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Jul 30, 2018
Story 10/10
Of course the stories are good, they're written by Junji Ito for goodness sake! He's the best horror manga writer of all time and this anime practically made him into a comedy. If anything I'll use this space to just repeat again: Junji Ito is a fantastic writer and a lot of his works actually make my skin crawl they're so creepy and vivid- but this anime was a far cry from that. Saying the art is pathetic is an understatement. I was wondering eagerly how they would transfer Junji Ito's creepy style into animation like "Are they going to make it all black
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and white? Is it going to be really sketchy, pencil-line style? Is it-" No. Just no. They barely tried. It looks as generic as some random high-school anime (no offense to people who like generic high school anime but it just doesn't suit horror at all). I think the series would've benefited so much from just being in black and white. It also felt like they modernized some of it? I liked the manga because it sort of played to the same western slasher aesthetic (even though the manga probably came first) but that whole energy was just gone? They really missed the mark on this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Jul 30, 2018
When I read the description I kind of hoped that it'd be a series that was turned on its head, like yeah old people can fight too! You're never too old to achieve your dreams! When actually the episodes were just one sob story after another. I mean, by the end of it it was just another "this is how grim the world is" series that you don't really get anything inspiring out of. I mean, it didn't end happy for the sake of trying to get a second season but considering the animation was choppy, the story made no sense, a lot of things
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went unexplained, and the characters were too miserable to pity, I would hope this doesn't get a second season. The best part about it was the opening song but honestly, I wouldn't recommend this series to anybody.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Dec 6, 2017
Such as most of my reviews for anime I'll start off by saying I saw a gif from this movie on tumblr and once I realized that it was a NEW Studio Ghibli movie, of course I was going to watch it without question. I'm pretty sure I didn't even read the summary of the movie before I dove in, that is how deep my faith in Studio Ghibli runs. Though the movie starts out on a strong note, it tuckers itself out after a short period of time.
There was a red flag within the opening scene when during a crisis (i won't spoil what
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happens), the main character is helping people out, which was good because it showed us he is a decent guy- HOWEVER we aren't shown anything he is thinking. During the most major scenes (though beyond this there isn't many) we are given no hint as to what the protagonist is thinking or feeling or anything! The lack of insight into the protagonist's head proves to be a very frustrating and reoccurring problem throughout the film. A protagonist should have stronger emotion and bigger reactions to things or else they're no different from an NPC in a video game. It just sets itself up to be boring.
It's from my understanding that the story is inspired by a real man, which wouldn't be so bad had the man been...well...interesting. When you look into fact versus fiction in this movie, a chunk of it didn't really happen which only begs the question why they didn't just choose somebody else to base it off of or just make a fictional work and scrap the biography idea entirely. I don't want to come off as mean but this movie was genuinely boring. Boring, boring, boring. The only thing to really grab onto in this movie is the romance, which is kind of uninspiring and short-lived. The wife is sick, very rarely speaks and isn't really given that much attention. She seems to just be a tool for sadness' sake and not actually a fully fleshed out character as I'm used to with Studio Ghibli. When she does speak its usually something important, but still, not much dialogue. In fact, this movie as a whole doesn't have much dialogue at all.
There is a montage in the middle of the movie that goes on for an extended period of time where nobody talks and it just lapses through the protagonist and his future wife falling in love, as well as some random dude who says all of 2 lines and then isn't seen ever again for the rest of the film. He was a sore thumb for an otherwise pleasant (albeit long and kinda boring) romance montage and didn't serve any purpose aside from "encouraging the main character to fall in love" which didn't really make any sense considering how little we knew about this character before he ultimately disappeared. With such little dialogue its can be very confusing to figure out what is going on throughout the film.
The animation and sound in the movie is, much like every Studio Ghibli movie, extremely well done. In fact I'd go on a limb and say The Wind Rises has the best art in any movie I've seen since Spirited Away. This doesn't make up for the boring atmosphere and lackluster plot but it didn't hurt it any more or any less. Overall I'd say that this movie's art should have been put to better use, perhaps on a more interesting and compelling storyline instead of the life of an extremely average man who doesn't really do anything and barely even speaks.
To recap: animation/sound is stellar, reoccurring problems include: lack of insight to the main character, lack of dialogue, and lack of Ghibli magic. The film is heartless and I wouldn't really recommend it at all though with its reputation I imagine you'll watch it anyway to try and prove me wrong. Good luck!
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Dec 6, 2017
Domain of Murder is an interesting anime to say the least. The audience is somewhat thrown into the story and are given the same clues to work with as the private investigator which I thought was pretty fair. As a 'psychological' anime it does fulfill that role and deals with some serious questions about the grey area of morality (specifically analyzing the concept of sacrifice to save another) and by the end you are left with the general message that the decisions we think are easy may end up being ones we regret for the rest of our lives, which is pretty damn psychologically mind
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boggling for a half hour movie. However, the movie had its ups and downs from the start.
The art style is what you would expect of for an anime of this era so there are no complaints on that front, and the sound is a bit grainy but again, expected. The characters are fairly enjoyable, unique from each other, and have intriguing goals/motives that the audience can tell from the short amount of screen time they had. Now here comes the bad news - they completely blew the arc of the story. Just as things were coming together and the mystery was getting deeper, one character suddenly reveals a VERY important detail that they "forgot" to mention earlier, despite how very clearly important it was to the case. Not only this, but that fragment of the case could've been revealed in several different ways, but for the character to brush it off like "oh right I forgot to tell you that the killer told me who his next target was" is a *little* frustrating on its own, let alone how nonchalantly the character brings it up. This struck me as a lazy way of keeping the plot going but at the very least the movie didn't end on that note.
The climax of the anime takes place in a theme park and was genuinely well played out in terms of twisting your mind and sort of making you sick/sad. To be as general as possible, they bring in two snipers who claim they aren't capable of taking the shot, the one man who doesn't want to take it is the only one who knows he can, and the decision of whether to pull the trigger is left to a character who thought the decision would be much easier said than done. The wrap up shortly after the climax is a bit too mushy for my taste but I'm hard to impress when it comes to endings.
Overall, I think it was worth the watch! I give it a 6 out of 10 because, though I found it intriguing as a whole, I wouldn't place it as one of the best I've ever watched. I'd definitely recommend it to those who enjoy this style of anime or perhaps a sample of psychological anime for those who are wondering if they might like the genre, but don't want to sit through an entire series.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Dec 5, 2017
I started watching the series because it sounded similar to a story idea that I had previous to hearing about the series. Honestly, if it had turned out to be exactly the same as what I had imagined I might've enjoyed it more, but as it seems they were two very different ideas. The concept of a friendly ghost within a series is always pretty intriguing as it can be used as a very good way to flesh out a character who feels "haunted" or perhaps literally is haunted. Anohana was the latter, and the protagonist was being followed around by a childhood friend of
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his who, in case you haven't realized it, died when she was young. The girls name is Meiko and she has returned because she has unfinished business and needs help figuring out what needs to be done in order to grant her wish and let her enter the afterlife. The series must cover some pretty sensitive stuff and touch the audience's heart in a very emotionally connecting way, right? Not really.
Anohana set itself up to fail as a series that makes Meiko out to be "the girl that everyone loves", "every girl wants to be Meiko", "every boy wants to date Meiko", among other ridiculous things. This wouldn't have been so bad if they had at least explained WHY everybody liked her so much or at least toned down a bit. It seems as if they assumed the audience wouldn't have been sad about a child dying unless they stress how popular she was, which isn't really true. A simple "our childhood friend died and it all upset us because she was so young and we all cared about her" would've sufficed instead of the dragged-on parade about how great she was and how jealous everybody was of this literal toddler.
When a character like Meiko gets set up to be the greatest human to have ever lived, it's kind of like a pie in the face when you are actually introduced to her. She isn't that great, she is very annoying, and it is hard to feel bad for her when things go wrong because of these things. However, Meiko isn't exclusive to being the only annoying character in the series. All the other characters except for Tetsudou seem to be malicious for absolutely no reason. Like at worst if you bring up a dead loved one, the surrounding people will either get quiet, maybe get a bit angry or ask you to change the topic. No, these characters go as far as pranking the protagonist into thinking she is still alive by dressing up as her and wandering the woods for a few days JUST BECAUSE they are "so angry" with the protagonist for bringing her up after all those years. In case you happen to be new to this world, that is what we call "over the top" and "not very believable". Honestly the scene was supposed to be sad but I couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous it was. But it doesn't end there.
Romance seems to be thrown into the series randomly which, not to be blunt, shouldn't have been a priority in a story that starts with a group of 6 year olds. In fact, the reason Meiko dies has something to do with romance that is once again hard to believe and not that sad. There is a subtle romance between every guy and Meiko, and a jealous fit between every girl and Meiko that I personally didn't care about. At all. The amount of times characters literally say "I wanted to be her" is unsettling and obsessive to a point where I can't really say I liked any of the characters. But referring back to my main point, the romance was wishy washy, pointless and I would've preferred literally anything else in its place.
After an enormous amount of time getting the characters to all sit in one room together without explosive amounts of drama, they get together to accomplish the one wish that Meiko wants. It takes a lot of time, money, effort and quite a bit of screen time but they eventually finish it and find out that it wasn't what Meiko wanted. But luckily, the characters grew closer as friends because of the bond they rebuilt making this big waste of time and are now all friends again....WRONG. They once again go back to bickering. It kind of makes you wonder if they would've stayed friends anyway regardless of if Meiko had lived or not. I won't give spoilers but the series ends with everything all wrapped up and everything is fine again, but a lot of the series gives off the vibe of "was this all worth the effort?" to which the answer was usually "no".
To wrap up a big review I'll just say this series, in my opinion, was much like Meiko. Advertised as the literal greatest thing to have ever walked the earth... but ended up being annoying and played out for too long.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Dec 5, 2017
Story 6/10
I'm usually drawn towards series with premises that I haven't heard of before and I've been looking for a new battle royale anime to watch. In this aspect it partially succeeded - it was a battle royale but it doesn't really seem to focus too much on that. Any given episode mostly focuses on interpersonal problems within the characters, which is interesting but I would prefer some more info on the battle itself considering the audience is just told "we hold a battle royale every year for some reason" and not much else is mentioned about it. This results in a confusing story that
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focuses too much on sob-stories instead of getting to the details the audience really wants to know.
Art 2/10
Noticeable drops in animation quality. VERY noticeable. The line thickness changes on a frame by frame basis, proportions are completely out the window, sometimes they use CGI (which seems to be the best quality so far) and other times characters just don't move during very important scenes. The backgrounds have been fine but the characters themselves are stiff, not proportioned right and honestly funny looking. I've seen 3 minute animations done by amateur students that are better than the entire "professional" studio working on a half hour show. Overall, very inconsistent.
Sound 5/10
The opening is really good, probably the best part about the series. It's FILLED with spoilers but only to those who can read symbolism very well. The voice acting is less than great but I imagine some of the sound effects would make more sense if the animation would catch up a bit. For example, if I character growls or scoffs at someone, the face doesn't move with them making that noise, so it seems very odd sounding/looking. I think most of the sound problems can be blamed on the animation because there are many examples like that where you watch it, hear it and think "why...did they make that noise? that sounded so weird..." but in reality, they're probably just reading the script they're given and they can't really do much about it.
Character 4/10
Some of the writing for the characters is really reaching for the audience to pity them. Some backstories went on for over two episodes and at some point I was like "who cares anymore!? Just move on!". Its unreasonable for the producers to write 12 sob-story character backgrounds and expect all of them to land. Each character should be different and in a weird way they're all the same. "I was sad as a child, I started training to be part of the juuni taisen, I started doing bad things, I'm sad (or happy) that I did so many bad things" and then they die. The design of the characters is also pretty rough. Monkey, Tiger and Rabbit in particular have outfits that don't make a lot of sense. Monkey has like 3 coats on, thigh high socks and combat boots and no pants, Tiger just has a bikini and a leather jacket, and Rabbit is supposed to be like...playboy bunny I guess?? All of the girls outfits are pretty skimpy except for Boar and everyone else is dressed pretty randomly, though not necessarily badly. It's just easy to get visually distracted when watching any given episode because of the colour clashing, seasonal wear differences, and outfits that just don't make sense for an anime about survival. If they're supposed to be fighting for their lives, maybe a bikini isn't the best protective gear? all in all, costume design and writing needed to be refined quite a bit.
Enjoyment 5/10
My enjoyment would be higher if not for how long the series can drag something out for. The series honestly wastes so much time on ONE thing that it frustrates the audience into thinking about how much they could've covered if they would've just let the sob-story die about 10 minutes in instead of using it for the full 30 minutes. For example, one episode was dedicated entirely to Sheep thinking of a plan on how to survive, except his plans involved characters that had already died and didn't really make sense. He repeats himself several times in the episode and at the very end decides to generally scrap the plan and move on to something else. Lots of wasted time that I didn't enjoy on things that could've been enjoyable.
Overall 5/10
Poor animation, poor design and poor writing. At this point I'm watching the series to find out how it ends. The concept is good and the opening is good but its hard to think of a character I like or anything in particular that stood out as "good". Its not particularly extraordinary but if it were maybe rebooted in the future with better animation I may be a little more generous.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Nov 14, 2017
Story 4/10
It started off pretty bumpy, almost like they couldn't decide how to get the ball rolling any other way except just having the girl tell him "you are coming with me to pretend to be my boyfriend" and the protagonist responding "okay". It just seemed a little unnatural but I mean that's anime for you, no big deal there. Beyond that there was a mishmash of events that individually made sense but altogether played out like a puzzle that was hot-glued together. Like for all the effort it took to get to the end, it wasn't very satisfying. Imagine you are told there is
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a magnificent orchestra coming to town and you go and its just one person playing a kazoo. Lots of excitement, lots of drama, lots of nothing by the end. Its very unrealistic even for a sci-fi(ish) anime but I guess that is entirely up to personal taste.
Art 7/10
No complaints here. It was very fluid and well done. The style itself was a little plain but I think that was more or less to contrast the chaos that was the virtual world. Character design was nice and there was nobody that stood out as being horrible looking or exceptional. Everything about the art was to my expectations and there is nothing wrong with meeting expectations.
Character 3/10
I liked the way the movie portrayed a family bond and the grandmother was definitely cut above the rest. It vaguely reminded me of Meet the Robinsons actually just because of how mix-and-match the family was and yet they all got along pretty well, even through struggles. However, they were still all kind of plain. It's kind of odd how the family itself is dry and realistic but the plot was not suited for them at all.
Overall 4/10
All sparkle but no shine. This was recommended to me as being one of the best anime movies of all time and I got something that wasn't very memorable and made almost no sense.I would recommend this to someone who really enjoyed The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (I liked it but I didn't LOVE it) or maybe 5 Centimeters per Second (I reeeeally didn't like this one) but they're both definitely similar in overall vibe.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 14, 2017
THIS IS NOT A FULL REVIEW ~
The faux drama in this series has so far been terribly boring with a constant dialog that consists of a back and forth "I'm gonna do it!.....Any second now!" right up until the credits roll and you have to watch the next episode to find out if he ever actually does it (Pro tip: he always does). Its filled to the brim with some of the laziest techniques of creating tension but at some point or another it stops generating tension and starts generating anger like just shoot the thing already just say what you are going to say
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walk where you are going to walk JUST DO IT ALREADY!
Not to mention its incredibly predictable but there isn't even a good cast to keep you interested. Kato was the only good one but he's treated like a piece of human garbage by the dumpster fire that is the protagonist. There was absolutely no point where I felt pity for the protagonist and several times I wish he would've just genuinely died and maybe took the disgusting excuse for a comedy relief dog out with him. The girl was okay but her character was ruined constantly by the perverted dog that the anime added in for....comedy?? shock?? either way it wasn't funny at all and shock value is a very, very, very lazy way of generating horror. Not to mention, the dog scenes were super unnecessary and way too long. This show takes elements that can be used for horror and converts it into shock value sexual nonsense instead of actually building up anything genuinely scary/horrifying. I mean yeah I guess a horny dog can be horrifying but of all the things for them to choose from, "horny dog" shouldn't have even been on their list.
Last thing I'm gonna say is that the animation is appalling. I don't mind the style itself but the quality is just plain cheap looking. There is a run cycle for Kato in the first episode that is blatantly a loop that skips a frame every couple of seconds and for how much he is moving his legs he is not going nearly fast enough. The whole train scene was a disaster because the train is moving slow motion to show they're about to get hit, but Kato and Kei aren't in slow motion so it left me wondering for a second "how did they die when the train was barely moving?". Another time the girl is running and she is clipping through different parts of the background, her legs are moving faster than how far she is moving, just basic mistakes the studio should've caught in editing.
tl;dr when I saw it was rated R i was expecting naked bodies or brutal murders or torture or literally anything besides a vagina licking dog. The story could've been half-decent if the studio hadn't made every second of it unbearably annoying.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Nov 3, 2017
Story 5/10
If I had to summarize this series in one word I would say "over-complicated". Sure, I like wild stories in mystery series as much of the next guy but The Perfect Insider takes it to a new level of unanswered questions and out-there theories that the main character just **suddenly realizes** with very limited investigation. If I had to describe it in another word, I would add "frustrating". The mystery begins in episode 2 (or 3?) and they don't do any actual investigation until episode seven. Everything up until then is a lazy romance plot that is very lackluster and a lot of repetition
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of stuff the audience already knows. Numerous scenes where they just repeat "What did he mean when he said that?" and "How did they get in and out of the room?" and "What does F stand for" but the audience works with pretty much nothing while the protagonist and his lackey magically pull these extremely spot-on theories out of nowhere. I mean seriously, the audience gets to work with nothing and then the protagonist spouts about how "obvious" the answer was.
Art 7/10
A bit inconsistent but primarily good. Overall character design, backgrounds, and animation quality were decent, but Nishinosono is an outlier in this because he design was pretty bad and she was the only one i noticed where sometimes her eyes weren't sitting even or her nose disappeared or something like that. The art was probably the best part of the series I'll just say that.
Sound 5/10
The OP theme was really catchy but the use of sound effects, soundtrack and the ending theme were very bluh. Sound affects were at times abnormally loud for something like opening a book or setting down a cup, and then the soundtrack would be very mellow during a scene that was supposedly very dramatic and that was also confusing to me.
Character 2/10
Arguably the most frustrating thing about this series were the characters. I don't really know why they bothered creating characters that only served the purpose of ooeing and aweing at Saikawa, the ultimate super-genius that nobody questions because he's so cool and complicated that he is just on a completely different level from anyone else blah blah blah. Saikawa was so flawed and nobody really acknowledged it because he deflects everything every character says with word vomit about how he understands the real world better than them. I mean, a bulk of the series is him praising this incestuous murderer as being the most enlightened and admirable person he knows. Seriously? Nobody is going to mention that? And Nishinosono was annoying as a character that was set up to be "the cutesy one who fawns over Saikawa constantly" but there are times where Saikawa directly rejects her and she freaks out and tries to hit him? Thats not exactly a great love story thats being set up is it? And all the other characters are on the back burner of importance as in they do nothing and don't stand out.
Enjoyment 3/10
I'll admit it had me hooked with the concept of a "locked room murder mystery" but there is a literally a million more ways that the mystery could've been solved without the enormous amount of roundabouts and guessing that the characters did to get there. The only reason I'm giving it a 4 is that is wasn't genuinely terrible to watch until around episode 6 where I kind of realized that there was a lot of wasted time in between important events that the characters could've spent oh I don't know...investigating the murder they'd just been involved in instead of tossing around a lousy going-nowhere romance subplot that wasn't going to be fulfilled in the end anyway.
Overall 4/10
I'd grade it lower if not for the fact that it did keep my attention (which is more than I can say about some anime) and the art/op theme were appealing. The ending was not satisfying by any means, a lot of questions went unanswered (I'd list a few but they'd be spoilers) and the whole "this crazy incestuous murdering woman was actually a super genius" left a bad taste. Wouldn't recommend it honestly.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Oct 26, 2017
Rather than doing my usual category-by-category explanation I'll just do it all-in-one go. This movie was really important for me growing up because of the tie between a witch, which are commonly known to be all-powerful beings, and also the development of inner strength that can't be brought about through magic. As a kid, I loved Kiki because I had trouble fitting in at school, but now again in college I found myself looking back on the movie again because independence and finding a place in life can be really tough. The movie is genuinely for all ages in the sense that anyone can take
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something back from it. The supporting cast all had such a unique personality. The artist in the woods really brings the movie home by giving Kiki a lesson in life that everyone finds themselves in a tough place sometimes, but it doesn't make you a bad person for not being able to do everything perfectly all the time.The movie is a conflict between Kiki and herself trying to find inspiration, purpose and independence, but feeling that she can't accomplish her goals and that she relies too much on others. The supporting cast and the role that Kiki plays in her own life create a beautiful story about a girl looking for her place in the world. This movie is perfect for young kids, teenagers, and adults alike and the ending scene at the clock tower makes me cry every time. Please please please watch this movie !
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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