- Last OnlineJul 12, 2024 2:33 PM
- BirthdayJun 7, 1998
- LocationChicago, Illinois
- JoinedJan 13, 2019
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Dec 28, 2020
As a gay person, I found a lot of this show tropey/boring and some of it outright insulting. Yaoi isn't generally the place to look for great, nuanced representation of actual gay people - I'm aware it's mostly fetish porn for a target demographic of straight women - but this one hit on every trope that particularly grinds my gears. Love Stage leans hard into the idea that gay men fall into "masculine" and "feminine" roles in their relationships with each other (they don't), and its characters are largely empty vehicles for blundering into tastefully-drawn-but-compromising positions. Like most yaoi, it features a good degree of
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predatory behavior from its gay characters, and stalking/sexual assault are core elements of its romance.
The show admittedly looks and sounds better than most yaoi - not on the level of more mainstream anime productions but at least not painful to watch, which is the reason I gave it a try. That said, its quality ends there. The plot loses its footing after the initial "gender confusion" premise, and proceeds through a series of typical romance story beats without much deviation from a very by-the-book shoujo, except with additional sexual harassment and internal protests ("I can't do that, we're both boys!") which evolve into stereotypical justifications ("it's only okay if it's you"). Though the show occasionally succeeds at being funny (I'm not too stubborn to admit a few of its jokes made me laugh), there isn't enough solid character writing or unique plot ideas to make me care at all about what happens.
We're lucky enough now to have dozens of shows with genuinely compelling, complex, well-written portrayals of LGBT anime characters (Banana Fish, Bloom Into You, Devilman, Zombieland Saga, Given, Wandering Son, even Yuri on Ice). If anything, Love Stage is a reminder of how far we've come since the days when Love Stage and shows like it were widely considered acceptable. This show aged like milk. That's okay - now there are other, better options. I recommend that, unless you're somehow still living in 2014, you take one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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May 14, 2020
I watched this show for a bad anime binge, but to be honest, I really like it.
That isn't to say School Days hasn't earned some of the derision around it. Aside from the general failure to fulfill its harem comedy premise (which I'll discuss in a minute), School Days has a lot of issues with its technical quality; it has this weird, wandering camera that makes half its shots look focused on the wrong details, almost all of the characters have intense same-face syndrome, the pacing is insane and the plot is bogged down by a combination of incomprehensible teenage decision-making and utterly glossed-over
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leaps in logic. Where are these kids' parents, by the way? Or teachers? Or the police?
I would be more comfortable calling School Days traditionally "good" if it ever gave us a clear sense of why its characters behave the way they do, but as things stand, we're just forced to accept that they do outrageous things simply out of impulse, lust or loneliness. There are a lot of elements of this show that just feel... incomplete. Why is Makoto so pathologically incapable of taking responsibility for his actions? Why is Kotonoha so desperate for his attention? Sekai is the most well-developed character of the bunch, but even she is shrouded in questions - why does she work for some kind of Hooters bar at age 16? Why does she go to the roof when Kotonoha asks in the last episode? Why does she have so few friends when people generally seem to like her? Why does she ever trust Makoto again after he ignores her saying "no"? I spent a lot of this show asking what on earth these characters were thinking, and that's not a good thing.
That said, though, I was engaged throughout all of it. I was invested enough in these characters to *want* answers to my questions. And, to some extent, Kotonoha and Sekai are redeemed as characters because of how we're invited to participate in their experience - to be validated by each acknowledgment from Makoto, to be swept up in the contest to "win" him, and to increasingly resent him for being inaccessible. By the time the anime reaches its famous climax, we may not have a total grasp on anyone's internal logic or backstory, but we absolutely feel what they are feeling. And, to me, the ability to evoke a real emotional experience can override a lot of technical failures.
This show had a very ambitious idea. To take the basic building blocks of a harem comedy and make a psychological thriller is an enormously difficult task, because harem comedies are written completely differently; School Days wants to hide under the guise of a harem show as long as possible, and so necessarily prevents itself from delving deep into character motivation or developing the tense atmosphere a psychological thriller usually needs. Instead it must drive audiences to a violent ending with only the light, low-stakes atmosphere and the occasional cutesy character moments typical of harems.
I think the show is a much better watch with these constraints in mind. What School Days does really, really well is taking all the stereotypical elements of one genre and recontextualizing them into something different. It replaces the interiority and psychological depth of a drama with the pure emotional self-identification of a harem show; it replaces the dense, creepy atmosphere of a thriller with the dissonantly upbeat trappings of a comedy. The horrifying last episode is what's best remembered about this show - and the final episode is genuinely disturbing - but what makes it unique is how it finds a new, interesting path to get there.
Anyway, I don't think it would be fair to pretend that School Days is a misunderstood masterpiece - it's plenty flawed - but I do think it's unironically worth the watch. Most notorious "bad anime" are bad because they lack originality, inspiration or memorability. School Days, if nothing else, has all three.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 25, 2019
Afro Samurai tells an old, hackneyed story about power, violence and revenge - a warrior on a quest to avenge the death of his father who discovers that the cycle of vengeance is all-consuming. However, it tells that story with such style and intensity it begins to feel new again.
Each moment of this series is fully realized, with so much attention to detail and emotional weight that it allows a classic parable to achieve tremendous new heights.
Not to mention the lovingly-rendered gore - if you want your violence to feel deeply disturbing, visceral and consequential, this anime has your back. No act of violence in
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Afro Samurai is without weight. This is, perhaps, the most fundamental way that Afro Samurai nails in its lessons about the destructive nature of its titular character's quest.
Honestly, just watch it for yourself. It's five episodes and absolutely worth the time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jan 21, 2019
I dunno if I can express how much I enjoyed Gin no Saji! I have a very soft spot for stories about farming - the idea of connecting to the land and labor that sustain us as a therapeutic experience - but Gin no Saji captures this idea so perfectly and so sincerely. It's really, really sweet.
Arakawa's best known for sprawling fantasy epics like Fullmetal Alchemist, but I think it's in character-driven slice-of-life stories like this where her talents really shine; Gin no Saji is smart, funny and carefully written, able to linger on its subtle character work and thematic beats in ways something
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huge, like Fullmetal, simply can't. There's a special and simple wisdom that comes from agriculture, with its direct connection to life (and sometimes death), that Arakawa understands intimately and expresses with loving, detailed attention here. Gin no Saji is a show as gentle-spirited and fun as it is illuminating.
It's also just plain cute. The farm animals are absolutely adorable, especially the pigs and dogs - the rounded, cartoonish visual style lends itself really well to this. Though the show never lacks tension and conflict, it also never feels overly dark; its mature concerns and conflicts are managed within its lighthearted, optimistic tone.
It's absolutely worth the watch, especially if you're having a hard day (or in my case, a hard several years lol). I promise you'll come out of it feeling better.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 15, 2019
As someone who makes a habit of binge-watching terrible anime, I've seen some truly awful shit - but Diabolik Lovers takes the cake for me as the single worst thing I've ever seen. Clumsy, weird, violently misogynistic and absolutely nonsensical, this show is truly an abomination for the ages.
I think the thing I love best about Diabolik Lovers is the fact I never know what insane plot or character development it's going to gracelessly shove down my throat next. It seems to start out with the intention of spending an episode on each vampire, but never actually accomplishes anything resembling characterization, and quickly digresses
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into an incomprehensible plot soup of family drama, conspiracy, meaningless fantasy dialogue and cookie-cutter villainy.
Even if you were looking for a violent, rapey domination fantasy here - god knows why - the story doesn't land that either. Nothing in Diabolik Lovers is sexy. Any attempt to follow through on its kinky-dating-sim premise ends up comically mean-spirited and awkward - throwing the protagonist into pools, trapping her in graveyards, pushing her over balconies and calling her "Bitch-chan" while you do it. I think it's summed up best when a vampire traps our heroine in a bedroom and she cries out, "Oh, God," to which he replies completely seriously, "There is no God."
There was certainly no God looking after the production of this anime.
The show gives every character some kind of dumb ombre hair and its eventual Romantic Lead vampire wears pants that are long on one side and capris on the other. Every face looks identical, and sometimes the animation shifts into horrible CGI but only for a few seconds at a time. The sheer number of bizarre visual choices just augments the terrible pacing and dialogue... Frankly, I could pick at Diabolik Lovers for hours, but you really have to see it yourself.
In summary, it's horrible and stupid and I had a great time. Give this one a watch next time you have a few hours to kill with friends.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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