Back to lj28's Profile lj28's Profile

TL;DR: go watch it.

This anime is everything any weeb could ask for a weird merge of bizarreness, satire, depravity, black comedy, blue comedy, cringe, meme, shitpost and awful (but excellent) cgi in order to turn a boring and depressing weekend into a roller coaster of laughs and bullshit to forget about the misfortunes of mundane life.

Its characters are mostly dumb and psychopaths, the plot is a lysergic trip full of twists, degeneracy, alcohol and manipulations and the worldbuilding is a twisted and corrupted "usual" isekai-ish protorype made only to make fun of that genre, and all those factors tie up together perfectly to make ... a fucking hilarious travel that makes the viewer to ask for more of it after the 12th episode. Even as a Konosuba fan this show makes me feel the former is far from being in the top tier of the niche of satirical "isekais".

I haven't seen that much anime in the last months so obviously nor in this season but, objectively and unironically speaking, if we take this anime as what it actually is, it's with ease one of the best releases of 2023. At least, one of the best anime comedies of the last decade for sure.

In a huge effort to be as impartial as possible, here I come to lay a comment and give you some objective info about what I consider the anime of the year so far.


After many years and a few well-known issues in between, Kobayashi san - and the greatest squad of dragons and most bizarre couples ever - returns to gift us twelve episodes of nothing but quality. And just saying quality I believe is an insult to such admirable work of art.

- Elaborate on that.
+ Yes:

First of all, two words: Kyoto Animation. But I will explain it later. We are talking about Tohru and ... her friends after all. You liked Elma four years ago? I have very good news for you then. You wanted a new character? I have more good news for you. Did you miss the ultimate definition of moe, and did you miss seeing HER in action? Then... well, you know, the same. But let’s go deeper on details.

On this season there’s ton of notable and funny moments just as in 1st season, but also KyoAni workers involved in it managed to give us people all that stuff always mentioned in every single review you could find looking up for any anime, like story progress, character development (yeah those 2 holy words), deepening on side characters, etc, etc. So, if you happen to seen the first season and you had issues about some eventual lack of any of those subjects, then this new one comes to bring you not only the great animation, gags and those kind of acid and dark jokes already shown before, but also all these items that now make this anime a great and very well constructed, developed -and not empty at all- hell of a show. However, this is not a show defined by its "story", which is the main criticism that people usually make to it. It is a comedy-slice of life with no necesarily a solid plotline (exactly as Cowboy Bebop, for example), so do not expect from this anime something that it's not supposed to give you.

With that last thing mentioned, this time we have some new characters; we are brought some of those new ones' and also the old ones’ backstories; they give us more development in relationships between couples of characters; we're able to know deep details about the story of Elma an Tohru’s first meeting, the nature of that relationship and the feelings involved in it (and how strong those feelings are); and, of course, we also received the most spoken and praised aspect of this 2nd season: a great… sorry, not "great"; a spectacular amount of absolute top tier action scenes that makes Wit’s AoT peaks of “sakuga” seem just average animation.

Ok, that was a polemic one, but as a fan of every single AoT action-scene I must accept it and recognize that this season KyoAni animators simply got their dicks out and changed the concept (please excuse my french). It’s not great animation, it is a masterclass of hand-drawn cinema.
And if we get more critical, the quality in every technical aspect (and I mean every one: sound, edition, lightning fx, music, etc.) of this 2nd season is superlative even far beyond action scenes, and it gets constant all along its 12 episodes of length. Just sit down to appreciate any random pure slice of life scene or sequence and you'll see that it is really easy to notice the insane amount of details, cuts and movements every episode has. I wouldn’t dare to say that this show has less than -at least- twice the frames than every other random anime aired so far this year. This new season of Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is not a delivery of quality in anime; it’s alove letter to the art of animation itself.

Art: 11/10

Ah, and what about the OP and ED? catchy as hell. It's a serious thing, believe me.


Speaking sincerely, and considering mainly objective aspects/facts of these 12 episodes, this new season is as good as the first one, which is not an easy task, but the fact of being a sequel of something previously developed helps it to be better paced regarding to the events occurred. My personal main criticism falls on the -arguable- lack of content and screen time given to some characters like Fafnir or Takiya (although, true, they even have their episodes and focused-on-them sequences).

Honestly, I am glad to get this anime right now. I liked the first season, I really enjoyed its humor and art, and I could not deny it was great, but this new one just destroyed me. I am not sure if it is the large amount of overhyped and finally disappointing shows aired so far this year (with a very few exceptions) or if I was just needing animation at its finest and a nice acid comedy show.

If you liked the 1st season, then you surely gonna love this new one. If you haven’t seen any of this show yet and you like SoL/absurd-comedy anime, then you have 24 episodes of fun, very high quality and a great cast waiting for you. If you saw the first season and you could not match with it, then this could be a good rematch to try again. But, I insist: do not expect a regular plotline as any average nekketsu or highschool romance; this is not what this anime is about, and it is much more enjoyable if you just get into the absurd comedy, action and reflective moments.
Anyways, If you like animation despite its genres, countries and forms, then stop wasting your time here and go start watching this piece of art because, in spite of you ending-up liking it or not, the people behind it deserve an acclaim.
Thank you once more, Kyoto Animation. The wait was worth it.

Despite not being a fan of the vampire-movies genre itself, I must admit this movie is an awesome work of art and a great instance rearding that genre. Apropos of the plot, Mamoru Oshii did a great work (good story in spite of being told in just 45 minutes), but the main strength of the film lays in its execution and direction.

-- [This may contain minor spoilers about the ending] --

About the plot, while pretty concise, the main idea behind it an the way it get developed according to the film's length is at least nice and ensures the idea that short doesn't mean incomplete ... or bad at all. There're of course a lot of questions and doubts that remain in the air, like how and when did all this stuff begin, why Saya has her own restrictions with respect to her nature, or what about the relationship between Saya and the US forces she is cooperating with; but in spite of those unanswered issues the film itself is capable to tell what is needed to be told and it shows it in an amazing visual way.
But those kind of "plotholes" are not plotholes at all indeed; they're just there in order to increase all the uncertainty and left the viewer imagination fill it as it happens with the nurse, which in a certain way is a ground wire in all this chaos whose point of view remains with the viewer til the very end.

And respecting to the audiovisual part of the work, this is just outstanding. There could be tons of details to praise about it but the only thing I'll mention is the huge visual quality of every frame and special effects and lighting. It must be considered that, despite being a not so long feature film, made in year 2000, it was not shot in film at all. It's the entire film drawn digitaly and it still has better quality, visual details, effects and camera movements than any animated movie made on these days.
Beyond that, the direction is superb, sublime. It's cinema. Nothing much different from one could expect for a Production IG feature film.

The main issue i found is the voice acting. While it's pretty well done in the japanese dialogues (at least it sounds as always), the english ones are mostly really poor. There're some great line interpretations from David's VA during the climax eventually, but others scenes really sounds cringey. Sharon for example, she sounds as her VA was an 8 yo girl while reading a fancy book in her literature class at primary school (something I usually feel every time I hear an english dub version of every anime, which is why I cannot see any dubbed anime, but here it is more than just exagereted), which really can break the seriousness and also the creepy atmoshpere developed along the movie. This occurs with most of english spoken lines unfortunately.

Anyways, as a whole this movie is an amazing piece of work. Could it be longer? Yes, and I'd really liked it be at least 15' longer, but for the plot and the stuff suppossed to must be shown it has a good length. Beyond it all it is a must-see if you desire to watch an action quick-paced horror film and high quality animation at it finest above all.

As a title released in the mid-90s, it could fit perfectly in that folder of "dystopian/dark/deep sci-fi classic anime" along as other more or not so mainstream works as Ghost in the Shell, Evangelion, B'tX or even Cowboy Bebop, when refferred to how seriously it plot takes itself. It could be normal to see this title and quickly get stuck by tags like "cyberpunk" "sci-fi" "OVA" etc and expect some kind of a hidden gem of the decade. Is this anime that? Well, i would say no, but it has it own worth and also some flaws, but in spite of it I think this ... should be a sure must-see for every lover of the genre.

Armitage III is set in a -on these days- not so far future where humans could achieved the colonization of Mars, and its urban structure and population got enough developed to the point where a nice portion of the latter consist of very humanized robots. In this setting we got the two main characters: Ross Sylibus and Naomi Armitage, an earthling cop who joins martian police department and a martian policewoman. These two, alongside the main villiain takes the most of the time in screen so other characters are just there to cover the definition of secondaries.
Beyond the action, the core ot this anime lays on its own questions and those existential and moral issues these characters (and also the whole world in there) are forced to face, and it is so correctly developed that it takes the main attraction of the series.

The characters, the script, the stage and the global atmosphere sourrouning the ova result on a well developed but also no so deep worldbuilding, enough to just get focused on the plot though, which fortunately is aided by a limited but great soundtrack, a nice sound mixing and cool visuals, especially during the action scenes (as you could expected from an OVA of the mid 90s). It's not an Akira or End of Evangelion level of technical work but it's far beyond than acceptable and for sure much better than anything new you could find on a random season from the last 15 years (of course there're exceptions, but when you reach those ~23 fps-action-scenes or those techno sounhdtracks you inmediately remember that this kind of anime is not made anymore unfortunately).

As a whole Armitage III is a pretty and very interesting sci-fi show which nothing has to envy to other titles of its genre when referred to the main idea and philosphy around the plot. Such is this that it's inevitable to not think of GitS when it comes to the main questions the characters and the show make to themselves, or even during those fights in a small space between an android and a giant armored robot controled by someone-else. Is it something not seen before? Probably not. And is it enojyable? most surely it is. Is it worth-watching? if you like cyberpunk futuristic and philosophical sci-fi analogue-shooted anime, get the hell out of here and go watching it now.

One of the major hits of spring 2021 season (for those of you there in north hemisphere). While not perfect, this was a nice surprise with a high potential to get addictive. But before anything, if you expect some kind of anime-ish Bojack Horseman copy with spciy black-humor, psychological deep shit and modern society criticism, well this is not what you're looking for. However, it's and interesting original dramatic show with "acceptable" animation and a great cast, and a very nice chill opening that probably anyone ever could dare to skip. In a sum, it has more pros than cons and above all, it's pretty ... well developed and entertaining.

Odd Taxi starts as one more regular funny furry show with a wide cast of characters which you could expect not much from them but filler and some help to rise some characters' development , but just finishing the first episode is easy to acknowledge its story as a dramatic-misterious one where sub-plots will surely steal one's attention.
The series all along its 13 episodes takes itself very seriously, developing a pretty solid plot engaging all its cast of characters in a way that none is less important than the other and every action contributes to magnify that misterious atmosphere, wich gets more intriguing each episode. An initial off-screen murder, extortions, chilhood accidents, corruption, yakuza issues, social network's toxicity, showbiz trash, discrimination and more stuff build up a story that, at least, manages to keep the viewer waiting for all the answers to those doubts and holes which don't stop to appear until the last episodes.

One of the best attributes of this show is its cast and, by far, the very best point of the whole series is the amazing world-building who increases every relationship among the characters, which gives a solid form to the main plot and every sub-plot developed along the series. The fact that almost every character is as important as any other makes this section the strongest point of the show and helps a lot to keep watching until the end. But don't get it wrong, the cast works very good for the events in the story, but most of them -as standalone characters- are just pretty poorly written.

On the other hand, if there's need to highlight some flaws they would be specific events and some other characterization that mess up the seriousness which the show takes itself with, like Shirakawa super-powered skills to save the MC or Dobu being a spirit guide for the guy who made up a social-media movement against him and other stuff like characters appearing out of nowhere to save the MC or just for the plot' sake. Personally, the thing that annoyed me the most was, for moments, Odokawa's personality against some critical situations he gets forced to face. Objectively speaking, that's not an issue and makes the MC more relatable and dimentional, but it bothered me the way it was carried out. For the most of the time he acts as some kind of edgy Emiya and shows careless to stuff happening around him but when real shit goes down he becomes a completely different guy who doesn't match with his regular characterization.

About the ending, well, besides that major plot twist that you could EASILY anticipate (but not for that is a bad one; in fact, it is the other major skill of the series), most of the questions you start making along the road get their respective answers, so the final product is not that "go read the bla bla" or "just wait a year and a half for the second cour etc." you could expect from many seasonal average animes, but a well and enjoyable and memorable travel around the night of Shinjuku and Odokawa weird and tragical mind.

In the end, this show is an entertaining one to watch and probably one of te best of this season. Initially I expected it to be *that* hidden gem of the year potentially becoming a cult-show in some years, which could end-up happening eventually, but for those particular things recently mentioned I, personally, consider it as just a good and very entertaining show. However, if you ask "how much of 'must-see' this anime is?" Without a doubt I'd say: yes.