Winterwolf0839's Profile - Reviews

Last OnlineMay 9, 2022 8:23 AM
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BirthdayMay 10, 2003
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JoinedMay 10, 2018

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Apr 30, 2021

D4DJ First Mix (Anime) add

Recommended

Are you tired of watching only dark and dreary anime? Do you like cute girls and good music? Do you want to see an anime that's fully CGI that actually looks good? Well look no further because D4DJ First Mix is the show for you!

Allow me to give some background on this show: D4DJ is a new multimedia project created by Bushiroad, the same studio that brought us Bang Dream, Project Sekai and Revue Starlight. Bushiroad's founder Takaaki Kidani got the idea for D4DJ when he watched a group known as the Chainsmokers perform at at the 2017 Singapore Grand Prix. Kidani claims that the ... point of D4DJ is that he wanted music that could connect people of different races, genders and generations together, much like how he saw everyone at that concert super excited to watch a group from America perform.

But that's enough on the background of the show, so let's move onto to the show itself. The anime centers itself on a girl named Rinku Aimoto who prior to the anime's start lived in Africa for most of her life only to then move back to Japan in High School. She then stumbles upon a performance by the most popular unit from her new school, P-Pkey and gets inspired to start a DJ unit herself. She then ropes a DJ at her school, Maho Akashi into joining her group and they begin to perform together. Maho teaches Rinku how DJing works since Rinku hadn't even heard of DJs until returning to Japan. Rinku is the audience's window into how this stuff works and we learn about how to be a DJ through her eyes. Later on in the show Rinku also gets her childhood friend Muni Oonaruto and a pianist named Rei Togetsu to join her group as well and they name themselves Happy Around after a catchphrase Rinku says whenever she gets happy.

The story is what you'd expect from an idol anime, with the girls shooting to become popular enough to make it to the sunset stage, a stage that only the most popular DJ groups from the school get to perform on. The characters are pretty simple, but due to all of them having very unique personalities and stories all of them are easily distinguishable. Maho in comparison to Rinku is more level headed and realistic about her dreams and desires. Much like Misaki from Bang Dream, she's the normal one of her group and provides for some levativity among the group's antics. Muni on the other hand is way more outspoken and prideful of herself and craves recognition for her skills as the group's VJ artist. She and Rinku were childhood friends and as such Muni has some resentment towards Rinku for forgetting to write to her once she moved away but still wants to become closer to her former friend. Rei is a very quiet girl who plays the piano. Due to having a rich family that more or less shelters her, she hasn't really had any chances to make choices for herself but through the group change starts to brew within her. The characters from the other two groups in the anime, Peaky P-key and Photon Maiden are both enjoyable as well so I'll talk about some of them. Kyoko is the stylish and determined leader of Peaky P-Key who finds herself very interested in Happy Around's performances. Despite being Rinku's rival so to speak, she's not really rude to her at all and instead invites Rinku to one of her group's performances. Shinobu, Peaky P-key's DJ, is a lot more competitive and serious than Kyoko as a result of her having worked in DJ field ever since she was young. She wins every one of her school's remix contest without fail and all she has to say for it is that everyone else just sucks compares to her. Saki is the soft spoken DJ of Photon Maiden, a DJ group that was chosen through auditions by a top notch label company. She has synesthesia which allows her to see colors in her music who is looking for a new color for her group.

Another one of this show's main draws is the music, it's very good. All three of the groups have very different styles and cover a different genre of music. Happy Around's music is for the most part very upbeat, fast paced and cheerful. No matter what track from them you play, you're more than bound to smile upon hearing their music. All of the girls sing in the songs, with Muni and Rinku's high pitched voices complementing the fast nature of their music perfectly. Maho's voice in comparison is a lot more normal sounding and Rei's voice is really deep compared to everyone else in her group, but it's gorgeous enough to not be too distracting. Peaky P-Key's music has a more techno hip hop vibe to it. Unlike Happy Around, Kyoko does most if not all the singing for the unit and her voice is neither to deep nor to high pitched yet has a certain power to it that makes every song she does feel crisp. If you like Bang Dream you'll probably recognize her voice actress Aimi as the same person who voiced the main heroine of that franchise Kasumi Toyama, which makes the scene were she tells Rinku it's her turn to shine feel all that more impactful. Photon Maiden has a soft techno dance vibe to it that is for the most part has a bit of a softer sound compared to how loud most of Happy Around and Peaky P-Key's songs are. Every voice actress from the group has had experience working with Bushi before with Saki and Ibuki being voiced by Chu2 and Aya from Bang Dream and Towa and Noa being voiced by Mahiru and Junna from Revue Starlight. Then there's Wow World Tonight which is performed by the Raychell (Layer from Bang Dream) and the legendary Nana Mizuki. Wow World Tonight connects all four of the members as all four of them were there at the last concert it was performed at before it's group broke up as well as being the song that allowed Rinku to meet Maho. Throughout the show neither one of the two original singers just vanishes though with Raychell's character being Photon Maiden's producer and Mizuki's character working at the cafe were Happy Around meets. The ending sequence is joyous with Maho dancing to the song as she works with her DJ discs and the OP, while more upbeat is also a joy to watch. It's performed by the members of Happy Around and throughout the song they dance around and sing. Kyoko and Saki also have a small part in the opening where both of them sing as well as the names of their groups flash behind them.

Now onto the CGI animation. CGI has become a bit of a dark horse in the anime community due to shows like Ex-Arm and Berserk 2016. So how is the CGI animation in this show? I'll be 100% honest here, it looks fantastic. The CGI allows for the characters to have some really unique facial expressions and movements as well as some really great character acting. There's this one scene were Rinku is eating her troubles away that looks incredible due to the amount of facial expressions and fluid movements throughout the sequence. The dance sequences are also beautifully animated with every character looking incredibly expressive and the movements being very crisp and sharp. There are sometimes when the 2D models clash a bit with the 3D ones but that only happens in a few moments and it's not distracting enough to take away from the rest of the show. I wouldn't put it on the same level as Houseki no Kuni in terms of animation, but it's still fantastically done and makes the show a joy to watch. SANZIGEN is the studio behind the show and they worked on season two and season three of Bang Dream as well as the franchise's MVs, movies as well as the anime for its spinoff Argonavis from Bang Dream. Another thing worth noting interestingly enough is that they also did the cutscenes for the video game Fire Emblem Three Houses, which is one of the most popular games on the Nintendo Switch and when comparing D4DJ to something like Three Houses it's very clear that they've improved a lot over the years with their CGI animation.

All in all while not perfect D4DJ is one of the most enjoyable shows I've come across last year. It's available for free on Youtube both subbed and dubbed with the dub being one of the best I've heard in ages with Rinku, Rei and Muni being perfectly cast with Rinku and Rei's vas being some of the best rising stars in the dubbing world and Muni's va being a popular streamer who actually has a lot in common with her character. As for Maho, her Japanese voice actress Kagami Karin reprises her role for the show's dub due to being fluent in English and while the accent does seem a bit weird at first it adds a layer of authenticity to the show's dub. Kyoko, Shinobu and Saki all have relatively new vas as well with Shinobu's va being completely new with no credits to speak of before this but they all do a fantastic job as well. The show is free on Youtube since Bushiroad wants as many people as possible to watch it so please do so. I highly recommend this show, it's such a great time with some great music to boot. I cannot wait for the global version of the app on May 27th and a potential season two so we can meet the three other groups Rondo, Merm4id and Lyrical Lily.

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Apr 6, 2021

Back Street Girls: Gokudolls (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Ah yes the idol anime genre. For years it's given us many enjoyable shows such as all three entires of the Love Live franchise, Bang Dream, D4DJ, Revue Starlight and Zombieland Saga. So what happens when three members of the yazuka become idols? Well you wouldn't want to know, because Backstreet Girls: Gokudolls is complete and utter transphobic garbage!

The premise has already been stated, but I'll restate it since so it's fresh in your mind: three yazuka get surgery to become idols because they let down their boss. Throughout this show there are only two jokes, the first one being that all of the ... girls in this anime are actually men because isn't transphobia just the funniest thing in the world? There's one scene where one of the girls is with someone who she knew before transitioning and he tells her that she'll always be a man to him and she THANKS him for it in earnest. Then in another scene later on in the show one of the executives drops a girl off when he realizes he can use teenagers instead. He says, and I shit you not, "Though they made you look pretty through surgery you'll never be as pretty as a real girl." I shouldn't have to explain why that's a disgusting statement to make, and what's worse is that is played for comedy. This show attacks a marlizinated group for the sake of a punchline and it's not even remotely funny. Hell in the opening the faces of the men who the girls used to be are plastered on their new bodies. Again, very funny. Hating on trans people is SO funny isn't it? Laugh please!

But wait this show has another joke, and that's the fact that these cutesy idols are saying such crude things. At first, yeah seeing these girls say super inappropriate things was kinda funny but it got old fast. This show has a problem with repeating it's humor and using it to much to the point where it just ends up falling flat on its face. Instead of using it's comedy sparingly this show beats it's two jokes down to the ground with no room to breathe. Say whatever you want about something like Konosuba, at least that didn't only have two jokes and one of said jokes wasn't incredibly transphobic.

The "animation" if you can even call it that is as ugly as the show. There isn't even any animation, it's just a slideshow with some lip flaps moving, which is made worse by the fact that the art in said slides isn't even pleasant to look at. If this is the quality that Gokushufudou fans are getting for the upcoming anime I feel terrible for them. The voice acting (dubbed) is really good but that's to be expected from all three of the main actresses who all have very impressive resumes. The music is very forgettable and bland, and nothing to write home about.

All in all Back Street Girls: Gokudolls is a disgusting anime that fails both as a comedy and as an idol anime. If you want an idol anime that does things differently please go watch Zombieland Saga or Revue Starlight instead. Just watch anything but this.

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Feb 13, 2020

Boku no Hero Academia 4th Season (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Preliminary (15/25 eps)

Spoiler

This is my first time ever writing a review so I’m kinda nervous. With that in mind let’s jump into this.
I really enjoyed MHA 2 and 3. It wasn’t anywhere near close to the same level as Hunter X Hunter when it comes to shounens that I enjoyed watching. The characters were enjoyable, the animation was stunning and the score was pleasant to listen to. Unfortunately none of those features are present in this season from what I’ve seen and it’s a shame. Let’s dive in shall we?

(Note: this review contains spoilers. You have been warned.)

The show starts out with our hero Izuku Midoriya looking ... for an internship. He winds up with Sir Nighteye, a former partner of All Might’s, along with Mirio Togata a member of the famous big three of the UA. He later gets roped into helping take down a crime lord named Overhaul who is tearing apart his “daughter” Eri and putting her back together in order to create bullets that can permanently erase quirks. Tamaki and Kirishima, who are working under the hero Fatgum as well as Ochako Tsuyu and Nejire, who are working under the hero Ryuuko are all roped into this conflict as well as an attempt to stop Overhaul and help Deku.

With that basic premise out of the way let’s talk the characters. I’m going to start by talking about Mirio because he was quite honestly my favorite part of this show so far. Sure he’s upbeat and always cheerful but I appreciated how the show went to showcase how hard he had to train to control his quirk and his desire to save people felt a lot more believable then Deku’s. I’ll save talking about the rest of his story for later on in the review but I generally believe that it was really well done for the most part. Then there’s Tamaki. I felt that for the most part, Tamaki was a really solid character. Not perfect but he did have some good moments and great chemistry with Mirio and Fatgum. He’s nothing to amazing or noteworthy but he was good for what he was.

Sadly I can’t say the same for all of the other new characters. Fatgum and Ryuuko were both decent enough, if not very forgettable. Both of them kinda got the sideline in terms of the story and aren’t really anything special at all so there’s not much I can say about them. Nighteye on the other hand is pretty much a poor man’s Knov from Hunter X Hunter down to the design, the personality and the Shinichiro Miki voice acting. There’s nothing about him that makes me care about him and he just isn’t memorable which wouldn’t be a bad thing if it wasn’t for well…I’ll talk about that later in the review. Then we have Overhaul. Oh boy. I really don’t have anything positive to say about this character. The stuff he does is awful and he’s painted as a monster, which wouldn’t be a bad thing usually but the show tries to paint him as sympathetic throughout flashbacks and his flashbacks interrupt very serious fight scenes for no reason what so ever. Flashbacks in MHA have typically been whatever for me but this feels like the first time they became tedious to sit through. I feel like the show couldn’t decide whether he was supposed to be sympathetic or a complete and utter monster and decided to give us a bizarre messy mix of them both. And finally we have Eri. I really don’t have anything positive to say about her as a character, to be 100% honest. Her entire character exists to gain sympathy from the audience with her whole “smol, cute, traumatized, need to be protecc” thing. There’s nothing to her outside of that, no personality traits, no humanizing features and honestly? I think Nezuko had more of a personality than her. If you want to write a character the audience can properly feel sorry for and want to see happy you shouldn’t rely on their cuteness, but actual character traits to make us actually care about them.

Even if she debuted in the beginning of the show I’d like to talk about Uraraka’s decline as well. I know all of this may sound hypocritical as an Izuocha shipper but this entire season she’s only had one line, that line being Deku. She’s getting to the point were her entire character revolves around Izuku and that’s just…not good at all. What happened to wanting to make money for her parents and giving them a better life? Nah we got ships to tease. It’s so bad for her character and every time she’s on screen it’s annoying to hear her talk about only Deku and only be focused on him. As for Deku his arc is very tedious to watch as well. Why is he still learning to control his powers and wondering if he’s worthy of One for All four seasons into the show? There’s an entire scene were Nighteye claims that Mirio should’ve inherited One For All but we’ve seen this stuff before. It’s getting pretty tiring not to mention repetitive. Why can’t Izuku struggle with new things and new powers?

Then there’s how dark the plot gets. I don’t mind dark stories. I’m a huge fan of Fire Emblem 4, Madoka Magica and Hunter X Hunter 2011. What irks me about how dark this arc was, is the fact that I felt it was only that way because well…it just feels so god damn out of place. With Hunter X Hunter it didn’t just slam the Chimera Ant arc on you to the point where it felt baffling, the show had actually gone to so rather dark places in other arcs so it didn’t feel super out of place. That’s not the case with MHA. It just happens so suddenly without warning and no hits that the show would go down this route. You could argue that Ragdoll losing her quirk was pretty dark sure, but the show only really makes it an afterthought at the end of the day and Ragdoll has never been brought up again. There’s zero hints the show is going to do this and it does it so suddenly it’s just jarring.
Now onto the Overhaul fight and to talk about Mirio more. As I said above, I firmly believe that Mirio was the best character introduced in this season and it’s time to discuss why, mainly because of his sacrifice. Because the show had built up how hard he worked to control his quirk as well as his dream, seeing him throw it away for Eri was actually pretty heartbreaking and well done. He’s lost everything, all to save one little girl and he doesn’t regret it one bit. That’s what makes a true hero at the end of the day for me at the very least and it’s a very powerful scene (also to Edna Mode: you were wrong about capes). But does it last? Ha ha no it was all pointless because Mirio exits with Eri only for her to return to the battlefield. Despite everything he went through Mirio isn’t the one to become her hero and save her, Deku is and it ruins one of the best moments from the show. Everything he did was just a lead up to Deku taking the glory which I wouldn’t mind so much if the show actually acknowledged it but nope.

Oh and Nighteye dies. There’s that as well. I’m just randomly putting it in here because the show did as well. Remember when I compared him to Knov from Hunter X Hunter? The two are pretty much the exact same character but Nighteye is so much weaker there’s nothing memorable about him to care about his death. To Knov’s credit, while he wasn’t on screen much, he made every point count with some pretty damn badass moments. Nighteye doesn’t do that. He just pushes a useless “can we change the future” subplot which both X-Men and Fire Emblem Awakening did better anyways. The show expects you to care when he dies but you just aren’t able to because we’ve barely seen a thing of his character. The show wants you to feel something because they’ve killed off this character but there’s zero impact.

And finally we have the animation. I really loved the animation for Season 1, 2 and even 3 but the animation here is insanely weak. Fights are reduced to slideshows at times and everything is just so sloppy. The shading is pretty bad as well, especially when Deku is going super saiyan. I don’t blame Bones for this at all. I think that they are doing the best they can but between two movies and so many new seasons I’m starting to wonder if they’re pushing themselves too hard to get MHA content out. I’m sure no harm would be done if they paced themselves a little bit better because it’s really starting to show and it ain’t pretty.

All in all at the end of the day the rating I give the first half of this show is a 3/10. It’s just lacking and disappointing and you’d be better off with Hunter X Hunter 2011, Haikyuu, One Punch Man (not the second season) or Demon Slayer because all of those shows actually have substance.

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