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Aug 2, 2020
*This review is spoiler free*
So, I first watched the Beck anime back in 2013, and it quickly became one of my favourite anime of all time, still occupying a spot in my favourites list to this day.
Somehow, a whole seven years later, I found myself with some time to myself and nothing to watch/read, so I finally decided to take the plunge and read the whole of Beck. It wasn’t planned, but I ended up reading the whole thing in two sittings over two days.
That said, I’ll open with this statement: If you liked the anime, just read it. You are only depriving yourself
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of more enjoyment with these characters and this story. Just read it, you’ll thank yourself.
Story –
The story is deceptively simple. Centred around Yukio ‘Koyuki’ Tanaka, a middle-schooler who doesn’t excel much at anything, Beck takes you on a 6+ year journey over its 103 chapters. We follow Yukio, the other eventual members of Beck and a handful of other supporting characters as they set out to become the biggest band in Japan, against all the odds.
Despite not having the most original premise, Beck still manages to provide enough twists and turns to be thoroughly entertaining throughout with, in my view, a conclusion that is both satisfying and leaves you wanting more, just to spend a little more time with the characters.
Art –
If I’m being completely honest, the art at the start of Beck is pretty underwhelming. It is by no means terrible, but it’s definitely not great. However, I noticed that around the 30-chapter mark there was a drastic improvement in the quality and consistency of the art, especially in the characters. By the end of the manga I can comfortably say that the art is pretty damn good, especially when you consider how it was when it started.
Character –
The characters really carry this manga 100% of the way. They’re all fantastic and I really found myself completely in love with most of the main cast by the end. Their motivations and personalities are totally fleshed out throughout the story, leaving you with a great impression of them as individuals come the end.
One thing I will say is that I was really worried about the main character’s romance at some points, but by the end I found myself largely satisfied with what turned out to be a surprisingly realistic subplot. Maybe a little more towards the end would have been nice, but I understand that it wasn’t the intended focus of the story by that point so it’s fine as is.
Enjoyment –
I haven’t enjoyed a manga this long enough to read it in such a short space of time in a long while. It was really a blast from start to finish, despite its medium-long length, and never came close to losing my attention at any point.
Final Thoughts –
Finishing this, and looking back at the anime, only makes me wish that we could have seen the rest of the story adapted. It is virtually impossible that this happens at this point given the series’ age, but I think, given the songwriting treatment the original adaptation got, and the updated level of animation it could really be something special.
I’m sure, in the future, I’ll find myself coming back to this series again and again. Truly a masterpiece in my eyes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Aug 27, 2015
(NOTE: This review will contain spoilers, so if you have yet to watch this show and plan to do so, you have been warned)
Where to start with Akame ga Kill...
Story: 2/10
To preface, having seen the promo for this show before it aired, I was hyped. It looked promising. People were heralding it as 'the new Attack on Titan'. While my expectations were not quite that high, I certainly looked forward to what the show had to offer. It looked like it had that balance of dark 'edginess', awesome fight scenes and the classic 'underdog takes on the world' story that could make it one
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of the shows of the season. In truth, none of my expectations really came true.
At the beginning nothing seemed too wrong. We learn about the world in which the show is set, we are introduced to the corrupt government, setting the 'underdog' story in motion, but the show soon falls at the second, or third, hurdle.
I will cover the main characters individually later in the review, but where this show first falls flat is in its main character, Tatsumi.
Tatsumi is, for lack of a better word; plain. Almost infuriatingly so. From his appearance and personality to his voice acting, everything is so insurmountably and undeniably boring. But more on that later.
For me, the lack of an interesting main character is incredibly jarring. It stops me from sympathising with whatever the character is going through, so this disappointing excuse of a protagonist was perhaps the first sign of what was to come.
The rest of the first episode was pretty decent, further establishing the setting, with the rather well played reveal at the end serving as a sufficient hook to make me want to watch the next episode.
For a few episodes, the show continues at that pace, never ‘amazing’, but certainly not bad enough to make me drop the show. It’s a little ‘boss of the week’-ish, but I don’t mind that. However, things start to spiral out of control when we hit episodes 5 & 6. Episode 5 serves as a development episode for the scissor wielding (No, not Ryuko) Sheele. This seemed a little odd to me, as the show hadn’t really had an episode dedicated so obviously to developing one character. Then episode 6 happened. When I saw Coro bite down on Sheele I realised what this show was going to become. This show was going to make me fear character development.
Surely enough, one by one, each character got their episodes of development, and soon later they all died. One after the other. As soon as that development got started you prepared for the worst, and it almost always came. More than anything, this annoyed me. These episodes set me up to like some of these characters, but I couldn’t bring myself to actually warm to them because I knew they’d be dead in a few episodes at best.
So, the show continues more or less along this pattern, while attempting to establish some sort of moral juxtaposition to try and get you to think about which side is right, but in the end I just didn’t care. Truth be told, the only reason I finished this show is because by the time I wanted out I was over halfway in and thought I might as well endure it till the end.
Then came the ending. Oh God, the ending.
To put it frankly; the ending was a trainwreck. It tried to make you feel sorry for all these characters you didn’t care about dying left, right and centre and fell horribly flat in doing so. The pitiful attempt at an ‘open' ending felt tacked on and unnecessary and left me with a sour taste in my mouth. There was some tacky and vague ‘closure’ and no real satisfaction, this really tipped the show over the edge in my opinion, turning it from average to poor.
Art: 7/10
Not a whole lot to say about the art.
The character designs, for the most part, were fairly good, with good utilisation of colour to separate and distinguish the otherwise bland characters. The most disappointing design belonged to Tatsumi. It just furthered his unappealing ‘plain-ness’.
The animation was, relatively average throughout, however the fight scenes were very well animated and could possibly be considered the shows best feature, but they were not good enough to make up for the gaping holes in other aspects of the show.
Considering the show was animated by White Fox, the studio who brought us Steins;Gate, it is not surprising to see flashes of brilliance here and there, but I don’t think it was up to their usual standard.
Sound 7/10
Even less to say about the sound.
The soundtrack wasn’t particularly memorable, but it did what it needed to do. The first opening was very good, but the rest of the shows openings and endings were again, un-memorable to the point I can’t even vaguely remember them. The sound effects were well executed and complemented the great animation in some of the fight scenes.
The voice acting was pretty good, with particularly memorable performances put in by Kana Hanazawa, Eiji Takemoto and Kouji Isshi.
Characters: 3/10
The characters, along with the story are where this show really lets itself down.
First off, we have shambles of a ‘main character’ in Tatsumi, who really couldn’t be more generic if he tried. He has little to no originality, being the spiky-haired ‘justice’ driven shounen protagonist we’ve seen a million and one times. It’s hard to see why they gave the show such an uninspired main character. I found it genuinely difficult to sympathise with his plight, making his eventual demise leave me amused more than saddened. If he was so plain for purposes of self-insertion or immersion then that was a failure too. While he wasn’t intrinsically ‘bad’ he was just so painfully average.
The only other character who doesn’t die as soon as they get some development is the namesake of the show, Akame. Akame is nothing new, so I won’t say too much about her. Her backstory was vaguely interesting at times and her interactions with her sister, Kurome, were usually pretty good, if a bit dry.
Almost the whole remainder of the cast exists to be built up and immediately killed off. However there were some notable individuals such as the psychotic Seryuu and morally conflicted bols, but these served as fleeting moments as they were all killed off rather swiftly.
Enjoyment: 3/10
I tried to like this show, I really did. But in the end, it set itself up to fall from the start, with the weak main character and the weaker plot doing nothing to aid this show in my eyes. While the show did provide some visual and auditory stimuli by the way of animation and sound it wasn’t enough to make this show ‘enjoyable’ for me.
Overall 4/10
So, this show, which I can only describe as ‘painfully average’, earns an overall rating of 4/10. The potential for an epic ‘underdog vs the system’ story was there but was ultimately let down by weak characters and dysfunctional plot. If I had to sum it up in a phrase: ‘wasted potential.’
Thanks for reading my review, and look forward to my next one!
-SpaceCowboyFin
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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