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Being an avid Anime enthusiast, I have come to accept numerous flaws in the industry that I cherish, flaws that have been ruining the industry for years, with no sign of said flaws going away any time soon. One of the biggest of these blunders, is how many writers of Manga and Light Novels end their beloved series, stabbing the reader in the heart, a reader who has spent years dedicated to the source material, only for the author to lose all sense of writing ability at the end, and vomiting out a ending that should not be accepted as a professional publication of any ... sort. This sadly happened to Devil is a Part Timer, another series in a long line of fantastic source material that was great for a long time, than the writer decided to put out a final volume with the quality you find in poorly written fan-fiction. It is utterly disappointing, and heartbreaking for individuals who spent so much time supporting this, all to be lent down with something so poorly made to finish it all off.

To be honest I didn't read much of the actual Light Novel itself, I watched the Anime back when it was released, and enjoyed it tremendously. I would check up on summaries of each novel that was released so I at least was caught up on what was happening in the original source material. I did this, because I have been disappointed so many times by Manga and Light Novels wasting years of the reader's time only to end up completely ruining the entire series with writing quality that goes down the toilet, with an author who clearly has no real writing skills being exposed at the end, because they have no utter idea how to end the series they built up. Thankfully for me I didn't take a vested interest in the light novel, otherwise my disappointment would have been even greater.

The ending is so butchered, it seems the author wanted to end the series in the most lethargic and utterly incompetent way possible without actually looking up how he wrote the rest of the series, to see if the ending he proposed actually makes any sense with the development he already established. It truly makes me wonder if the writers in the Anime industry as a whole actually know how to write anything, or if they simply string together a couple of random ideas that accidentally work, but then when it comes time to tie all these ideas together into a nice bow with a fantastic ending, their inherent lack of talent shines through, and their lack of writing talent leads to an ending that even a four year old could write better. To not spoil anything, basically the ending goes against any of the natural build up of the past volumes, this ending just comes out of right field with illogical character decisions that are in contrast with past decisions, again just further supporting my conclusion that these authors get lucky with a decent premise but are unable to fulfill anything beyond that, relying on the Anime medium to sell their poorly written novels, otherwise if they actually had any belief in their abilities they would write regular novels without piggybacking on the Anime medium to quickly sell off their mediocre "books".

That is why I don't bother reading any Manga or Light Novels while they are still in the middle of their runs, I have no trust in the author being able to maintain any semblance of quality, it usually just ends up getting worse and worse, with an eventual final release that leaves everyone empty inside, wasting years of their life and money on an author who didn't deserve it. I heard the author is getting death threats, I do not condone such vile behavior, however I do condone not supporting authors with track records of failure, until they can prove they can actually maintain the quality of the beginning novels all the way to the end. Otherwise, we are just supporting mediocrity and setting ourselves up for disappointment again.

Hopefully by some miracle this source material gets its second season as unlikely as it is, and that the Anime studio in charge actually gets leeway into making significant changes. Otherwise just stick to the original first season Anime. Just another great source material like Food Wars, that is ruined by an author who was given too much hype, and was unable to fulfill the early promise, instead butchering the series as it went along. At least the final season of Food Wars did remedy some of the Manga's issues, however this is most likely not gonna happen for Devil is a Part Timer. I am truly getting sick of this, the industry needs better talent as harsh as that sounds, I truly believe it.

Satoshi Kon was certainly an interesting individual, this is easily witnessed in any of the interviews he participated in, or in any of the numerous philosophical quotes he spewed out. I legitimately would have loved to meet the man, have a nice leisurely chat about various topics, I wish I got the chance to analyze such a unique person's brain and thought patterns, unfortunately he passed away too soon, so my dream will be unfulfilled. The reader of this review might be wondering as to the relevance of this entire introduction in regards to my review of "Perfect Blue", quite simply, I am stating that ... I respect this man's intellectual gift and talent, while I never actually liked really any of his catalog, I would be lying if I said that his concepts weren't intriguing on paper. However, at the same time, I would be also lying if I claimed that I thought any of his films, especially "Perfect Blue" are actual good pieces of media. As much as Mr.Kon was a bright mind taken far too soon, he wasn't exactly a great director, getting by purely on his ideas, as opposed to actual solid directing, plot construction and general cohesion. Sadly, in my eyes, "Perfect Blue" is nothing more than a fantastic premise muddled in poor cohesion, superficial messages, and pretentious screenplay.

Considering the film was so heavily promoted on the concept of what is real and what isn't, it is hard to gauge what events are actually occuring, or if quite frankly none of it is real. However, I will get to that later, I want to focus on the one clear message the film does have, which is the criticism that it presents towards the superficial pop idol/Japanese media in general. "Perfect Blue" clearly shows the unhealthy infatuation that goes into Japanese pop culture, many Japanese throw away any semblance of normal social life in order to feverishly follow media trends, people involved in media, such as pop idols and actors or fictional Anime characters. They live lives that are missing social interaction and affection, they have a void in their hearts, a void of love and a feeling of being wanted. They are shunned by society due to a variety of different reasons, as a result they turn to more desperate measures to sustain themselves. One instance as the film clearly depicts, is a man that can only be described as hideous, a man who obviously has a struggling or even non-existent social presence, finds salvation in the main character Mina, or to be more accurate, the pop idol facade Mina portrays. Living life full of hardship, causes people to search elsewhere, for that perfect love, that ideal person who will not judge them for who they are, for this man, its the pop idol Mina, her songs uplift his spirit, she is beautiful, kind and meek. Everything that a lonely man would desire, the issue of course, is that Mina is just a character, a character put out by Japanese companies to make money, a superficial facade, in reality Mina is just another person with flaws like any other. This message is explored throughout the film, however I disagree with the way that Satoshi Kon handled it, I feel the character dynamics were far too simplistic to fully demonstrate the complexity of this social issue/phenomenon. The man who is infatuated with Mina, is portrayed as being hideously ugly, monster-like, which I feel was intentional, since Satoshi Kon had a constant theme of having any unlikable/undesirable characters look utterly putrid. I am pretty sure this was done to visually symbolize the horror that is the unhealthy infatuation this man represents, but at the same time it undermines that entire group. Portraying them all as disgusting psychopaths with no empathy, which is far from the case.

The film while supposed to be this deep look into an unhealthy part of Japanese sub culture comes off as nothing more than a biased, one-sided examination. To me it would far more powerful and intense for the viewer, if that character was normal-looking and seemed innocent. Allowing the viewer to drop their guard, making for the eventual scares to have more of an impact as the viewer will not expect it, however with him looking the way he does, the film becomes predictable that this character is not a character, but just a creepy monster representing a biased view of a ostracized part of the population in Japan. The reason it bothers me so much, is because it doesn't give insight to why people fall into this type of behavior and what could be done about it, the creepy monster is only presented as a psychopath with no redeeming qualities, nothing more than a cartoon villain, it would have much more emotional weight to the audience if we learned about why he became that way, and how Mina turned into his savior, a martyr of sorts. Instead, all we get is a demonizing portrayal of a vulnerable group of people, who while of course some of them will be dangerous and go too far in their obsessions, (just like "regular people") quite a number of them are just harmless people who need to be showed support and care, not be dragged through the mud in a biased piece of media.

Now comes the part of the film that basically plays out like a mediocre high school art class, where the teacher would put up on the projector a simplistic, worthless piece of art with a very broad theme and topic. Afterwards, she would ask you, what themes and potential interpretations do you see in the work, "Perfect Blue" is pretty much that in a nutshell. The concept of value and meaning in work is nothing but a subjective farce, any piece of work can be interpreted by an individual to have numerous meanings or cultural significance, society has built up so many different cultural values and symbols that practically any piece of work can be made to seem to be filled to the brim with symbolism, when in reality it is nothing more than symbolism by accident, being confirmed by individuals with their own cultural experiences, values and symbology, essentially putting value into work that was not there to begin with. The essence of arrogance and self-righteous that humanity constantly displays, the need to feel that we are above the other simple life-forms on this planet, when in reality we are nothing but bumbling self-conscious fools. "Perfect Blue" is exactly that, with no concrete structure or proper evidence to showcase if anything being presented on screen has actual meaning or purpose. Instead, the film plays out as a number of scenes put together in order to confuse the viewer, to question what is real or not, making it seem that the film is vast and deep in nature, when in reality the viewer has no chance to put this puzzle together, because there is no puzzle, I would go as far to say that Satoshi Kon himself doesn't know what the plot actually is, because this movie is not about Mina, its not about making a solid film, its about putting in as much symbolism and philosophical ramblings into various scenes, this is simply Mr.Kon's video entry showcasing the inner workings of his thoughts and the various complicated philosophical and ideological issues he was struggling with, too bad this is not an essay, presentation or a non-fictional work discussing these things, this is supposed to be a Animated film, with a plot, a sense of structure and character, "Perfect Blue" has none of that, because none of that mattered in its production, as gifted as Mr.Kon was, he focused too much on inputting his own personal ideas into his work as opposed to just simply making a piece of media that was fundamentally sound.

The reason I am so harsh on this film, is because Satoshi Kon had talent, problem was it was misdirected, the lavish praise he received from news outlets and fans didn't help matters, not allowing him to realize the muddled mess he created, reflecting on it and improving on his actual direction. Numerous theories about the actual plot of the film are plentiful on the internet, the issue with all the theories is none of them are solid, each one has gaping plot holes or illogical character behavior. For instance, if everything that happened to Mina was true, the fact that the police did not get involved is a total farce, and utterly laughable, she is connected to every murder victim, yet the studio never shuts down due to the tragedies and the police aren't immediately ringing at her doorbell asking questions is absurd. It also showcases missed opportunities for the film to actually be scary, after another murder, Mina finds in her closet bloody articles of clothing, immediately after the media are knocking at her door. What would have been actually scary is if that was the police, it would make sense and be a natural progression in terms of intensity, she discovers evidence that could convict her of a crime, the moment she finds it the police are at the door, the audience would be on the edge of their seat, anticipating how Mina will handle the upcoming critical situation. But no, that doesn't happen, instead the media barge into her home, with no police presence anywhere, and the scene lasts only 5 seconds, a pointless throw-away scene with no sense of thrill.

Now one might be asking, well what if she was simply mentally ill, and most of the film was just illusions by a person suffering from some sort of severe mental disorder. Again, the film does not have enough sufficient evidence to conclude any theory one way or the other, of course by now we realize it was meant to be this way, but I just find that notion to be a cope out for poor writing and cohesion. Going back to the example of interpretation, since as the viewer we are given nonsensical sequences one after the other, almost any interpretation is valid, really only being limited by one person's imagination and creativity. In fact, I pose a theory, the entire film is actually a movie within a movie. Some people might gawk at that notion and find it absurd, but is it really?, just like the concept of adding value to a piece of work when in reality there is none. The film is so open-ended with no sense of cohesion, any theory can be viewed as acceptable in order to explain what occurs in "Perfect Blue". This is exactly why, I don't find this film "deep", its lazy storytelling and directing, instead of creating a movie with a clear plot and structure, adding in meaning, symbolism, ideology and any other dissections of social behavior. Instead, what we are given is a film with poor structure, disguised as being purposely deceiving, in order for the audience to question what is happening, in reality what that is, is making the audience do all the work, coming up with theories, meanings and values that are not there to begin with. Putting value into a piece of work that doesn't have any value, that is "Perfect Blue" described in one statement, it is a lazy piece of work, that has garnered praise for not what it did, but for what other people who are desperate to be viewed as intellectually gifted perceived it to be.

As for the rest of the technical aspects of the film, Madhouse did a pretty mediocre job animating, their a much better looking Animated full-length features around this era. Key frames look okay, and any shots with little movement maintain decent quality, however the moment alot of movement is present, art quality drops to laughable levels. The music is fine if uninspired, reason being is I found the soundtrack to be very similar to the game series "Clock Tower", which coincidentally was released only a few years prior. In conclusion, I respect Satoshi Kon as a person, I don't think he was a good director, he had good ideas that unfortunately became a muddled mess with no direction. "Perfect Blue" is sadly no different, a overrated Anime film that while intriguing at times, falls flat on its face.

Let me clearly state before the start of this review, that me giving this show a 5/10 is me being generous. K-On is one of the most overrated Anime in recent years, beloved by 4chan users and incels everywhere. Just like the low-class rabid fan-base, K-On is a mediocre, shallow show with very poor editing and screenplay and is only loved due to the fact that a lot of its viewers adore the cute girls in it. Basically, K-On is a superficial, vapid and shallow piece of media that is poorly constructed and executed. The only saving grace being that for the most part ... the art and animation are fine, and that occasionally the show manages to actually produce a decent scene every once in a while.

I feel numerous people who dislike this show, dislike it for the wrong reasons. The show is bad not due to its reliance of the "Moe" genre in Anime, it is mediocre due to simply poor pacing and screenplay. Over the years "Moe" has been blamed for the downfall of the industry, I thoroughly disagree, the industry has been going down since the early 2000's, due to a lack of good ideas and actual solid writing. Anime has always relied on its cuteness ever since the 1980's, a lot of individuals watch Anime for the pleasing art style and cuteness it exhibits. There is nothing wrong with liking cutesy shows where that is the main attraction, the problem with K-On isn't that its a show about cute girls playing in a band, the issue is that besides that premise the show is below-average in every technical department. If K-On had even just average writing, screenplay and directing, I would have no issues with it, but its not average in any of those important categories. In some its downright abysmal.

The biggest offender to the show's mediocrity is the pacing, besides Sword Art Online I have never witnessed any other popular Anime with such nonsensical pacing. The show runs through a whole year in the lives of these high school students, but good luck trying to figure that out in any natural way, the only reason the viewer knows that a considerable amount of time has passed is because the characters just flat out say it. It is utterly jarring, when going from one episode to the next, all of a sudden without any proper indication, the viewer is notified that months have passed between episodes. There was no use of various film techniques to indicate time passage, no montages, no use of interesting editing tricks, nothing, just that at the beginning of an episode one of the characters state months have passed, with the audience not getting to see what they did during that time, which is brutal considering this is suppose to be about a newly formed band with a complete beginner guitarist, any rational person would think they would at least show a montage of them practicing together intensely so they can actually produce a competent song together.

Which brings me to the other biggest issue, the progression of the characters in relation to their band. These four (later five) girls form this new band, one of the members never even having touched a guitar before, you would think considering that they have essentially a useless member, they would be practicing a whole lot to get in-sync with one another, and trying their best to teach the novice how to play guitar. Well, they barely practice for the majority of the show, instead lazying around and eating sweets. Our novice guitarist does practice a bit at home, but even if one is naturally gifted at music, there is a very unlikely chance they are able to play anything impressive well in just a short period of time even with intense training and practice. Well, this is K-On, so instead of something reasonable happening, like the main character learning to play simple notes on the guitar in time for their festival performance, and the rest of the group adjusting to that by making a song that caters to her level. Nope, with no montage or really any screen-time showcasing the gradual improvement of the band and as they get used to one another and learn to play together. Instead, all of a sudden due to lazy time-skipping, the main girl knows how to play guitar pretty well despite not knowing basic terminology and techniques for playing guitar, and the band is able to pull of a good first show out of their asses. Teaching them, that they only need to work a little bit, and that they can eat sweets and lay around, magically it will all work out.

This is in contrast to practically every other "Slice of Life" Anime out there, while the genre is usually a very peaceful and cutesy type of show, there is actual proper development of characters and their goals. The best example is "Aria", where the main characters can be seen consistently practicing in various episodes in order to become better, and at first they are not that great but by the end of "Aria The Origination" their hard work pays off with achieving their goals, becoming Undine Primas. Along the way, they also learn various important life lessons that better them, every episode has a message and meaning to decipher. Characters grow, change and become better, that is the essence of the "Slice of Life" genre, and no Anime does it better than "Aria". Now take all that "Aria" did, and not apply any of that to K-On, as K-On does absolutely none of that. None of the characters grow, none of them learn anything from their mistakes or behavior, its fine that they barely practice, its fine that they just goof around and take music, the supposed thing they love, with no seriousness what so ever. Nope, why would they?, when they will always pull a good performance out of their asses anyway?

The animation and art is fine for the most part, however I did notice a lot of bad proportions on the characters during various scenes, especially when it comes to hands, feet and legs. The music which gets praised quite a bit, to me was nothing more than standard modern day muddled mediocre JPOP, not helping the fact was the laughable lyrics. It is far from a really bad Anime, but its also very far from being actually good, another overrated popular Anime loved by individuals who are not able to dissect and analyze
Anime in regards to its competency in the construction and execution department. I am not even surprised anymore when popular Anime that has been deemed great, is really nothing more than overrated mediocrity. Well at least this show seems to distract incels so I mean, that is a positive.

It is never fair to any standalone film to compare it to a previous work from the same director, a film should be reviewed on its own merits as opposed to being compared to something else. The issue here is that the director has made it difficult not to constantly draw comparisons to his previous film "Kimi No Na Wa", this film is set in the same universe, contains cameos from said film, and practically has a copy and paste presentation. "Tenki no Ko" feels like the director thought he could just use the same template that brought him so much success in the past ... and simply reuse it, too bad that while the film is once again gorgeous in terms of artwork and animation, the writing is sloppy, characters lack any real depth and is just poorly constructed in general.

"Kimi No Na Wa" for the most part received general fanfare, although if you dig deep enough on this site you will find people who despise it. While the film is certainly not perfect by any stretch, it did manage to be a technical marvel with a decent story and characters. Yes, there were issues in regards to plot holes due to the whole time travel aspect, not to sound like I am making excuses, but even the best of that genre in Hollywood like Back to the Future will suffer from plot holes due to the fact that time travel simply doesn't make any sense. Even so, at least in that movie the characters felt like people, and the relationship between the two main leads felt genuine and had some depth. This director to me has always been terribly inconsistent in his writing, but finally in "Kimi No Na Wa" for once his characters felt real and not just plot devices for his pretentious and poorly written story. Sadly, Tenki no Ko feels just like that, a step backwards, a step back into the poorly written nonsense this director put out in the past.

The movie's key subplot is supposed to be about the relationship between the two main leads, how over time they fall in love with one another as they spend time together. The problem here is that this part of the film is just not well executed, it feels rushed, not enough time was spent exploring these two characters and their relation to one another. They briefly meet when the girl takes sympathy on the male lead, by giving him a free burger at the place she works at. Instead of trying to strike up a conversation with her, the guy just eats the burger quietly and leaves without saying a word, this right here is the issue with the film, there are no simple bonding moments with these two, where they can just simply talk to one another and get to know each other well. All we are left with is the director writing a scene where he meets the girl again who is being taken in by two unpleasant fellows to work at a rather unsavory place, he swoops in to attempt to save her, which ends up causing chaos. This is due to the fact that before this, he ended up finding a gun in a trash can when he gets pushed into, it feels beyond contrived, bringing in a pointless unnecessary police subplot which in my opinion should have been cut for more time to develop the two main characters. After he saves her, he receives a scolding for the fact he shot his gun, mind you he didn't kill anybody, they have a very brief and uneventful talk that leads to her showing him that she can somewhat control the weather. This causes him to take an interest in her, of which then she uses her ability to make money, once again the director screws this segment up by making this entire part where they are always together doing these jobs, just a quick montage.

At this point in the film, the male lead is already falling in love with the female lead, it feels contrived and shallow. They spent so little time actually getting to know one another that it feels like were watching a movie with an unfinished script. Supposedly, they were bonding over the fact that they would have small talks about the fact they are both run-aways, that would be great if there was any amount of depth when it came to their character. The male lead is shallow, his reason for running away is absurd, he didn't run away due to some sort of abuse, mental illness or any actual legitimate reason, he tells her that he ran away because he felt he was being "suffocated" by the rural area he grew up in, she accepts this lame answer as being valid, instead of telling him not to be mentally retarded and go back to his beyond worried parents. Sadly, that is better than the explanation given as to why the female girl who is only 15 is living by herself, looking after her younger brother, all we learn is that her mother passed away, and that she feels burdened with all the responsibility. We don't get an actual grasp of these two's mental/emotional state, we never get true answers to why they did what they did, and how they ended up in this scenario. Just simply no depth to these two characters, and its honestly rather disappointing.

The most disappointing part is the just the sheer lack of a character arc for the male and female lead, even the mediocre side characters have an attempted character arc even if its beyond half-assed. The kid comes into Tokyo, after running away from his parents for the most superficial and borderline retarded reasons, which would be fine if he was presented as being mentally ill or suffering from mental issues but he is not, he is presented as a normal, well functioning teenager. He meets a cute girl with an incredible supernatural ability, he helps her profit off this ability, and then when the shocking realization comes in that doing this causes her to disappear as she is connected to the sky, causes him to tell her to stop because he loves her, once she disappears, he does everything in his power to save her regardless of the potential consequences, of which he succeeds. Thing is, he didn't grow or change at all, his motivation to save her was not out of maturing, it was out of selfishness, he wanted to stay in Tokyo before she disappeared even though that was the irresponsible thing to do. This is not an issue in it of itself, but the predictable character arc doesn't even happen, he doesn't grow up, mature, and out of his own desire go back to his worried parents and apologize for his stupidity. No, he only goes back because he is forced to by the police due to the moronic gun/police subplot, aka he doesn't learn anything and doesn't actually really serve any social consequences for his dumb actions.

Its rather sad, the film's animators made another gorgeous film, the art and animation are top notch to say the least. The screenplay though is quite bland, a lot of uninteresting shots and camera angles. Everything is mostly solid except the writing, which has been this director's Achilles heel for his entire career, he managed to somewhat do decent with "Kimi No Na Wa" but its seems that was a fluke, he should do himself a favor and hire a writer for his projects so we don't have to be totally disappointed with beautiful animation going to waste on a half-assed, poorly written story.

Let me set the record straight before I dive into this nonsensical garbage, the reason I so thoroughly dislike this is not due to the gore present, in fact this is nowhere near as gory as many awful edgy 80's OVA's were. Second I did not play any of the terrible looking games, that look like any other cheaply made RPG maker games that flood the indie Anime game market. Regardless, an Anime should be judged on its own merits as a standalone product, if you need millions of gaps to be filled in by an entirely different product that is not the answer and ... should never be promoted or accepted.

So, the basic premise is that these cardboard characters are at their school late at night, doing some sort of farewell party for one of their friends, one character gets the idea to perform some stupid ritual, after this, shit hits the fan and now they are in a haunted Elementary school in some other dimension or some utter bullshit, and basically they have to survive all the threats they face, while attempting to maintain their sanity in the process. Oh yeah, there is also some crappy mystery they have to solve while they are there in order to get out.

This all sounds nice and dandy, until you are hit with the sudden realization that these characters as a collective have the intelligence of a half-eaten potato. The sheer mental retardation on display is so utterly breathtaking that I stopped the Anime at various points to ponder if whoever wrote this truly understood what they were making their characters do. If I had to take a wild stab in the dark, whoever wrote this had an idea for how these characters were going to meet their demise, they were so focused on that aspect, and since they also cannot write for shit, forgot the very important part of, well how do the characters get themselves into that situation? Is it because of some unfortunate events that bestow upon them?, aka wrong place at the wrong time?, or how bout some really cunning and intelligent enemies?, no, the answer to all of that is a no. The characters meet their demise all because they make the most idiotic possible decisions alive that pretty much guarantee that their chance of survival is zero percent. The writing basically boils down to, we need this character to be all alone so they can be killed, and the way we go about that is we will make them separate from a group for practically no reason because writing skills are something the Japanese don't learn apparently. Rinse and repeat, and that is the exact summary of this Anime.

If you want glorious examples, here they are for you to enjoy. Dipshit brother character realizes they are in a rather spooky place, he has the fortune of being right next to his younger sister when he starts exploring said spooky place. So instead of trying to arm himself or really do anything that would be beneficial to both of them, he instead finds a creepy looking ghost girl, who turns out to be the main antagonist,....clearly you need 200 IQ to put that one together. Instead of running away from creepy ghost looking girl, he allows her to stay with them, and when his younger sister who he promised to protect, needs to urinate, he tells her to be with the creepy looking ghost girl and to urinate away from his supervision while he goes wondering off by himself. Of course this backfires immediately, who would have thought? Resulting essentially in a horrible demise of the young girl, to top it off, he actually meets another guy before all this happens, and these two teenagers with their big boy brains decide not to venture off as a group where there are strength in numbers and to have emotional support available, nope lets split up, which of course unsurprisingly leads to the demise of the other guy as he succumbs to insanity, clearly these characters were just allergic to the idea of sticking together and all the advantages that might bring, especially when they are in an environment they have never seen before.

Every other aspect of this Anime is also an abomination, there are gaping plot holes everywhere, which I would assume the crappy game probably attempted to explained, but here is just glossed over with no care. Sections of the story are just skipped, such as when blonde guy and blue haired girl (yes I did not remember their names, nether should you) were searching for objects to appease/put souls to rest, you are shown one entire sequence of them saving a young boy's soul when the girl is able to give him his tongue back, after that we cut to some other stupid characters, but once we get back to them, well they happened to find all the other tongues/objects they were looking for, of which we saw none of, so yeah just an entire section of plot skipped because time constraint. As for the plot itself, it is incredibly dull and crap in comparison to some of the greats that Japanese Horror has put out over the years, this clearly comes off as well, a crappy overrated mediocre RPG Maker horror game plot that only gained relevance because crappy overrated mediocre youtubers let's played them.

The art and animation is okay, pretty much any modern Anime is going to have better art and animation than all time great blunders such as Twinkle Nora Rock and most of Idea's Factory's catalog. However, the actual gore itself is lazily done, with comical looking blood splatters that look like they were done in Microsoft Paint. The gore which is the main animation highlight falls flat on its face, there was much better and more detailed gore in alot of gory 80's OVA's, so check those out if you are into them for some reason. The art design looks okay but every female main character having practically the same looking eyes reeks of cheapness and lack of any care or effort.

In conclusion, if you think this is amazing then you are what is wrong with Anime. Just joking, don't take that seriously, but what I will say in all seriousness is that this is an example of a mediocre product gaining popularity due to help from outside influences, garnering attention and positive reactions as a result even when it flat out doesn't deserve it. This is a bottom of the barrel in terms of quality, people with influence such as let's players on Youtube should focus on lesser known high quality Anime games and shows as opposed to utter trash like this, and as a result indirectly promoting it.

Anime as a medium has always struggled in regards to handling serious topics and themes, never once throughout the course of my viewing history have I found an Anime that truly tackled these subjects with the care and respect that they deserve. Sadly, Koe no Katachi is just another entry in that list of mediocre attempts at trying to convey a serious story. I really wanted to like this movie due to the gorgeous artwork and animation present, however I cannot bring myself to. Let's begin dissecting this film.

Issues arise right from the premise, the concept that a small fragile little deaf girl would be ... bullied by several classmates, be physically assaulted constantly by one, and have this absurdity go on for a whopping 5 months without intervention from the school or any bystanders is impossible to take remotely seriously. The fact that the mother has to call the school after her daughter experiences such brutal behavior from her classmates in order for anyone to finally step in and do something is beyond unacceptable. Sadly, the worst part of this entire nonsense is the sheer stupidity that is the reasoning behind her having to take all this abuse.

The reason she is abused is because essentially she changes the dynamic of the classroom, that's it. The girls start teasing her because she starts slowly bringing changes in the classroom, such as the fact that they start learning a little bit of sign language every class, or the fact that even though she is deaf she is allowed to participate in their choir, thus resulting in them having no chance at winning anything. Yes, these are the very well thought out, deep reasons that 6th graders start teasing this girl. Our very likable main character notices these things, and in turn decides to act like a deranged psychopath in order to restore the original classroom atmosphere before she arrived. He does acts against her that would warrant a suspension for the first time, and expulsion for repeated offences, well he assaults her about 9 different times throughout this film, so safe to say he would have gotten his ass expelled if this movie had any semblance of reality and realistic writing.

Probably the worst part in all of this, is the fact that once the mother finally steps in, the principal is there to inform the class that they now know of the horrendous behavior their darling students have been committing for 5 months. When he asks who were the prominent individuals in the bullying, the teacher of the class, the very same lame duck teacher who somehow never once meaningfully intervened during the acts of abuse, singles out our main character, I have to assume this was in some vain attempt to save his job due to his sheer incompetence. The thing is, this lets on that he knew to some extent what was happening, yet chose to do nothing about it. When the main character is ousted, he attempts to deflect blame onto others who are guilty in the bullying, they ignore him since they are such sweet children and he becomes a complete outcast in no time at all.

The film just skips ahead a few years to him as a late teenager, where he decides he wants to kill himself, we are given no context at this point, however this attempt fails, and we have to unfortunately watch more of this atrocious piece of media. The main character has undergone such a dramatic shift in character that its practically unbelievable, while before willing to assault a disabled person, he is now incredibly kind, meek and unwillingly to engage in any confrontation. This would be a nice character ark, if it actually was one, we see no shift in his personality between the section of this movie showcasing him as a child, and then him as a teenager, essentially we just have to accept that he has changed for the better.

Due to the events of his childhood, our main character has no friends and is unable to hold proper conversations. By sheer luck/poor plot device, he meets up with the deaf girl once again, as any sane person would do she initially runs away from him, however after tracking her down, and seeing after only one conversation that he has changed for the better, they both decide to attempt to forge a relationship. Of course, he still hasn't actually apologized yet, that comes near the end of the film, which makes no sense as no sane individual who had horrible things happen to them by another person would accept a possible attempt at fixing a relationship before at least receiving an apology and an understanding from that person that what they did was wrong and they truly grasp to never do it again. But, this is anime, where no one knows how to write people, even in a serious story, so moving on.

The rest of the film is a guilty circle jerk, the main character meets up with his old friends, the same individuals who bullied the deaf girl. What a surprise, they take zero responsibility for their actions, two of the girls even attempt to justify or rationalize their behavior. Even after seeing the fact that especially one girl is still willingly to assault a disabled person, he for some reason doesn't grow a pair and cut her off for the sake of the deaf girl he is supposedly friends with, nope, he attempts to somehow get them all to be friends even though as mentioned before it just simply will not happen. Not after all the trauma, bullying and lack of owning up to the horrible behavior they displayed as children. Of course since this is anime, they just attempt to throwback their own insecurities and ego at the main character to make him feel bad. Its fine to have characters who are not nice in a movie, its another to have your main character have the intelligence of a potato, obviously witness how horrible these people are to him and his new friend, and not realize that maybe hanging out with them isn't the most brilliant idea in the world.

The most utter cringeworthy aspect, is the fact the deaf girl takes the awful behavior from the main character's former friends as somehow being her fault. This poor little girl is just made to suffer nonstop due to the fantastic writing, leading to the fact she even attempts to kill herself due to the guilt she feels about the strained relationships the main character has with his horrible friends. This was the last straw for me, seeing her bow down and throw her pride away to ask for apologies from people who should in reality get their heads bashed in with a shovel was so disheartening that I wanted to turn off the film right there.

Its utterly repulsive when the end of the film, features all the characters together enjoying themselves without a care in the world. The support characters get to laugh it up as they continue taking advantage of the pissant main character. While he and his friend had to go through hell due to illogical anime writing and character relationships.

This is an overrated disaster, that is only saved by the art and animation. Sorry, but this is simply not a good film. End of story.

Many times throughout my short existence, I truly believed that I grasped everything that there has been to see, that life could not throw anything at me that would faze me, surprise me, or make me lose the already very little faith I have in humanity, this anime managed to do that. I am absolutely shocked, dumbfounded, I cannot possibly begin to comprehend how this show has been not only given decent ratings, but excellent ratings, how anyone could possible like this show is beyond my level of comprehension and ability to empathize with other individuals. Hi-Score Girl should be shamed, a show that should ... be highlighted as to why the industry has been going down the toilet ever since the early 2000's, This piece of "entertainment" is nothing more than a superficial merit-less piece of media that has managed to pull on people's nostalgia cords in order to pretend that it is something more than it is.

The entire premise is based around these middle schoolers playing video games back in the early 1990's, many avid video game fans will feel right at home with the numerous references to gaming culture. Hi-Score Girl entirely relies on nostalgia, as otherwise the show has absolutely no merit on its own, basically waving all these references to the viewer's face in order to distract them from the sheer incompetence and the utter lack of any talent that went into the production.

The two main characters are not even characters, they are totally devoid of any reasonable human behavior and characteristics, the way they interact with one another is simply unhuman, the script suffers as a result with Hi-Score Girl just expecting the viewer to overlook nonsensical conversations between characters. Did I say conversations?, actually it's more like one-sided conversations, since the main female lead just refuses to speak, all she manages to do is to have a resting derp face, or to make a series of clueless experssions that she somehow expects everyone to grasp instantaneously. She is a horrid person, she hits and essentially abuses the male main lead due to the fact that she essentially expects him to mind read her in order to get along, if he doesn't immediately know what she wants, she retaliates in a physical manner, which of course is so incredibly romantic, considering somehow even with this obviously abusive/mentally-challenged behavior the male main lead starts to like the non-talking, physical abusive, derp looking girl. As for the main male lead, well he is not all that likable either, he is an overly hyper and irresponsible brat, his over dramatic reactions to every single event is beyond annoying and tedious. I could write an entire essay on how poorly written these two characters are, but I will save you the suffering from that, clearly whoever wrote these two characters has no understanding of how human conversations work or how humans behave in general. This has been a common theme the past few years in anime with human characters that don't behave/act even remotely human, Hi-Score Girl is one of the worst in recent memory in this regard, and should be taken notice as a study guide on how not to portray human characters in a relatively grounded setting.

The animation is downright pathetic and ugly, the main girl who is suppose to be attractive in this universe supposedly, looks nothing more than a derp. The background are abysmal, lack detail and any sense of effort. Music is just awful, the opening theme is typical modern non-sense that doesn't even fit the horrendous opening animation. I had enough, just writing this review has given me a brain aneurysm, in short Hi-Score Girl is an abomination, devoid of any merit, meaning or skill, the fact that this is highly rated on this site has me worried for the future of this industry.

Kimagure Orange Road is not a 80's classic by any means, how it managed to garner this reputation is beyond me. The only noteworthy thing this show managed to do was introduce many terrible romance cliches that have been infecting the genre ever since. That is the only legacy this poor show has in my eyes, other than that, the show itself is a poorly paced, boring, below average filler fest disguised as an intriguing love triangle.

The episode length is beyond what the anime needs to convey its simple story, thus most of the show is filled with filler episodes that don't go anywhere, ... making the show feel boring and utterly tedious. The story itself is absolutely awful, the first cliche to be introduced is the main male lead, who happens to be indecisive, that is basically his character trait, an immature indecisive twat that could clear up this superficial love triangle if he had an ounce of courage, but no he screws around for the majority of the series wasting the viewers time. The other characters are cliches as well, worst being Madoka Ayukawa, I am sorry, I don't comprehend why she became an anime darling of the 80's, Madoka is nothing more than anime's first "waifu" and nothing more. She is not only good at so many different tasks, she even excels at them, she has so many skills bordering on the point of being a superwoman, physically gifted in every way, able to play multiple instruments well, intelligent, as well as being beautiful, she has no glaring flaw from a distance. However this show expects us to believe such a mature, gifted individual used to be a delinquent, because reasons, yet in the ultimate move of irony constantly lectures the male lead on his immaturity, yes he should take the advice of a former delinquent very seriously especially when we never learn why she became one. Hikaru is nothing more than a hyper girl cliche who is there to be the wrench to true love, although its not her fault the main lead is a gutless scrub.

The rest of the anime at least saves it from me rating it a 2 or 3/10, at least the music was good for the most part and the animation is above average for the time period, but other than that, I have nothing else nice to say about this anime. The romance falls flat, the characters are cliches, the main female lead is just a hypocritical Mary Sue "waifu" with no real character. Kimagure Orange Road is not classic, its a dud, and a really bad one that introduced bad cliches and plot lines that still to this day affect romance anime.

Vandread to me is the cover poster of the mediocre early 2000's animation period, the shift between the charming 90's animation to the similar looking but very bland art style that dominated the period. Vandread while not terrible, unfortunately will succumb to being an anime that in the future most people will have no desire to watch.

The biggest issue with Vandread is the fact that it was one of the earliest animes to adopt the use of CGI, to quickly state, I myself do not find Anime CGI to be ever pleasant, to me it looks absolutely awful, even modern shows ... that use CGI leave alot to be desired in the quality department. The CGI in Vandread was already atrocious looking even back when it was released, with the ships looking like they came out of a poorly rendered PS1 FMV, with aliasing issues galore. The CGI clashes with the mostly alright albeit uninspired regular animation. The reason I am making a deal out of this, because while older animation can become outdated, they have a certain level of charm and style that allows them to transcend the bounds of being considered unattractive. Vandread does not, it looks like an outdated tech demo from the early 1990's, this will not bode well for its future watch ability.

The story itself is the typical anime cliches and plot lines that have been infesting anime since the 1980's, the only difference being the premise, the premise here is pretty unique and at least gives the show some original identity in the sea of uninteresting anime from its time period. The plot itself is a rather straightforward affair that has been seen numerous times, to me its fine, it for the most part hits all the notes needed for a coherent story and character development without ever really being excellent at it. Simply put, its an anime with the same average plot but set in a more unique and rather absurd premise, it is up to you to decide if that premise is enough to be interesting to you.

Sound was alright, I didn't personally think very highly of any of the music used in the series. The openings and endings were okay. Overall Vandread is an average show marred by an adaptation of a technology that was too early for them to use, even now they have yet to produce anything decent with it half the time, let alone back when Vandread was made.