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Jul 6, 2022
This is a quick review and not comprehensive by any means. Might contain spoilers.
Kaguya Sama is a masterpiece, probably not a timeless one though. It is filled with witty humor, relatable references, and creative situations meshed along with an impeccable cast. It naturally seamlessly weaves bizarre situations on the characters, creating a perfect environment for comedy and character growth.
Ridiculous premise, an act of a couple of tsundere to make the other confess to each other leading to over-the-top psychological drama - except it turns into comedy instead of being something like a death note. In a hypothetical scene, you would see both of them
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arguing frivolously over the subject at hand (with romantic undertones) while having exorbitant monologues, embellished with the other characters chiming in with their distinct personalities - creating a perfect environment for humorous situations. The formula is simple, but the execution is literal perfection. The creativity is insane and the jokes are relatable as hell with all the pop-culture references scattered throughout the show. It nails the timing and the predictability is near to none.
Serving as the climax of the series - Kaguya Sama Ultra Romantic has the peak moment of the story. The premise of the show gets a proper closer, as the main duo we have seen across the three seasons finally confess in a very grandiose way, staying true to the narrative style. We have seen Kaguya and Shirogane grow across the three seasons, both as characters, but also in the relationship and dynamics between both of them, which made the eventual confession a thousand times better (stating the obvious) while not endlessly stretching the plot.
To add, Kaguya Sama is a character-driven story. Therefore, the characters are important. Kaguya Sama: Love is War shines in this department, with an ensemble cast. Quirky characters with distinct personalities of their own. Each of them has their individual stories lined up alongside the main plot of the show. Something like Iino’s shoujo dream or Ishigami’s gamer attitude or Chika’s board game craze perfectly swathes with the narrative. Aka, for some reason, brings in the best of their personalities into whatever he wants to draw. My personal favorite character in the show is Shirogane. He is an embodiment of the “chad” meme self inserted into the show. He might not be buff, but he is the manliest guy on the show. I am thankful that Kaguya has the most acceptable reasons in any rom-com to like Shirogane.
The voice acting further adds to the experience. I usually don’t specifically praise anime voice acting since for a very competitive industry, it is almost every time fantastic, but in Kaguya Sama - it really brings a lot of life to the characters. Especially the weirdly toned “huh” or “hein” embedded (perfectly) between a conversation. It adds another level of expressiveness to the conversation - that might be the only reason I am still restraining myself from getting into the manga. The color palette is perfect, the composite of the show is absolutely gorgeous and the storyboarding/direction makes the show immersive as hell.
To summarize, I love Kaguya Sama: Love is War. I love almost every character - Shirogane, Kaguya, Ishigami, Iino, Hayasaka. This show makes me euphoric and I have my utmost gratitude for it for that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Apr 1, 2021
"The things you see, the things you eat, and the time you get to spend contemplating things. I think solo camping is a way to appreciate loneliness."
Yuru Camp is the gargantuan paragon of iyashikei. Imagine working all day in a hectic semester; it's hella cold outside, you're in your blanket at the end of the day with a cup of hot coffee, and you're watching some cute high school girls going out to camp in the countryside japan with a matching atmosphere. The time you spend alone, watching this cozy little show - not with your friends but with yourself alone can make you feel
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happy to be alive.
Yuru Camp's plot is nothing grandiose, nor does it swathe itself with arcane philosophical themes - but that's the charm of the show. Set in the Japanese countryside, Yuru Camp is an experience where you immerse yourself in the jejune and tranquil lives of moe high school girls that love camping with calming music and alluring backgrounds to enhance your experience. The cozy, calming, laid-back world of the main characters that heavily contrasts with our heavy continuous lives - it's that brief 25 minutes of the week where you refuse to care about anything about your life.
The show's main strength comes from the characters - particularly from their wholesome yet humorous interactions. Character interactions ranging from emotionally touching and human to goofy and comical - never fails to leave me at cloud nine at the end of every episode is highly commendable. We got characters with an ample mix of personalities - from the lovable goofball that is Nadeshiko to the quiet and reserved Rin. Everyone - even the side characters contribute to the experience that is Yuru Camp. Just watching them as a group doing cute and wholesome things alone has the power to ostracize any cynical voice inside my head. Nonetheless, even with a likable cast, the show won't be the same without their interactions as a group. The character likability has been augmented with the ever-strong character acting this season, brilliantly portraying character growth - especially for Rin, who is now opening up to more people. While this is nothing groundbreaking, noticing such character growth is a fulfilling experience.
Being a part of the prolific genre of "Cute girls doing cute things" - the show itself feels different from a generic CGDCT anime, especially the spotlight is definitely not the moeness of the characters - but rather the hobby, that is camping and camping accessories. However, concealed behind the mask (camping), Yuru Camp does feel like a traveling encouragement show - like how Haikyuu was potent enough to encourage volleyball as a sport. Every splendor of the countryside Japan is annotated to us - be it popular tourist locations or the local food specialty. I think I'm not the only one who checks out every mentioned location on the map. Like, who does not want to check out real-world counterparts to locations mentioned in an anime you love - especially when the said spots are immaculate scenic campsites!
Yuru Camp is blessed with immense love from the staff - that it's evident that there's a clear passion for the project that you feel oozing through every frame. The show has an immense level of attention to detail - be it the enticing food imagery from okonomiyaki and yakisoba to Shimarin Ice cream(lol) or the camping accessories - all thanks to the talented props and mechanical staff. Minor elements like beginning and ending the episode with Nadeshiko moving away from her only friend to Nadeshiko with her new friends, or the competent and self-sufficient feeling when Nadeshiko was finally able to buy herself a lamp, but also a gift to her older sister - which was depicted generously with a brief night timelapse from Ending theme makes Yuru Camp such a great show.
The show takes a softened photorealistic approach towards the background art - that perfectly encapsulates the atmosphere as this non-idealized art direction perfectly executes a realistic feeling. Music has a tremendous power of healing - that directly helps your heart and mind feel elated. Fortunately, Yuru Camp has been blessed with Serene and Calming music to enhance the experience. In introspection, Yuru Camp takes inspiration from a Danish Concept Hygge - where being comfortable is emphasized for the well-being. As they say, "What freedom is to Americans..hygge is to the Danes" - might be why the music in Yuru Camp resonates with Nordic and Irish tones, which ultimately enhances the show's warm atmosphere. The already good production values from the first season have been improved by a lot. The pacing is perfect, and the marvelous storyboarding - meshed with remarkable direction and cinematography that helps the viewer immersed in the world.
Immersing into Yuru Camp feels like that moment of childhood that now exists as a picturebook - as if you're reliving that memorable moment lost in time. Even though the show is very grounded and comparing with real-life might feel superfluous - watching the show does feel like reminiscing the good memories of your childhood. Devoid of any dramatical elements, everything in the show is wholesome - be it the immaculate character interactions or Nadeshiko's Glutonny or the humor or even noises from the non-living items guiding us.
All Thanks to Afro-sensei, Yoshiaki Kyougaku, and the passionate staff at C-Station, we got to experience maximum healing from what 2020 was. Yuru Camp is truly a gem to this medium.
Tl;dr
Story: 7
Art/Animation: 10
Sound: 9
Characters: 9
Enjoyment: 9
Overall: Light 9
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jun 28, 2019
Review contains Spoilers
To sum up Tate no Yuusha, it is nothing but a trash revenge story with a cumulation of pointless fillers and an ever-increasing harem – with obvious atrocious writing. The first few initial episodes did a great job of getting my attention. Although it touched sensitive matters like Rape and slavery – it was never a big deal.
The anime community is filled with shield hero memes, flaming discussions and constant best girl stuff that it is literally impossible for anyone to ignore it.
It starts off as our shut-in NEET teleported to an isekai – resembling another generic RPG based world. The
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plot is simple – four heroes are summoned from their respective worlds to fight against the waves in order to protect the realm. Our protagonist kun is supposedly the one with the shield while the other three heroes have cooler weapons. While the other three heroes were practically useless during the course of the story and did nothing that qualifies themselves to be called “heroes” while living in delusion that they are playing a game.
Starting with an RPG based simple setting – things get darker as our shield bro gets accused of Rape. From then, follows a series of wild accusations towards Naofumi from the Royals. Naofumi is wrongly portrayed as the enemy of the public by the royal family and the heroes follow the bandwagon without any actual evidence and logic. By these turns of events, the shield hero is made more morally grey – added with his personality, an interesting character but is never explored beyond that.
There's so much going on to break immersion, especially considering how they bill Naofumi at the start; he's someone who plays fast and loose with things like honor and morals as a response to the world boning him. And yet, we don't get to see that beyond the first few episodes. Everything that is interesting is forgotten in a matter of an episode.
The story focuses on corruption and justice at a surface level. The revenge themes presented is one dimensional, inconsistent character writing, obvious pacing and filler problems, and finally turns into a harem.
The pacing is atrocious, and I’m not even blowing away the proportions on this one. The whole hot springs episode? It was only there for the jealousy cliché, which was alright but beyond noticeable and could have been dealt with as a side plot rather than a whole episode dedicated to it. There is another beach episode in the latter end of the story. The entire Raphtalia backstory part two wasn’t necessary to the narrative and was literally forced upon in between a side quest. The bad guy was again a bad guy because bad guys are supposed to be bad, nothing else. A cartoonish personification of an evil dude because of money and corruption. The whole backstory stretched itself to around five fucking episodes with barely affecting the story or the characters. The only purpose it served was creating more hatred towards the system (which was against Naofumi) at a one-dimensional layer. Then we get to the pope part – who is another installment of “We have to wipe out the devil of the shield”, which again was boring and without any substance.
Also, what the actual fuck was the last episode. Most parts of the final arc was literally filler but the final 5 minutes were so rushed that we got a plot twist which made no sense in accordance to the rules that the anime has already set along with an underwhelming battle and an anti-climactic ending. All they did was throw wine at her and next minute they all leave and the waves over and they have a new person in the party in the span of 3 minutes. I'm still giving it a benefit of doubt considering these would be explored in a supposedly season 2 which I am definitely not watching.
The battles in shield hero severely lack dynamics. It’s like the heroes are arguing with each other over a course of a battle and the opponent does nothing. Battles seem flat and formulaic and not to mention – boring. The spell names are so long and stupid, over 5 minutes of a 20 minutes battle content would have been saved if they were shortened or simply, removed. The heroes are supposed to be heroes – the literal meaning yet they have done nothing extraordinary in terms of their talent. When in the rare case of a melee attack, it’s usually either one single weapon slash or a weapons clash, which is followed up by another long conversation. The constant ranged attacks which are literally the same all over are already boring, and now when the former happens, it ends as fast as it started – the whole generic thing with stupid ass convo during a battle. The whole rage/demon shield was supposed to be great if it actually had any negative impact that wasn’t negated by the harem crew simple hugging him every time.
Rapthalia’s whole character is based upon loving Naofumi, without any substance. Her character is based upon riding Naofumi’s sword more than being his sword. She is a cheap excuse of being a great waifu for lonely depressed weebs. Naofumi is a classic example of an MC who in real life would be so unlikeable that no one would hang out with him, let alone have girls fawn over him - pandering bait for those who think it is the world’s fault. Filo is just an annoying character with barely any personality. She exists as jailbait for the above context lolicons. Another addition to our shield bro’s harem is another loli, which, unfortunately, wasn’t much rememberable because of her whole character existing within the worst part of the anime. The entire character of the girls revolves around the shield hero– on top of that the same scenes over obsessing shield hero take over the half episode.
The “bad” guys in this anime remind me of Romanticism in literature. Back then, characters were walking allegories of singular traits they embodied. A character was so cartoonishly evil because they were the embodiment of... well, evil. Malty is a bitch, well for no reason. The king is inherently evil because of a small grudge, while which is still a better excuse. The spear guy is made into a stupid lolicon, and the other two heroes are just mary sues. It seems to me that everyone is made dumb just to get to the next plot point. The kidnapping plot – with the original assassination attempt, just ignore those two soldiers in the background holding a crystal ball towards you and chuckling evilly while you do nothing about it, then at the mansion, Naofumi is shown suspicious of basically everyone; and while they should keep watch because they’re in danger, he lets the children go wander off unsupervised. And then get surprised anyways. The character writing in this show is so inconsistent even in terms of a power fantasy trash novels. The list on how shield hero’s characters suffer from trash writing is Voluminous.
The art style is mediocre and nothing great in particular. To be fair I’ve never liked Kinema Citrus’ work and Kevin’s soundtracks. Kevin’s soundtracks were never rememberable in the anime. I watched the entirety of MiA but I never knew that the soundtracks were considered a masterpiece.
Tl;dr
the story in shield hero:
• every hero is stupid except naofumi.
• everyone hates naofumi even though he saves the people every time because they lack common sense.
• thousands of fillers and slowly turning into a loli harem.
• pacing is bad
• the writing is bad.
• Inconsistent character writing
• Boring fights with no sense of tension
• Malty finally gets punishment which wasn't really a punishment
• Another beach episode and Raphtalia wanting Naofumi's sword.
• Illogical ending.
Story/Themes/Pacing (25%): 2/10
Characters (15%): 2/10
Artstyle/Animation/Soundtrack (15%): 6/10
Enjoyment (45%): 2/10
Total: 2.6/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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May 19, 2019
*Review contains spoilers till episode 4!*
We are blessed that we're living in a timeline when we are getting return to shiganshina animated. We have linked horizon back for the OP, we have been teased with the basement in this season and on top it, we have the banger soundtracks from season 1 back!
While the previous part of the season was primarily focused on politics and mystery, this season has been primarily focused on action and hype. But trust me, this season has a lot more to it in the coming episodes!
This season started off with 3000 levels of hype with Erwin's epic speech
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in the first episode. The mind battle between Erwin and Reiner, the subtle foreshadowing of coffee being non-existent inside the walls, Berthold's character development, Erwin's inner monologue and his cathartic moment have been the highlight of this season for me.
Shingeki has been expert in subtle foreshadowing. Eren eating his dad, or shadis being his dad's former acquaintance or Marco's death; everything had been foreshadowed before. It was after the trost fight when Annie was constantly saying "I'm sorry" to the dead bodies as if being in regret that she couldn't save anybody, but it was in fact that she was responsible in Marco's death.
Erwin's charge was my favorite moment of the manga and I'm impressed on how WiT managed to pull off this in such a manner that made me cry once again. Erwin has always been my favorite character of the series, the most charismatic character ever.
In the time since SNK first started airing, Erwin went from being a desperately undervalued character to one of the most popular, and I couldn't be happier. His complexity, his unwavering resolve, his growing obsession, his strategic mind and adaptive nature, his decreasing ability to mask his emotions, his complex relationships with Levi and Hange, his largely unspoken mentor relationship with Armin, his physical capabilities, his fearlessness... There is a ton of intriguing depth in his character. And on a personal note, his struggles with disability and inability to slow down in spite of it really resonate with me.
Shingeki no kyojin has been my favorite series. It has a unique way of storytelling. Some people believe genius is hyper-complexity that makes uniqueness, which is why those people will shit on 'simple' foundation for works of art. But to be honest, those simple, bare and raw ideas that are so fascinating and fresh to capture the energy of so many people comprises true, fundamental genius.
SnK's idea was as simple as it was unique, and still somehow familiar enough to satisfy our ease with the genre: man-eating giants -- not the ugly, inhuman-looking giants you usually see, but straight-up naked giant people -- three tall ass walls, and then people within those walls. Shifters didn't 'become' or transform into their titans, and the Titans weren't some sci-fi bullshit; the bodies were flesh and blood and literally formed around them like an extension of themselves.
From there, Isayama managed to make a world so complex, using these fundamental ideas made me admire the series as it is as of now.
Shingeki anime has been blessed by our god composer Sawano which doubles the quality of the show. This season has brought back so many soundtracks from season 1 which never failed to give me eargasms.
The artstyle is better than the thick lines, and character designs are closer to the manga. The animation quality is mediocre, which was a slight disappointment.
This season of shingeki has been my favorite season so far!
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 25, 2019
*This review contains SPOILERS!*
That time I got reincarnated as a slime is basically a bad version of overlord. It started as a light hearted slimavilization which was fun in the beginning but then became horribly boring.
The premise starts off with our 37 years old virgin being killed and reincarnated as a jesus with a mix personality of a mary sue and being nice because supposedly being nice and having a god like power can make girls with big tits or naked lolis to like you. There's literally no story here. Rimuru is building his own slimavilization along with everyone he meets. There are no threats,
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no stakes, nor any tension in this already 1 dimentional story. The same goes with political workings as well. Our MC takes this Jesus attitude with everything, and characters always end up going 'oh okay, lets all be nice to each other'. In the meanwhile, the world has such physics that if monsters are named, then they will evolve. Basically my cat will evolve into a leopard if I name her.
All the characters are bland. All we have is an edgy MC, a big tiddy onee-san, another big tiddy dryad, a naked OP loli, a wolf and a bunch of goblins. Rest weren't rememberable at all. The only ones I liked were eaten the very episode they were introduced.
The worldbuilding is trash. The only thing we know about this world is about different species that live. The voice acting is bad at various levels accounting to childish voices. Even the music is pretty bad. Except for the first ending theme, which was semi-decent; the songs are a measure of how childish the show can go. The only thing that is preventing me from giving it a 1 is the artstyle and the animation, because of 8bit's solid technical staff.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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