The death game genre has reached a pit of mediocrity in modern anime standards. Most shows in this genre usually turns out to be god awful from the start, or has a decent beginning but crashes and burns in the end. So when I saw a new death game anime in this season, my immediate reaction was “Not another one” a saying DJ Khaled would be really offended by. But I’m honestly surprised to see this show hold up pretty well, enough to get me to watch the whole thing, start to finish…or it did at first. Does that mean it’s great? No, not really.
The
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premise is pretty straight forward like most death games. Kill or be killed situations, surviving a platoon of super powered people and be the last man standing. It starts off with a giant, 8 foot crocodile ass looking man attacking our mc. Our mc manages to escape his assault and trap him in an abandoned building and manages to kill him. A bit unrealistic, as the more typical reaction would be to shit your pants when you’re attacked by a large menacing figure than to go full Tom Cruise mission impossible on the guy. He then proceeds to get transported by an overtly annoying cat girl with a top hat, and brought into the death game, where he’s given the full explanation of things. Sort off at least.
The remainder of the story we see our mc in various fights and precarious situations. The premise is straightforward and not gunna lie kinda boring. The death battle genre is one that I rarely like, but even without personal dislike, it doesn’t have any uniqueness to it, or any factor that sets itself apart or grabs your attention. The powers and in this show feels unrealistic in the sense that there’s so much flexibility in them. There’s no borderline for how overtly unusual powers could be, and since we as viewers are in the dark about several rules of the game, it gets frustrating to see one dumb power coming out of nowhere. There’s no balance in that sense which leaves you confused and kinda annoyed.
You feel a slight repetitiveness in the shows storytelling. It revolves around a problem being created, mc using his intelligence to solve the problem, everyone else losing their shit tryna figure out how he did it. There’s no opposing force, there’s no “L” to our mcs “Light”. This sets up a rly plain sailing plot with no added tension or suspense. You see a situation occur but you already know it’s going to get resolved with no added consequences. Although, I was dumb to expect proper storytelling in a death game so it’s honestly bad on my end
The best part of the show is the mc. Most death games either have a mc who’s a complete whiny annoying character who’s scared shitless all the time, or someone who’s over confident, unusually strong and has will smith I am legend levels of smartness and survival tactics. The mc here is minimally intelligent and knows how to use his intelligence properly. He dosent have the whole “I can beat you, cause my friends are relying on me” bullshit. He knows a serious fight, plans ahead, and uses his brain to win rather than the friendship rocket launcher. His power compliments his intelligence a lot, which is one of my fav aspects of the show. Since it’s so vague what his power actually is, it gives him the liberty of experimenting and slowly figuring out the limits of his abilities, which is quite entertaining to watch.
Other characters such as Ruri is a recurring presence in the show. She’s a girl with a troubled past, due to lack of parental affection, and she finds solace in caring for her little brother. She has a decent backstory but we don’t see that implemented into her character that much. She’s always cheery, active and loud. We rarely see her past effecting her personality. It would have been refreshing to see her all quiet and anti-social initially, but Akira helps her come out of her shell and makes her bright and cheery.
We also have Walmart Bakugo, blue haired Joe Exotic, nerdy gamer girl, manipulating red head milf and a lot more. There’s an abundance of characters but all of them are super generic and extremely forgettable. They have their own parts to play but feel more like an NPC out of Skyrim than an actual character. The villain has the classic “Im the bad guy, I’ll kill everyone” look and leads the gang green gang of annoying misfits. The only character that’s remotely decent is the glasses guy that looks like he’s paid the subscription for every Onlyfans model in existence. His cunningness is somewhat amusing to watch in the last arc of the show. Besides that, forgettable, generic, annoying side characters.
But we all know the best character is the banana head man
The art in this show is not consistent. It starts off with a fairly vibrant art style, which was one of the things that made me curious about the show. But as more time passes, you notice CGI being used in most places. And if you’re wondering yes the CGI is horrible, almost comical. Im really wishy washy about CG in anime. When it’s well done, it’s actually pleasant to watch, like Beastars. When it’s awful, or combined with animation, it feels disgusting, like an unholy amalgamation of good and evil. It’s like oil and water, it just doesn’t mix. That’s the long term problem in this show, as even main characters start getting CG’d more often than animated. The fight scenes also has more CG than animation in the later parts, and most parts are covered with flashy lights, big explosions or smokescreens to avoid putting effort into their show. Like bruhhh, if a show that has “Battle” in the title dosent have its fight scenes properly animated, it begs the question “what is your budget going towards?” Characters also have their rough times, with disproportional facial animations that makes them look like something outta Resident Evil, and not even the good Resi games, like some shit outta Resi 6.
Not going into details about the sound. OSTs are fine, OP & ED was fine, and voice acting was generic yet well done. Although the cat girl was super annoying, like enough to make my ear drums bleed levels of annoying.
Even with its amplitude of flaws, I honestly think it’s one of the better death games out there. It’s not a good show, but it out runs its predecessors in most factors which is something I can appreciate. It was more like a rocky ride than a constant downhill that I felt watching Darwins Game. The mc is the highlight of the show, and outshines most characters and was the only reason I came back to the show weekly. Fun show overall.
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Sep 27, 2021
Deatte 5-byou de Battle
(Anime)
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The death game genre has reached a pit of mediocrity in modern anime standards. Most shows in this genre usually turns out to be god awful from the start, or has a decent beginning but crashes and burns in the end. So when I saw a new death game anime in this season, my immediate reaction was “Not another one” a saying DJ Khaled would be really offended by. But I’m honestly surprised to see this show hold up pretty well, enough to get me to watch the whole thing, start to finish…or it did at first. Does that mean it’s great? No, not really.
The ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 19, 2021
Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid
(Anime)
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Pain. An unpleasant feeling that everyone has experienced once in their life. Be it a small cut while doing geometry homework or getting rejected by your first crush with a small letter that she didn’t even hand deliver herself, it’s a feeling that no one wants to experience, but they don’t have the liberty of choice. Now imagine living a life, completely isolated, with no interactions with friends or family and an inability to touch or feel anything. It sounds like a nightmare, a fever dream that you want to quickly wake up from. Unfortunately for our favorite duke, it’s a harsh reality.
The duke of ... death and his maid, is a story that follows…well a duke and his maid. The duke was cursed when he was a kid, taking away his ability to touch less feel anything, as all things living perishes from his wicked touch. Abandoned by his family, and forced into isolation due to his curse, his only shining light is his maid who was accepting enough to live with him. We then follow the troubles of the duke as he finds his life withering away because of the curse but simultaneously finds solace in the warmth of the maid he adores….well not really. The show tricks us into thinking it’s going to show us the painful side of being isolated and abandoned. A feeling of helplessness, a growing resentment towards the people that made your life miserable. All the anger, hatred and sorrow that grows in you as your life withers away all alone. The show had such an ambiguous and indecisive plot to work with. It could have displayed so much emotion and human drama, the chances of visual imagery in this show was indefinite. It’s a show that had honestly one of the most equivocal plots to work with, but they throw that shit down the drain cause why not. Instead we get a show of this mortified, helpless duke, being teased by a hot big tiddy anime maid. It contradicts its whole point of expressing the lonely and depressing life of an ostracized duke, as it moves towards making the show seem like a shitty fan animated Takagi-san, yet not nearly as good. The majority of the plot is taken up by the maid teasing the duke through sexual scenarios, enough for you to honestly wish you were in that dukes place. It makes for a laugh from time to time, but honestly leaves you feeling empty, as you realize you just watched 20 mins of basically nothing. The problem with the show is its direction. Reading the synopsis, you think it’s going to be a drama with extreme exposure towards human emotions. But you see it slowly turn into nothing more than a maid sexually harassing a socially awkward and super childish duke. I don’t think the maid is the problem, it’s just the role she plays. She isn’t the saving grace or the comforting persona for the duke. We don’t see her act as someone who’s empathetic towards the duke when he’s down and out, rather as an obnoxious and quirky character who risks her life for a 10 second teasing session for her personal enjoyment. Speaking of characters we have the duke. I’ve never seen a characters backstory have this less of an impact in their life. As previously told, cursed, abandoned boy living with his maid. You expect him to be heartless, emotionless, filled with anger and resentment. But nah, that’s too deep. Well formulated character who expresses a darker side of the human persona? Nah too rooted in reality, might scare the kids away. Make him awkward, childish and clumsy and have him blush while getting harassed by his maid for the 50th time as if it doesn’t become commonplace by them, that’s enough to keep the brain dead people’s attention in this show. The maid is no saving grace either. She was set up to be the light to the dukes darkness filled life. Unfortunately the duke is more cheery than I was receiving my Nintendo DS when I was like 5. Her character could have been an detrimental part of the show if played out correctly, but since the main focus of the show (the duke) is completely contradicting his own personality, the maid loses her integral reason for being In the show, and just turns into a quirky and outlandish character. Coming on to the art, its CGI, that sentence alone is enough to put the fear of god in you and make you avoid this show like its Voldemort, "he who shall not be named". It’s not like Beastars CGI rather more like windows movie maker levels of CGI. It’s abhorrent. It doesn’t do the characters any favors. There movements are so robotic. The characters move in like 2 frames per second. I can hear the whole dialogue being said before the characters even finish moving their lips. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, CG and hand draw animation do not mix, like at all. It should just be illegal. This show proceeds to go against that and use hand drawn backgrounds with CGI characters. What we get is two cartoonish, stupid looking characters, interacting in the pace of a sloth, in an actually well drawn background. It looks dumb, something out of a children’s picture book if the picture book was made by a man who snorts 10 bags of crack every day. Its super unnatural and a real immersion breaker. What started off as acceptable levels of CG takes a massive nosedive in quality in the later episodes. As someone whose not opposed towards CGI in anime (after AOT & Beastars), I went into the show with a high remark for and a new found appreciation for CG. Unfortunately after watching this Im going back to the phase of thinking CGI was the creation in humanity. The sound is not really anything to be touched upon. The duke’s hobby is playing piano, so a lot of the tracks are piano, violin, percussion instruments in general. It adds to the whole classiness of the duke’s lifestyle. Piano is also a great instrument to produce sounds that are eerie and uncomforting, which could have been a great expression of musical imagery. The eerie music could have really complimented the dukes horrifying life. I personally was too distraught by the CG to pay attention to the sound, so I’ll give the show the benefit of the doubt and assume it was good, The problem with the show lies mostly on the direction that it took its story. The CGI could be overlooked or could have been bared with. Unfortunately there’s no saving when it comes to the plot. What could have been an amazing show filled with drama and emotions, turned into...you know what, I honestly can’t be asked to write all that again. The story, instead of going towards its destination, does a complete 180 and goes the other way. Im honestly disappointed with the show. Initially I thought the teasing was just a short term gag, and it’ll pick up its actual plot later on. I was left completely dispirited. Extremely displeases how this show turned out to be. Yeah it’s not the worst thing to come out, but it sucks to see a great show with a plot that has insane potential to be something beautiful, be left redundant and to die in the pit of generic shows. The only reason I finished it was because I put too much time into it. If I could describe the show in one sentence, it’s Youtube Clickbait. I feel like I got cucked and now I have trust issues. There honestly is nothing unique about the show. Besides the CG and abhorrent plot, the shows pretty average. Be it characters or storytelling, it takes a super safe route to a goal that’s nonexistent. Give it a shot, if you don’t despise CG and don’t care about wasting 4 hours of your life. Veterans advice, take those 4 hours and go play Bloodborne, BASED.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 19, 2021
Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru.
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
Mystery, arguably the most eye catching and mind straining genre to experience in any medium. Seeing a case slowly unwrap itself, while you follow along and make your own conclusions is thrilling. Or if you’re as dumb as me, you have no clue what’s going on and just wait to get amazed by the big reveal. With timeless classics such as Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet, and The Moonstone to more modern cinematography pieces such as Will Smiths Bright or Id: ‘Invaded (pls watch this, its so good) the genre has cemented itself as an integral part in the media business. A good detective
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show is made upon an intriguing yet overwhelmingly convoluting plot with sharp witted, intelligent yet charismatic characters. Unfortunately this show has none of this.
The plot if you could call it that, is like something out of a kid’s fantasy. The mc is a crisis magnet. He finds himself in various troubles against his will. One day he gets kidnaped by a group of unknown people and put on a plane where he is saved by a white haired girl who’s apparently a detective, who then decides to make the guy his partner and he accepts. What…? You could already see some absurd flaws in this plot. What normal high school going teenager gets kidnaped for no reason. It’s absurd and so ungrounded from reality that it’s almost hilarious. Our mc gets saved by the detective. Now normally detectives don’t go around fighting crime like batman. They’re the brains of the operation, they approach the case with intellect, find clues, connect the dots and figure out the criminal who’s then dealt with by law enforcements. But out waifu detective goes against every trope that makes a good detective as she becomes the person to rescue him. She then offers him to join her in her journey. Any person with half a working brain cell will say “NO”. The mcs a self-aware trouble magnet, the last thing he needs is more trouble. The logical decision would be to steer clear of people with shady jobs. But guess what, he said yes, why wouldn’t he. So we see Batman and Robin go and solve crimes together. It’s unnatural and downright unrealistic to see a high school student adapt this quickly to the life of a detective let alone be going around solving major criminal cases. Then we see the untimely death of the detective, which results in their journey coming to a close. The End…or I hoped it ended. We see our mc go back to his normal life, cause that’s natural innit? One day you’re a detective fighting mafias, next day your back to being a high school student. He then meets many different girls, which already cements the fact that this show is gunna take a harem route, so all indications of a good detective show is thrown out the window. Instead we get this horrible, time-lapse of past and present. The formula doesn’t work, one episode he is talking to a couple of girls who are linked to a crime organization or something, the next episode the guys mourning Siestas death. It then shifts to the mc and Siestas journey 3 years ago as they travel the world solving crimes. The storytelling is horrible on the same level as Peach Boy Riverside, if not worse. This absurd changing of pace out of the blue doesn’t work. It’s a real emersion breaker, and makes an already nonsensical plot even more convoluted. The plot twists in this shows are horrible to the point they don’t make sense. They went with the whole Higurashi approach of showing major events before setting up the whole premise, except unlike Higurashi it just doesn’t click. It would have been better if his past with Siestas was just vaguely introduced in the first episode, and we uncovered more and more details as the episodes went on. The plot is pure nonsensical mess. A detective show is meant to give you clues as you piece them together to find the truth hidden behind a curtain. The whole objective is to get you to think, make a conclusion by yourself before the big reveal, or add some misdirection’s in the plot to add an element of surprise when the culprit is eventually revealed. This show goes against all the tropes by either having completely absurd revelations or not revealing them at all. You spend your time wondering why something’s happening, and the show instead of slowly revealing the answer to you, drops a complete bomb shell out of nowhere. The whole mystery aspect of the show gets so absurd, to the point you just don’t care anymore. To call it a detective show is honestly an insult to an actually good detective show. The main characters being the guy (forgot his name) and Siesta, dont go against the classic anime mc troupes. Siestas a big tiddy anime waifu. She’s the main attraction of the show and is probably the only reason this show was watched to begin with. She bares a striking resemblance to Origami from Date A Live, but nearly not as amusing to watch. She’s super generic and is personally the only likeable character of the show. Not because she’s over filled with a super charming and charismatic personality that makes you curious to see her journey through, more cause…well you already know. She’s a huge tension breaker. Whenever a serious situation arises she already knows what’s going to happen. How you ask? Who knows, it’s never explained. She’s purely set up for fan service. If the camera isn’t trying to show her cleavage or go up her skirt every 20 secs, she will start flirting with the mc to remind you that there’s obvious romantic chemistry between them, which is completely disemboweled due to the super awkward and cringy character interactions. Personal bias, I have a ting for white haired waifus (Teletha Testarossa supremacy), so to me she’s 10/10 absolute perfection. The mc, is as tasteless as plain rice, no that’s honestly an insult to rice. He’s flavorless, bland and all around super boring. From the initial depictions you can’t tell if this guy has yet to reach puberty or has a family of 4 with a mortgage. I can only describe him as the weird half-brother of Sakuta from Bunny Girl Senpai. They’re both emotionless to the point they get extremely unlikeable. There’s no hint of charisma or quirkiness in the guy. His overtly mature personality is super boring. He has banter with all the side girls, but that’s the extent you’ll see him somewhat act like a human, and not a complete vegetable. The side characters are forgettable. They are there for the sake of being there, and the shows fully aware of it to the point that there left completely redundant, both plot and animation wise. They’re super unmemorable, and nothing about any of them sticks out. The detective isn’t the only thing that died….the animation died with her. The show nosedives when it comes to quality. The animation goes from being acceptable and bright in episode one to all characters besides the two mc, looking like the weird doll villain out of Resident Evil 8. Where did the budget go studio? Clearly not towards the plot cause that’s still horrendous. If there isn’t enough resources to even properly animate the side characters who have recurring appearances in the show, you can only imagine how horrible the other parts of the show might look. If you’re thinking that the animation can act as a saving grace from the horrendous plot, Im sorry to say but you’ll be extremely disappointed. The best I could describe this show would be a parody of detective shows. Like a shitty movie created by middle schooler’s for their drama class. It’s not even a “so bad its good kind” of show, it’s honestly just bad. The plot is a mess, I feel like I’ve repeated that sentence about 50 times and still haven’t properly expressed how awful the plot is. They go against every core elements of a good detective show. An intriguing case, a witty, charismatic yet determined and serious when the situation arises kind of detective, a slow paced plot where they leisurely reveal certain clues so you could form a theory of your own as your follow along the story, an element of surprise while revealing the culprit or critical plot points, and a completely wrapped up, fully explored ending. None of these criteria’s are ticked. Instead they went with the classic route of adding a harem into everything. The whole detective aspect in the show is nonexistent, and seems more like Clickbait than anything. Save yourself 4 hours of your life and do anything else rather than watching this show. If you want to watch a good mystery show, I highly recommend Monster, Mushishi, Great Pretender, Id Invaded or any of the Kara no Kyoukai movies. They’re all better, intriguing and overwhelming shows and more worth watching than this dumpster fire.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Sep 18, 2021
Tokyo Revengers
(Anime)
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Time travel, the most overworked setting of every sci-fi show to ever come out. It’s such a simple concept on paper yet extremely difficult to execute properly in any medium. Most time travel shows follow two paths. They either shine brightly and is remembered by people as a revolutionary piece of media such as Terminator or Back to the Future, or is over hyped and falls into the pit of mediocrity and is forgotten by most people. Tokyo Revengers unfortunately follows the latter of these two paths.
If the word “Overhyped” had a picture, it would be the Tokyo Revengers poster. A show filled with annoying ... characters and a story with enough plot holes to make a sponge seem like a plain surface. The story follows our mc travelling back in time to save his girlfriend from her demise. It’s your classic cliché romance setting with a time travel aspect, which if explained carefully and presented properly, could be a hit of a show. Unfortunately it fails in both regards. It starts off pretty strong but pretty quickly loses its focus. The initial problem is the time travelling aspect in this show which isn’t explained properly. The mcs actions while time travelling has serious consequences on the very people he is trying to save, but the seriousness of that is barely expressed as you see him make abhorrent and ridiculous decisions. The time travelling aspect is barely touched upon and nothing is properly explained. The story also plays out safe, it kills off characters meant to be killed off, and doesn’t force the mc to make a difficult choice. There’s no sacrifice that has to be made. It ventures in a straight, risk less line towards its goal, which doesn’t work as the whole point of time traveling is to create conflicts due to changing events of the past to the established future. We have barely any information on the time aspect, which leaves the story with too many plot holes. If the main theme remains convoluted, then the story is on a fast track to failure. The risks of infiltrating and living a delinquent lifestyle, mixed with the perils of constant time travelling could have been an extremely intriguing plot, filled with suspense and tension if executed properly. Unfortunately the mcs the most unlikable person to ever exist since Kirito. The plot holes gets you more and more disjointed from the story the further you watch. The show drags out a lot in the closing arcs, the pacing gets rough as some scenes that required more details are tossed aside. Characters make ridiculous and extremely stupid decisions which doesn’t make sense. “Appointing a member of the gang you just fought with as your captain” the thought itself should be enough to make you realize it’s a bad decision. The romance in this show just doesn’t work. We have Emma, she’s bland as flour. There’s nothing about her that makes Takemichis efforts in saving her worthwhile. She’s established as your classic, super likeable waifu character. In the show we rarely see her coming out of her shell or showing any signs of development. Her delusion towards Takemichi is unjustifiable. We get no coherent reasoning as to why she’s so accepting of him, even after all the shit he does. In the future she says how Takemichi hurt her, but then proceeds to express her love for him like bruhhh that isn’t how shit works. It goes vice versa too. Takemichi was an adult when Hinata died. Why is he this envious in saving the girls life whom he hasn’t interacted with for years? A mentally 26 year old guy crushing over a 14 year old is creepy to begin with, even without that, his whole dilemma towards her makes no sense. The romance in this show is horrible, super cliché and bland, with characters taking and doing ridiculous stunts in the name of “love”. There’s nothing to appreciate about these characters, let alone putting this much effort in saving them. In the later arcs of the show, we see a lot and I mean a lot of unneeded conflicts and fights. Now don’t get me wrong, that’s probably the most enjoyable aspect of the show, but it’s so unnecessary and completely splits away from the main goal of the show. We see some unneeded conflicts arise due to a lot of really stupid decisions. Some conflicts could have been solved if the mc was efficient enough in using his brain as he is using his fist. It’s really messy plot wise, but super entertaining otherwise. The ending couple of episodes is honestly the most entertaining mess I’ve watched recently. Now let’s get to the worst part of the show, the MC. Pathetic, whiny, displeasing, and aggravating. Every synonym of the word annoying can be used to describe him. He to me is like the modern day Kirito, annoying for a completely different reason. The whole aspect of going back to the past to change the future is complicated, and one needs to be intelligent and make the right decisions. Unfortunately our mc does none of those. He cries, uses himself like a punching bag, and has the most action over words type of attitude I’ve seen. He is extremely unlikable. He goes against every trope of a shounen protagonist. There’s no redeeming factors about him. He is meant to be a kid, but he plays that role a bit too well, so much so that there’s not even a hint of maturity coming from him. His whole persona revolves around making big goals then failing to fulfill them. Id honestly prefer a mute, personality less hentai mc than blonde crybaby Kirito. Onto the good characters. Draken and Mikey. There probably the most likeable aspects of the show. They go against every trope you think of when you see the word “Gang member”. We see this initially when they apologies to the mother of a girl who was a victim of a gang violence. It sets them apart from your classic gang member ideology, and the more time passes, the more you see these two characters come out of their shells. Definitely the most entertaining and likeable characters from the show. Other characters such as Kazutora, Chifuyu and Baji each have their roles to play, especially in the ending arcs of the anime. You don’t get as attached to them as Mikey or Draken due to their arguably short screen time, but they’re entertaining to watch nonetheless. Kazutora and his dive into insanity is intriguing. He choreographs his plan to kill Mikey as a scapegoat to justify the actions of him committing murder in his past, is super stereotypical yet really entertaining. His actions leads to the ending arc of the anime being something out of the Yakuza games. Fight after fights, completely unnecessary but extremely entertaining. Other characters like Naota, Hinata, and Emma gets left unexplored or paid much attention too. Naota’s meant to be a super smart cop and shit, but has the least impact in the show in any ways. The first half of the story revolves heavily around Hinata, but she herself doesn’t contribute much to the story itself. Her character doesn’t go against the basic anime waifu tropes. She simultaneously feels like a person and a robot. These characters could have been integral to the story, but were unused and unexplored which made them pretty forgettable and sometimes extremely redundant when it came to having an impact on the story. Coming to the art aspect of the show, it’s extremely mediocre. It’s visually eye-catching, but the more you get into the plot, the more the art style starts getting almost painful to watch. The characters look like they’re going through a mid-life crisis in their teens. The art style cannot clearly depict the characters ages at all. Adults look like overgrown children, and the actual children look like they hit puberty in their mother’s womb. The blood and gore in the uncensored version looks comical, and honestly less intimidating and more hilarious. The art in this show starts off as a high, but gets mediocre as you start relating it with the plots. It’s not enough to go bleach your eyes, but enough to reconsider putting your eyes through the pain of watching this lobotomites in every episode. The animation is no saving grace either, it’s definitely no Jujutsu Kaisen, and pretty sub-par often times, with enough still frames to give food wars a run for their money. But considering it’s a pretty new studios, it has done average with what resources they had. All in all, Tokyo Revengers was the Cyberpunk 2077 of anime, extremely hyped up and disappointing results. Now, is Tokyo Revengers a bad show? Objectively, Yes Personally, Fuck No The series being a big ball of messy plot, weird looking characters and unnecessary action makes this show fun. Just like how Cyberpunk was fun cause of its glitches, TR is fun cause of its convoluted plot and absolute abhorrent looking characters. It’s entertaining watching the cliché filled romance of the show. You realize that it’s stupid as shit and boring but that’s what’s entertaining. The last arc for me was amazing. I barely understood anything, I just enjoyed the constant beating up, blood gushing out of everyone while they give a friendship speech, and it was entertaining as hell. I can only describe it as the visual representation of Jamie Vardy’s “Chat shit get banged” tweet. It was an entertaining experience for me for a completely different reason. I do wish that the show would have been a lot more leaning towards conflicts being solved with proper decision making. This show is pure brainless fun. Apart from the mc being annoying enough to make you want to tear out your eardrums, every flawed aspect of the story was extremely amusing for me, and added more amusement to the show. Definitely would implore you to give this a shot if you’re bored. The show will make you scratch your head while simultaneously entertaining you with its awful yet entertaining, super convoluted, overtly dramatic, disproportional looking characters, and boy I enjoyed every second of it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 17, 2021
Kanojo mo Kanojo
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
With a sheer abundance of harem anime, the genre has reached a peak of mediocrity in the anime world. In recent years, no harem anime has done anything to change their formula or adapt an unique selling point to their shows. Kanojo mo Kanojo, is the same as every harem anime that came before it, and it wears its cape of simplicity proudly.
It’s a show that shouldn’t be taken seriously. It’s definitely no Quentin Tarantino levels of storytelling, nor is it something made by an obese man, going through a mid-life crisis in his mother’s basement. The story is the same as every harem anime ... there is. One boy, surrounded by hot girls, in various explicit yet comedic situations. It’s extremely lackluster and straightforward. The story sets itself apart from its predecessors in the fact that it resides on various fetishes in order to not make the plot super generic. Our mc has a GF, but is approached by another girl who’s too hot for him to resist, so he decides to double date them as more girls enter the scene. This is the only selling point for this show that may peak the curiosity of a couple people. It’s a funny story yes, but besides this one uniqueness it’s super simple and the same as any harem before it. The characters also seem pretty run off the mill. Different girls, different hair colors, different personalities. Each has their own part to do, whether it be romance, comedic relief or just fan service, the show doesn’t convolute itself by adding weird norms to their characters. Its super generic, and the shows well aware of this generic ass characters, but instead of adding bullshit, they embrace their simple characters proudly, and gives us a pretty straightforward breakthrough of the cast, which I can respect. The MC is not as bland as most harem mcs are. He’s not revolutionary in any ways. He embraces the tropes of harem mcs of being loud, annoying and cringy, but at the same time he is empathetic towards the girls and is there when he needs to be. In certain parts he does get pretty robotic, but mostly you can feel his presence in the show, even if you don’t want to. It’s honestly a breath of fresh air, seeing a mc with somewhat of a personality rather than a living, breathing corpse who’s more dense than Kirito. The shows strongest point is in its art. Its vibrant, effervescent, vivacious, flamboyant, yes I am using complicated words to sound smart shut up. But honestly the art is pretty decent. It helps to get your mind off the simplicity of the story and characters. You’ll find yourself appreciating the art in this show more times than anything else. The animation is subpar. It’s often not really consistent and flaws out at certain times. Certain scenes feel rocky and rough, weird facial features takes you out of the show. Not bad enough to go bleach your eyes, but enough to make you re think every life choices you ever made. The sound in this show is…meh. There’s an opening that’s pretty plain at first but gets kind of annoying later on. Super generic voice acting, it’s not bad in any ways, but not really an attention grabbing aspect of the show. OST’s, pretty generic, enough to make you realize it’s there, then again, sound in harems have never been out of this world so the sound quality of the show’s acceptable. This is honestly a show that shouldn’t be taken seriously. I see people giving this like a 1 or 2 and I feel that it’s a bit harsh. It accepts its simplicity of a plot, recognizes its overtly generic characters, and embraces all the tropes of a classic harem anime without shame. I’ve seen some hot garbage harems in my life, and it’s not as bad as them by a margin. The show puts efforts in the parts that are more essential for a harem, which is the art, rather than thinking of ground breaking characters or a well formulated, mind breaking plot. It doesn’t attempt to climb out of its pit of mediocrity by doing something risky, rather stays there and acts upon its lackluster yet amusing show, which is something I can honestly commend them for. Good job, slight pat on the back for you. I finished the show cause I put too much time into it, but I honestly don’t regret watching it. I would choose watching something else over this most of the times, but the time I had with the show was honestly pleasant to say the least.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 17, 2021
Vanitas no Karte
(Anime)
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Recommended
I feel that in modern day media, the vampire genre of shows has been beaten to a pulp, so much so that it’s very hard to find a novel and interesting take on the genre. You have the classic Twilight series and other recognizable titles such as Vampire Diaries, Van Hellsing etc. But there’s fairly few universally acclaimed, name recognized vampire shows when it comes to anime. But “The Case Study of Vanitas” had potential to be the first popular, mainstream vampire anime…..or so I thought.
The story is set in a historical steampunk era of Paris, inhabited by normal people and vampires alike. We follow ... the journey of Vanitas, a human in possession of the infamous Book of Vanitas & Noe, a vampire in search of thy said book on command from his master. Their chance meeting leads to them working together, and solving the various conflicts that arises with Charlatan, and vampires in general, in an effort to reach Vanitas’s self-centered goal of “saving” all the vampires. Pretty neat premise right? Well, unfortunately the premise goes to shit pretty soon, and is tossed aside like a used condom. The premise in this show has depth, but becomes less and less explored. The more episodes you watch, the more you feel disconnected from the story in general. Vanitas’s goal of saving vampires takes a back seat, as they pull various shenanigans, engage in soft core yaoi, or see Vanitas sexually harass Jeanne for the 50th time. Again, enjoyable to watch these dumb character interactions, but kind of leaves you asking for a more serious situation every once in a while. Major events occur throughout the show which gives you a more in depth look at characters past and personalities, but then proceeds to go back to showing the same character tropes of being goofy, hyper/ rather than expressing a change in their persona. You get to meet more characters but the plot feels like it’s halted on one spot, and hasn’t progressed since then. I guess it’ll explore forward in the next season, but for now it’s pretty vague and isolated and feels more fujoshibate than an ostracized vampires quest in saving his corrupted, antagonistic vampire race. The show gives you an over exposure to its comedic side, with chibi dialogues, James Corden levels of sketches, goofs and shit, Le funny. It’s amusing to see the characters act all dumb and have their personalities clash, but it kind of wastes the whole tension of the show. U forget the nervousness and thrill of seeing Vanitas, a man despised by vampires, try to save the very people whom he’s hated by. The story is definitely not the shows strong suit. It has a decent premise, just left unexplored and often times feels that shits happening for the sake of happening. Unexplained powers, unneeded comedic effects which gets rid of the tension (to its credit, it’s efficient in swapping between comedic moments and serious tones, but it isn’t able to recover the solemnity of an event after a comedic relief, which results in various conflicts feeling more like a joke). You feel drifting away from the main purpose of the show, and don’t see any silver lining of returning back to its original goal, so you end up tagging along for the rest of the show to see some more brainless amusement. Definitely one of the weaker points of the show are the characters, though initially the characters in this show feels lively and eccentric, they start to get annoying the more you watch. Vanitas is a hyperactive, charismatic arrogant asshole. His bizarre, quirky personality makes it hard not to root for him. Noe’s more mature, calculated and is the more reliable and well-grounded member of the duo, basically the oil to Vanitas’s water. Their aims, views and personalities clashing is quite fun to watch at first, until it loses its charm. The repetitive use of the same character tropes gets kind of boring, and then proceeds to get quite dull the more you watch. None of the characters attempt to come out of their shells or show much development. So in the later parts you just expect a mix of comedy and soft core BL from our two mcs, rather than a really unexpected change in character persona. Side Characters like Jeanne are introduced in a grand fashion, yet is left underdeveloped. She’s a tsundere whos hot…like really really hot. First reaction to her appearance makes her seem like a badass, overpowering Vanitas, making her the Whis to Vanitas’s Beerus (shit analogy I know don’t @ me). But that slowly changes as we see her take a more submissive role, mostly being there for comedic relief or to be harassed by our favorite vampire boy. We rarely get to see her go all out, no filter, like we did in the first 2 episodes. The duke’s childish persona shows a bit of the human side in the show, among all the badass vampires. He isn’t really an integral character to the plot, but has had his fair few memorable moments. He is also kind of reserved for mainly comedic effects, but his presence is definitely felt in certain episodes. Other characters are introduced such as Noe’s childhood GF, red haired vampire daddy who looks like a cocaine addict and his bat shit crazy wife or something. But not much is explained, mostly left unexplored, and pretty forgettable. But given its 12 episodes run time, I can see why properly establishing all the characters are going to be a struggle. In the words of the great Keanu Reeves, the art is “simply breathtaking” need I say more? The only flaw I could think of, is in the animation of the fight scenes. The animations great, don’t get me wrong, but most fight scenes have the bare minimum animations. Due to this most fights last fairly short, or ends up being cut short with forceful romance or chibi jokes. Meaning we don’t get a whole ton of cool vampire fighting in the show…but ngl Jeanne is too hot like damn, I wouldn’t mind if all fights get interrupted if she’s the one interrupting, jeez. But honestly, you can easily let this slide from how gorgeous this show looks and feels. It never fails to catch your eye with its bewitching scenes and visual imagery. The sound in this show is fantastic. The OST’s are amazing. The opening is not the most memorable or anything but is pretty catchy and fun despite being kinda generic. The voice acting feels lively, especially Vanitas...I mean its Natsuki Hanae, what more can you expect. VA isn’t really my forte, but I can appreciate the effort the VAs put into their characters. Soundtracks in the show makes Paris feel more lively and vigorous. The steampunk bustling city, mixed with the subtle, melodic yet eerie soundtracks adds a lot to the whole atmosphere of the show. The ending song is amazing, weirdly reminds me of Ergo Proxy’s opening just more alive and less depressing sounding. It really compliments the whole olden vampire aesthetics a lot more. I honestly have personal bias for the ending, it’s so magnificent. Pretty high score after ripping into the show that much. I honestly can’t say that I didn’t enjoy the show, as a matter of fact it’s really amusing and just a lot of brainless fun. The target audience of this show, is definitely leaning towards the people that enjoy soft core yaoi or fujoshi, which might be a factor to why it didnt appeal to me all that much. What this show lacks in proper storytelling and well developed characters, makes up for it with gorgeous animations, and an absolutely sensational art style, enough to make your own grandma say “dayum, magnefique”. If you’re going into this, searching for a deep story and proper character development of a vampire messiah, you’ll be disappointed. This is a show you watch just for a fun time. Grab a drink, a bit of snacks and just have a good time watching Vanitas and Noe do the most stupid shit. The eccentric characters, the breathtakingly gorgeous world, Jeanne when she blushes, all these factors makes for a pretty entertaining and memorable watch. It’s honestly worth a shot, you’ll end up enjoying it if well driven story isn’t a necessity for you. Pretty enojyable show overall. (Also, Natsuki Hanaes voice already gives this show a +1) Pssst...Beginner reviewer here yea, so if I’m talking outta my ass then I apologize, don’t start a witch hunt against me or sum. Anyways, Peace!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 16, 2021
Peach Boy Riverside
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
First time writing a review so don’t tell me to go jump off a cliff if I have no clue what I’m talking about.
Peach Boy Riverside is honestly wasted potential. One of the shows I was really interested in, due to my love for myths and lore’s, and sad to say but I was really let down by it. An already set up premise ruined by a horrible method of storytelling. The shows later episodes honestly made me want to drop it, due to how mind numbingly annoying the arrangement is and how shit barely makes sense. Story: (2/10) Honestly there’s nothing much to say about the ... story. It’s set in your usual fantasy world with humans and demons and big tiddy anime girls. It’s filled with clichés and often times have no idea where they want the story to go towards. The first few episodes will definitely get you interested, but the problem starts in the later half. The storytelling in this show is horrible. The episodes being scattered is honestly annoying and rly takes you off the world (worse if you’re watching weekly). The story introduces various major events and backstories out of the blue, then proceeds to not explain the outcome or the effects of thy said events. Like bruh, the last thing I want to do is brainstorm the events of 9 episodes and put them in order before watching the latest one. Characters: (5/10) Probably one of the redeeming aspects of the show. The characters aren’t the most unique or mind blowing, but they blend into the world well and honestly makes you curious to see their journey through. The most interesting character is definitely Mikoto. A feminine looking male, whom every one confuses for a girl, which is a running gag on the show. His backstory is simple yet interesting. It’s honestly amusing to see him go from being all quiet and collected, to losing his shit and getting horny over the thought of killing ogres. Sally is another character that catches your eye for two reasons, her powers and slightly less yet fiery thirst for killing ogres (similar to mikotos) and of course, those big fat buzzums, praise the lord! The 2 main characters have contradicting aims, one seeking peace between the ogres and humans, and the other seeking total annihilation of their species, and it really is fun to see how this plays out. The side characters are just there for the sake of being there, doesn’t really catch your attention or get you heavily invested in them. Fraus a walking, talking rabbit who turns into batman for a short while…oh yeah apparently he’s also dead idk. Carrots swaying between her ogre origins and human affections is executed pretty poorly. The knight guy is there…yea. Milias hyper active nature and her interactions with ogre hating mikoto is fun to see. But that’s honestly it for side characters. Art: (6/10) With the sheer abundance of isekais plaguing my eyes with the same, generic art, it’s almost refreshing to see a somewhat new and unique art style. Now it’s definitely no Monogatari or Violet Evergarden, but it’s enough to deserve a pat in the back. The animation is….alright I guess. The fair few fights there is has subpar animation, and most fights end before you can even realize what happened (or maybe I fell asleep idk). The backgrounds and surrounding gives you an olden age fantasy world vibes. The art fails in the demons aspects tho. Although the main demons have some uniqueness to them, the lesser ones look super generic, and often times comical. It fails to convince you that these are an actual threat and feels more like a villain out of power rangers. Kinda takes you away from the world, but thankfully Sally’s tiddys are there to hook you right back in. Sound: (5/10) I don’t really pay attention to sound, but the OSTs in this show are decent. It definitely helps to make u feel the olden fantasy vibes a lot more. The OPs and EDs alright, nothing spectacular. Overall: (4/10) Definitely not the worst thing to ever come out since corona, but not good enough to leave you satisfied or looking back on it fondly. The episodes were fun in its own means sure, but I felt more annoyed than pleasant after completing every episode, remembering that the previous episode and the next one has no co-relation to the one I just watched. I regret watching it weekly, I feel like I would have appreciated the show more by binging it in the proper order. It had a lot of potential to be a fairly decent fantasy show in the pile of repetitive garbage that we get nowadays. Not a show that makes me want to overdose on heroin, but definitely not one I’m going to think of when I want to watch a fantasy show in the future. Again, absolute beginner reviewer. If my words are absolute camelshit than I apologies. It’s honestly just what I felt about the show. Anyways its 5 am here, gunna stop overdosing on caffeine and go hibernate for the next 3 days. Peace!
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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