- Last OnlineJun 18, 9:54 AM
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- BirthdayJun 18, 1993
- LocationUnlimited Blade Works
- JoinedFeb 8, 2014
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Dec 31, 2016
*only really minor spoilers here
Watching the first 8 episodes of Blade and Soul feels like you're just watching another fantasy medival anime, albeit a very bad one. The story feels rather rushed and is vaguely explained, the characters are flat, and lack any meaningful depth or connection to them.
What got me through this anime for those episodes was the somewhat decent animation, and a little hope that the anime would improve itself. It eventually did, with the second half delivering more emotion, character development, and brings and interesting twist to the story. It eventually reverted back to being your typical hero vs Big bad
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guy towards the end, but the main character motives are better understood and the ending was conclusive. It still left a lot of questions unanswered and quite a bit of flat characters though.
One thing I didn't particularly like was the way the anime tries to develop their characters and progress the story by introducing new characters every episode, only to kill them later on in the SAME EPISODE. This is somewhat similar to what Akame ga Kill did, showing the side characters backstory in one episode and killing them in that same episode. This may work with a lot of people (and in AGK it did), but for me it just won't do.
Talking about things that are mixed, there is also the animation. Sometimes the fight scene can make you go wow with some stunning shots and cheography, but most of the time it is just average. Animation consistency is decent with the some strange inconsistencies (mainly one of the final episodes, they were just probably saving budget to animate the following episode, which has a big fight scene). Women character designs are good though, if a not on a little bit of the fanservices side. They look good and stand out, but you kinda feel a little bit jarring when almost any woman in the anime has big breasts and huge asses.
Have you guessed why I wrote "women character designs" instead of "Character designs" yet? Because the character designs for the male characters in this anime are nonexistent. They either be extremely ugly, or extremely generic if you are being generous. This probably won't pose a problem to the viewers, because 95% of the main chracters are females anyways.
The BGM used in the anime is rather standard, but I was pleasantly surprised by the ending, "RAINBOW" by LEGO BIG MORL. Not only the ending music is good, but the animation accompanied by it was simply amazing, even if it is CGI. The opening is trash though.
Overall, Blade and Soul is not good, nor bad. It didn't do anything well, but that doesn't mean it did a bad job either. Other than the twist after the first 8 episodes, and the simply top notch ending, There is nothing that is particularly good or new that can be had in this anime.
I definitely had some fun while watching this anime, but would I recommend it to anyone though? Probably not. There are animes that are more worthy of your time than Blade and Soul.
So, as a summary,
Watch if you want:
- fanservice, characters with big boobs
- somewhat intersting fight scenes, battles
Don't watch it if you want:
- a decent story
- memorable characters
- beautiful animations (art is rather debatable though)
Scores:
Story: 5/10
Art, animation: 6/10
music: 7/10 (just for that godly ED)
characters: 5/10
enjoyment: 7/10
Overall score: 6/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Oct 8, 2015
Charlotte is the anime that is touted by a lot of people as "a better version/ spiritual successor of Angel Beats!" before airing. Same studio, same character designer, same creator (Jun Maeda, he's even writing the script now), what could go wrong? Turns out, everything can. Not only Charlotte failed to surpass Angel Beats, it managed to be one of the worst animes of the season.
MAJOR Spoiler alerts.
Story: 3
I'll admit, the story sounds promising, I was super hyped, and I really don't have any hate for high school setting animes as long as it is done right. The first and second episode was also
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really good. Then the show started to go episodic filler. To be honest, I don't actually remember much about these episodes because it was all about catching other power users and there's literally zero character development. Then BAM, Ayumi's death happened, the show started to go all plot focused, we have lelouch improper copycat oops sorry, we have Yuu Otosaka getting over the death of his sister, and honestly that part was actually done well. Now when that conflict is over, through a series of asspulls and plotholes, Yuu brought Ayumi back. Yep, all that impact from Ayumi's death was GONE, what's good to portray a person getting over the death of another person if that dead person could be revived a few days later? After all that stuff, you thought the asspulls gonna be over but NOOOOOOPE, new villains appeared out of nowhere and was defeated within a few minutes, and then we have the death of another character, which I barely had a chance to know. Since time travelling is now out of the question, what now? Yep, I was surprised Yuu said he was going to travel the world. Wow, that's potential. What will happen to Yuu when he travels the world, what kind of character will he become? This Yuu travelling the world arc could've been great if it was 3 episodes or more, but the problem here is we only have one episode left. It couldn't get any worse if they went with something else that could fit the 1 episode timeframe instead. Instead we have AROUND THE WORLD IN 22 MINUTES, and 2 minutes of romance between Yuu and Nao with zeeeeero buildup. Pacing is horrible and you could never now what would happen next, because there is zero forshadowing, zero buildup.
Art: 6
The art of Charlotte is great, great in 2010. This is 2015 now, and not even Na-Ga's character design could save this show. Backgrounds are standard, character details are standard, 720p resolution upscaled into 1080p is standard (Many studios adopted 900p and some are even using native 1080p resolution). Nothing really stands out.
Sound: 7
Sound is the only redeeming factor of the show. The OP "Bravely You", sang by Lia, is awesome, i could say the BGM and some the insert songs are good too. But this is Jun Maeda we're talking about. Compared to his other works, Charlotte is just isn't up to par.
Character: 3
Yuu is a lelouch copy cat, if he didn't looked like lelouch I would've had a hard time remembering his face. He has the most development throughout the series, but he doesn't have ANYTHING SPECIAL. Other than the fact that he looks like lelouch, nothing differentiates him from other main characters. His development is also not evenly paced, first episode he was like "oooh im so freaking awesome i don't care about anyone" and the next episode he was like "oooh these poor people must be hard i gotta help them". Nao is your typical tough girl yet cares for people in the inside kind of girl. Glassed guy is just there for the comedy, and the fact that the comedy ISN'T EVEN GOOD, idol girl is also the same. All the characters except Yuu received ZERO DEVELOPMENT throughout the series.
Enjoyment: 3
I would be lying if I said I enjoyed this for the plot or characters. I watched the end of Charlotte purely just to see how bad it could get while listening to the Jun Maeda soundtracks. I bursted out of laughter in the hospital scene where Nao cried and said she was Yuu's boyfriend. Am I supposed to feel sad or something????
Compared to Angel Beats:
Exactly the same art quality, yet has a significantly better soundtrack, comedy that is ACTUALLY FUNNY, a plot that was actually watchable and actually made sense (although rushed), characters that actually have redeeming qualities and traits.
Overall: 3
Charlotte upped the flaws of Angel Beats over level 9000, while removing all of the stuff that Angel Beats did right. One of the worst anime of the season that you should only watch if you:
- Want to listen to the music (Maybe you should find them on youtube then)
- Watch it just to see how bad it is
- Watch it to kill time (there are way better animes out there for you to kill your time but hey, it's your choice ! )
It had potential to be great, but turned out to be utterly terrible. Would definitely watch the second season if there was one, just to see how bad it can get.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jun 21, 2015
So Owari no Seraph has ended, with the second season starting in the October of 2015. Was it good? Probably, but it wasn't great. Owari no Seraph is something that happens when you try to mix almost all the stereotypes and then create an anime with it. Although it was predictable, it has some great elements of it's own.
Story: 6
The premise sounds awesome. Vampires vs Humans? This could be a really good show! Unfortunately, the story is okay, but so typical that you can 100% predict what happens next. It has some funny moments, but not too much so it will ruin the mood of
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the story. The pacing is okay, nothing to complain about.
The main theme of Owari no Seraph is "family". It tries to show you how important it is to have a family, and is pretty good at it.
There are some unexplained plot points though, like where the Four Horsemen of John came from, I thought the anime was about Vampires vs Humans? What does it have anything to do with the humans and the vampires?
Art & Animation: 7
When you watch an Owari no Seraph, the first thing you're gonna notice is how different the background is compared to most animes. The background is nice and beautiful, with a very nice pencil effect (also used in Fullmetal Alchemist), which really adds to the mood of the anime. Character designs are very good but the way the characters are drawn isn't anything special (pretty standard).
Wit Studio has the tendency to spend a lot of budget to captivate the audience in the first few episodes of the animes it makes, and then running out of budget for the last episodes (see The Rolling Girls for reference) . This unfortunately is the situation for Owari no Seraph. Also with the drop in quality, Wit Studio may have spended too much on backgrounds, because the animation in characters is horrible. They uses a lot of still frame, even when in fight scenes, which ultimately makes the fight scenes extremely boring to watch
Music: 8
Sawano Hiroyuki is one of my favorite composers, because of the exciting, upbeat themes he creates, and the epic feeling that he adds to the anime which he composes (see Kill la Kill, Guilty Crown OSTs for reference). His tracks in Owari no Seraph is indeed upbeat and epic as usual, but it is nothing special (a little bit of a downgrade compared to his other works).
He also composes the opening the and ending theme for the anime. The opening theme, X.U, is good (but maybe a little unfitting for the anime), but the ending theme, scaPEGoat, is truly one of my favoirites. The ending theme really convey the emotion of the two main chracters, Yuu and Mika. Sawano Hiroyuki did a good job here.
Characters: 7
The characters in Owari no Seraph hit all the stereotypes checkboxes: Yuu is basically typically your revenge MC, Kimizuki (the purple hair dude) is your hate-but-still-befriend-with-the-MC kind of guy, Yoichi is the coward guy, Shinoa the sarcastic girl. Their designs are good, but their personality is stereotypical, not much depth to it.
Enjoyment: 7
I won't say that I had little enjoyment watching it. It was entertaining even though it was predictable. My main complaints would still be why the fight scenes were so damn short and why there were so many still frames.
Overall: 6/10
Owari no Seraph isn't anything striking or over the top. It is a solid anime for the general audience. If you're looking for an anime that has deep plot and character depth, Owari no Seraph is not the anime for you. If you just want to watch a normal anime with not much frustration, I'd recommend you this anime.
I hope they improve on the second season though, as this anime has a lot of potential to be great.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Nov 8, 2014
After watching the second season of Hamatora (or Re:_Hamatora), I would say it made some steps to improve from it's predecessor, but it also made some steps back.
Now, TL;DR for those who are too lazy to read:
Pros:
+ Story is more tighter than the first season
+ Character backstories are revealed in this season
+ Good OP,ED
+ Funny characters and situations
Cons:
- Still horribly cliché (predictable)
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- Less colorful animation than the first season
- Most of the casts are uninteresting characters
In-depth review (*MINOR SPOILERS*):
Story: 7
The story is about the detective agency Hamatora, which consists of people with Minimums, a kind of power that activates when a certain condition is achieved . Like the last season, the theme of this anime is still equality, which deals with problems between the Minimum Holders (people with Minimums) and the normal Humans.
Unlike the last season, the plot in this season is more tight, which is a good thing, instead of the last season's random detective work. Like the last season, the anime is still horribly cliché, but it still has funny situations that makes the anime enjoyable.
Art & Animation : 7
The art is pretty standard in 2014. Characters are well detailed and enviroment is good. the shading is improved from the first season, fight scenes are well-made, but the colorful animation when people uses their minimums in the first season is gone, making it a lot less fun than the the first season.
There is also that annoying animation when ever they changes the scene which reduces a lot of tension in certain situations.
Sound: 7
Voice acting is brilliant. Kamiya Hiroshi's performance as Art is as good as always. Other character voices are well portrayed. OP is awesome and catchy and the ED is pretty emotional. BGM music is pretty generic though.
Characters: 7
Characters in Hamatora is a bit uninteresting. But some of them are good and is really relatable. Murasaki is person with very strong powers but is still jealous with Nice. Art is doing everything to fufill his brother's wish.
Enjoyment: 7
It was a pretty good watch. Funny and enjoyable though I predicted exactly what would happen.
Overall: 7
In conclusion, Re:_Hamatora is good, but not great. if you liked the first season, you will like this. If you're the type who wants a lot of action, then you better find another anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Nov 4, 2014
If you're going to watch this anime, do me a favor and watch the Blu-ray version. The TV version is so horrible that I even consider giving this anime a 6 once.
Now for those who are too lazy to read:
Pros:
+ Good art and animation (Blu-ray version)
+ Great and well-developed character
+ Interesting Plot
Cons:
- Forgettable soundtrack
...
In-depth review:
Dance in the Vampire Bund. Looks like a good anime when i looked through the list of animes. Well, it's animated by SHAFT right? Let's give it a try then.
Story: 8
It's about a vampire princess building her own country with her lover. Nothing interesting, right? The show starts off slow, but later the story progress at a better pace. The world-building aspect in this anime is good, makes you feel that the world is big and full of vampires. Some situation is predictable, but it's still fun to watch.
The anime is mostly romance, developing the relationship of the two main characters. But it has it's fair share of action and it's pretty good.
There is fanservice. But it's not that bad and fits the story.
The ending is a read-the-manga ending because from what I know, there won't be a second season.
Art: 7
If I was watching the TV version, I would give it a 5. Animation in the TV version is choppy and ugly, whereas the blu-ray version is superior but still doesn't look like what I would normally expect from SHAFT.
Sound: 7
OP and ED is catchy but forgettable. Background music is very fitting to the show.
Character: 8
We have our main characters, Mina Tepes and Akira Kaburagi. Mina is not your annoying as hell loli and has a strong personality with a dark side to it. Akira personality is pretty typical, but he's not and overpowered MC like other animes. Side characters don't show up often in this show, But when they do, they make a good impression and is pretty darn memorable.
Enjoyment:8
Exepct from the first episode, every episodes are good and enjoyable.
Overall: 8
Like vampire animes? Want some romance anime with a mix of action? Or you just simply want to see some naked loli body? This anime is for you
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 13, 2014
I walked into Zankyou No Terror (or Terror In Resonance) with no expectations. But man am i wrong. The anime is something unique, something that's different from the generic moe, shounen show you get every season, and will get you hooked up into the anime right from the first episode.
Story: 9
As i said earlier, this is not your generic moe, shounen shows. The plot is something original, the pacing is steady. It will keep you on the edge of your seat every episode. The ending wraps up the show perfectly and will leave you hanging for a while.
Art: 9
The character design is simple but not
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ugly, although i wish there were more details. But the animation is buttery smooth, backgrounds have a realistic feel to them, making you more immersed in the anime. The quality is also consistent.
Sound: 8
While a lot of people like the OP of this anime, i don't. My tastes in music is pretty different from other people. But the ED is good. Background music is spectacular and adds tension in serious situations, and makes you feel sad in some.
Character: 9
The characters of ZnK is good. Exepct from Lisa, which is your generic "damsel in distress", We got Nine and Twelve, a team of two person with interesting personality and mysterious motives. Five is also introduced later in the series, and her personality is interesting and likeable. But the star of the show is Shibazaki, a cop, who gets a lot of character development throughout the series.
Enjoyment: 10
ZnK always keeps me at the edge of my seat every episode, and keep me waiting for the next. Watching it is like watching a movie splitted into 11 parts. I almost cried in the final episode.
Overall: 9
If you're looking for an anime that's unique and different, or has good plot, animation. watch Zankyou no Terror. It's totally worth your time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 18, 2014
Wasted Potential. Initially i gave this a 9 when i was at episode 7, but my opinion changed when i finished this series. It met my expectation for a generic shounen show. good, but not excellent.
Story: 6
Story is the worst part of this anime, not the plot of the anime, the setup was fine and interesting, but the problem with it is the length of the anime. Black Bullet is only 12 episodes long, so there isn't enough time to fit the whole plot and character development. The anime felt very rushed, little to no character development. If it was 24 episodes, this anime would've
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been great. And the whole brink of extinction part, the streets and people in the anime feels very safe, doesn't feel like humans that are in the verge of extinction at all.
Art: 9
Art is outstanding and very beautiful. fighting scenes are animated very well. Art is very consistent throughout the series.
Sound: 8
Opening song is done by FripSide (who also did Railgun). ED is also good but the theme song is somewhat forgettable.
Character: 8
Our hero Satomi Rentaro here is not overpowered like other main characters, he is pretty balanced. There is character development but not much because of what I already said, 12 episodes is not enough. And the loli force are very cute and likeable. Kisara was a little bit annoying though.
Enjoyment: 9
I really enjoyed this show and I would recommend it to anyone who would like shounen and anime with a LOT of lolis :)
Overall: 8
Black Bullet is a good anime, starts out very well but ends wrong. I'm hoping that there will be a second season.
TL;DR
- Good setup but the anime feels very rushed
- Lolis
- Awesome fighting scenes
- OP done by Fripside
- Likable main characters
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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