My goal is to help new viewers or readers understand what makes a work worth their time, and how best to experience it. Whether it's the complex themes, the outlandish battles, or the unforgettable moments, I want my reviews to offer a roadmap to fully enjoying a series.
I aim to leave readers thinking about the deeper meanings behind the flashy exterior, while also keeping it accessible and fun. After all, every great work has layers, and I’m here to help you find them.
I am a Jojo fan, but most of all, a Hirohiko Araki fan. The guy always delivers peak work after peak work with minimal breaks for more than 30 years. His writing is rich with themes, blending the bizarre and the profound in a way that’s both fun and thought-provoking.
With Jojo, you laugh, you cry, you think, you learn, and most importantly, you admire. There's always something to talk about, whether it’s the brilliant characters, mind-bending Stands, or the thematic depth beneath the surface.
Araki inspires me. He loves his craft—manga, anime, art, music, fashion—and this passion shines through in every page and frame. Jojo is a testament to his love for humanity in all its eccentricities, and that’s what makes it so beautiful.
My scores are defined by 3 dimensions: 0 to 8 points for overall effectiveness at delivering the story
This score reflects how well the show achieves what it's meant to be, on an episode-by-episode basis. Whether it's exciting and upbeat, or sometimes even sad or slow-paced, the effectiveness depends on the type of show.
Disclaimer: There are certain tropes I simply don’t enjoy, and if a work relies on those, it might lose a point due to my personal disconnect with that style. While this might seem unfair, that's exactly why I added this disclaimer. If the writing doesn't compensate for these aspects, I deduct a point.
Mecha — Mecha battles tend to feel stiff. Once the characters are in their machines, the narrative often feels limited, and the action becomes less engaging.
Romance — It’s one of the most written-about topics, so the bar is high. A romance story needs to stand out in a saturated genre.
Sports — I find it odd how skills characters learn suddenly become the most crucial thing in the game, only to be replaced by the next skill. It frequently feels like there's a trade-off between believability and character development in a genre that thrives on both.
0 or 2 point for thematic relevance
This is typically what sets the good apart from the great. It’s one thing to be entertaining, but to entertain while making a meaningful statement about society or life takes it to another level.
-1 or 0 point for 'bad argument'
If a work presents a thematic conclusion I find flawed or harmful, I’ll deduct a point.
Sorry for the late, i closed opera by mistake i lost my entire fucking comment days ago, i got bored and frustatred to do it again
0) When I listen to "Contrived" I expect to find an extremely artificial relationship guided by circumstances that the plot does not want, they are only there as a checkmark, I don't see that problem at any point in dungeon meshi. My perfect example of that type of criticism is for jujutsu kaise
1) I made a fatal mistake here, I mixed up the numbers because that day I was reading the chapter on page 26 and I wrote it by mistake, the chapter I wanted to say was chapter 20. Chilchuck makes it clear why he helped, he considers it his job and they paid him earlier since the previous trip.
3)thats the detail, i dont see any of that in DM. their group is all rounded in personalitites in therm own terms.
>but that they seemed to not really learn anything or do anything when the camera is not showing.
Is this so necessary as to say that this is a problem? DM has the monster of the week structure and each monster they face is easy to pass, there is a difference of two to three hours and at most the trip took them less than a week to reach the dragon level; I swear I try to see it from your point of view and it doesn't work and from a writing point of view it doesn't work for me either because you are telling what is interesting even if that becomes kinda of redundant like the bug coins
4) You spend too much time with him to get a strong idea of how he thinks, Laios is neurodivergent, I'm not saying he's autistic, because he's not, but Laios is based on the archetype of a Japanese otaku, Laios may be doing a task and put it aside just to do something that interests him even more if it is selfish; The trip is just an excuse so that Laios can finally indulge his intention of eating monsters, his sister is something tertiary in his adventure. And he hid Kensuke because he was amazed by the monster and how it worked and he believed he could train it like a pet, he saw Kensuke as harmless, but he was wrong and it was very ignorant of him to do it on his whim. He becomes very reckless when it comes to monsters and black magic has not the same level of "care" to "him" as the monsters; Anyway, he had to share the information he trust shuro by default, Laios sees Shuro as a trusted friend and he truly trusted that things would turn out well on his part so that he would cooperate with him; Laios also failed to measure the seriousness of the problem he is in, Chilchuck emphasizes the tremendous stupidity he did. He mentions in a panel that he misjudged the situation. As I told you before, Laios has a very strange way of seeing things
Laios warned that monsters should not be take it lightly, his linden backfired on Kensuke because he saw him as docile and manipulable. It is the same story as Senshi and the horse that although they had been living together for years, this was of no use because the monster tried to kill him in the same way.
4.2)Because ages are a sensitive topic and apart from that they never sat down to discuss the detail, it is not mandatory, they make it clear in the series, ages make certain people sensitive to other races about, especially long-lived races. . Seeing the shorter-lived as less, the elves do not view any of the other races seriously.
>She lived amongst humans, she should have seen some other tallman
However she never did, she did not live with humans. She lived with elves and after her father died she joined an all female academy
>and being masculine and tall shouldn't make any difference
in factual its actual the case, marcille took it like a shock the difference between man and woman when she saw laios for the first time, she mentioned in some extra.
>0 — How is my criticism terrible? I've been both hearing you and was as detailed as I could without spoilers in my review.
I found it terrible, because the series has absolutely none of that problem
1 — Yes. Exactly what I said. Chilchuck had not thought about it deeply before, but they definitely were friends.
Again, they are not, I already repeated myself in the previous comment, if Fallin had been the one to survive, no one would have supported Fallin to save Laios. They are not friends, they do not care about laios at first, yes, im refering about chilchuck. He went on the crusade for two reasons, it's his job and for a reward and he himself said that he doesn't consider Laios/Marcille/Fallin his friends until much later. This is talked about in chapter 26; Chilchuck considered the trip a waste of time if it weren't for Laios saying the argument about the slow digestion of red dragons.
3 — Yes. Exactly. If you want an example: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 3 is an example where the author always nails this. There are scenes where they are shown having an intricate handshake or when a shape-shifter sneaks into the group, they ask him to do tricks that we have never seen. It just shows how much closer they are and how much they got to know each other. Dungeon Meshi even has such an opportunity, when the shape-shifters infiltrate our team, everything Laius had on our main cast was stuff that happened on-screen. Even Marcille carelessness is exactly equal to something that happened on-screen.
They know each other but at the same time they don't know each other, you shape-shifter serves to see the reality of his perception of the other characters, nobody takes Laios seriously and they take him as a Flanderized caricature of his person, the same as Chilchuck and his childlike appearance, or Marcille and her vestige of racism towards elves and senshi for their masculinity. I consider this important for them to deepen their relationship because they haven't really considered each other close until a little later. And no, there's nothing wrong with continuing with ideas already planned in the series, and no, that's not true either; It's the first time we see the others see the reality of how they look at each other and their severe case of autism otaku. You can complain about the storytelling but that doesn't mean bad writing at all, it's just the author's way of writing. The arcs of the series are all tied to each thing that happens to them on the journey, the context has to do with it enough to get to know them and get attached to them, their interactions are full of life even in the early days of the manga.
>4 — How is it so different? They weren't THAT radical against monsters. Laios is the one that is shown saying that monsters cannot be trusted, mind you — Marcille was in favor of keeping Anne and Chilchuk had no objections and was poking holes at Laios objections.
If they are, they have complained throughout the journey that eating monsters is something that crazy people tend to do, the last thing they want to deal with is Laios' madness, Laios saw the opportunity to be able to tame a monster and took it without hesitation.
Laios is based on the eccentric archetype of Japanese otaku on an extremely specific niche like trains.
>And how is Ancient Magic so much more acceptable? If anything it was a lot more inadmissible and Laios knew that.
its laios
>That is also not the only case: The Chilchuk Chapter where he shares his age. Everybody is acting as if he is closed off (mainly Marcille), but nobody actually seems to know the others ages — It comes up after that in same chapter and once again in the changeling episode.
It is not noticeable at first glance, they are not of the same race, Only up to the arc of the change of races do they explain the ages in depth. Also marcille only lived with her own father until she died and then she traveled to hogwarts; Marcille had never seen a tall, masculine tallman other than her father, he is the only person she saw die alongside her puppy of old age
>Mithrun is shown very collected on “On the 1st Level”. Which features he actually close to the Demon (his only desire). Against Marcille he doesn't even know if she has it or not and doesn't let her say anything (Until Chilchuk mentions she is an elite amongst elfkind, but she is an elite amongst humankind).
I dont understood where you going with thi
>In the same venue. The Canaries are always seen negotiating, and not only with elites, as that included random dude on first level and Kabru in many occasions. When dealing with Marcille there is no hint of hearing or talking their mind.
same here, Are you trying to present a perspective that there is no mental dialogue on their part?
There is a factor that pushes the narrative that they are not friends, and it is the what if that Kui wrote, where Falin is the one who survives and Laious dies with the dragon. Falin asks everyone, including Chilchuck, and no one wanted to help her except Marcille...
>There is no reason for Chilchuk or Marcille to go for the adventure if they were not friends in some level
They gave a huge explanation at the beggining of the series of why chilchuck went to help laious to save Fallin. Chilchuck had not thought about it before and until he experienced real danger and worried about his friends after facing the dragon is when he took the trip as personal and altruistic to help save Fallin, you are forgetting the talk he had with the female orc. Marcille and Fallin are friends,
>2 — You're comparing miners with them? There is not that much coordination needed in mining. They are typically a way larger group. They typically unionize and they get paid. There is no comparison to be made here.
You are involving a narrative in which they work 24/7, I attach a situation similar to how miners work. And it doesn't matter if they are large groups, the miners work in sections, the miners are left working in a section of the tunnel with few people, so relationships are forged. They are united groups, they care about each other, but that is how work relationships are.
>3 — Yes. The thing is that there seems to be little to no evidence of her doing any of that off-screen. Nothing that the characters know about each other (aside from Falin) was uncovered off-screen. That's why I used the word 'artificial' — They are not really bad or contrived, but they don't feel like they exist much outside of view.
If I understand correctly, you call the interactions artificial because they only appear on camera? Progress happens both on and off camera. The first floor arc explains well the situations the main group gets into when they are not on camera. Anyway, I will answer your point, you are writing a story. You are telling the relevant progress of the characters and how they open up emotionally through the life or death situations that happen to them, and you want many of those situations to happen off-camera, that creates a problem, because then the problem arises that the development of characters begins off-camera and that is to blame for bad writing; The difference here is that the life of even the secondary ones progresses on its own and vice versa with the main ones.So I ask you how do you want to solve it?
>4 — There is no subtext, that is directly mentioned. I know that, I have read it. Ancient Magic also relates to the same stuff. I was comparing the situations. If Laius were a consistent character, he would have either carelessly talk about both or try to keep both secret.
Laios is consistent, the situations are different because one involves a monster that he wanted as a pet. The others would have killed it at the touch
Excuse me but I never called you an idiot or something like that and if you call "You don't know how to read subtext" out of insult, then excuse me because that is implicated in your terrible criticism that I don't agree with.
I understand but imo following this train of thought, every review should be in the category of mixed feelings because in every anime there are elements that are not objectively bad but still someone may not like it, you think that "not original scenery" strengthens the theme because it is familiar (or something like that) so what if someone may not like it? if it is not bad in your opinion? Personally, when I categorize reviews and I think that the anime is good and the vast majority (if not all) of its elements work, I give it a recommended one and I do not think about people who will perceive it differently because I myself think that it is something worth recommending, that is how every review works.
When you post a review on this site, in the settings under the rating, there are three categories, recommended, mixed feelings and not recommended, if you want, you can edit the review and change it because your review is in the mixed feelings category even though it is 100% positive.
All Comments (6) Comments
0) When I listen to "Contrived" I expect to find an extremely artificial relationship guided by circumstances that the plot does not want, they are only there as a checkmark, I don't see that problem at any point in dungeon meshi. My perfect example of that type of criticism is for jujutsu kaise
1) I made a fatal mistake here, I mixed up the numbers because that day I was reading the chapter on page 26 and I wrote it by mistake, the chapter I wanted to say was chapter 20. Chilchuck makes it clear why he helped, he considers it his job and they paid him earlier since the previous trip.
3)thats the detail, i dont see any of that in DM. their group is all rounded in personalitites in therm own terms.
>but that they seemed to not really learn anything or do anything when the camera is not showing.
Is this so necessary as to say that this is a problem? DM has the monster of the week structure and each monster they face is easy to pass, there is a difference of two to three hours and at most the trip took them less than a week to reach the dragon level; I swear I try to see it from your point of view and it doesn't work and from a writing point of view it doesn't work for me either because you are telling what is interesting even if that becomes kinda of redundant like the bug coins
4) You spend too much time with him to get a strong idea of how he thinks, Laios is neurodivergent, I'm not saying he's autistic, because he's not, but Laios is based on the archetype of a Japanese otaku, Laios may be doing a task and put it aside just to do something that interests him even more if it is selfish; The trip is just an excuse so that Laios can finally indulge his intention of eating monsters, his sister is something tertiary in his adventure. And he hid Kensuke because he was amazed by the monster and how it worked and he believed he could train it like a pet, he saw Kensuke as harmless, but he was wrong and it was very ignorant of him to do it on his whim. He becomes very reckless when it comes to monsters and black magic has not the same level of "care" to "him" as the monsters; Anyway, he had to share the information he trust shuro by default, Laios sees Shuro as a trusted friend and he truly trusted that things would turn out well on his part so that he would cooperate with him; Laios also failed to measure the seriousness of the problem he is in, Chilchuck emphasizes the tremendous stupidity he did. He mentions in a panel that he misjudged the situation. As I told you before, Laios has a very strange way of seeing things
Laios warned that monsters should not be take it lightly, his linden backfired on Kensuke because he saw him as docile and manipulable. It is the same story as Senshi and the horse that although they had been living together for years, this was of no use because the monster tried to kill him in the same way.
4.2)Because ages are a sensitive topic and apart from that they never sat down to discuss the detail, it is not mandatory, they make it clear in the series, ages make certain people sensitive to other races about, especially long-lived races. . Seeing the shorter-lived as less, the elves do not view any of the other races seriously.
>She lived amongst humans, she should have seen some other tallman
However she never did, she did not live with humans. She lived with elves and after her father died she joined an all female academy
>and being masculine and tall shouldn't make any difference
in factual its actual the case, marcille took it like a shock the difference between man and woman when she saw laios for the first time, she mentioned in some extra.
4.3 i legit forgot what was my response here
I found it terrible, because the series has absolutely none of that problem
1 — Yes. Exactly what I said. Chilchuck had not thought about it deeply before, but they definitely were friends.
Again, they are not, I already repeated myself in the previous comment, if Fallin had been the one to survive, no one would have supported Fallin to save Laios. They are not friends, they do not care about laios at first, yes, im refering about chilchuck. He went on the crusade for two reasons, it's his job and for a reward and he himself said that he doesn't consider Laios/Marcille/Fallin his friends until much later. This is talked about in chapter 26; Chilchuck considered the trip a waste of time if it weren't for Laios saying the argument about the slow digestion of red dragons.
3 — Yes. Exactly. If you want an example: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 3 is an example where the author always nails this. There are scenes where they are shown having an intricate handshake or when a shape-shifter sneaks into the group, they ask him to do tricks that we have never seen. It just shows how much closer they are and how much they got to know each other. Dungeon Meshi even has such an opportunity, when the shape-shifters infiltrate our team, everything Laius had on our main cast was stuff that happened on-screen. Even Marcille carelessness is exactly equal to something that happened on-screen.
They know each other but at the same time they don't know each other, you shape-shifter serves to see the reality of his perception of the other characters, nobody takes Laios seriously and they take him as a Flanderized caricature of his person, the same as Chilchuck and his childlike appearance, or Marcille and her vestige of racism towards elves and senshi for their masculinity. I consider this important for them to deepen their relationship because they haven't really considered each other close until a little later. And no, there's nothing wrong with continuing with ideas already planned in the series, and no, that's not true either; It's the first time we see the others see the reality of how they look at each other and their severe case of autism otaku. You can complain about the storytelling but that doesn't mean bad writing at all, it's just the author's way of writing. The arcs of the series are all tied to each thing that happens to them on the journey, the context has to do with it enough to get to know them and get attached to them, their interactions are full of life even in the early days of the manga.
>4 — How is it so different? They weren't THAT radical against monsters. Laios is the one that is shown saying that monsters cannot be trusted, mind you — Marcille was in favor of keeping Anne and Chilchuk had no objections and was poking holes at Laios objections.
If they are, they have complained throughout the journey that eating monsters is something that crazy people tend to do, the last thing they want to deal with is Laios' madness, Laios saw the opportunity to be able to tame a monster and took it without hesitation.
Laios is based on the eccentric archetype of Japanese otaku on an extremely specific niche like trains.
>And how is Ancient Magic so much more acceptable? If anything it was a lot more inadmissible and Laios knew that.
its laios
>That is also not the only case: The Chilchuk Chapter where he shares his age. Everybody is acting as if he is closed off (mainly Marcille), but nobody actually seems to know the others ages — It comes up after that in same chapter and once again in the changeling episode.
It is not noticeable at first glance, they are not of the same race, Only up to the arc of the change of races do they explain the ages in depth. Also marcille only lived with her own father until she died and then she traveled to hogwarts; Marcille had never seen a tall, masculine tallman other than her father, he is the only person she saw die alongside her puppy of old age
>Mithrun is shown very collected on “On the 1st Level”. Which features he actually close to the Demon (his only desire). Against Marcille he doesn't even know if she has it or not and doesn't let her say anything (Until Chilchuk mentions she is an elite amongst elfkind, but she is an elite amongst humankind).
I dont understood where you going with thi
>In the same venue. The Canaries are always seen negotiating, and not only with elites, as that included random dude on first level and Kabru in many occasions. When dealing with Marcille there is no hint of hearing or talking their mind.
same here, Are you trying to present a perspective that there is no mental dialogue on their part?
>There is no reason for Chilchuk or Marcille to go for the adventure if they were not friends in some level
They gave a huge explanation at the beggining of the series of why chilchuck went to help laious to save Fallin. Chilchuck had not thought about it before and until he experienced real danger and worried about his friends after facing the dragon is when he took the trip as personal and altruistic to help save Fallin, you are forgetting the talk he had with the female orc. Marcille and Fallin are friends,
>2 — You're comparing miners with them? There is not that much coordination needed in mining. They are typically a way larger group. They typically unionize and they get paid. There is no comparison to be made here.
You are involving a narrative in which they work 24/7, I attach a situation similar to how miners work. And it doesn't matter if they are large groups, the miners work in sections, the miners are left working in a section of the tunnel with few people, so relationships are forged. They are united groups, they care about each other, but that is how work relationships are.
>3 — Yes. The thing is that there seems to be little to no evidence of her doing any of that off-screen. Nothing that the characters know about each other (aside from Falin) was uncovered off-screen. That's why I used the word 'artificial' — They are not really bad or contrived, but they don't feel like they exist much outside of view.
If I understand correctly, you call the interactions artificial because they only appear on camera? Progress happens both on and off camera. The first floor arc explains well the situations the main group gets into when they are not on camera. Anyway, I will answer your point, you are writing a story. You are telling the relevant progress of the characters and how they open up emotionally through the life or death situations that happen to them, and you want many of those situations to happen off-camera, that creates a problem, because then the problem arises that the development of characters begins off-camera and that is to blame for bad writing; The difference here is that the life of even the secondary ones progresses on its own and vice versa with the main ones.So I ask you how do you want to solve it?
>4 — There is no subtext, that is directly mentioned. I know that, I have read it. Ancient Magic also relates to the same stuff. I was comparing the situations. If Laius were a consistent character, he would have either carelessly talk about both or try to keep both secret.
Laios is consistent, the situations are different because one involves a monster that he wanted as a pet. The others would have killed it at the touch
Excuse me but I never called you an idiot or something like that and if you call "You don't know how to read subtext" out of insult, then excuse me because that is implicated in your terrible criticism that I don't agree with.