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Jun 11, 2024
I don't get MAL ratings for the isekai genre. Terrible shows where the author exhausts their premise by episode 4, thereafter devolving into a loop of the main character beating up weak enemies over and over, can be found in the 8s, while here sits Akuyaku 99 in the low 7s. Sad world. Maybe I watch isekai for different reasons than most people?
What's good about Akuyaku 99 is its telling of a complete story arc. Very rare, unfortunately. The protagonist, Yumiella, meaningfully moves the plot of the video game she's reborn into, and in a way besides "the named characters join her harem" or "the
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background character becomes the hero". The author doesn't make fights the center of the show, since that would be boring; as soon as it is established that Yumiella is OP, the drama revolves around the social problems a godlike character causes in this setting. People regard her with suspicion, then jealousy, then fear and revulsion. Groups try to flatter her, or manipulate her to supporting their political or social needs. The theme of why Yumiella should want to save this world that treats her like a dangerous semi-domesticated animal is explored. In the end, the resolution to this conflict is not terribly original, but it's thematically sound and comes with the fulfillment of the plot. Yes! This is a complete story! Gold star to the author.
The two things that detracted from my enjoyment were a few annoying one-dimensional characters and the abysmal CGI animals. Other than that, it was easily among the top three comfort food isekai I've watched. Recommended.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 20, 2023
All you need to know is you won't get what you what want here. The mangaka is stringing people along.
The first cour was a light-hearted slice of life with romcom elements. This second cour, on the other hand, is a straight-up romcom that pretends like it's going to pay off its buildup and foreshadowing. While the ride was enjoyable, it never does.
Imagine hiring a contractor you pay by the hour who shingles half your roof, and then disassembles his work as he's about to finish. That's what series like this are. It invalidates anything else good about the work, no matter how nicely he shingled
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the first half.
It's a shame.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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May 5, 2021
Rating: Eh.
Moriarty the Patriot is a middling cat-and-mouse detective story that stars the criminal mastermind of Sherlock Holmes playing Makishima Shougo from Psycho-Pass. You haven't seen Psycho-Pass? Watch that first. Moriarty the Patriot starts slow, but it does improve. For the first six episodes, you'd be forgiven for thinking you're watching a tedious episodic anime with no overall progression, but once the authorities become aware of a serial killer, an interesting double-chase begins. I recommend skipping to episode seven once you see the crime-of-the-week pattern, which get boring fast. You remember how in Death Note, Light meets L in the second episode? Imagine that happened
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halfway through the series for Moriarty the Patriot.
So why does the anime bother with its boring first act? Basically, this series isn't interested in being a detective story so much as an edgy elite-bashing class drama. The early episodes motivate our villain and "develop the setting". Which brings us to the worst part of Moriarty the Patriot.
This show is thematically self-serious despite its Saturday Morning Cartoon content. The plot is V for Vendetta written by a freshman from Evergreen State who just read the Wikipedia summary of Das Kapital. In trying to make Moriarty a sympathetic antihero, the plot paints Victorian England's nobility as just laughably evil. Apparently the author believes real life Victorian England, which had infant corpses in ditches and employed orphans as chimneysweeps to die of black lung at age nine, wasn't evil enough, so he had to make every viscount a murderous sexual predator who shrieks that the lower classes are livestock, just so you get it. Can you stand cartoon characters as villains? You need to in this show.
Given that the writer of Moriarty apparently has a young child's understanding of social injustice, it's hard to take his supervillain too seriously. This is a problem because, one, supervillain stories depend on the viewer feeling unwitting admiration for the supervillain, which is not going to happen here; and two, scenes that you're expected to find dramatic, you will instead find comedic. Imagine watching a slasher film where the victim, rather than panting or crying; is Norio Wakamoto as Charles zi Britannia trilling his r's as he howls that the nobility were chosen by God to live in luxury as a higher organism.
So as a class drama, Moriarty flops. As a detective story, unfortunately, its procedure is remarkably light. The writing keeps trying to convince you that our villain is a genius planning "the perfect crime", whereas in practice, his schemes are ludicrous. In one episode, he nudges a noble to commit murder, while they're both standing alone on a balcony in full view of the public two minutes before. Does the Scotland Yard never do any legwork? For a "criminal mastermind", the villain seems like he'd be in a police holding cell within hours in real life. The logic of Moriarty the Patriot is: Trust me, this guy is legit >9000 IQ, don't check the details. But shouldn't we be looking at the details in a detective story?
To compare with Death Note — and please, tell me everyone considering watching this clunker watches Death Note — Light's plans in that show are legitimately clever, but are unravelled under scrutiny due to Light's pique and hubris. There's none of that subtlety here. Our villain is supposed to be smart; you must ignore the evidence that he's not.
Even though I enjoyed the last third of the show, I can't say I recommend Moriarty the Patriot. If you're starved for serial killer crime stories in anime, it may be worth your time. Or if you're Sir Arthur Conan Doyle-aboo who wants a homage to their favorite series, but all the characters are ravishing young metrosexuals, so be it. I'm neither of these groups, so Moriarty the Patriot doesn't do much for me.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 3, 2021
Here's a Socratic exercise. Imagine your ideal action-adventure anime. It has goldilocks characters, tone, pacing, and scope. It's emotional, visceral. The story was written to convince you that the earth is flat.
Our ideal anime, Flatland Saga, follows the struggles of former astronaut Thors who, midway through repairing the Antarctic ice hologram, fakes his death and flees to Iceland to escape the clutches of NASA. Fifteen years later, CIA agents arrive and reveal they know he's alive. They demand he return to service for an astrophysics conference. While our hero complies to avoid retaliation against his family, for the rest of the series, he refuses to
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compromise his true beliefs in the face of sneering round-earth villains.
How would you feel about this anime?
That's how I feel about Vinland Saga.
Vinland Saga has rightfully become a modern classic. ("Modern" means "recent to anime fans" — in the manga world, Vinland Saga is to Cnut the Great as Vagabond is to Musashi.) Despite this review, I endorse Vinland Saga as a thrilling Viking adventure, and supposing you're browsing negative reviews on MyAnimeList to convince yourself not to watch it, go ahead and ignore my mediocre score. The tone, plot, and structure of Vinland Saga is a dead ringer for A Song Of Ice and Fire — Game of Thrones for you normies — following the epic, gruesome drama of medieval history from the perspective of flawed characters who have limited agency over events. The story launches from one viewpoint, but branches as the story grows. Vinland Saga shows less commitment to grounded realism that ASOIAF. It depicts larger-than-life characters as larger-than-life, in the tradition of 300 depicting Xerxes as a fabulous S&M hulk who could squash your skull with his banana fingers.
As other reviewers have noted, the knock on Vinland Saga is its few one-dimensional characters, most notably our main character, who is a whiny, irrational emo punk. I don't despise him, because it's clear these 24 episodes are setting up a Jean Valjean-style arc, but he could have used development even in this "pre-cosette" phase. There's also Thorkell who, unfortunately, acts like a cartoon character next to the excellent, ambiguous myrmidon Askellad.
But from where I'm standing, Vinland Saga is a wonderful, scintillating piece of garbage.
If you couldn't guess, what bothers me about Vinland Saga is its naive pacifism, a pacifism to which the entire plot is designed to recruit you. Vinland Saga has the sort of hyperidealism where a hero refuses to kill his foes in any situation, no matter what, and is glorified by the author for it. Let me be clear. It is one thing to be a pacifist who disapproves violence for plunder (like Viking raids); or a pacifist who won't defend their wealth, autonomy, or social status; or to think that violence should only be done by legal authorities. To refuse, on the other hand, to kill murderous sociopaths ganging up to kill you is laughable, and I think anyone who adopts this absurd parody of a worldview deserves to be axed by a murderous sociopath. Yes, Makoto Yukimura, what a paragon your fictional character is for letting rapist serial killers who massacre villagers for sport live. I'm sure those women who got drilled-and-killed in the next episode really appreciated the high-minded display.
Okay. Pause for a moment.
I will freely admit this bone I have to pick with Vinland Saga derives from my own worldview, and not an internal inconsistency with the story. But why is Vinland Saga preaching? Preaching annoys me anywhere in fiction. The same emotional tricks Vinland Saga uses to advocate pacifism are the tricks *Birth of a Nation* uses to solicit your adherence to another false ideology. Why do people praise such works? I'm distrustful of any story that tries to "prove" things rather than examine them. Fiction should be exploratory. If you want to "prove" something, write non-fiction and use real world evidence, like a big boy.
What makes Vinland Saga worse than most didactic fiction is that it has the gall to preach non-violence even as it glorifies violence at every turn. Think for a second. How do we know Thors is a badass? (Or any character, for that matter?) Is it because he distributes bread to the poor, stages non-violent protests, or endures torture without betraying his friends? No. Vinland Saga tells you a character is a badass by having them crack skulls. This story revels in bloodshed.
Pacifists of Makoto Yukimura's sort are, in my opinion, allowed to exist because they live in gardens walled by the threat of violence. I would very much like if Makoto Yukimura and others of his views were allowed to establish a "modern Vinland", where no weapons were allowed to anyone, not even police, and have all the major countries sign non-aggression pacts. It would be a good object lesson when every Vinlander was dead, a serf, or on sale in the global sex slave market shortly afterwards.
In fact, I find it deeply ironic that the Christians themselves, whose ideals Makoto Yukimura glamorizes in Vinland Saga, in real life took up arms against the Vikings. Bishops are powerful pieces in chess in part because of the warrior clerics who took up arms against the savage beasts who assaulted their shores. In real life, even monastics indoctrinated in pacifism from birth saw the right-and-wrong of this situation. Paraphrasing Mark Twain: a good conscience beats bad moral education.
So in the end, should you watch Vinland Saga? Yes. Reviews are purchasing advice, and it is an excellent and moving story for a false ideal.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 26, 2021
I have a pet theory for anime, only anime, that opening songs influence perception of quality. A good anime with a great opening song changes the MAL score by 0.5 points. That Dororo 2019 has a banger for an OP should tell you what I think about its score.
Here's the question, post-watch readers: Are you sure you liked it as much as you think you did? (There will be no spoilers in this review.)
Of course you liked Dororo 2019. It has everything. Well-written dialogue, characters with emotional bonds, heart-rending scenes. It's an episodic wandering story, like a dark Forrest Gump. People sell their bodies, people
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sell their souls, people are consumed by ambitions, people are consumed by good intentions, people wantonly slaughter innocents, people sacrifice their lives in tear-jerking displays. (You remember the scene where the dying monk thanks his lord? So cool!) It depicts class conflict, social prejudice, the horrors of war, and political machievellianism. Dororo 2019 has everything. That's why, when you mix it into a pot, it became sludge.
In my opinion, this show is a pile of themes without an organizing principle. Dororo feels like it has a point, but in the cold light of morning, I don't think it does.
Much like Forrest Gump boiled down to "We baby boomers have had a rough ride" Dororo 2019 boils down to "That Sengoku Jidai was nasty, wasn't it?" Yes, it felt impactful. Was it? It's a monster of the week shonen dolled up in the kicks of a prestige movie or Pulitzer Prize novel. But *actual monster of week shonen* aimed at children often have a higher density of meaningful thematic conflict, whereas this slick pretender to a morality play doesn't. With every episode, I felt Dororo was demanding I take it seriously, rather than just depicting events I must take seriously.
Or maybe I'm being harsh. Maybe the organizing theme of this 24-episode slog is that violence is bad and not wanting to be a cripple doesn't justify murder? Is that enough? It feels indulgent.
Dororo 2019 has amazing production values, and an absolute banger for an OP song. Many of the individual scenes are variously sweet or bitter in satisfying ways. If you've been looking for something that scratches like Mushishi, this may be your show. So why am I being so harsh? Simply, Dororo ended as a hollow experience for me, and I think it will for you too — even you, person bristling reading this review. All this doesn't mean you shouldn't watch Dororo 2019. I just think that adapting a simple adventure manga as a two-cour harrowing psychological tone piece was a flawed idea, and it shows.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Apr 25, 2021
THIS was the controversial show of 2018? This?
I'm shocked the show caused such brouhaha when released in 2018. Anime is less gritty than western media, but you guys have seen exploitation films, right? There should be a trigger warning for the first episode, but Goblin Slayer ranks pretty low for provocative imagery. I don't love it; parts of the first episode seem to be tryharding grimdark. But on the whole, the controversial aspect of Goblin Slayer — which you probably have heard of — lasts maybe half an episode and hardly influences the overall show. A dash of tasteless excess.
So what about the other 96%
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of the show?
Goblin Slayer is a refreshing tilt at the action-adventure story. The characters are tropes, the setting is a combo of dark fantasy and D&D, and there are good production values, if bland music. The plot centers around our hero, the GS, who specializes in exterminating low-level monsters called goblins. Amusingly, an epic fantasy story is taking place elsewhere, but GS focuses on goblins. He begins as a lone mercenary, but takes a rookie under his wing, and they go on adventures.
Goblin Slayer excels in its fights and sense of danger. I hereby bestow five stars on author Kumo Kagyu for not making his characters the strongest fighters in the universe. (Christ, light novel industry.) The action scenes are brutal, precarious, and make you worry our heroes might actually be in trouble. Because sometimes they are.
The character GS himself is somewhat disappointing. At the beginning he is the old soldier trope: competent, laconic, and repressed, but over the series, he barely develops. GS just says "Yes", "I see", and "Goblin taiji da", his personality being smothered by spectrum-tier goblin obsession. I did appreciate his absurd DGAF attitude towards everything. The other characters are simplistic, but have individual personalities that go beyond fawning over the viewer-insert character, and they have arcs, which is more than I can say for other fantasy anime.
On a related note, the **sexual elements** of Goblin Slayer are unusually distracting. I'm not being prudish. The protagonist, our viewpoint character, is dead to the flesh, so why is the camera lingering over quivering breasts? This is immersion-breaking because the animators are just pandering to the audience, rather than showing what the protagonist is noticing, often at *extremely serious moments*. In one scene midway through, a female character is revealing her traumatic past, while the camera pans over the her perky nipples. Why?
Another nitpick is Goblin Slayer's flip-flopping tone. The action scenes in Goblin Slayer tend to be brutal, but the "regular world" seems peaceful, lighthearted, and wholesome. I realize the show is trying to draw a contrast, but I end up wondering: Why are these adventurers so whimsical and full of banter when their villages are being ransacked, their women abducted, and their comrades killed on a regular basis? If we compare this to Berserk, Berserk isn't devoid of humor; but the world is more subdued for its bloodshed.
Overall, Goblin Slayer is a good, but not great action-adventure show. I'd recommend it to fans of the genre, provided they don't experience traumatic episodes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 25, 2021
Well, here's a new classic. Unfortunately Promised Neverland doesn't have an established genre — even listing the genres it borders would be a spoiler — so interested viewers must trust its good reputation and take the plunge. So take the plunge. Obviously Neverland is about an orphanage with a dark secret. Curious? If you're familiar with the novel *Never Let Me Go* by Kazuo Ishiguro, there's some thematic connection there, though Promised Neverland is more of a thriller.
This show covers heavy themes without pretending to be deep, and gets dark without being exploitative. The most sickening scenes are swift, bloodless, and clean. The plot
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is sad but not monotonously so. As with a lot of dark shows, much of your enjoyment of Promised Neverland will come between sessions of watching it.
**Consider this show a one-off**. The sequel anime and its source material are not worth your time, and — if you gave the writer truth serum — were probably conceived of after the manga became popular. Fortunately the first season is self-contained and has a satisfying ending.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Apr 24, 2021
The good reputation of this show lowers my opinion of the anime community.
Before you scroll down, let me insist I'm not turning my nose up at you. I understand you like Isekai. Even if the vast majority of these shows are potato chips, I endorse potato chips, and if you want some, I'll happily direct you to Sword Art Online, Log Horizon, Tensei Slime, Oda Nobuna no Yabou, No Game No Life, Zero no Tsukaima, etc. For the most part, every recommendation you'll see in the bottom navigation bar of these titles is also worth a weekend's entertainment.
Overlord, on the other hand, is god awful.
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Its main character isn't even a character. Momonga doesn't have identifiable traits, long-term goals, or a consistent personality. The supporting characters are slightly more developed in the sense their trait is lusting after the MC, their goal is pleasing the MC, and their personality is fawning over the MC. These supporting characters are in reality all the same character. They are dressed in different costumes to appeal to different fetishes in the promo material. (For example, you have the big tits vanilla option, the jailbait, the trap, the reverse trap, and even some beefcake for the ladies in the audience.) Again, I'm not turning my nose up at you. When I say there's nothing else to their characters, there is *nothing else* to their character. Not even being afraid of lightening, or being bad at cooking.
Overlord's story doesn't make sense. I'd go as far as to say Overlord doesn't have a story. After being transported to another world, the main character spends the season undercover to quietly scout information about his new surroundings. And yet he conspicuously obliterates every legendary enemy he finds in his path to "spread his name" while undercover. So is he trying to be stealthy, or is he trying to be ostentatious? I don't know. The writer doesn't know. But the plot kills some NPCs to remind you the show is supposed to be edgy.
As for its setting, Overlord doesn't have one. I have no sense of the lore or politics of this universe. Overlord's world is less developed than the most by-the-numbers fantasy setting I've experienced in any medium.
So, here's your tally. Overlord has no characters. Overlord has no story. Overlord has no setting. This show is garbage. If you're looking for an evil protagonist isekai, *Saga of Tanya the Evil* is infinitely more worth your time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Apr 23, 2021
This is a replacement-level isekai anime.
Do you want a fantasy anime where you live vicariously through an MC who, like you, is a sad loser, but, unlike you, will be transported to world where he is incredibly important, hyper-capable, and adored? Yup, this is one of those. Production values are good. Conceptually the story's fun, and the early episodes are witty and well executed. I enjoyed how the protagonist uses his ridiculous powers to build a society, rather than just defeat villains.
Unfortunately, the writer made the common mistake of a protagonist so powerful that there is no dramatic tension. Tensei Slime's Rimuru has no weaknesses.
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He will wreck everyone. Towards the end of the series, there is increasingly the feeling that each new arc is just a cardboard cutout for the MC to knock down and be praised for his heroism. This is probably fine if you're just looking for wish fulfillment.
If you want a series about a MC influencing global politics with actual dramatic tension, *Death Note* and *Code Geass* are worthy classics. They're getting old enough that you kids reading this may not know them, so they're worth a name drop.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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