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BirthdayOct 15, 1997
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JoinedMay 18, 2012

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Mar 24, 2016

Boku dake ga Inai Machi (Anime) add

Recommended

Boku Dake Ga Inai Machi (or ERASED) takes a spot on the suspension of disbelief train by presenting itself as a supernatural-based show with mystery aspects. Satoru is in charge of the supernatural setting of the show by foreseeing the future where something bad would happen, and his natural reaction is to identify the problem and resolve it, thus changing the future. This premise in itself picks the attention of most, as it is not too cliché to be predictable and not to unique to be contested (this encourages the suspension of disbelief). It’s just the way the series presents this premise that actually makes ... it special.

Let’s talk about the story. By going back to the time of his childhood, Satoru gets the opportunity to change his future and reverse the unexplained kidnaps that occurred while he was only a kid. It gets unique – it is a hard task to portray a drama involving kids, kidnaps, abuse and murder all at once, especially because it’s a delicate task to explore these subjects together - when portrayed badly, it gets melodramatic. It’s not the case in ERASED, though. The drama that rounds the show is realistic and gets enough build-up to stand out. It’s not exaggerated and mirrors the reality of our world with unexpected accuracy, while still creating its own unique setting.

One thing that felt relieving was how the story progressed so much after every episode. Writers often like to progress their stories by huge jumps presented after climaxes – the mishaps that change everything and everyone, for good or for worse. ERASED is also unique in this aspect of story writing because the protagonist delivers a plan of things to do and doesn’t waste time in his execution – the feedback after every action is evident. The show delivers the sense of development very well.

Story progression and realistic drama can construct powerful scenes just by themselves. The intelligent (but sometimes quite quirky) dialogues and monologues delivers a base for the viewers to grow attached to the characters. The good pace of the show up until episode 8 (when it gets some rushing problems) makes sure the viewer understands how the story progressed. The incredible use of animation fluidity in combination to sound arrangement (mainly how the show delivers when it gets really quiet to build up ambience) makes the show look lively. By using all of these methods, the series couldn’t miss on its impactful scenes. And it really doesn’t. When it happens, it’s magical.

To build up drama, you need to worry that something might happen – that’s when the predictable aspect of the story turns into something good. From the very beginning, you know who the kidnapper and killer really is – and the show makes it clear that it wants you to know by the amount of hints it gives. Normally, that would be a bad thing, but it’s not, as the build up doesn’t come by the uncertainty of the identity of the killer, it comes by the uncertainty of the moment you think it’s going to reveal itself. You don’t worry who the killer is, you worry when it’s going to attack.

Satoru stands out as a main character because he can’t be inserted easily in any of the protagonist’s clichés we see in today’s story writing except the “hero” category most of us are very used to seeing. He plans his actions beforehand, executes them accordingly and is multi-sided enough to react realistically to the turn of events the story upholds. His backstory isn’t handled very well, though. The relationship he has with his mom gets confusing at times (like it’s a completely different relationship from when he was a kid) and the “superhero” persona he had as a kid (as evident by the mask he has) was poorly presented. Kayo is also a solid character; her closed personality is well explained by how stressful her childhood is.

The side characters shine in ERASED. They are very well written, very well presented, and complete their jobs within the storyline very well. Ken’ya, Sachiko and Airi stand out as they are complex and solid character all around. The villains all have determined reasons to act as they do (even if it’s kind of cheesy on some parts like the hamster and the thick string), and that makes the conflict have reason to exist and helps the viewer to understand it.

Even after so many good dots to point out, the series relied too much on its ending to close out the story progression and couldn’t deliver on it (when it mattered the most). The dialogue on the last parts were confusing and based on concepts that weren’t so well-developed throughout the series (like the father-and-son relationship), and were used only to build some kind of climax that turned out to be cheesy and melodramatic. How the ending unfolded didn’t overall satisfy the quality expected and showed during the series, but it wasn’t awful either.

ERASED succeeded in giving the viewers powerful and realistic scenes, while still maintaining its supernatural composure. Ambience and build-up were spot-on most of the time, and story development/progression was amazing.
ERASED failed mostly on its unexplored concepts (many of which were only mentioned). The adaptation had pacing problems because the content was too vast to fit in only 12 episodes. The inconsistent quality provoked a rushed and uncharacteristically melodramatic ending to the show.
7/10.

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Sep 6, 2015

Tsukimonogatari (Anime) add

Mixed Feelings

After spending alot of time without touching the 'monogatari' suffix, I decided it was time to get my daily dose of insanity by watching Tsukimonogatari. It was kind of a good decision, I guess.

I'll start with the bad points.

Tuskimonogatari (and probably the entire franchise, if that's the right word) has a problem with keeping the viewer's attention, I've come to acknowledge. This is something I've talked to my friends about, and they all share the same problem that is getting lost in the middle of the dialogue only to rewind so they don't miss any important information. It is like this because the pace ... of the show (even though it hardly involves action and/or a very fluid animation) is very fast. The dialogues come in what I like to call "concrete walls", masses of words that never stop coming, and the screenplay is always showing interesting scenarios and viewpoints (for our pleasure or displeasure) that drags the attention away from the information. I think the execution could be alot more interesting if there were pauses between the dialogues.
And I am not mentioning this because I watch subtitled anime, but it certainly doesn't help.

This is a show that starts off without giving much time sense. It's easy for MAL users to understand when it was set by looking at the prequels and sequels, but as a layman it's difficult to situate yourself and acknowledge what has happened and what has not - that's something that also kept my attention off the dialogue while I was searching for clues.

Let’s talk about the first episode, now. It shares a common problem with Nisemonogatari with the pointless fanservice it delivers – one entire episode was gone just to get Araragi’s toe broken while the whole conflict could’ve been delivered with much less screentime and filler (like a tripping scene, for example). All of that so we could spend some time with Tsukihi, an overall bad character, to develop almost nothing. I also take points away for this anime not being a family show. Screw society, I wanna watch this with my friends and family.
I’m not even going to mention how confused I was by the last episode. Not all of it was confusing, but some of it. And hell, it was nothing to be proud about. The show speculated as heck.

I’ll start off with the good points by saying how unpredictable this show is. I think it’s Shaft’s specialty to mess up with people’s minds, and it delivers. Oh, it delivers.
It’s refreshing to get more screenplay on the solid and interesting characters of the series (like Shinobu and Yotsugi, even though the doll-girl is the protagonist here). We got to see a lot of story development and a little character development, something that was pretty lacking in the entire –monogatari series. I’d say Tsukimonogatari did a very good job at situating the entire story, similar as Second Season did, but better.
The art and animation are amazing, as always; I think the sound work could do one thing better. The music playing in the background serves its purpose to add a feeling to the atmosphere/scene, but it’s nothing amazing and the viewers could never recognize the songs if not while watching the show. At least, I couldn’t. It serves much more as an ambient sound for the scene than as a theme that could define the identity of the show.

It was a good installment, probably the best of all of them. And it was enjoyable. I’m looking forward to end this madness as soon as possible.

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Sep 5, 2015

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun (Anime) add

Not Recommended

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun is a show that I was pretty hyped to start watching after ending Majutsu no Index, as I thought it would be cool to get some insight on Misaka's life as a Level 5 and get to know better the world the esper's live in. What I got was nothing like that, at all.

The story is nothing new. At all. There are people who can use powers and this time a whole city is there to develop these. Even though everyone's already full of that premise, doesn't mean you don't have to explain the world build, writers. We only got ... a glance at what its like living in Academy City. The world was never explained. Why the magic users don't appear was never explained. The "Level" system was never fully explained. We saw everything but knew nothing.

This show uses a specific formula to get its story arcs going, usually introducing a new character that has nothing to do with the conflict at the start, and then starts slowly revealing why this one character in fact has everything to do with the conflict. The wrong in the execution of the show is its constant failures to try to hide it. The episode itself tries to be too unpredictable and almost becomes too predictable, you see. It’s funny how this show tries to pretend it’s not based on arcs by constantly remembering you of what happened in the past. These ‘flashbacks’ are unneeded and they only serve to take more screentime.

The story contains many trivial episodes (which is also a screentime problem, like the festival, the visit to the girls dorm, the Judgement investigation episodes of things we already know about etc.) and recycles alot of jokes (like Shirai worshipping Misaka). Not only that, but the filler episodes and the jokes are misplaced, which completely ruins the dramatic mood it tries to develop (just like it happened in the end of episode 22).

The story ends up having too many mishaps and too little reconnaissances. There are twists and turns on the story but it is never truly developed since the end of every conflict has little impact on the characters themselves (like it was all 'just another adventure'). There was never a climax. There was never a point where I was worried any of the characters would get hurt. There was never an experience that involved the viewers worrying or even caring for the characters. I just accepted eveything that happened and moved on, knowing that in the end everything would go well. And it did. That's why I didn't enjoy watching this series.

We got more development to the side characters than to the main cast of girls, while Uiharu was the most developed and by far the worst character of the show. We still know nothing about Misaka's past, which is a shame since she has the most screentime of the entire series, and it feels dull to watch her kicking ass without knowing the conflicts she had to pass to obtain such power. The villains are are absolutely horrible. This is another anime that explains the bad guy's actions by the insanity of their minds, like a human can only be mean if they are out of it. It's cringe-worthy, I'm telling ya.

The art is nothing special. I've seen this style many times, and I don't like the side faces. This is not a judging point, though, I'm just pointing it out, alright?
Animation is okay. Nothing much to complain about.

The sound work is bad. While the fights are going the same singing tune keeps on repeating undefinitely until it's over. The episodes always start with the same calm soundtrack. Each part always has its own music. This show is so preditable that you can even predict which soundtrack is going to play for each scene, and It's not like they are good at all. The music should help the show by adding another feel to the scenes, and not help you to know what's coming up next, lmao.

There are shows with no story that can be enjoyable with good characters. There are shows with bad characters that can be enjoyable with a good story.
But there are no shows with bad stories and bad characters that can be enjoyable. See you in the sequel, Kagaku no Railgun. I hope you learn.

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