Back to WhatYouWanted's Profile WhatYouWanted's Profile

As you probably know the show starts off as a generic magical girl show, and the takes a dark turn by involving death and suffering. It feels as if it was entirely banking on this surprising the audience how ever, and if you know it's coming, it really just comes across as nothing but a cheap gimmick. Honestly, if you removed the magical girl aspect this show would appear as entirely generic. Just because Madoka Magica kills off a character or two, and puts them through some trauma, doesn't turn it into a deconstruction, especially when said characters are really just the archetypes from the ... magical girl genre.

Speaking of characters I find that is where Madoka Magica really falls flat, each one is either undeveloped or handled in a completely ham-fisted manner, and none of the characters motivations really make sense. First off you have Madoka Kaname herself, whom never really develops at all throughout the show, and for the most part doesn't actually do anything except exist for the sake of the others. Her personality is that she is kind, and that's pretty much it, so kind in fact that, at the end of the show, she is apparently willing to sacrifice herself to an eternity of limbo, for some girls, most of whom she has never met. Did I mention she's 14? I should also point out that she's an idiot, evident in the scene in which she throws her friends solidified soul onto a highway, because apparently that is the best course of action she can think of to prevent her having a fight.

After her you have Homaru, who in reality, is the main character of the show, and thankfully actually has some depth to her, which makes it a pity that the show didn't focus more on her. At first she comes across as the generic mysterious, and distant transfer student, how ever she is like this because she has traveled through time, in order to save Madoka, experiencing many tragedies along the way, thus making her desensitized and jaded to the horrible things happening around her. The crux of this is that it relies on the audience buying her devotion to Madoka, who as I have pointed and isn't particularly likeable, and we also never really see much development between the two.

Then you have Sayaka Miki, easily the most frustrating of the lot, which is made all the worse by the ridiculous amount of screen time she gets. Her entire dilemma is that she uses her wish in order to help the boy she is in love with, but then questions whether she did this for her own selfish desire for his affection. While this may seem like an interesting idea, it doesn't really go anywhere, and just turns out to be a petty love triangle, which she immediately gives up on winning for an incredibly flimsy reason, and then she gives up her humanity because of it.
Kyouko Sakura, is another awful character, within days she goes from wanting to kill Sayaka, to sacrificing her life so she can die with her. She outright tells other characters about her past problems, and her childish world view, for little to no reason. She also eats a lot, because at one time she was poor, and thus hates wasting food, which might of been some decent characterization if it wasn't so blatantly spelled out for us.

Also you have Mami Tomoe, who dies 3 episodes in, after having about a total screen time of about 20 minutes, which makes me me wonder how anyone could possibly care about this plot twist, even if they didn't know it was coming.

The actual plot of Madoka Magica is surprisingly predictable, and towards the end turns into a cliche time travel narrative. It's also filled to the brim with idiotic contrivances, the whole reason witches and magical girls exist is so an alien race can harvest their emotions, and turn them into energy, in order to combat entropy. Why adolescent girls? Because apparently they have it way harder than anyone else in the world, move over starving African children, this bitch is upset about her teen-aged crush. The wishes granted to the magical girls are also rather nebulous, the extent of what they can do is never really clear, and the nature of the wish also effects the powers they get as a magical girl, but this is only really apparent in two of the characters. It's also never really made clear why the alien race gives them a wish, or even gives them a choice to become a magical girl for that matter, this is even more confusing when we find out that the alien race apparently have no emotions themselves. Nothing particularly original nor interesting is done with the time travel element, and it only culminates into a completely nonsensical grandfather paradox.

Madoka Magica's animation I find is somewhat hit and miss, while it is mostly well done, with interesting shot composition and background scenery, the characters designs look simply awful. Now I have nothing against moe design by itself, but the ones in Madoka Magica look far too angular and over simplified, to the point in which they barely register as humans, and look down right ugly. The fight scenes may be well animated, and the design of the witches is unique I'll admit, but they never really seem to have any weight to them, and it is never clear how much damage is being done. For being a so called deconstruction, nothing really interesting is done in terms of how the fights play out. A nice bit of background detail is that it seems to be set somewhat in the future, though this is never actually brought up by the characters, which I can appreciate, and the general architecture is also pleasant.

The only way I can see Madoka Magica being enjoyable, is if you don't know what it's about going into it, and even at that I cant really see it as anything but a cheap, one trick pony.

When Log Horizon wasn't getting on my nerves it was putting me to sleep, it was sold to me as a fantasy world anime done right, with excellent world building, and a vast cast of interesting and likeable characters. Sadly I found this couldn't be further from the truth.

The first issue is that Log Horizon makes up its rules not on what logically makes sense, but what's convenient for its narrative. First of, in this fantasy world you can make food from a drop down menu or buy some made from an NPC, however these foods have no taste, now raw ingredients have taste, ... and so do meals made in the same way you would do so in the real world, though you need the chef subclass to do so. The reason why this is the case is never explained and is merely a contrivance to set up a major sub-plot early into the show. If the logic is that the menu made food doesn't have any taste because it goes through an "unnatural" creation process, why is NPC made food also effected by this. If you need the chef subclass to make food with flavor, why does everyone have the power to make food via a menu, also on that note why there is a chef class is never explained either and have a maid subclass come up later makes even less sense.

Early on we find out that all the characters take on the appearance of their in game avatars, Log Horizon really wanted to have it's cake and eat it too in this instance. All the low level players happen to be children, who all coincidentally made child avatars, which look similar to their real life selves, and everyone elses appearance match both their personality, and gender. Knowing this it would make a whole lot more sense if you simply took on your real life appearance, however then the show wouldn't have an excuse to have some players be cat people, who all coincidentally are fine with no longer being human and even love to role play twenty four seven. One could argue for suspension of disbelief here I agree, though it didn't need to be written in such a way. It could be that you take on your real life appearance, with the exception of specific non-human traits and it would of worked just fine. Even so these other races and traits never really add anything to the show and are never really explored, so I have to wonder what the point was.

Log Horizon isn't even consistent with its rules, it's established that if you attempt to fight inside a city, incredibly powerful guardians will spawn until you cease fighting, outside of cities you can kill other players however, they will merely infinitely re-spawn back in the city. It's also established that a guild exists that forces inexperienced players (who all happen to be children for some reason) to give their experience potions that they receive daily, to the high level players within said guild, of course this brings up just how exactly they could force them to do anything, considering they could just leave to the areas were the guardians spawn. The show attempts to explain this away by saying the guild members could simply kill them when they leave the city, though this implies they have enough people to keep the entire area covered for every time one of the children tries to leave, who are also totally okay with child abuse. At one point on of these guild members physically restrains one of the children, however the guardians don't spawn because it isn't technically 'combat', but this seems to imply that you could physically unarm someone and drag them out of the city, but not have the guardians spawn on you because you have technically started combat. This as well as the food having no taste and the physical appearance of the characters, are just three of the many issues I had with Log Horizons world building, as it feels as if the rules are made up merely as it goes along.

Annoyingly, Log Horizon doesn't even feel as if it accurately portrays MMO's how ether, in most of the battles only one or two ability is used per character, and apparently there's no default attack for most of the classes.I cannot comprehend who would want to play an MMO in which you can only make one action every five teen or so seconds, it also doesn't help that we never learn the variety of class options or if there exists a form of meta game present before the game is made real.

Moving on, the characters are a horrible detriment to the show, which all feel one note and completely uninteresting. We have our main character Shiroe, who doesn't really have much of a personality other than being somewhat reserved. The show wants us to believe he is a master strategist, apparently not by actually showing him do anything impressive but by having the characters constantly riding his dick about how great a strategist he is, remember don't show, tell tell and tell some more. Speaking of riding Shrioe's dick, what better way to describe Akatsuki, a 20 year old women with the appearance of a twelve year old (which is based off her actual appearance mind you) for some reason, not that it matters because she acts like a child, loving to constantly role play as her class, and refer to Shrio as her lord, it is unbearable as it sounds. She isn't the worst however as after her you have Naotsugu, his entire character is basically that he's a pervert, he exemplifies the worst of Log Horizon's attempt at humor, it wasn't funny when Akatsuki hit him the first time for being a pervert nor the other twenty times after that. Aside from that you have a group of annoying children who take several days to grasp the basic concepts of an MMO, some people who take things far too seriously, and a princess that everyone seems to love for no real reason.

The aesthetic of Log Horizon also feels uninspired, you'd think there would be some disquisition between high level and low level characters, considering that higher level players would have stronger equipment, but apparently not, you would also think people would look rather unique considering how much time people put into character customization but this isn't the case either. It makes it hard to wonder why people would play an MMO that looks so generic, and just because a narrative is based on an MMO it doesn't mean it has to conform to such a generic looking standard.

I'll end on a positive note by saying the sound track for this show is decent, and also feels as if it would be in place inside of a video game, whilst also fitting the scene in general. The intro theme is also pretty good, aside from being a tad cringey with lines such as "We've got the antidote for the jammed and hypnotized." Unfortunately this isn't enough to salvage Log Horizon, and I certainly wont be continuing on to season two.

Quite like orange juice, I couldn't make it through this show without gin. The basic premise of Orange is that a 26 year woman named Naho Takamiya sends a letter to herself ten years in the past, in order to prevent the several mistakes she made including some that she believes caused the suicide of her love interest name Kakeru. It's pretty predictable from this premise alone that the show had the potential to turn out to be simple wish fulfillment garbage, and unfortunately that seems to be the case. That isn't that say I didn't go into it with an open mind that is, ... as I knew nothing of the show going in to it, so don't give me any of that crap.

The real problem with Orange is that it expects you to care about it's characters, but never really makes any effort to make them likeable or well developed. All of them can essentially be broken down to their single defining characteristics, there is even one amusingly unaware scene towards the end of episode three, in which one of the characters starts describing all the others essentially using these singular traits. Naho is kind and helpful, though a much simpler summary of her character can be put into one word 'doormat'. Kakeru is your typical love interest, dark and brooding, his total lack of personality makes it impossible to see what Naho sees in him beyond his appearance, and the same can be said of his attraction to Naho. All the other characters have almost no bearing on the plot making them completely forgettable and not even worth noting. Times in which one would think the show would try and develop its character is instead spent upon lazy montages or creating repetitive drama merely for the sake of it. Because of this the show fails to engage its audience in its plot as it is almost entirely character driven. Why should one care that Kakeru commits suicide or has mommy issues, if the show tells us almost nothing about him as a character, he also goes from unlikable to downright hateable as the show goes own, which I wont go into for the sake of spoilers, though I'll standby that he acts irredeemably selfish.

Another glaring issue is the casts and especially Naho's utter and constant stupidity which is the cause of the vast majority of the drama throughout the show, making it unbearably frustrating to sit through. Naho rarely tries to solve her issues in the most straight forward and logical manner, it feels as if she isn't making her choices based on her past experiences or her personality, but more that she is acting in such a way because the show needs the plot to move from point A to point B. Despite the characters actions causing an unnecessary amount of melodrama, for the most part it usually resolved within a few episodes, as if the show is dancing around what little plot it actually has, so it ends up feeling like a complete waste of time.

Other than that the show is unimpressive in both its animation and audio quality which also gradually decline in quality as the show progresses, so it really has nothing going for it. There are also many smaller issues such as Naho never reading ahead in the letter and the shows baffling attempt to explain away the time travel, I'd go on, how ether I don't have the time nor the patience to go through them all. Overall the show is at its best boring, and at worst teeth grindingly frustrating, I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.