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Another day, another isekai. But so far at least this one seems to keep away from the worst offending usual trappings. The MC is not OP from episode 2 onwards, does not look like it is going into Harem direction, and the MC is somewhat unique.

And I don't even know why they had to make this an isekai. We're told the MC is a reincarnated something or other, but that is already forgotten halfway through chapter one. For all intents and purposes, the MC is just a child with higher-than-average IQ and a magic skill.

The graphics department is... OK, I guess? Although the color palette ... is too muted to my taste, it gives it some bland, generic feeling. And 'generic' is a word I'm going to be typing a lot in this review.

Audio and music are... forgettable, nothing to write home about.

The story is somewhat interesting although the worldbuilding is generic as it comes. The world is a single continent shaped like an island (boooring), split into multiple semi-autonomous kingdoms. Your run of the mill middle ages society (closer to Renaissance seeing the cities) where the Emperor is not really that powerful and has to thread carefully with the local kings. And war is at the doorstep with the current Emperor being a child with not one but several advisors with conflicting agendas, and the kings smelling weakness like sharks smelling blood on the water.

To its credit, the anime shakes things a bit by putting our MC as the child of not one of those kings but two steps down the ladder. His family runs just a little district inside one of those kingdoms. They are bannermen, basically. Lowest you can be and still call yourself 'noble'. They have a nice house, a few servants, enough soldiers to at least have some infantry, archers and cavalry... and that's it. The father is smart enough to see that war is coming so they seem to be preparing for it (or at least training a lot) and, when the MC starts showing his "instinct" to see what people are good for, he is happy to see his child has some skills and is not totally useless.

The characters are... serviceable? MC is smart and basically a good guy, and realizes that a healthy kingdom is one with good economy and no poverty. Then we have generic highborn dad, generic male fighter, and now in chapter three generic slave mage girl. But none of them are idiots and their actions and decisions make sense, so there is that.

This anime looks so far to be leaning more towards "How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom" than the more action-focused counterparts, with the MC building a team and taking a more managerial position himself, which is nice for a change but nothing groundbreaking.

All in all, it has some potential. But I fear that the unique strong points in this anime are weighted down by being soooo utterly generic in every other aspect. Generic feudal setting, generic magic system, generic people (at least we don't have cat-girls for fanservice once again, though), generic 'discriminated minority with just darker hair', generic everything. Even the 'child protagonist' is generic by now with Mushoku Tensei, The Apothecary Diaries & others. But let's see how the season pans out, episode three was fun after all.

Well, this was a very nice surprise this year.

Good story, good characters, well handled mature themes, does not treat the viewers as idiots and some slick mecha action. That ticks all the checkboxes for me!

The story has a couple plot holes (mainly about why no 86 unit rebels or goes AWOL) but it is otherwise solid. The characters are well written, the female lead gets a nice developing arc, and over the episodes we get some nice backstory for most characters.

But the main success of the series is that is able to treat themes of racism, genocide and war with respect and good taste. It ... also showcases the saying that goes 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing'. It depicts different kinds of racism and discrimination well enough (from blatant bigotry to other less obvious versions). And it does all that without simply saying'86s good, Albas bad'.

And then the action side of the show is also well written and executed. It is also refreshing to finally see some anime that does not shy away from killing characters ala Game of Thrones. It really sets a mood of high stakes that makes the war setting much more believable. No plot armor here for anyone!

All in all, a solid 9!

In a word: Meh.

The story is bland, boring and predictable. And the characters are not better. Also, as a reader of the novels and fan of the franchise: That´s NOT Takeshi Kovacs.

Envoys are not just combat specialists, they are infiltrators with an uncanny sense sense for body language. They´re supposed to be amazing character readers that smell treason a mile away and can understand the motivations and desires of every person in the room after just 5mins of conversation. And then use that info to manipulate everyone around them. And here there are SO MANY things go over the MC´s head that is not even ... funny. Makes no sense at all.

Honestly, this anime would have worked better if it was just a story taking place in Altered Carbon universe but using different characters and not Kovacs.

Also, there´s a metric ton of fridge logic and plot holes that make zero sense the moment you stop to think about them. Like (no spoilers): Where does the bad guy get his army of cyborg ninjas from? Why is stack backup, which is a staple of the Altered Carbon universe, not even mentioned? Surely if the big bad guy has an army at his disposal he can afford stack backup. Also, tattoo technology that is only known by a single person on the whole planet?

The art is decent though I do not understand why so many people are praising it. It´s good CGI but nothing spectacular. It reminds me of the art style of the Telltale games for some reason.

Yet another anime with an incredible good premise that has all the signs of going downhill as the season progresses.

There are some very cool ideas going on here, and some are well executed as well. The premise can be a hard pill to swallow, but that's not really a problem if you can look past it: A magic technology that captures particles from the subconscious of killers and allows recreating said subconscious in a computer simulation, where a special type of cop delves to investigate. A bit like The Cell movie, with Jennifer Lopez, but accessing a copy of the killer mind instead of ... the real deal.

So we get some surreal worlds representing the minds of crazed killers, and cop that dives into those worlds to identify and apprehend the killers. Great concept if you ask me.

But the problems start when you realize the the supposed super-detective/diver is anything but. He just stumbles in those mind-worlds, dying multiple times, until he gets to get a glimpse of the perpetrator face. And immediately the rest of the cop team (who watch the computer simulation from the real world) applies facial recognition and identify the killer. Booooooring.

The first episode plays with more subtle clues, like a calendar from particular store that allows the cops to reduce the search area. And the point of view of the killer subconscious, which tells them from which direction he was seeing the store. But seems they quickly run out of smart clues and they just resort to facial recognition in the other episodes.

The other half of the show depicts the descent into the abyss of one of the field cops (the ones that go capture the bad guy after the computer-cops identify him). From cute clueless rookie to cold badass due to [plot reasons]. This half of the show is turning out to be more interesting, now that they're ruining the first half.

Anyway, the concept is original (or at least not done a lot of times), the mind-worlds are interesting and the badass-in-the-making rookie is OK too (though some displays of that badassery are very poorly written). So the show gets a 7 for me. For now. I totally expect the show to go downhill, seeing how bad they´re executing some of the very good ideas, mostly due to lazy/bad script writing.

No reviews at the time of writing, so here goes mine :)

Red Planet is a surprisingly decent movie. It does not excel in any department but it does not fail in any neither.

I know many people hate the computer graphics but here it kinda fits the setting. Most of the time we're shown spaceships, corridors, bugs, and soldiers in full armor; and it looks really good. It does not look that good when the focus shifts to unarmored humans, or when the soldiers remove their helmets. Normal humans move... weird (for lack of a better term) and faces look off too.

The story and characters ... are quite predictable, but to my surprise this installment does have some of the dark humor, sarcasm and criticism of the fascist state that the Verhoeven movie had. So it gets bonus points there.

The action, like the rest of the movie, is not top notch but is way better than average. It does not go too far into gore territory but it does not shy away from some dismemberment either. The guns are solid, the bugs agile and fierce, and the mechs (yes, it has mechs) kick ass.

Overall 7/10 and better than the previous (Starship Troopers: Invasion).

In a word: Mediocre.

Classical story of fallen hero that redeems himself by taking care of a child. You´ve seen it countless times in different mediums. And when done correctly it can work pretty well.

But Case 3 does not do it very well. The characters are all extremely one-dimensional. Even Kougami, who is a very interesting character in the first and second seasons, gets here reduced to just "revenge is bad so I won´t kill anyone anymore". And he takes that motto to ridiculous lengths.

One also wonders why someone who is renouncing violence travels to the hottest warzone in Asia. It really makes no sense. ... This story would work much better if he was running AWAY from violence, and violence found him anyway. But instead he´s travelling from warzone to warzone! Retarded.

Then you have villains whose plan reminds me of the South Park gnomes business plan:
1 - Collect underpants
2 - ???
3 - Profit

I´m still scratching my head trying to understand what was the villain plan and how doing what he does is supposed to make him rich.

While Case 2 could have greatly benefited from additional 30-40min or running time, here in Case 3 I was glad the nonsense was over quickly.

The final action scene is cool, so I guess there´s that.

After really disliking Case 1, I was expecting Case 2 to be equally bad. But it is actually good.

Now, one hour is way too short for a movie, so it still feels a bit rushed and some characters get so little camera time that their appearances feel more like a cameo. But the story is solid. Nothing outlandish, just a plain old revenge tale, but solid indeed. And we get a great deal of character development as this takes place before season 1, so we get a peek at some characters life before that time.

It also gives us a look at how the military functions ... under the Sybil system, so we get some nice world-building for the PP universe in the same package.

All in all, a 7/10. And it could have been an 8 or even a 9 if it had got some 30-45 extra running time to tell the story at a nicer pace.

What the... did I just see?

Season 1 is one of my few 10s here in MAL. I´m in the minority that liked season 2 quite a lot as well. And I even found the first movie half-decent. But this? No story, no character development, no action, no nothing. Sure, art and sound are quite good but... who cares if everything else is so poor?

The worst offender is the totally absurd and nonsensical plot. Without going into any kind of spoilers, just remember that in Psycho-Pass world there are TONS of drones and robots for industrial and police work, as it has been established in previous ... seasons. Just with that in mind, the whole premise falls apart. You´ll understand if you watch it.

Oh, well, here I go to watch Case 2, like the masochist I am :P

First, quick disclaimer: I dropped the show after 6 episodes, so maybe it improves afterwards (don´t think so). Oh, and very mild spoilers on some action scenes ahead (no spoilers on the story, though).

Special 7 depicts a Shadowrun-esque world, similar to Copcraft, but one where magic use is very restricted and really powerful. It follows the adventures of an elite police unit that for reasons unknown operates independently from, and it´s despised by the rest of the police force.

It loosely follows the GitS template so we have the usual array of members. We have the MC (or more like audience surrogate), a normal human and ... rookie detective, that joined the force because of [tragic childhood event]. Then there´s a small girl from some magical race I don´t remember who is a hacker and drone operator, and whose only character trait seems be to repeating 'I´m a ninja!' ad nauseam. The real ninja is a vampire gal, who looks cool but doesn't´t say much. Then the mandatory elite sniper with an eye-patch. And as driver we have a snotty elf with a grudge. Oh, and the mysterious boss too. The most interesting character is Ichinose, senior detective who cannot hit the broad side of a barn (except when plot demands it) but is apparently a tactical and analysis mastermind (although his plans are basically charge the enemy head-on).

So.. not top notch but not too bad, right? And is some aspects it is not. The characters are really one-dimensional but that´s not a cardinal sin if the story and action are OK. And the story, though bland and very predictable, kinda keeps the interest. But oh man the action sucks soooo much it utterly destroys the show.

Basically, the action is A-Team level of stupid. Blow a van with explosives? No problem, the passengers just walk out if it unscathed and ready to be cuffed. Shootout against 30 terrorists holding hostages? No issues, our team is able to shoot the guns out each and every terrorist hands! But the vampire has a sword, right? Worry not! She hits everyone with the flat side!

Now, I´m not a fan of gore, and I don´t need all my shows to be R-rated. But the action is so ridiculous it breaks all suspension of disbelief. Also, it´s not consistent. The snotty elf blows the head off 4-5 bad guys (in a fade-to-black, sure, but they´re gone for good). And then he gets shot in the gut. And there´s blood. And the bad guys kill people too. Off-screen mostly but they do and we even see pools of blood.

So why sometimes we have deaths and the rest of the time is A-Team level of nonsense? Go figure.

To summarize: Not great, not terrible. If the above does not bother you and you dig the 'orcs, elfs and magic in today´s world' setting, then give it a chance.

Decent anime that feels like a missed opportunity. It has potential but it never makes use of it. It mostly suffers from being too episodic. There is a nice story arc in there, but episodes 4 to 8 barely touch it, so the pacing suffers.

The art is not great (too many static pictures used) but it´s serviceable. The characters have potential but we get very little background from them along the way.Although watching them banter with each other is fun, the typical cop-buddy stuff is well done.

The story has a very nice noir flavor (sex, politics and violence) with some anti racism message thrown ... in the mix (which is good), but it has the aforementioned pacing issues. It also could do without the loli fan service stuff and the chainmail bikini, but that´s Japan for you, I guess.

Not great, not terrible, better than the average.