- Last OnlineJan 22, 8:49 AM
- GenderMale
- BirthdayJun 4, 1993
- LocationGreat Britain
- JoinedMar 1, 2012
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Nov 23, 2014
Just to summarize. I saw Sword Art Online a while back now so it’s not completely fresh in my mind. Regardless, I have a lot of time to consider and concisely put together my feelings and thoughts on this show. This will be a completely independent scoring as to what the show is on my list, simply because my list is usually just based on my immediate entertainment value. With that being said, let’s jump right into Sword Art Online.
We begin our story in a modern-futuristic setting where humanity is taking its first or at least near-first steps into vrmmo technology. Our protagonist,
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Kirigaya Kazuto is a former beta tester for a brand new game that has just been released. Something of a recluse who does not socialize often, Kirigaya or his avatar ‘Kirito’ spends an unhealthy amount of time gaming. We’re introduced to the beautifully designed and innovative world of sword art online, which supposedly includes numerous systems and mechanics that have never been seen before in any other vrmmo. It’s a beast, and everyone is playing it.
Then suddenly, wouldn't you know, plot happens and the game-master suddenly gathers the player base in one place to declare that they’re all a part of some forsaken death game in which they cannot log-out and if they die in the game, their head-sets will be completely fried. Funnily enough, at this moment, all of the character’s avatars are disabled and replaced with actual representations of the player. I personally thought this was a stroke of genius, and comedy for the entire five seconds in which it was relevant. So from there on, we get to see how Kirito perseveres and survives in this hostile vrmmo where the only way to win, is for the players to conquer all one hundred floors of ‘Aincrad’.
Story – 5 (Mediocre)
What I just summarized, in my opinion, sounds pretty damned cool and interesting. Immediately, Sword Art Online already appeals to a large demographic, the gaming community which extends just beyond people who watch anime. I don’t know a single gamer out there who hasn’t at least once thought about what it would be like to play a game in a virtual world as a first-hand experience. Sword Art Online sets up and creates a majestic, intricate universe with a seemingly impossible objective and dark survival game tones that can have a psychological bearing, and perhaps lead to some introspective explorations of the dangers of entertainment and escapism… or you would think so at least. When I started watching this, I immediately drew comparison with the .hack franchise, but unlike the .hack franchise, Sword Art Online fails to deliver on possibly one of the strongest points it could have. The psychological effect on the gamer, what can these conditions do to people over extended periods of time? How does this process change one’s thinking, and mentality? You get the idea.
The progression of the story suffers deeply from a lack of focus or direction, strange considering there’s a somewhat clear objective in sight. Clear all one hundred levels, escape the death trap – but no. Somewhere before the mid part of the series, all of these darker concepts seem to get abandoned and replaced by extremely weird filler episodes that introduce a seemingly meaningless character that will never serve as a core aspect, or even a primary re-occurring existence throughout the series. So on one hand we have all of these weird little sub-plots that never seem to tie together or lead anywhere, and then we have equally as bad pacing – and then extremely cheesy and fairy tale romance that looks like it belongs in an erotic novel. (See the erotic sword art online light novel chapter to see what I’m getting at here, it’s worth a laugh and easy to find translations) All in all – it makes the climax appear rather rushed and unsatisfying, though that only refers to the first half of the series.
The second half of the series feels like an altogether different show, aside from the characters. I actually like the second half’s settings which is often a subject of criticism, but there’s nothing wrong with it in the slightest. It’s well defined, beautifully designed and is a solid concept. If not for its positioning, placement and being suddenly shoe-horned in after the rushed climax of the prior arc, I think it would have served as a better chapter in the SAO story.
So just to summarize. I think the entire concept is solid, and initially held a wealth of potential but there was a clear failure to execute these things and they come off as underwhelming simply because of their presentation and ill-timed placement.
Art- 8 (Very Good)
I think the visual presentation of Sword Art Online is stunning. I do not have a solid opinion on what good ‘art’ in anime is, but for me at least, Sword Art Online delivers on that front with dozens of extremely beautiful concept pieces, backgrounds and soft character designs. The world itself is extremely detailed. I feel the character designs are far too generic and basic but at least they are presentable. The special effects are great to watch, and the fight scenes themselves as rather spectacular. I don’t have any criticisms on this front barring the generic nature of primary characters. Kirito looks like a copy and paste job.
Sound – 8 (Very Good)
I’m absolutely in love with certain pieces of the sound-track, and the music fits the flow of the series extremely well. There’s not a single part of it that I think stands out in-particular however. I haven’t done any research into the musicians nor do I have a great understanding of music so there’s little for me to elaborate on here. In my opinion? It is good overall and enjoyable. Though I think they should have played on the game element a little more and brought out some video game sound-effects, music, etc just to push those nostalgia buttons.
Character – 1 (Pathetic)
This is where we get to the main core of Sword Art Online’s myriad of small but overwhelming problems. I’ll go through and examine the primary characters, one by one to point out what I believe to be the main problems with this series;
Kirito – The Protagonist –
Kirito is extremely bland and generic, a typical gary-stu who cannot possibly ever develop or change. Everyone is instantly attracted to his care-free and heroic, selfless personality. (I think this has improved of late but I’m referring to SAO here) kirito’s irl problems are extremely minor and inconsequential, in my opinion. He is physically well, rather attractive and just lacks flaws. He’s an overall flawless character template who would never do anything selfish or bad. At times he just does not even feel human.
It’s funny because we see moments in which he performs what many would consider to be morally reprehensible acts but these are often for the ‘good’ of his friends, and we never really see the impact the game has had on him. There are a sparse few moments in which we see him cry, or breakdown but these feel extremely forced and never really go anywhere. Kirito is the same character at the end of the series as he was right at the beginning, only now he has a harem of girls flocking to him.
Asuna – The Heroine –
Asuna was a mystery figure at first and didn't come into play until later episodes. She was better left a mystery, in my opinion. Once the character came out of the shadows, she was revealed to be no more than Kirito’s online sandwich waifu g.i.r.l heart throb.
Honestly, if she had turned out to be a G.I..R.L. it would have been far more interesting. Asuna, like Kirito, has EXTREMELY minor problems irl to the extent some consider her escapism border-line pathetic. She by no means, comes across as someone you would normally find in an MMO and this can be said about the majority of the female characters. Asuna had potential to be a very strong female lead, but ultimately she’s bottled into the damsel in distress role after being used as nothing but a forced romance character.
As a gamer who often frequents role-playing servers, their relationship reminded me of the numerous times I have been a part of a guild, and there’ll be two players who are always together somewhere having a little lost romance fantasy. More often than note, these end in drama, deceit and a myriad of other complications. There are much darker sides to meeting people on the internet than Sword Art Online does not seem to consider and my suspension of disbelief can only be stretched so far. It’s certainly no .hack.
Now see. I’d mention all of the other characters but…. Aside from the two mentioned above, none of the cast has a slight amount of screen time or development. Nearly the entire re-occurring, if ever occurring cast are female and all have the hots for Kirito but are otherwise more or less void of personality beyond an extremely simple archetype.
There’s one other male character that barely serves as comedy relief fodder. The ‘antagonist’ rarely ever makes an appearance and is once more, shoe-horned in quite spontaneously. I still to this day do not think his ‘motives?’ were worth the expense of thousand of human lives, and his motives to this day are still questionable. What the villain was trying to achieve appeared rather nonsensical In line with his methods, or simply too vague to draw a conclusive opinion on.
Overall, the one dimensional characters really let this series enter the crap pile.
Enjoyment – 6 (fair)
Honestly. Sword Art Online isn't the best show on the market like some people claim it is, but it’s not the worst either. You’ll notice a lot of people will either throw this on the hate or like list, but I like to sit somewhere in-between. I couldn't possibly have a strong opinion on a show, negative or otherwise if it did not offer some enjoyment value. Give it a try. Compare it to similar shows like .hack or Log Horizon. My advice would be, just try and be critical and don’t let the pretty graphics and sound-track drag you away from forming a descriptive opinion. Don’t be too drawn in by the either spiteful or borderline SAO cultist side of the fences.
Overall - 6 (Fair)
An overall train-wreck which serves as decent if not fleeting entertainment value, one day to hopefully be forgotten. Fails to deliver on any basis of realism on every vital area of human interest, achieves in creating hype for the future of gaming (when we’ll all be long dead), fails to deliver an inside look into the game addict, or gamer psyche, fails to deliver on any realistic romance or sense of danger and the characters are enough to make you fall asleep.
A good popcorn anime. Advertises more than it is in its plot/themes/etc, but cannot for the life of it deliver strongly on any of those points.
For further recommendations, I’d say give Accel World a try. A light novel by the same writer. I personally think it’s much better.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 25, 2013
Bakuman is a very well balanced series that introduces powerful elements of romance, suspense, and comedy. It's an animé adaption of a manga about manga, written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata; the same dynamic duo that brought the world Death Note. Surprisingly, outside of its clever story telling elements, Bakuman is -nothing- like Death Note when you compare the two settings and characters. It just goes to show how amazing that these two mangaka are when it comes to variation.
I think the story is wonderfully presented, the key to success for this series lies with the execution of the plot rather
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than the plot itself. It's well paced and has elements of everything. Not only will this series teach you a little about the manga industry, but it goes into great detail with a very strong and not quite as unique an idea as it is well presented under lining romance plot keeping the series going ahead. Aside from this, it also has the same elements of a non-mainstream 'battle' manga, in the form of authors competing against each other. It becomes really fired up as the two protagonists of this series work their fingers to the bone to come up with the best stories and characters they possibly can.
Quite a fair few of the episodes leave an air of suspense, an excitement for the next episode. There's not so much of this in the first series since it's setting the scene for the next two seasons of the show, but it really does let you get to grips with the primary characters, that are easy to relate to, you can really emphasize with them. If that doesn't float your boat, there are loads of animé and manga references too, that're used in a serious context.
I love the art for this series, the character designs are brilliant and bring back some of that Death Note nostalgia; you can really see some similarities when it comes to how expressive the characters are, or the weird ways in which some of the more eccentric cast move. I think the backgrounds are well designed and match the series perfectly.
I think the OST for this series is good; fitting and at times astonishing when it comes to the wide range of situations that you'll see in this series, setting the tone for the suspenseful scenes, the dramatic scenes and the passionate scenes. Bakuman really knows how to nurture the nostalgia lobe of the brain with its good selection. I'm not sure what to think of the opening and ending for season one, the opening comes across as more romantic than anything else, which I didn't really like since the romance plot is only one part of the story. I wanted something a little more upbeat, a little less serious.
One other thing to comment on is the voice acting. When I read a manga first, I always wonder what the voices for the characters are going to be like in the animé. I'm usually disappointed by the choices but I couldn't find a single thing to complain about in Bakuman. All of the voices match the characters perfectly, the cast is spectacular and none of them bore me to tears. They're so emotional and real; they give the characters a lot more personality.
You can always trust the writer of this series to know how to write characters with personality. Sure, there's the occasional one that pales in comparison to the rest but what you'll find in Bakuman is a cast of characters that you can actually care about. All of the authors are unique, some of them more eccentric than others, and the animé pays a close amount of attention to all of them. It's not just the authors either! The editors themselves slam their heads together, always trying to better themselves and their authors. There's so much tension between the editing department and the authors at times, it's enough to make you grind your teeth together.Just wonderful and excellent characterization. I admire how interesting is when this series throws together two completely contrasting characters, the dialogue is intense and the amount of serious humor is incredible.
It's a very enjoyable series with 'good' everything, good enough to make you enjoy the entire product to a very high degree. In all honesty, I preferred the manga for this series but the animé doesn't lose out on anything. I think it helps if you pace yourself while watching it, because the suspense in each chapter or episode really paid off a lot more back when it was being released chapter by chapter or episode by episode. It had a strong effect on me, and made me want to see the next part so much more.
I highly suggest this to anyone who liked Death Note, even if it's not within the same genre. I wonder what these two will come out with next; I think anything they make will be decent. If there's one thing you can expect out of this series, it's consistency.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 23, 2013
Blood-C is a lot of things, but above all, it's a very painful series to watch. Is it painful to watch because of how interesting and moving the characters are? I wish I could say that but no, it's painful because I could only take five episodes of this garbage before considering whether or not to outright drop it.
As a long time fan of the Blood series, I expected a lot more from this show and if I had not been a fan beforehand, I'd likely have dropped this instead of seeing it all the way through. Now don't get me wrong, there's value
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in watching this show, but don't expect to actually enjoy it as much as you'll enjoy using it as an example of how 'not' to make a new addition to the Blood franchise.
Honestly, at first, the show appears as if it has an interesting premise, using much of the first episode to build up for a potential climax, in which we see our slow protagonist suddenly drawing a blade and butchering some evil dohicky that's likely going to be our show's antagonist. It was built up step by step to reach the climax of the episode, where our bland and boring, yet rather cute protagonist goes through a series of sequences - That she repeats in every single freaking episode for more than five minutes with little to no changes between each one.
Nearly -all- of the episodes are the damned same, and not even in a good way that makes you want to continue watching, they're just literally presented in the same manner. I'm not even talking about a Haruhi repetition, this was outright just rehashing the same plot for every episode without changing -anything-, while briefly introducing us to other boring and uninteresting characters, but hey, that's fine. It's in a modern setting, the characters aren't supposed to be especially interesting. - EXCEPT MAYBE OUR PROTAGONIST, who has about as much personality as a walking, singing doll.
Moving along, the action scenes at the end of nearly every single episode are worth watching but not worth the amount of time you have to wait to actually get to them. There's nothing to feel about the monsters she's killing, they're just the generic bad guys that she's been given the duty of slaying by her weirdo father who barely ever speaks to her. The name of the series is Blood, and they do a good job in nailing that in, OVER AND OVER with gigantic blood baths in every single episode. Now, I liked this at first. If the series has no interesting characters and no change in plot every single episode, I might as well enjoy the gore, right? Wrong! In the versions I watched at least, they began censoring all of the gore about half-way through the damned series. When the Japanese start censoring gore, something just doesn't feel right.I assume the DvD release had an uncensored version but even so, I'm not fortunate enough to be able to afford such a thing and to be honest, I'd never want anyone to spend money on this garbage.
This series could have been so much better. I like Studio Clamp, I like the Blood Franchise. Clearly, this show is a good example of why you shouldn't try to mix the two together.
On a more positive note, I like the art. It's nothing spectacular or out of this world. If you enjoy works by Studio Clamp, you'll definitely enjoy the styling of the characters, with those big heads and elongated limbs! No, honestly. They look cute, it's a pity they couldn't have given them personalities at the same time.
It's filled with blood, blood everywhere, which is fine but at the times I wish they would have taken a more subtle approach in some of the episodes. It might be called Blood but we can see that from the title, you don't have to go all out on us in every episode. The Blood Franchise is more than just a cheesy horror story, just look at Blood+ for an example.
The monsters look ridiculous, stupid and not a single one of them shares anything in common with the others. I think this would have helped the series a lot if this matter had received just a little more attention.
As I said before, if you don't buy the DvD release, you're stuck with the most horrible form of censorship imaginable after the first few episodes. Massive white bars that obscure most of the screen. What kind of garbage is this, Japan? Seriously. Don't censor your animé. That's one of the most appealing things about it.
I didn't think much about the sound-track on a personal note but it does fit what's happening in the series, the background music is well chosen and helps to build up the atmosphere. I didn't really think much of the opening and ending songs, they were substandard and completely boring to watch or listen to, likely because the show itself has that effect on people.
I can't say I enjoyed this series and that's rare for me. It does pick up during the last few episodes, more or less the last two, where the plot changes drastically and we have a few nice twists, but I'd say they were executed much too late into the damned series. In a series like this, you can't just throw it all out at the last episode because nobodies going to want to watch it for that long. I also enjoyed a small cameo appearance of another one of my favorite Studio Clamp characters, but you'll have to figure out that one for yourself.
Honestly. Just watch it if you have the time, and make a list of why it's a horrendous piece of magnificent stupidity. You'll have fun just doing that. It's always a good conversation topic for the forums too.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Feb 22, 2013
Gantz is an action packed, blood-filled, sci-fi horror adventure into the bizarre; constructed perfectly for the mature, adult viewer that can appreciate the copious amounts of gore, sex and guns blasting away at just about anything that moves.
Gantz is split into two separate seasons, and the 2nd Stage continues directly from where the first season left off, following our three protagonists on their quest to survive through the twisted game devised by the thing in the small black ball while at the same time trying to deal with their sexual frustration, and inability to come to terms with the situation they're in.
The second
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series introduces an entirely new host of characters, that are all different from the last bunch invited to take part in the twisted game. As usual, there's the typical conflict of interests and wide spread confusion about what's actually going on, creating a bit of hilarious dialogue between the characters and a few horrible jokes from the big man himself.
Things become a little more bad ass through parts of this series, where we have feature length sex scenes to highly improved action scenes where we can actually see the protagonist kicking it to all of these weird and strange aliens but sadly, it's a shame to see him become just like them as he continues fighting for his life. I did become a little more attached to him as time went on.
I would say that the first three quarters of the plot are well constructed and enjoyable to watch, but the final arc of this series drifted away from the manga and is animé original material. Now usually, this isn't always a bad thing for a short series like Gantz but the last few episodes are terrible to say the least, in my opinion. They take away everything you've enjoyed about the series, alter the principles entirely, throw in barely humorous characters with meaningless existences and then rip off one of the endings to one of the best animé in existence. It's so far up there, I don't think it's coming back down anytime soon, and not where the sun shines.
I think the art is fine, the visual construct of the aliens are all interesting and dynamic as per usual; sometimes a lot more than what you would expect. Whoever produced the art for this series really knows how to handle their gore effects. If there's one thing I dislike, it's essentially how ugly the characters are. Now that usually wouldn't be a problem for me in a series like Gantz but when you look at the manga, they're significantly better drawn to the extent they almost look like twisted abominations in the animé or badly made clones.
As for the sound, most of the audio comes through internal monologue, with significantly less time for the characters actually speaking. I listened to both the Japanese track and the dubbed sound-track. I think they're both alright but neither of them or perfect, someone will like them. I would avoid the dub altogether though, the voice acting is horrendous for this show. The Japanese sound-track definitely had a 'proper' feel when it came to confronting the horrific situations, but I didn't feel as strongly about the action packed scenes.
Our characters haven't really changed all that much. Our protagonist picks up some bad-ass in this series and kicks the action scenes into overdrive, but he's still got a long way to go before he can develop a better personality. Our other characters aren't that interesting, but the new additions can be quite hilarious at times, mainly when they're moaning or being slaughtered. In-short, there's really not much difference between this series and the first.
It's enjoyable but it could be a lot better. If they had stuck to the manga, the series would have been much better. If they had just left it open for a continuation or a movie, I think this series would have gotten much better responses from the fanbase. I don't think all animé original material is terrible, but the ending for this show really is just up it's own posterior and it leaves an awful aftertaste behind.
But yeah. Gantz is a good series for a mature audience that enjoys action packed scenes, blood and boobies. Toss in some serious humor and we've got ourselves a pretty nice show. I recommend the manga strongly to people who enjoyed this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 21, 2013
Haha, Gantz. I sure did pick one from my random selection this time. I've seen the dub, sub and I'm up to date with the manga of this series, so I'll be reviewing that too to give it a fair evaluation.
Gantz is split up into two seasons of blood, gore and utterly mind blowing acts of sadistic grandeur that can be compared to other animé in the same seinen genre; you'll want to avoid this like the plague if you don't like your blood or gore but I would highly recommend this for the excellent action scenes. Well then, let's get into the thick of
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things with Gantz.
Story -
Gantz has quite an interesting premise, taking a step into the horror survival genre while making it seem like a 'fun' game to the audience, although I'm sure that all of the characters would be prone to disagree. It poses a lot of strong sci-fi elements despite being set in modern day tokyo, so if you're into your weird guns and outfits, you're likely going to check this out.
If I had to summarize the story in three words, they'd be blood, sex and guns. It works as a short action series; the first season is very consistent because of its' close relationship to the original source material, a reason for why this will score significantly higher for me than the second season.
At the core, it's a very bleak and rather shallow story about surviving through twisted survival games in which the monsters look as if they've been designed by a monkey on crack. Not even kidding, some of the characters look like aliens themselves.
With all of that being said though, the story of the first series is consistent and gives us plenty of time to get to know our protagonists, sadly not enough time to really bond with them or see them evolve from being completely unlikable just because of how hormonal the lot of them are. Seriously, it's like all of the males have been stacking up on oestrogen and the females don't know how to keep their legs together.
Art -
I don't know what happened to the art for this show, the manga is actually rather well drawn but the series takes that and completely butchers it into an absolute mess. All of the characters look uninteresting, and the protagonist looks so bratty most of the time, it takes all of my restraint to not just leap in and slap him into oblivion. I suppose it's supposed to look realistic to some degree because of the series' gritty nature, but to me it appears as if they've only really gone half-way with that; the characters' just aren't as expressive as they appear in the manga and they look really forced whenever they try to show something resembling an emotion. With all of that being said though, there is one thing in this series that's well drawn, and that's the female leads breasts. I'm not even kidding, there's more detail in her boobs than in the rest of the cast combined. It's not a surprise, as attractive female characters fill out most of the blank pages in the manga too. It's basically saying, "We hope you enjoyed your blood and gore, here, have some boobies~!" Yeah. If you're not into that sort of thing, I'd give this series a miss.
Sound -
After going through the entire sound-track, I can happily say that I think it's complete garbage and not something that I'd like to listen to, but I do think it could have been used in a better place. Gantz is set in modern day Tokyo, it's not set on an alien planet, thus the sound-track comes off as a little misplaced. It's overly dramatic when characters die(Spoiler?), and when I say overly dramatic, I mean it feels as if the music is trying to make you care when you really don't because you haven't known the character long enough to even attempt caring. I'm not going to count character death as a spoiler in this review, I won't name the characters but death in Gantz is about as common as breathing air. I think what they tried to do with the sound, is try and complement the alien theme that's given off by the series' 'antagonist?', which doesn't really have much of a personality outside of making horrible jokes about all of the other characters in written text form. (Which are hilarious, by the way.) Well, that would be fine, but the dramatic and slow paced music doesn't clash well with the high octane action scenes and it doesn't really work for characters we have had very little time to care for.
Character -
All of the characters in Gantz are perfectly regular people, with a few quirks and none of them are especially interesting; mediocre at best. Given time to grow more attached to them, perhaps you'd like them a little more, but you'd have to read the manga for that because most of the characters you'll be getting to know in this series will likely not be appearing in the next.
Hey! Main protagonist, Light Yagami called and he wants his character design back! That's right, folks. Our protagonist looks like an alienated Light Yagami with none of his attractive features and a bratty 'woe is me' streak that comes off as desperate plea for attention. There's absolutely nothing wrong with him, he has no physical or mental ailments and his personality ends "I've never gotten laid." Dude, you're a teenager. You're not horrendously disfigured or suffer from a disorder. You're going to get laid, give it some time. I really hate characters(and people) like that.
The supporting cast isn't much better either. If I had to summarize the three major characters in order of importance, I'd go with; the horny puppy, the pacifist but not really and the stupid one, with big titties.
Thankfully, there is one character in this series that insults them all on a daily basis so I don't have too and that's the somewhat antagonist, Gantz! I really do mean it, for a character that never speaks vocally, he sure knows how to rile up the cast with his horrible puns, dark humor and overall black persona that would make most forum trolls cringe if they got into the ring with him.
Enjoyment -
While this show suffers from massive bouts of mediocrity, there are some things that still make it a show good enough to make my 'seven' list. It's quite funny; watching the characters you hate so much suffer(if you're into that) turns out to be a very enjoyable prospect because they all more or less get what they deserve for being the most boring, three dimensional people on the entire planet. Topped off with some strong, black humor and there we go, a pretty hilarious sci-fi, gore-filled comedy with titties, guns and more titties.
Overall -
It has an interesting premise, art tangible enough to let us know what's happening in the story, an unfitting sound track, bland yet realistic characters and enjoyable dark humor. I would not suggest this series to a young audience but if you enjoy the seinen genre, this isn't something that I'd pass up on a night where I have nothing else to watch. Avoid the English Dub like a plague; not only do all of the characters sound one hundred percent more like angst possessed rejects, but they change the script and add a ton of American colloquialism and sex puns that don't belong in there at all.
If you do enjoy this season, check out the second season; I'll be pulling up a review for it shortly. If you feel unsatisfied by the train wreck of a second season, read the manga because it really is worth the time to read if you're into this sort of thing. I highly recommend it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 20, 2013
This is the first review I have wrote for this site and I have not wrote many reviews in my time. I'm going to experiment with my format a little as I go through my list and tick off shows that I'm interested in reviewing; so then, without further ado. I'll begin my Baccano! review.
Story -
I think the story is well written, spontaneous and original in its' presentation. It has an incredibly fast paced plot but at the same it's not difficult to follow if you're paying attention. You might not understand it right away but I guarantee that you'll understand what's going
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on as you make your way through it. Baccano! is a series of stories within a story, but it takes it to an entirely new level, allowing them to all come together in the end to round things off. At the same time, it's rather fast paced and can be hard to swallow all at once.
It covers a diverse set of characters each with different backgrounds and emotional attachments, they're so different when compared to each other that you might get a little lost from time to time. At the same time though, a lot of these characters are enjoyable and dynamic, that'd make for an excellent stand alone story. Once combined, they create Baccano!
I would have rated it higher but I'm not fond of the conclusion for this series. It's a good ending with a very strong message that will interest anyone who's keen on writing or reading stories, but that message has never really applied to my understanding of the animé format. It's supposed to be an inconclusive ending, but I never liked inconclusive endings, so sorry Baccano! You're good, but not good enough for me.
Art -
I give the art a good score of eight because once again, it's not the best I have ever seen but it's not the worst either. I think Baccano! definitely has an art team that complements the story and characters. They come off as realistic but at the same time, they have that bright and colorful appeal that makes them interesting to watch, even as they're being covered in copious amounts of their own blood! (I'm really not kidding here) Don't check out this show if you don't like blood or gore. I'll warn you, there's a fair bit of mature content matter. If you're not into that sort of thing, then I'd give this a miss.
Sound -
I don't really think the sound track is memorable but it does suit the rest of the show and the characters. It's well chosen and I have no complaints about it in the slightest. I'm sure that there's quite a few people that would enjoy it. I think at times it comes across as a little too upbeat and cheerful but that's a part of the enjoyment of this series. It's like watching multiple musicals at times!
Character -
All of the characters in this show are different and diverse as I pointed out earlier while covering the story; and I find the story for this show isn't the memorable aspect but rather the character's that it's based around, because these are pretty much the show. All of them are unique and even if they're not all interesting, there are certainly some that will make you giggle. I watched this show in subbed and dubbed, often alternating between the two. The dub is done rather well for quite a few of the characters, the voices just complement the characters well.
You'll find a good mix of characters; from a mob sociopath to a young immortal boy and then there's the cry baby who has an explosives expert for a girlfriend and these aren't even the cream of the crop! Just throw the mob, immortals and a couple of serial killers onto a train to see what happens!
Enjoyment -
In all honesty, I enjoyed this show from start to finish just because of how dynamic and refreshing it is, mainly because of how well paced everything is. It's fast, upbeat and despite what's happening at any given moment, a comedic spin or satisfying ending will be put on things to retain your sense of enjoyment. It's like watching a serious broad-way musical with a few comedic twists here and there.
Overall -
I can't find much to dislike about Baccano! - It's really well done and it's an original concept in comparison to other things I have seen. I walked out of this with no strong attachment to it or its' characters, but it was one of those things that you can sit back, enjoy and then forget about within a week. It doesn't have a lot of staying power but it's entertaining to watch within the moment. I think the message is strong and positive, and I think that if you haven't seen this, you should check it out.
If you prefer stories that focus around less characters, and give those characters more time for you to bond with them, then this probably won't be for you. It's a train with a stop and all of the passengers are your main characters. There's no protagonist for this story, because everyone's the protagonist of their own story within the story.
Enjoy!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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