn’t. Even when Eren and Zeke are attacking Shiganshina and killing a lot of their own people, he is still shouting that this is a plan, that Eren is trying to help them and such. And after that, even when they join the final alliance against him, him and Mikasa are still arguing that they should TALK to Eren so he will stop his plan.

This is the genius that would save humanity and that was chosen to live instead of Erwin, a complete clown, that helps on making the ending of a manga who used to be amazing to look more of a complete joke. Quoting other review, Eren may be the worst character but Armin is the most hateful character. He is forced as a heroic main character who supposedly has ideals of peace and diplomacy and gets a lot of screentime, while defending Eren and treating him like a god.

There is nothing much to say about Mikasa, as she’s always been the way she was in the end. Supposed to be one of the main characters, she never evolves to something more than Eren’s no. 1 bodyguard. People that say she is “best girl” probably want a girlfriend like this: a “badass strong independent woman” who is good at fighting but doesn’t have a will and won’t ever stop being submissive and weak towards the male main character.

Related to it, we also have some romance plots dragged into the story. You see, Isayama had the capability to create and develop a beautiful relationship between Hisu and Ymir in season 2, and the same with Marlo and Hitch, Reiner and Bertholdt, Hanji and Levi, Annie and Hitch and others, but those were put as simple “friendships” when they could mean something more.

What he actually thinks as good romances are Armin and Annie who had nothing to do with each other and Eren and Mikasa (tags: gore, incest, necrophilia, abuse, physical violence). This is just a minor thing among many others, and now with other issues to the story.

After turning a lot of characters into Eren’s minions, there were few good ones left from the previous seasons, like Hanji and Levi. The new ones were great, though, and I really enjoyed most of the marley crew and Niccolo. Still they’re being written by the same guy who paints Eren as a misunderstood hero, so you may guess the result.

Hanji was my favorite character and I quit when she died, and that led to a person in my profile think I quit and gave it a 1 just because of it. It's not the case, but it was a stupid death indeed. It was better than Ymir's flashback death in two frames of course, but the circumstances were plain stupid.

They needed to solve a thing and then escape, and with a giant wave of colossal titans coming, she decided that she would, alone, buy them time (????) by taking down two of the hundreds of titans that were marching there and then dying. This suicidal plan of her made no sense and didn't buy any time for the escape as she didn't stop the gigantic wave that was ready to smash them. It was just a stupid excuse to kill off another character for no reason, and it's really frustrating to see that SnK resorted to this after having delivered well the deaths of Kenny, Hannes, Colt, Galliard and Erwin.

Talking about discarded main characters, I often forget that Hisu used to be one. She was relevant in season 2 and the political arc from season 3 was basically hers. She learned how to be fierceful, independent and stood up against her manipulative father. Then, she became the queen, a great role for one of the strongest and most determined characters of SnK. She had so much potential and so much was expected from her, just so she could have the worst fate possible.

Somehow Isayama decided that the best thing to do was to make her a total puppet with no voice in the government, be impregnated by some random dude she didn’t like and be stuck in a farm until the end of the manga. And yeah she also joined the Eren fandom during this time for whatever reason.

All of this is already frustrating and a huge downgrade from how the story used to be. But the thing that makes SnK exceptionally terrible is, of course, Eren and everything related to him. When I started reading this manga, I found the story really interesting, because it wasn’t just a fight against giant monsters, but a struggle against tyrants, opressive governements and ethnical cleansing. I would not ever think that later the same manga would romanticize nazism.

Eren becoming a genocidal maniac is supposed to be part of his development. And I will say it now, case and point: Eren has NO development; Eren CHANGED. He changed in the same ways as Jean and the others: He was one character before, and then this character was replaced by a different, new one. But his case is the strangest.

Before, Eren was a very empathic guy who cared about the different kinds of people in the world. He wanted to stop the war and free the people from Marley, and this is seen not only in season 3 and before but in the flashbacks we get of him and the crew visiting Marley and meeting a family of refugees, and also saying that he cherishes his friends the most. This, contrasting with the present Eren treating his friends like shit, causing their deaths and wanting to to a genocide.

There is no point on showing this contrast with past Eren, because there is no link between them both, nor a reason for this change on him. It’s just to make clear that the original Eren was replaced by an edgy, psycopath clone, whose concept of freedom is the same as the USA’s in the Middle East.

So, now Eren is planning to do a mass killing and there is a coalition against him. Just like Evangelion, an anime that this one tries so much to be, the world is ending and they all join to stop Eren in a chapter that reminds me of Game of Thrones in therms of characters teleporting to the same place at the same time just so they can meet.

When an Avengers Assemble moment happens like this in a long series it’s often something epic, to make you hyped, and a good example of this is Fullmetal Alchemist: After 50 episodes developing these characters and their journeys, the protagonists, their allies, rivals and former foes all join together with the same goal, to defeat their greatest enemy and stop his doings.

With SnK it’s not like this. First, because most of the characters we see now have nothing to do with their original selves and have no development. One of them is brought in out of the blue just for hype and fanservice and because the author didn’t know what to do after freezing her for seasons. And two of them clearly have different intentions, they’ll still force the idea that this psycopath that is doing a mass genocide is a good guy, and because they have protagonism, just like our poor misunderstood Eren, we know that it’s going to be that way.

The ending was a joke. You don't feel sad that the series is done like you would feel after completing a manga, nor it gives you something to reflect and to praise this story. All we got were memes of Eren becoming a dove and Armin thanking him for trying to destroy the world. In the end, there was no drama nor sadness and happiness for the end of this journey, just an awkward laughter and a regretful feeling for what this manga became.

The ending was terrible but it wasn’t something unexpected for what we’ve seen of the story previously. Eren’s friends are saved by deus ex machinas and they all still love him, well, now even more that he killed millions of people and tried to wipe out the planet. Our over the top genius Armin cries for Eren saying “You became a mass murderer for our sake” and everyone is suddenly GRATEFUL for all the things he caused.

Because that’s how our Hirohito fanboy Isayama feels about his main character. He paints Eren as a tragic hero when he is a mass murderer, says that he is suffering while causing tons of people to suffer more, showing flashbacks of his sad childhood when he is trying to exterminate all the other races of the world. And all of that to say that he is a good guy who is only trying to make everyone live in peace and not a mass murderer villain who fought for ethnic cleasing. Basically, building a character to be the worst villain possible, with clear references to the nazi ideology, to romanticize him.

This manga was a total waste of time and I’m glad that it’s over. Still, it’s sad that many people take the bait to read it because of how amazing it used to be.

Dr. Stone is an anime that is absurd and illogical in its core, and there is nothing wrong with that by itself. The anime's proposal is executed well in season 1, and its really funny to see Senku's wacky solutions to modernize the village. The main idea is to be absurd and you should not take it seriously. However, I couldn't keep doing it when they added elements to make the story more serious, such as Ideology and War.

Our protagonist Senku is not terrible but he is indeed one of the lamest. Lead heroic characters are supposed to have goals to push the story forward, ... to change the world, break the status quo and to care about the people around them. Senku lacks all of this. His motivation actually is to maintain the status quo, to bring everyone and the old world back, that includes re-stablishing countries with terrible, corrupt, war tyrant leaders. He never thinks about the problems the old world had and wants it all back. Why? Because science is cool, I guess.

The one who actually plays the role of the hero is Tsukasa. With the little screentime he is granted, he manages to be the one with the best motivations. And the anime just can't make him look like a bad guy, they only say he is "authoritarian" or "extremist" to put him as the evil one, but the actual only reason we have to not root for him is because he is against our beloved Senku.

And when the story tries to be more serious, some things like constant plot devices and Senku pulling things out of his ass become really boring. This, and the lawful good rule of never killing, even though they're in a war, just one of the story's ways to avoid conflict between the characters. And Senku never has any conflict nor development in this entire series. It's really boring to see this guy bullshit his way to victory, specially when his motivations are selfish and vague.

In other aspects, the characters with most screentime are either Edgy Annoying Dumbasses (Chrome, Senku, Ginro) or Generic Evil Buffed Guys (Magma, Yo Uei, most of Tsukasa's minions). Well, we have Gen who is really interesting and outstanding, but it's a rare case. Most of the good characters are reduced to the background cast and barely do anything. The best example of this might be Kohaku, who first appears as a badass character just to receive the girl in shounen treatment and never get any relevance.

Well, she is still there to give us fanservice, just like her sister who was supposed to be the smartest and most important person of the community but barely has any scenes, and when she has one it's a hentai reference. Just like any women in shounen, it's presumed they're there also to serve as love interests to Senku or Chrome, the latter being a piece of trash whose personality is just being a dumber version of Senku who mistreats Kohaku, despite her showing to like him and care about him a lot. This said, Dr. Stone could've been way better replacing Chrome with Kohaku.
Talking about the girls I have to mention that their design is awful and I don't understand why the author just can't draw their face normally.

I may have been harsh on my review but this anime is not a bad one, it's just more of the same. There are some cute and wholesome scenes like Ruri recovering, Suika and Kinro using glasses for the first time and Byakuya's final message to Senku. And the beginning was good, because it looked like something different from the usual, and I recommend the first season if you don't mind the annoying side-characters. My main complaint about Dr Stone is it looking like it would be way better, and it had some cool elements, but didn't know what to do with them.