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Jan 15, 2025
(vague-minor spoilers)
From what I’ve gathered, Banana Fish has something of a sacred reputation within the BL anime community. I guess there’s just something about overly melodramatic (implied) BL that’s so intoxicating to some people.
Banana Fish follows gang leader “Ash Lynx” as he investigates his brother’s death, which is inexplicably linked to an enigmatic “Banana Fish”. The first quarter of the anime introduces this concept and reveals that Banana Fish is actually an extremely dangerous drug.
Right from the first episode, you’re dumped into grimy, dirty 1980s New York, and heaps of intrigue and mystery are unloaded everywhere for you to digest. It was
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this gritty, atmospheric tension that got me hooked on this anime instantly.
Then, Ash meets this Japanese guy who’s with the police and they become friends. The two of them get entangled in a gang war and the rest of the show is Ash and friends on the run like fugitives.
After what seems like the 10th episode, the whole Banana Fish substance plot that is supposed to be the foundation of this anime is just gone. Vanished, just like Ash’s brother. All the effort that went into producing an interesting concept and executing it fairly well went down the drain just like that.
And for what? So the remaining ten episodes can consist of fake kidnappings and assassinations happening every five minutes? But actually, there is a goal with the cliched action sequences where Ash flies in, guns blazing, going 30-to-1 with his awesome superhuman reflexes.
The rival gang leaders are hellbent on denying Ash his happy BL ending, so they pursue his friend to the ends of the Earth, prompting Ash to drop everything to save him. Banana Fish spams this one signature move to shamelessly skyrocket Ash’s gap moe to insufferable levels. It’s ridiculous, but apparently people can't get enough of it.
Sexual harassment and rape is a reoccurring thing in Banana Fish, and they handle it like a wet brick to the face. Banana Fish takes the approach where every single character is gay and thirsting for little old Ash. Bro can’t even get a break, like let the man kiss his boyfriend, people??
Banana Fish will beat into you with the delicacy of a meat pulverizer, how gorgeous, powerful, and lonely Ash is. Villains whose sole defining characteristic is their lust for Ash will throw themselves at him just to get a taste of this twink.
I hate to say it like this, but there is no other way to put it: Banana Fish is romanticizing trauma. Ash is beaten down, humiliated, and glorified in an obscene way meant to make you gasp, but secretly think “I can fix him”.
And then the boyfriend shows up (whose name I can’t be bothered to remember), and is just a stereotypical nice guy. Perfect for Ash, right? Nothing like a cinnamon roll to heal a childhood’s worth of sexual trauma.
We know a grand total of 3 things about the friend: he’s 19, he used to be a pole jumper, and that he has a sister. That should also tell you how capable he is. Like guys, what is this obsession we have with hot men rescuing completely useless love interests??
Ash is like the smurf jungler with god-tier reflexes boosting and babysitting his gold laner. The gold laner (the friend) is always getting ganked by the enemy mid trio, so Ash has to save his oblivious ass with bullshit abilities.
Ash is not only a prodigy with 180 iq, but can hack through world class bank encryption, shoot from the top of a moving truck, prepare a 10 page toxicology report, come up with military-level strategic maneuvers mid-fight, and about a dozen other things. At first he was introduced as just a guy with street smarts, but then somehow morphed into this tall, angsty, tortured genius.
The only other characters of note are this Chinese mafia guy, and Papa Dino, Ash’s abusive father figure. The Chinese mafia guy is also another genius strategist involved in the war to get back Ash. Except he has a more personal issue against the boyfriend. Bro is mad he can’t pull, so he has a crash out and whines about his trauma every time he's on screen. Out of all the characters, he had some potential, but his character arc was so convoluted, I could barely figure out why he even existed. A counterpart to Ash, but manless perhaps?
Papa Dino is the pervert who raped Ash as a child, and has no other skills or motivation other than having Ash to himself. Banana Fish makes a laughable attempt to redeem him. Like, you cannot convince me that this man has any shred of true fatherly love for Ash.
Fans will say the ending is horrible and cry about it, but it’s like your aunt chiding you. It’s bad but it pushes the moe even higher, so the fans eat it up. Never mind that the ending contradicts everything we’ve ever known about Ash. It’s okay that the ending managed to undo ALL of the plot progression, leaving this half assed resolution that's supposed to be tragic. It’s like loading to 99.8% and then crashing. If you were like me, the only reaction you had with the ending was a scoff. When it happened, I was literally like, “um… okay…?” I didn’t throw my phone away out of rage and despair like some fans would have you believe they did.
Banana Fish is like a lot of anime I’ve seen these days. Good concept, but ended up losing it one way or another. In this case, it was the gooners (why else would there be Ash tied-up and partially stripped in gratuitous detail every time a villain caught him?). The shoujo girlies love their tragic BL… and I’m sure they weren’t disappointed with Banana Fish. If you’re coming here looking for a mature romance with an intriguing setting and compelling mystery, go no further.
That said, Prayer X is an absolute banger ending theme.
Final Rating: 4
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 6, 2025
The first review I wrote for Bungou Stray Dogs was so low effort and awful, when I rediscovered it, I had to delete it out of shame. Now that five seasons have been released, I feel like now’s a good stopping point to organize my thoughts about Bungou Stray Dogs as a whole.
Bungou Stray Dogs is a mystery action adventure anime that follows an orphaned boy who is recruited to be part of a superhero task force. Almost every relevant character has some sort of superpower, dubbed ability users. The characters and abilities themselves are modeled after real life writers and their works, which
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was quite interesting. The worldbuilding is kind of iffy, but generally ability users will gather together in groups to achieve some purpose, and that’s where the conflict in Bungou Stray Dogs (from now on referred to as BSD) comes from.
BSD fans will celebrate the anime for having such a huge ensemble cast with varying personalities, creative abilities, and most of all, moving character dynamics. Well, what I can say for sure is that if you ever meet anyone who says BSD characters are well written, just nod your head and quickly shuffle away inconspicuously (BSD fans are VERY passionate, I know since I used to be a hardcore glazer). The main characters have an inordinate amount of plot armor. They will literally never die. This isn’t even that much of a spoiler since it gets to a point where you can start predicting fake out deaths like clockwork.
In the main police task force (called the armed detective agency), there are two super geniuses who dictate all the action. Now, one would think a single super genius is enough, but BSD is all about crazy, inhumanly smart people playing 5D chess with each other. Hell, one of these such characters can solve murder cases in under a minute. How can BSD function with all these plot defying characters, then? The answer is to shoehorn in more super geniuses and have them fight a war of attrition. They will pull solutions out of thin air just to say “haha I outsmarted your outsmarting!!!”. It was fun the first few times, but it just drags on and on and on and finally nothing is resolved since the writer doesn’t have the guts to kill off characters. I mean, the current arc STILL hasn’t finished despite starting at the end of season 3… (Recap, five whole seasons have been released and a sixth is probably on the way).
That’s not to say BSD characters are cardboard cutouts. They’re not, exactly, but it’s like the author took stereotypes and boosted that certain trait 1000%, and then lightly sprinkled some other side stuff like garnish. The writer, like the fans, is way too attached to his own characters, and as a result, to have these characters develop would be equivalent to overhauling everything established. There’s a good example of this in one of the main characters and I’ll put an explanation at the end of this review which will 100% be spoilers*.
The writing in BSD is very messy and convoluted, but the reason I stuck around for so long is because it’s actually pretty fun. The BS 5D chess can get boring, but once the fun wears off, BSD is still okay fodder. It’s not bad to watch, and if you’ve got nothing else to do, it’s fine. The animation is average, but the fight scenes are interesting. If you’re like me and have the patience to watch this “anime fast food”, by all means, Bungou Stray Dogs is a good time.
Final Rating: 6 (For all the seasons)
*Dazai is an interesting character because even though he’s one of the superhuman geniuses, there’s more than meets the eye with him. In season 2 (I think), he gets some backstory which introduces a really intriguing concept in regards to his intelligence. BSD’s writer takes the idea that very smart people are less happier than other people and runs with it. Apparently, Dazai’s nigh-omniscience renders him completely isolated from everyone else, therefore making him “empty”. It’s like he can’t empathize or form genuine relationships with anyone else since his traumatic Mafia past and skills let him read people like a book. Dazai would know instantly just from looking at you if you’re lying, what you want, and what you’re scared of. This gives him so much leverage that any relationship is fundamentally imbalanced. There’s no push or pull, which is essential for a moving, impactful, relationship. Anything that Dazai does will be perfectly successful, and he knows this, so nothing can truly excite him. As a result, he has no purpose in his life, and coupled with the lack of real relationships, it makes sense that he feels suicidal.
In situations where he meets a character who has intelligence that rivals his own, there’s a mutual distrust and wariness between them since they both know each other’s capabilities. With other smart characters, Dazai can feel the thrill and exhilaration normal people feel, but it's still very insubstantial. I guess this is the reasoning behind his ability name, “No Longer Human”. Dazai is the furthest possible thing from a human, lacking all capability to be sympathetic or empathetic by virtue of his own mind. I haven’t seen Monster, but from what I’ve heard, this is very similar to Johan Liebert. Dazai is an inhumane monster devoid of true feeling.
This is the best interpretation I could come up with given the backstory we got, since everything else about Dazai is shrouded in layers upon layers of mystery. There are points where it's uncertain if Dazai's inner ideals and motivations are changing, but they're still too inconsistent and vague to draw any conclusions. I've often wondered what BSD would end up looking like had the author decided to explore Dazai's conflicts and inner self loathing. A potential storyline would be to start off with Dazai as this monster, and have some event limit his capabilities so self doubt, peer pressure, and meaningful introspection can occur. Then, BSD would be about rediscovering what it's like to be human, to feel the myriad of emotions that people do and to connect yourself with others. The thing is, the author is so preoccupied with maintaining this mystery that Dazai can never truly develop as a character. Even the author himself has confessed that he cannot imagine writing Dazai’s POV. This is the pedestal he has placed his characters on, and exactly why they can never be more than just an interesting concept.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 6, 2025
I hate to be writing yet another negative review for a widely beloved (and rated) anime. But it can’t be helped, so here I am again to tell you why the Apothecary Diaries is mid. Vague to minor spoilers ahead, so read at your own risk.
My main critique of the Apothecary Diaries is its main character, MaoMao. She is often touted as a modern example of the well-written female anime character. MaoMao is clever, dedicated, curious, unapologetically blunt, class conscious, and doesn’t pander to male characters. How can there be so much good stuff that can fit into such a small frame? And yet,
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all of these things conceal one big, terrible flaw. If you put MaoMao in a vacuum, she would seem amazingly written. But it’s through the interactions with her world and other characters that the weaknesses come out and MaoMao reveals her Achilles heel. Simply put, she is a Mary Sue.
Without going into too many spoilers, the gist of the Apothecary Diaries is that a poor pharmacist’s daughter gets suddenly kidnapped and sold to work in the concubine palace. From there, her quick thinking and skill in preparing medicine are discovered and put to use. The anime then takes on an episodic mystery format, and we’re shown case after case that MaoMao effortlessly solves with very minor hitches here and there. All of them are resolved in pretty much the episode that they are introduced. There is an exception to this though, but the problem is still largely prevalent. It gets to a point where MaoMao suddenly acquires skills completely unrelated to her medicinal expertise and starts handling other people’s jobs for them. The most egregious example of this is a side episode where MaoMao teaches experienced concubines how to do their own work despite never having a past romantic relationship.
The lingering feeling is that MaoMao is so good at this, she’s also so good at that, and she can quite literally fix all of your problems. In fact, the concubine palace would probably collapse in on itself had MaoMao not been miraculously kidnapped so she could do everything. If that didn’t happen and the palace broke down anyway, she would probably still be kidnapped to rebuild the place in three days and the anime would start from there.
The other issue with MaoMao is her relationship with Jinshi, the purple robed guy in the cover. There’s romance hinted between the two, but it’s completely one sided. This Jinshi guy becomes obsessed with MaoMao for no clear reason at all. And then MaoMao’s natural apathy/bluntness is used with Jinshi’s obsession as comedy. Honestly, it’s just very lazy. This dynamic is basically their entire relationship. Of course there’s probably a bit more to it than that (MaoMao reveals to Jinshi the existence of poor people), but it wasn’t really addressed aside from a few instances. There’s nothing horribly wrong with this, but it’s just staple anime tropes. Hot guy everyone wants falls for the “common girl” who doesn’t care.
The anime does push some flaws onto MaoMao, but they are all surface level at best. MaoMao’s apathetic and individualistic nature doesn’t hurt her since everyone loves her anyway. MaoMao’s excessive interest in medicine is played off as a joke, and a quirk. MaoMao’s romantic bluntness doesn’t matter since Jinshi’s already obsessed with her. MaoMao’s “common girl” appearance with her freckles actually hides, arguably, the most beautiful character in the entire anime. The kidnapping that kick-started the anime could have been a chance to introduce some anxiety and fear, but both MaoMao and her father don’t even try to worry about each other.
I trash on MaoMao a lot in this review, but trust me when I say that I mean it very gently. All of those other positives I mentioned about her personality are real. It’s just this one glaring weakness of hers that pulls down this anime by a lot. There were points where I just got bored of the same MaoMao solves everything storyline and had to put the anime down for a bit. The truth is, MaoMao is a fine character, but by no means groundbreaking or exceptional. This doesn’t mean the other aspects of the anime aren’t great. The soundtrack is exquisite, the voice acting good, and the animation is gorgeous. I finished the Apothecary Diaries and it didn’t feel like a chore to watch. The polished production and MaoMao’s other personality traits hide her Mary Sueness pretty well anyways. In the end, if this review is pushing MaoMao off her pedestal as the best modern female anime character, know that there’s a pillow waiting for her at the bottom. The Apothecary Diaries is still okay, and worth a watch if you can disregard everything I said (haha you read my review and I just told you to ignore it).
Final Rating: 6
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 4, 2025
(vagueish spoilers)
I'm sorry, but I just don't get the hype for this series at all. The plot is fine at first glance: main character's father dies, and so he has to vow to get revenge. The first 6 episodes are basically just exposition. I can't speak for everyone on this, but watching Thorfinn be absolutely pathetic for 5 whole episodes (or more, I can't remember) completely turned me off this anime. Like, there is no way this little brat kid can be so aggravating. Every single thing he does, it's so stupid and pointless. It's like Thorfinn subsists only on anger and violence. I mean,
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in one episode he was starving and he ended up surviving, like a leech, probably because he somehow burned his anger for energy. And there was the scene with the wolf and then it magically became food somehow, like this kid actually knows how to prepare consumable meat from a whole, dead wolf?? Thorfinn's capacity for higher thought isn't there at all because bro physically cannot imagine anything other than getting revenge for his father. It's like in Frieren, where if you can't imagine performing a spell, you can't do it. Applies here too as Thorfinn can't do shit since he's so hyper focused on revenge. Where is the personality? What other things motivate him? Does he even care about the family he left behind? There's nothing there except this unfocused and seemingly infinite rage. Okay, so I know Thorfinn is perpetually angry and can also eat his anger as food, now what? Watch him fail in getting revenge for the 5th time?
Even though Thorfinn's had a rough childhood, he's still just a kid, and I should be able to see that somewhere in him. The literal growling and screaming was also pretty cringe. Like seriously, you don't need to act like a wild animal to everyone you meet just because Daddy died (also kind of your fault) and you need to make sure everyone knows it. Something better would have been to have Thorfinn learn from his mistakes, and channel his anger in a meaningful way. Except he can't, cause he's barking at everyone who gets within 3 feet of him. I'm sorry if I'm not being sympathetic enough, but I just couldn't stand all of this pointless anger.
Talking with a couple of other friends who highly recommended this show to me, I was told that Thorfinn's uselessness was intentional, which is fine, but I'm watching this anime to be entertained. I can assure you there was nothing fun about the amount of secondhand embarrassment I got (FROM A FICTIONAL CHARACTER NO LESS, like how is that even possible??). I thought the embarrassment would go away as the series progressed, but nope, it's still there. At this point, humiliation might just be a central theme of Vinland Saga. Someone PLEASE pull out your literary analysis and tell me what kind of message I'm supposed to be getting. And on the topic of Thorfinn's father from earlier, I never understood him being a morally high and mighty goody two shoes. Like some other comments have pointed out, they live in the brutal age of the Vikings... Surely, Thorfinn's father would know that the world wouldn't prostrate itself before his shiny, golden knight's honor.
There are 24 episodes in total, so maybe it gets better...? But from the start, the animation was kind of middling, and that's a huge factor to determine whether I should continue a series if its contents are poorly written. I've put this show on hold for now, so I can read through a couple of reviews and see exactly what people love about this show. But most likely, I'll drop this anyway. Vinland Saga has an interesting revenge concept, but this kind of story REQUIRES strong, deliberate character writing. Thorfinn being a one trick pony (in regards to his grudge) just isn't gonna do it.
Final Rating: 4
edit: updated the rating from 3 to 4 because it's not *that* bad, but still pretty bad
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Dec 12, 2024
Ouran High School Host Club is very well-rounded.
The storyline is simple, episodic SOL with heavy emphasis on comedy. The romance is mild: it’s alluded to, but nothing concrete develops. For anyone who wants heavier romance, I suggest you read the manga - they directly address romance in the final few volumes. Back to the anime, there are certain character dynamics and interactions that may feel uncomfortable, but at the end of the day, they’re left intentionally vague and are mostly for comedic effect. As this anime is a SOL, there is no real plot. Each episode is basically the same format - Host Club does
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outrageous things because they’re so filthy rich. It doesn’t get boring, though, and that’s all I’m looking for.
The writing makes an attempt to flesh out the main characters (they start off as tropes), and while it isn’t the best characterization I’ve seen, it’s an honest effort to introduce some seriousness. In Haruhi and her dad, there’s a fair bit of representation offered, even if it’s used as a gag (commendable for its time period). You have the other characters, and they also get some history and drama, and from there you can draw out their motivations. You end up with a likable cast, with a measure of substance to them, which is, honestly, all you need.
The only real criticism I have is that the ending felt a little too “happily-ever-after”. It was too easily resolved and even arguably fantastical. However, that’s because the writing team for the anime had to accelerate the pacing, knowing there was no intention for a season 2.
More than anything, Ouran High School Host Club maintains its lighthearted, goofy tone. I had a lot of fun watching this, and while I can’t promise you that, know that if anything, you’ll be entertained. Maybe in a couple of years, people will finally start remembering this show exists, and we’ll get a reboot. I don’t know if it’ll be the same without Miyano Mamoru as Tamaki, but still, a polished version would be very welcome.
Final Rating: 7
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 1, 2024
If you stopped me at episode 3 of this anime and asked me how it was, I would have emphatically told you Heavenly Delusion was incredibly underrated. Now... after the trainwreck of poorly handled sexual abuse, irrelevant side plots, and mediocre world building, I can emphatically tell you the true "delusion" here is the praise that gets heaped onto this show.
Heavenly Delusion follows a double narrative, starting with two MCs, Maru and Kiruko, post-apocalyptic survivors journeying to find "heaven". Up until at least episode 3, Maru and Kiruko's storyline was pretty interesting. The two have a lot of nice, easy-going banter, and the fight
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scenes showcasing their abilities had great animation and composition. Continuing on with this storyline, we get a bit of backstory into Kiruko which had a LOT of potential to be huge for her character development. However, it's just pushed aside to make way for weird sexual jokes and innuendos. Maru and Kiruko had solid chemistry already, but the writers just had to add this unnecessary element of sexual tension. Okay... they're children. So this ended up killing my enjoyment, and then the plot tried to be emotional, but of course circled back to having subtle sexual undertones.
The other narrative is about this group of children who live in a technologically advanced nursery with little knowledge of the outside world. This nursery is presumably the "heaven" the survivors are looking for, but who knows, because the anime never explained any of these things. I cannot stress how incredibly dull and downright problematic this storyline is. Tokio, the narrator, has got to be the most boring and bland person to ever appear in anime. She literally has no purpose except as an excuse for the writers to shoehorn in *MORE* sexual tension between children. The sexual elements are thoroughly irrelevant to the main point of this narrative, which is to provide worldbuilding to contrast the survivors of the other storyline. The entire nursery narrative as a whole is pointless, presented in a way that is obnoxiously tedious and uninspired. Among all the children, none of them have virtually any redeeming factor that makes them likeable (except one guy - but then we get sexual tension *again*). I could somewhat see the direction, but the writers wasted so much time on these annoying ass children. At this point, I just had to drop this series because yikes I did not ask for this.
If they had cut out all these depictions of sexual assault and abuse, and focused purely on Maru and Kiruko exploring the world, I could have given this show a solid 7. I adore the art being a combination of the post-apocalyptic overgrown aesthetic with simply drawn chibi-like characters. In all honestly, this was probably the only reason I clung on for so long. A couple of comments have mentioned that Heavenly Delusion is trying to say something about sexual trauma, and that everything was setting up for the ending. Doesn't really matter to me, cause I never saw it. Genuinely, I thought *I was delusional* when I saw how horrifically these themes were handled. There was just no way that Heavenly Delusion is completely absent of any empathy. It's all played off as a joke, when it really isn't. Stay away from this one, it's not worth your time. Heavenly Delusion gets the place of shame in my list for being the RANK ONE overrated anime with about a metric ton of wasted potential.
Final Rating: 3
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Nov 25, 2024
Being the lonely mf that I am, one day I had an urge to watch a good romance that would make me feel even worse. A quick Google search turned up a top 50 MAL list that promised Yona of the Dawn was a “must watch” shoujo masterpiece. I suppose in that sense, they were right. In the realm of shoujo, Yona of the Dawn is decent, but that is ignoring what it truly is: a bundled up collection of overused tropes.
Yona of the Dawn follows its titular pretty spoiled princess on her journey to becoming a fierce warrior… and that premise is good
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until you realize you actually never get what you were promised. Yona is supposed to be growing and becoming independent, but all she’s doing is collecting servants. Yona is surrounded by all these capable people that she basically forced into servitude, and not once does she think to try to learn their skills. What kind of progress is Yona making if she’s ousted from her cushy palace life, but then gets five bishonen bodyguards that worry themselves to death if even a single hair on her head is out of place? The plot is basically a reverse harem with extra steps. You’ve got all manner of boyfriends: the childhood friend, the princely goofball, the introvert with trauma, etc. All of them are bound to Yona by the legacy of her hair. Again, they have no choice in it either, so there goes any interesting subversion. Her new friends are actually just lifelong servants who listen to everything she says because it’s destined.
Halfway through the series, the main conflict of the show isn’t explained or even mentioned apart from the opening sequence. The supposed villain can’t even figure out his own motivations, much less the audience. It just happens, and then we get a double narrative situation (Yona and the villain contrasting their lives) that is completely irrelevant. Now, the double narrative could have been cool if Yona’s development brought her into direct conflict with the villain. However, her reason for collecting her boyfriends is very simply, “to live”. That’s all. At this point in the plot, Yona’s goal cannot be only “to live”. That’s everyone’s goal. What is she going to do with her life when she finishes her collection? We don’t know. Granted, I haven’t gotten to the part where she gathers everyone, but she shows no sign of thinking beyond present. At the very least, Yona isn’t even thinking of the state of her country (up until this point).
And of course, Yona herself is the most useless one of the lot. At around the 40% mark in the series, we are shown Yona trying to learn a skill, and putting all of her effort into it. The show really pushes that this is huge character development for Yona, but it’s kinda just a nothing burger. Yona cannot possibly believe that mastering one skill will allow her to be independent. That’s like thinking your perfect sunny side up guarantees you can live for a year in the woods. But then, Yona has five capable boyfriends, so maybe it’s more realistic that she doesn’t think she needs to learn much.
Yona of the Dawn has a whole host of other issues. However, its main problem is that it relies too much on the opening sequence (where the main conflict happens) to carry all of its exposition and setup. Everything Yona does is in reaction to this main conflict, but with a bit of critical thinking we can see there is nothing of substance. Yona of the Dawn wants to have a central cast with cute quirks like Ouran High School Host Club, but in a story meant to be about personal growth, it just doesn’t work.
And I still ended up not satisfying my romance anime urge. Maybe I’ll go watch A Silent Voice or something.
Final Rating: 5
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 23, 2024
I feel compelled to write this review to offer some kind of explanation for why this anime is on my favorites list. It's very simple really, Kakegurui is what happens when writers are given free reign to do whatever they like. Kakegurui is batshit crazy to a degree that fully and utterly transcends typical degeneracy. This is NOT your average fantasy isekai. The plot is structured but completely wild, the characters are clinically insane, and all of them are into each other. Even the fanservice in this anime can't even truly be called fanservice. Fanservice is meant to please the audience, but what you get
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here is borderline disgusting and the show makes sure you know that it's gross.
All the characters are superhuman geniuses who spend their entire day gambling at a school with NO teachers. Somehow the student council president has the same level of power as the leader of a small country. The gambling games are highly complicated and not even explained well. They don't need to be, as everything is a power fantasy for Jabami Yumeko. Essentially, Kakegurui is so bad that it ends up reversing in the other direction and becoming diabolically entertaining. There are a lot of shows focused on escapism, whether it be isekai or shoujo romances, but in Kakegurui you're escaping and descending into freakiness.
Kakegurui is an experience and in all honesty, I absolutely loved it. There's that famous quote from the Dark Knight, "some men just want to watch the world burn", and THAT is what I felt watching Jabami Yumeko eviscerate her opponents while her breasts triple in size, her eyes turn into glowing red sirens, and her face becomes that of a monster.
Final Rating: 7
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Nov 23, 2024
Given the sorry state of BL anime these days (chock full of non consensual harassment and overdone seme/uke tropes), I was eagerly awaiting something different, more real, in No 6. Instead of focusing on only the romantic aspect, here was a BL that wanted to tell a story, and a dystopian one no less. Suffice it to say, it was a massive disappointment that I should have already foreseen looking at its middling MAL score. No 6 turned out to be an amalgamation of BL tropes all the way down from the miscommunication to the overly aggressive seme to the needless angst. And all this
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is loosely tied up together with a nonexistent hair-thin plotline. This is all you really need to know about what I think of this anime, but since I am rage writing this, I will get into spoilers below.
No 6 loses its vision after like the third episode. The plot should be about realizing the current utopia is flawed and rebelling/taking action, like most other dystopian fiction. Instead, all the action happens quickly and is left unresolved, and then everyone just settles down to wait…?
There’s this strange killer wasp that seems to be a weapon of the utopia, but halfway through the series we’ve gotten no progress towards the characters finding out its creator or purpose (even just realizing the administrators controlled it would be fine). And so brown hair turned white haired boy camps out with the seme love interest and everything up until the halfway point is them beefing with each other in the most angsty way possible.
White haired boy can’t understand why the love interest hates society, and he won’t tell him either. So there’s a stalemate where eventually dark hair will probably give in because white hair is such a cinnamon roll. It’s so pointless because why can’t they just sit down and talk about it? I understand there are topics that are hard to talk about for people, but in writing there are ways to show that and have them open up. One of those ways is definitely not having the angsty character trash talk and threaten the cinnamon roll and then underscore that with a heap of sexual tension.
I’ve never written a review for an anime that I haven’t completed before, but this one made me so annoyed for no reason. No 6 has a plethora of other issues, but if I talked about them this review would get to be as long as my Fruits Basket one. Just know that it’s bad.
Final Rating: 3
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 19, 2024
I cannot, with a good conscience, give this anime anything higher than a 6. It’s awful, degenerate, and grossly self-aware. And yet, as much as I will decry the endless fanservice (and the entire episode dedicated to it), I still found myself somehow enjoying the stupid and immature comedy. Say what you will about my own shallowness that I could enjoy the perverted and overused jokes, but that's how it was. Honestly, it was more like a "wtf, so THIS is how far they'll go" moment every time the show surprised me with an even deeper level of depravity. Naturally, the character writing and plot
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development are unceremoniously thrown right out the window from the start, but whatever remains still manages to be begrudgingly funny.
Final Rating: 6
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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