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May 16, 2023
This is certainly a Makoto Shinkai film, that is written in a very Makoto Shinkai type of narrative. Shinkai has begun to master the art of essentially copy and pasting the same story over and over again.
I came into Suzume with a rather optimistic expectation as to be honest, I enjoyed Tenki no Ko as much as a watered down version of “Your Name” it is. And from user impressions, they were all boasting about how I guess… Unique Suzume is, so I decided to give this movie a watch. And I came to the conclusion that… Suzume is not really good.
Suzume’s plot in layman’s
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terms is pretty much about a girl named Suzume, who met the main male character, Souta and both of them would go on a wondrous adventure of closing various doors around the world to stop earthquakes caused by mythical creatures beyond the door, caused by a bloody cat.
Unfortunately I fail to find anything close intriguing in Suzume’s narrative as it pretty much follows the same Shinkai formula in which simply put, consists of two characters of the opposite sex meeting, bonding, get separated in some way or form and it’s the plot’s job to get them back together.
The plot itself feels a bit heavy-handed as events just happen rather spontaneously and majority of the drama were generally resolved using cheap plot contrivances which are rather predictable and doesn’t exactly offer much to me emotionally.
The cast of Suzume is generally pretty bland, which consists of basically the main girl/boy who are in a relationship, and some side characters who try to support their absolute nuisance of a relative. I am genuinely surprised the adopted mom was able to stand Suzume’s attitude as throughout the whole film she was generally an asshole towards her step-mom. I find the character drama between her and Suzume to be rather stupid and overblown, and to repeat what I formerly addressed, resolved in the most contrived and the most over-indulgent way possible. And ugh, the fucking cat… why?
And the claim of Suzume being “unique” doesn’t really make sense to me, as it pretty much follows the same Makoto-styled writing throughout the whole film, in which the only “change” is that of it having more supernatural elements than last time? In which the elements themselves aren’t really intriguing either. No way!? They turned the main guy into a chair!?!! Oh my days!! Variety!!
If you like the usual recycled Makoto Shinkai narrative, than I’m absolutely sure this movie is for you. The visuals are absolutely breathtaking as always, and it’s certainly an ethereal experience to watch it in theaters.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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May 15, 2023
Jigokuraku is generally a well-rounded shounen and I would absolutely recommend it to the majority of battle shounen fans.
The story starts off quite straightforward, as the majority of the main cast were pretty much introduced early on. The thematics are also again, quite straightforward as the narrative generally revolves around the concept of exploring the more “human” side of criminals, and as the narrative states the criminals may look “hollow”, “evil”, and many more repugnant traits at face value, they’re still of course just humans like we all are and Jigokuraku explores this quite well. The cast is great as the characters are quirky, easy
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to like and all their own narrative and struggles. The plot and lore of Jigokuraku also revolves around Taoism, which fits quite well thematically as patience, and compassion are one of the main concepts of taoist philosophy. But majority of the compliments pretty much ends there as I begin to gripe.
The main love interest, which had such a big role in the main narrative of Jigokuraku barely has any screen time, and basically stays in the background until the final chapters, which didn’t exactly sit well with me as so many times the MC won’t stop preaching about his bloody wife at least I want to see some interactions with her? Doesn’t sit well with me setting up a romantic narrative when the heroine has zero screen time. Which is why I still felt like Sagiri or Yuzuriha(?) would’ve been a more interesting romantic interest than Yui.
I’m not particularly a big fan of the plot either as they’re basically just throwing Taoism around as a form of aesthetic (a way to look cool?? I guess) instead of making it more relevant to the themes of Jigokuraku, and going more into the Taoist philosophy instead. The plot itself also is a big convoluted mess with annoyingly dense and overblown narration which makes it quite a pain to follow what is happening.
Some characters should’ve been further explored. Though I did compliment the characters for having their own narrative, Jigokuraku particularly frustrates me with the feeling that they could’ve been way further developed but all we get is a piece of their backstory, and the narration just constantly remind us of how “the villians… they’re kinda human dude” in the most monotonous way possible.
There’s also a lack of emotional pull from Jigokuraku though the characters are developed (on a surface level) and there is huge drama, I just don’t really find myself caring that much, as I do feel like there are so much cool ideas from Jigokuraku but… it gets boggled down with your usual battle shounen tropes.
Anyways, It’s generally a recommended read even with it’s flaws and I’m excited to see people’s reaction to Jigokuraku.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 15, 2023
Generally a pretty bland overblown sex drama that doesn’t really have much to offer.
The narrative of Scum’s Wish revolves around the idea of “unrequited love” and how to cope with it, which per se isn’t exactly the most creative idea thematically but I still found it quite interesting going into this manga. But as I continue to read Scum’s Wish ended up to be a rather bland manga with an extremely overblown narrative and monotonous characters. We constantly get this same obnoxious sequence of X falls in love with Y, but Y is in love with someone else, then we get a cutscene to X
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having sex with Z who pretty much has the same issue, rinse and repeat. This sequence was fine at first but the manga just continues to use the same fucking events multiple times, just with different characters. As for the characters, they’re also basically just literal narrative copies of each other with different personalities and are generally very monotonous and again, doesn’t bring anything new except for the fact that they’re depressed cause their lover isn’t in love with them, so they proceed to take advantage of Z, like I just mentioned in relation to the plot. Not to say that all characters are literal copies of each other as there are more intriguing characters in this manga as for example, Akane. But that isn’t really much of a high bar, really.
Overall, If you’re interested with an overblown sex drama with a gratingly repetitive story structure, go ahead and read this. I wouldn’t exactly recommend it
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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