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**there are spoilers, but they are tagged and very avoidable**
Before I explain my issues with the manga, I want to say that I appreciated the unique artstyle and somewhat unique setting. The aesthetic of the manga is certainly novel. However, this is where my praises end. I did not enjoy reading this manga.


For one, this manga suffers from incredibly poor pacing. Not only does it take forever for plot beats to happen, but the manga is extremely repetitive. Parts of the story are shown, narrated, and then reflected on by the characters. This causes the point of some scenes to be explained three times, which ... makes everything an absolute slog to read.


Secondly, I did not find this manga particularly interesting. Its sentiments of family aren’t particularly new, and they’ve been done to death before. And even then, the themes, despite being so common, aren’t particularly well written in this manga. Also, I found its heavy themes of spiritualism rather annoying. The manga tries to tackle many “complex” and “interesting” themes, but it has so little to say that I already forgot. Did you know murder is hard, and bad people usually have been shaped by outside factors? Woahw! Never could’ve guesse!d!!! Honestly, this manga could be a fine kids show if they cut back on all the spiritualism…


Additionally, the story is profoundly dull. This paragraph will briefly mention specific events, so avoid this paragraph if you care about spoilers. I have two main moments I want to complain about. The first is when the King's close advisor tries to murder the King. The King doesn’t die, and I have to wonder how this even happened. If you’re trying to kill a monarch, you don’t stop at a shallow knife wound. You make sure he is buried and dead in the ground. Due to this, I could not suspend my disbelief for this part of the story. It felt too stupid. Secondly, the main tension in the end of the story involves the two protagonists bouncing around one “soul” in an attempt to save each other. I believe it’s meant to be tear-jerking, however, I found the entire routine dry and tedious.The plot twists are tired and obvious, the biggest twist being how long they took to come to fruition. All in all, there were no plot points that made me feel anything more than this itching apathy.


With all that said, the spoiler section is now over. I can’t find anything much in this manga to like. I did not enjoy this manga. I understand that it’s somewhat novel and has some interesting concepts, but this manga is incredibly mediocre. There’s so much better out there.

I’m going to convince you to read Pandora Hearts.

The power to change the past– If you had the chance, would you take it?

Pandora Hearts tackles ideas of loss, trauma, the importance of our pasts, as well much more. It’s tackled so respectfully and thoughtfully that it allowed me to reflect on my own past. I’m sure we all have something we wish we could change. A person we wished we never met, a person who we wish we got to talk to once more, and Pandora Hearts allows people to reflect on that.

But wait, who cares about all that philosophy stuff?
Is it fun to ... read? Where’s all the joy, where’s the funny?

Well, fear not.
Pandora Hearts also cured my depression ⭐~

I absolutely adore all the characters, and everything they feel and experience throughout the story is just so relatable. I love them so much that when this particular scene happened, this manga broke me out of my depressive lethargy by allowing me to feel an anger so strong that I was left no other choice but to quite literally scream aloud in agony. Yeah, that’s right, depression, “I reject you”, BITCH! Also, yes, that is a reference.

I ended up falling in love with the characters so much that this stupid idiot manga caused me to make my first ever MMV, an entire minute and 44 seconds dedicated to one effeminate man with blonde hair and scissors– It now sits alone on my desktop for no one but me to see.
But falling away from my point I am not, as I made this MMV because it helped me process my complex feelings of love and hate that I felt for this character.
Grief is a complex emotion, and it can take many forms, one which happens to include making an incomprehensible music video featuring over 80 screenshots of the manga that I cropped, a plethora of sparkle text, stars, and bouncing hearts gifs that I found on google.com, and enough layers of irony that wedding cakes can’t help but shutter in jealousy.

Pandora Hearts themes on grief mean a lot to me. Jun Mochizuki uses her manga to tell a beautiful story that allows her readers to explore their complex and intense feelings on difficult topics. I know, because I experienced that introspection when and after reading Pandora Hearts. What else can you ask for in a story?

In this review, my tonal whiplash is an intentional choice done to demonstrate how Pandora Hearts itself also handles its tone– It shifts from more serious to light tone, but the topic and subjects in question are usually all still serious. Just because I shared my experience of making a music video in a funny way, it doesn’t undermine my overall point of the various ways that grief manifests itself.
Read Pandora Hearts.
You want to understand my reference, don’t you?
Read Pandora Hearts.
Don’t you want to know which character the “effeminate man with blonde hair and scissors” is?
Read Pandora Hearts.
You want an emotionally gratifying and fun experience that keeps you on edge, right?
Read Pandora Hearts.
If nothing else, the care I put into this review is an indicator of something, isn’t it?
Read Pandora Hearts.

This anime is a really cute story about two very close friends!
It was so touching how they crossed the divide just to be with each other, and even gave up what they treasured most! I wish I had friends this close.
My favorite wholesome and platonic moment is when they bite and undress each other!

Jokes aside, I think people's inability to recognize gay people, as, well, people who can exist, is one of the phenomena commented on in this anime!
This anime offers social commentary on a variety of issues in a way so blunt I felt like I was getting hit by a brick. I thoroughly ... enjoyed the lack of subtly and would recommend this to people... that I know are fine with sapphic things.
Sha da ba doo.

**WARNING: THIS IS VERY LONG**

I’m done with MILGRAM.

One of the main reasons I was drawn to MILGRAM is that I really liked the music videos conceptually. I think that portraying character’s mental states in abstract ways with subtle symbolism is very fun and cool. I like playing the “nuance detective”, and I think MILGRAM can raise some interesting subjects and discussions about morality. However, while I’ve enjoyed MILGRAM for the lesser part of a year, I can’t enjoy it anymore.

After watching the “second trial report” video, I’ve realized something– MILGRAM is the pinnacle of an audience giving too much credit to the writers, and I’m ... now going to explain why. I plan to discuss every single character, as well as my problems with how each one is written.

If you aren’t caught up on MILGRAM as of 7/22/2024, this is going to be incomprehensible. It’s for MILGRAM fans, by an ex-MILGRAM fan.


Firstly, let’s start with Haruka. Haruka is an annoying character, in how he’s written and presented. He has a non-specific mental illness, and because of that, he tries to kill animals for his parents' attention. Additionally, Haruka certainly sees himself as unstable and child-like.
Let me give you a catalog of quotes from Haruka’s trial 1 and trial 2 songs!:
“You praised me by saying ‘You’re crazy.’/Thank you, I’ll do my best”, “Why was I born like this? Why does it hurt so much?”, “just want to be your good boy/I will keep on killing to be a good boy/I can’t stop, I can’t stop/Am I still INNOCENT?/Mommy, look, I’ve done great/’There there, my good boy!’”.

The way Haruka talks about himself, the word choice and implications, is very bad language to talk about mental illness. It’s stigmatizing, infantilizing, and straight up incorrect. However, while Haruka is wrong about this, that’s not an inherently bad thing to write about. The problem comes when Haruka’s perspective is unchallenged and implicitly accepted. It’s not challenged and now millions of people are hearing Haruka’s VA spew stigmatizing, catchy lyrics, about how he’s #mentallyUnstable and CrAzY.

The credit I gave to MILGRAM wasn’t warranted. The stigma in Haruka’s lyrics is not meant to represent internalized stigma, as the stigma is seen as reality and meant to be the complexity. This shit is infuriating and makes me want to strangle someone. No, I am not crazy and so inept at social situations that I’ll kill someone to get my abusive parents attention. Mentally ill people are more often the victims of crime than the perpetrators. That’s just statistics. By spreading these negative stereotypes and stigma, MILGRAM isn’t just hurtful, but wrong. The retelling of Haruka’s story is part of the reason that mentally ill people might get harmed more in real life.


Second, Yuno. Yuno’s character is annoying because her “murder” is abortion. I like Yuno, I like how she calls out people for possibly infantilizing her, however, there’s a large issue with Yuno’s character. The story that MILGRAM’s writers wrote for Yuno reveals how disconnected they are with reality. MILGRAM is desperately attempting to make Yuno’s story complex, presenting it as a true moral conundrum, using every talking point in the book, but as it turns out, abortion just isn’t that complicated of an issue. No, MILGRAM, I don’t think this is something we should be polling people’s opinions on, this isn’t a complex moral issue, but the existence of Yuno’s character validates this inane discourse. I won’t stand for it. Yuno did nothing wrong. The only people that could write something so idiotic are people thoroughly disconnected from reality.


Third, Futa. Uh… Y’know, actually, relative to MILGRAM’s other characters, I like Futa a lot. From a writing standpoint, Futa doesn’t do much wrong, but it’s… Okay, no, I’m gonna say it. Futa got on a teacher who was sexually harassing someone, and I assumed that the girl who committed suicide was harassed because she the victim in the photo. We live in a society and have a horrible culture of victim blaming people, and that could definitely happen. However, instead, once again, I gave MILGRAM too much credit. Instead, this was merely to show how Futa got a big ego, and how he felt he saved someone. I’ll say it’s quite infuriating that the girl in the sexual harassment plot of Futa’s story’s only purpose is for Futa’s ego, and not their own damn assault, but I digress.

The girl that died was another random person that Futa, apparently, started a hate campaign on, and ruined her life. Why? Good question! We don’t know. People form big hate mobs against people who have a presence. A youtuber, an influencer, a celebrity, or an actor. All the vitriol people hurl starts with people needing to feel parasocially close with them. Sure, there’s more bog standard bullying, but Futa is more directly about cancel culture on twitter, which is a platform that, when people get canceled on it, it’s usually big names that have a substantial following. I just don’t quite see the logic behind the writing here. This plotline misunderstands the reason people form massive hate campaigns against people and how much people don’t like committing suicide. It turns what could be broader social commentary on how people form hate mobs into interpersonal trauma and angst fuel.



Fourthly, we have Mu. Mu’s character is very funny. Not good, just funny. I think it’s very funny and MILGRAM pulled the “the bullied was an even bigger bully, actually”, just because it’s such an easy and simple plot-twist that it’s laughable. Mu’s plotline is so funny that I could never take it seriously. Something weird about Mu’s plotline is the strange gay romance subplot in it, where someone, somewhere, was being homophobic. Who, I can’t tell. That’s all we got for it. A funny character, but she’s so damn stupid. It’s a laughable twist for a reason.

Mu has rich parents that travel a lot, so I foolishly thought that MILGRAM was trying to make a comment about how people that are somewhat neglected by their parents might bully others to make themselves feel better, but given the lack of this ever coming up again, I fear my theory is simply giving MILGRAM too much credit. Mu is meant to be a cartoony evil twist character that’s made for cheap shock value.


Fifth, Shidou’s character is, again, one that’s flawed from the conception. Shidou is a sad boy that has self-hate issues. He’s a doctor that feels bad for doing his job. Er, he had to euthanize people, and felt bad for them and when he had to tell their family. It’s understandable guilt, and internally he feels like a monster… However, I have a question. Why is he here? The conceit of MILGRAM is that all these people are murderers, but Shidou is straight up not a murderer. Sure, he feels guilty, but why is he here? I genuinely don’t understand what Shidou adds to the story other than a medical professional, which is important for “plot land” so that he can fix the characters up when they get hurt. Although, I suppose the whole shtick with Shidou is that he asked to be voted “not forgiven”, but as it turns out, his pretty sad boy energy was too strong for people to do that.


Sixthly, Mahiru. Mahiru could, again, be a more interesting broad discussion. I assumed that what Mahiru’s plotline was going for was that since she went to an all girls school, she had overly high expectations for her boyfriend. All the stress he felt to be a certain way, as well as Mahiru pressuring him in addition to that, is what drove him to commit suicide. However, it’s simply a coincidental observation, or at the very least, not one MILGRAM cares to explore. The only real take away from Mahiru’s character is how the general MILGRAM fan’s perception of her shifted on a dime from “crazy stalker girl” to “soft uwu girl that deserves nothing but sunshine”. From a meta angle, it’s such a beautiful depiction of misogyny, I almost want to wrap it up and put a bow on it! But that isn’t part of MILGRAM, that’s a level of complexity that I added and observed from how real people reacted to Mahiru. Not the story itself, which, for some reason, is asking people to judge Mahiru when she’s currently dealing with the trauma of seeing her boyfriend's dangling corpse. Excuse me?


Seventh, there’s Kazui, a character I cannot forgive being in MILGRAM. He’s gay, and his wife killed herself upon learning it. I’m aware that Kazui never told her, but he just received the worst coming out reaction ever, and now you want me to judge him? He’s more so a victim of societal pressures than a murderer, full stop. Kazui’s character does present an interesting examination of societal pressures, however, the cartoony way Kazui is shown to be gay is genuinely too laughable to be true. The name of his second song, “Cat”, in Japanese, is slang for bottom, and in the end of “Cat”, Kazui eats a bird (cock).

Ignoring that, it’s an interesting story. Kazui, pressured by society, ignores his gay feelings and marries a woman in hopes that he’ll find his heterosexuality somewhere there. MILGRAM, however, doesn’t have many interesting things to say on the societal pressures Kazui faces to conform as heterosexual. “Can you forgive him for doing it?” Of course I can, because the world isn’t just about billions of interpersonal relationships. It has systems that affect people and people who never have a chance to learn other ways of life. In my eyes, Kazui’s “crime” is completely the fault of heteronormativity, and on a personal level, I forgive Kazui for it. But MILGRAM has no interest in discussing heteronormativity any further than as Kazui’s motive, and not Kazui as a case study of heteronormativity. It places the fatalities of society's pressure onto the individual, and with its voting system, it invites the audience to do the same.


Eightly, there’s Amane. MILGRAM’s narrative is limited by how the audience can interact with it, and the only way the audience can input is through “Forgiven? (Y/N)”. Amane’s story isn’t about forgiveness or not, and in fact, trying to change her through it helps no one. Whether Amane is told she’s forgiven or not, it will reinforce her beliefs. While this does show how Amane can twist anything to fit in her narrative, it’s infuriating, and is a major issue I have with MILGRAM. I don’t want to judge these characters, and I hate that MILGRAM hinges on real people in real life getting to get on their moral high horse and deciding if they think people should be forgiven or not. I don’t care about judging these characters, I want to help them. What’s the point of slapping “Good”, “Bad”, black/white labels on these characters? Looking at how nothing can sway Amane is much more interesting, but ultimately, MILGRAM tells its audience to put their effort on deciding that verdict. Amane doesn’t need punishment, and Amane doesn’t need a verdict. She needs a cup of hot cocoa and a non-abusive family. She’s a victim of a cult and has done nothing wrong, she fought back in self-defense, and she needs therapy.


Nine in line, I’m gonna talk about Kotoko. I know, I know, Mikoto is next, but I’m saving Mikoto for the end. Kotoko didn’t annoy me until the second trial report. I liked how she followed her beliefs and beat up characters people liked, showing them directly how her type of self-righteousness is, well, it’s self-righteousness. It’s focused on making herself feel like the hero instead of helping those in trouble. But after this report, I’ve once again learned that I gave MILGRAM too much credit. I thought this was simple, I didn’t think is was possible to mess up, but in this second trial report, Jackolope repeatedly makes the case that the only reason Futa, Mahiru, and Mikoto got to be voted innocent this time is because Kotoko beat them up, and, in fact, Kotoko’s actions may have helped them change. This upsets me to no end. Kotoko perfectly represents justice as retribution– If someone hurts you, hurt them back. Eye for an eye, and now we’re all blind, aren’t we?

Somehow, MILGRAM touts Kotoko as “correct :3”. To that, I say “fuck off”! People don’t learn from getting electric shocks, there’s a reason corporeal punishment is seen as torture. ABA is bullshit and I really didn’t expect to be able to bring that up today. If you want people to improve, hitting them ‘til they get better doesn’t work. Kotoko is all about payback and retribution, and the fact that Jackolope explicitly congratulates her for a job well done is upsettingly stupid. Kotoko is a loose cannon that will help nothing. If she wants to help little girls not be abused like she was, there’s so many better and less destructive ways than stabbing the abusers with knives, not limited actual activism and advocating for better laws. Systemic reform will save countless kids in the future if you fight the cause of these problems in the first place. And if you really want interpersonal solutions, volunteer to help at abuse shelters, be a therapist, just anything that’s not being a vigilante that’s also gonna get you in jail because, as it turns out, murder is illegal, Kotoko.


Tenth, we have Mikoto. I’ve been waiting for this damn moment. My GODDAMN time has finally come. In the second trial report, Jackolope comments on how Mikoto has, apparently, killed a lotta people… Ahem… While Mikoto is shown to be a mass murderer in his music videos, I simply didn’t buy it.
I’m now going to quote myself, “I understand people getting mad at people seeming to undermine and ignore the “Bro but he’s a serial killer >:(” part conceptually, but in practice it’s just so unrealistic that I’m not buying it. It feels insulting that you expect me to treat this theory with even a modicum of respect. Look, even if the creators of MILGRAM themselves, after MILGRAM is over, in an interview or some shit, explain that Mikoto is actually a mass murderer, I would be just as annoying about it. It did not happen. Officially confirmed? Well I guess the writers are stupid”

Well, it turns out the writers are stupid.

The reason I was so sure of myself is that, realistically, Mikoto’s character cannot be a mass murderer. It doesn’t make sense in any way, it’s not realistic, it’s not reasonable, and it’s not a complex moral question, which MILGRAM does “attempt” to be. I don’t care to rant about how stupid this is on a realism check as it tires me, but tl;dr I expected too much. Mikoto’s character is one that I’ve given far too much respect and leeway on, despite the fact that he’s written like UTTER ASS.

I’ve been willing to give MILGRAM a chance, which is why I haven’t shared all of what I’m about to, but I’m done. It’s over and MILGRAM has confirmed to me that it’s written by actual real life troglodytes. To start, MILGRAM screwed up some basic facts about DID, which Mikoto is “supposed” to have. One, it uses “Multiple Personality Disorder”, a highly stigmatizing and outdated term for the condition. Next, Jackolope keeps mentioning how they’ve never had a prisoner with DID before, but DID isn’t actually all that uncommon, and it’s very likely heavily under-diagnosed.

Additionally, the whole premise of Mikoto’s supposed moral conundrum is “Can you blame Mikoto for the crimes of his alter”? Fun fact, this is ruled on! The answer is “yes”, an entire system can be held responsible for one alters actions. It’s not actually some wild legal gray area, because, as it turns out, people with DID do exist IRL and have been in court before. Yes, yes, believe it or not, people with DID are not merely a base for you to shittily dive off of to create pseudoscientific character complexities, asshole! They’re a real group of people that have to deal with the bullshit stigma that they’re full-on fucking psycho serial killers. Thank you for your contribution to the problem! Also people have more than one alter. The fact that Mikoto only has John should be enough to get the writer written up and thrown in “no more writing” jail. Stop cooking, it smells like mold.

Moving on from the basics that MILGRAM screwed up, Mikoto is literally THE stereotype. As someone who did some actual research into DID, I watched a podcast from a therapist that has multiple patients with DID, and they said something along the lines of this: “The person with a hyper violent alter could theoretically exist, but I’ve yet to meet them”. The reason for this actually makes sense if you think about it for more than five seconds. DID is a condition where a person’s perceptions of reality are split between different “parts” of themselves, usually referred to as “alters”. Some alters are more violent, but it’s first and foremost a defense mechanism. It’s no different than other trauma mechanisms in that respect. People with heavy trauma can hurt others if they don’t deal with it, the “victim -> abuser” pipeline is a very real thing, but these people are extremely traumatized. They aren’t mass murderers, people with DID may even have child-like alters that are literally in the mental state of the child that is stuck from the traumatized point in their life. You think a person like this is a mass murderer?!

As I said earlier, mentally ill people are more often victims of crimes than perpetrators of them. As for serial killers IRL, they are very much troubled individuals and have trauma, but it’s not as severe as the kind that gets you DID. They’re troubled in the sense that they have the mental brain virus that makes them think “yo if I stabbed this person that’d be funny”, but, from what I can tell, mass murderers are people that usually are very much disconnected from reality, privileged, and rich. Even if a poor person tried to be a mass murderer they’d probably get caught. Wealthier people just have enough privilege and influence to get away with it, and the dissatisfaction and disconnect comes with the isolation rich people are sometimes subject to.
Mikoto is set up as the overworked and sleepy “mass murderer of the people”. It just doesn’t work…

Having mental illness makes life extremely difficult, there’s a reason people seek help for it. Like, look, I don’t think someone who constantly struggles with having flashbacks to their abusive parents can plan out and get away with multiple murders. They’re too busy crying in bed to even buy the damn knife for it. This isn’t to infantilize mentally ill people, this is to point out that untreated mentally ill people get help for a reason. When very mentally ill people plan out big murder plots, they roll up to Walmart with an AR-15 and knowing they’ll die. It’s ill thought out and pointlessly destructive. It’s sad and bad, yes, but it’s very distinct from the planning needed to be a repeat serial killer. Either way, this is not Mikoto, who’s your dissatisfied coworker at your local McDonalds.

The only way Mikoto fits into being a “mass murderer serial killer” realistically is that teens keep thirst posting for him online. MILGRAM did get that right… And, look, I’ll be honest, the main reason I’m probably defending this guy so much and standing up for how he’s been done dirty is because I, too, am a creature of instinct that thinks Mikoto is hot. Unfortunately, his good looks are simply mathematical. But, I digress, that’s the only way he fits the mold. He isn’t cunning or intelligent, he’s not especially malicious or misogynistic, he’s a high masking autistic and mentally ill dingus that cries when he calls his mother because he’s suffering from overwork at his job alongside the rest of us in the working class proletariat.

Confirming that Mikoto is, in fact, supposed to be a mass murderer, has shattered my ability to ever be charitable to MILGRAM again. I kept holding out hope and I kept trying to give MILGRAM credit, but all I have learned is that I keep coming up with better stories than the actual writers did.



I gave so much credit to MILGRAM because it still had a chance, it had so many chances to be written correctly, and I held out hope. The cards weren’t on the table yet, I said “maybe”, “surely this time”, but now that I’ve seen their hand, I’ve realized I fell for their poker face. I lost the bet and, as it turns out, gambling fails yet again. Now I’m broke.
MILGRAM has had a plethora of opportunities for interesting social commentary and proper systemic analysis, but everytime it falls back into stupidity, shock value, and upping the angsty boy trauma hours.


In conclusion, I’ve been disappointed in MILGRAM for the last time. It’s a narrative riddled with holes and problems. I wanted to give the story credit, but it’s too stupid to properly follow up on the complexities already in it. MILGRAM could’ve been better, but it wasn’t, and I’m disappointed. I won’t let myself be content with this nonsensical garbage. I deserve better and there is better for me. I’m tired and I’m done. That’s why I’m done with MILGRAM.

“I'm in Love with the Villainess” has some surprisingly good and enjoyable social commentary. This anime really took my heart by storm.

There’s an aspect to falling in love when queer that, at least for me, makes more generic love stories simply unrelatable and foreign. The tale of a girl and boy falling in love with each other is the expected experience, it’s a norm that’s pushed onto people. There’s an aspect in so many romances about how people feel this is their fate, and that it’s something they’ve always dreamed about. It’s inherent to the story, I think. But if, say, you’re a girl, and ... you’ve fallen in love with a girl, there’s pressure against you that simply isn’t present in a straight story. But, in this story, the self-hate and ostracization against trying to be openly gay is explored. This anime depicts some of the difficulties that come with being gay, ones that are simply absent from more heteronormative love stories.

I never understood why people like the Romance genre so much. I’ve tried reading them, I’ve tried watching them, but I always drop them. “I guess love isn’t for me.”
“I'm in Love with the Villainess” has finally let me understand the appeal of the romance genre, and I found myself relate and love the two main characters by the end of it. For once, I actually feel like “love” could be for me, too. It’s explicit, it’s loud, and I love it. It was a very enjoyable experience, and we need more of this in the world. I’ll defend the gay representation in this anime until my dying breath.

I wanted to like Lycoris Recoil, but I found myself disappointed.

Lycoris is a comfort show masquerading as a more complex one. The dystopia is not meaningfully examined, and the problems with it are scape-goated onto a “return to monkey” anprim idiot. For the main two characters, I could ship it, but they are a little generic, as are all the characters. The existence of Kurumi’s character, in particular, makes me want to commit hate crimes.

It’s fine to write a silly show about cute girls doing cute things, but seeing Lycoris Recoil’s set up and promises of more exciting complexities while having characters dodge bullets on ... reaction time is infuriating. Watching it, I felt like I was watching something written but someone too scared to say anything for fear that it’d be polarizing. Lycoris Recoil’s cowardice leads to two big problems: 1) pro censorship and 2) it’s not gay enough.

1) The whole dystopia setting of Lycoris Recoil is used more so as an edgy backdrop than as the pretense for any real social commentary. This ends up as a big problem when the status quo of the world is one of censorship and main character Chisato explicitly defends the status quo against main antagonist Majima. It’s pro censorship, there isn’t any other way to read it than that. To me, it seems that Lycoris Recoil is too scared to say anything meaningful against the world it creates, trying to write girls that just want to live, it refuses to comment on the dystopia and ends up approving and accepting it.

2) Lycoris Recoil isn’t gay enough. I see this anime on all these gay lists, and everyone that I see accepts this anime as a fun little gay anime. Frankly, it isn’t gay enough. Yes, I do want these characters to scream from the rooftops that they are homosexuals attracted to each other. I’m somewhat exaggerating, that was a little hyperbolic, but my sentiment is sincere.
Stories exist in the context of the world around them, and in our current world, I could fully see a homophobic idiot watching Lycoris Recoil and then coming away feeling happy about how cute these “two best friends” are together. I don’t want to get into an argument about whether this anime is supposed to be gay or not, and dammit, my subjective desire and wants tell me this anime isn’t gay enough.


If you want to write a comfort anime about gay characters being gay, sure, but don’t try to use dystopia’s for their aesthetics, and it’d better be gay, damnit. BE MORE GAY!

**I explain elements of the plot but nothing big that really counts as a spoiler**
I went into Demon Slayer with an open mind. While the animation and music is objectively good, the story itself left me in immense pain.


1– I have problems with Nezuko’s character.
Nezuko, younger sister to main protagonist Tanjiro, becomes a demon in episode one. Because of this, Tanjiro sets off to turn Nezuko back into a human.

This premise could work, however, at every turn, Nezuko’s lack of agency is very upsetting to me. For one, while Tanjiro sets off on his grand quest, he never once asks Nezuko if she wants to ... become human again. Sure, she probably wants to become human, but the way it’s presented puts Tanjiro as the person who has to speak for Nezuko. Does Nezuko want to become human again? We don’t know, Nezuko never tells us. Why can’t Nezuko be the one to make the decision? It’s her life, she’s the one who got turned into a demon, but the audience is told to accept that Tanjiro has the final say about what his sister wants.

Secondly, Nezuko is heavily objectified. Not in a fan service way, but definitionally– Nezuko is treated more similar to an object than a person by both the narrative and the characters. I already mentioned her lack of autonomy in her own decision to turn back into a human, but it gets far worse than that. During the course of the rest of the story, because Nezuko is a demon, she can’t be exposed to the sun. Due to this, Tanjiro carries her around in a box. Nezuko becomes synonymous with Tanjiro’s special box– A literal object that he has to protect and that he cares very deeply for. Not a person, an object. Hello????? Excuse me??????

The lack of respect and agency given to Nezuko is beyond infuriating. The infantilization and lack of autonomy to Nezuko’s character is, in one word, chauvinistic, and frankly, I’d rather have my finger nails get torn off than be subject to watching it again.


2– Tanjiro, the special good boy.
Beyond his overprotective complex about Nezuko, Tanjiro is treated as a “very special boy” by the narrative. In episode one, within the first 5 minutes, there are 31 lines of dialogue that either explicitly or implicitly hold up Tanjiro as very special and cool. Yes, I counted. I thought it’d be funny and I wanted to do all of episode one, but I gave up after five minutes because my hands hurt too much and I have better things to do with my life.

I don’t have a problem when the protagonist is meant to be special in universe, but the amount that Tanjiro is touted up in the span of 5 minutes is incredible. I felt as though the only point of every line spoken was to explain, or set up another character to explain, how special and cool Tanjiro is. Everyone likes him and he has all these cool and great skills.

This is bad because it’s really damn annoying, but in addition, it’s lazy writing. Instead of telling me that I’m supposed to like this guy, the writer could’ve tried writing Tanjiro doing literally anything that could make me like him. Instead, I feel as though I’ve been lectured about how much I’m supposed to like this character. Frankly, this is the perfect way to make me utterly hate Tanjiro, if for nothing more than pure spite. I don’t think that was the intended effect.


3– “Demon slayer critiques toxic masculinity!”
No it does not.
I wish it did, I was excited to see critique toxic masculinity, but that is not what happened.
Tanjiro is trying to accomplish a goal, and other characters tell him to keep at it, even if it kills him. This is certainly a “toxic masculinity” kind of mindset, in which Tanjiro tries to push himself against his better health for an arbitrary goal. The problem is that… well, that’s all. This mindset, in the story, allows Tanjiro to achieve his goal, and that’s all. Rather than critiquing anything, Demon Slayer showcases and approves of Toxic Masculinity. The extra layer of complexity is simply not there, and anyone claiming there’s more to it is huffing massive amounts of copium.


4– Bad theming– Zenitsu addition
I could very easily make fun of Zenitsu’s existence… and perhaps I should, this womanizing piece of shit! However, the problem with Zenitsu is more complex than that. I want to talk about his backstory.

In it, Zenitsu is explained to be a lonely orphan child. He’s isolated, and was taken in by a retired, but respected, sword guy. This guy repeatedly physically hits Zenitsu and says some toxic things to Zenitsu, to the point where later in life Zenitsu has a trauma moment imagining his master hitting him again. It’s played mostly for comedy, and I know, I know, this a trope, but I have problems with this trope in principle. Somehow, even worse, though, is Zenitsu’s conclusion about it. He decides that, even though this person hurt him, he never left him alone.

Zenitsu is literally portraying why some people stay in abusive relationships 101– someone who’s isolated and vulnerable, staying with someone toxic, because they fear no one else will stay with them, and abusers don’t leave.

This message is a very toxic one and happens all the time in real life. If there was another layer of complexity in Demon Slayer, it’d be fine, but to my dismay, the story leaves the plot line as that, implicitly accepting Zenitsu’s abuse apologia as a responsible conclusion to his situation.


5– Bad theming– Spider Family Addition
I don’t even know where to begin here… this arc hurt my brain. Honestly, my entire review could’ve been me whining about Rui’s character, but I’ll try to be succinct. Rui is a demon with spider powers who, towards the end of season one, is introduced as an antagonist.
Rui idolizes a type of family structure– specifically, a rigid hierarchy that’s toxic. Because of his dream, Rui ropes several other demons to be part of his family, a family that’s referred to as “fake” numerous times. Additionally, it’s shown that this family Rui’s made is very abusive and bad towards each other.

I thought that, since Rui was the antagonist, the point would be that Rui, when he was human, he had his “ideal family structure”, lost his memories due to trauma, and repeated his abuse onto others. Y’know, a little cycle of abuse plotline. Instead, we learn that Rui’s family did follow his ideals, and in fact, it was super epic and based and cool for that. In fact, in Rui’s backstory, we learn that when everything went wrong, it’s because Rui accepted demon powers because he didn’t want to suffer from his disability.

Instead of being a neat little plotline about the cycle of abuse, Demon Slayer seems to say that Rui’s demon family he makes failed, not because of the toxic structure, but because they weren’t a “real” family, as well as saying that Rui ruined his “good” family because he wanted disability accommodations. Worse, in the story, when Rui goes up to heaven, he gets to apologize to his parents for being born… Thanks Demon Slayer, I wasn’t expecting to feel terrible today!
I really didn’t expect the end conclusion to this plotline to be evil disability accommodations, but that’s what we got. God help us all. How the hell do you write a storyline that’s anti-adoption, anti-disability accommodations, and pro abuse????



In reality, despite my dramatization, I know why Demon Slayer has the problems it does. I don’t think that Koyoharu Gotouge, the writer of Demon Slayer, intended for the messages in her story to be so terrible. I think she wanted to write little plotlines and didn’t spend much thought into the implicit messages present. However, regardless of author intention, the messages in media do matter, and Demon Slayer’s messages are really terrible.

Also the writing itself just isn’t that interesting or fun. The dialogue is super repetitive and bloated, the characters generic, and the world building ill-thought out and filled with plot holes…
So, yeah. That’s why I don’t like Demon Slayer.

If you watched the series, watch this movie
If you haven't watched the series, watch the series, then watch this movie.

Watching this movie was one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

When Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku started playing, and a car wash appeared, the emotions evoked are too grand for words. I was not prepared. No one was perpared. How could we be?

The true brilliance of the line "Are you surprised? It's a big mistake to think you're the only one that can turn into a car. I'm a car now too!" left me in tears.

This Movie gave me the ending to Utena that ... I never know I needed, but now I know better.

Car is love.
Car is life.
10/10

This is a song by eve.

In the release of the video on Eve's channel: The video has pretty colors that go hard. It follows Tobin, and there is a story with highs and lows. Even though I don't understand Japanese I could follow along without understanding the lyrics.

There's characterization through the way the characters hold themselves through the scenes that is fun. I like the characters. The music also goes hard.

This song is also used as the final ED to chainsaw man. The visuals there are also super fun. I like seeing characters I like doing silly stuff.

Overall this song goes hard.

Hi. I probably have grammer errors. But I'm really tired and I don't feel like fixing it. Hopefully it's still legible.

Hastune Miku Future Delivery is a story where Asumi is found my Asimov, a delivery robot, and asks them to 'deliver her' to a person in her memories (Hatsune Miku).

Art 8/10: The art isn't anything groundbreaking, and the eyes on the faces were jarring for me at first. However, the artstyle grew on me as the characters were still expressive, consistent, and expressed the story I felt they were trying to tell well.

Characters 6/10: There are a few characters. Two main ones, one ... villain (kind of?), and like 9 one-off/side characters.
Main: The two develop a relationship throughout the journey in a believably fashion. The two themselves also change throughout it individually. The robot comes to appreciate the living in the present supposed to the past, and Asumi becomes more active supposed to passive. Both of them have problems involving their past. (This is stated in the first scene) Asumi doesn't know hers, and Asimov is bound to theirs.
Throughout the story I can believe how they change through the events that happen. I felt a bit jarred by how far they were willing to go for each other, however, it actually makes sense if one considers how much they had gone through.
Their motivations were simple and made sense and fit with their characters.
This is where I'm going to talk about a con now. I feel like one of the things I look for in a character isn't just development (although that is a big part of it) is the connection to the characters. While I got invested into the robot right away with how they were shown to be very determined, I'll be honest and say the reason I kept going was because Miku. I was waiting to find Miku.
Throughout the story, I found it to feel more like I was going on a ride with them and cared for that and to see their goals accomplished. This is a start, but my main issue is that the characters didn’t have fun interactions. There were some, but most were just the characters spouting plot important ideas at each other. Other than the plot important ones, they were a lot of wholesome interactions. While these wholesome interactions are really nice, they’re not the fun I’m referring to. It’s very non humorous, and makes the characters feel a bit stilted.
This kinda falls under enjoyment, but its enjoyment from character interactions. It’s not that the characters don’t feel like they mesh, it’s that the characters just don’t have fun interactions. This is probably why the development of their relationship felt strange. It’s not that the basis wasn’t there, it’s that I didn’t feel like that mattered. While they pushed themselves farther for each other, they didn’t bounce off each other or just interact with each other in any more capacity than the plot required.
While I’m biased, fun character interactions tend to be some of my favorite parts of a story. So without it, the story starts to feel almost dull. Personally, I think it would have been better for the characters to play off each other of quip with each other more and more as the story progressed. It could’ve made it feel like they were growing more accustomed to each other and sell me on the relationship more.

Side: There’s a lot of side characters, as the story follows a mostly episodic plot of trying to find the Hatsune Miku Asumi remembers. They run into a lot of people that look like Hatsune Miku but aren’t the one she’s looking for. These characters are one-offs, and all have their own plot that gets resolved. I definitely have my favorites of the plot lines, but they all revolve around the character(s) they’re centered around. They usually tell a small moral or fit into a small lesson, but overall they’re sad stories with a wholesome ending. They work and there isn’t much to say here.

Villain(?): There is someone who appears later and takes the role closest to a villain in the story. However, this question mark is because while they do cause a major beat in the plot that leads to the particular ending of the story, their isn’t much for their character. I think their personality is supposed to be towards the bland side for plot related reasons, but it just serves to make the character feel dull and uninteresting.
They even get a backstory (kind of) and it manages to… change nothing about the character, just establish who they are. Which is good, since that was a mystery, I appreciate being answered, however, all I can say about them is that I don’t remember if they even have a name, they oppose our main character, and they wear a cloak.
The one-off characters are more compelling than this character. This is an issue when they appear during most of the second half and cause major events. I don’t need anything more complex for this character, I just wish they at least had better dialogue that fleshed out their character in that way. They don’t need to act any differently, the character could’ve just been even more dismissive of others. It feels like the author wants to show that they’re displeased when they talk about certain plot ideas, however, I don’t get that since it’s not explained ever. I think my main issue with this character is that they have potential to be very interesting, but end up feeling boring and stilted.
Overall, my issue comes back to the dialogue I was talking about. It tends to be merely plot important ideas, and nothing more than that. It majorly lacks fun character interactions.

Enjoymet 8/10: I know I said that it severely lacked fun character interactions, but the wholeness of a lot of the plotlines made me end up enjoying the story even in spite of that. The stories always ended in a heartwarming way.
The other thing I have to say is more plot related. I really appreciated how at the end the whole memory mystery of the Asumi was solved in a way that made sense. I was worried at first that it was going to be tied up in a manner that made no sense since, but my worries were unfounded, so I appreciated that a lot.

Story 9/10: Yeah, I’m probably being too generous with this. It wasn’t something too amazing, but I felt that it was pretty good. As this was a plot drive story, as I’ve mentioned, I appreciated how the different plot threads were tied and conclusions were given to stories. The beginning is a good introduction, and the end is (again) mostly wholesome, but more bittersweet this time.
Spoilers for this next part
I’m going to talk about the theming. I feel like with the main characters name being given to her by Asimov and them literally stating it means ‘to look to the future’, this is a primarily theme. I’m inclined to agree. The story ends with, after Asimov repeatedly taking hits to save Asumi, the old tech their built from can’t be found and after one more hit they essentially die. Asumi, who is in a blackhole tech area to travel to the past, asks if dreams travel, and this is after Asimov gave a speech about living in the present, Asumi travels to the past after learning that she’ll keep her dreams.
Listen, I like the moral of looking to the future. But I have trouble believing that this is the moral when the conclusion is our main character traveling to the past. This sounds like a critique, that’s because it is, but this story is definitely one of those ‘the journey’ supposed to ‘the conclusion’, so it doesn’t annoy me as much. (also Asumi in a delivery service uniform and repeating Asimov motto at the beginning is extremely wholesome.)
Now, I’m hear to say that I found a different moral pretty explicitly. The idea that everyone is worth something, no matter what or who they are. This is supported by Asumi being someone artificially created with fake memories. While her choosing to move on from these fake memories to the future fits with the other theme, she pushes through how she’s supposedly a ‘defect’ for having this funny thing called ‘emotions’. Asimov also follows this, as they are also a robot.
Along these lines, it also feeds into the idea that being ones own individual self, living in the moment, are important ideals.

Overall (8/10): Do these numbers add up?
No.
But hey that’s how I feel about it. I think it was fun. It has issues, but, in conclusion, it is a wholesome experience worth reading, in my opinion.