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Jun 29, 2022
Man oh man.. I did not think that this anime would reach such heights.
I've only seen bits and pieces of the trailer before I went into this anime, I never read the source material. And besides watching movies like Black Swan, I never really gotten too close with ballet. But the trailer intrigued me, the art style looked very good, and I just really love sports anime in general. I still went into this show with somewhat low expectations. I've watched a lot of generic anime in the past couple of years. Sometimes I wondered if it were just me that had lost a bit
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of interest in anime over the recent times, or if most anime were really just that generic. These thoughts wandered my mind even more after I've been disappointed with recent popular anime like SpyFamily and the recent Kaguya season. Every single person in the anime community seemed to absolutely love those shows, I mean kaguya is currently sitting a rank1 of myanimelist. Not saying these shows were bad by any means. Quite the contrary, I can see why they're so loved, but I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I hoped I would be. So with these thoughts in the back of my mind, I kept my expectations to the minimum and went in. It's like a certain someone would say, "Keep your expectations low, and you will never be disappointed". Man was I happy to be proven wrong!
The story started out with some interesting ideas, which I haven't seen in other sports anime so far. This time the sport was ballet. The dynamic of Jumpei's character, where he struggled to commit to ballet because of the expectations that were thrown onto him with the martial arts and the "struggle" of not being ashamed of doing ballet was really interesting to watch. Besides that dynamic, the approach was more typical of a sports anime. The usual starting, the training, main character shows a lot of talent for the said sport. I do think the pacing was quite fast in the beginning, it didn't take a lot of episodes for the first big performance. None of the characters really felt clichee or over the top. Luou felt that way in the beginning, he felt a bit one-dimensional, always saying the same, always doing the same things. But later episodes when we got to witness his origin story, and why he became the way he did, really managed to sell his character. In general, I thought that most characters felt more or less grounded. The dynamic between the main trio was also quite interesting to watch. I really enjoy the mix of romance and sports.
The anime truly picked up when the first big performance arrived. Earlier episodes relied quite a bit on cg in dancing sequences which is fine and was of course expected. I mean a sport anime always requires a lot of movement, but an anime about ballet seemed to be much more difficult to handle. The dancing has to be very detailed and intricate, so a lot of precise movement is required. That is handled much much easier with the help of CG of course. The production can be compared to the anime "ballroom" both are dancing anime and both require a flip ton of movement. That show also had some very well-animated scenes, but relied much more on CG and unfortunately wasn't handled as well as Danseur in terms of directing. I mean the anime was also twice as long as Danseur which probably took part in the killing of the production. The rothbard performance was breathtaking, even when a lot of the sequences were CG. The CG was definitely good looking, but cannot be compared to the hand drawn parts. What really made this performance shine was the directorial vision of the director Sakai Munehisa. It cannot be understated how well this anime was directed, especially in later episodes.
The last few episodes had been absolute top notch. Less and less cg was being used and so many highlight sequences were being presented. But oh man the final episode crushed it all. That beach sequence was absolutely magnificent. Seriously one of the most gripping anime moments I've seen in recent years. It was a breathtaking reminder of why I love anime. So much personality, so much love poured into it. The drawing count of the last episode was unfathomable, and not just that but the quality in the art was truly mindblowing. I don't know how mappa has done it. They've got so many prolific anime in production and they somehow manage to squeeze a more lowkey adaptation like danseur with exceptional quality out. Sakai Munehisa had a clear vision of how to handle this source material. The anime industry is a mess, and mappa is very much a part of it.. Animators are being paid far too little and also being overworked a crap ton. But you still have to give credit where credit is due. Huge probs for the team involved in this project. Thank you.
the soundtrack felt very fitting. Not too many standout tracks that absolutely captivated me, but the music did a perfect job of capturing the feel of each and every performance.
All in all I'm very surprised at how much I enjoyed this show. I would love a second season, but I do think that is extremely unlikely.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 8, 2020
Before I get into this, please excuse my grammatic failure. I am not a native English speaker, so there might be a ton of mistakes in my text.
This is not a in-depth analysis of the lore of bleach and its characters. It's more likely just personal feelings that I wanted to write out.
The initial thing that got me interested in Bleach is obviously its former popularity. It was a part of the "Big 3" Shounen jump titles back in the 2000s. I'm an avid fan of Naruto and One Piece. So it is only natural that the day would come where I would have to
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check out Bleach. Being such a popular title, up on the pedestal with such grand shows like One Piece and Naruto, it surely has to offer amazing things too right?
You see Bleach, just like Naruto and One Piece has a very interesting concept. The whole appeal of the Human World, the Soul Society and the Hollows is something that I thought was one of the major things that carried this show. The way the abilities were setup with the likes of Shikai and Bankai is definitely an awesome concept.
However even though the concept and the world is fascinating in some ways. It fails to feel like a large world with a ton of depth to it. A thing that always bothered me with Bleachs world was the way they travelled between realms. Being able to instantly go from the human world to the soul society or to hueco mundo was something that took away the feeling of a large in-depth world to me. Bleach is categorized as an "Adventure" anime but it did not feel like an adventure, more like a fighting simulation.
Part of this "Adventure" problem is that the story of Bleach is very basic. You don't need many sentences to summarize Bleach's story. Ichigo becomes a soul reaper and makes a soul reaper friend. Rukia gets imprisoned for transferring her Soul Reaper powers to Ichigo. Ichigo will infiltrate the Soul society and rescue Rukia. Once that was done it was time for another rescue mission. This time, its's Inoue's turn to get rescued by Ichigo because the villains have captured her. Why? Well because the Author of Bleach needed a reason for the plot to continue. Inoues capture had zero significance as Aizen had no need for her after all. Once you saved Inoue it is time to battle the final boss and that is Aizen.
Now you could argue that "Well but Naruto is just about saving Sasuke" Sure you could say that the difference here is that it's not always about the destination but about the "Adventure" The story progression in Bleach felt more like a side quests in an open world game rather than a good story. While there is obviously a lot of details that were left out on my summary it is a fact that not a whole lot is happening between these events except FIGHTING.
Bleach struggles to maintain an interesting plot so what the Author instead did was constant, and I mean CONSTANT fighting. Bleach is 90% pure fighting. "But every shounen does this!!" No. Absolutely not. This is the main issue that I had with Bleach. There aren't many things to unpack in Bleach's plot because the author was not that good of a writer. You're constantly just watching endless amounts of fights whether it is in the Soul Society where you have to fight the Lieutenants and the Captains, if it's in Hueco Mundo where you have to fight the Arrancars, or if it's in the massive final battle between the soul society and the arrancars. Every major arc of Bleach does the same. You're following multiple fights in pretty much every single episode. Now this led to some very cool fights like "Ichigo vs Renji in the Soul Society" "Ichigo vs Byakuya in the Soul Society" "Ichigo vs Ulqoirra" there were some other minor fights that were interesting as well but I think it is safe to assume that these are some of the highlight fights. But having an overwhelming amount of combat also leads to a ton of horrendous fights between characters that you don't give a single crap about. Some fights were straight up unbearable to watch, especially some fights at the beginning of the Hueco Mundo arc and the final Arrancar arc.
A major issue that led to so many of these uninteresting fights is the lack of interesting main characters. Never have I seen such a throw away main group character cast. Sado, Ishida and Inoue are one of the most bland characters I have seen in shounen when it comes to main cast. The same goes for the "villain" characters. Most of the fights in Hueco Mundo and the final arrancar fight were filled with throw away 2 episode characters that had zero impact, neither emotionally nor for the story. The only Villains that I actually thought were somewhat interesting were Ulqoirra, Aizen and maybe the last 2 from the final arc.
What intriqued me about Ulqoirra was that he had a sign of complexity to him which 95% of the enemies did not have in the slightest. Not only is his character design and his voice actor awesome, but he also had some depth to him. You could always sense a flicker of curiosity about humanity in his words. He was in some way intrigued by the humans and how much they would do for each other, even in hopeless situations. Aizen serves as the main villain of the show, while I never fell in love with him considering his reasonings for doing what he did and his ridiculous power which he didn't even use that much in later fights because the author new it was too broken. He did fulfill his purpose as a main villain. Gin and Tosen were absolutely wasted characters. They had the potential to be phenomenal. But somehow their endings were both so underwhelming since their reasonings and motives were never fully explained, especially for Gin.
Another thing that bothered me about the fighting in bleach was the constant plot convenience and plot armor. It is not an uncommon thing for anime or tv shows in general to have a touch of plot armor, especially for the main character. But the fact that Bleach consists of 90% fighting and not a SINGLE non villain character that had more than 2 episodes of screen time died in all of these fights speaks volumes. I don't know why you would ever do that as an author. You put your characters in near death situations in pretty much every fight but you don't have the balls to kill off any of them.
Now I can understand if you don't kill off Ichigo. Of course he is the protagonist, he can be in a near death situation 500 times and he wouldn't die. But characters like Sado, Ishihda or Inoue are so disposable. Their death would have no impact on the story besides maybe triggering a revenge plot. The same goes for many soul society characters, especially in the reapers vs arrancars fight. The fact that nobody died there is ridiculous. A moment that really managed to upset me was when Ichigo, Sado, Ishida and Rukia all had their seperate fights in Hueco Mundo. Everyone was near death, they were beaten by their enemeis but guess what. A handful of reapers show up perfectly on every single fighting spot and save the day. That rubbed me the wrong way. That's just poor writing to me. You don't have the balls to kill of any of them so why are you constantly faking the deaths of characters? It's because you need "emotionally" impactful moments and you can't come up with anything creative.
Another small thing is the abyssmal comedic timing that this anime has. In the most serious moments and where one might feel emotionally invested, out of nowhere they pull out the clown music and try to be funny with something like Rukia is hitting Ichigo for doing a dumb thing. 10 seconds later they swap back to the sad ost and try to be emotional again.
Let's not get into the power scaling and the random power ups of bleach.. That's a whole nother topic that I don't feel like getting into now. I already spend so much time and energy on the negative things.
But it is not all negative. Considering the fact that I completed this anime probably means that I enjoyed most of it despite all the issues that I had with it. There was so much untouched potential in this anime. So many cool characters that could have been so much more. While I did criticize the major arcs for their lack of story depth and over dependance on fighting. It was still entertaining for a good portion of the anime. Yes we had some subpar fights but we also had cool ones. I also really enjoyed the mini flash back arc that we had before the Reapers vs Arrancar battle. This is what I meant with untapped potential. Bleach had some very (if only a few) good moments outside of battle. I wish it would have focused more on character building and fleshing out the world and its characters in general instead of throwing random fights left and right at the viewer.
Bleach has a handful of very cool OST's and Openings, I'll give them that. Also the production was for the most part stable, it had a few dips in quality in the middle section around Hueco Mundo but the rest was fine. The last 50 or so episodes were quite consistent and had some very good highlights.
Bleach Positives:
Interesting World & Concept.
A Likeable Main Character.
A Solid Soundtrack.
Solid Production for a long running shounen.
Bleach Negatives:
Below average main character group.
Very minimal plot depth and substance.
An overwhelming amount of non interesting fights.
Too much plot convinience and plot armor.
A huge amount of throw away characters.
Horrific comedic timing.
6/10 just for the fact that I was even able to finish this. It kept my interest going in most arcs even with underlying issues.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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May 27, 2020
*spoilers*
Before we get into this, I would like to say that I am by no means a real critic. I just tried to express my thoughts and feelings in this review, that's all.
Makoto Shinkai is not dumb. He saw the immense success he had with 'your name' and tried to replicate it in 'Weathering with you'. Weathering with you tries to bring new elements to the table but ultimately waddles in 'your name's footsteps.
I could not help but compare the two, the similarities are too obvious. Hell, the main characters of your name even showed up in this lol. Many things were similar, and some
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of these things like the soundtrack or the animation were able live up to the expectations.
It surely was a masterful display of animation. An absolute pleasure to watch. RADWIMPS once again brought a magical feeling to this movie with their soundtrack. RADWIMPS is such a huge part of why your name worked out so beautifully.
Yes 'Your Name' was accompanied and strengthened by it's beautiful animation and soundtrack, but it did not just solely rely on the two.
For me personally, 'your name' was able to hit all the emotional strings.
'Your name' was buildung up to something, such anticipation until the two finally met at Kataware Doki. The feeling of loving someone but at the same time not even being able to remember their name. Just thinking about that hurts. The feeling of constant longing throughout the movie made Kataware Doki such an impactful moment.
The first half of 'Weathering with you' had a good pacing to itself. The movie started out exactly as I wanted it to be. But along the way, towards the ending is where 'Weathering with you' slowely started to lose its own identity, and instead became something that was more and more reminiscent of your name.
The original premise about a "sunshine girl" in itself is an interesting idea. But I didn't fully agree with the writing choices Shinkai made here.
The idea about her having to sacrifice her herself for a glimpse of good weather just seemed so counter intuitive for me. She is the sunshine, she was meant to bring a warm emotional feeling to this movie.
It just feels like Shinkai tried to replicate the feeling of "longing" through Hina having to sacrifice herself and being out of Hodaka's life. This gave Hodaka a clear goal which led up to the "emotional" running scene towards the sunshine shrine where the RADWIMPS OST started playing. This was supposed to replicate Mitsuha's running through the mountain's scene I guess.
Hadoka finally arrives at the Shrines building. Somehow and for some reason Suga is already at the scene waiting for him. He spouts a bunch of non sense, slaps Hadoka in the face. Where the fuck did the gun come from? Anyway as impulsive as Hadoka is, he aims it at him and the police arrives. Bam the police is here to catch Hadoka, but thankfully Suga decides to help him. Also yea Hina's little brother just arrived to help as well, thank god for that timing!
I love drama, but not in a way where things are just plainly setup to be dramatic.
The rest of the movie just left me emotionless. I lost the feel of caring. Slap a 3 year timeskip into my face to give it a more "complete" feeling of their story.
Finally at the end, they are re-united.
The movie suffers under the direct comparison it has to face with your name. Besides the weather theme it has nothing that seperates it with your name. In short it lacks identity.
I still give this a solid 7/10 because of the breathtaking animation and soundtrack. Story in itself was decent, but if you try so hard to replicate your latest success, you have to be able to live up to that hype.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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