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Spring of Birth is the first in the series of anime films that adapt the story of Persona 3. I was worried when I initally watched it, about how they were going to take an overarching video game story, and split it up into four 90 minute movies. The end result isn't perfect; this first movie definitely has pacing issues. Specifically, it feels akin to a drawn out "set-up" prologue that just explains the world and what the hell things like the dark hour and shadows are. Which is basically what it is--this first movie adapts the first portion of the game's story, up to ... the point when Fuuka joins the SEES. In an attempt to turn what would've been "exposition - the movie" into an a movie that can stand by itself, they put focus onto both the development of Makoto (the protaganist), an an unusually apathetic guy who doesn't care if he lives or die, and the substory in Persona 3 surrounding Fuuka's bullying problems.

They set up Fuuka's bully issues with Natsuki, as well as the overgrowing issue that Makoto struggles to (or rather just can't) feel emotions, as the throughlines of the movie. The two intertwine, and form a pretty decent overarching narrative that gets resolved by the movie's end. The end result, while not perfect, works well enough, and results in a deeply entertaining adapation; it sets up the world of Persona 3 itself, and the base premise, while wrapping up it's own internal conflicts, so that things to normality for the protaganists for the sequel.

Honestly, I feel like most critics and fans are too harsh on this movie. It's often critised for it's slow crawl in the overarching P3 story. But most people either overlook or disregard the movie's connected story themes of suicide, teenage bullying, & psychological apathy towards death, which form a complete resolution by it's closer; albiet a resolution that is simply a substory in the greater narrative of Persona 3. The notion that this movie "has no plot" or "has nothing going for it" is absolute hogwash, to be honest.

I adore the way they adapted Makoto's "silent protaganist" character, I also think the atmophere of the movie works extremely well. Fuuka is one of my favourite P3 characters, and her bullying issues; as well as Makoto's character arch too, fit extremely well with Persona 3's blatant symbolism surrounding teenage sucide (Persona users need to "shoot themselves" in the head with their evokers to summon their personas). All in all, it comes together to form a very decent movie, that is essentinally a "mean girl" bullying storyline set in a world full of supernatural goings on, where the bullying gets dragged into the events the protaganist & co. are going through. It can stand on its own, seperate from both it's sequels and the game it was adapted from. It's far from the best written example of a bully storyline, but honestly, the relationship between Fuuka and her bully by the end of the movie legitimately touched me; not to spoil anything.

I'd legitimately recommand this to anyone who wants a movie that deals with that kind of thing, even if they're a none Persona fan. Just bare in mind that it's story isn't complete, as it's one big overarching story spread over it and it's three sequels.

The Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice (or Gyakuten Saiban 6) prologue is a really good introduction to the sixth main series Ace Attorney game. It does a solid job of setting up what needs to be known, for both returning fans, and first timers as well. It's also the first proper reintroduction of fan favorite Maya Fey, now all grown up into a adult, although first timers will likely be a little confused if they hop in completely blind, as to a lot of who she is and what her and certain characters are talking about, since it's based on already long established lore. ... But you really shouldn't be jumping into the series at this point anyway. I'd definitely recommend at least checking out the Gyakuten Saiban: Sono "Shinjitsu", Igi Ari! anime, which covers quite a bit (if not all) of Maya's backstory within it, if you don't want to play the actual games that come before.

Anyway, overall this is a solid prologue. It reintroduces the important characters, introduces the important new ones, sets up the concepts that fuel the game, and generally just does what it's meant to in a well executed manner. My only real complaint is why this wasn't included in the actual game. Which instead starts by throwing you straight into the events that happen following the prologue, without telling you about anything that happened in it.

"Why does it exist" is really the only way I can think to describe this anime. For a simplistic slice of life anime about a group of friends trying to start their own band, it's perfectly fine. Not anything special, and incredibly inoffensive. But fine. You can sit down, watch it, and you don't feel like it's a chore to do so. But at the same time, it's not going to blow you away. It's obvious that this anime's primary purpose is to be one element in a multimedia project, spawning an idol group, the game, ect, and that's really all it is. It does ... everything you expect, and it does it in a decent enough way, but it's all stuff you'd be expecting. It has heart behind it, but that heart is cliched in itself.

I may seem like a broken record here, but that's really because I can't think of much else to say. If you enjoy the BanG Dream! game, or the songs by the real life groups that spawned from the project, then you'll likely like the anime. It's the characters you like from one of the bands, doing band like stuff, and becoming friends. If you're planning to just watch the anime, do yourself a favor, and don't make it a "drop everything and look forward to watching this" thing. The best way to watch it would be casually, in between the things that have your complete focus. In that sense the anime is enjoyable, but don't expect anything more out of it.

I really wanted to love this manga, which is why I stuck around for so long. It started off solid enough, with an interesting (if cliched) set up. The best thing this manga has going for it is it's message. Because, contrary to what you may initially believe, or what you may see people assume after having read a chapter or so, the manga does not take an entirely one-sided stance on whether "online bonds" are real bonds or not. It dissects what it truly means to have an honest, personal relationship, both with people you know in the real world, and also those you ... have met online. It wants you to look at how you treat other people, and what you display to those you consider a "friend". Can, in actuality, you find bonds that are stronger then those towards people close at hand, over the internet? Is it possible for online friends to be bound with you by fate, wheres people in the "real world" simply don't care if you live or die? What would you do if you couldn't unfollow that one person on your social media, because if you did, you would die alongside them, making the two of you bond via your online relationship?

It is interesting to imagine yourself in the situation, and to wonder, "what would happen to me? Do these people I know online actually, truly, matter to me as people? Do I matter to them as a person? What'd happen if my life literally depended on theirs, and theirs on mine?". But unfortunately no amount of messages and an interesting set up can save Real Account from the utter mess that it turned into. Bare in mind there's there's some very vague mentions of the direction the narrative heads in here, but it's important to say this to give the idea of why I'm rating this pile of crap so low. After a while the manga begins to shift gears, and not at all in a good way. What was at first an interesting, if bizarre, psychological horror, changed into a ridiculous, over the top, free for all story line, with the death game suddenly spilling out into the real world around Japan, and the players being hunted down by civilians all desperate to make a quick buck by killing whoever they can.

The illogical holes, and utter chaos just completely fall in on themselves. There's no rhyme or reason to what's going on with the world around the characters, which despite having a death game going on with innocent people getting killed by mobs on the street, seems to be operating like nothing is going on. The police and the Japanese Self Defense Force are also nowhere to be seen, and don't seem to care about trying to help in any way. this is probably intentional as there's hints that there's some big conspiracy behind everything but so far there's been nothing explaining why there's no authority figures trying to sort out what's going on. It didn't seem out of place when everyone was in the "Real Account Dimension", since there's not a whole lot that could be done at that time, but after things spilled out into the real world, it becomes a bit glaring that they're not even bringing up that there doesn't seem to be any type of authority trying to help the players or stop the death game from continuing.

And this is just one of many issues. I won't go into all of them, but needless to say there's just way too many stupid elements, or elements which they're leaving hanging, and the manga isn't satisfying the craving for answers to them. That's if they even have the answers to them in the first place. It's gotten to a point where I just can't be bothered to continue on reading in the vein hope that they actually explain everything. What had previously invested me into the manga is no longer there, and the claustrophobic feeling that the death game previously had is no longer there.

A harem element has also been forced in for next to no reason. I didn't read Real Account to see a guy gain a harem, yet the manga seems insistent that this is what the readers want to see, constantly forcing the angle. Romance is fine, but even the early chapters felt like it was being far too forceful with this, and it just got worse after the 30 chapter mark. There's also forced yuri. Although I may be a fan of yuri, I didn't sign up to Real Account to see a girl perversely check out another girl's body, with the narrative excuse being that she's looking for a mark-of-death. Narrative elements in the last 10 or so chapters I read kept forcing fan service into every corner, with narrative excuses for why it's there. Why are they in swim suits in a spa, surrounded by women in bikinis? To blend in of course! Why did they strip naked? To use their clothes as stepping stones! (which doesn't make any sense but I won't get into that) How can we have one of the female cast wear skimpy clothes while erotically peeing to satisfy all the urolagnia readers? It's a prank by a kid! Yeah, it just got way too much, and the last straw for me was when chapter 54 (44, excluding the ones before the number reset) had an part where a young girl was being spanked as punishment for trying to murder the three mains. Not only is the entire idea surrounding it stupid in the first place (what little kids would suddenly become murderers over the prospect of the equivalent of just 8800 dollars, and why is it just brushed off with the manga basically going "look at the naughty kids about to MURDER three innocent strangers for money, they deserve a spanking"), but it's also disturbingly sexualised. Then halfway through the next chapter when it become clear that it was focusing on trying to force more of it's harem bull down our throats (the entire notion of which in the chapter came out of left field,), I just completely had enough and stopped reading. I could honestly forgive the "romance" element being so forced in if it had at least been handled well, but it isn't at all. It does what all the bad manga and animes (and fiction in general) that try and have this "group of people who all love the same person" thing do. It tries to have it's cake and eat it, trying to ship tease for every possible pairing while still attempting to have genuine heart and love at the core of the romance, the two of which don't gel together at all. Pick something and stick with it, I can't take it seriously when you're expecting me to care enough for someone's feelings towards a person, when it's clear the writers themselves can't give less of a crap.

And this is a running theme. The writers just seem to be doing whatever the hell they want to now, and this comes across glaringly in the complete mess that the story's become. There's zero sense of a solid direction in anything, including narrative elements, character relations, them knowing what they even want the character relations and narrative threads to be...Nothing gels at all any more. It's a complete shame, because I was really enjoying the manga to a point. It wasn't anything special, but it was a solid idea, with a serious (if bizarre and fantastical) horror theme, which made me genuinely horrified at times. But after the direction it spiraled into, I can't at all find myself to like reading it any more, let alone take it the least bit seriously as a "psychological horror".