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Chainsaw Man is one of those manga your friends keep assuring you is worth the time but that you never engage in, until you do, and you realize how right they were.

Fujimoto is a master of the short-format manga, his one-shots and shorts being notoriously among the best in the industry.
With many cinematographic influences and references throughout the manga and its intense rhythm, Chainsaw Man was a pleasant albeit at times confusing surprise. Still, the manga hooks you really well, and you easily find yourself finishing the first arc in a day or two.

Now, Fujimoto's problem perhaps lies in his specialty, in my opinion the ... Public Safety Arc was a perfect story in every single way, and I am scared to see whether or not Fujimoto will be able to keep that rhythm up for further arcs. Him continuing the story almost makes no sense, I believe most people would rather see him go on and try something new, giving us seasonal (13 volumes) manga releases (or even less like in Fire Punch) rather than him eventually ruining what was a perfect ending to his series.

This is the reasoning behind my 8, that hopefully will change into a 10 once I'll inevitably realize I was wrong.

Truly no one quite masters Slice of Life like Takahata does, and I believe this is why he is my favorite Ghibli director so far. Great scenery, realistic personalities and movement of characters in a relatable environnement, Omoide Poroporo makes you feel like you're watching while at your grandparents' in the countryside.

In many ways, this is one of the most communicative films from Takahata, although it is consistent with his common themes -- family, the beauty of nature and simple things. It makes you nostalgic of a time long gone although admittedly none of us probably lived through the sixties or understand its references, but ... even then Takahata manages to make the story simple enough to be understood by all. Let us review all of this in detail.

Story (7): The story isn't anything too fancy, nor does it pretend to be. This is about building up an identifiable character from the city and their reliving of their past while in vacation in the countryside. We get charming anecdotes from the main character's childhood and her secondary and unfortunately underdeveloped love story in the present.

Music (6): Music is average, we get some cool gems like Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Rydeen" and some other nostalgic tunes from the 70s in Japan. Nothing too impressive in this aspect.

Animation (9): The animation is great, but not in the conventional way people describe it. I think what makes this one special is both how expressive the characters are, but also how realistic their body language is when reacting to elements of their environnement, I have rarely seen a movie depict this accurately some little things we do without realizing it. Removing the grass we sat on after standing up in a field, the little hesitation we get before starting to run, the father's gaze after hitting his daughter, it is all incredibly well thought out and I can only imagine how lengthy and concise the storyboarding was on this one. It's great.

This gives us an overall average of 7.34/10, I can safely recommend this movie if you enjoy Takahata's storytelling, you won't be disappointed.

This is a tough one to review. First off it's clear that the animation and artstyle is both beautiful and thoughtfully executed. However, the difficulty in reviewing Kailua no Kodomo mainly comes from its story. Here's a more precise explanation:

Animation (8): A beautiful mix of 3D elements that don't feel too out of place and a well thought out charadesign makes this movie one of the prettiest ones to hit theatres the year of its release.

Story (4): This is where it's really hard to have a concise opinion, at first I felt like maybe I didn't understand the thought process behind a lot of the ... final 1/4 of the movie, with all of the classic maternal representation and space-related metaphors we get nowadays from Shinkai movies. But just like Shinkai's Kimi no nawa, this feels like a shoe-horned pseudo-deep storyline made the story seem deeper than it truly is, with convoluted forced metaphors that could dupe some into thinking Kailua no Kodomo is a deep philosophical statement. Similarly, after rewatching it another time, it became evident that a lot of the character introductions were non-sensical -- what happened to that handball girl ? Was it all just to show that the main character does not allow injustice to prevail ? How about Sora forcing the universe into Ruka ? How can this be justified ? This entire thing feels like pandering to the general public's lack of sensitivity when it comes to "artsy anime movies".

Characters (4): No character's roles are ever explained, Anglade is such an ambiguous character whose role I wish was more explicited, similarly Dede and Jim just spit out some pseudo-deep crap about the universe in a supposedly mysterious tone. The rest of the supporting cast are forgettable at best which is a shame and the main characters aren't developped enough for anyone to identify themselves to them.

Overall: Form over substance, pseudo-philosophy yet beautiful animation makes this the probable source for the next Instagram edits for beautiful anime, other than that if you're interested in a convincing story you can probably skip this one.

Story (4/10): The problem with a lot of Samurai stories in anime is encapsulated here in my opinion.
Always adding an unnecessary part of weird fiction, constant style over essence and such — I would recommend watching the much better Kenshin OAV that is so far the most interesting samurai animated movie we’ve had and it is much older.

Voice Acting(1/10): As a Chinese speaker, albeit not an expert one, the voice acting for mandarin was beyond subpar — not even talking about tones it just sounded wrong and the Blu-Ray has a warning before the start of the movie saying that the author purposely pushed the ... use of mandarin in some scenes but the Japanese voice actors didn’t even bother replicating a mandarin « accent », it is (and I mean it) completely unintelligible.

Animation(8/10): Animation is great, although it is to be expected from the storyboarder behind Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell — with fights being especially well drawn and the overall style being interesting although as always with 2000s anime — the 3D elements feel incredibly out of place.


Overall: 4/10, this isn’t a necessary watch and truly is disappointing when it comes to such an esteemed director in my heart. Watch the kenshin OAV lol.

As others have said before me, quite a few things stand out when it comes to this special.

The music is key: hip-hop, jazz, blues, Watanabe shows once again his masterful taste in music.
The mantra-like sentences shared during each part are, I admit, quite a bit too much but that's just the author's style that we've come to know -- Overall, the special is part of the entire Cowboy Bebop experience and aesthetic: albeit not an essential part of the story.

If you liked the genre-defining Cowboy Bebop, indulge yourself in this melancholic love letter to the series' aesthetic and unique charm.

At first, Youjo Senki sounds like another anime with an edgy premise.
Fight against God ? A little girl that's a military genius ? Quite a few things could go wrong that surprisingly did not go wrong, quite the contrary.

This is a wild one, and one that I deeply enjoyed. I think the military tension is good, the anime is well paced and the animation is very good if not iffy when it comes to some 3D scenes. Overall however ? I like the message that it's trying to get through and it is the things that some may hate about this that I deeply enjoyed.