sparkle1princess's Profile - Reviews

Last OnlineNov 20, 2022 9:48 AM
GenderMale
BirthdayApr 20, 1998
LocationGiggityAl's Bedroom
JoinedMar 16, 2016

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Dec 28, 2018

Kimi no Suizou wo Tabetai (Anime) add

Recommended

Spring... The season I, oh wait

This being basically a copy of Your Lie in Spring, I figured the reviews would be about the same and I was not disappointed. The very first one gave it a 9 (undeserving I might add, not nearly enough violins), and the next few basically said it was shit and too dramatic and wasn't LoGH or something. I'm kidding I didn't read them, I just looked at the scores. This movie may as well be written by the author of Shigatsu wa watashi no Uso. It has the same main characters, plot, sick girl except she has a slightly different ...

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May 14, 2017

Shinseiki Evangelion (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Trigger warning: unpopular opinion

Evangelion is not amazing. It's not even good. It's a mess of unintelligible symbolism and characters that are so over the top that it becomes immersion-breaking. The first half of it is just Angel of the Week. The only good I can say about it is that the angels at least looked kinda cool since they were designed by Mohiro Kitoh, author of Bokurano. But even that gets stupid after a while. Like here’s an angel that's a computer virus. And here's an angel that's a shadow thing. Points for creativity I guess.

Something I hear this show getting praised for is ...

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May 10, 2016

Midori no Neko (Anime) add

Mixed Feelings

No reviews? Wow. Lucky me :D

tl;dr: It’s an okay OVA. If you have extra time on your hands, go ahead and watch it.

Midori no Neko is one of the most mediocre OVAs I’ve ever seen. It’s not what I would call “bad”, but it’s not good either. The characters were pretty boring, with the old PI being the only one I could kind of relate to. The plot had several holes in it, seeming to change as the story required, and the art and music was just dreadful, although this could be justified since it’s from 1983.

The story revolves around this old man ...

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Apr 11, 2016

Pupa (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Pupa. What a wonder this show is. To think it was actually animated is amazing to me. It is quite possibly one of the worst anime I have ever seen in my life, and I’ve seen Mars of Destruction. This review is me taking apart Pupa scene by scene for one of my friends. They hated it as much as I did, so I’m like “fuck it I’ll just write about how bad it is”. This spoils literally the entire plot.

Plot: 1/10
We start off the plot with Yume walking home and she runs into this super creepy looking and totally not suspicious woman. ... The woman looks at her and acts supper creepy and says “go home little girl lest the red butterflies get you” so she decides to go look at the red butterflies instead of hurrying home. A dog explodes for some reason and turns her into this insect pokemon thing. At least I think that’s what happens. We are then treated to the most heavy-handed depiction of abuse I’ve ever seen. It’s basically like when your mother force-feeds you cough medicine, except instead of making you better, it makes you want to kill something. Some things happen and the big brother decides to go talk to his little sister who is apparently hungry for human flesh. But why does it have to be human flesh? Can it just be meat in general? Can Onii-chan just like buy her a shitton of KFC and let her have that? Or maybe some cows? Oh well. She eats him and then we get this graphic of her in some abstract place being like “I don’t want to eat people. I can’t help it. I don’t want to do this”. I’m assuming we’re supposed to feel sad, but all I can feel is “come on let’s get on with the story”. I feel nothing for these characters because they have no character. Her brother comes up behind her and is like “don’t worry I’ll protect you” and all that stuff that anime characters say. We then cut to her in an alley eating him and she’s a human again with no explanation. I assumed this was a dream sequence or something since they were in some kind of abstract place but no, it’s real life. Wish they’d clarified that a bit earlier, so it wouldn’t be so fucking confusing. If you’re wondering how this is “helping” her, well, apparently he has regenerative abilities. We learn it’s because of the “pupa virus” that give you regenerative abilities but at the cost of insatiable hunger. Again, why can’t they just go to fucking McDonalds and order like a million Big Macs? I’m sure there’d be people who’d be willing to help pay or donate if it meant not eating actual people. Did the writers forget that there’s other kinds of meat besides human meat. Real predators in real life don’t eat just one kind of meat. Oh well, if she could eat other kinds of meat we wouldn’t be able to have her big brother be her source of food. Also about her transforming back to a human. She has like 5 bodies inside of her right now. She used to be enormous, so it didn’t matter that much, but she just shrank a lot. You’d think her stomach would be smaller right? So why isn’t she like “oh fuck I’m so full blaarghhhh”? We then see a flashback of Yume’s mother being like “shit I’m going to have another baby. I need to kill this monster”. Why does she think it’s going to be a monster? She has nothing to base this off of. She even pulls her son away from his sister because she’s supposedly a monster. She seems pretty innocent so far. I mean, she was born with all her teeth, but it’s not like they’re fuckin monster teeth. They look like ordinary teeth. How is this “declaring herself a monster”. This makes no sense at all. And the mother thinks she’s watching her every move. Maybe the mom is just paranoid. You know, most mothers love and protect their children. Why is she so sure this child is a monster and not her other child? Oh well, she kills her child with a box cutter and it’s a good thing the baby didn’t cry or scream or anything and alert people to the fact that she was being sliced open. We then have a montage of the baby growing up and eating birds and all that great stuff and the mom basically goes crazy and is like “please hurt me. I like pain”. Like wtf why is this woman allowed to have children? The next episode starts out with the most erotic “I’m about to eat your guts out” scene I’ve ever seen. At first I thought this scene was supposed to be serious, but then we get this fucking up-beat waltz playing and it just completely shatters any semblance of seriousness the scene had. I don’t know who's idea it was to include that, but it was a bad one. Next we learn about that creepy woman in black. She’s a pretty generic character, just like all the other characters in this show. She says “get the egg cells from Yume as well as the sperm we collected from Onii-chan”. But when did they collect these? How did they collect these? I guess it doesn’t matter enough for them to tell us. After all, why do that when we can have another scene of erotic eating :D
Then there’s the bath scene where we learn that Maria, the creepy woman in black, is apparently giving birth to these creatures. Does this mean that she’s Yume’s mother? Also with her belly, she’s at least 8 months pregnant. When did she get pregnant? She didn’t have that huge-ass belly when Yume and Onii-chan met her in episode 1. Whatever. We begin the next episode by having Onii-chan and Yume going to school. You’d think that if she’s a man-eating monster, they’d want to keep her in the fascility with her brother so she doesn’t eat anyone else. Seems like school would be a pretty dangerous place. What if she goes berserk and starts eating people like she did in episode 1? Come to think of it why hasn’t she transformed into that pokemon she was in episode 1? When and why did she change back to a human, and why hasn’t she turned back into the pokemon since then? They’re intercepted by this creepy looking guy who’s obviously crazy as fuck and he takes Onii-chan to an abandoned warehouse and starts stabbing the hell out of him while Yume stands and watches uselessly. Hey remember how you used to be a giant monster pokemon? It’s a shame the plot forgot you could do that, it’d be super easy to get out of this situation. Instead they get captured and taken to this medical facility where Onii-chan is being disected. They administered anesthesia but aparently the virus neutralized it because of course it did. After all, it wouldn’t be horrifying enough if it didn’t hurt. They are removing organs and placing them on this tray and every organ looks like some kind of abstract piece of meat. In fact, they look like the exact same thing his back muscles are made out of. I think the author doesn’t know how to draw organs, so he just decided to draw pieces of meat and hoped the audience wouldn’t notice. On another note, don’t you think these doctors are enjoying this a bit too much? I don’t hear anybody complaining or souding like they’re sickened by what they’re doing. Psychopathy is not this common. You’d think at least ONE of them would have an issue with disecting a human being? Laws are in place to prevent doctors and scientists from doing this. This is the same problem I had with Charlotte and Ajin (although that handled it a little better). And when they brought out the fucking chainsaw I just burst out laughing. I don’t think the author was taking this seriously in any way at all.
Now that Onii-chan is captured and being tortured, NOW she can transform again. Or at least grow tentacles? Why didn’t she do this earlier? All the conflict could have been avoided. Whatever. Now we’re seeing Onii-chan and it looks like he’s escaped or something. But how? His sister didn’t do it, since she was looking for him. It shows the doctors all dead. Did he kill them? He’s been shown to have no supernatural powers aside from regenerations so far. If he did have them and we just didn’t know about them, why did it take him so long to use them. In fact, why didn’t he know he had regeneration abilities until episode 2? He’s supposedly had them all his life. Has he never scraped his knee or cut himself or broken a bone or anything? Oh well. He and his sister a reunited happy ending to an episode yay. Next we have… holy shit it’s another erotic eating scene with immersion-breaking waltz music. This time they’re in the PE shed. Seems like it would be really easy to be found out there, not to mention getting blood all over the equipment. After she eats him we get this moment that I think is supposed to be heartwarming where Onii-chan is like “It’s not so bad getting eaten by my little sister. I love my little sister”, but it just comes off as creepy. And that may as well be the final episode. The next one is pointless so I’m not going to talk about it. It’s just stupid.

Characters: 1/10
The characters were boring and had no character. I don’t even remember the big brother’s name. This series is so bad

Art and sound: 3/10
The art was not great, but not bad. I liked the unfinished coloring style. The character designs were meh and the artist didn’t know how to draw body parts as was evidenced by the fact that every muscle looked the same as the organs. The music was also pretty okay. It wasn’t memorable, but it fit the scenes and the mood. Except for that fucking waltz music…

You're welcome Nova.

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Apr 8, 2016

Bakemonogatari (Anime) add

Not Recommended

If I had to pick a word to describe Bakemonogatari, it would be “bad”. And I don’t mean that in a positive way.

Basically, Bakemonogatari is a Harem show. There is nothing special about it. It is just like every other harem show out there. We have Araragi, our protagonist who’s exactly like every other harem protagonist other than the fact that he’s a vampire, has a meaningful backstory, and doesn’t get into stupid perverted situations with girls who act irrationally for the sake of comedy. Minus all the things that set this apart from other harem shows, this is nothing special.

The characters in ... this show all fall into certain archetypes: We have the sexual assault victim who seems to be a tsundere but really is just bad at communicating with others and is using it as a defense mechanism. She even has the stereotypical broken family with a mother who, just like all anime mothers, got sucked into a cult and disowned her daughter. We have the loli who’s actually dead and is bratty because she doesn’t want people to get hurt by being friendly with her and whose parents are divorced just like all anime parents. We even have the sporty girl who is, like most sporty girls, a lesbian and hates the main character because he took away her love interest. Most of them are simply used to deliver unfunny jokes that don’t make sense unless you put in the effort to actively listen. And we all know just how awful that is. A lot of time is spent on meandering dialogue that isn’t important to the plot at all except for all the times that it is and only serves to throw jokes at the audience that aren’t funny because I didn’t think they were funny. The characters are also constrained to their own “arcs”. Each one only gets a few episodes before moving onto the next boring archetype character. This is inherently bad, no matter how well executed it is or how much story and character development is put into just a few episodes. Not that there’s any character development anyways. After all, all the characters are cliche archetypes and this is just a normal harem anime.

So what makes Bakemonogatari unique? Well obviously the art, since everything else is pretty standard.

Bakemonogatari is animated in a very strange way. This isn’t surprising. After all, it was animated by Studio SHAFT, who are, at this point, famous for their bizarre animation styles. In this show there’s lots of times where there’s real life photography and walls of text that go by so fast you can’t read them unless you pause (and god forbid you have to pause). Aside from all the times that the characters are animated, there’s very little animation to be found in this show. In fact, I can think of a lot of times where there’s just static images. I can think of lots of times where there’s actual animation as well, but those don’t count.

The art is certainly interesting. However, there are times is was obvious they were just saving money. In fact, you can calculate how much each scene costs, with precise amounts such as “a lot” and “not very much”. It’s a lot more effort than pausing to read the walls of text, but it’s harder to complain about, so I’ll play it off as a game I played during this incredibly generic, boring show.

While the backgrounds are unusual, the character designs are very normal for a harem anime. Honestly, name me one harem anime that DOESN'T have a monkey girl in a raincoat. As a generic harem anime, the main draw is the cute girls and not the plot or intricate character relationships. The supernatural elements aren’t that interesting either since they were obviously there to trick the audience into thinking that this wasn’t a generic harem show. While this show does have slightly odd directing, the girls are all attractive and in generic harem positions such as being constricted by invisible snakes while wearing a school swimsuit, or ripping apart the main character with your monkey arm while wearing a raincoat in the creepiest way possible.

The show breaks the fourth wall a lot, with the main female lead, Senjogahara, calling herself a tsundere. At times they question the fact that they are characters in an anime. Most people would use this and say that it’s proof that Bakemonogatari is “self-aware”. While they’re right, I’m going to be edgy and different by trying desperately to prove them wrong.

See, Bakemonogatari isn’t really ironic. It just pretends to be in order to protect itself from criticism. It’s saying “see we’re poking fun at ourselves, therefore you can’t criticize us for our use of tropes. This is not irony for the sake of humor. It’s simply a way or utilizing anime archetypes and creating a cast of one-dimensional characters that aren’t fleshed out or sympathetic except for all the times that they are. It’s just proving how lazy the author was. He didn’t feel like creating complex characters so he decided to use stereotypes and then poke fun at them. This obviously took no effort at all. The author needs to learn how to make believable, sympathetic, well rounded characters like Kirito.

The heavy use of self-aware humor has several downfalls. First of all, it is hard for simple people like me to understand it. Second, it’s easy to make fun of and trash-talk. It also seems to think that the audience isn’t going to notice that it’s relying on the same cliches it’s making fun of to stay afloat. I cannot think of a single scene where it was held up by it’s intriguing story or interesting characters because all of them are so cliche. I mean honestly, I haven’t seen a single harem show that doesn’t involve a girl who was almost raped when she was 12. The series feels very empty because, aside from charming characters, entertaining dialogue, and interesting art and story, it had nothing to offer besides cliches.

In closing, Bakemonogatari is just a bad anime. It tries to sound smart and avoid criticism with interesting art and faux-ironic jokes when really it relies on nothing but cliches and tropes. If you want to see an anime that doesn’t rely on tropes, cliches, or deus ex machina, AND has well rounded, interesting characters, check out Sword Art Online. It’s the best anime ever made.

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Apr 2, 2016

Shinsekai yori (Anime) add

Recommended

Warning: spoilers ahead

Shinsekai Yori is hands down the best anime I have ever seen. I wish there was a score higher than 10/10 I could rate this. The only thing I found disappointing was the ending, simply because it didn’t do what I wanted it to do (aka it was more sad than I had hoped).

Story: 11/10
This is one of those stories that covers a long period of time. If I remember correctly, it covers ~24 years, from when the characters are 12 to when they’re 36. It starts out kind of slow with hints and foreshadowing, but nothing too dark or dramatic. In ... fact, it’s almost slice of life for the first two or three episodes, but then you realize that everything ties into the bigger story. The story’s pace gets faster with each timeskip until finally you get to the queerat rebellion. This is the part of the show that made it hard to keep watching. There’s so much death and despair and sadness that it became hard to watch after a while, although that’s not a problem with the show. I’d rather watch a depressing as fuck realistic anime than a fairy-tale version of war. But watching all the characters you’ve grown to love dying off one by one was just flat out hard to watch. However, the complexity of the plot, the twists, the pacing, the realism, everything was just beautifully done. I could not have asked for more from this anime.

Another thing I really liked about this anime was the fact that almost every character came back. In the very beginning of the series we introduce a lot of characters. In most stories, these characters would serve their purpose and then exit the plot. But in Shinsekai Yori, they don’t. For example, Squealer. At first it seems his only purpose is to guide the kids out of the caves and back to safety. After that we have a timeskip and focus on the kids and the school. Squealer exits the plot. But then, after you’ve forgotten about him, he comes back and leads the queerat rebellion. It almost felt like I was reading a Clive Barker novel. That’s why Maria disappearing and never coming back was so disappointing. Also I wanted Saki to be happy and get her lover back. This show is so cruel.

One more thing I’d like to address: queerats are humans. This completely blew me away. I thought all the surprises were over, but then Satoru comes in and he’s like “yeah Saki, queerats are actually humans”. It was so nicely done, especially since it was done at a time when you didn’t see any more surprises coming. Looking back on it, there were hints here and there about it, but I wasn’t paying enough attention.

Characters 9/10
All of the characters in this show were interesting. We have a group of 5 kids, all of whom are different. Admittedly, some of them were kind of annoying (*cough* Mamoru *cough*), but none of them were dislikable enough to ruin the show for me. Even Squealer, despicable evil queerat though he was, became sympathetic in the end. Slightly. I mean, come on, nobody deserves what he went through. Our main character, Saki, is one of my favorite characters. She feels like an actual human being. She isn’t invulnerable to hardships, but is strong enough to bounce back and be almost the same. All of the characters felt real. They all had flaws, but they were all strong in their own way as well. Except Mamoru. I’m glad he exited the plot. The way the characters change and develop over the course of the story is extraordinary as well. Satoru seems to be that kid in school who’s always looking for attention, gets bad grades, and seems to never mature. However, by the third timeskip, he’s grown into a fully mature adult capable of making rational decisions. The writer of Shinsekai Yori has the ability to wrote both convincing children, adolescents, and adults, which is not an easy skill to master. Admittedly, some of the adolescent kids seemed to have the sex drive of 20 year old adults, but that wasn’t enough to break my suspension of disbelief.

Art: 10/10
Not much to say here. The character designs were very nice and I loved the simple art style. The characters themselves were drawn simply and colored simply, but they had a charm to them that made them not appear boring. The way the artist draws plant life and the outdoors was also really amazing, although that might just be me.

Sound: 10/10
This show has an extremely wide variety of music. Sometimes it reminds me of Yuuki Yuuna (the choral tracks in particular), but other times it doesn’t sound like anything else I’ve heard before. All of the music fits the mood perfectly, serving to enhance the feelings of the characters and the atmosphere. It’s the kind of music you could play for me and I’d be like “oh hey, that’s Shinsekai Yori music!” The voice acting was good, and I can imagine how much fun it must have been for the voice actors who were cast as queerats (especially Squealer xD). This anime also knew when NOT to use music, or indeed sound of any kind. For example, in episode 24 when Saki and the other guy are going to find the Psychobuster and one of those sea monsters comes and eats him. During that whole scene there is no sound at all, and rather than taking away from the intensity of the scene, it serves to heighten it.

Yuri: 10/10
Because who doesn’t ship MariSaki?

There are very few times I feel comfortable using the word “masterpiece”. However, Shinsekai Yori is one of those anime that I feel deserves that title. I have never watched an anime that was as good as this one was in terms of complexity, atmosphere, characters, and of course, the twists. Madoka is the only one that comes close. I’m still upset that Saki didn’t get her Maria back, but it seems she managed to get over it. Poor Saki... I recommend this anime to everybody (unless you can’t handle exploding body parts and every character you love and cherish dying).

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Mar 29, 2016

Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica (Anime) add

Recommended

Warning: spoilers ahead

Let’s clear something up right now. This is not an unbiased review. I don’t believe any such thing exists. However, I will do my best to keep my fangirl juices in check and judge this anime the same way I would any other one. Madoka is not a perfect anime by any stretch of the imagination. It is not flaw-free. So why, you may ask, am I giving it a 10/10? Because I love this anime more than any other one I’ve seen. I give out scores based on my personal feelings, and my feelings are that this anime is amazing despite its ... flaws.

Plot: 9/10
I have a weak spot for dark, depressing as fuck anime. I have a soft spot for suffering lolis. However, that alone is not enough to merit a 9/10, as can be seen by my Charlotte review. The scope of this anime’s plot is perfect. It never tries to be anything it isn’t, which seems to be a sadly common theme among a lot of other anime I’ve watched. The pacing is always on point and the twists come one after another, always in natural ways. They never feel forced. This anime feels like it was planned out before the writer even wrote the first sentence. There’s little hints everywhere about the truth, from the name of the soul gems, to Homura’s reactions to Madoka’s comments. They are subtle, and things you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for them, but they are effective in making nothing feel like it was put in at random. Madoka has a few holes in it, though not very many. For example, in episode 10 it’s revealed that Homura has been going back in time over and over and over. We see the beginning of episode 1 where she’s fighting Walpurgisnacht and Madoka is up by the big tree. But if that’s the case, then what was that abstract hallway she was running through? And what was the big floating island? Those don’t appear in any of the other timelines. You could argue that it was because it was a dream, but we’re seeing it from Homura’s perspective this time. The giant tree is still there. There is no giant tree in Madoka’s city, so where did it come from? It kind of feels like the plot forgot about that, but maybe I’m just misinterpreting something. Another bad part about the plot is that it felt like it was trying to hit a series of plot points and the story was based around those plot points. It’s basically the opposite of penguindrum; the story is plot-driven rather than character-driven. That is to say, the characters change with the plot, not the other way around.

Honestly, if I was going to judge this anime objectively and set my personal feelings aside, the plot would probably get an 8/10 simply because of the ending. It was almost but not quite an “it was all just a dream” ending. It felt conclusive, but rushed. It felt like it should have taken up at least one more episode, maybe even two. It had a lot of good ideas, but it was presented in a way that left you wondering “what just happened”. They wouldn’t even have had to change any of the ideas, just give each one of them more screen time. Explain things a little better as well, since it can get really confusing unless you’ve seen the anime several times and read spoilers and explanations online. All in all, it was not the worst ending I’ve seen to date, but one of them. That last scene with Homura was really sad. This is the one time I’m going to let my emotions cloud my judgement, because I just loved that ending scene so much where she is fighting and can feel madoka in her. And she has Madoka’s weapon. It’s just so… heartwarming? I don’t know. I loved it. 11/10.

Characters: 9/10
The characters in Madoka are even better than the ones in Penguindrum in terms of depth and development. Each of them has their own sets of motivations, their own desires and, of course, their own wishes. Every single one of them has a tragic story of some kind, be it Sayaka’s path to self-destruction or Kyoko’s backstory of parental abandonment or Homura’s determination to save Madoka, even if it means doing the same month over 100 times. The character relations and interactions all tie into the bigger story and serve to show something much larger than the story we see. Each one of the girls is there to show what can become of a magical girl. We have Mami, who died in battle, being beheaded by a witch and then… eaten. We have Sayaka who follows what she believes is the one and only righteous path, eventually falling into despair and becoming a witch, and we have Kyoko (who’s story I loved the most) who died after using up all her magic and destroying her soul gem. Unfortunately, at times the characters interact with each other and talk like plot devices rather than actual characters, and while they never acted in a frustratingly irrational way just for the sake of the plot, their actions did feel like they were in service of the plot more than anything a lot of the time. And fucking Kamijo was literally nothing more than a plot device to lead Sayaka to become a magical girl and eventually to crash and burn. I kind of wish Urobuchi had given him more character rather than treating him like a prop. Also, Homura is best girl.

Art: 10/10
With this being a shaft anime is is directed, like all shaft anime, by Akiyuki Shinbo. His artistic vision is one of my favorites, with his use of random colors and photographs in the background. It’s no secret that Shinbo loves to be artsy and symbolic, and oh boy did he have fun with Madoka. The labyrinths are basically the definition of Acid Trip Dimension. The witch designs are hilariously horrifying with their abstract surrealness. The character designs were done by Ume Aoki, better known for her moe/slice of life anime Hidamari Sketch (which was also done by shaft). This made all the characters look SUPER adorable, serving to clash nicely with the dark plot and fool people into thinking that this show was going to be happy before they watched episode 3.

Sound: 11/10
The music was done by the one and only Yuki Kajiura, also known for her work in Fate/Zero, Sword Art Online, and the .hack franchise. The Madoka soundtrack is basically everything I could ask for in an OST. It’s memorable and distinctive and if you were to play one of them for me, I’d be able to say “hey, that’s Madoka music!” All of the music fits with the mood of the scene it’s played in and draws out the emotion of both the characters and the audience members. Or maybe that’s just me…

As I said before, this review is biased. Objectively, this anime probably deserves an 8.5 or a 9, but I loved it enough to push the score up to a 10. To me, it is one of the best anime ever made, despite its flaws. I recommend it to pretty much everybody I meet and everybody who watches it tell me how much they love it. If I could rate it 11/10 I would, but sadly MAL only goes up to 10.

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Mar 28, 2016

Aura: Maryuuin Kouga Saigo no Tatakai (Anime) add

Recommended

Warning: spoilers ahead

It was about a month ago I watched this movie. I saw people comparing it to Chuunibyou, which I love, so I thought “oh this is going to be great”. Well, I was right, though not in the way I thought. See, Aura takes the idea of chuunibyou, but instead of making it lighthearted and comedic, it puts a darker spin on it. It’s much more dramatic than Chuunibyou was, which was refreshing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anime that actually took the 8th grade syndrome elements with any amount of sincerity. Off the top of my head, the anime I’ve ... seen chuunibyou in is OreImo, Haganai, Sabagebu, and, of course, Chuunibyou. There’s probably more I’m forgetting. However, not a single one of them took it seriously. And that’s what sets this apart from the others.

Story: 9.5/10
The story of Aura is very focused. Maybe because it’s a movie with a limited amount of time, or maybe because of the writing, or some other completely different reason, it has direction. Without spoiling too much, it takes the idea of chuunibyou and asks “what if society was less accepting of this”. There’s a huge stigma against people like Ryouko and Ichirou. Ichirou has learned this and conformed to the standards, but Ryouko hasn’t. The bullying scene(s) really worked well for drama. They felt natural, realistic. It felt like something that would really happen, maybe because I’ve seen the same thing happen at my middle school.

Now I’m going to talk about the ending, so stop reading if you haven’t seen it and don’t want to be spoiled. So basically Takanashi Rikka builds this huge contraption out of school desks on top of the roof. How she managed to do that is beyond me, and I wish they’d addressed that, but it wasn’t enough to ruin it for me. She basically says that in order to complete the incantation, she need to kill herself. It’s at this point that you realize just how obsessed she is. Throughout the whole movie it just felt like a game of hers. But now that she’s actually ready to jump off the school roof in order to complete the incantation you realize that oh shit she is way too into this. It was an awesome setup. Maybe it’s just me and my love of tragic endings, but I feel like the ending would have been been better if she’d actually gone off the edge. It would have at least been much more dramatic and in line with the tone of the rest of the movie. The happy ending felt like it kinda came out of nowhere, and the sad ending would have just worked more naturally. Regardless, the story was amazing.

Characters: 9/10
Our main characters, Ryouko and Ichirou, are the two most fleshed out characters in the movie. Ichirou is a former chuunibyou whose delusions drove his family apart. He henceforth decided to never be a chuunibyou or associate with them. This is fine as a character motivation, although the idea that his parents actually beat him because of his delusions is kinda bullshit. Ryouko is just fuckin crazy. At first she seems like a “normal” chuunibyou girl, but as time goes on you realize she’s reeeeally into this shit. She’s a very interesting character, and her relations to the bullying are realistic and believable. The bullies are really the only characters I had any issue with. They’re almost as two dimensional and evil as the bullies from Elfen Lied. I get that they weren’t supposed to be deep, fleshed out characters since they’re pretty much just plot devices, but still… they weren’t sympathetic at all. They felt inhuman, and even plot devices should feel a little bit human. At least in my opinion they should.

Art: 9/10
The art was really good. It looked beautiful and the coloration fit the mood very well. The final scene on the rooftop stands out in particular. The orange color added a mystical, final feeling to it. I loved the character design of Ryouko, even if she did look and feel like a carbon copy of Takanashi Rikka, as well as the costume she was always wearing. I have a soft spot for cool looking clothing.

Sound: 9/10
This series knew how to set the mood with music. I am once again going to refer to the ending scene with them on the roof. The music used adds to the drama really well, building up to a climax at the same pace as the events. However, none of it really stood out as something I’d listen to again and again. There wasn’t any music that I’d listen to and say “ah, that’s Aura music”.

Overall, I think Aura is a really well done movie. In the time they had, they managed to tell a believable, realistic story about delusions and the effect it can have on your social life. The characters were sympathetic (well, the characters who weren’t the bullies that is) and the art was stunning. This movie is worth a watch, especially since it isn’t very long.

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Mar 27, 2016

Girl Friends (Manga) add

Recommended

Warning: spoilers ahead

So I am a huge fan of yuri. If asked, I couldn’t explain it to you. There’s just this magnetic attraction in me to the two-girl relationship. And so, when I discovered Girl Friends, I ate this up like an obese kid with a pack of Skittles. This is, in my opinion, the best yuri manga ever written (and by that I mean it’s the best yuri manga I’ve heard of). Sono Hanabira doesn’t count because that’s a VN. The drama, the romance, the characters, everything feels so very real and human. And, from looking at the other reviews on this page, I ... don’t think I’m alone in thinking this.

Plot: 10/10
The plot starts out slow, maybe a little bit too slow for some people, but for me, the gradual buildup works great. Over the course of the story we learn more and more about these characters, their likes and dislikes. The world is interesting and the events that happen are entertaining, even if they aren’t all immediately important. The example that comes to mind is in volume one when the group of girls go shopping for clothes or talk about nail polish. But even that kind of comes into play later on in the story. It’s not until volume two that the gayngst really starts to come into play. There’s several plot twists that happen in volumes 2-3 which do a nice job at throwing a wrench into the story without feeling forced. And the ending. Dear god, the ending. I thought 5 centimeters per second had a feelsy ending, but this one takes the cake. And it isn’t even sad. It’s heartwarming as hell, but still so full of feels. I cannot express how wonderful it is. And it doesn’t come apart when you start thinking about it like a lot of the stories I’ve been reviewing recently. This one holds itself up soundly throughout all 5 volumes, without, in my opinion, wavering even once.

Characters: 11/10
Every single character in this manga is memorable and interesting. Even the side characters all have distinct personalities and, while I can’t remember their names (I’m bad at remembering names), I remember all of them and their personalities. It’s a huge accomplishment to write all these characters and make all of them different and memorable on their own. Sometimes they do act irrationally, but there’s always a justification for it. Characters never act irrationally just for the sake of the plot. The author manages to make you root for every single one of the characters, but especially Akko and Mari. You really, really want them to get together, which just makes it all the more satisfying when it happens.

Art: 10/10
Every single one of the characters are cute as fuck. The artist really knows when to use super deformed characters (chibis) and when to use realistic and detailed characters. The backgrounds are well done. Did I mention how goddamn cute the girls are? Because they are. The art in this is almost as good as the art in Sono Hanabira. The artist pays attention to the little details you wouldn’t notice unless you were observant. She details everything and you can tell she really loves drawing clothes.

Girl Friends is easily one of the best yuris I’ve read, if not one of the best romances period. The pacing is perfect, the characters are likable and memorable, even the side characters. The dialogue sounds like what real girls would say to each other. The art really brings the characters to life and makes them look adorable as hell. I’m still waiting for Mari Plushies. I recommend this manga to anybody who likes yuri and has some time to kill.

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Mar 27, 2016

Kuttsukiboshi (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Warning: spoilers ahead

So I’ve seen mixed reviews about this anime. Some people love it, some people hate it. I can understand both perspectives. However, since I watched this and enjoy reviewing anime, I thought I’d give my opinion on it for anyone who cares to listen. It should be evident from my score that I will not be recommending this anime, so if you’re a fan and don’t want to hear me hate on it, stop reading right now.

Please note that I will be rating this based on my personal feelings. I do not weigh everything equally (Story and characters are weighed more than ... art and sound). This is a biased review. If you want an unbiased score then, well, you're out of luck because there's no such thing as an unbiased review.

Plot: 2/10
The plot makes no sense. Now, if this was nothing but a straight hentai, that would be fine. You don’t need to have a plot that makes sense when the only thing that matters is how good the sex is. But this anime is trying to inject some drama into this. That’s what sets it apart from, say, Sono Hanabira (also Sono Hanabira is just better in general). However, the drama is forced and retarded. The main drama stems from when the main character walks in on her girlfriend fucking her brother. We later learn that she fucked her brother because he asked her to. But she knew that, were the MC to see this, she’d flip out. She knew she was being an idiot and betraying her girlfriend’s trust in her. And who the hell says “yeah, I know you’re my brother and I’m going out with someone else, but let’s go ahead and have sex with each other anyways. I mean it’s not like she’d find out.” You could argue that that’s just her personality, but the show tries to play it so that we’ll feel sorry for her. It doesn’t make any sense. And what about the main character? If she was upset enough to run away and not speak to her, then why would she just be like “whatever, it’s cool”. I mean, there’s literally no consequences for her actions. There’s drama and angst, but nothing comes of it. You would think that if you’re dating someone and then you walk in on them fucking their brother, then that would pretty much destroy the relationship. Anyways, after the main character runs away from her girlfriend some stuff happens and she ends up tied up in the PE shed. As a way of apologizing, her girlfriend ties her up and rapes her. Yes, you read that sentence correctly. And the crazy part is that it actually works. You’d think that raping your partner would just destroy the relationship further, but I guess the author has no clue how human emotions work. That’s the crux of most of the problems with this show. The author doesn’t have any idea how human emotions work.

There’s one more thing I wanted to mention, and that’s the ending. If you’ve read any of my reviews, you’ll know that the ending is the most important thing to me. A bad ending can drop the score from an 8 to a 7, and that’s completely disregarding characters, art, and music. So what happens in the end? Well, basically the main character discovers that she can teleport for some reason and then teleports to her friend. They have some heart to heart and then teleport to another planet and have sex forever and ever. But why can they breathe on that planet? Ignoring the fact that the chances of finding a planet that can support multi-celled organisms is infinitesimally small, there’s the problem of atmosphere. They should not have been able to breathe unless the atmosphere was the same as Earth’s. I personally think it would have been hilarious if the main character had messed up and accidentally teleported them to a planet with an atmosphere made entirely of nitrogen.

Characters: 1/10
The characters in this are so annoying that I would have dropped this if not for the yuri (I have a weak spot for yuri). Their actions are unrealistic, they have less personality than a wooden table, and they’re about as interesting as Kirito. And I don’t mean SAO II Kirito. I mean Kirito from the original SAO. What kind of person says “Yes onii-san, I’ll have sex with you. Nevermind that I already have a girlfriend. I’m sure she won’t care. And I can just make up with her by raping her”? And what’s up with the main character deciding that their relationship is now on it’s way to being healed because she was tied up and raped by the girl who she thought was her trusted girlfriend. You would think that that would destroy their relationship even further wouldn’t you? Even Sword Art Online handed sexual assault with more grace than this anime does.

Art: 5/10
The art isn’t that great, but it isn’t bad either. The girls are cute and that’s really all I care about.

Sound: 5/10
The voice acting was pretty good, as was the music, but neither one of them was spectacular. I can’t remember any of them, which just goes to show how unmemorable the OST for this anime is.

Kuttsukiboshi is an anime that manipulates your brain with fake drama and feels. It’s the kind of anime that you can enjoy if you turn off your brain and just enjoy the yuri. And I completely understand if that what you feel like doing. But if you really want to mindlessly watch some yuri, I’d recommend Sono Hanabira ni Kuchizuke wo. It’s about 100x better than this anime is and doesn’t unravel when you start to think about it. Unfortunately it’s not as easy to find as it used to be, since it’s been being removed from certain sites, but I think there are still versions out there if you look for them.

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