"What is this gigantic piece of crap?" - Albert Einstein, 1955
Alright, VN reader here so I might be slightly biased, but just what is this crap? This is hands down the worst adaptation of a novel ever made, tying with Fate that, what a coincidence, shares the same studio. Today I'm here to explain you guys why this is one of the greatest mistakes of humanity.
*Minor spoilers in the thorough review, if you don't want any just skip to the TL:DR*
Story: Higurashi's VN story is nearly masterpiece level. The story itself once you unravel it isn't that mindfuck, but for how it is told, how
...
the suspense is managed, how each chapter is always more intriguing, more confusing and more cum-worthy, it makes your mind travel and travel through spaces to just even slightly understand what the fuck is going on. But it isn't because the story is trashly depicted, quite the opposite. Chapter by chapter new informations are thrown at you, most of the time pretty surreptitiously, and you feel like you're slowly reaching out to the truth (no persona 4 pun intended), but right when you think you got this BOOM the masterfully crafted ending of the chapter strikes. It strikes you, your self esteem, your brain and most importantly all your hypothesis, making them crumble one by one. Really satisfying nonetheless.
But what does the anime do instead? It literally just takes one episode, so one fourth of each chapter since it's average 4-5 episodes, to just throw at you lame jokes that ain't funny for shit, then a little bit of messy story points and boom the ending, which leaves you with a WTF that is more like a "WTF is this shit am I supposed to be surprised? if so yes I'm surprised somebody would really fund an adaptation of this crap", and it gives the brilliant novel a bad reputation too. But the rushed nature of it ain't really to blame, you know, it's a 2 million words novel and the most of it is either the story teller or the thoughts of Keiichi/the other characters, so what did you expect? That's not the problem. The problem is they picked some of the thousands of plot points and put them one after another trying to connect them neatly. Failing, obviously, since they made a disaster. Sometimes they would just put fading black transitions between one point and another, destroying every sense of narrative. One wise man I don't remember the name of once said on reddit "it's literally just some plot point thrown at you" and that's the most accurate shit ever. It looks like a stupid summary made by stupid people. It's as if I explained it to my friend: "so there's this guy in this city and one day they all get crazy and he smashes them with a baseball bat then claws his throat out end", he would reply 100% "sounds like shit bro", and he would be damn right. So yeah all of this to say the story telling is a joke.
Sound: Nothing to say here, that's the only thing they didn't adapt so it's pretty godly, even though it wasn't much used for what I recall.
Art: I like this art style. I think it pretty much suits many aspects of higurashi, even though they usually are soo messed up, still decent
Characters: aaah good ol' characters. Keiichi, one of the most beautiful characters of all time, persecution complex'ed, that struggles everyday with mistrust, points down every single mistake of his friends, but when he is put before his sins breaks down. The suffering he deals with, the desperation he sinks into. What can a person do after sinning? Can a person ever atone for his errors? Are errors even supposed to be atoned for? What right do I have to live after I sinned? All these deep topics seen from a 15 years old boy pov, masterfully narrated, which precede one of the greatest growing in fiction history. Rika, emotionally wrecked after 100 years of desperation, eventually loses hope, trapped in a little girl's body, unable to do shit. Frustrated from not even being able to live a normal life, seeks help from his beloved friends that seemingly don't understand her and inevitably follow the route of destruction every single time. All this is the perfect example of desperation leading to depression, but an existential one, from which Keiichi saves her, because "miracles can't happen if they don't all work togheter", simply wonderful. Let's see how studio deen adapted did to this masterpiece element of the story: "lmao i'm repeating it a lot but now keiichi stopped rena and i helped wow my depression is over", very cool Deen.
So, without wasting other words, the characters are jokes. Still a tiny bit decent, though.
Enjoyment: My Anime List is pretty accurate on this, since 1 voices "Pathetic". Yeah, this was pathetic all right.
Overall: once again Ryukishi's genius shines bright, since the core story carries this insult of an adaptation right to the bearable side. Still, not a second passed without me thinking I was wasting time in the worst way possible, but I somehow made it. Maybe for the characters, maybe because I just find it shitty since I'm biased and it's not as crappy as it felt. Still, I personally would never recommend it to anyone, not even my worst enemy.
TL;DR: this adaptation was a mistake. You can waste your time in many less frustrating ways.
P.S: sorry for some potential harsh writing errors, I'm Italian, still I hope this review isn't as faulted as this adaptation
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Jul 29, 2020
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
(Anime)
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"What is this gigantic piece of crap?" - Albert Einstein, 1955
Alright, VN reader here so I might be slightly biased, but just what is this crap? This is hands down the worst adaptation of a novel ever made, tying with Fate that, what a coincidence, shares the same studio. Today I'm here to explain you guys why this is one of the greatest mistakes of humanity. *Minor spoilers in the thorough review, if you don't want any just skip to the TL:DR* Story: Higurashi's VN story is nearly masterpiece level. The story itself once you unravel it isn't that mindfuck, but for how it is told, how ... 
Dec 10, 2019
Clannad: Tomoyo After
(Manga)
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I like Clannad, and I absolutely love Tomoyo. That's why I madly loved the Tomoyo Route OVA too, despite it being reaaaally short, then what went wrong with this Tomoyo After manga adaptation? In short, everything. I repeat, I love Tomoyo After with all my heart, nonetheless I really think this adaptation was a mistake.
Art: when I started reading it I thought it was a joke. A really bad joke. While Tomoyo is let's say acceptable, what the fuck is wrong with Tomoya?! I think the mangaka was on drugs when he drew him, because I don't think anybody would make it to draw ... |
