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After reading Paradise Kiss, I thought of indulging in another "fashion" manga. Little did I know how dissapointing in this sense it would be "The One".
Story 2/10
In terms of both shoujo and fashion it was dissapointing. Most of the plot revolves around our heroine in distress after a catastrophic loss, a betrayal, and how she falls in love with a twin. They have a weird romantic development, or any development until that point where I dropped it. There were some scenes where they would casually hold hands, sleep together even though nothing happened.
Characters 4/10
Cane Lele was truly interesting for me, she seemed ... fun and happy at the beggining. After the loss of her grandmother, she declared herself as numb, vengeful niece - but it seems that author changed his mind such that she regained her happy-go-fluffy smile. Innocent, oblivious, pathetic especially when she "threats" to tell the world private life of her crush, the silver-eyed twin.
Eros was interesting, presumably a misterious guy, but in day-light would go undercover as a homeless person. Splitted from his half brother, with a history of being abused in childhood, raised in foster care then came back as an emotionally injured guy.
The other twin - very effeminate, play-boy, bad guy seducing each girl in 2 seconds, also with a background of abuse from his father. He is always questioning his enstranged brother for his distant behaviour, infatuated with Eros, would kiss him on each occasion.
There were many times that the actions of didn't match the characters, very unnatural. Sometimes the romance felt forced, other times the happy-go-lucky Cane was a bit too out of this world (getting lost in the town, waiting for Eros for 5 hours).

Overall, I would have enjoyed it but, there was a lot of filler text, actions didn't match the characters or at least it was very abruptly changed, generic plot, supporting characters would come and go without much changing the landscape, not much info about the modelling world. Last but not least, who decided this anime is psychological ?

You remember those old generic shows as kids, where a group of adventurers would go on a long travel but at the end of the journey they become better friends? Well, image they never even get there.
It's just Sousou no Frieren, a good ol' ... nothing.
Truly nothing, a bored elf goes in an adventure, her companions become old and now she realises that she needs another adventure to discover the depths of "what-ever-the-hell" she felt during her 1st adventure.

So what was the most brilliant idea this anime came with?

To reproduce the same painfully boring travel one more time, with the same type ... of characters. But that is not the only thing, this time, the characters are even more flat, they evoke no feeling. They could cry, battle a dragon or drench in blood - there is not an ounce of emotions coming out of me or the corners of my eyes.
I think people would be satisfied just looking at Frieren in a scene smiling and be like "it's a 10, this is a masterpiece - SHE SMILED!".
They truly tried to fool us by repeating the same history, m'y'right ? The adventure takes place in a medieval setting with mages, elves, dwarfs - the entire LOTR book of species. The lifespan difference between them is accentuated, as if asking "why do I get to live 50 years while this young white girl is at her 1000 year?". Those 2D waste of pencil characters are travelling from town-to-town helping people with daily chores sometimes they may battle a dragon like a daily occurence - nothing out of the ordinary.
People would brag about how heartwarming, tear-crushing monologues Frieren would have and then refer to a sequence of a guy proposing and this elf kid would think "wait, was he actually ... no way".
All in all, I do love romantic settings of medieval times, with witches, demons, elves and dwarfs. But please, do not just throw them in there for the sake of it, without any context, without any meaning, then deciding to tackle the meaning of life and death, you're neither J.R.R. Tolkien nor Grimm Brothers.
Thank you for attending my TedTalk, tschus !

Swimming through the shouja manga genre is indeed an adventure, especially when it comes to picking up good quality. How to define good quality in this manga?
[STORY]: The female lead, seen mostly as a beautiful "prince" (recurrent motif) is seen for the first time as a "woman" by another popular "prince". There seems to be this duality between the prince-like behavior of being a sensible, protector of the women, and the other prince that is somehow of an untouchable, charistmatic prince.
[CHARACTERS]:
Prince(ss) Yoi - has a sophisticated air, gentle with her peers and sometimes could be called a true "gentlewoman". As the ... story develops, she loses these skills and becomes more shy and insecure little girl - is that what it means to be become a woman for some people? (well not). It was however refreshing to see a FL that is not an annoying brat, without friends or some poor bird struck by fate. At this point in the manga, Yoi can be called at-most a struggling teenager transitioning from prince --> princess.
Prince Kohaku - the generic rich playboy, with a trio friend group, having a long-list dating history, but no depth to "why has he never fallen in love?". Well he did with the prince(ss). The dynamic between the two is somewhat cute, a normal love-story probably reproduced in 100s of shoujos. If there was something I wished for, is to have more scenes of him acting like a happy teenager enjoying life of a highschool student, instead of a 16 years old boy that tasted life fully at his age (which is never the case in reality or prince-like stories).
[CONCLUSION]: Nonethless, the manga was truly beautiful, the drawings stunning which was the main reason I started it. If I had to describe it in one sentence it would be "teenagers struck by beauty-at-first-sight".

[ANIME PLOT]: If in the beginning there was a rush of action from back-to-front leaving, the context would be constructed in the following episodes - gradually, slowly almost painful at times. This anime tries to do a top-bottom approach of constructing the plot, from a significant event, with smaller sequences that are later explained.
[CHARACTERS]: I am at fault that I had higher expectation of Re-l Mayer, a protagonist supposely in search of truth. However, what I see instead of a perspicacious detective is a shallow personna with dady-issues (grand-daddy issues in this case). Her "curiosity" as expressed by the other characters in the anime ... is what I found to be the most daring and interesting part of her, the rest is a girl with no empathy, quite self-centered at times.
Vicent Law - the most 180 change of his was his facial expression, why ? I question myself even now... Nonetheless, his nature seems quite cowardice, his "love" for Re-l unnatural, not much depth into his character, I did expect of him more as well, dissapointing.
Pino - my favourite character in the anime, she was my enigma to decipher, the character that seemed to have depth, to be funny, cute, express empathy (ex: counting rabbits) and be sometimes puzzling - human traits that were expected from the protagonists but not from an AutoRev... well she was indeed a package.
[SOUND]: Maybe I have heard it before, the sound seemed familiar and nostalgic in some way. I did enjoy it but only because it would recall a game I would play during childhood. However, for someone who never knew of these soundtracks, it could have made no sense with the background whatsoever.
[CONCLUSION]: "There is more than the eye can see" or "Cogito, ergo sum" are some motifs that are oftenly evoked. The theme of knowledge, a dome of ignorance, search of truth, evil that is not-so-evil, meaningless war, irrational love. What dare I say more?
Curate ut valeatis!