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Apr 25, 2024
Homunculus is a manga that believes it has more to say than it actually does.
It's not bad, by any means, but it insists upon itself (thanks, Peter) so much it really does feel like the author thought he had more to say, when all he does in most occasions is scratch the surface of what could be done with the premise. There is a feeling permeating the manga; a feeling that keeps you reading because it looks like, at any turn, things are going to get a bit stranger, its themes a bit deeper. Spoiler: they never really do, and while the ride is by
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no means bad, by the end you feel a bit disappointed the destination isn't all it was building up to be.
And don't get me wrong; when this manga wants to get insightful, it does. The second half of the manga is the best part because, after a myriad of cyclical repetitiveness, the main characters sit down and truly get to know each other through a very tense, bizarre sequence with a lot of interesting twists and turns. Of course, the almost rhythmically repetitive pacing is still there, and you will get the feeling that several conversations are carbon copies of each other, but at least the manga is daring to explore its main characters in a more interesting way than it did in its first half. It never reaches the philosophical catharsis it keeps promising, and its themes are on-the-nose almost to the point of condescension, but the way the characters are written, as well as the panel composition, kept me reading until the end.
The art is beautifully bizarre and the imagery it manages to evoke is top-notch. Yamamoto knows how to twist a normal human face into something that feels uncomfortable, even alien, with just a few changes. Visually, it is a very interesting manga, its art only brought down by the sometimes recycled feel of some panels, an inevitable victim of the cyclical writing mentioned above.
Overall, while I recommend it as an intruiging and artistically refreshing manga, I would warn against expecting anything particularly deep to come of its reading. It teases the reader with high-concept ideas that it never really builds upon while it keeps repeating the same 'we live in a society' style of messages we've seen a million times.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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May 22, 2023
Adorable little manga that tastefully navigates a queer relationship in a very fun, comfy way. Though the trope used to drive the story isn't something particularly new, the musical element that drives the characters' attraction to each other is very compelling, and certain plot developments seem to point toward it becoming an even more important part of the main pairing's life. In a similar way to Bocchi the Rock, the music is not only there to kickstart the plot, as it also becomes the main thing around which the lives of the characters revolve. Characters who are, by the way, very well written and avoid
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some of my most hated stereotype in queer manga (Mitsuki's uncle is a sweetheart and I love him so much). The artwork is lovely, though some panel compositions suffer from what I imagine is a lack of experience from the mangaka. Nevertheless, the artstyle's natural charm and the way facial expressions are drawn often overshadow the mangaka's technical missteps.
Overall, it's a very cute and fluffy manga to read when you want something feel-good that also happens to include a sapphic relationship. My only real problem with this manga is how short chapters are! They always leave me wanting more.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 12, 2021
Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time is the culmination of the Rebuild series, and much like the other movies, it's pretty mediocre overall.
This movie spends too much of its runtime on CGI fight scenes with no discernable stakes and confusing goals hidden behind a veil of nonsensical esoteric lore that doesn't really matter to the overall theme of the movie. While yes, the original Eva was confusing as hell, the lore was just decoration, as the main appeal of the anime was the characters and their interactions and growth. This is the biggest problem with the movie (and its predecessor, 3.0): the character interactions
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are forgotten in favor of bombastic fight scenes that amount to very little, to the point that you forget you're watching actual characters and just give in to the absolute nonsense that are the bad CGI fights. It feels like a Transformers movie.
The pacing is also terrible, with one hour of barely anything happens before the plot kicks into motion. But at least that hour is full of interesting characters and actually visually beautiful scenes, and once the movie devolves into exaggerated, unnecessary fight scenes you quickly wish it went back to being meandering but charming. Ironically, the movie is at its best when it's just characters talking to each other, be it Rei, Misato, Gendo or Shinji. Kaworu and Kaji also get their time to shine, which feels good considering how poorly they were handled in places. I still don't understand why Mari is in this at all, though.
That said, the music is astounding and some of the characters get a very satisfying send-off at the very end, which I wasn't expecting. There are a few experimental / esoteric scenes that remind me of late Evangelion and EoE, and those are handled perfectly. Problem is, they're buried under a mountain of boring action scenes that feel like they don't belong in Evangelion.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 4, 2021
I'm really, really, really frustrated with Bakemonogatari.
Why is an anime this visually impressive, this amazingly surreal, this meticulously crafted and this beautifully instrumented being brought down by the constant fanservice and sexualization of teenagers, and sometimes even literal children?
Because let me tell you, the one thing that completely destroys my enjoyment of something is when it becomes unnecessarily creepy towards minors. And this anime, despite how amazing it is in literally every other regard, does this literally every scene. And the few episodes where this doesn't happen are some of the best animated segments I've ever watched, and they only serve to prove me right:
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when this anime is trying, it's a masterpiece. It's a shame that nearly a fifth of its runtime is spent on sexualizing teenage girls.
Imagine how good those episodes have to be in order to raise my rating from a mediocre 6 to a strong 8. If they took out the pedobait, this anime would be a 10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 24, 2021
TL;DR: Amazing worldbuilding, great music and cool designs that are brought down by creepy, unnecessary sexual overtones in scenes featuring children, as well as a character that fails to become engaging to such a degree that they have to shove a 10-minute flashback down our throats during the climax of the movie to force us to give a crap about her in the slightest.
Spoilers ahead.
The story forgets that Nanachi was tortured by Bondrewd after the first act, and her arc never gets a satisfactory conclusion. Worse than that, it seems like she is suddenly perfectly ok with letting Bondrewd continue to torture children once they
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defeat him. The abused/abuser dynamic looked promising at first, but Nanachi doesnt' really get closure and the movie oddly tries to make the villain likeable at the last second, right after we're shown what he did to Prushka. This bothered me a lot, because I was honestly hoping for her to deliver the final blow and end his reign of terror once and for all... only for them to come up with a lazy excuse as to why they don't just destroy him.
The torture porn becomes too distracting as well. The violence in the anime served a purpose for the most part, but in this it just seems like they torture the main characters for shock value. Hell, they even introduced Prushka, a character who exists exclusively to make the audience feel bad, and who gets removed from the story too quickly for the audience to really care about her. Worst of all is the fact that most of her screentime is spent on flashbacks, so rather than seeing her slowly grow friendly towards the gang she just becomes their super best friend immediately after meeting them.
And don't even get me started on the weird sexual stuff. This movie throws an amazing fight scene with an insane twist at you, then immediately follows it up with a sequence of Prushka suggesting her father has sex with her. I understand that this is based on a manga (which I refuse to read) but if they cut out most of the pedobait from the anime I don't know what stopped them from cutting out this kind of uncomfortable scenes that completely break the immersion because they remind you they're only there so the author can jerk off. It's so distracting, in fact, that I can't stop thinking about it whenever something mildly suggestive happens on screen, because I'm constantly wondering if it's supposed to be sexual in nature, which breaks my immersion immediately.
On the flip side, the animation and character designs are top-notch, and Bondrewd is an amazing villain with a clever and surprising power set that completely subverts much of what the audience thought about him, similarly to Ouzen. There are a few story beats that are really, really interesting, and while the pacing isn't perfect it's not the worst thing in the world either. Perhaps if they cut the pedo crap out of the movie there would be more time for character development.
Oh, and the music is insane. Combined with how great the fight scenes are, this movie shows it can have very compelling action. It's a shame immediately after one of the best fight scenes I've seen for a while it immediately cuts to two kids talking about an adult's penis.
Considerably worse than season 1. Certain scenes make me deeply uncomfortable for all the wrong reasons.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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