- Last OnlineNov 28, 2024 4:46 PM
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- BirthdayAug 16, 1998
- LocationTel-Aviv, Israel
- JoinedAug 6, 2016
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Sep 27, 2021
There were two things that made the original Higurashi so good: Mystery and Despair. The constant confusion and anxiety formed by each loop were strangely delightful to experience and it constantly kept you engaged, wondering how is this connected to this, why is this happening, etc. The second part is the despair, the violence, the suffering, the dark stuff some of us enjoy a lot. It wasn't only the gruesome gore and deaths themselves, some of the events that aren't bloody are terrifying as well, like one of the arcs where satoko is the last one alive in Hinamizawa after the "gas" eruption, who is
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forced to deal with that reality right after watching a murderous Keichi fall to his death. It's so horrifying and it's so good. Yet Higurashi isn't just a gorefest or a sadist's generic entertainment, because throughout it's entire runtime you are under the impression that these horrible things are happening for a reason and the mystery of it all gives the story its substance.
Now let's look at the new Higurashi, I think it's fair to judge both Gou and Sotsu together since they're like two parts of the same story. As much as my score doesn't imply the following: I found Gou to be entertaining enough. Granted it wasn't as good as the original but the same sense of mystery and despair was there, and I didn't mind the big twist at the end and Rika's and Satoko's story in the academy. Yet unlike the original Higurashi, the more episodes that passed the harder and harder it was to go along with the nonsensical clusterfuck this show had become.
Granted, the original Higurashi also had some hard to believe elements like the virus, Rika being a carrier, demons from the past, the looping mechanic itself and the sea of fragments. Yet all of these are tastefully implemented in the story and they just barely manage to pass your bullshit radar. Gou is fine as well but shit gets too nonsensical with Sotsu.
Suddenly there's another deity, both deities have powers which are unexplained, Satoko has special looping abilities, there is a looper killing swords, satoko fights herself in the sea of fragments and kills herself, you have no idea if this is metaphorical to her killing her old personality or literally she killed another version of herself. The grand finale of episode 14 which made me drop the show has satoko and Rika going Goku and flying around, fighting each other.
What made Higurashi so horrifying was that mostly everything that happened made sense, there were substantive reasons for the horrific things the characters are going through. Yet the main reason in Gou and Sotsu is that there's a new deity and she's bored so she just makes Satoko torture Rika. Not only does this make everything seem pointless and arbitrary, it's also boring because the mystery is gone. Right from the moment Satoko pulls out her gun on Rika the mystery pretty much dies down. Sotsu is just a recap that we didn't need that barely adds anything to the story. We just sit and watch everything we already know happened play out, it's boring and a lazy way to fill runtime. Yet we sit through it because we want to know how it's gonna play out, what will Rika do when she figures it out, and well she just goes DBZ super power mode and fights Satoko like I'm watching a parody of Higurashi.
The suffering is pointless, the recap is pointless, this new Higurashi is pointless and it taints the original story so much that it's insulting. Whether you're a new or an old fan, stay away from this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Apr 4, 2021
Slime's biggest attraction for some is its biggest weakness for others.
Right from the start of the show and until the end of this second season, there is no danger. There is none, because the goal of this show is to let our main character show how big his slimeyhood is. The more he's able to do so, the more fun the show gets. Seriously, my least favorite part of this season is when *SPOILERS* Rimuru isn't able to beat Hinata, it felt like the party was over. In principle this really shouldn't work, but for some reason it does for me and many others.
This anime
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is just so wholesome and FUN! It is shallow, repetitive and beyond predictable, but it's still fun. I think this show hits the spot in terms of the appeal of Isekai. No Isekai lets you project onto the protagonist and feel powerful better. I honestly thought it would get boring at some point, but when *SPOILERS* Rimuru turns into a demon lord it just feels so satisfying, like I just unlocked a super rare ability in a video game. This show is like a dopamine supplier.
If you don't enjoy the vibe of trashy op hero fantasy shows, this show has absolutely nothing to offer for you. Yet, if you're like me and you do like the concept but you feel as if most shows execute it badly, slime isekai is seriously going to fill that now slime shaped hole perfectly for you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 24, 2021
Re:Zero's second season's worst aspect is revealed through each episode's runtime. A little under 30 minutes and most episodes do not include an OP or ED. At first glance you might think this means every episode is packed, but in reality every episode is not packed but rather bloated.
Bloated with what? Information, lore, backstories, exposition. The story doesn't move until the last couple of episodes of the second part of the second season. The lore itself isn't bad, at times it can actually be quite intriguing, but it's just one mystery after another. I don't mean mystery as if you as the viewer are given
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hints and you can hypothesize on what's going to happen or take a shot at guessing missing information. The mysteries you're given are impossible to interact with, they're just there to make you question why what's happening is happening, but there's nothing to help you make sense of it all, it's all just one big confusing mess.
*SPOILERS*
Take Emilia's trial for example (also the trials are a lazy story telling tool for revealing information), we're introduced to the Witch of Vanity, who is she? No idea. Petelguse an ally of Emilia's family, why? Why does he care about them? What is he doing in the witch cult? No idea. Everyone's worried about 'The Seal', what's 'The Seal'? no idea. Emilia's the only one with access to the key for 'The Seal', why? no idea.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't expect the show to spoon feed me answers and reveal everything without keeping a sense of wonder. The problem is that this type of story telling is constant across almost the entire season. You are constantly bombarded with scenes such that you simply have no idea what to make of them. At a certain point it just gets overwhelming and I simply didn't care to know what anything means anymore.
Re:Zero's lore is reach and grand, but the way it's revealed is lazy, inorganic (Characters will just constantly spill out information for no reason that makes sense) and it's just too much lore and not enough actual story. A good mystery keeps you in the dark while keeping you intrigued and following a certain kind of logic, Re:Zero keeps you in the dark and you're just forced to wait until it decides to let me some light in.
One big reason for why it's so hard to understand the lore is because it's given through a huge cluster of eccentric dialogue that sounds really deep but is really just too complicated for it's own good. For some reason every character speaks in the exact same way, it causes the dialogue to unnecessarily drag on for too long, hence the long runtimes of each episode.
Beneath all of this horrible story telling though, lies a beautiful world and epic fantasy. Hopefully next season's plot will be tighter.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 2, 2020
Gleipnir is a confusing show.
It seems to me like this show has problems with defining it's identity. When it started I thought I was in for some trashy dark fantasy show, that could prove a decent time waste. Soon I realized not only was it that, it was also fueled by fanservice. Yet surprisingly around the show's half point I found myself genuinely intrigued by its story and near the end of it the edginess and the ecchi began to dwindle away a bit. So, I was really confused because the show presents itself as trashy, edgy, pubescent dream come true type fantasy, yet buried
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under all of its cringe is a decent story to enjoy.
Let's get this out of the way first, if you can't stand in your face fanservice, don't bother watching this show because up until the last third of it, the fanservice is going strong. Same regarding the pubescent "I'm a nerd but now i'm a badass" story because that part of it never really goes away, although it gets more subtle as the show goes on.
Now here's what the show does bad that's less obvious. For starters Gleipnir has a huge cast of side characters, a huge cast of a pile of boring. There is really only one entertaining character to watch (which is a main character) and a couple of ones that are bearable. This is a huge problem because there is so much dead time in this show, many monologues and dialogues with one dimensional and forgettable characters. Most of them don't add anything of worth to their scenes, they're just there because they help solve problems and progress the story but they're not interesting to watch and they hold no value.
Dead time is a theme for the problems. For you see, one of the things Glepnir excles at the most is its action. The animation and the fight sequences and direction are actually really good. Characters feel like they have weight to them, and their movements are interesting and flow from one to another with style. Yet this is an aspect of the show that isn't really shown a lot. There's a lot more talking than fighting, which of course isn't bad in and of itself, but when the talking is just there to dump information on me and present those same awful side characters, there really isn't much joy in watching it.
The information dump is there because this show has an extremly convoluted plot and in order to explain it all during its short runtime of 13 episodes, it has to blast you with information. Not only is this sometimes boring, but the worst part of it is that it simply isn't organic at all. Story telling isn't about what happens (i.e the information), it's about how it happens (i.e how it's told). Gleipnir is a decent mystery type story and it tells it in the most scuffed, pointlessly complicated and arbitrary way possible. The pacing of the show is god awful, with most of the story progression happening in the last couple of episodes. It's a shame, because I am really interested in the story, in the mystery, and in the world building the show has to offer. It's just that it offers it on a wooden plate in seven different sequences by five waitresses which makes me cranky.
I think this review seems really negative as opposed to the moderate score I handed out. Let me state once more that this show has a geniuly interesting story, some sick fights and animations, and overall decent fun to be had even if a lot of it can be guilty pleasure fun. At the end of the day what holds it back is the unncessary fanservice and stereotypical teenage dark fantasy, but even more so, when you and the show to some extent get over those problems, the chaotic unraveling of it all is what dumbs it down so much. I will watch a second season if we ever get one, and I think this show is still worth recommending if you know what you're going into.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 21, 2019
I felt like I needed to write a review for this show because of how weirdly I feel about it. I chose to give it a 6, yet take that score with a grain of salt. The best way I can describe this show in terms of its quality is that it is not greater than the sum of its parts. Let's break down the parts:
In terms of the story, the premise is a little original. Our protagonist finds himself in a sort of a post-apocalyptic world, but this time he is a mega-genius scientist teenager. Other than that, there's nothing quite unique about it
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as it devolves into the ol' regular conflict between protagonist and antagonist who have different ideas about how to built society anew. There's nothing inherently wrong with a story that isn't very unique, what's most important is how it's told, as even the most over-used premise can be recycled over and over again as long as it is told expertly.
Unfortunately, that is not the case with "Dr. Stone". The plot can be summarized like so: Problem occurs that requires science to solve it, audience wonders how that is done, protagonist smirks like a snob and proclaims it will be hard but then he does it anyway with ease. The obvious problem is that there is almost no sense of danger or worry for our characters at all, after a couple of episodes as such (with the addition of other plot twists that I won't spoil and comedy that takes the seriousness of the situation even further down), I simply erased the idea that anything irreversibly horrible will ever happen.
The only thing that holds the story and that also made me want to continue watching it is honestly just the scientific way in which the problem is going to be solved, and the satisfaction of seeing the protagonist slowly improving the world around them (kind of like in a video game), but that is it. There are no interesting ideas the show presents, no feeling of a struggle, no wonder to where the show will take you next, just a nice feeling of watching a character improving its environment.
In terms of the art and sound I don't think there's much to say, it's alright, the art style does stand out, but I simply didn't really like it (There are also sometimes drawings that are hilariously bad, like faces that make no sense).
The characters are one dimensional. They all have their role assigned to them almost in the first episode in which they are presented, and then we continue to watch them do their job, never deterring from what we assume they are.
Overall I'd say try this show, if you don't want to continue watching after the first two episodes, might as well go watch something with a little more meat to it. I must say I'm interested in the high score this show got, because while I could see how can be viewed as an enjoyable and nice show, I cannot see how it reached the levels of admiration it received.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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