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I have the same feeling I had with manga. It is Vinland Saga, there is a lot to love. But pacing is way too slow, or what I felt with manga at this point is that it stumbles around a lot. There are a lot of very interesting parts and scenes, but there was also a few somewhat pointless sidestories and uninteresting dilemas.
At most I see it as an achievement, author managed to turn a war tale into something pacifistic, yet still somewhat interesting.
Also, I simply don't like first opening and ending. They are not bad, but S1 had many bangers and compared to them, ... they are just plain. Also, I dislike how loud piano tends to be in emotional moments. I am trying to feel the scene, but instead I feel piano is the most pronounced (and annoying) part of many sad scenes.

Mediocre.

It is not bad. It is just not good. Which is kind of bad, because I love the manga, one of those I love to read. I just love his goodhearted and oblivious nature. This anime, not even close.

The main problem I find with it is "tell, don't show". It rarely shows how bad things are bad. It feels TV-sanitized.
For instance, the main joke of manga is that main's mentor was extremely brutal in her training. It was "training trough dying", you will be constantly pushed to the brink of death and jolted back for more till you can do that yourself ... to yourself, ... for training. In manga, you learn about it as his friends read trough his diary that is his coping outlet. But in anime ... we are "shown" that brutal training and ... same lines are delivered, but it is at most mildly inconvenient? It is just not brutal, even if everyone keeps saying it is. There is only one scene directly out of manga where the absurdity of training is shown and that one totally works, it shows how absurd his training was. It was also the only time I felt "yes, something abnormal happened" in anime.
There is also more fanservice and it is just ... why? It feels like it is how this anime understands "making fun of" someone, fanservice her, but to me it feels just confusing. It feels like it was made by someone that just didn't understand the tone of the source material. In general many jokes feel like they were poorly translated on screen, like I said, I love original, it is very funny to me, anime, some jokes land, but it tends to border on annoying.

I read the LN. Do not read the LN. (wont spoil)

So, I am probably writing because this anime has too low score. It has (6,80) at the moment and people are mostly complaining that it is nothing special for isekai. While at the same time "Skeleton Knight in Another World" has (7,30) and "Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs" has (7,27). Seriously people, what a fudge? This anime might not be worth the hipe, but it is miles ahead of those two. I feel that what this anime lacks and others have is a male protagonist and ... if this is the case ... it makes me sad.

Now back to the content ... this anime is very well made. It has "care" written all over it and animation is great, its music just won't go out of my head and I do not mind if it stays there and I quite like thinking how I would live in the world if I were to live there. It has a potential (ep 7 right now). There are also 4 LN out there and anime has 2 of them, so there could be more to come.

Now for when things go south for me and where I lost quite a lot of my faith in it ... its source material is not that great. It is not bad, there was clearly a lot of care put into it, it is enjoyable, but it is like someone at 25 wrote it as his 1. or 2. project, you can clearly read how author is still not sure of himself and is trying to navigate his not at all bad story with his sloppy skills. This is BDW also confirmed in "authors words" at the end of LN, he never expected to win the first place on the competition to which he submitted his (or "her", but it feels "his") manuscript. This was also quite a surprise to me, because someone with way more skill left the story intact but managed to correct most of those quirks, like how Akari just can't stop talking about sex in the middle of the main battle (it is bizarre) or how Ashuna has no introduction before it becomes one of the main characters. This is why I am saying "do not read the LN". This anime is better.





Now for some SPOILERS (how to recognise a sloppy writing).
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Story has more than "stile" problems that are not unusual, but I just do not like them. The main problem is "the genius sindrome". For some reason all of the mains feel OP and this is not bad on itself, it is just that they have a hard time fitting in the world, their presentation could be way better. Take similar story with similar problems, Re:Zero (my guess is, that it was an inspiration for this one). Reinhard is such a character, but there you have so many of those that world feels balanced and the moment it steps out of balance everyone "expects" that cities will be annihilated (in fact world does end a few times), they do not because exceptionals concentrate around the top to protect the status quo. Now what do we have here? There are 3 exceptionals in the main cast, one is a worldbreaker and it makes sense, she has to go, the entire story is around "how the fudge to kill her", there is also very capable antagonist, her executioner, that specialises in killing people like her. The problem is ... she IS exceptional. How are others managing it? Or would they have no need to be exceptional, because they are basically spy-agents-undercover, so you do not need that much to kill someone? In short, you do not want someone capable of annihilating cities running around without supervision and here you have 2 of them, one of them very mentally unstable and very willing to destroy everything if she has an excuse, like her holy ribbons were burned. To me it sounds like someone should "kill them for the good of many?". This is kind of their entire job. This shows when Momo (crazy) manages to destroy the most well protected parts of the city and both centers of power. Ashuna (not crazy) then slashes at the castle in diagonal ... when she could just use a vertical slash and avoid 99% of the damage she causes. Also, somehow that doesnt kill everyone inside, it kills no one. Kill them at the first opportunity you get, if you can not, exile them, if you can not, give them a nation, stabilise them! Make them stop destroying historical sites! The other problem is as mentioned ... why didn't bystanders stop them? Do they have no capable people in charge of the defence? Menou had a chance to lose against 4, do they not have hundreds of capable knights? And they had such a hard time killing a demon ... that are summoned every now and then with just a few human bodies as an offering or even less (no bodies for Envy). Should your base level of defence not be better? How capable your citizens are to defend themselves or at least your guards, protectors of the city, someone, ... or did Bishop spent most of her days running (paining) around to prevent cities from being destroyed? No wonder she doesn't want to die, citira would follow her soon after ... ... ... ou. World is represented as stable, but it is (or should be) everything but stable. It feels like those encounters were made to make main characters look stronger but ... you manage to destroy the most protected and strong character on the continent in your first book while they are at their best. What more can you do after that?

So, nothing new, most other isekai have bigger problems, even loved ones, I just wish for a better source material, both in stile and in content, because this one had a potential x)

Dropped it.

It is not all bad, but this anime is so gamergate it hurts to watch xD

+ it is so inconsistent I just failed to develop any expectations out of its world-development, I mean, it jokes about it anyway, because it is just a game, what a world am I talking about, but ... you can have a fantasy, just have a consistent fantasy.

Besides that, graphic is ok if a bit annoying, sound is ... ok, I tried to like it, but I failed to do so, characters are isekai at its worse, they get a role, they act it out without the regard for ... who they are, foes will pester, romantic interests will blush, comic reliefs will nonsence, it is not bad (most of the time), it is just nothing much. It reminds you how PtW feels like ... if you P. Do you feel bad already for buying victories with your noble privilege? Because I am totally doing it right now. And I feel bad for rubbing it in too much. This anime needs a protagonist instead of 2 antagonists. I miss The Faraway Paladin, he was such a decent fellow.

I am writing this review because I am (just) a bit surprised how low score it has.

This anime is a comedy without a real story and it knows it. It feels like whoever was making it had a great time while doing it. There also quite a few "feels nice" touches that would be otherwise overlooked. There are many things that I like. It also has better setting than Land of Leadale that felt somewhat similar from the last season, there events would just devastate the world if main wouldnt be around, here it actually feels like things would be bad, but would go on, ... main just came and is trying to make things better in his spare time. In other words, world feels more realistic, it is still a game-logic simplicity, no Overlord level of plots within plots that were going on and still felt like the world was evolving instead of being destroyed before main came around, but it is something and I appreciate it, I hope it (at least) stays that way.

That said ... it has rough edges. It is trying to somewhat subvert isekai formula and for the most part it works, but many times on "it could be worse" level of awareness.

Rough edges (first 3 episodes): (spoilers, but not story-spoilers, I am not sure it has a story)

It starts with 2 women screaming at you how they dont want to be raped. Just after that there is a "disturbing content" warning. Nice to have one, but if they bothered with it, it would certainly be appreciated if they would sacrifice a few seconds on the start of the episode just to give more sensitive viewers time to tune out, because it hits you hard from the get go. Rape is handled somewhat ok, it could be better and the main is somewhat of an idiot, but at least he is a nice idiot. I can believe you that rape is disturbing, you do not need to show me how much fun it might be for those doing it(!). It is not the feeling you might want to emphasise, that said, opening with a rape scene is already quite a dare on many viewers, so why show it twice? Do some focus groups or something, do better.

There is a habit of women, but mostly young girls, being attacked or sexually assaulted. And the men (and monsters) doing all the attacking and assaulting. Again, you can do better, there is at least something, like that OP elf, but still, you can do better, too close to fridged-women trope territory.

Dead-brain-logic. At some point, elf attacks slavers, she kills quite a few, then is almost raped, because they threaten to kill some of the captives. There are many just bad moments in this scene. First, slavers think they can rape her just because she is a women. They somehow doesnt notice the sword or armour, it is so bad it is almost comical. Then she kills buch of them, she could kill all of them, so they threaten one of the captives. So she just lets herself be almost-raped again. So, 2 things. She could predict that and first save her people. Once protected behind her, which looked easy to do, she could start killing those that would try to recapture them and chase those that would run away after the fight, captives were supposed to be her priority anyway. Second, why would she believe that they wouldnt just kill her while or after raping her? Or capture her? If she is not able to rescue them and she should know if she is able, just wait a bit till she is able to do so, be prepared to take sacrifices (young elves get killed) or not risk it at all, maybe just move away and attack later, she killed bunch of them and they do not profit from killing their reason to stay alive, just do a few hit&runs. Dead-brain-logic from someone that is supposed to be a veteran, capable and experienced fighter. How did she survived till then?

So, I am one of those "be critical towards what you love" guys and I do like this anime, it just bothers me, because I would want to like it more, it seems to me that creators did put quite a bit of effort into making it, but I am more than sure that some of my friends would be quite disturbed if I were to ever recommend it to them because of those "rough edges", which is quite a shame.

It might be too early, but I dropped it. And I was quite hipped for it, liked season 1 and all.

More or less because for me it is (more or less) everything that was wrong with season 1 and just adding more to it.

Do we need another girl-slave? Why do we get her, because she felt/was a bit too normal, maybe just a bit above average, nothing exceptional? He could (like he did the first time around) just grab any slave and, you know, keep it as a slave, that strange "slavery is good" mechanic would still work, but nooooo, grab a random girl and ... make her a magic slave, how cool is that? And he doesnt even "need" her, he was kind of desperate before, now he is trying to be noble by enslaving people? Give me a break, or better, write another mechanic for stats/exp sharing without slavery. He is supposed to fight slavery, or at least be conflicted about it, is the only problem with slavery (and gambling, remember how he got his egg?) really just a bad reputation? Why is he still not killing/arresting that rich-looking-guy?

Then there is that penguin-costume ... it feels a bit immersion breaking. Like something driving an electric car in the middle of an medieval city, was that introduced ONLY because someone thought it would look cute? This is one of the widespread MMO monetisation problems, not solutions.

And finally, hero now feels overpowered. You dont get a sence he has his back against the wall. So when he turns on his chaos-shield and manages to destroy most of the outpost's stonewall defences (and no people on the top or behind?) ... ok, some people would die, but now you have a huge crater on the road, gigant hole in the wall and if he would happen to turn dark and go on the rampage ... can you notice what were his cost-benefits?

It is not important, but I also quite liked previous OP, this one not so much, it feels a bit flat.

Dropped it at 3. episode, because it is talking about sex-abuse and potential rape as a joke or at least nothing to be too worried about, while at the same time presenting it as a hentai material. There are ways to go about it it, this is not one of them, who the hell thought mixing p*rnography and child protagonist is a good thing?

Also, I am quite sure Hana should be able to use child-protection service in order not to be part of the child-labour after mother abandons her. She is strong, and it shows how to take it for the best but to make ... an opportunity out of it feels like downplaying the situation she is going trough.

I just checked the staff, this anime should at least have a female consultant before making this movie, all male directors apparently arent able to handle the material they are entrusted with.

S. I would love to love this story, graphics are great, but I cant [also, SPOILERS].

It runs well or at least ok, but at the end ... Kakeru doesnt deserve Naho. She is being too forgiving. She should learn to love herself instead of sacrificing her entire life for someone else. What happens when he grows up? When they have a child? When he becomes his dad. She said ok. Is it ok? Or will she just repeat what happened with his mom while there is Suwa, tried and tested match. I am not saying she should date him, but in comparison, that is not ... even a choice. I feel like she is being abused just being with him and it is all because she is afraid of him killing himself otherwise. Great charms he has. I am not saying he doesnt deserve anyone, but in my eyes he burned it with Naho and it pains me her friends are just watching her suffer and not doing anything because they are afraid of Kakeru killing himself.

If anyone needs help, it is Kakeru's mom. They should save her. She had an abusive husband, had to relocate in order to care for her child who turned against her and she blames herself. Absolutely, she should talk with him way more, it is a problem, but just look at Naho, she cant say no to people and we love her, I guess, so why would we take that against his mom? She needs support. She keeps being mentioned but not once it is stated she should be helped instead of him, it is always him.

So, you did your best Naho, if you did anything wrong it was to open yourself for abuse that will quite probably start in a few years or so, so you might have to run away with your child to protect him ... even if you should protect yourself. I wish you luck in realising that sooner.

Due to recommendations I started reading WN. And dropped it around the demon village on the Demon continent.

First thing, the anime is very nice, it is well made. Characters are also interesting, events offer opportunities for them, music is quite nice and I quite like the stile of animation. But story ... story is another beast entirely.

It is bad. So, you start with a shut in. That explains some of his less likeable traits. But you soon start to notice something is wrong. Anime wrong. And it keeps happening with no signs of stopping. When protagonist recognises his father as a rapist, but at least ... he is strong? You know, unlike those weak rapists that could ... protagonist could at least go down "he is a rapist, but I need him" (meaning that could change as he would try to be better) or "he is a rapist, but his other actions make him dependable", so you just have to control that one aspect of him or again just try to be better than him, not stronger. Because what he thought right there is "might makes right" in less harsh tone. Or how he makes nude statue of his teacher (removable underwear), that he "obtained by peaking at her" and then "reproducing that image", which is this worlds equivalent of taking photo and reproduction of material for profit ... which is never questioned and as one of them ends in hands of someone what abuses person in question on daily basis, he congratulates that person, or maybe himself, dont know which one is worse. Or how he goes after a child and almost rapes her, or would someone like to argue that his 30-40 years mind cant notice she is 13, forget inner turmoil, he lusts for her. How he isnt disturbed at sexual harassment of maids. How he is almost bribed by human trafficking (sexual service), even more person in question is supposed to be his friend and a pupil and in anime he even regrets his decision (I think he didnt in WN). How he opens at least 3 romantic attachments that are all quite soon forgotten if opportunity arises. How he cant come up with a good excuse on why not to kill someone, how he lets someone die for fame but in the same day shows intent to kill an entire city of inhabitants (yes, also kids, why did everyone suddenly forget that those kids they keep talking about are substantial part of population), those his companions managed to save among them, why is he congratulated for it, why he accepts those congratulations from someone that he was disturbed by just a day or so ago and why is it presented as something nice? He could at worst just kill that one guy and be done with it, and at best story could take a few days in which they would do something about it but I guess massacre in the name of "pride as a warrior" (another might makes right right there, you know, all those people that really want but cant massacre a city if they feel like it couldnt be called a warrior) is just ok lesson?

So, in short ... story is bad. Really bad. And I noticed no clues it will get better, it is not that hard to clue us in that he is just so pathetic and still has a way to go, because ... he keeps getting rewarded or excused for his actions. Next time someone rapes someone he will ... he will probably have quite a hard time explaining why that was bad, hell, he is more likely to be jealous or start searching for excuses if it was one of "his", like his father (cant be helped, right?) or his companion (he would just be like that, but he would be story, they would need him, so it would be ok), story will forgive and forget, probably overlook, except if character will be a villain, you know, those people that are too weak to resist the protagonist that is sooner or later stronger than then are so he deserves ... and the story will provide him with a lot of agreeable women who thinks the same way ... might makes right. A bad story.

EDIT: Right, ammm, the last part was meant to tell you that WN is mostly even worse and anime is at least tuned down on his thoughts and actions, but as you can notice, you just cant just tune it down, the message is an integral part of the story that is only searching for opportunities to express it, to be more precise, to pamper to the main character, may he succeed or fail.

S.

I quite like this anime but there is one sore tumb in it ... what is going on with all the female characters? Honestly, if main wouldnt be so nice and would go Berserk revenge or something I would drop it on moment's notice even as I love it otherwise.

1. His family, mostly women and children, is slaughtered and is his story fuel for his progression (he keeps recalling them, so, it is).
2. His sister is turned into a monster (demon is many times called monster) which I dont mind so much but for her it means that due to next points she is more ... or less still just slaughter-fuel for brother's character (his mission is to turn her into human)
3. Main female role doesnt have a voice. I mean, ok, but ... why? It seriously hurts her ability to communicate her thoughts and all other parts of her are unchanged, even nails are a givaway that she is a demon and no one sees her in her box anyway so why did the writer wrote her that way?
4. Main female is constantly asleep. Like, better than dead but while her brother trains and his strength is earned, she SLEEPS FOR STRENGTH. Her strength was given to her, not earned and the only way to "upgrade" is to sleep or eat humans? PLEASE, JUST A BITE! I want to see her grow!
5. Main female is under hypnosis by old an guy. To love everyone as family. Like, seriously? There was a chance that she could try to be nice on her own even as a monster because she already didnt eat her brother, but now you even took away her agency for being good trough coercion from her? What is wrong with you? Entirely unnecessary! So he gets to be nice while she is tricked to be nice? Fuck off!
6. As story is structured, end game is ... her brother is the strongest demon-hunter while she gets back to being weak human or demon-feed as we call them.

Then you spice it up with 1. you are not a man (until you cant kill in a fight and jump over the house, you know, like most male population, I am sure many young boys will understand such goals are unrealistic or even harmful for their self-image as they are totally able to do that if they try) 2. His dead sister was quite agile but was too emotional so she died? 3. most demons till now were males because most people are men? 4. his first mission was to hunt down a demon pervert, which is nice from his but again, it is men fighting for women all over again (which could be solved by IDK, giving his sister a personality, like voice, ability to fight on her own, grow trough battles and such? Are demons tasty? It is a story, make her interesting! She will be there for ... ah yes, dont bother, she will stay asleep in her box most of the time, wont she?)

So, I kind of see a pattern here ...

That said, I still quite like it but it has SERIOUS ISSUE with his female ... well ... anything really. I cant say it is bad in this issue, it is just so obnoxiously lacking.

Also, that old man is a shitty teacher, for real, how many people try to kill you constantly in order to teach you something (and he didnt even want to train him for Finals anyway, so ... why train him anyway if you are going to take a shit on his effort)? Main's survival is entirely due to his OP characteristics from before he started training which wasnt explained yet. Do you get born OP? Why bother becoming a demon (it has serious limitations, like sunlight and the need for slaughter) if you can be a demon hunter on your own?

EDIT: Finished it. As expected, problems persist, but I did quite like some of mentioned interactions. I would like to share one side scene on how it could be made better, even if I quite liked it :)

So, protagonist tries to help a slave-girl regain herself. For that reason he takes her decision coin and flips it. Story implies that girl might be saved by love (which I dont think should be necessary for better messaging because now it almost looks like they are playing harem trope, just bake them good friends, someone to admire, but whatever). So, he takes her coin and flips it and it flips on the right side, she is to free herself. At first I didnt like the scene because he is clearly telling her what to do. She didnt come to terms with herself, he just used her mechanism of decision making against her. But I quite liked how he returns the coin and advises her to just keep flipping it if she doesnt like the result. That was a nice message.

Now for how to make it better, he flips the coin and it fails. Wouldnt that be a shock? But she was clearly invested in the result. So now he returns her coin and politely apologises, then notices how stressed she is and comments on it. She is upset, but it is clearly because part of her that shouldnt exist wanted to be free, so she actually outgrown the coin that has now became her fence instead of her safe space. Protagonist could point at that without any intend to change her, then casually as he goes away advice that she can flip the coin again if she wants to. Why? Because she was never before invested into results, to flip again means you have a preference that you endevour to bring forward. So as he goes away, we see and hear a coin flipping trough the air. We doesnt need to see the result. She can do it on her own.

See, wouldnt that be an AMAZING scene :D! I know I would love it, I feel nice just thinking about it :)