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- JoinedMar 27, 2019
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Feb 24, 2021
Better than season 1, but…
I think season 1 of Xie Wang Zhui Qi is a bit disappointing, mainly because of the episode format (~8min/episode), and also because the pacing is mediocre. I liked the characters though, and I think the story has good premises. I decided to give season 2 a watch.
In season 2, the creators manage to put more consistence into the story with a 20 min episode format. We also get some character development, and nice interactions between the MCs. Besides, there are a few good fighting scenes. I think the pacing hasn’t improved though, the story is sometimes confused, and
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the behavior of some characters is irrational and annoying.
Overall, after season 1’s appalling ending, you just want to quickly start season 2. It’s definitely better, but many aspects could have been done better.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 19, 2020
I think the first time I saw Kuroshitsuji was something like 10 years ago. It was on TV every day after school, and it is probably one of the first anime I’ve ever seen with FMA, One Piece and Bleach… I’ve seen so many anime since, still I had very clear memory about this one. A few days ago, I decided to watch it again.
I like Kuroshitsuji. I like the characters, the butler, the shinigamis (especially the red one), I like the story, I like (love) the OST, and most of all I like the 1880s London’s context. Historical references are various, and as
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a civil engineer I was so pleased to see the Crystal Palace in this anime (it burned tragically in 1936).
And I guess there is nothing more to say… If it wasn’t for S2. Seriously, what happened? What is this? The ending in S1 was perfect, why did you need to do this? Ok you get that. I hated this season and I’m gonna tell you why in three points.
###### FIRST: INSIPID NEW CHARACTERS
Take Ciel. Make him taller. Make his character the exact opposite (i.e., a psycho, an evil piece of *). Call him Alois.
Take Sebastian. Call him Claude (Pronounce “C-L-O-D-O”, as a French person, this makes me laugh so much).
The way they interact together: you have probably seen S1, so you’re familiar with the “Yes, my Lord” (nice though sometimes a bit repetitive)? OK OK “Hey bro it seems the fans loved that so let’s do the same in S2 with a new pair Earl/Butler!” How the hell did they come with this stupid idea… I mentally vomited every time I heard “Yes your Highness”.
I don’t want to mention this lame blue woman with huge breast. She is pure garbage.
###### SECONDLY: APPALLING PACING
Bad timing, bad rhythm… Even the battle scenes look fake, either too long or too short, nothing is at its place… I have friends who write fanfic infinitely better than this… I’m sure that even the seyuus have been hating this season.
###### THIRDLY: damaging the original story and characters.
Hahaha. Maybe I wouldn’t be so mad if this wasn’t a sequel. This season has slaughtered Kuroshitsuji, its story and its characters. It has made Sebastian unconfident and flawful, completely destroying his character, and it has made Ciel an annoying spoiled child you want to smash in the face. Other characters have been mysteriously revived (no spoil here, it’s just in the beginning of ep1), and perversity has reached summits (well Kuroshitsuji has always been somehow borderline, but in S2 the limit is largely exceeded).
Voilà, I don’t mind anime that don’t follow the original material, I also like original anime without material, but honestly this one seems to have been made by some random drunkard in the street at 4am. I wouldn’t say everything in the concept is bad though, eg I liked the introducing of another demon willing to steal Ciel from Sebastian, and I like the final image of this season. If you just saw S1 and want to watch another season of this great anime, I do you a favor: skip this and just go look for Book of Circus which is awesome.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Oct 16, 2020
This Donghua is a nice love story between an enjoyable make-up artist and a good-for-everything guy, who appears to be an alien that has been waiting for her for around 3500 years. The two people actually met and fell in love in Ancient Babylonia but were separated after the girl died in an accident; she conveniently gets reincarnated in modern China.
This anime doesn’t have anything really special, it’s quite generic Chinese romance, so I will just put a few points:
+ Story is well-paced and regular, it doesn’t go too fast, and it’s enjoyable.
+/- Generic characters, you can clearly identify four archetypes; a dynamic
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and quite assertive female lead (let’s call her “Dynamic”), a perfect and successful guy who looks cold in appearance but is actually pretty nice (“Perfect”), the comedy awkward character (my favorite), who admires the perfect guy and considers him as a big brother (“Comedy”), and last but not least, the female antagonist (“Antagonist”) who is just an evil piece of *.
Basically,
1) Dynamic is angry at Perfect because of unfortunate misunderstanding;
2) But Dynamic and Perfect progressively realize they might love each other – though they don’t openly acknowledge it;
3) Antagonist is obviously in love with Perfect but is much more assertive than Dynamic and use all kinds of tricks to undermine her;
4) Comedy is just funny.
I put +/- because even if it’s a bit plate and generic, I kind of find it enjoyable because it’s not too repetitive.
+ Art and animation are fine.
+ I liked the little scenes before each episode showing historical moments with the two aliens (in the 19th century, during WWII…).
~ OST is nothing noticeable.
If you have already seen Chinese Donghua, you may add this one to your list, it’s short and enjoyable, otherwise you should probably either go looking for a more popular one like Quan Zhi Gao Shou or looking for better ones in the same genre, Tong Ling Fei and Meng Qi Shi Shen.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 30, 2020
麻辣女配is a light-hearted, enjoyable Chinese romance anime. Nothing complicated here, it’s exactly what you expect in terms of characters, story, jokes… But it’s fresh and positive. If you have already heard about Kaichou Wa Maid-Sama! or Skip Beat!, it feels quite similar, i.e. the main character is a strong female lead lacking femininity and self-confidence and who wants to get consideration; and (in)fortunately she meets an amazing and successful guy who is also a pervert in private. Basically, this guy psychologically ‘tortures’ her but also enables her to gain confidence and abilities; and they ultimately realize how much they love each other…
I will not
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be much longer, I liked this anime because the format (~8 min per episode) was appropriate, the characters funny and attractive, animation was OK and last but not least – sound (OST, opening/ending, voices) was really good.
Do not expect turnovers, and just take this one as a nice and enjoyable entertainment.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 28, 2020
What a promising anime… I can’t tell how disappointed I am after having binge-watched two seasons of this. I have been watching Chinese anime for some time, and this isn’t the first Shojo-type anime I am watching either, but it’s probably one of the worst. I am writing this review as a self-therapy, to understand what went wrong and to quickly move on, so let’s begin:
%Probably a few spoilers in this review%
Story 0,1/10
I think there is an issue with the
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summary in S1, as the anime does not comply at all with what you’re expecting when you start watching it ; I mean you may expect a story about forced marriage, how two people stranger one to another are unwillingly married by their families and get to know each other, and step-by-step start to have mutual feelings. This was the promise.
But instead, you get a school-life cliché romance between two vegetable characters spending all two seasons *thinking* about how they love each other; basically, you will hear several times per episode things like “next time I tell him” or “but I am sure she is already in love with XX”. Many other Shojo anime have done that, but at least, after 24 episodes, usually there is some result. In this crap there isn’t. Not a single step forward, as the second season ends with THE SAME DAMN SCENE opening the first season!!!! This show somehow just treads water.
In extremely rare times (1st and 24th episode lol), you finally get to have some scenes of the anime in present time, and it’s still about “I am not brave enough to tell him/her how much I love him/her”. This scheme is just ridiculous after years spent living together as husband and wife. Come on, just stop getting on our nerves/losing time and start ** already.
Art 8/10
I was quite harsh with the story, but I must admit that both art and animation were good; Tencent Pinguin Pictures has produced several excellent pieces (Mo Dao Zu Shi, Quanzhi Gaoshou), and knows how to deal with animation. Some very nice pictures of Shanghai and Hangzhou, beautiful colors and sceneries, character design is also good.
Characters 6/10
As I said before, I enjoyed the chara-design, and kind of like most of the characters, especially the secondary ones. However, there is too little development, despite covering several years of romance (from high school to working days) and very little progress in the interactions between the characters. Oh, and the main girl is exasperating, I mean like most shojo’s MCs, but here you don’t get the liberating moment of the mutual love declaration (maybe in S3, who knows? Personally, I don’t take the bet).
Sound 4/10
OST is truly important for me, unfortunately here it’s insipid and repetitive. I give 4 because the voices are fine and fit the characters, otherwise it’s 2.
Overall
I have seen very good anime with really bad art and animation (monstruous CGI), but with good story and rhythm, with nice character development, good OST can be an extra… But without story there is no decent anime, period. This one is a pure waste of time. After being frustrated by S1 (I gave it 6), I wanted to enjoy a few happy times in S2 and some progress in the story, but didn’t get any of that. Just avoid it, and if you are looking for nice Chinese romance anime, I advise you to go for Wo shi Jiang Xiaobai which is just the opposite: good story, average CGI art.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Jun 20, 2020
你在星光深处 (Stars Fall) is an unknown yet surprisingly remarkable anime. Honestly, I was a bit perplexed at first: No review, no summary, only 190 members, ranking 14453 in popularity, even for a Chinese donghua this is very little. But it was available on YT, and it had English sub! (What??? Some very good and popular Chinese anime don’t get any sub, but this one has, and moreover it’s very accurate, 到底是为什么？)
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%%%%%%%
A few lines first about the plot: Xi Bai and his friend Liu ChunChun one day have a strange car accident. When he awakes, Xi Bai meets Han Zhuo, a very mysterious guy hired by his father to be his personal assistant. However, Han Zhuo appears to act much more like a bodyguard than as a simple assistant… And he has some supernatural abilities… Why would Xi Bai need protection? What are these abilities and where do they come from?
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The plot of this show is so good that it really makes me willing to read the original novel. You have suspense, twists, fights, emotions… It’s a well-balanced thriller anime and perfectly fits the “mystery” classification.
Art is Chinese CGI, I don’t mind because I got used to it after having watched quite a few similar pieces, actually it really made me think of some Netflix recent anime, I understand people can feel a bit unfamiliar with it but I personally kind of like it. Also, the show is very consistent and has some good fight scenes.
Characters are interesting. If the MC, Xi Bai, is pretty generic yet enjoyable, Han Zhuo is really intriguing; as for Liu ChunChun, he is the “comedy” character, funny, clumsy, he brings some lightness in the show. Secondary characters are also really good. Nice interactions between Xi Bai and Han Zhuo, these two are quite complementary.
OST is nice, not outstanding but fine, the opening is quite good as well. It’s well-designed to keep the suspense and the mystery high.
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Overall, 9/10, this anime is really accurate and I had a great time watching it. I can’t think of any flaws or issues that could damage the watcher’s experience. As I said, at first, I was kind of making a bet on this anime, but after the first episode I already knew it was going to be good. I will watch S2 as soon as it is released.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jun 13, 2020
我是江小白 is a story about LOVE, REGRET and MEMORY. There is this guy Xiao Bai suffering from amnesia because of what happened ten years ago in school. And there are these two girls Xiao Li and Xi Yu who both seem to have a connection with Xiao Bai. What happened in the past is the biggest mystery of this anime, and Xiao Bai’s long path to recover his memory makes you go through various emotions – impatience, frustration, and sadness but also empathy and happiness.
Not only is the story really heart-warming and enjoyable, but the pacing is also really good, making you entertained until
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the very last episode of the season. There are so many twists in the plot, I was really surprised and didn’t foresee at all what was gonna happen – I am usually not that naïve.
Furthermore, you get deep immersion in the characters’ inside personalities and get to understand more and more every one’s motive.
And the most important for me, music plays an important part in this anime, as we soon learn (in episode 1 or 2) that Xiao Bai and Xi Yu both used to play in a band together… This is great opportunity to enjoy some beautiful Chinese songs completely in match with the overall atmosphere.
Art is good and background drawings are enjoyable, as much as daily life’s details, but as Chinese people say 美中不走 the characters are made with CGI and I can understand many will find it bad and unnatural. I definitely can’t say I love CGI in general, but I don’t hate it either. I don’t think the average quality of animation here is a major issue as I personally got used to it after the first two episodes.
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Overall, this anime is evidence that you don’t need extraordinary animation and techniques to make good anime – story, characters and OST are more important. I had a good time watching 我是江小白 and I hope you will as well, I also watched the OVA and the second season in a row, but be careful the second season has not be translated into any western language, so you won’t be able to see it until you speak Chinese (fortunately I do).
PS: The end of the first season isn’t really satisfying, so just consider the OVA that comes after as part of the first season and watch it in a row ;p (well you probably will anyway, craving for knowing what happens right after season 1). Regarding to the second season, it is enjoyable as well but not absolutely necessary.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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May 22, 2020
I haven’t read the original material, so I cannot say anything about how well/bad adapted it is, but I have a few things to say about this anime.
You have probably already read the summary; this anime is supposed to be a symmetrical Isekaï with two characters from different worlds switching places. One world is modern Japan, the other one is common magic-based fantasy universe.
Let’s say most of this anime revolves around the concept of TRUST, FRIENDSHIP and BETRAYAL. How can you trust someone? What does it mean? After being betrayed again and again by the ones you trusted most, would you be able to have
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faith in someone again? These are the questions you will continuously hear in this anime.
Despite having a quite original and very promising double-Isekaï structure, making people expecting the plot to take place equally in the two worlds with two MC, the show is mainly centered in what happens in the magic-based fantasy world, with only very few stuff actually taking place in the “real world”, and that is too bad because this anime could have been so much better…
I have read a few other reviews, and I understand that this is precisely what many reviewers, having read the manga, give it grief for ; some elements taking place in the “real world” have been set apart to prioritize what was supposed to be the main plot.
12 episodes for this anime is too short, it could have deserved a 24 episodes season. (Well probably a second season was originally planned, but they unfortunately did not proceed with it.)
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OK and now you ask: “cmon you have rated it 8/10 but so far you only have regrets/criticism for this anime, so is it really worth-watching?” DEFINITELY YES, this anime has very few members rating it, and most of them are probably manga readers disappointed by the adaptation, resulting in global 6.5 rating which is not really fair in my opinion.
Art is good, so is animation. Fight scenes are quite rewarding and the rhythm is fine. The character development is fair for the MC and his “rivals” Kannagi and Kadowaki. Overall, this is good anime, far better than most 2018/19’s Isekaï and definitely deserves above 7 global rating. I would personally rate it 7.5, so it will be 8 to increase the global.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 2, 2020
帝王攻略 is a Chinese anime obviously not perfect in everything, but with good strengths letting me recommending it, especially for people being used to watching Chinese anime, but it can also be a satisfying first Chinese anime for non-initiates. This review is spoiler – free.
####### (+) #######
%% Nice and complex plot in Chinese imperial era. I find it quite realistic in how the Chinese imperial court is
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represented, the role of the Mandarins, influence struggles, corruption and games of power for the domination of what was already one of the most important countries in the world. More precisely, two separate cases (from ep 1 to ep 9 and from ep 10 to 18) and the two last episodes would be teasers for next season. The first case is good but sometimes confused (cf later), the second one is much better with truly interesting development.
%%Nice music with relaxing Chinese themes.
%%Art is very good, nice colors and drawings, yet the animation is not perfect and sometimes feels a bit odd but that’s no big deal.
%%Chinese atmosphere, you have this very particular “Chinese humor” you can find in many Chinese anime, basically embodied here by Xinan king’s brother, Yao Er.
%%Sometimes people do not like Chinese voices, I actually enjoy it, being myself more familiar with Chinese language. The voices fit particularly well the characters.
####### (-) #######
%%Some issues with the rhythm, especially in the beginning; a bit slow in the first 10 episodes, and the end appears in comparison a bit rushed. Mentioning the end, it is quite abrupt and somehow frustrating – there is no doubt there will be a second season, but when?
%%You don’t learn that much about the characters in the beginning, and sometimes you will regret the lack of interaction between the main characters (which is mainly due to the realism of the supposed interactions between the Chinese emperor and his vassals).
%%Too many names, it is sometimes hard to identify key characters in the beginning, but this is usual common flaw in many Chinese anime (cf Mo Dao Zu Shi).
%%I don’t really see the point of introducing some “fantasy”, I would had preferred if they had designed it in a full realistic scheme; because it is not really significant in the plot; well they could have done better without going this way.
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Overall, a bit confused in the rhythm, some will potentially stop after 2-3 episodes, I recommend not to do so, because this is a nice Chinese anime that will enable you to glance over Chinese imperial court and administration, which is truly fascinating.
P.S. : I have seen it twice, with several months in between, and I didn’t change my rating of this anime nor my overall impression. Just give it a try!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 9, 2019
That’s too bad this anime hasn’t got any review yet, so I will try to do my best to review it ;) [SPOILER FREE]
Dawn Of The World (末日曙光) is a Chinese anime taking place in a post-apocalyptic world, where people have been infected and turned into zombies. The few people left are to struggle and trust each other to survive winter. The plot is focused on the two main characters, Meng Feng (蒙烽) and Liu Yan (刘研). To make it short, one is the fighter, the other the engineer/mechanic/strategist. The story is what we can
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expect from a zombie-anime, is not particularly original, but people who liked AoT, Kabaneri of The Iron Fortress and Highschool of The Dead are quite likely to like this one as well.
Many zombie animes/films picture hopeless situations, ie the zombies are undead, difficult to kill, run really fast, are sometimes able to think, people turn into zombies in seconds after being bitten… There is nothing that can be done until one hero suddenly finds a solution and – this is magic – every one is able to escape (at least temporarily) and this hero acts as a beacon of hope towards new horizons…. I strongly prefer Dawn Of The World’s zombies : they are slow, easy to kill, stupid, so it is actually possible to fight them and therefore it is more a matter of strategy : even if you can easily kill your enemy, if you let it surround you, you will die when run out of munitions!
Some people may fear the BL tag, please don’t. No BL for me in this anime, perhaps there are several versions of it and I saw the one destined to the Chinese audience (without BL of course) – anyway the version I saw definitely does not “deserves” the BL tag! (although a BL version of this is quite easy to imagine).
I strongly support Chinese animation that has something that can’t be found in Japanese animation, and I really recommend studios like Tencent Pinguin Pictures (the one that did this anime), which has enough technology and skills to compete in quality with the more classical Japanese studios, as they have proved with The King's Avatar (Quanzhi GaoShou) and Mo Dao Zu Shi.
I am not going to make this review longer, so in short:
+: Good OST, good opening, story with good rhythm, realistic zombies, good voices (Chinese is very nice to hear), nice art + animation for Chinese studio.
-: Too many characters, not always easy to remember all of them, personalities could have been a bit more developed, some parts of the story remain a bit unclear, inconvenient with Chinese anime is that subtitles are rare and not always accurate (understanding Chinese, I could tell that some parts weren’t subtitled – even if it was a minor issue for global understanding).
Overall 8/10, I liked this anime, of course there are many things I could think of to criticize, but I would definitely recommend it if you like the genre. I would say it's underrated (deserves an average 7.5 at least). This anime is quite short, and if you want to experience a Chinese anime you can give this one a try (I would rather recommend Quanzhi Gaoshou and Mo Dao Zu Shi for the first Chinese anime though).
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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