- Last OnlineFeb 17, 10:08 PM
- JoinedMar 10, 2021
RSS Feeds
|
![]()
Jun 20, 2024
Saijaku Tamer is about precocious girl Ivy who is rejected by her village and family for not having good enough powers. Because having a power rating below a certain level is very uncommon, she gets the reputation as a cursed child, essentially. As a result, she gets scapegoated for the village's problems and has to make her escape. She decides to follow the advice of the local fortune teller, basically her surrogate mother after everything goes wrong for her, and travel to specific city quite a ways away.
This anime is thus an adventure story where she discovers her tamer powers and meets people on
...
the road to that faraway city. It's kind of a daily log of what she does, who she meets, and how she manages the dangers and uncertainties of traveling with a positive, though cautious attitude. This child MC makes better decisions and is better at avoiding self-sabotage than most MCs, but the plot doesn't paint her as a genius, nor do the adults treat her like one; she is a legit child surviving in a world that's treated her harshly. I think she's one of the best, least frustrating child MCs I've seen in quite some time.
Unlike most anime you watch, this anime has heart, a character to emotionally connect to, and a coherent world for the main character to explore; a lot of anime have that lingering feeling that they're cobbled together on a shoe-string budget with no attention to detail or consideration of the soul of the story. This anime is not like that at all; it feels fully intentional and able to tell a story based on the MC's emotions, trust, and relationships. On top of that, the animation is beautiful and there is no fan service. It says a lot that this anime has a child MC but is not at all "cute girl does cute things" nor is it reverse harem nor is it a power fantasy.
I think this show is a real gem amongst the lifeless copy-pasted seasonal isekai that supersaturate the market these days; it has an isekai premise but it's extremely de-emphasized and subtle about it's "reincarnated protagonist" theme--basically a bell rings and MC hears something we don't, which she interprets to be her from her previous life communicating with her. There seem to be secrets and things deliberately not told, which I think is good suspense and a lingering anxiety throughout the anime.
All in all, it's not a super action-y anime, but I think it's still pretty entertaining and compelling. MC's power - if you can even call it that - develops slowly and organically as she moves between villages, makes money, and survives. It looks good, it avoids every lowest common denominator isekai temptation, and gives you enough in terms of animation, theming, and solid writing to make you feel something for the MC. A pleasant surprise, highly recommended.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
 0
Love it
 0
Funny
 0
Confusing
 0
Well-written
 0
Creative
 0Show all
![]()
Jun 16, 2024
Okay, let's start with the obvious: bullying is wrong and should not be justified in any way. Here, I'm critiquing characters and tropes and don't in any way sanction bullying.
Naoto, the main character, absolutely sucks. He essentially plays an ecchi straight man insert character. He's the usual kind of character for this type of anime: a loser virgin bullied loner who just wants to avoid social interaction, read Vampire Boobies 3: Revenge of the Areola and play video games all day, and has never met or talked to a girl in his life. Unlike most pathetic nothing insert characters in ecchi, Naoto has a skill:
...
he's good at drawing and painting. Still, for literally 90% of this anime, he's stuttering, blushing, and averting his gaze. Now, not every MC needs to be an OP chad or whatever, but I'm so tired of the pants-shitting losers who cannot do basically anything well. Naoto can't run, talk, ski, put in contact lenses, or do anything that an average person could do at least at a passable level. Honestly, I'm surprised he has the motor skills to walk to class and hold a pencil or the mental fortitude to decide what to eat for lunch. Nagatoro is the best and only thing that has ever happened in his life. Most of the show is set in the art room where he draws still lifes and occasionally Nagatoro.
Nagotoro is a mean girl with other mean girl friends who almost instantly likes him for no reason at all. Is she attracted to his useless passivity and pliability as a person? I have no idea. Anyway, she's like a 10 year old who's mean to the boy she likes so he'll notice her. Nobody can tease him but her, even if her friends try just to get on her nerves. Her bullying slowly makes him more confident in himself by revealing how timid and passive he is with literally everything in his life. That's the dynamic of this show: she teases him and slowly, a more serious relationship develops between them and he comes out of his shell (kind of). He tries to figure her out, while she puts him in ecchi situations, calls him a pervert, and tries to make him like her that way. Obviously, I just don't like his type of character at all, though he gets marginally better as it goes on. Even though she's mean and a bully, at least she's active and wants romance and character progress. She is definitely the best part of this show.
Their relationship is fine and the ecchi side of this anime at least hints at romantic development (unlike those chaste romances where just calling her by her first name is like climbing Everest), so if you're in a similar spot starving for legit romance in anime, I'd kind of recommend it. The horny scale is like a 5/10 for ecchi, so it's not overpoweringly that way, but basically every situation has some innuendo. The chance of an actual relationship in this anime seems promising because Naoto has made at least some character progress and Nagatoro, an active character, acknowledges that she likes him.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Jun 16, 2024
Our main character Maple decides to join a fantasy role-player VR game after her best friend Sally recommends it. Maple is not a gamer, but gets immersed in this world, using her unconventional non-gamer logic to become super OP in defense and vitality through unique random encounters and an oddball play style. Maple and Sally--a pro-gamer level talent--have fun by dominating the game, competing in server challenges every few weeks, and making friends with other players and their guild opponents.
As a low-stakes VR premise, there is no drama, no adversity, and no plot. Maple doesn't get OP through anything but happenstance through a series
...
of random encounters that have nothing to do with each other. There is nothing organic at all about how the game progresses or its objectives--there is no overarching game story but a random string of bosses, shoehorned NPC questlines, and new areas for new areas sake. The game they're in is obscenely easy, especially with Maple's major cheat build.
But the appeal of this anime is not any of this but the mild humor and slice of life fantasy focus. It's like a flower and rainbows "playing games with friends in a completely non-toxic environment" simulator. There are some hilarious moments, like with "Atrocity" (I'll avoid elaborating to avoid spoilers) and the clash of her personality and powers. However, these are pretty few and far between. It's mostly a lukewarm "wow, isn't Maple so wacky?" type humor.
In terms of the choices the animators and creators made, I think there were several missteps. The design concepts for powers and the costuming are downright awful at points. Every few episodes, the action devolves into a CGI eyesore. The art style and choices are very inconsistent: compare Syrup, her pet buddy, to the chibi dragon mascot, "atrocity," or any of the enemies they fight, and it's clear there was no overarching concept to the animation style. It's totally all over the place. Everything the characters do just feels unmotivated by anything except a random/impetuous "that looks fun" or "better prepare for the server challenge of the week." I was not exaggerating when I said there is no plot whatsoever to guide the anime--Shangri-la Frontier, which is similar in premise, feels like a Russian novel by comparison, even if the stakes and plot are pretty mild in that too.
As for the positives, the characters are likable, there's no booby fan service, there are several really cute things like the pets and Maple's naming sense, the action is usually very well animated, the backgrounds and vistas are beautiful, as are the level designs overall. The whole experience was pleasant and I was entertained more often than not despite the negatives.
Is it good by any critical standard? Not really. Is it enjoyable? It would depend on your patience for slice-of-life anti-plot. Is it well-animated? Probably like 70%. Is the writing good or compelling? No. Was it funny? On occasion. Good action? More often than not.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
May 10, 2024
I watched this because I liked Campfire Cooking and wanted something similar besides Dungeon Meshi. Main guy here gets isekaid into a forest in the middle of nowhere with a cheat farming tool that lets him hand-wave all agricultural work. Then, after a while of getting on just okay, female characters start flocking to his village like they're in an Axe commercial. They can do all the stuff he can't (building houses, metalworking, stepping on grapes?), which allows the village to grow exponentially.
The main draw of this show is its slice of life village-builder structure, though everything seems to develop way too fast and work
...
gets accomplished way too easily. His cheat power and ability to perfectly emulate so many horticulture processes because he "saw an idol do it on TV" is ridiculous and shows the amount of attention that goes into the premise. This show is very derivative, like all isekai, and the massive female cast of characters you forget as soon as they're introduced makes it even worse. However, the animation team made a good move in steering away from all the explicit harem bullshit of the source material, for the most part, which would have definitely clogged up the anime with dozens of pointless ecchi scenes.
The main character is a pretty standard Japanese culture representative who extols the excellence of plain white rice and onsens as the height of good living. Nothing really offensive about him at all, besides being a classic Japanese mary sue cliche (though at least he isn't a coward). The supporting characters all have little personality besides maybe vampire girl and the first angel. They all become more and more empty as dozens of characters start getting introduced one after another in the middle of the show.
It's not horrible by any means, but I didn't think it had much of an identity. Everything it does, there's another isekai that does it better. None of the characters stands out, I've seen village/city-building done more effectively, and I've seen cooking in a fantasy world look way better than this. He doesn't use his cheat power in any creative way and the world itself is a Japanese fantasy cliche with all the familiar races: angels, demons, vampires, orcs, slimes, lizardmen. Finding one of the other isekais that do these things better would be a better use of your time than watching this bland mixture of stale tropes. I thought it was boring even by slice of life standards.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Apr 12, 2024
I don't understand how the premise of this story would sound interesting to anyone: OP lvl999 guy gets SAO'd into a new land and then decides to role-play as a rookie adventurer, during which time he beats up weaklings for marginal benefit when there are thousands of better decisions he could make to reach his goals. This whole anime is like watching an NBA player play semi-seriously against kindergartners. There are no interesting characters, the plot is slow and pointless, the storytelling is all over the place, the art design of characters is ugly and ridiculous, it's chock full of terrible CGI and bad animation,
...
an endless stream of stupid attack names that seem like they were chosen by letting a 3rd grader pick out "cool" words from a hat. All of his followers are flat cult follower boot-lickers who treat his middling IQ plans as genius. The action consists solely of face-slapping character we don't know with no emotional or plot build-up to make it enjoyable. This is not how to write an OP protagonist story. The only good part of this is that him becoming skeleton guy robs him of an appetite for ecchi, even if there are pointless sexual asides from his follower harem anyway.
Imagine all the worst qualities of isekai and OP protagonist stories and this one has them all.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Apr 9, 2024
I binged this anime from the first season the last few days and, like many of the other mixed reviewers, found it to be acceptable but a bit shallow. It has all these philosophical quotes about human nature and behavior, but never really goes beyond the MC feeling apathy and acting in a mildly manipulative way over a set of episodes unfolding at a very slow place. I don't think this show is bad at all, but I'd be hard-pressed to recommend it. This show has no hype moments whatsoever. Everything is understated and there are no masterful genius displays by our MC, or anything
...
like that. As far as just the psychological drama genius aspect of this goes, I think you'd be better served watching something like Kakegurui. Even though I'd say this series is better on the whole, I think that one is more enjoyable as something psychological. This anime, I think, is ultimately a slice of life with a pretty meager side of psychological drama. It's not bad and keeps your attention, but it's more made up of the illusion that something smart will happen than anything that actually does.
Overall: Going into this show, I expected something different. Each subsequent season seems to stray further and further from the coherent social experiment-style psychological premise established in the first season. There isn't much big-picture plot development at all, with the only concrete changes since the start being in the maturity of the minor and supporting characters in MC's class. MC's backstory, rather than aiding the psychological side of the story, actually gets in the way of the interesting parts of the story, namely the internal competition of the classes and the strategizing. The secret genius grown in a lab MC is okay, but a bit underwhelming given the potential of someone with his apparent skills. All in all, I don't think this will be an anime I return to or really think about ever again after I finish documenting my opinion here. Worth it for passing a few hours, but I think this is the kind of show that has a high floor and a low ceiling when it comes to enjoyability. Nothing to knock your socks off, but nothing egregiously terrible or offensive to make you drop it.
Main Character: MC frequently makes comments that he'd betray anyone at any time if it benefited his interests, but he largely acts like a neutral good in the show and doesn't seem to have an overarching goal besides "living a normal life," which is completely boring as a life motivation in anything but quirky comedy. What's worse, the good things that he does basically work to create a harem, even if it's not presented exactly that way. The show builds him up like some kind of genius emotionless mastermind, but his strategies are things like switcheroos and beating someone up with random fighting skills that don't seem to match his studying and playing chess all the time backstory. I don't think the writing quality is strong enough to convincingly portray a clever character as clever. This show creates a vibe that some kind of psychological angle to going to be explored, but it's really just air with little actual substance in its plot. The main character, though he's presented as smart, does not have any strong goals or motivations. The result is that everything feels a bit pointless, or lacking in palpable stakes for him. He builds a network of connections and hides his influence to not stand out, but he doesn't have any legitimate internal goal that gives those actions personal meaning for him. He's like an emotional-less "genius" running on auto-pilot who simply responds to the stimuli around him. I think your overall thoughts on this show will be determined by how into the MC you are. I've seen too many characters just like him to get that excited, but some might like his backstory and think "living a normal life" is a compelling motivation for him.
Plot: Another big issue with this anime is that it feels like it should feel like it's building to something, but there aren't really any highs during the entire run. The pacing is too much like a high school drama as opposed to a psychological thriller. For instance, the stated goal of the anime, if not the MC, is for class D to reach class A. Guess where the class ends up after year one (3 seasons)? It's got the slice of life dynamic whereby just about any time the MC or his class could actually win, they lose; or, if they do win, it's a two steps forward one step back kind of win. The only time they advanced at all was because of MC's physical violence. Any victory they attain is a shallow, short-term one. The economy of the school with points was interesting in the first season, but slowly becomes a non-issue and loses a lot of focus. Then, the traitor classmate who was the biggest obstacle for much of the show's run becomes a total non-factor. And now, there's some annoying and unnecessary plot-line about the politics and management of the school that seems to contradict the public, government-funded structure established early on. The plot just doesn't seem focused and consistent in the way it should. The individual tests are fine, for the most part, and it's interesting to see how the MC navigates the plotting and backstabbing of other classes, but this is most interesting in the first season, with the tests getting less and less interesting with each passing season.
World-building/Cast: The best part of this show is the network of relationships it includes, which makes you consider the number of factors involved in every test. Teamwork, alliances, and leadership are all well-conveyed in this story, and so you get a sense of traits and approaches that will work well within the school. The varying personalities are well-depicted and you get a sense of the class dynamics. I didn't really have much of a problem with this aspect of the anime, but several characters had pretty ridiculous secret histories, and sometimes female characters approach and flock to MC like any run-of-the-mill harem protagonist, which is obviously a negative when it comes to organic characterization. Several characters do grow and change in a "growing up as a highschooler" type of way, which is an overall positive, but again, supports my claim that this story is ultimately a slice of life rather than psychological story.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Dec 12, 2023
A little bit of a series retrospective here. I haven't seen Durarara since it came out and would never rewatch it. In my mind, it is one of the original massively overrated series of my childhood, with baffling storytelling and focus problems that ruin everything good about it.
Let me start with an analogy: imagine JK Rowling creates the world of Harry Potter, filled with wizards, magic, lore, history, a haunted castle, centaurs, giant spiders, elves, soul-stealing dark phantoms, dragons, etc. But as she's writing it she decides, "no Harry Potter is too much a chosen one type and involved with interesting people, secrets, and
...
high stakes drama. Instead, lets make Dudley the protagonist because he can learn about all the interesting stuff as a three-times-removed bystander who never acts to move the story forward, but simply observes interesting things other people do." That's what Durarara is. Craft a world where a waiter has superhero strength, a headless horseman rides a motorcycle around the city, gangs fight one another, a Machiavellian psycho who's waiter's mortal enemy creates chaos across town. Which of these interesting characters is the MC do you ask? How about some stupid, aggressively bland and boring high school nobodies who do nothing but occasionally witness some of the cool stuff that happens.
You watch this show and see interesting characters, setting, and plot lines but then have to constantly return to the most uninteresting nothing characters. Sorry, not enough time for Celty to solve the mystery of her head's location, but yeah, enough time for us to see emotional high school boy do nothing for several episodes. Make the interesting character the protagonist. Place the center of the story where the interesting stuff happens. Why would anyone want to watch Harry Potter but through Dudley's POV? A total catastrophe of storytelling.
tldr; It should be titled Dunonono!! since that would accurately how it feels to experience all the stupid narrative zagging from interesting and exciting characters back to the story of high schoolers doing nothing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Dec 11, 2023
6.5/10. Let me say first, I absolutely love the original season of Violet Evergarden, but I really didn't like the end of this or the "the Major might be alive" plot line. In my view, Violet's suffering, recovery from brutal loss, self-hatred, PTSD, and discovery of the meanings of love are the core of this anime. No matter how much she loves the Major, he represents the brutal past and her previous life, thus making the happily ever after in this- them getting together- very retrogressive. In other words, the personal development and acceptance she struggles through gets the rug pulled out from under it
...
because the Major is alive.
I think him being alive changes the genre of the first season from being a serious look at suffering to suffering porn; the storytelling of the first season exposes us to a broken woman who desperately wants one thing and has to come to terms with the impossibility of getting it, while here she gets what she wanted the whole time as a seeming reward for becoming a better person. She goes on an emotional arc of accepting death but that all gets thrown out the window when the past returns. It turns out that all her realizations about love aren't preparing her to live as an individual in the post-war world, but to prepare her for her reunion and romance with the Major. Because what happens to her letter-writing career when she finds him? She's done--romance is the end of her life and the end of her story. Her happily ever after isn't accepting and loving herself, it's essentially necrophilia.
I like romance, I like Violet as a character, but not every story or character needs romance. The story is 1000x more poignant and meaningful with the Major dead. The people who made this are too cowardly to stand by the tragedy of the original which is the emotional heart of VE. Romeo and Juliet is timeless because the fake death at the end is experienced as real death, leading to real suicides. The story would be infinitely worse if both lovers came into full knowledge and there was a happily ever after. It is THE romance because Shakespeare wasn't a coward and didn't feel the need to wrap up every romance with a forced happily ever after. It's more romantic if they die because death gives the story stakes and weight. The Montague-Capulet beef killed them, thus working as an indictment of that political reality. Shakespeare didn't think, oh Romeo/Juliet is so nice, they deserve happiness so I can't let them go through with it. However, that's the logic in this movie. This is a story about WWI-era brutality; season 1 is true to that setting, while this movie Disneyfies that world and betrays its other themes for a totally unnecessary romance that works as pure fan-service plotting.
In addition, Violet being in love with the Major makes sense and has a charm because he's the only one who showed her affection and care in her terrible life. Him being dead eliminates all the weird age-inappropriate stuff of a real relationship while giving her an idea to live by. Him being alive and someone she can be in a relationship with makes you reckon with the fact that they met when she was a child and he benefited from using her as a human weapon (no matter his kindness). The Major is better as an idea (i.e. a personal idealization) and not a living person. Honestly, him being romantically attracted to her is extremely creepy and wrong. It turns a tragic story of a platonic, basically paternal/filial love into something that falls into anime trope cliche territory. Rather than a heartbreaking and then heartwarming acceptance of death and herself, the story becomes human weapon marries pedophile/groomer after an asspull to bring a man back from the dead. I think while the usual beautiful cinematography, music, animation exists in this, it would be better off not existing because it cancels out the core themes of the original. As it is, this movie feels like it rewards us and Violet for suffering while repudiating everything else about the original series. The Major alive plot line and subsequent romance cheapens the whole thing, even if the reunion with the Major is a definite emotional gutpunch.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Nov 20, 2023
Indistinguishable from mediocre edgelord garbage. Harem for no reason? Yes. Shadow darkness morally gray chunibyo one-liners and goofy poses? Yes. OP MC playing around and removing all stakes from everything? Yes. Generic magic swordplay high school? Flashing light action with mid animation? Pretending to be weak? Yes to it all. It's a series of bad cliches with no substance.
This show isn't parody (as there is no distance from what it would be parodying), but is a comedy genre-wise, as well as a gory action isekai. However, I wouldn't say it was particularly funny or had good action. I think the target demo for this is
...
10-15 year olds who think they're smart and that Code Geass is the peak of anime. The main character is discount Lelouch in an isekai world with vaguer powers and no plot to support his silly 8th grade syndrome antics. I'd say it's an average seasonal anime, with nothing to distinguish it from all the other C tier isekai action with an edgelord MC.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Nov 20, 2023
As far as a synopsis goes, it's a pretty cliche SAO-type VR game anime with no life or death stakes. However, the anime accepts its cliche starting point and is actually good at the execution level. It's not reinventing the wheel or offering a crazy novel story that'll shred your underwear, but it's likeable and interesting as an open-ended adventure.
I usually dislike VR anime because of the game/everyday life split, as the out-of-game stuff feels twice as boring and trivial compared to the action and adventure of the game world. That I like this anime is proof that such is not the case here. In
...
the first eight episodes, it seems like the anime is committed to giving minimal attention to the out-of-game stuff. The action animation is the main draw here and is exciting. 90% of this anime is MC figuring out the world, battling above his weight class, and discovering interesting lore and features within the game. I would say this anime is like an interesting blind walkthrough of a VR game.
The story provides solid dramatic beats and an insert-MC who doesn't have any annoying habits or try-hard humor gimmicks, while the cliched characters are far less annoying than you'd expect them to be. For instance, school acquaintance with a crush and rabbit girl NPC both seem like shitty fanservice distractions from the MC, but here they are completely complementary and involve no fanservice at all (so far). The show's focus is thoroughly on the MC and the secrets of the game, which I think is a definitive positive direction. We've seen this premise fail again and again because the show is either harem garbage, edgelord power fantasy, or doesn't actually care about the world--SLF avoid all the major pitfalls while being excellently animated, entertaining, and including an interesting world for us to follow MC through.
tl;dr: The lack of the negatives usually associated with this premise and enjoyable action execution make this the standout adventure anime of this season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
|
