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Sep 23, 2024
Isekai is, to me, a genre that is of low quality anyway. But that isn't the genre's fault specifically, but more that isekai tends to be a vessel for self-insert power fantasies, where the main character doesn't get into any issue and everything always goes right for them. Fantasy sort of falls under the same bracket, but I think isekai is the worst contender for this because it's more fun to imagine yourself getting transported over to a fantasy world, in a sort of escapist way.
That being said, isekai has so much potential. For example, we have Re:Zero, an isekai which places some focus on
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how the transportation to the new world affects the main character's mental wellbeing. Mushoku Tensei, despite its controversial bits with the main character's... interests, has absolutely fantastic world building. Like Re:Zero, Mushoku Tensei also has some focus on the mental health of the protagonist, but in this case, it's more in relation to how he was in his past life.
Unfortunately, I wish I could praise Death March for capitalising on the potential of the genre. But instead of delving into the many interesting pieces isekai has to offer, Death March appears to stay within the realms of the norm of the genre, which can be fine if played off well. After all, most genres or tropes, no matter how outlandish they can be, are usually still good as long as they're done well in the context of the show.
But Death March doesn't play anything off well. At all.
Instead, what we're left with is one of the dullest, most boring, and even frustrating, anime that I've seen in my life. In hopes of exploring more of the isekai genre, I turned to Death March for some idea of what a "generic" isekai would be, and I was severely disappointed with what I came across. What could have had some potential as a fairly average, but innovative enough, fantasy slice of life with some iyashikei moments thrown in, is instead a tropey, inconsistent, ugly and boring mess of an anime, that frankly, I'm just happy I'm finally done with.
The entire premise is flawed upon beginning the show. We have 30ish year old Satou (it's actually Satuu but where I watched it, it was always Satou) who is a stressed and overworked programmer, having to deal with multiple different projects at the same time. When going to sleep after staying up for days to work on this, he finds himself transported into an RPG world, which appears to be an amalgamation of all the games he made. Very soon after, Satou, who is currently level 1, is attacked by an army of lizardmen who average about level 47, so he... launches a very convenient attack that wipes the entire army out and levels him up to 310?
So now we have a conveniently overpowered Satou, who can't just leave the game because of a "bug". You could argue the attack was also just a "bug", but that idea that bugs exist in this world is not brought up once since then. But now that he's so overpowered, he can pretty much put points into absolutely any skill, only having to do an action related to them before he can learn it, and then can instantly master it. He starts to explore the world after getting this, meeting people (mostly underage women) along the way.
Straight away - I don't like Satou. His overpowered ability means he never gets into any struggle. Except he does, because he's overly nice and humble, to the point where he has no discernable personality traits outside of them. Despite being level 310 and knowing how to power himself up, Satou struggles against enemies that are, without exaggeration, OVER 10X WEAKER THAN HIM. This happens so often that I wonder if his physical strength is even a plot point that needed to be addressed, because he comes off as so useless in these situations that it's hard to believe.
He's very inconsistent though. At other times, he's suddenly a mastermind and a genius, knowing exactly how to play the system and the game to get what he wants or to protect his party of children that are in love with him. In fact, he's so inconsistent that there are scenes where he will do nothing to someone when he could easily just defeat them with his strength, get himself into a tougher situation because he did nothing, then reveal that he actually did something cunning instead. It feels like the writer pretty much just wrote Satou in however he was feeling about him that day.
Going back to his personality a little, I think the reason he has no personality is because he's supposed to be a self-insert of the highest kind. He never struggles with anything, he gets all the women upon meeting them, and everything he says and does is apparently charming to everyone. He goes through problems with ease and there are no stakes. It also doesn't help that the name "Satou" is the equivalent of the English "Smith" - the most common surname in Japan which, to me, kind of represents that he's supposed to just be the person watching. I can't self-insert into characters, so watching this from an outsider perspective was just boring.
The rest of the cast is no better really. Everyone pretty much only has one of these three character traits:
- They are in love with Satou.
- They are a kuudere and are either cold or aloof.
- They like to eat meat.
Not to mention that half of the cast consists of slaves that he bought. The show falls into the same pitfalls something like Shield Hero did, where it didn't consider the impact of speaking on a topic this heavy, as the characters are bought as slaves, but Satou doesn't free them because "they seem happy so they like this :p". This is very disrespectful of course, to communities where slavery has been issues in the past, but also because we as an audience are supposed to see their Stokcholm Syndrome as a good thing.
My dislike towards the cast isn't helped that the cast all being more affectionate towards Satou. Because of this, you get this sense that Satou does develop. But Satou hasn't developed at all from the start, it's actually just that the cast's affection towards Satou has increased. It gives a false sense of development for him, as in reality, he has zero development at all. None of the other members of the cast do either really, except maybe for Arisa to some extent (but I found her story to be a stretch based on things we know about the world).
While the cast are dull in itself, the most dull part is the horrendous pacing of the anime. You spend nearly 3/4 of the anime on the same point and in the same place, with it covering around a week in anime time. There's so many unnecessary points, like the constant bombardment of food exposition that adds nothing but seems to just pad out time. One particularly bad example of this is early on, where there's a scene where Satou just sits there, eating every dish he's been given in the pub, and pretty much just saying how he likes every single one. It lasts for way too long, and it's just really boring to watch, and for some reason there's many scenes where the writer thinks describing the food is integral to the plot.
Because of this slow pacing, when something finally does happen, it feels like a breath of relief. But the climaxes are very short and underwhelming, with every single one of them ending exactly how you expect, because this anime appears to be allergic to genuine stakes for its cast. These scenes also make me feel like it isn't fully trying to be an SOL iyashikei, making me feel that it doesn't actually know what it wants to be a lot of the time. The worst part of this to me is the fact that this supposedly adapts four chapters an episode. I can only imagine reading it is even more slow and dull somehow.
I think the big factor of why a lot of this is so poor is the writing quality. I don't think any effort to remain consistent was given to this anime. Subplots come and go at please without ever being resolved. We have mentions of pieces that could result in a mystery about the world, but they are mentioned two or three times and never again. Satou has some sort of discomfort about this world, but that's never spoken about again after episode 2. A mystery that gets mentioned a couple of episodes in with Arisa's entrance doesn't really make sense. But worst of all, because of how poorly the cast is written, it feels like much of the time, the tension created is very forced just for the sake of it, and it feels shallow as a result - the tension is entirely artificial to me most of the time as the characters, if they were written consistently, probably would have solved this already.
On the production side, wow. The art and animation are horrendous. The style is incredibly generic and I wouldn't be able to tell you how a single character looks in a week's time. When Satou is thinking to himself or using his game console thing, the art gets so exposed and glossy that it looks horrendous and ugly, and it's hard to tell what you're even looking at in the scene. Not to mention the really poor CGI, the awkward cuts into the OPs at times, constant still frames and episode 11 for some reason not even being in 16:9 on anywhere I looked. This anime has had absolutely no care put into it.
But overall, I think Death March really does seem like something that had *some* potential somewhere. Through the poor writing and pacing, I found some elements genuinely interesting, like the possibility that Satou may not be the only Japanese person there, or the considerations into making every race speak a different language. I think the show needed to not let Satou be so humble and instead make him lean more into his strength, keeping him consistent throughout. Although that wouldn't be enough to solve the fact that the story still sucks, the characters still suck, and the production was doomed before it even started.
Maybe one day, people will realise isekai harem power fantasies are not what people want to see.
Story: 4/10
Characters: 2/10
Animation: 2/10
Art: 2/10
Music: 5/10
Enjoyment: 3/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jul 6, 2024
**Note: This is going to be a review for both S1 and S2, but I won't put any spoilers. This review is also quite long, so I'll throw a TLDR at the end.**
BokuYaba is probably one of the biggest romcoms of recent times, considering it's so sickly sugary sweet and that both seasons are super highly rated by fans of the series. And while overall, I do like what BokuYaba has going for it, outside of the fantastic art and directing, I feel that it's a fairly generic middle school romance, with characters and a plotline of which I've seen many times before in both
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anime and western TV or movies.
However, that's okay.
I think the thing about BokuYaba is that it doesn't try to be anything its not - it relies on being comfortable and warm. BokuYaba was never meant to be a groundbreaking anime I feel, it's just an enjoyable watch that's got enough to like for people who may or may not be convinced by what the romance has to offer. And if that was the intention of the anime, then I think that it succeeded with that aim perfectly. You see, BokuYaba has plenty to like, even if it isn't anything particularly special.
The story of BokuYaba is about Kyotaro Ichikawa, an awkward middle school boy who is overcompensating for his social anxiety by convincing himself that he's an edgy bloodthirsty killer. In reality, he's anything but that, but he convinces himself that his dream target is a popular girl in his class, Anna Yamada. Yamada is kind and carefree, almost to the point of being a bit of an airhead, and when Ichikawa realises that his "target" isn't what he expected, he instead feels a sense of care towards her. From this point on, the show is about how he develops as he comes to terms with this through befriending and realising his crush on Yamada.
Now, one thing is for sure with BokuYaba - forget the MAL premise entirely. There's two ways of looking at this show, a cute romcom between two middle schoolers, or a story of Kyotaro's character development. Either of these are fine, because regardless of how you see the show, they're both valid ways of looking at it, as... well, they're both important elements of the show.
Ichikawa is by far the biggest star here. Despite me saying the show is overall generic, he's one of the better romcom protagonists I've seen. As a character, he feels very refreshing for the genre in a way characters like Miyamura from Horimiya don't. For starters, he feels like a character who actually acts his age. The anime has quite cringy moments as a result of the fact that most of the cast is around 13-14 years old, but to me, that's sort of the point, and the way he acts reflects his age. There's moments where he can come across like an awkward, even incel-like character, but then you remember he's a hormonal and shy teenager, and it feels like he makes sense in the context of the anime. I find this to be a general theme throughout the anime, as there are side characters like Adachi who reflect this as well (but I'll get more onto this point in a bit).
Another thing of note about Ichikawa is how he feels like a character who doesn't rely on being quite edgy to be enjoyable, because I find that he's actually quite the opposite. My best comparison here would be to Hachiman from Oregairu, as he also has a level of edginess that makes him an interesting character, with his world views and how he sees friendships and relationships. Something that both of these characters have in common though, is that if you detach them from those views, you can see a genuinely good person beneath it. That being said, Ichikawa feels different because it's as though he loses this edginess in a way that feels realistic, especially going into S2. He feels like a character that is growing as a result of the circumstances around him, and he's outgrowing his unhealthy viewpoints. I find romcoms can often have a character be blank or lack development, or have traits that make them seem like a lone wolf, which allows people to self insert, and because Ichikawa isn't quite like that, I find he stands very strongly on his own two feet as a character.
My final point about him is a bit of a shorter one, Ichikawa feels more like the focus of the anime than the romance does. While there is a big push for the romance throughout, I think it's nice to see such light hearted development of the main character. It's also a rare case of the development being visible to the viewer, rather than the typical anime "you've changed!" line when the character hasn't changed in the slightest.
Yamada also works great as a love interest, as she doesn't feel like her character relies on the existence of Ichikawa to be good herself. If anything, there's episodes where I feel she spends more time with others besides Ichikawa, partially to show how she's a kind, hardworking girl that has her own strong aspirations. A character like her feels a lot stronger than other love interests in other anime (I'm looking at you Asuna) when you also consider her actual friend group comes up quite often as well, as they often supplement her and bring out her personality. Not only that, these are characters that don't get ditched along the way in favour of only seeing the main couple thrive. It gives the impression that Yamada's world is much larger than Ichikawa's is, but that Yamada is a character that works outside of the existence of Ichikawa.
Yamada's friend group is also mostly quite likeable. Each of her friends have small bits of time to make them stand out strongly, and not all of them are perfect either which makes them quite interesting as people and the dynamics they have with other members of the cast is a lot more interesting than if they were all the same people or if they were all a goody-two-shoes. The only exception I really have to this point is Kobayashi, who I feel does *generally* work well as a friend for Yamada, but her usage sometimes feels quite forced and used to either interrupt a moment or create a bit of talk for the main character, especially going into the second season.
In fact, all of the side characters that come up often are quite good in their own regard. There's characters who are into Yamada, but they're not all awful people that are made for the purpose of making Ichikawa look like a god, and even he mentions that they're not bad people, despite him obviously having a crush on Yamada. The families of both sides of the couple are good too, but I do think Yamada's father is more for comedic effect, while her mother and all of Ichikawa's family are fairly good. Most of the characters also feel quite unique in their own regards and easily stand out from one another, nobody feels particularly similar to another person.
Going back to how the cast generally feels like their age, there's a lot of scenes where characters can be interpreted as misogynistic, but pretty much all of this is 1) easily pinned down to the characters being young and hormonal, and 2) absolutely not glorified in the slightest. There's a scene early on in the anime, around episode 2 or 3, where Adachi, one of the classmates, tries to give Yamada an inappropriate letter, and gets Ichikawa to hand it to her so he wouldn't have to hand it himself. Anime in this sort of genre would awkwardly force Ichikawa into giving the letter to Yamada, resulting in a misunderstanding, or upset from Yamada that's then used for comedic effect and cleared up about 10 seconds later. In this scene in particular, Ichikawa is doodling and happened to draw a picture of Yamada, so he replaces the letter with the picture of Yamada and hands it to her, showing that he was making stands against how some of the boys were talking to the girls. I felt this was really nice to show how Ichikawa is as a person, but also helpful to show how Adachi's behaviour shouldn't be normalised, like how Ichikawa wasn't normalising it.
Moving on, one major selling point of this anime is the obviously fantastic art and directing from Shin-Ei. The use of music and the framing was spot on basically every single time, whether used for visual gags or to show the feelings of the characters in the scene. There were some beautiful frames, and the character designs were on point and stand out. There's an OST that involves a heartbeat in it, and I felt using that addition in the OST makes us better feel how Ichikawa is feeling at the moments when its used compared to a standard soundtrack. I find little details like that to have helped the mood of the anime so much.
That being said, through all of these positives relating to the cast, I felt the story itself isn't anything special. Because it's so sweet and light hearted, there's no real issues and the little drama that does occur is solved in seconds. The direction most scenes take is very predictable, even if there's no issue with that as life is predictable. However, it feels like this takes routes every other romcom takes, when there are plenty of other things in life that could be represented in a slice of life anime that just haven't been. As I said, BokuYaba is supposed to be comfortable, hence why I believe it didn't want to take risks, but I felt if there were other routes it explored, it could have helped me enjoy it more. I did enjoy S2 more overall, but there's a couple of particular moments in it that I felt were dampened because of the effect of the story trying to remain quite comfortable and generic.
The other thing about BokuYaba that I felt wasn't as strong was that the humour often just fell flat for me. I'm not the biggest fan of a lot of anime humour though, I won't deny that. I think BokuYaba uses a bit of it and there are plenty of times where the anime did make me smile or chuckle a little. But there were also plenty of scenes where the humour just... wasn't that funny, especially earlier on in the anime. While I did praise a scene here that had some comedy elements in it, I found the actual humour of it to not be the reason I liked the scene. A lot of the comedy came from cringe early on, and I don't personally find that to be the best kind of comedy, but that's ultimately just dependant on the person. The comedy isn't ecchi or anything at least, so it doesn't quite scrape the bottom of the barrel, and it definitely improves as it goes on and into S2.
That being said though, even if those issues are technically big ones, I don't think it matters too much. I felt that BokuYaba is a show that can stand out by not trying to stand out, as I felt the characters were all very good, well characterised and memorable in their own right, and the development of Ichikawa through his personality and his relationship with Yamada was done in a fantastic way. There's more that can be criticised about the anime but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. BokuYaba fulfilled its purpose, and that's the most important thing. If the main thing you want from anime is a comfortable, enjoyable experience, and you like romcoms, BokuYaba will absolutely be up your alley.
TLDR: BokuYaba is an enjoyable romcom with a great cast that stands on its own two feet, with some of the best directing I've seen in a romcom. Despite this, it is often bogged down by how generic it can often be at times as well, but overall, if you want a comfortable sweet romcom, this would be perfect for you.
Characters: 8/10
Story: 6/10
Art and animation: 9/10
Music: 8/10
Enjoyment: 7.5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 30, 2021
Edit: I blame CW and Aniplex for their dreadful production. If anyone who may see this considers blaming the staff, it isn't their fault, blame the directors and cash hungry producers for this.
I am so pissed off and offended with this horrendous joke of an ending to what could have been a fantastic anime.
I really wish CloverWorks put as much thought and care into making this part of the show as they did for the rest of the anime. The first 12 episodes were absolutely stunning in direction and art, with fantastic music and the characters were really relatable with a story (up to episode
...
10) that people could relate to. Now, 3 months later, we have the final episode. To say it was good would be a lie, because while it was nice to see the cast again, that was as far as my enjoyment went with this.
The story literally got ruined, and I don't know how they did it to this extent. The main plot line got completely dropped in favour of adding something else that made zero sense. It felt like they skipped like 6 essential episodes that could have made so much more sense. The pacing was way too fast, random things just happened, and their cheap excuses of explanations went absolutely nowhere.
The characters as well. I'm going to be very vague here because part of the reason the story was ruined was because the new plot line is related to them. But in general, they were so inconsistent, and it was so frustrating and annoying to watch them be so different. All the characters were completely different for no reason, one even literally got erased, again, for no reason.
There won't be a S2. Nothing in this will be explained, and it's so frustrating. I wanted to see a good conclusion, something like Madoka but with a lot more impact. All I got was a cash grab that left more questions than answers.
I wish it had never come to this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Jun 22, 2021
Recently, the anime community has been going on and on about a new movie made by Bones. There was no doubt it would have fantastic art and animation, and the fact that it was a dramatic slice of life related to disability and the growth of university students instantly made me interested. However, was the hype really worth the hour and a half watch time? Personally, I don’t think it was.
The plot itself is fine, nothing special really. Like I mentioned previously, the plot is literally just that of a standard drama series, which is completely fine, but it doesn't try and do anything special
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(or even go simple). This can still work, but I'll explain that part later.
That being said, even besides that, it did have a few plot twists going on, but in my opinion, they were very predictable. For some people, that wouldn't be a problem, but these two things make me think that JTTATF has very little identity for itself. It feels almost as if it's scared to stray away from the standard tropes that dramas have, and I often just found myself comparing it to other dramas. I will say that it isn't exactly a bad plot, but I wasn't a fan of it myself.
The characters are the major selling point of this movie, but if you weren't a big fan of them, then you probably won't enjoy this at all (which is why the story didn't sell me). Unfortunately, besides Tsuneo, this wasn't the case for me. I honestly didn't like Josee at all. She was really annoying for the majority of the movie, and while I get some of that was due to outside influence, I just thought that the way she was didn't make up for it, especially considering her age. Her progression was okay, but I still didn't really like her. Tsuneo, however, was great and was a really interesting and likeable character; he had many relatable or emotional moments which did really resonate with me.
The rest of the supporting cast were extremely forgettable and/or served as a plot device. One of the characters is literally only there to form drama for absolutely no reason, and that annoyed me a lot when it happened, because it was so unnecessary to the plot.
The art and animation themselves were absolutely beautiful, as to be expected from Bones. Every shot and scene was animated absolutely beautifully, and the animation was superb. It felt almost like a mix of KyoAni and ComiX Wave. The music was fitting at almost every part, but unfortunately, I don't really remember any of the tracks. Eve did a good song for the ending with Ao no Waltz. The voice acting was fantastic in my opinion; despite how I feel about Josee, I loved her voice.
Now, with all of that said and done, I do have one thing to say which massively lowered my enjoyment, and that is how it portrayed disability. At the start, it seemed fine, but as the movie progressed, it seemed to literally only be used as a plot device, despite it being a major problem with Josee. It barely came up unless it had to in many parts in the second half, and I feel like the whole idea about that twist (also related to disability) was another plot device to push the romance. Plus, Josee herself was borderline toxic, and I felt like the movie was almost glorifying the fact that she was disabled, and let her get away with anything because of it.
Overall, I do think this movie could have been way better with only a few very small and simple changes. There were some fantastic emotional climaxes in the movie, especially involving Tsuneo, but some equally low moments that involved Josee or the rest of the cast. I do wish it tackled disability realistically and that Josee was more likeable, but besides that, I feel fairly in the middle about the movie. If you're into melodramas or maybe even standard drama series, check this out, but I wouldn't recommend this movie to many other people.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 17, 2020
**Minor spoilers, besides one section which I will mark as heavy spoilers**
Normally, I wouldn't write reviews for anime that has been out for so long. Especially for School Days, as it already has an abundance of reviews, both positive and negative. However, this is one series that I really feel like putting my 2c into, considering how terrible it made me feel after I'd finished it.
Simply put, School Days had so much potential, but was heavily stunted by it's terrible writing and characters.
I can't understand what was going through the writer's head when he designed this. My main criticism is with the ridiculously unrealistic characters
...
by the way, but it's the atrocious writing of them that made the story so bad. I'm going to try not to talk about this in detail, but every character (besides Makoto) is written like a horny girl with ADHD with added inferiority complex, a total of two brain cells, and a thing for our favourite main character of all time - Makoto Itou.
Makoto is such an abysmal character for many reasons. First of all, he's written like a self insert harem protagonist. Every time a character does something that makes him realise that he messed up in some way, he just stammers until another character answers the question for him. He has his harem of girls (which isn't that bad considering MAL has tagged this anime as a harem and to an extent, I agree with that), but for some reason they can't think for themselves and only think about Makoto. Thirdly, he's such a prick. Selfish in every single way. Unrealistic in how he thinks of people (especially girls). There is not a single thing remarkable about him. He treats the other girls like crap and they still flock around him like he's some kind of saint. I fully think this was written for the writer to play out his superiority fetish.
**Heavy spoilers in this section**
Sekai and Kotonoha are the two other main characters (note: both female), and the only reason that I didn't give the characters a 0/10 (besides MAL not letting me rate below 1) is the fact that Kotonoha actually has some sort of realism to her. I say some, by the way. Sekai started off seemingly like Kyou from Clannad (somewhat tsundere, kind and energetic, a bit of a tomboy), but it turned out she was actually almost as badly written and frustrating as Makoto. While in a way, I can understand that she liked Makoto, I don't get in what world someone would do any of this (and this isn't a joke):
- Let the guy you like cheat on someone with you
- Have sex with him constantly and act like a couple in front of everyone
- Say, after every meeting, "I feel bad for [other girl]."
- Get annoyed when you realise that he's cheating on you with someone else other than the first girl
- Brush off his cheating as something he just does.
**Heavy spoilers over**
Kotonoha, on the other hand, is developed somewhat decently. I also won't talk about this in detail, but she is actually affected by her surroundings. However, yet again, I don't understand why she was written to still be so in love with Makoto after all he did.
The sound was probably the best part of the anime, mostly forgettable besides one of the OSTs (I think it was episode 6 or 8) which was decent enough. The art and animation, however, were very questionable. The animation was sometimes good enough, but at other times, it feels like they forgot to animate anything. There were lots of still clips and lack of dialogue. The art itself was okay, a bit ugly, but again, it felt like they forgot to draw anything well sometimes.
All of this writing leads back to my one point which I cannot stress enough. Do NOT watch School Days. Watch something better like Tsuki ga Kirei or Scum's Wish. But please, have mercy on your eyes and brain.
Story: 1/10
Art: 1/10
Sound: 6/10
Character: 0.5/10
Enjoyment: 0/10
Overall: 1/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Oct 24, 2020
Simplicity is such a beautiful thing sometimes. It's often all you need to just relax after either a long day, or a difficult set of times. Combine simplicity with the ability to relate, and you have the fantastic Tsuki ga Kirei.
***Contains very minor spoilers***
I will admit, I didn't see the value of a show like this initially. Who would want to watch something so predictable, quiet and boring?
Me. That's who.
I was so mistaken by what it could be as nothing I see about TGK anywhere is clear about what this anime actually is about. For that reason, I'll explain. TGK is simply a story of
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young love. Kotarou Azumi and Akane Mizuno are both 14 year olds at middle school, and through a chance meeting, their feelings for each other start to blossom. Again, that sounds extremely boring, but believe me when I say this - TGK is anything BUT boring.
The first four episodes are a bit of a slow burn to develop the characters' personalities and interactions. The slow pacing lets us really link with these kids as they laugh, study, talk, and generally just do what 14 year olds do. By the end of these four episodes, I couldn't help but keep thinking just how much I related to Kota, I genuinely thought he was a reincarnation of myself at the same age.
If it isn't obvious by now, the story isn't the strong point of this anime. It's a highly character based anime, which is why it felt so much more relatable. The character development was absolutely fantastic - Akane is a fantastic character that many people could relate to due to her quiet nature, while also being happy and outgoing with certain people. Kota is the same, in that aspect, and both have aims which aren't exactly too far fetched - Kota wanting to write and Akane wanting to get better at running. Even in the later half of the show, we see side characters get developed. While I won't say what I mean, their reactions and attitudes really reflected their ages and how people would act.
Besides the sometimes really jarring CGI, the production is honestly one of the most underrated things about this anime. TGK boasts incredible music and OSTs in addition to a really beautiful yet unique art style that stands out as better than most well known anime. Both the OP and ED songs are sung by rejection loving seiyuu Nao Touyama (voices characters such as Yui from Oregairu and Tomoe from Bunny Girl Senpai), and these songs fit this anime absolutely perfectly. In addition, the team even went out of their way to change the OP video as time progressed to represent what was happening during the entire anime.
Overall, TGK was a fantastic watch with characters that made me feel like I was part of the cast, beautiful music to set the mood and a comfortably predictable story that was pushed beautifully by the characters.
Story: 7/10
Art: 9/10
Sound 10/10
Characters: 10/10
Enjoyment 9/10
Overall: 9/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 29, 2020
I don't normally post reviews before I finish the anime, but I feel particularly bad for DG. It has a tiny studio for a decently well liked manga, and is rated fairly low, even though I think the studio is doing pretty well, and I want to give it the love it deserves.
** Minor Spoilers **
Story: 7/10
As far as I'm concerned, the story is good. It's fast paced, progressive and doesn't miss out too much detail. It bases around Kaname Sudo, a student who was accidentally roped into Darwin's Game, and now has to survive and complete the game, saving everyone in it. You may
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be thinking SAO, but this isn't an isekai, and the pacing is much better.
Art: 7/10
I'll mention animation here too. The art and animation are both very standard. However, this is a small studio. I think considering what they were working with, it works well. Action scenes look really good, even if some other scenes are a little choppy.
Sound: 7/10
There is literally only one reason why I didn't rate this 10. But I'll explain that in a second.
The sound works well most of the time, and really fits in battle scenes. The OP works well too.
The ED is why I rated this lower. It doesn't suit at all most of the time. But it isn't the biggest problem for me, even if it is for someone else.
Character: 7/10
As of right now, there are some characters that aren't too well developed. However, it's not the end, so I'll give this the benefit of the doubt. The characters who have been developed, however, are very interesting and I enjoy watching them.
Kaname hasn't really had development about his past, but his character and personality have developed well, as he changes a lot from the start to where I am now.
Enjoyment: 7/10
I find this very fun to watch personally. I like the characters and the story, so it works.
Overall: 7/10
Like I said, I wanted to give the studio some love. DG is a really good anime in my opinion, but it's a shame the studio is so small.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 20, 2020
Before I start, this review does NOT focus on NGNL:Zero, which was very different to the show. I will only talk about the show here.
** May contain minor spoilers **
If ignoring Dr. Stone as an isekai since it's so widely argued about, NGNL is one of the highest rated isekais on MAL, competing against Re:Zero and Konosuba. However, I don't understand how this is rated as high as those two, as honestly, I thought this was pretty bad.
Story: 1/10
Honestly, this was awful. The idea is that a NEET and his sister are the best gamers to exist but are bored of Earth. When asked if
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they would go to another world they accept, and well, you can guess from there.
The story would be good had there been any challenges whatsoever, but there wasn't a single thing challenging. Nothing that really made me want Sora or Shiro want to win.
Also, I should mention this is a disgrace to ecchi. There's exactly one ecchi joke in this whole anime, but it's somehow milked to the point where it comes up 1-2 times an episode. And it includes an 11 year old girl.
Speaking of the ecchi joke, that's pretty much the only joke in the series. Like it was okay the first time, but it got repetitive so quickly.
Art: 7/10
Art was very good. My only reason for it not being a 10/10 is because it absolutely destroyed my eyes.
Sound: 6/10
Good, but easily forgettable. I don't remember a single melody from the actual anime. This isn't normally a problem, but there isn't much redeeming in this.
Characters: 3/10
I would have rated this 1/10 but there was actually some character development for Sora and Shiro. However, their characters are so unbelievably dense, one sided and boring that I can't get myself to like them. In fact, the only characters I really liked from NGNL are from NGNL:Zero.
Enjoyment: 3/10
There was one fight I enjoyed, but not really anything else. It got so unbelievably stale after episode 2.
Overall: 3/10
I honestly think this anime really isn't an accurate way of looking at isekais. I wouldn't ever recommend this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Feb 3, 2020
Re:Zero kara Hajimeru **Isekai** Seikatsu. The word isekai more often than not would turn a person off of an anime. However, this anime is special. Special in being not only my favourite isekai, but also being able to abandon all normal isekai tropes along with it.
** Minor Spoilers**
Story: 10/10
The story is pretty simple. Main character transported to a new universe on his way out of a supermarket. He meets a beautiful girl who saves him, but both are murdered only hours later. Main character is able to respawn, and has to now live with this ability.
Anyone who hasn't seen this would think "isn't the main
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character too overpowered for the story?" and believe it or not, no he isn't. I'll explain a little more in character, but the way the story progresses creates very realistic emotions and characters, which just makes the story so good.
Art: 9/10
Very standard art. Characters are good looking and the art is pretty. Animation is pretty standard, so not really much to say. It isn't bad at all though.
Sound: 10/10
Every OP and ED fits so well. ED 1 is absolutely perfect for every single episode it comes up in, and OP 2 has the perfect vibe for the arc it is playing. Background music fitted well too, suited the scenes well and created the perfectly slightly unnerving vibe that is kept throughout the whole of the anime.
Character: 9/10
Subaru is one of the best anime main characters I have seen, simply because his development drops so many of the typical isekai tropes and creates real emotion and depth to his character. As the anime continues, he develops into a slightly stronger person physically, but is destroyed mentally, unlike any other character I have seen.
Emilia is the main female protagonist, and her development was good. She went from very caring yet immature to growing to become more mature as she grew with the help of Subaru. Unlike other female protagonists, she doesn't fall into a harem with Subaru, and she doesn't need him to become what she wants.
Rem is another female protagonist with probably the best background development in this anime. How her feelings towards Subaru, personality, and character develops in this anime is unlike so many others.
Many other side characters had good development, which many animes would ignore. Examples would include Betelguese, Ram, Felt and more. The only reason this isn't a 10/10 is because many characters didn't have the same development, but I hope S2 has that.
Enjoyment: 10/10
This anime was such a ride from the start. There was such an insanely perfect blend of action and psychological thriller, with moments of comedy, romance, character development and much more. Every episode was more thrilling than the last, and the feelings were so real in this anime. An insanely good story for an insanely good isekai, one which shows how it should be done.
Overall: 9.6/10
If you want any isekai with good characters, very good story and an absolutely amazing ride, Re:Zero has just that. With S2 coming, I hope they can live up to this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 25, 2020
As someone who genuinely enjoys the SAO series (especially the recent two seasons), this movie was awful to me. But the ratings were even worse. How is it possible that this is the highest rated part of SAO when it has the worst writing and story of them all?
*** Possible minor spoilers ***
Story: 3/10
The best way to describe this is Aincrad IRL. New console that brings the monster fighting world to the real world, where people can join up to defeat monsters. A guy starts attacking people, and Kirito has to save everyone yet again.
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The story felt like it was going nowhere for maybe 3/4 of the movie. Then towards the end, it felt like they got really lazy and threw a plot out the window altogether. Even the Calibur arc in S2 had less filler than this.
Art: 10/10
It's SAO. The art has always been good.
Sound: 10/10
Again, the sound has always been good. Just a shame the art and sound were used here.
Character: 3/10
Same characters from S2. No development of anyone at all, and the characters still felt like they were bland and dull and lacking personality.
Enjoyment: 1/10
Majority of this was repeated scenes and random fights that made no sense to the story. It was hard to enjoy something which had such little effort put into.
Overall: 3/10
Yeah, I didn't like this. SAO has since gotten better, but I do not understand such high ratings for this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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