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Sep 14, 2024
Pretty sleepy. Lots of sitting and talking and eating. Slow for a 10-episode series. The episodic mysteries are low-stakes.
Looks pretty good for a novel adaptation, even for one sold by a pretty-girl character. The animation is not as innovative as Hyouka and without the studio brand name, but it is much more consistent in tone with the story and subject matter.
The biggest mysteries are the characters, and the main characters in particular. Why Jogoro and Osanai want to be "Shoushimin"/Petit Bourgeousie/Civilians is only implied or teased for almost the entire season. Rather than main character Jogoro or even deuteragonist Osanai being the only one or
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two genius detective characters with a clue about what's going on, the cast is much more broadly competent, which opens up the possibilities for the story and solutions, and the story is more fun to follow along with even in the drier episodes.
Yonezawa's writing has a way of lulling the audience to sleep, and then surprising with a gentle twist ending that colors the characters and relationships from the rising action. The most satisfying part of his writing is that the twist usually leans *into* what is more realistic or practical for the setting than *away* from it. The ep 10 falling-action "twist" away from genre convention and toward development of the main characters is one of the best examples of this I've ever seen. I would even count the nature of the rising-action mystery in the final arc as a "twist" given the mood of most of the stories up to that point.
If you're bored to tears after ep 1, you could skip ahead to 6, but this is probably not worth your time. If you're still interested at all after you realize what you're getting into end of the painful "Hot Chocolate Mystery" ep 2, this season will probably reward your attention more than you would expect.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 29, 2021
Do you know the band Boston? Imagine you knew only the song "More than a Feeling", and you heard "Peace of Mind" on the radio for the first time. If you heard that particular Tom Scholz Rockman amp sound playing some corny 70's arena melody behind some shrill mustachioed vocal line, wouldn't you place it on the same album right away in your mind?
>99% of people who read SetoUtsumi after 2021 will be following Odd Taxi's writer Kazuya Konomoto into his limited catalog, hoping to find anything else that has any of the particular magic of that anime's screenplay. I'm happy to report that SetoUtsumi
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has it. You can read any one or two of the episodic chapters before volume 8 and immediately smell the same snappy dialogue (smart talk between dumb characters), a mishmashing of an eclectic cast, and the invisible undercurrent of a much heavier overarching plot than two bros chattin' with a clown after school.
The art is meh. I would say it's passable (6ish); more experienced manga fetishists would probably say it's worse than that. Like all comedy, the humor is hit or miss depending on the reader, although I think Konomoto's character dialogue and situational irony are usually interesting enough to deliver most of the punchlines even if it isn't 100% your jam. A lot of the secondary characters have depth that is more hinted at than explored, so there are only 2 truly interesting minds to get to know.
With those unimportant demerits out of the way, this whole manga reeks of Odd Taxi to me from start to finish. It's that same Rockman (Boston) sound. So much of what that show did well bleeds through here. Maybe the translation I read was just particularly skillful, but the fact that each episodic chapter found a way to slice home into something I identified with despite the language barrier and despite Konomoto presumably having very different life experience to me was rewarding and haunting. Konomoto's writing gets comped a lot to Tarantino, but to me, his writing feels different in ways that are personally important to me. Tarantino is probably the best at writing the punchy dialogue of cool characters. Konomoto is equally adept at writing the punchy dialogue of seriously uncool characters. I am still shocked by the gripping, heavy, funny and seriously lame nonsense that these characters get out on the routine every chapter, and I love it. The dumb-character/smart-writing trick that Konomoto pulls out of his sleeve every chapter is the best thing about his manga and his anime (because, to me, after reading this manga, Odd Taxi is now His show).
All that said, this is a dark/grey comedy slice of life manga. Target audience for that is probably very small. Please give this a chance anyway, especially if you loved Odd Taxi. Odd Taxi is a better product, but lofi anthropomorphic animal mystery comedy thriller also probably had a miniscule target audience and blew that out of the water. Everything that made OT special is as-good or almost-as-good in SU. It also validates that the best part of OT was the writing, and that the writing is real and real good. Konomoto's hype train needs to be max capacity going forward.
And if, God forbid, you're the <1% that didn't come here from OT, I can sell this manga a different way. Have you ever read a slice-of-life manga with a {built-up, closed, emotionally satisfying, thematically consistent, dumb-character/smart-writing, Capital 'G'} Great ending?
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jun 28, 2021
Wonder Egg is a controversial show for a couple of important reasons:
1. A blown-up production. Cloverworks was not big or well-run enough to crank out three medium- to big-time shows its season, and Egg Show was #3 in terms of importance as a non-sequel, non-adapted property. Reports (rumors) are that this was a high-level mismanagement, and if so, the decision to modify the story and defer a large chunk of it to an extended unplanned special is good-faith amends...but many people have qualms about supporting the industrial practice that created this disgrace in the first place. If you're watching post-special-release with the whole story available
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to you, the fact that the story was somehow both rushed and completely unresolved for months doesn't matter as much to you, because the animators came through under poor conditions and delivered a quality product, to say the very least, and none of that time pressure comes through in the art, unless you are hunting it down. This show is a classic example of the conflict in wanting to both support and punish the (different) people who made it.
2. [Minor spoilers.] *Wack* messaging. Stuff like "self-harm as a way to getcha through the day" levels of wack. Does making those kinds of themes the ultimate, conclusive solution to episodic stories mean that those messages support that line of thinking? Is an R rating (in the west, don't know how this was demo'ed in Japan) not enough of a filter or trigger warning to turn away susceptible/easily-influenced minds from getting too into this show? I don't think so, but the show aggressively positions itself in a truly grey moral area, and I don't know why. It's one thing to bring up suicide (good!), it's another to have a character wonder if it's a solution (even better!!), and it's something completely different to just leave it hanging as the answer (?????). If it was just to make the viewer uncomfortable, I guess it worked, but the show has a tendency to leave that discomfort unfulfilled. And if this is just a cry for help being sold as a TV show, that's unacceptable.
I'm torn. I think the show is very good for a lot of reasons, and a lot of the very particular, delusional adjustments these characters make in their heads ring true to me. I got a lot out of WEP. But there's so much baggage attached to the show that I can't think of who I would recommend it to. For fifteen minutes, the show will feel like something I'd want a 14-year-old daughter/sister/friend to watch...and then absolutely not.
As an endorsement/warning, I think "baggage" is actually the right way to describe what this show offers/forces, because it invites the analogy to a person. When you think about people with the kind of "baggage" the show has - twisted morals, delusional reasoning, susceptibility to control by more powerful people, and identity problems - do you identify with that, and need someone in your life who empathizes with you? Or have you got your own issues to deal with, and do you not feel like being an anime's therapist?
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jun 28, 2021
At worst, this show is a whimsical, slightly tongue-in-cheek anime spin on a cliched hard-boiled noir story, mixing 2021 topics like the idol industry, gacha games, and cyberstalking into a slow-burning Tarantino plot with bouncy dialogue and wrapping it all up in a world full of anime anthropomorphic animals. The modest entertainment value of any of that on its own probably makes this show a decent watch.
I think this show is way better than decent, though. I think the comp for this show is something more like "Anomalisa" than "Pulp Fiction". To its credit, if you watch OddTaxi for Tarantino, you'll probably be decently entertained.
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As of June, based on what I've read, most of the seasonal folks wound up watching for Kaufman, though.
Konomoto is credit with the script, and I'm assuming the concept is his as well, because the way the writing uses the story concept is outstanding. He plays with the pieces the show picks up in such a clever way, allowing them to contribute to the story in a way that is novel for the mystery/suspense genre, but never letting them overstay their welcome. It allows a character to rise and fall from YouTube stardom in just a time-constrained enough way to contribute to the plot, and then moves on without patting itself on the back for being "one of the kids", even sarcastically.
In my opinion, Konomoto (or the concept author) writes the best kind of postmodernism, where it picks at a nonsensical storytelling standard (eg, anthropomorphic animals) and subverts (or teases subverting) our expectations by integrating it into the story and making the story better for it. You can play it for drama like Beastars or comedy like Aggretsuko, but OddTaxi plays it for mystery and suspense and ties it into the mystery and suspense of the show. The stale premise of the hard-boiled protagonist as a whodunnit suspect is made so much richer because the entire world feeds the mystery of what truly is in the protagonist's mind. It's a trick - if you're an anti-pretentious kind of person, maybe a gimmick - but to me, this trick feels so fresh, and the execution of the rest of the show is so good, and the show never gives the impression that it's too proud of its little twist.
That's why I led by saying the show is at-worst entertaining as a mystery flick - if you don't get anything out of the trick, you can overlook it completely. OddTaxi is sexually tame and minimally cartoon violent - maybe half a step beyond Tom & Jerry. You can watch OddTaxi with your daughter, or your grandmother, or your SO who hates anime. I am recommending OddTaxi to basically anyone, and I am immediately going to read Konomoto's manga.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Nov 17, 2020
As of 12/12 seen:
GOD DAMMIT
As of 6/12 seen:
This one could be a problem.
Watching a Jun Maeda 1-cour show is like watching a vert skateboarder try to land a 900. It's an awesome trick, it earns a lot of attention, and it will probably look pretty amazing while it's in the air no matter what, and they try this accomplishment over and over, but there's a very good chance that he's going to run out of airtime and fall on his face in a massive disappointment for everybody.
This show's got all the red flags the Maeda fans/prisoners know and love: the 8/10 art/music production quality, the
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big time OP, the watertight (maybe) and exciting premise, the dopey protag, and the broey goofball best-friend character who everyone likes better. We got the nebulous magic system, we got the sports-anime episode, we got the music-anime episode, we got the emotionally distant romantic interest with family problems, we got the VN-route-style side character arcs crammed into twenty-two minutes - we even stole the loli nun meme from Index! (They weren't exactly using it, were they?)
Are you in for the party? You'll probably have a decent time. Don't listen to the haters. Just remember to bow out before the cops (or hackers/shadow org) show up.
Are you in it cause you're a PAW/VA/Maeda nut? You don't need me to tell you that you're stuck religiously enjoying and defending whatever ending we get. Good luck, and I'm sorry.
Are you morbidly curious, and half hoping you can laugh at Tony Hawk faceplanting like an idiot? I don't like it, but I get it.
As for me, I'm a dumb hoper. This is a 6/10 story for me right now, everything else is nicely done. 7/10 is about right for now until I've seen the rest. I hope PA Works sticks the landing.
12/12 edit: 4/10 GOD DAMN IT emphasis on dumb. See you guys in 2023 for the next one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 13, 2020
Short answer: if you at least "got through" season 2, season 3 through 6+ episodes is must-watch. It pays off a lot of what season 2 teases. If you disliked 1 or 2 enough to drop, then season 3 hasn't and won't offer anything to make you pick it up again.
Story 8, art 6, sound 8, character 9, enjoyment 10, overall 8 is for me very close to season 2, which is remarkable given how much time has elapsed between seasons 2 and 3 as well as between the light novel source material. Season 3 is faithful to the strengths of the series as a
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whole: attacking character relationships, self-concepts, and motivations; revealing character and plot deliberately and obscurely, and leveraging the strengths of the studio, writer, and seiyuu in particular to deliver emotional punch.
Oregairu is actually kind of a mess. Yukinoshita, in particular, is six different characters with different central character conflicts over the runtime of this show. There's realism in the quality of the conflicts the characters face, but complete fantasy in how capable its teenage main characters are in nailing those conflicts down with no reflection. It's pretty obvious that the story was written over almost a decade - 2011 WW is a completely different author with completely different ideas and values than 2019 WW, or even 2013 or 2016 WW. But the characterizations of 8man and the disservice club are so rich that even when the story breaks, it breaks in an interesting way with a new perspective and message on interpersonal relationships. There's no show that portrays the impossible reality of honestly understanding another person as well or as entertainingly as Oregairu does.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jun 20, 2020
"You're not making sense to me...You seem pretty evasive about life. Do you think you'd look dumb if you were a tryhard? You're just being self-deprecating to give yourself a way out, aren't you?"
For an understated and reasonably well-made and interesting show, Yesterday has earned itself a lot of controversy over the course of its short run. A lot of people were attracted to this show as it started, and many of these fans were seriously put off by how the series progressed, particularly over the course of the season. Having an understanding of why this show is polarizing to its fans is important for
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deciding whether or not to pursue watching this show.
I agree that there are some significant problems with this show, particularly with how it was adapted and published. In June 2020 the community is understandably peeved as the season ends, as the nature of the 6 "extra" episodes was miscommunicated, at least to the English-language market, leading basically everybody to realize that instead of the 192 minutes of plot and character development left in the season, there was really only 48. This was an extreme exacerbation of a core problem the series had all along - the source manga is a bit too long for 12 episodes to begin with, and 18 full-length episodes would not only be original but appropriate. Even if we knew all along that 12 episodes were all we had, the pacing was going to be a bit of a mess.
Consequently, the story, character, and relationship development in this show is rushed, skipped, implied, and maybe just flat missing, particularly in the second half of the series. There are huge (months-long?) and invisible time-skips. Sure, maybe "nothing happens", but this is a slice-of-life romance show. We're here because we want to watch nothing happen in romances. The story earns a solid 3/10, at least in this adaptation.
I did not care for the story, but I also did not much care about the story, because it was never the strength of this show.
Photography and still art are a major motif in this show. Uozumi is a photographer, Hayakawa is an artist, and flashbacks are often "animated" as still manga panels. In a medium defined by movement, this focus on still art as a capture of a memory or an unchanging moment in time drives the theme of looking backward hindering forward progression. What is holding these characters back? When we see these pictures, can we see what they see?
Likewise, for the show itself, its strength is not in its narrative, or the development of its plot or relationships, but in the specific moments of reflection it creates. It effectively and artfully delivers powerfully relatable emotional ideas several times per episode in every episode. This show is incredibly consistent and uniquely understaded in its mood, tone, art, and acting, as well as with its delivery of these moments. Clearly, the production decision to condense as many of these reflective moments into the anime was to the detriment of the story, but I also think that this was the correct decision.
Although this means the show does a poor job in changing the characters through events that occur during the show, this focus on moments and ideas of importance to them means that every major character is developed deeply based on what has happened in their past. They don't act like each other, they don't act maturely, and they don't act perfectly, and all of those differences are motivated and interesting.
This creates a hidden strength of this show - whereas most shows have the "3-episode rule" for a viewer to decide whether or not a show is for them, 1 episode is more than enough for Yesterday, because it starts handing out these little photographic moments right away. If you're like me, and you got walked over by the scene where Kinoshita undresses Uozumi's idea about being fine as a loser, then I can wholeheartedly recommend this show, because these little-picture moments never stop until the very conclusion of the show.
This show is not for everybody: the dueling-love-triangle setup can accidentally suck in and disappoint a lot of people who are in it for the romance, comedy, and drama of the waifu war. But a lot of people also feel stuck, like they're fine being a loser, or like their romantic inexperience is symptomatic of a toxic personality that needs to be cured, or like they don't know whether to pursue or drop an unrequited love, and they wonder what it would sound like for someone to attack their vulnerability. This show is not shy about using the relative experience and intelligence of its main characters and the tool of shifting perspective and point of view to expose and dissect these emotions, and the show's artistic decisions, skills, and quality make these uncomfortable emotional positions easy and even enjoyable to take in.
I really like this show, and I may even love it - time will tell. I don't like the same thing in every show, but usually I will choose to value a show based on what it does differently or well. Because of how it spoke to me early in its runtime, these little-picture moments were what I looked forward to every episode, and they never stopped coming, and they never stopped impacting me. The way the show realistically, artfully, and honestly attacks the brokenness and weaknesses of its characters reminds me a lot of OreGairu and Charlie Kaufman's movies, which I love as well.
I don't think this show will be seen in the future as a pivotal or groundbreaking work, and if its rating continues to fall, it may not end up even being popular beyond a season where 3/4 of everything else was canceled. So if you read some reviews or watch the first episode, and decide that it's not for you, or you're not sure how much you like or identify with the characters, just skip the show, you won't miss much. On the other hand, if you read some reviews, watch one episode, and feel sucked into the "2meirl4meirl" vibe, this show is a must-watch.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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May 25, 2020
I promise, this is an extremely positive review.
Buyer beware. This show is broken. Yes, ostensibly, that's what the show is about, "My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong. *Of course.*" "Situation Normal = All F***ed Up." But the breaking of the High School Slice-of-Life Dram-Rom-Com plot is not what breaks the show. The real disaster here is that nothing in the show is in agreement about what exactly is broken.
Brain's Base and season 1 play this destruction primarily as a comedy, while Feel and season 2 play it as tragic. So it's a problem with the studio change? But these discrepancies exist within seasons and dominate
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the light novel source material written consistently by one man, Wataru Watari. For example, sometimes, the protagonist's toxic personality is portrayed as fundamentally secure, sometimes it's fundamentally insecure and circumstantial. As another example, sometimes the plot-driving misunderstandings are contrived, sterotypically fanservice, and superficial ("You mean you two aren't dating?"), and sometimes they are vivid, realistic, and fundamental ("What kind of person are you actually? What do you want?"). Maybe most obviously, the very basic, level-1 lightnovelish coincidental backstory tying together the main characters driving much of their emotional plot development of s1 is resolved methodically, logically, and forgettably as being frankly unimportant to all of them.
Most people who love this show say that it feels "interesting" and "real" or "realistic" to them, and I think that this is because it wrings everything it can out of topical ambiguity. Real life is often ambiguous, if not interesting, most television is not. The fan subreddit is pretty funny about this, there is a "story spoiler FAQ" page including half a dozen questions that basically amount to *what actually happens* in the most important moments of the show, including but not limited to the climax and the "resolution". This is stuff like "What is everybody talking about?" in a dialogue scene, or "What is this character mad about?" in an emotional reaction scene, or "What is motivating the protagonist?" basically always. Most of these questions have linked multiple mutually-exclusive answers, and all questions are answer-linked unauthoritatively as "One possible answer," etc.
Most of these deliberately and artistically thematic ambiguous moments occur in s2. However, the fundamental ambiguity still drives s1 - what kind of show is this, really? What stance does it actually take on its thematic content? Why is it true that the HSSoLDRC is wrong? Why do we get the right scenes but with either a backwards outcome or a completely different actual meaning? Was WW in mid-late 2012 (end of s1) writing about the same story as WW in early 2013 (start of s2), WW in 2015, or WW in 2011, or God forbid WW in 2019?
If you're mostly new to HSSoLDRC and you're browsing for a popular and well-rated show to dig into, watch the other stuff first for two reasons: first, the comedy, drama, and romance in this show are disasters *by design* **even when they aren't**, so if you actually want any of that, you will watch this show and correctly conclude that "nothing happens"; second, the strengths of this show is its deviance from what it's supposed to do in its genre, be it intentional, subconscious, or completely accidental, so seeing the difference between what a scene, line of dialogue, or character trait actually does versus what it is "supposed" to do in a normal show will make OreGairu even more interesting.
But make sure you eventually do come back to this show, because there is nothing else like it, particularly in the way it undresses its characters and personalities. Watching Hikigaya and the other major characters is like watching a train falling down a canyon, smashing against the cliffside as it tumbles into the ravine. That's entertaining. Then you look at the track and realize that the train crashed because the tracks are built with a 90 degree angle turn right at the edge of the cliff. That's entertaining, too. Then you think about the railroad company that built that track, and the government inspector who signed off on it, and the architect who really wanted the train to drive into that corner of the cliff. That's entertaining, too, too. This show's characters, plot, and themes are a continuous Tacoma Narrows disaster, a fascinating catastrophic failure that clearly happens for a reason, but a reason that seems to be a mystery to everyone, including most or all the people who built it. WW's brainchild is a mistaken masterpiece, but everyone involved seems to be mistaken about what exactly the mistake is. Unraveling the mystery of what this show actually is and says and working against this unintentional conspiracy of writers, producers, animators, voice actors, characters, genre, and theme is the most interesting and entertaining experience I've ever had watching a television show.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Apr 28, 2020
This is a story about characters who deny their own humanity and the interpersonal difficulties/impossibilities created by that mentality. If you do not identify (with) this personality aspect, or do not have patience for it, then you will probably dislike these characters and this anime as a result. If you do, the anime could become a personal favorite, leaving you looking toward season 3 as a potentially life-changing event.
The secondary conflicts in the story are interpersonal and "plot"-driven, and if you look to the secondary conflicts (emotional distance, romantic tension and competition) as the main draw of the anime, you will disappointed by the show.
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The general anime trope is to portray these conflicts as between immature and inexperienced people who experience personal growth over the course of the series and successfully address their challenges, even if they can't resolve them positively, which creates an emotional payoff for the viewer.
In contrast, Oregairu goes out of its way to make sure that none of that happens through two entire seasons. The actual primary focus of the story is not the love triangle, rom-dram-com etc. at all - it is instead the intrapersonal and character-driven conflicts created by the brokenness of the main characters. The personal problems challenging the main characters are abnormal. They are mature/developed, pathological mental illnesses - personality disorders - that could affect adults of any age. I don't consider this a personal bias about the show. Hikigaya from the start of season 1 has basically been written straight out of the Schizoid Personality Disorder chapter - a literal textbook example. Season 2's primary development of another main character heavily implies roughly the same about a different disorder, to the extent that I consider getting into specifics to be a significant plot and character spoiler. (For the sake of completeness, I will say that it is unclear whether the other MC is disordered or not. My interpretation is that she is not.)
Viewing the story in this light changes the complexion of the series, and the characters in particular, because the finished, defective products are clearly never going to "advance the plot". Frankly, most people in their situations never "heal". The fundamental issue that causes 2-3/3 of the main characters to be miserable and incompetent is going to stay that way for the rest of their lives, undermining any mental process that could ever change it. Their refusal to act "in their own interest" changes from completely infuriating to completely pathetic. The audience's perspective shifts from PoV character Hikigaya to Hiratsuka, and her action that kicked the series off changes in subtext from "You should have more fun!" to "You are doomed!" Anybody with any kind of interpersonal experience can solve the secondary problems in this series, but arguably nobody has the solutions to the primary problems.
I don't want to portray this series as for a corner case of humanity. Personality disorder is an inherently controversial topic, but the fundamentals are not. For example, while "Schizoid Personality Disorder" is rare (commonly argued to occur in 0% of the population), what we could call "schizoid" thoughts, behaviors, and actions are not. There are times when most everyone will deny that they have feelings and desires to their own detriment, believing so even contrary to evidence or common sense. If something about the way you think, feel, or act is disturbing or interesting to you, Oregairu season 2 in particular is worth a watch. If you feel like some fundamental aspect of your self as a person is consistently ruining your life, then Oregairu is mandatory, priority viewing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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