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May 14, 2021
This show does a lot of things - and I'm not even going to say it's doing them badly - but it's doing TOO MANY without committing to ONE thing to a satisfying degree. There's the kind of sports drama in an unusual sports discipline like Yuri on Ice where a previously failed champion has to fight his way back to the top. There's the father-daughter family drama like in Himegoto where a widower is torn between working on his career and spending precious time with his young daughter. If we could ignore the sports aspect, I would also compare the overall tone to Space
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Brothers where a late-starter is trying to get into a highly competitive field with a big cast of colorful and quirky characters. But then there's the wacky hijinks featuring characters that would feel more at home in Arakawa under the Bridge, or Pyu to fuku Jaguar, including the whole sub-plot about the foreigner Leonardo who just gets dropped into the story without anybody bothering to ask what his deal is... and it's a huge deal! It would've been okay to have him avoid the topic to create more intrigue about the big mystery, but it really bugs me that nobody even TRIES to get an answer!
So even though I was really interested in Leonardo's backstory (which only gets explored in the last quarter of the series), I think the show would've actually benefitted from him not showing up at all. He admittedly hogs a lot of screentime without contributing much to the plot progression besides creating convenient contrivances, because he's just soooo quirky; Whenever an issue would get resolved naturally but the plot demands for it to be dragged out a little more, let's just have Leo barge in and interrupt the scene so it can conclude at a more dramatic point in time. Even the drama about the big finale ended up being kind of a non-issue: Leo had already found his resolve to face his demons in the previous episode and he correctly trusted in Jotaro to perform well without him, because Jotaro's performance never relied on him in the first place.
Without Leo in the picture, there would've been more screentime to focus on Jotaro's actual rival Minamino, or to give Jotaro more moments with his daughter, or to explore his daughter's resolution to become an actress, or to show more flashbacks with his deceased wife. Because all of those plotpoints get neglected way too much.
Alternatively, I don't see the point in creating a sports drama about gymnastics - a discipline that very few people care about - if you spend less than half of the time on depicting that sport itself (I'm gauging it's only around 35~40% of the screentime). So a show about Jotaro actually retiring and then focusing on his post-athlete life with his daughter and his weird freeloader ninja twink would have worked out too in my opinion.
On that note, it bothers me that the family owns a self-conscious cartoon bird that can talk, even though a dog would've filled that role just fine without damaging my suspension of disbelief. Penpen from Evangelion should be the benchmark for how far you could push unrealistic mascots outside of gag shows, and Bigbird is about 10 steps beyond that feathered biped.
If only one or two of the things I complained about got omitted, Taisou Zamurai could've had enough breathing room to focus on less things. Maybe then it could've reached a level of excellence that I've been spoiled with by 3-gatsu no Lion.
tl;dr I am a little disappointed.
Final thoughts: The OP is staying true to the established formula of being quirky and misleading about what the tone of the show would actually be like. At least the ED is making up for that a little bit.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Oct 11, 2020
I almost dropped this show once I realized what kind of pace it's going to move in:
Extremely slowly, and only 2 meters forward in total.
There are a lot of things I'd want to complain about, and only a few that were really worthwhile, so I'm 80% annoyed and maybe 20% glad that I stuck with it after all.
The setting of the show is the everyday life of someone who hasn't figured out what he wants to do after college, and the show is trying to make this as painfully relatable as possible. For anybody who has been or still is in a similar situation, it
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might hit a little too close to home. If you're looking for a motivator to overcome your hurdles and inhibitions, I would recommend something like "Kaze ga tsuyoku fuiteiru" instead, because you will only get very little mileage out of Yesterday in that regard. As I mentioned, the main character Rikuo makes very little progress over the course of the series. So at best, he might serve as a bad example and make you realize that you definitely don't want to appear as an indecisive wishy-washy loser like him.
His romantic misadventures on the other hand - and this is the main focus of the story! - are probably a lot less relatable to a Western audience, or even a modern day Japanese audience. I already figured that the story must be set in the late 90s due to some clunky product designs featured in the backgrounds. Looking up the original manga's debut date did confirm that it's set in 1997. And I would say that societal conventions have changed a bit since then, if they ever were as bad as they are depicted in Yesterday. Characters of the opposite sex always keep their distance, act awkward and evasive with each other, let alone make any sexual allusions. The show does end on a kiss, but until then the highest forms of physical affection were two weird hugs and one person tugging on another person's jacket. Two of the four main characters who are involved in the love triangle(s) are relatively open about their romantic intentions, but even they limit themselves on how much they will push the topic, usually out of consideration for their love interest's circumstances. So most of the time, you'll only watch two characters walking each other home at night and then awkwardly saying goodbye while holding back what they actually want to say. It's just frustrating when these people get nowhere, or when nothing of consequence or significance happens in an episode.
That's not to say that this extremely mundane drama is entirely anachronistic. I'm sure that a lot of awkward people will still find these relationships very relatable. It's just not what I watch animes for. And in this specific case, it felt like a huge waste of time.
Maybe the fact that it IS an anime instead of a live action drama is Yesterday's biggest raison d'être. As a live action drama it would become even more obvious how boring the plot is, while the artstyle and animation quality of the anime are often way more elaborate than they have any right to be. Like sometimes, someone will turn around and take off their coat and that motion alone has more keyframes than an entire fight scene in an action show. That alone shouldn't justify the creation of a show where this little happens. In a way, that makes it stand out from all the regular stupid romcoms that come out these days.
Though that still doesn't make Yesterday an entertaining show.
Things that I did enjoy:
- The minor side-characters who were way more colorful and interesting than the four main characters
- The fact that Rikuo and Haruo got together in the end because the alternative was just annoying
- The 2nd ED being an 8-bit shmup
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Aug 10, 2020
Very disappointing.
I haven't read the original light novels or the manga, so if the material that is handled in this movie works better in those versions, that doesn't change the fact that this adaptation is simply bad. In fact, it would make this movie look even worse in comparison.
The first 25 minutes are just a recap of the anime series, but it doesn't even do a good job at summarizing what's so interesting about Goblin Slayer if this was your first exposure to the franchise. And that's under the generous assumption that someone who has never watched or read Goblin Slayer would be interested in
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giving it a shot by watching the movie first.
Goblin Slayer works as a concept, because it shines the spotlight on someone who is obsessed with staying in his lane, doing the one underappreciated job that nobody thinks is important. It puts emphasis on a lot of small details that are usually glossed over in other fantasy works and makes you think about cliché monster encounters with a more realistic and pragmatic mindset.
But the recap only shows that Goblin Slayer kills goblins mercilessly, that he pulls out unconventional tricks in tough situations, that he keeps on fighting with sheer determination, and that he learned to overcome his insecurities through stoicism. That's not to say that these aren't also important parts of the original series, but it's not what I would've picked. Especially the battle scenes were an unnecessary foretaste of what's to come later on in the movie. It would've been the better choice to not remind us how the Goblin Champion and Goblin Lord were defeated, because the method they use on the Goblin Paladin in this movie is a lot less spectacular.
As for the new content... everything is poorly paced. A lot of smaller scenes are inconsequential and don't do anything besides filling time. The action coordination in the latter half is extremely poor and doesn't live up to what you've come to expect from the rational and methodic Goblin Slayer.
What was the point of the poisoned arrow? You'd think it'd be to follow the blood trail to find the nest, but its spreading effect apparently didn't do significant harm to this goblin horde.
What was the point of the Elf getting shot in the leg? You'd think it's supposed to give the heroes a handicap, but she's completely fine for the rest of the movie. If it's only there to show that the goblins learned the trick, it only proves the poison arrow trick more useless.
What was the point of the Berserk brand? It flared up later on and gave the rich daughter a panic attack that ruined any strategy they might've come up with, but the brand wasn't necessary to make her scream in that scene. Was I wrong to expect a God Hand plot where a human sacrifice summons a bigger monster?
What would they have done if the rich daughter hadn't attacked the goblin priest? They blame her for ruining their cover during the coronation ceremony, but there was no way to let the priest live in the prison scene.
What was the point of the armory scene where they destroy all the weapons with rust magic? The Dwarf apparently did save a bag full of weapons for the mountain scene later on, but it didn't have a noticeable impact on the goblins' offensive capabilities.
Why didn't they use the Dwarf's stupor magic or the rich daughter's lightning magic when all the goblins were gathered in the courtyard? Goblin Slayer loves efficiency!
Why did they split up into a bait team and a prisoner rescue team when the most pressing issue should've been defense from the goblins? They could've easily freed those prisoners later on when all the goblins were eradicated.
Why did nobody light the oil on fire when Goblin Slayer threw the bottle?
Why didn't the goblins cut the rope on Goblin Slayer's grappling hook when he casually climbed down the fortress wall?
What was the point of having everybody wear underwater breathing magic rings for the avalanche when the Priestess proved that a Protection barrier was much more effective? Goblin Slayer himself ended up being the only one caught up in the avalanche anyway.
Why would Goblin Slayer decide to bait the whole goblin army out of the fortress when there's a high possibility that a lot of them will remain inside, or that a lot of them will evade or even survive the avalanche?
None of this was necessary, and I can't help but feel that we were cheated out of a much more interesting battle strategy because the writer was too in enamored with the sea gate scroll scene from the series in which Goblin Slayer uses the forces of nature to wipe the whole enemy army out with one move. It sacrifices character integrity only to rehash old material that was done better previously.
Last but not least, I gotta mention that the rich daughter is ducking annoying and unlikable. Her hubris lead to a whole team of adventurers dying horrible deaths, she then unrepentantly joins the cleanup mission, only to fuck it up multiple times with her emotional outbreaks and physical inadequacies. But there's never a redeeming moment when she really gets her shit together and grows as a person. At least I wouldn't call it "growth" when the Priestess nudges her so she would stop wavering, or when Goblin Slayer tells her to shoot her lightning and then she does. That's just the bare minimum of functioning as a person in that world. She's clearly missing the coping process that the Priestess had to go through at the beginning of the series, so we're left with a much shittier version of the Priestess. And this is the character that the whole plot of the movie revolves around.
All in all, wasted potential. The Goblin Slayer world and cast can be really interesting, but the franchise doesn't do it justice. Would not recommend, even if you're a fan and you're starving for more content. You'll only ruin your appetite.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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May 20, 2020
The Vertical World is when you take:
・ the deceptively whimsical art direction of Kaiba,
・ drawn by a worse artist than Mob Psycho 100's ONE,
・ set in a BLAME!-like world,
・ with the plot escalation of Homestuck.
There's a few more interesting similarities between the Vertical World and Homestuck:
Both comics integrated their unorthodox web format into their storytelling. And both comics deal in similar high science fiction concepts, namely time, space, infinity, relativity, information, alternate dimensions, nested realities and circular causality.
In that regard, there's only few mangas or animes that tackle these topics as deeply as the Vertical World does. Because in order to touch on all of
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these subjects, you'd need to create an alien and arbitrary universe, and then focus on the exploration of that universe. You can really tell that the author is very interested in astrophysics - not just because most (or all?) characters are named after famous scientists or other scientific phenomena. Some plot twists/conveniences might seem a little random at first, but I suspect the author does have a clear goal in mind, and he doesn't forget places and events that might contradict some of his new ideas either. Lots of times I thought I finally had a good grasp on how the titular vertical world works and where the story would go, but then a new revelation shattered my understanding and revealed a much deeper truth.
Without giving too much away, all I can say is that it's EXTREMELY interesting and well worth a read when you're at least somewhat into science fiction. You just need to get over how bad the art is.
Thankfully, the manga is very accessible as it's getting the simul-pub treatment on the official Shonen Jump website.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 29, 2020
Never have I seen an anime this contrived yet so far up its own ass.
I'll admit that the first few episodes were deceptively interesting, but the show jumps the shark too many times just to stumble its way into a community college's condescending philosophy 101 class.
At the beginning we're tricked into thinking this is supposed to be a criminal thriller - the cops are onto something that's going all the way up to the mayor's office. Good, a classic. Then it veers into political conspiracies, which is still a compatible side plot. However, it is then revealed that the villain's ominous plans are 100% supernatural,
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which leads to a completely out-of-place gore scene that only serves the purpose of a cliffhanger through shock value. Nothing more than a marketing ploy. After that it shifts gears once more and focusses too much on a completely different character whose personality can be summed up as "indecisiveness", so his only function in the plot is wasting/stalling for time.
Unless the production ran into problems (I heard that the original manga wasn't even finished when they started?) and had to change plans halfway through, I have to assume that the entire series was just designed to create a high stakes Trolley Problem. No other explanation makes sense: If Babylon's intent is to start a discussion about suicide, it fails miserably. Contrary to the show's depiction, suicide is already legal in almost every single country in the real world (after all, how do you prosecute someone who is dead?). And yet every character acts as if the legality was the only wafer-thin barrier that kept the whole world from killing themselves. It's weird that a show which pretends to be sooo intelligent wouldn't address this issue at all, and it's also weird that it never even touches on the topic of Japanese ritualistic suicide throughout the whole time it's struggling to present a discussion about whether suicide is good or bad. Spoiler alert, humanity is universally in agreement that suicide is an unpreferable choice. The related topics of euthanasia and organ donation do get mentioned and for a split second it seems like that might have been the ultimate goal. But nope, the show doesn't commit to these topics, so they remain inconsequential. All in all, the whole debate is 100% vacuous.
I have big beef with Ai Magase, and that's not just because I hate how transparent the ASMR fetishism is (though I bet some people would argue that it's not fetishistic even if her MO was squishing people to death with her dirty bare feet).
What is Ai Magase's goal? She tries to get the US president to commit suicide right after publicly admitting (half in jest) that he would kill himself if he came to the conclusion that it was a good idea, thus making everybody else in the world follow his example. But she already has the power to control anybody she speaks to, so she could've gotten the same result if she had used Itsuki's broadcast to tell everybody to kill themselves. So this was just the method to create the circumstances in which Zen has to kill someone to prevent everybody from dying. The notion that anybody would kill themselves just because the president did it for no apparent reason is already absolutely ludicrous. But even if you disregard that nonsense, the plan hinges on too many random factors to work out this exact way. And for what? Just to fuck with Zen, LOL
That's why I'd say, her raison d'être is: "What if Johann from Naoki Urasawa's 'Monster' was Junji Ito's Tomie and Heath Ledger's Joker at the same time?"
The show would make at least a little more sense if you replaced her involvement with an ideological cult and Itsuki as the main villain. But then again, you'd miss out on Satsuki Yukino whispering "Sssseizaki-ssssan" into your thirsty earhole, and we can't have that.
Final thoughts: The visuals are above average, and they spent notable effort into making foreign stuff look more authentic. It's a novel idea to depict the US president as a benevolent MMORPG gamer who has less charisma than Jeb Bush and still scored a hot 9ft supermodel wife, but it also completely shatters my suspension of disbelief. I loved the minimalistic opening, but at the same time the score tends to turn into a completely unfitting furious piano mess.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Dec 30, 2019
I'm surprised at how much I ended up enjoying this show, even though it's a light novel-based isekai. That's usually a bad omen, but Bookworm makes the right decision of rejecting all the Dragon Quest based isekai tropes and instead goes for the mundane subgenre in which the main character tries to live a quiet life, rather than going on an adventure.
It takes a while for the show to pick up the pace, so if you're already interested by the premise, I'd recommend sticking with it for more than just 2 episodes. The beginning is admittedly a big roadblock: The main character Main is just
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as clueless as the audience about the new situation, but she's slowed down by her weak constitution and can't find out more about the fantasy world until she's healthy enough. That means she's stuck on the first rung of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (physiological needs), even though the show promises us the 5th (self-actualization). I know this can be frustrating, but when you know that there's a good reason for it and that there is a payoff, it'll be a little easier to endure. Most of the time when I found myself wondering why something wasn't addressed yet, it got addressed soon after, proving that the author gave a lot of thought to the worldbuilding. The pacing is just a little unfortunate.
What appears to be a Stranded Time Traveler plot into a medieval world where letterpress printing and paper haven't been invented yet at first turns out to be more of an exploration into business in feudal societies and class struggle. That's where the show shines the most in my opinion. The revela-tion that magic exists and that the rift between haves and have-nots is mostly based on this offers some further intrigue, but as long as the limits of magic aren't fully explained it's hard to tell if the magic isn't just a writing crutch or a cop-out. In the beginning, magic is only used for contracts and other legal work which I found very acceptable within the bounds of the setting. But in the later epi-sodes it was shown to have more force-related uses too - and that's where things might get a little too convenient. Admittedly, the one convenient magic thing in the final episode was very satisfying to me, so I'll accept it for now. Hopefully the 2nd season keeps the magic shenanigans to a minimum lest it breaks the fragile suspension of disbelief that this fantasy world could function on its own.
When spectacle or comedy isn't the focus, I treasure progress the most in my stories. Watching some-one work their way up through hardships and obstacles is motivating. Bookworm certainly delivers in that regard.
I kinda wish it went even harder on Main using her modern world knowledge for enterprising purposes once she finally found an outlet for it. Though maybe that would've betrayed the show's family-oriented tone and ultimate goal. Main wants to create books after all, not become a rich business-woman. If she was as smart as she sometimes proves to be, she should realize that she could reach her goal much faster and more efficiently and maybe even change society for the better with the vast riches she could make with her knowledge. That's why I feel a little cockblocked that the merchant guild plotline was cut short by the introduction of the church, even though it was obvious from the start that Main would get majorly involved with the church. After all, her baptism ceremony had a set timer. Plus, the real-life church used to be the main consumer of books for the longest time. And the episode forecasts always foreshadowed the Head Priest as a major character too. Let's just hope the enterprising aspect doesn't get too overshadowed in the following season. I'm certainly looking for-ward to seeing more of Main's ascendance.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 28, 2019
I was persuaded to give this show a try when people said it was like KonoSuba.
In some minor respects, this may be true. But the tone and execution are so different that it's hard to compare them after all. Especially when KonoSuba is the gold standard for Isekai (parodies) in my opinion.
The only similarities between Shinchou Yuusha and KonoSuba are really that the main character was summoned into a fantasy world by a "useless" goddess who resides in a separate dimension, who then joins him in his adventure as the dedicated healer of his party and also whines a lot because she's always the butt
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of the joke. The rest is a mix between Dragon Ball (specifically DBZ) and Dragon Quest plot points.
DQ: The fantasy world is threatened by an ominous Demon Lord who can only be beaten by the Hero and he has Four Heavenly Kings that must be defeated first, and also the Hero must pick up 2 more party members, the legendary sword and the legendary armor.
DBZ: Everybody always checks their scouters for power levels, they ask increasingly stronger gods for training, and they can pop into the hyperbolic time chamber to train faster in a shorter amount of time to make their number become bigger and bigger.
I'll concede that not all battles are won just because Seiya's number is big, but the formula is still extremely repetitive because the strategy aspect is always a string of asspulls with the explicit punchline that Seiya was just so goddamned cautious that he considered any unlikely scenario. In a way, this overturns and negates one of the key features of the Isekai genre: The fact that the normal guy from the real world is competent in the fantasy world because he's genre savvy and knows JRPG tropes. That in itself might not necessarily be a bad thing, since the Isekai genre is already an overproduced crutch. In Shinchou Yuusha however, it still gets old and also robs the viewer of the pleasure of figuring out the solution along with the characters thanks to his own genre savviness.
A related problem is the fact that we hardly get to see Seiya's progress. From the description of the story, I was expecting him to be the type of gamer who spends 500 hours in the beginner zone to kill the weakest enemy so that he reaches lvl 99 early on in order to blast through the adventure with ease like a One Punch Man. But thanks to the DBZ hyperbolic time chamber, most of his training takes place off screen and it's just treated as if his number automatically became bigger. In fact, he maxes out his potential pretty early on. Not even his useless sidekicks who don't have the same learning speed are seen struggling or overcoming hurdles. Everybody pretty much just leaves the scene and then reemerges saying "ok I'm stronger now" and we just have to take their word for it. Well, maybe I'm the only one who enjoys watching characters make progress in training montages.
Another flaw are the wild tonal shifts between wacky slapstick comedy and serious, violent drama. I would almost commend the show's efforts to not make light of the severity of some of the situations (i.e. innocent bystanders getting brutally murdered while onlookers are horrified), but they're always broken up by Rista's exaggerated interjections and Seiya's deadpan retorts.
Personally, I found the comedy disproportionally better than the action or drama. After all, the whole story is just a parody of existing tropes from an overdone genre. There's nothing unique or original about the presented fantasy world. Villain designs are completely random with no interesting theme to connect them all. None of the generic NPCs besides Rosarie get enough screentime to make you care for their survival. This is of course due to the fact that there's an overworld of gods with more fleshed-out characters, all with distinct personalities and a more consistent theme to their designs (although I would argue that Adenela looks jarringly out of place for her position). Added with the mention that a myriad of fantasy worlds exists that these gods preside over, it creates the impression that none of these fantasy worlds really matter.
Other Isekais do a better job by taking their time to explore the unique societies and environments of their fantasy worlds (Shield Hero, Honzuki no Gekokujo) or at least straddle the balance between drama and comedy better (Slime, KonoSuba). So all in all, Shinchou Yuusha never really exceeds its one-gag premise of an Isekai hero with a funny quirk. The plot twist in episode 11 which explains the reason for this quirk actually sours the gag in retrospect. Rista is still funny, but not funny enough to carry the whole weight of the show on her own.
Notable mentions: The OP and ED are extremely bad. I know that the MMD dance is bad on purpose as a joke, but that doesn't change the fact that it's bad.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Oct 3, 2019
Don't bother if you're a fan of the Buddy Cop genre, police procedurals, good world building, or even above-mediocre animation or directing. The only positive quality Cop Craft has to offer is its unoriginal premise. But if that's what got you interested in checking it out, you'll be just as satisfied from reading the plot synopsis above as you would be from watching 12 episodes of this garbage.
Let's go through this one complaint at a time:
The show is trying to talk about racism and xenophobia by introducing a fantasy race of immigrants from a fantasy world, which is a cheap but efficient trick. The main
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target audience of Japan doesn't have to feel alienated by having to consider the issues of groups they might not feel too inclined towards, any minority group can't feel personally offended if their issues aren't portrayed accurately, nobody can allege malice if the show references real life events incorrectly, and most importantly: anime fans by default are more interested in the fantasy aspect. However, if you're introducing a whole parallel universe of elves and fairies, you need to establish what exists in that universe and what doesn't. And over the course of 12 episodes, there hasn't been a single scene that shows us even the glimpse of a fantasy landscape. We just have to accept that magic is real now, and that it pops up as a macguffin or deus ex machina whenever it's convenient. The only other information we can infer from the plot is that the fantasy world is very traditional and antiquated and that there's no modern science or technology. That's pretty much it. There's no political dealings with the fantasy world, there's hardly any fantasy world characters besides Tilarna with more than two lines of dialogue to tell us more about their home, I personally don't even find the aliens to look all that different from Earthlings (although maybe that's due to the wonky artstyle). Neither does the show put any particular effort into portraying the influence of the fantasy immigrants on Earth's society. All that's really changed after the dimensional portal opened is that this one fictional Pacific island became a bigger metropolitan hub due to the population increase. Sure, most episodic crimes make use of some magic gimmick (a fairy bomb, vampires, a mind-switching artifact, magic memory alloy...), but those gimmicks are usually a big surprise for Tilarna as well, so they're not representative of the fantasy world's culture. Besides the main antagonist's necromancy ability, no other gimmick had any lasting effect on the plot or the setting, even though you could build an entire show around just one of them.
In summary, the introduction of the fantasy aspect is ultimately just laziness as it never exceeds its function of a shorthand for racism.
The biggest reason why all the potential was wasted is because they decided to make the show too episodic instead of focusing on the one big case. I'm not sure how faithfully the anime adaptation follows the novel, but episodes 4-10 feel like bad fillers. Hell, even the recurring side characters do nothing but waste precious time that could've been used for more meaningful interactions between Tilarna and Kei, or at least to build up the villain to have more of an impact.
On that note, it was a stupid decision to off Elbaji as early as the 3rd episode for the surprise reveal that Zelada was behind everything all along, but then postpone the confrontation with him until the final episode. Both Zelada and Elbaji had potentially interesting (conflicting even!) motivations that could've been explored in a better way than just dumping everything into a stereotypical villain speech right before their respective defeats. Their involvement in the mayoral election and their conspirators in the police should've offered plenty more opportunities to fill the time, without having to add 1½ episodes about Tilarna turning into a cat and having to chase after a garbage truck. At least, if you MUST include inconsequential episodes, give us more insight into the main characters. For instance showing us for a whole episode how Tilarna struggles with everyday life on Earth, like not understanding mobile phones, cars, food, the value of money - that kinda thing (the first episode did this to a somewhat satisfying degree with Kei). Because for a Fish Out of the Water character, she's way too capable and savvy.
This also ruins the buddy cop dynamic she should've had with Kei. In order to make a Buddy Cop duo work, both character need to have clashing personalities (eg. Young Reckless vs. Old Cautious, or Goofball vs By-the-Books Sourpuss). But aside from one being a middle aged dude and the other being a foreigner loli, Kei and Tilarna are too similar. Both are proud, grumpy workaholics who just want to get the job done, insult each other with dry quips, and get into arguments when one was being too reckless when the other one wasn't prepared for it in that particular moment (they alternate between who does it). As the daughter of a noble family who got her knight's rank by birthright, and considering that she does develop something of a crush for Kei over the course of the show anyway, it wouldn't have been too farfetched to make her more innocently naive, clumsy and inexperienced - in short a stereotypical loli character - rather than easily irritated and overall bitchy. Her cute character design certainly would've suggested that the show was gonna go for the Newbie vs. Jaded clash. In terms of character development, Tilarna could've grown more mature from overcoming shocking experiences like murder, prostitution, drugs, etc. while Kei could've softened a bit and rediscovered his compassion - as you'd expect from someone who in the 1st episode couldn't even be assed to tell his deceased partner's wife about her husband's death in person.
I'll admit that there were a few jokes here and there that summoned 5% of a chuckle out of me, but I laughed WAY more at some of the now infamous animation goofs that would look more fitting in the studio's previous show Teekyu, a no-budget 3-minute nonsense comedy. The visuals really didn't do Range Murata's original artwork justice. If the writing and directing was solid enough, this would've been excusable. But when neither the story nor the visuals are convincing, I can only strongly recommend against committing yourself to the whole series.
Spend your time with better shows!
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jan 18, 2019
In tone and structure, Onihei is kinda similar to Cowboy Bebop. Both use self-contained episodes about crimes with sobering and melancholic conclusions that get solved by the maincharacters who carry on the weight of their work with an optimistic stoicism. What's missing almost entirely is the comedy, so in that way it's basically a less goofy Samurai Champloo. Maybe it's no coincidence that even the OP and ED are relatively similar tone setters to Tank and the Real Folk Blues. So if you're a fan of Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, or mature samurai dramas in general, you should definitely give this anime a shot.
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the time, the focus of the plot lies on the criminals and their sympathetic motivations while the titular police chief Onihei takes a backseat and sometimes only shows up at the very end for the cathartic confrontation with the law. For a detective story, this format can get a little confusing, especially in the first episode when you have no idea where the plot is gonna go. When the more traditional investigations kick in, they mostly get carried out by Onihei's spies, a recurring cast of former thieves who gather information, which often gets personal when they used to be involved with the episode's perp in their respective past. It's the information gathering that I find most fascinating, since the story is set in a bureaucratic metropolis from an era when communication worked overwhelmingly by word of mouth, and there are no supernatural or anachronistic elements whatsoever. It always comes down to who knows who, and I'm grateful that the characters pretty much always know immediately who did it based on those informations without having to grope in the dark for obscure clues.
Now I don't know how faithful the anime adaptation is to the original novels, but considering how unavailable the show is online and how nobody is ever talking about it, you're probably coming to the show like me with no familiarity to the franchise. In my opinion, the anime can definitely stand on its own - and I wish it had a second season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 7, 2019
If you come to this show expecting a sequel, or at least a spiritual successor to Tiger & Bunny, return whence you came. The overly smug narrator and the direction will try to convince you otherwise, but this is not the show that you were looking for.
My main gripes with Double Decker are threefold:
- The genre shift
- The needlessly complicated sci-fi elements
- And the fact that everything has to be a plottwist
The first point is pretty self-explanatory. If you go into the sequel of a samurai show after it has been advertised as the new samurai show, but for some reason they changed the setting
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to a modern day highschool drama where only one character is a major samurai fanboy, you'd be disappointed too. Now the genre switch from superhero to supernatural detectives isn't too big. Especially when they kept some key similarities. Both shows are set in an ambiguously America-inspired world. The heroes in Tiger & Bunny work for agencies with strict rules, almost like a police department. Both shows feature a fujoshi-baiting buddy cop duo as the main characters with a quirky support cast on the side. And they also fight criminals who abuse superpowers in a rigid Monster of the Week format. Wow, it's almost like they're not so different after all, huh?
But that's exactly the problem. The fact that they changed the concept from superheroes to regular cops, but still had to incorporate the supernatural aspects, forces them to waste a lot of time on introducing stupid gadgets and technology that only serves the purpose of Monsters of the Week or Deus Ex Machinas, rather than intriguing you by exploring how this technology would change society. Most of the time they don't even explain the technology - in fact one of the main plotpoints is that nobody knows how anything really works. At that point it might just be magic or regular superpowers. So if they had just set the story in the same world as Tiger & Bunny where the audience accepts that some people have superpowers, it would've worked much better, even if the plot only focusses on regular cops (as opposed to superheroes).
Some of the supernatural contrivances are extremely stupid. And just like with their audience's expectations, Double Decker is VERY aware of that. The most obvious indicator for that is the obnoxious narrator who constantly lampshades how stupid or convenient some of the events are, as if that made them okay somehow. But some events don't need a narrator to rub the show's overbearing attitude in your face that "you totally thought we'd play out this old stereotypical plot for the entire 20 minutes, but lol psyche we tricked you". A twist at the end of a story arc, isn't bad at all. But Double Decker throws around twists at any moment of any episode for minor and major things alike. There's a limit on how often you can do this before turning into a parody, and unfortunately Double Decker crosses that line and just keeps driving while pretending to be serious.
If this doesn't discourage you from wasting your time on a show that's just milking your leftover goodwill from a better show, at least let me warn you that the plottwist which kicks off the final arc is David Cage levels of stupid. And I'm not talking Detroit era Cage. I mean Indigo Prophecy era Cage.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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