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Sep 8, 2023
For the sake of avoiding spoilers- and encouraging people to read this- I will make my point extremely concise: if you are a fan of Kemono Friends and were disappointed with the anime’s second season, read this.
I really cannot understate how much of an improvement this is. Not only is the art itself fantastic, but it makes so many changes that were absolutely needed for Season 2 to really reach its full potential and create a satisfying conclusion. Originally long and boring sections are shortened here, and sometimes story-relevant information or backstory is added into them to give them a purpose. Originally short sections
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with forgettable background characters are given more depth, and sometimes have emotional scenes which draw parallels to- or create a bond with- the main characters.
And the main characters have even significantly improved, too. Kyururu was previously very bland, with little to no personality to speak of. This manga gives him a lot more depth and memorable moments of strength that made me really root for him, and really see his bond with his friends shine. Caracal was a surprising one, getting a lot of nice characterisation here and really emotional moments that I didn’t expect at all, coming from the original. The semblance of personality she had before is really fleshed out here and she’s quickly become one of my favourites.
And speaking of emotion, this manga is GREAT at portraying it. In the anime, emotions are usually shown very flatly, with very few moments feeling genuinely satisfying. Characters often don’t really feel like people of their own, and instead feel more like vessels of cute designs. But here, characters cry and get angry in capacities I really didn’t expect of this franchise. I could really feel everyone’s emotions by the end and the conclusion was very satisfying as a result.
Again, avoiding spoilers, a specific character who I really wanted to get more screentime in the original has a LOT of attention here, and it is so nice to see their story have this much care put into it. I’m almost baffled at how the writers didn’t include these scenes in the original anime- they were some of the highlights of this entire manga for me.
That’s about all I can say without ruining some of the surprise for you. Seriously, if you’re a fan of the franchise who has any emotional connection at all the story or characters in the second season, read this. Read it nowwwwww. There’s a great fan-translation you can find online, and it’s only three volumes long. I read it in one sitting and I don’t regret it at all. Hoping for official English volumes soon!
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Apr 9, 2023
As (evidently) one of the very few people who actually watched this instead of reading the description and fobbing it off as degen bait, I feel the need to clear up what exactly this is and what it does in portraying pole dancing.
As Pole Princess (PolPri for short) implicitly states in episode 2, the art is not inherently sexual, but is often demonised or seen as degenerate due to its association with clubs and adult venues. As a result, it’s often treated as simply just a form of fanservice, which completely undermines the hard work and physical ability pole dancers are required to build up
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in order to actually perform it. This anime aims to show the non-suggestive aspects of it, and the different ways the characters fit their styles into it.
As the pole dance music videos demonstrate, every character has a unique style or trait that’s evident in their dancing and how they express themselves. From cute twirls and poses to powerful kicks, spins and jumps- these animations do a great job of displaying the range of the art. These are all supervised by a real pole dance instructor- Kaori from Studio Transform- and to be blunt I think they look fantastic. Even if you don’t like the main story’s animation (which I understand, it’s not the best) I really recommend watching some of the pole dance videos. And listening to the songs themselves! They’re all great, and available on music streaming platforms.
But anyway, looking past the public’s perception of it- here’s my opinions.
First off, the animation. Yes, it’s a little rough. But it doesn’t take very long to get used to, and I didn’t really mind it at all. The models all look good, and at most, my biggest complaint was that the hair physics are a bit floaty. These issues are barely noticeable at all in the pole dances.
The story and writing is, in a word, cute. Like, it’s nothing to write home about, but I like all the characters and seeing them all interact as friends- and their voice actors do a great job showing their personalities (Seriously, have you SEEN the cast on this thing?). Subaru’s introduction and recruitment in particular is pretty goofy and I love it.
The songs are great. Like I said before, the voice actors know what they’re doing and all sing really well, and the songs themselves are catchy and immediately tell you what aesthetic and style the characters have. My personal favourite is the last performance in the final episode- the instrumental, environment and vocals mix so well together.
Overall, PolPri isn’t anywhere near a masterpiece, but I think its message on not writing things off and instead understanding the work behind it is important and I think it’s really disheartening that so many people online have a twisted view on what this project- and by extension, the dance it represents- truly is. At the very least, it taught me, and from just watching the dances and reading about the pole dancers involved, I’ve come to really appreciate how much strength and practice goes into learning it. With the recent announcement of an upcoming movie, my biggest hope is they have more scenes of the characters learning and practicing, and explaining different terminology and techniques.
I think this is a good start to a franchise that will hopefully tackle the stigma surrounding the art. Looking forward to the future of the project!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 20, 2022
I don’t have many thoughts on this show, so I’m going to keep this fairly short and to the point (something the anime never considered doing).
First off, this anime is a pointless watch whether you’re a veteran RWBY fan or a newcomer trying to get into it. It tries to cater to both, but doesn’t fully commit to either. There’s a lot of long explanations and recaps about main characters, power systems and the world they’re in, but it’s so detached from the main series and general timeline that they probably shouldn’t have bothered? It tries to condense the first two original volumes into two
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20-minute episodes which I’m sure anyone reading this can immediately see red flags in, so why they didn’t just write this from a ‘This is for the dedicated RWBY fans’ perspective is beyond me.
Second, the pacing is simply put, awful. Very hard to sit through. The first two episodes are so fast-paced and condensed with volume 1-2 event recaps that if you blink, you’ll miss a new character introduction. After the introduction of Weiss’ dream, it drags out new discoveries and adventure progressions to the point that it only feels like big differences are actually being made once EPISODE NINE starts. It was probably attempting to portray a long series of plans that all seemingly fail only to be like ‘their mistakes is what showed them the true right path’ but it instead just feels like the characters are throwing darts at a board, spending a whole episode coming up with another strategy, only to then throw five darts at the board the next episode and oh hey! one of them landed! just to reassure you that yes, time is moving.
This whole Weiss dream idea could be executed in three episodes, maybe four if they wanted to give the Blake vs Weiss section some more spotlight.
Third, presentation. I’ll skip over the animation quality discussion because I think other reviewers have already sufficiently torn into that- I wanna quickly mention this one editing trick this anime abuses so often you could make a drinking game out of it. Cuts across the screen of the characters currently speaking, relevant objects of importance, etc. You’ll know it when you see it. At first it was a neat way of showing all the main characters during the introduction section. It quickly became how the show visually presented every. other. conversation. It’s especially funny when you see a shot of a character reaching for an object, to have half the screen filled up with a redundant close-up cut of that object as if you somehow couldn’t see it. It’s distracting and incredibly unnecessary. I think someone on the storyboard team was too scared of using the standard shot-reverse-shot.
Overall, this could have been a neat little RWBY AU that deviates from the original timeline and focuses on the minds of the main four- instead, it focuses exclusively on Weiss and drags on for far too long.
Better idea I came up with in two minutes: start off with Ruby’s mind dream, showing her reasons for fighting and what pushes her forward. Works as an introduction for the world and her character. Briefly explore her relationship with her sister. Transition to her sister Yang’s mind dream, where that is the focus. Briefly explore her relationship with Blake, who needed a friend after her dark life and backstory. Transition to Blake’s mind dream, where that is the focus- to finally have a clean lead-in to Weiss’, where it functions as the final arc.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 5, 2021
Now I’m saying this as a D4DJ fan and as someone who was really looking forward to Petit Mix… but yeah we were robbed. With D4DJ: First Mix being as fun and as polished animation-wise as it was, watching the first few episodes of Petit Mix was pretty disappointing.
When all we had to base our expectations on was the anime’s official poster/illustration, it was very easy to expect the same kind of quality as Garupa Pico, another chibi-style mini anime based on a big Bushiroad anime media series (Also made by one of the same animation studios as Petit Mix). But Garupa Pico uses
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2D models for their characters, keeping quality consistent- and once I watched the first Petit Mix episode and saw that it used hand-drawn animation, I immediately got a little skeptical.
And I was kinda right in thinking that way, because as the series went on, there were more animation quality drops. Sometimes the lineart was too thick or pixelated, sometimes the eyes or mouth were too high or low, and sometimes there were pretty iffy body proportions. And even looking past the animation quality, the animation style sometimes isn’t very nice to look at either- the highlights on the eyes and hair can be TOO shiny and bright, and it was very noticeable for me, because the episodes were released on YouTube at night in my timezone, and I often watched them while they were being Premiered.
Outside the animation, the writing isn’t very strong either. It’s a mini anime after all, so I don’t expect it to have strong plot, but what I did expect was some good comedy. I know that Japanese humour is very different to the humour most English-speaking countries are used to, but at the very least, I do remember laughing at some of the jokes that Garupa Pico made. But despite the fact that Petit Mix had 26 episodes, I don’t remember laughing once. What I do remember were whole episodes where I wondered ‘…What’s going on? Is this supposed to make me laugh, or…?’ Episode 2 was the first episode that made me feel that way, and the fact that it was only the second episode… yeah.
Overall, Petit Mix was overhyped by the official accounts, and because of that it was a pretty big disappointment for me and many other D4DJ fans. Some of the character interactions and episode premises are fun or entertaining to watch, but the animation holds it back and the comedy doesn’t land. I believe in First Mix supremacy
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Apr 14, 2021
[Spoiler warning, especially for the last few episodes]
Idoly Pride was definitely... something. I watched it because I heard about it from someone, and also because it was an idol anime, and as a big Love Live fan I wanted to get into other series like it. I learned basically straight from episode one that this was definitely not going to be what I was expecting- I mean, right off the bat they introduce a ghost. But after episode one, I thought that was most of the surprises over. It wasn’t.
After the backstory recount that was episode one, the main story kicks off and tries to
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get us interested and invested in the main idol girls, while constantly adding MORE over the course of about three episodes. And the anime doesn’t do much to show the characters’ personalities well, since it seems to assume that we’ve read all of their wiki profiles or something. It really does a poor job of fleshing out its main characters, and they all feel really flat as a result. Hell, the best episode is probably episode seven, because it’s the ‘day off’ episode that actually lets us see the girls outside of the idol world. It’s cute to see them actually interact as friends because they actually feel, well, human. Outside of this episode, they’re usually all lumped together via their idol groups, which kinda leads me to think that the creators created both groups and the general concept of Mana’s spirit as a ghost and her story, and designed the characters themselves as an afterthought. The best way I can describe it is that when Sunny Peace wins a round of the competition, you’re happy for Sunny Peace. You’re not thinking about how much the win means to Rei, or Haruko, or Chisa, or Shizuku. You’re just going “Oh wow, Sunny Peace won!” and occasionally also Sakura. Basically, if you’re not Mana or directly related to her in some way, you’re out of luck in terms of screentime. You like Kotono or Sakura? Well you better, because they’re the only idol characters that get any kind of visible development. They tried to develop Chisa (the shy younger sister character) early on by having her come to terms with being separated from her older sister who she’s always depended on, but it’s resolved in one episode, brought up one more time later on, and then forgotten about. Everyone else gets nothing. Especially Nagisa. You’d think that the ‘best friend’ of one of our protagonists would have a personality, but I guess they forgot to give her one other than ‘nice’.
Another issue that frustrated me a LOT was the pacing. The first half of the anime is essentially a really, really long and boring introduction. After both groups debut in episode six, I hope you like timeskips because the next THREE episodes start with one. And they’re presumably very big timeskips too, because after their debut episode, it’s just casually mentioned in the next episode that they haven’t lost a SINGLE ROUND.
Did I mention that the main characters never face any real challenges? Because if you’re a fan of characters solving any and all problems with the power of ‘friendship and hard work’, you’re in luck! Even tough rivals which the anime establishes very early on are basically experts get beaten within a single attempt by the main groups. Oh, not after five minutes of quick rival backstory so you feel at least a tiny bit bad for them while they inevitably get destroyed by the main characters (even though the rivals’ performances are very clearly better in every way). By the final episode, I had forgotten the rivals existed because they were no challenge at all for the main characters to overcome.
The last few episodes, however, did introduce a new plot point that got me genuinely invested. After Sakura stops singing with Mana’s voice, Mana begins disappearing, which obviously causes Mei and Makino, the two people who can actually see her, to get really upset and worried. Eventually, they decide that they can’t force Sakura to rely on Mana’s voice again, and they need to let Mana go and move on. The last episode almost made me cry because of this. The scene where Mana finally tells Makino how she really feels, Song for You swells in the background and she disappears is easily the best scene in the whole show. The way that Kotono sings the song in the background as a final goodbye to her sister and her legacy was really touching, and the best part is that during this scene, as Song for You plays, it hits you what the lyrics of the song are really about (how Mana feels towards Makino), and that just adds to it. It single-handedly brought my rating of this anime from 3 out of 10 to 4. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to make me like the last episode as a whole, because of the ‘our two main groups tied, something that’s never happened in this program before’ was so contrived and able to be predicted from miles away, but it really got to me and that is definitely something to be praised considering... well, everything else about the anime surrounding it.
Overall, Idoly Pride had the ideas, but executed so few of them. The characters are flat except for maybe 4? The story is really contrived and every obstacle is easily overcome. There is no middle, only the extended introduction and the end of the competition, so there is no weight to any of the characters’ wins. Half the songs are really good though (Gekka Hakanabi and Song for You in particular are amazing) so if you came here for songs alone, you’ll probably like it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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