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Sin in the Rain is a forgettable short anime with poor animation, an incomplete plot (this is not hyperbole) and an utter lack of sound design which just leaves this a boring 22 minutes with absolutely no definitive ending.

The character designs are very much a product of the time, reminding me of such 2000s classics as Ergo Proxy, but the animation style renders them as extremely bland in comparison. The possible exception is the detective, but its fairly difficult to not notice a guy in a bright red shirt, and even then his design feels derivative somehow.

The difficulty of the plot lies in the fact ... that the story is, in fact, unfinished. The premise is also fairly standard for a thriller or detective story, but usually this can hide a series of brilliant execution. The premise here unfortunately has no execution and barely begins before failing to go anywhere before the end of the 22 minutes.

These two points are the only comments I have on this work, which is unfortunately a boring mess that left me annoyed that it went literally nowhere.

Killer Crush is the best BL webtoon you've never read. The premise is basic but interesting: what if a killer fell in love with an actor? It's simple, it's precise, it does not do the webtoon justice.

Within the 44 chapters I have so far read, the premise has been built up. With a romance that has chemistry, circumstances that allow for humour and complex character dynamics this webtoon is brilliant. The art is fairly standard and the translation of early chapters is abysmal, which probably puts prospective readers off. However, if you can ignore these gripes the webtoon is very entertaining and perfectly dramatic.

The romance ... at first seems simplistic. A man who is trying to hide his profession from a cheerful and energetic man. A lot of romcoms with this type of premise would not delve any deeper into the characters presented. The strength of this webtoon is that it does not unbalance the romance by only showing the perspective of the hitman. Rather than leaving the actor as fawned at and absolutely perfect, the flaws of both are displayed to the reader. This allows character dynamics through onlookers from both sides to shine through and affect the lives of the main characters, creating believable tensions and issues.

As this webtoon currently stands, I would highly recommend it.

Below are some of the most significant points that could be mentioned about Hei Mao Jing Zhang:

SOUND - 2
- Some sound effects seem to be missing (whistling for instance)
- Voices do not match mouth movements at all, it's like the sound was made for something completely different
- OP is nothing great
- Sound quality is very inconsistent: certain sound effects sound a lot clearer than others as well as the voice work

ART - 2
- Cartoon physic rules applied very oddly, especially with some of the angles used
... - Below average animation, would expect it from late 60s/early 70s not the 80s
- A lot of the design choices are bland, ugly or carbon copied
- Some weird cuts and jarring movements

PLOT - 2
- Simplistic plot which is good for purpose
- Not very inventive
- Some parts of the story are hard to grasp, doesn't go from A to B naturally

CHARACTER - 1
- Character is non-existent on the part of the protagonist
- The bad guy is skin deep, but does have a good reason for hating the protagonist... though the makers probably didn't intend for this to be the case

OTHER (ENJOYMENT) - 3
- Despite the Kodomo tag this ain't for kids... just trust me
- This is oddly bizarre...

OVERALL - 2

This movie, solely on it's own merits, is one of the worst mystery anime I have ever seen, without even needing to compare it to the game it was based on. Mainly because it's incomparable.

Story: 1

To illustrate how bad the story is, I'm just going to describe a very early scene, so minor spoilers follow: when two main characters go to the basement I have many questions.

1. How did they get the basement key? (Which is a bit of a leap in logic.)
2. Who is the guy even doing stuff in the basement? (Only mentioned by name right in the conversation before they go to ... it.)
3. Nobody else has gone down into the basement after who knows how long, and the main characters didn't report this to a teacher?
4. Why is their first thought to find the guy is to go down to the basement, when one of them was skipping class?
5. Jumpscares? Seriously?

Basically, this scene illustrates most of the issues of this travesty. Leaps in logic that make no sense, horror coming solely from the shock value, plot conveniences with no explanation that could be considered plot holes and an utter lack of foreshadowing.

Character: 1

Characters exist in one of two formats:

1. They are only there for the expostion, and as such are flat and bland, never developed upon.
2. They are part of the anthropology club, given a few character traits (or not) and are given zero depth.

As such, this is another failure.

Art: 3

The CGI is stiff and makes average characters look much creepier than they should be. At points, they look like puppets the movements are so robotic. The only points I find them to be OK are during the reaction shots in tense, horrific scenes because they already look so out of place.

There is also a bit of an oddity in the opening scene, where it feels like the models of all three chracters were just copy and pasted then the colour of their outfits were changed, which just feels very cheap.

The CGI monsters, however, just look hilariously bad and as such aren't scary.

The 2D backgrounds used in a couple of scenes, although still images, do look really pretty, and as such deserve some credit.

Sound: 3

Good voice acting I think, which is why this has been given a 3. The music and sound effects sound like they come from stock, and the usage of them are derivative, and as such is a let down.

Enjoyment: 5

A lot of this is bad to the point of funny, which is it's saving grace, and surprisingly the art is better than some other works I have seen which made this feel better in comparison.

Wan Wan Chuushingura is a movie that would be watched for one reason alone: it was the first animation Hayao Miyazaki worked on as an animator. So, unless you happen to be trying to watch every single work Miyazaki has been involved in, I would give this a pass.

Story and Character: 2 for each

Rather simplistic, the synopsis has the amount of depth the movie itself provides. None. It's a kid's film from the 60s which has a lot of plot shortfalls of worse movies today. The conflict can be described in a sentence, the villian and the hero are both boring. The evil character does ... evil things, the good character does good things.

The climax of the film based in action sequences are paced terribly, and animated uninterestingly.

Sound: 4

The music is jazzy and fine to listen to, fitting to the scenes that they are used in. The cuts between music isn't handled very well though, which creates a disconnect between scenes.

Animation: 3

The design is uninteresting in most cases and some characters just look dreadful, especially the fox. A few do fit the comedic vibe of their character though.

The animation itself is very general for the time period and the studio. This means there's quite a bit of stock footage, a few points characters were off model and there is little detail to speak of.

Enjoyment: 3

This is one work based off of Tezuka (albeit one of his much lesser known works) that I do not enjoy: I much prefer some of his other works, such as Jungle Taitei and Aru Machi Kado no Monogatari that were created in the same time period and are of much better quality in some ways.

Overall: 3

Hime-dol! is a manga that isn't overly enjoyable, and can easily be passed on due to how average it is.

Story: 3

The story is mediocre, relying on tropes created in many other more popular manga, and then rushed to completion without much development. The ending, especially, is wrapped up in only a few pages. This rush causes the manga to feel as if chunks of it is simply missing.

Art: 6

Average. Average style, average design, average drawings. Of note however is the more elaborate hairstyles are well designed.

... Character: 5

The main characters receive enough development to be considered interesting, but the supporting cast is rather lackluster, especially so since there is a number of them who appear.

Enjoyment: 6

Enjoyable, if a little numbing. Very shounen-esque, and is good to read if you only have an hour.

Overall: 5

Note: I watched the raw and I don't have the best grasp of Japanese, so my basic understanding of the plot and character is a bit weak.

I would suggest giving this movie a pass, unless you're trying to watch all the Young Animator Training Project works. It is bland in all aspects bar animation, which is severely lacking.

Character: 2

The characters are very shallow, and lack depth. When a movie is short, few characters that are then fleshed out are needed. However: here there are no fewer than nine.

The motivation behind actions are very shallow and simplistic, which also contributes to the A-B storytelling going on.

Art: ... 2

The animation of characters is made up of CGI, which just so happens to be soulless. The models are in the uncanny valley, looking human... but not quite enough. It reminds me of imagery from the 20th century that just happens to be in HD. Apart from that, it feels like frames are missing, and the animation is very janky as a result. The main character design would be appealling and unique in any other context, but the use of CGI models makes clothing move awkwardly, and it feels like characters never blink.

The CGI does not blend well with the backgrounds, which are in 2D rather than 3D, and makes me think that it would look much better if the characters were 2D as well, because the backgrounds were lovely. (Especially since the poster is much more appealling than the movie itself.)

Oddly, background characters tend to be very static, and is noticeable from just a quick glance.

Story: 5

The action sequences are rather bland, and seem like they're going twice as fast as they should, action and suspense wise.

The comedy is generic, and feels like something I have seen in many shounen series past. Nothing unique or interesting about it, and the result is that it is unfunny. Furthermore, one particular gag was slapstick, so was also let down by the animation.

The plot itself is rather predictable, going from one plot point to the next in a rushed manner with no development of character.

Sound: 5

The music is fitting, though bland. The voice acting is passable. It's average to the point that there is not much to comment on at all.

Overall: 4

Would've been given a 3, if not for the possibility that I made a mistake somewhere.

I feel that Armageddon needs another review, mainly to elaborate on points not fully explored in other reviews.

The story gets confusing. It tries to construct a science fiction world, but does it using information it never really bothers to explain. Past the world building, the story has a pretty straight forward basis. The way the plot is constructed is lacking and boring.

The art is better than some bad anime, but couldn't really be called anything other than below average. The design of characters, especially non-human characters, are pretty interesting however. The animation fits the story it's trying to tell, but feels like it comes from ... the 80s rather than the 90s. Some of the expressions look really off at times, but are quite funny to look at was the one source of enjoyment I had from this movie.

The sound is meh. The voice acting of the dub is slightly below average, but there's no absolutely trash voice acting going on. The music fits the scenes, but is utterly forgettable. Sound effects sound like they are from stock a good 95% of the time.

All I can grant the film is that the characterisation is there in a very small amount. The main character has some sense and since they're seen in a variety of situations and their feelings are shown, it has the absolute basis for characterisation. The queen is also somewhat interesting in a very basic way. Although the characterisation is below average, it is there.

My enjoyment of the film is rather lacking, it's in so bad it's bad territory. There isn't much to say about it simply because it's not got anything too terrible or anything good in it, it's basically empty. The only reason this is getting a 2 from me is that even with this nullness it's better than some other anime I have watched.

It's boring, give it a pass.

Micro Teukgongdae Diatron 5 is a movie that fails at every possible marker. Just to be clear, I watched the dub since the sub is non-existent.

Firstly the story is a train wreck. For one, it takes about a third of the movie to even introduce the main character, which speaks about the all-over-the-place pacing of it. Not only does it switch between subplots, but those subplots have subplots until it can't even be comprehended anymore. Even the beginning is pretty hard to follow, and that's when it's sticking to a single story.

The art is cheap. The designs aren't too bad, but they feel like copies ... of characters from any other 80s anime. Since the story is literally just action, the art should fit to the action but the scenes are poorly executed. The art seems to be repeated in action scenes a lot, leading to repetitive and jarring viewing of the movie.

The sound is terrible. The music is forgettable, the sound effects sound like stock and the dub's voices are utter trash. Namely, every female character sounds like they were told to mimic Japanese voices and sound cute, but it instead sounds grating, whiney and annoying as they were told to talk at a higher pitch than they were capable of. Furthermore, all lines are spoken in monotone.

There is no characterisation. Characters do not act as semi-reasonable people would, not even quarter reasonable people. A lot of characters act foolish or stupidly, for no apparent reason. Even in non-threatening situations they act against whatever logical or emotional reaction a regular human being would do. It's mind boggling. The worst thing is that the motivations and personalities of characters are non-existent too. In fact, the whole reason the movie starts is due to the attack on the "most intelligent girl in the world"... despite her getting little to no airtime and no evidence of her supposed intelligence and how it would help the human race (in fact, this can double as another issue of the plot).

Finally, my enjoyment was near none. It's in the realm of so bad it's bad, rather than so bad it's good. (I am someone who is currently trying to watch all the worst 100 anime on MAL, and I have seen a lot of bad anime at this point which has been laughably bad.) As such, this is an irredeemable film that deserves to disappear into obscurity.

Unless you're as insane as I am, give Micro Teukgongdae Diatron 5 a pass for your own sake.

OK. This is somehow the cringiest anime I have ever seen, and that includes many of the worst listed on MAL.

Story: 0

I was forced to give this a 1, but if it was up to me it would be 0. There is literally no story. One third of this is a montage of disconnected moments and the worst dancing ever in anime. The rest of it apart from the final scene is about a guy who's filming a movie: it doesn't do much. Then the last scene is him meeting his brother. That is it. That is all. It is a plotless mess that is ... laughable. The worst thing is that there are four minutes of credits at the end against a static image.

Art: 2

Average to bad. An 80s shoujo style that is not as good as the manga in anyway, and I feel as if some of the footage gets re-used quite a bit.

Sound: 2

I watched the English dub. The music is bad, apart from one song which is the saving grace for the sound section which sounds oddly familiar, likely due to it being a popular 80s song from the US.

The dub is the worst English dub I have ever watched. Monotone, flat and with pauses inbetween words in a sentence. On top of that, the main VA stumbles a bit in a few places. Furthermore, the audio quality of the voice makes it sound like it wasn't even recorded professionally, and I could do better myself with just my phone.

The script is also garbage, it coming off so fake it's cringe worthy.

Character: 1

There is barely any character to look into. All we get is a guy being interviewed and we get a ghost of a semblence of a personality and that's it.

The other two "main" characters were really only in the montage so they are there for practically no reason.

Enjoyment: 10

Just from sheer terribleness, this could only be described as a hilariocity, or a hilarious atrocity. I'd recommend watching it with friends to complain about it's terribleness and laugh like hyenas.

Overall: 1