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May 14, 2023
A lot is always said about FMAB's position as the top place in this site and how it sometimes looks like it's being fiercely maintained in that place artificially. As of me, I don't really believe in aggregated scores or score numbers. I don't think the numbers really tell you that much. I can give something 10/10 and someone else can give it 10/10 but it doesn't in any way mean we have the exact same opinion. That said, when considering the sort of shows that end up rivaling FMAB's position on the list I think there's only few shows like this one that when
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I see them listed as "#1 of all time", I can't really say "but," . It's not perfect, there might be better animes out there for the niches you like, but I don't think anyone who thinks this is the best anime of all time is particularly wrong.
Here's a list of things that are very difficult to find in an anime or really in any sort of media. And it's certainly really difficult to find all of these things all at once.
- It's a story worth telling, worth sharing with people. I truly believe that everyone should hear this story.
- The world and its mechanics are interesting, compelling and consistent AND also aren't over-complicated.
- There's a vast variety of characters. You'll love the good guys and the people with more neutral variety and you'll love to hate the villains. And you'll love some of the villains. Everyone has unique ideals and goals in the world.
- Strong theming work.
- Action anime where the protagonist doesn't have to become increasingly strong and reach a power creep issue.
- Many of the characters mentioned above are women. And they are all incredibly well written characters AND useful for the plot and some are important during the fights AND none of them is a "mary sue" by any stretch of the imagination.
- Romance is not the focus at all, but there are two really compelling couples that I really love to ship and they get tremendous moments.
- The writing is tight. It's clear that the author knew exactly where the story was actually going. Even minor plot happenings have great pay off eventually.
- It HAS AN ENDING. A proper ending. No stone is left unturned. Characters get their development. Their development gets its pay off. There are no loose ends. Look, when a work is out there trying to claim it's a marsterpiece but also demands forgiveness for having a lackluster ending cause 'endings are hard' , I just think of this show. Endings are hard, but that's what makes good writing and good writers so hard to find. When you find a truly good one, it deserves the praise.
- It gets bleak. It's gets dark. But it also has a positive overall message and its heartwarming and wholesome things.
- Completely flawless set of anime openings and endings that will be part of your playlists forever.
- The fights. are awesome. Plenty of variety in fighting style. "Power level" is never the ultimate thing.
There are flaws , it's only made by human people. The pace at the beginning is a mess, and I do think that watching the first ~20 episodes of the original FMA before watching FMAB will help with the experience a lot. But in the grand scheme of things, I don't think that's really that important. Sometimes comedy happens between very serious moments, I actually think that's a good thing.
I still have to talk about how 'endings are hard'. Many of the shows that have sporadically rivaled this one, come from mangas that have incredibly lackluster endings, downright bad endings or that haven't even ended yet and are a huge question mark. I just have to say it: None of those shows deserve to be compared with FMAB. Those writers should stay off the adults' table. And yeah, I have even loved some of those shows. But the truth is the truth.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 22, 2023
Until now the anime's production earned a reputation of making miracles come true. It was impressive how much of a well-done adaptation Season 3 was considering the various production hurdles. This 'movie' would look like an even harsher challenge, since the announcement frankly came out of nowhere and it was delivered so quickly after season 3. For the most part, this release looks like another miracle. However, this time there are parts of the adaption that have been lackluster and some that are pretty bad.
I won't go into specifics in order to avoid spoilers. But basically, the movie is mainly adapting an arc of the
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manga that's usually competing for the title of the best arc in the manga. And for the most part, the adaption of that material is quite good. In a previous review I used words like 'perfect' or great. But upon a second rewatch and trying to be more analytical about it. It's not really perfect.
There are things to consider. Although it was advertised as a movie. The animation quality is more like a continuation of what you'd seen in the later episodes of season 3. Not bad at all but not exactly what you'd expect in a silver screen release. This is more of a case of the advertising being confusing. As there are parts of the marketing material that really avoid saying the word 'movie'. The more accurate promotions describe it as a "special advance screening before the TV release".
Another aspect is the pace. These are some of the most content-dense chapters and 96 minutes is a rather tight limit. You could say that as such the number of scenes skipped or shortened is understandable. I don't agree with it. I don't think it needed to be released as a movie, and I certainly don't think it needed to be released as a 96-minute movie that also spends too much time teasing another arc between secondary characteres that was not actually going to be properly developed in the movie. There were many ways to adapt this arc differently and avoid these pacing issues.
But the source content is still incredible and there are still many situations where A1 went above and beyond in the adaption. The two main characters are facing their worst inner demons and have to help each other out in order to continue their romantic story. The previous paragraphs were mostly nitpicks, although really the intention is to fight the common claim that this part is 'perfect' and deserves the highest score.
As for the most troublesome part of this movie, after the main arc is finished, the animation production made the bizare decision of adapting a much-later chapter. The transition from the end of the movie's arc to the later chapter is really jarring. And in order to have some context it has to show scenes from skipped chapters as flashbacks or as short moments. All of this is done in less than 5 minutes. This was simply not the correct way to adapt this chapter. Specially because it is a really pivotal chapter in the manga. From what I could see out of anime-onlies, they either missed that there was a strong message there and would instead focus on the better part of the movie or got completely confused by this scene.
So, "mixed feelings". I think most Kaguya-sama fans will enjoy the way the main arc was adapted and will get their fee fees kicked into overdrive and I can recommend that part. As for the end, my recommendation is to not pay a lot of attention to it if you are anime-only and if you are a manga reader, you might like to leave the theater. We can hope that maybe this is a result of time availability issues and that this thing will be corrected as part of re-cutting this release for TV.
A different cut, either making use of a lot more screen time and giving all the arcs adapted justice or sticking to 96 minutes but avoiding wasting time in parts that don't belong to the main arc would have been truly worthy of 9/10. Add Movie-quality animation to that and we would have a good 11/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 29, 2023
The beginning of the review contains no spoilers. In the middle I will start talking about plot details but I will have a warning there.
Basically. After spending quite a lot of time getting really into this manga, to the point it became a weekly habit and everything. I have Mixed Feelings. I think the first half of the manga is really good, the comedy is top notch and the story and romance really goes places. And I wouldn't want people to miss out on experiencing it. Unfortunately, the second half is in general a disappointment. I wouldn't say it's bad, it's just that it never
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really lives up to the expectations you'd get after experiencing the first half.
This makes it a very frustrating thing. I think that's the best word for this manga. Frustrating. It's almost as if it changed authors in-between. There are good parts in the second part. And if you read the first half or watched the anime and really, really want to know where the characters will go from then on, then you are probably going to be fine by reading this, but if you are like me it will leave you with a huge hole in your soul and constantly wondering if perhaps you'd be happier if at some point you just closed the manga and stopped reading.
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Chapter 137 - the end of the culture festival - is where the manga peaks. I think what I like the most is how all the characters have a role in it. The reason Miyuki's plan is impressive is because all the characters had agency of their own and he had to be aware of them. And most importantly, it had heart. It's a climax for both KAguya and Miyuki. This is also the part where readers with the capacity to make basic observations would get the confirmation that Miko was going to be Ishigami's end game, and it's a great moment that makes you revisit what was going on before.
The immediate arc after the culture festival is very good and most people will say it's great. It will also be the main component of the movie. Deservedly so. BUT I have to say this is the moment where the manga loses it's special factor. Akasaka loses the ability to juggle multiple characters anymore and thus since this arc needed to focus on Kaguya and Miyuki's psychological hang ups, it has to put the other characters in the freezer. Even Chika that used to be the special sauce/buffer in their dynamic has to be relegated to a gag about how her family celebrates Christmas. I'm not saying this arc is bad, but that this is where the problem of placing characters in the fridge starts. After that the manga has to switch to Ishigami and Miko's Christmas drama. And once again, this means that all of the other characters have to disappear. Once again, this is an excellent arc by itself, but something is missing.
From then on, the problem will only get worse. It's almost as if the manga splits into different timelines. When it has to focus on a sub-plot the other ones go hibernate. It reaches a ridiculous, laughable point when Ishigami and Miko get an incredible close encounter in chapter 246 only for them to seemingly become amnesiac and the whole thing is forgotten altogether until 22 chapters later when the War Arc is finally over. But there are other examples earlier in the manga: Kaguya and Shirogane have to deal with helping Hayasaka, but during this their romance is only used for the "That thieving harlot" joke. Chika's possible objections to Kaguya and Shirogane's relationship plays no role in the story until it has to be unfronzen for 2 chapters and then once again it's gone until Chika's final chapter. It reaches point of self-parody when characters start literally vanishing from the story in in the "Courtain Call" style 'final chapters', and you realize that characters no longer have any effect on each other. Chika and Ishigami play no role in Kaguya and Shirogane's final chapter, so they might as well not exist in it besides a cameo in the last 3 pages. Osaragi plays no role in Miko's final chapter. Maki plays no role in Ishigami's final chapter. All the plotlines are so isolated from each other at this point that they can only ever interact with each other through nods or jokes or cameos.
But still, like I mentioned the Ice Arc and The Christmas party were great arcs, so maybe having plots be part of each other isn't that much of a big deal. But that's when we have to start talking about the plots themselves. Ishigami's chasing of Tsubame is stretched for far too long. The War arc is a complete waste of readers' time with no emotional payoff where the only lesson is that money solves all problems. I remember spending the time between he release of chapters 241 and 268 first expecting, then praying for Kaguya and Shirogane's relationship to do anything interesting, anything at all, that would match my memories of their culture festival selves or the depth of the Ice Kaguya arc. But nothing.
And then, there's IshiMiko. Oh god, IshiMiko. You know what the problem is with Ishimiko? Akasaka really went really hard with "Show, don't tell", but remember that this plot is put into the freezer constantly, so it's hard to keep the readers' attention on them. The problem with "Show, don't tell" this time is that most people have no idea they were being shown something. If you don't know that you need to look for something, you won't do it. So to a lot of people, their reaction to this story is confusion. And Confused they are. It's been months since this manga ended, and it's incredible to see so many people who still misinterpret the way this ended. I think having so many readers in this state is a sign of bad writing. It had to be said.
The comedy used to be Kaguya-sama's main selling point, but around chapter 180 I would say is the point where it starts fading away. There are still some fun chapters afterwards, but they get increasingly rare. Worse yet, some gags start getting really tiresome and sometimes gags are done in ways that kill character development or conflcit with the plot progression. I'm sure Aka Akasaka thought he was doing well when he wrote chapter 243, but holy cow.
And the Romance. The only problem with the Romance in the later third of the manga is that it doesn't exist. Akasaka becomes so retiscent to showing the slightest hints of romance. Whre you expecting a kiss in the final chapter? Tough luck.
Personally, there are days I just wish I stopped reading at some point and just tried to imagine how it would go on my own instead of reading how it continues. The point varies. Some times it's after the culture festival. Sometimes, it's after the official confession. Sometimes it's after Ishigami finally invites Miko to the dance. But most of the time, I wish I stopped reading before the flashback 'dream' chapter. I wish I closed the manga's tab, left the discord and just stopped reading it and instead tried to imagine on my own what would happen next. Because the manga's official answers always came with additional baggage that I didn't quite enjoy and the answeres were never good enough to be worth the additonal baggage.
Sometimes I rewatch the anime and I'm in awe. I'm constantly like "wtf, this is so good". I remember that at one point I really cared about Miyuki's and Kaguya romance. That it was really well-done. I see Ishigami interact with Miko and there's so many layers. So much potential. I see Tsubame and she's such a nice girl, so I forget for a minute how tired you get of seeing her face. The season 3 Ending Theme plays and you really remember how the promise Miyuki made to Kaguya about drinking the elixir. Any of the 3 opening themes plays and I remember really caring about Kaguya and Shirogane's romance. But I just can't. I see Shirogane asking Kaguya to go with him to Stanford and I try to care about them and yet all I remember is the joke of 267 - Just use your private jet, solve it all with a bank account and carbon emissions. It's all you need in life.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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