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Four girls teaming up for their high school ping pong team doesn’t sound like much, yet this show has proven to be unexpectedly enjoyable to me. The introspections of the main characters are explored to contextualize their decisions and changes in behavior, while the character interactions are delightful and pretty funny at times. This is all accompanied by stellar animation and cinematography. The downside is that this show is on the shorter side, so the story can feel a bit simplistic and we only see the development of a few characters. Also, there’s some additional characters hinted throughout who we don’t actually get to meet, ... which is a bummer since they look pretty cool. Overall, this is a good show to check out.

Good news for readers of the source material! The ending of this adaptation is different and it's in the extra 10 minute episode, so you might enjoy this.

Anyways, this is a decent romance story. It’s about how the main character and his love interests try to make sense of their crisscrossed desires, all the while with fluttering hearts and fluctuating passions. Throughout the plot, these vicissitudes of love are shown with a playful yet thoughtful tone. We see the characters bantering with one another, enjoying their youthful camaraderie in college and at home. We see the pasts of the characters - some distressing, all sentimental ... - that delve deep into their fears and uncertainties and contextualize their actions. We come to see how personalities shift, but more clearly, how the characters slowly change the way they act and think, often spurred by each other.

I like how the story shows that the development of love is not always linear or straightforward, but more often full of cuts, crevices, and U-turns. In addition, some of the more meaningful scenes are subtle instead of melodramatic, a creative decision that I respect. Not to say that there aren’t overflowing tears or emotional outbursts, but they feel well-placed and not too frequent. In this sense, the treatment of romance is relatively mature, so while I haven’t seen much romance stuff, I think this is a good addition to the genre.

Despite these highlights, the show has some issues. There are some parts that feel tacked on and don’t contribute to the rest of the story much. Perhaps more concerning, one person starts off promising in terms of characterization, but her importance to the story isn’t really established and she ends up becoming a bumbling side observer to the core conflict. Also there are many parts that I personally cringed at but you know what, the story ends fine so I’m just gonna ignore them in my adjusted score.

Adjusted score: 7 / 10. Personal score: 5 / 10.

Note: I dropped this because the last few episodes are pretty bad. I still highly recommend that you watch the first two episodes.

This is an anthology series of works from different studios and sources, with a general theme around mythology and superstition. It's more like arthouse animation than conventional shows so be warned! I provide commentary here for the first three episodes, and my overall score of 7 / 10 is based on them.

Episode 1: Nobody (the original English title), or A Little Monsters' Summer (the literal translation of the title)

This is a stellar work from start to finish, and it easily warrants a 10 ... / 10. Created by the legendary Shanghai Animation Film Studio, this story is a twist on the tale of Journey to the West, which traditionally follows a band of four iconic protagonists. Instead, here you see the tale from the villains' point of view, showing their preparations for numerous schemes to capture the original protagonists in the days before their arrival. The story combines this with a harsh lens of modern society: it draws parallels between the monster underlings to today's workers, examines the difficult demands of the monster kingdom, and mixes in a brief touching portrayal of family. Within this story, you will likely find a sincere reflection of your life and a sense of optimism in the message.

The art is stunning. There is great cinematography work (e.g., layout of scenes), good mix of different animation styles, and traditional ink-style backgrounds that all enhance the immersion of the story. Props to the sound design and voice acting too (apparently one recorded dialogue is directly taken from the classic 1986 Journey to the West TV show).

Episode 2: Goose Mountain (the original English title), or Goose Goose Goose (the literal translation of the title)

You are a traveler carrying geese to a village. As you walk through the rarely-trodden mountain path flanked by sharp cliffs, you encounter a mysterious man on the road with a sly face. (Basically Ozu from the Tatami Galaxy.) He wants you to carry him up to another mountain. What do you do?

This is interesting. It's definitely more abstract than episode 1, but is more restrained and figurative. The meaning / message is hard to grasp, but the story will leave you with some emotions. There's no dialogue - only title cards in the style of silent films of the past. The pacing is likely inspired by French and German animation (e.g., Filmbilder & Friends) but the art maintains an ink-wash aesthetic. Overall, it's very stylized, but at the cost of being more opaque story-wise, so it gets a 7 / 10.

Episode 3: Shewolf (the original English title), or Lin Lin (the literal translation of the title)

This one is about a wolf who can turn into a girl called Lin Lin. It basically explores her relationship with the villagers living near the forest. There's not that much to the story, and the themes hinted throughout are shallow and inadequately explored. What's more, I felt the animation was a bit lacking, especially the facial designs of the humans, which look very off-putting. The narration is also cringe. This is the weakest episode so far, so it gets a 4 / 10.

If you are familiar with the Little Monk Yi Chan, A Si and Xiao Ling Dang, or Xiao Li and Hu Po series on Bilibili, you will like this since this show is basically a different version of them. If not, I still recommend it. It's funny, adorable, and just awesome. It’s partly slice of life but there's some overarching direction in the plot as you gradually meet more characters.

Here, I just want to talk about episode 10, which is one of my favorite episodes of all time. It somehow provides social commentary on fraudsters all while using twists on the classic wuxia genre. For ... example, there’s a sword that sometimes doubles as a telephone, rabbit-like creatures which are hilariously called rice balls, a mentally challenged guy who simps for a girl and who himself looks like Rapunzel, and a little angry fox girl. I found the episode to be wholly enjoyable in an extraordinarily concise manner. It's perhaps even revolutionary, I would say.

Adjusted score: 7 / 10. Personal score: 5 / 10.

Spoilers here.

So CSM Part 1 is a mixed bag for the humble review writer, yours truly. Its art is great and it helped to kickstart a new trend / style of character design illustrations on social media, so bonus points for that. It presents some themes nicely, like the value of connections to others, the consequences of desire (e.g., the whole mouse shenanigans), and the need to accept the bad parts of life. Also, a shoutout to how some of the panels were laid out. Two panels particularly stand out: the super thin panel with the library, and the one when the characters stretch out ... their arms towards the darkness devil in the center.

But:

- Personally, I think the narrative isn’t exactly balanced. Sometimes it really feels like the whole story is just one single thing happening without stop when there’s panels and panels of battles and gore and anarchy, all set to a metronome. The truly contemplative moments are a bit too few to be sufficient breathers, and besides that there’s only some brief flashbacks and ofc s*x.

- Another reason for this imbalance is that the build-up isn’t exactly the most convincing. At times, the story constantly alternates between high and low adrenaline, so much so that it becomes a pattern. Also, some moments are truly Poof! in-your-face and they felt like utter noise as a result.

- The story also falls flat in a specific aspect: how it handles deaths. In a story where people drop dead like flies, all the deaths pretty much feel the same, even if the story wanted a death to make us cry. Also there’s this thing where some characters can be reborn at certain times (is this called plot device? Idk), so death kinda becomes meaningless and you wouldn't know when to be sad or not. But how can a story change this? One way is to introduce the characters better. Don't just show them dying: show who they are too to balance it out. Unfortunately many of the attempts to do this felt either half-assed or last-moment-ish, and the only character the story really introduced well is Aki.

- So overall, the narrative is on the messy, muddled side.

- I said above that the characters aren’t exactly introduced well. So yeah sometimes they become caricatures. To make their characterization deeper, let them talk more to each other or think more to themselves! And not with the weird dialogue that this manga has sometimes. Aki did this and he ended up being the relatively strongest character.

- There are some truly weird scenes that are supposed to be goofy and stuff. Characters argue about the stupidest things while people are being ripped apart. Later on there’s this restaurant scene where the MC in his devil form just randomly kills the restaurant workers if they ever make him even a little bit annoyed, and again this scene is supposed to induce a laugh. It’s true that the author probably wanted to give his work a little comedic twist, but I personally just find such moments plain stupid. And it’s not like they have any narrative importance.

- I’m not exactly a fan of the playful focus on the MC’s s*x life but it’s thematically important so I can’t complain. Just thought I’d mention it here.

Is that everything? I think that’s everything. I can’t think anymore. Hmm.

Ok. Thanks for spending your time reading this. Remember to subscribe!

I was hoping the rest of the anime would be like the first two episodes - heck, even like 3 and 4 if possible. They had interesting dialogue, pacing, and overall direction, and their focus on the juxtaposition between the fairy tale-like setting and the realities of the human world was what initially drew me in. But alas, this was destined to not always be the case, as the later episodes devolved into weird timeline shuffling and turned to explaining more Watashi's past instead of the much more interesting intersection between the story and the myriad of curiosities of a society in decline.

Granted, 'tis but ... merely one opinion. But I stand by my belief that the show lost its distinctive flair and style as it went on. Perhaps it's merely that I like satire just a little too much, and so when the show tried to balance it out with the good ol' schoollife intricacies and whatnot I just got a tad bit disapppointed. Perhaps.

Merci d'avoir lu ceci.

A nice glimpse into the world of desires, hopes, of meaningful experiences and of moving on. This is a true expression from the artist, and a tribute to the world of creations and the creative process.

In our transient life, we can only do so much. Will we end up with wishes about our past, about what we could have done differently? Of course. But sooner or later we must move on. This is a common theme, but in this work it’s expressed beautifully, not least because the story decided to portray what a person has already done as a source of motivation for the future.

Also ... present in this work is a strong sense of pace. The pace of the exchange and progression of minute moments. It is this element that makes the story feel quite immersive when following along and definitely helps with the overall clarity.

What follows is some criticism of certain sequences, followed by some praise to try to balance the negative tone out. In these sequences depicting the slow pace and the dedication required of art-making, like when a character sits without change for successive panels, these shots are copy-pasted rather than each drawn on their own. I noticed this from seeing that even the breaks in the floor lines are the exact same. First of all, this would become obvious to anyone with a sharp eye, who would then proceed to wonder at the discrepancy of effort between the pasted panels and all the other detailed scenes. And so the artist will have revealed their apparent neglect on this matter. Second, if the artist was so attentive to effort in the entire work, why did they cut corners in these sequences? What the artist wishes to convey is the value of the process and of creation, but having this difference with the pasted sequences undermines that message. Third, it is understandable that the background remains the same in this type of scene, but even the creases on the character’s shirt are identical throughout the scene. The scene represents a passage of time, albeit a very tedious one, and in this time flow the character ought to move, if even a bit. All three points considered, the presence of copy-pasted shots is a relatively minor but still undeniable oversight by the creator. (Whew, that was a lot of words.) Aside from this, however, other scenes are memorable, particularly the ones in which a character also stays the same throughout several panels but are also juxtaposed against contrasting backgrounds.

In short, Look Back is a respectable work that, through meaningful visual moments, presents a message. Brief may it be, its effects are not. Thanks for your time.

You see, my 5 / 10 is actually a favor to this show. Only I know how many times when I (tried to) watch the second half of the movie I actually went like "What the actual ____?” Really, and held my hands out too. Holy mother of trucks. Won’t talk about art - pretty good KyoAni. Sound - not distracting but not super awesome.

The first half was quite good. How Ishida gets alienated and his first steps at coping with and overcoming it is relatively convincingly presented.

In the second half it gets… um... how about downhill? Yeah. Well it might not be as bad ... as how I imply but to tell you the truth my brain exploded several times with the amount of weird stuff happening later on in the story. I fail to see some parts’ relevance to the overall overcoming-emotional-obstacle plot. The film technically could have ended way before the actual ending. Some parts are so weird that I can’t even begin to describe why I felt they are that way. Oh my gosh. I was in ____ing disbelief during the whole ending. I want to cry. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Personally, the movie’s biggest detractor is how it focuses on the battle between Nishimiya and Ueno, or what is quite literally the main character’s harem. Why do we need to see the conflict if the story begins to lose focus on the story it presents the best, which is Ishida’s process of development? Sure the movie wants to portray how the side characters change themselves but the whole narrative is from Ishida’s point of view so overly focusing on the trials and tribulations of these side characters during their change is distracting.

There’s other problems but… somehow I can’t put them down into words. And you might ask: so ilalochezia, why have you written this review? Well, I don’t know and I don’t care. I just want a space to publicly reveal my vomit caused by viewing the movie. Not that it’s really bad, like 1 / 10 or even 3 / 10 bad, but somehow it’s the worst of the ‘average’ works I’ve ever seen.

Sigh. A big sigh. I’m sorry (actually can’t bring myself to apologize anymore now after the insane amount of times gomenasai is used in the film) that I have to have you read my exploded brain matter on the screen.

Ah, so this is life. Being frustrated yet being conflicted about that frustration because I’m simply toooo frustrated.

If you didn’t like this review that’s okay. Thanks for your time.

Fun and imaginative, this show has been a joy to watch. A bold but unassuming spin on ancient tales, Fei Ren Zai is a paragon of opposites: it merges tradition with modernity, features a minimalistic art style and palette but also one of the smoothest animation you may ever find, and is brief but feels so full of content that you’ll want to come back for more. I myself was hooked on this show for a long time.

I believe that Fei Ren Zai is one of the better slice-of-life shows you can get. No banality, no weird fan service (yay for once) - just pure ... silliness and creativity. This is truly a show for everyone, and I highly recommend this.

Adjusted rating: 7 / 10. Personal rating: 6 / 10.

Minor spoilers alert (no plot points spoiled, just some very general stuff).
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Overall, while I think that this show has many flaws, I personally respect it for its overall messages.

The flaws:

- Given the nature of the premise, there probably are a lot of plot-holes. I’m not aware of any, but I think some people might have pointed some out. Regardless, I won’t mention them due to spoilers, but I just want to get the obvious flaw out here first.

- The over-reliance on shock value. This show probably has the most cliffhangers I’ve seen. Characters are laughing, the ... audience is smiling, and Boom! A cliffhanger. Usually, the mood does a complete 180° from whatever it is you’re enjoying to destroying your peace of mind. There’s no build-up or anything to the cliffhanger and no hints are dropped. The result: this maneuver comes off as cheap, unplanned, and manipulative. Some cliffhangers are so quick that they don’t even make you scared, but only make you go “what was that!?” And the worst part?

- Too many cliffhangers = they became predictable. For the later episodes, I was SURE that they would have a cliffhanger, and guess what? They did. Maybe I shouldn’t have done this, but come on I really couldn’t help thinking about it. And it ruined some of the experience.

- You can’t really tell whether this story is supposed to have a direction, and if yes, what kind. Is it about separate heartwarming arcs that don’t tie into each other that much, or is it about this grand mystery plot? There’s no sense of direction – it’s all muddled. As the audience, we don’t know what to expect (in the bad way) and the story can become confusing. This confusion is made worse by the non-stop switching-back-and-forth-between-slice-of-life-and-thriller.

- The sound quality is bad sometimes – you could HEAR that the voices were recorded in a studio. They also make some lines sound real cheesy. I usually don’t comment on voice acting, but I have to here.

The good:

- One character gets some character development, and they are none other than the black-haired boy, Cheng Xiaoshi. He’s the only one that has his background shown, and he changes from this annoying dude to someone more self-aware about his flaws. The specific scene when Cheng Xiaoshi develops is quite well presented and creative (I remember even the screen ratio changed), and it definitely speaks volumes about the hidden talent that the producers have (but unfortunately fail to use fully).

- About the art, I have nothing but general praise. Lighting and color were great, and backgrounds were consistent in their level of detail. CGI is really sparse and not distracting. Quite a few of the shots have a reflective quality to them, especially ones with flat surfaces like floors and tabletops. The basketball game particularly stood out, and so much that I recommend watching that game just by itself even if you are not planning to finish the entire show. A minor nitpick would be that characters’ faces look slightly different in their shape and layout between far and close-up shots, resulting in a hint of inconsistent art that some might call ugly.

- There are two good underlying meanings that I like:

- Normally, time travel stories demonstrate that time travel is necessary to solve all your problems. But Link Click also says that we don’t need time travel. Sometimes, we must learn to accept the bad parts in life. We can’t erase them because they are a part of who we are.

- This one is kind of meta since it directly connects to us. You know how the MCs dive into photos? Like they’re some kind of gateway into lives? Well, quite literally photos are gateways to what makes us human. It repeatedly shows how photos are reminders of our important moments and experiences, and that we should look at photos to gain a better understanding of ourselves and to move forward in life. At the very end of the extra episode 5.5, there is a sequence of montages in which real-life photos showing key memories of Internet users are depicted one by one. This sequence ends with the statement that no matter the emotional context (mostly), our photographs show how we are remarkable in each of our ways. We should not be afraid to show the true side of ourselves in these photographs to the outside world (mostly). Now, that’s a great message. It really strikes home for me and makes a lasting impression.

- Lastly, I cannot help but gush about the opening and ending songs and sequences. All of them are pretty cool, not least the animated finger-tutting in the opening. They have really been a joy to watch and hear.

Comments on the iffy parts (but no penalty to the show):

- How the time travel works and who started the photo shop are some unanswered questions. Explaining them could help make the story’s background feel more ‘real’. If there were to be only one season, I would’ve been okay with this ambiguity, but with the announcement of the second season, I can’t help but suspect that there will be a looong info-dump later on.

- Implausibility is an interesting criticism. It’s usually not valid if it’s about an underlying mechanic (e.g., time travel) since this is fiction we’re talking about, but it can be valid if it’s about the choices that characters make. Unfortunately, in this show those two scenarios interact to create a couple of unconvincing moments to me. But I don’t know which part I should criticize and which I shouldn’t, so I’ll just leave it as a tie.

- I personally don’t like semi-realistic characters making faces like > _ < or • _ • all of a sudden (unless they’re in a moe form). Whenever they do that, you automatically know it’s going to be a Funny Scene™. What’s more, it just feels jarring. Or maybe I just like realistic, mature shows too much. Poor me.

I must stress and re-stress the fact that a rating is nothing much more than a mere number, and what matters is that YOU watch it and YOU experience all that this show makes you go through. A rating is arbitrary, but your experience is not (wow so cheesy). And that’s what individual scores really are. Different people feel different ways about a show and then proceed to hammer a number that they felt was right onto their thoughts.

Thanks for reading this review, in part or in whole. Until then…