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"The closer you look, the less you see."

You ever start an anime and get very amped up with what's going on, calm down a bit midway, then finish and find yourself scratching your head as to where it all went wrong?

Darling in the Frannx may have been a show I initially gave more credit than it deserved.

Studio Trigger and A-1 Pictures teamed up for this heartthrob mecha, with Trigger bringing the action and A-1 bringing the... lack of Trigger animation. That's not to say Frannx is poorly animated -- most action sequences look good. But very few are great. Characters have unique faces but none ... have particularly standout designs. It really feels like someone took your average modern anime and made it about 5% more "Trigger-ish". Frannx may still be technically more impressive than a lot of shows out there, but there's a certain soullessness to its animation that can't be escaped.

The better half of Frannx (as you may have already been told) is its first half. For those of you simply wondering "what's all this Zero Two hype about" I suggest you simply stop at episode 13, as you'll already have the answer by then.

I suppose the truth is that early-on Frannx felt flawed-but-fun. Our MC, Hiro's blandness felt like baggage that came with romance action anime, and I personally was willing to endure it. After all, the battles were suspenseful, and Zero Two in addition to being a pretty well-executed killer waifu, was morally grey enough to keep us on our toes. It had its bumps and bruises but hey, the OP slapped. Essentially, it felt like guilty pleasure anime.

But the pleasure fades pretty fast. The second half suffers from poor pacing, unclear story development, bland characterization, cliche abundance, undefined/confusing villains, and a general feeling of disconnect from its first half.

But in retrospect, perhaps it was inevitable. Frannx's early story is mostly fueled by the flames of early romance -- once that fades we're left to see what's lurking underneath which is... not much? too much? Somehow it feels like both.

A point of clarity -- I actually think the allegory for declining birth rates in Japan was bold in calling out overwork as a direct cause. It's just a shame the actual story of Frannx can't keep up.

So much of Frannx's apparent "story" is inexplicably hidden until the last possible moment. Much of the show feels like it doesn't have a villain, and when things are finally explained, it feels more like a memorization exercise than anything dramatic or meaningful-- the show's overstuffed chest of backstory is littered with cut-and-paste pieces we've all seen a million times. I also still haven't decided which I hate more -- how they escalated to the final battle or the final battle itself. Remember when I said they did action well? Yeah, I'm not so sure they do action well.

Storytelling issues might be bearable if we had action to fall back to, but the fights never really develop beyond what we see early on -- not in any way worth caring about, anyways.

With story out and action out what does that leave? Characters? Perhaps the greatest failing of them all -- Frannx's cast serve their allegorical purpose well, but don't have much going for them beyond that. I personally think it speaks volumes that Zero Two has about five lines (ok I didn't count but that can't be far off) between episodes 14-19 yet still feels like the most interesting character during that sequence. Surely she's more interesting than Ikuno, Mitsuru, Ichigo, Goro, or Kokoro, all of whom seem to be in a competition of who can spin their wheels the fastest.

And she's DEFINITELY more interesting than Blandy McBlandface, who I originally thought was just going to be your soft-spoken average protagonist with some assertiveness, but really who turned out to lack any sort of identifying character trait whatsoever, beyond a vague wish for everyone's lives to be better. I wanted to like Hiro so bad, but he is impossible to have an emotion about.

If I enjoyed a character other than Zero Two, it was probably the comic relief coupling of Zorome and Miku -- they at least manage to be a mildly amusing bickering duo. I almost wish they'd gotten more screen time... until it occurs to me that they likely would've been ruined if they'd gotten it.


I can't bring myself to score this lower than a 6 -- despite all of my gripes, the fun I had when I started this show was undeniably an experience I value. But I also cannot score it higher than a 6, as I cannot look away from its problems.

I think going was the most excited I’ve ever been in a theater. I shook with anticipation, almost dropping my popcorn. And in the end, Tenki no Ko lived up to my hopes.

“That kid is throwing his life away, just because he wants to find that girl... I kind of envy him.”
-Officer Yasui

Makoto Shinkai once again taps into a romantic melancholy unlike anything else in media. This time that romance clashes directly with both gritty realism and existential threats.

The film plays to Shinkai’s strengths — beautiful shots of rain and water, love struck characters fighting against all odds, and contemporary settings clashing with the ... supernatural — while still adding enough new direction to stand out as its own entry. It doesn’t quite feel like the massive breathtaking leap that Your Name was, but it’s still gorgeously animated and manages to provide a few exceptionally unique and powerful emotional moments. It is, to date, Shinkai’s second-best film, and probably the best anime film to come out since his first-best.

Its only sin is its structure — the first act in particular could be credibly accused of being a series of vignettes. As a whole, Weathering With You lags behind Your Name in that its central plot doesn’t thread seamlessly from start to finish. But even its seemingly random early events feed strongly into the story’s motifs and ultimately serve it well. Every sequence feeds into the internal struggle of Hodaka, our protagonist.

It’s when he meets Hina — the girl behind the film’s magic-promising title— that things truly get off the ground. And much credit is due for making this dynamic not at all feel like a clone of Taki/Mitsuha when it very easily could have. In some sense, it’s also stronger because of how the two undergo more change as we near the climax.

In the end, I found there were two primary aspects of Weathering With You that mesmerized me: its technical splendor, and the mental journey of its protagonist. It’s a story that argues, more beautifully than any in recent memory, for damning all else in the name of love.

RANT WARNING: Too many anime fans, apparently, have become accustomed to having things spelled out for them via some combination of long narration and excessively expository dialogue between characters.

Along comes Violet Evergarden, a show that dares not to hold its viewers' hands, and suddenly there's a backlash mob complaining about how the "dialogue doesn't tell us enough" and how supposedly that's an indicator of weak story.

It's laughably stupid, because the opposite is true. A great film/show is one that you can mute and still understand. A trash show is one where you could drape a blanket over the screen and still understand it.

Violet ... Evergarden, even the haters will admit, is beautifully animated. Thank Kyoto for that. But what the haters seem to miss is that the animation itself is telling the story, which is HOW IT SHOULD BE. And it would be the norm if so many studios weren't sadly forced to operate on a tight budget that incentivizes them to give us boring stills while characters explain things for us.

All I can say is WATCH WHAT'S HAPPENING. Watch the subtle facial expressions, the changing scenery, the moods that the different color schemes convey. Stop expecting walls of text to spell everything out for you, and you'll find there's a beautiful, tear-jerking story here.

Violet Evergarden tells the story of a broken, scarred soldier who needs to find her place in the world.

She spent most of her life as a pawn who just took orders and wreaked havoc. She spends the course of the show learning how to express and get in touch with her own emotions.

Of course, Violet's lack of emotions in the beginning can be a turn off for viewers. She is somewhat difficult to empathize with at the start. But that, it turns out, is the point, as this problem is remedied in a truly beautiful way. Starting around episode 3, Violet (and we the viewers) begins hearing the stories of more ordinary people. These stories are easier to understand, and when Violet herself is able to draw a connection between an emotion one of her clients is feeling to an emotion she herself felt at a certain time, it allows us to start "getting" who Violet is.

And that's when the freaking water works start. Bring tissues if you're like me. Starting with episode 4, almost every episode that followed brought me to tears at some point. It's a good, ugly cry that they get out of you. Kyoto doing Kyoto things.

This is among the greatest things I've ever watched. You may not like it if you're used to easily digestable shows that tell you what to think/feel and have characters constantly spoonfeeding you exposition. You probably won't like it if you're only into giant robot battles. But if you're ready for a show that will make you feel, there is no better show to watch.

In the case of Zankyou no Terror, (Terror in Resonance), reviewing it using the standard "5 attributes" system doesn't really meaningfully convey its strengths and weaknesses. A much better way to break down the show is in terms of Small Moments and the Big Picture. Zankyou no Terror executes the former to near perfection, making its fumbling of the latter all the more frustrating.

Zankyou no Terror follows two terrorists - Nine and Twelve, whose motives the audience is for the most part unaware of until the final episode. This is a problem. While the mystery and suspense does make the show intriguing and fun (especially ... in the beginning), it by the end does not seem a fair trade off for having almost no time to get to know and become attached to the protagonists. In Twelve's case, we are at least able to learn a bit about him through his interactions with Lisa, but Nine is kept a cryptic mystery of a person.

Here's the thing: If keeping Nine and Twelve's motives shrouded in mystery was so essential to the show, then it ought to have simply followed Shibazaki, their detective frenemy who is an intriguing clever man. Frustratingly enough, Zankyou no Terror ALMOST does this. Shibazaki gets air time, air time, air time. But not enough to be our main character. If anything, the show ends up spreading itself thin between him and the bombtastic duo.

If I sound like an ass, maybe its because I'm a bit frustrated. I couldn't escape the feeling while watching this anime that it had potential to be so much more than it was. The execution of scenes on a small scale is so perfectly done. Action sequences are rife with entertainment, as they keep things intense but never take it too far. Character moments, when the series chooses to have them, are strongly done in an honest fashion. The problem is that these pieces don't fit together in a way that really is satisfying.

A perfect example of what the show does well and poorly is Five. Five is a secondary antagonist who shows up in episode 5 and basically runs the table until the end of episode 10. Now, this is anime, and often that might work. But we have 11 episodes here. You see the problem? Five IS well-developed as a character and makes for a splendid foil. If you zoom in and view it by itself, its an example of how to brilliantly use a secondary antagonist. The problem is, when you zoom out, you see that that wonderful little piece of this show ate up more than half of its screentime. And that just doesn't work.

What's perhaps remarkable is that at times the show's perfect small sequences ARE good enough to even make one forget the show's larger flaws. Those who have seen the show know what I'm talking about when I mention the emotionally charged Ferris Wheel scene. The music, the dialogue, the expressions on the faces of the characters, it all conveys emotion so clearly and in such a beautiful way that I found myself invested despite the fact that overall I knew next to nothing about these characters and had spent most of the show not giving a rat's ass about them.

Give Zankyou no Terror a watch. If you're mindful of these issues, I think you'll find it's still enjoyable. It may be that, at the end of the day, the show sort of feels like eating a bag of chips whole -- fun but never really satisfying. But hey, sometimes it's still really fun to eat a bag of chips whole. And this bag also has some pretty interesting flavors in it.

Ah, that feeling. That feeling you get somewhere between a third and two-thirds of the way into an anime when you start thinking "well shit, this might end up being a 10/10". That tension, as you worry the show might fumble something critical and force you to take points off. And, if you're lucky, the satisfaction when it ends and you can confidently say that you found your new masterpiece anime.

Kill la Kill has polarized audiences, and it's not difficult to see why. For one thing, that is bound to happen with any anime that carries with it a loud and large fan base that ... hypes it up as if it were the second coming of Christ. Inevitably, people will get lost in this hype, and seek perfection when they sit down to watch the show. While this is a harmful way to walk into any anime, it's especially harmful for KLK, an anime whose beauty will not be found in the usual places.


Story - 9/10. It's a difficult story to review without giving away major spoilers. But here is the short version: KLK's story is the anime equivalent to a brilliant popcorn flick. It's a campy, silly ride of plot twists, absurdity, and excess. And it's spectacular. Kill la Kill knows it isn't treading into deep and dark territory. It knows it isn't pushing intellectual boundaries. By acknowledging that, it's able to both craft an honest, sincere message that is unique and has meaning, and also double down on simply being 24 episodes of pure awesomeness. Lightning fast in pace, and a master of ramping up intensity as the show goes on, it does very, very well.

Art - 10/10. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the show, certainly if you include the "fan service" aspect (we'll get to that in a minute). Now, there are those out there that have decried Kill la Kill's animation. It's been accused by some of being lackluster. While everyone is entitled to their own taste in art, I can't ignore how often people seem to argue against Kill la Kill based on misconceptions about it. Suffice it to say, there are a number of comical, over-the-top sequences that are INTENTIONALLY done in a minimalist fashion. Do not say this anime was "constrained" or "limited". The choices were made with artistic purpose.

The thing is, Kill la Kill's animation style isn't like a lot of other modern anime. As Digibro points out in a very, very good video on YT, many of today's anime focuses on creating beautiful still frames and keeping things moving as little as possible. Kill la Kill turns that on its head, throwing things in motion constantly. If I were to describe the show's animation as an action, I'd say it's like being punched in the gut with awesomeness repeatedly. Now, granted, it takes a little time to adjust to such a unique format. At first, the punches will leave a viewer winded. I have to say, the first time I turned this anime on, I was weirded out and slightly scared. I stopped three minutes in. Days later, I went back and finished the pilot. The rest, as they say, is history. I gradually fell more and more in love with the way this show made things look, until I got to about episode 14 and started legitimately wondering if I'd found my new perfect anime.

And now the part of the art EVERYONE has to talk about-- the "fan service". Many anime are often slammed for unnecessary use of sexual shots of characters, and often rightfully so. A great example of this is No Game No Life (an otherwise brilliant show) needlessly showing a younger character near naked time and time again. It does nothing to further plot or characters and really is often just spank material for fans........ But then you have Kill la Kill, a world where the characters' nudity actually has a meaning that ties in both thematically and with the plot. Kill la Kill hates two things: uniformity and consumerism. Both are rejected by characters that learn to be unafraid of "getting naked". The human body, it turns out, is a beautiful thing. And while you can argue that such a theme and plotline was crafted to get us shots of ass and boobies, one still can't deny that it works. And to further emphasize, Kill la Kill is unlike most anime in that it isn't shy to have the male characters strip down either. It's all either meaningful, funny, or both, so to me, I do not actually consider it to be "fan service", and regardless of terminology, I maintain it is done in a way that is tasteful and works perfectly for the show.

Sound 10/10 -- nothing compliments in-your-face, relentless animation like a blood-pumping banger of a soundtrack. The first OP is of a rare breed -- it is one that I will never skip, even if watching consecutive episodes in a single sitting. To top, the score is beautifully executed and chosen, revving up the tone with badassery when it needs to. Kill la Kill is also impeccably cast. Ryuko, Senketsu, and Satsuki are voiced perfectly, and the side characters all get enough flavor in their voices to be a delight as well.

Character 10/10 -- The one thing that even skeptics of the show will generally concede about Kill la Kill is this: it's characters are a blast. Trigger manages to take a show that doubles down on masculine, over-the-top action, and put the spotlight on female leads. Ryuko and Satsuki are not only strong enough to stand up for themselves, but strong and powerful enough to take down male and female foes alike that stand in their way. Ryuko does so with such a charisma that I found myself as a guy rooting her on to a more intense degree than the vast majority of male MCs I've seen. Ryuko Matoi is, simply put, a badass. We've also got Mako, who for all intents and purposes should be the annoying funny side character, but isn't. She's not only so genuinely funny that she actually provokes laughs, but she's also able to actually serve the plot on numerous occasions in ways that are just absurd enough to be funny and meaningful, yet not convoluted. Satsuki is introduced as our main antagonist, and she manages to steal just about every scene she appears in, well, until Ryuko steps on anyway. To say much more would be to get into spoilers. Likewise, the show reveals more antagonists as it goes on, including the delightfully twisted Nui, who I must say nothing about...

Enjoyment -- 10/10. This anime will forever hold a special place in my heart. Every time I sat down to watch part of it (aside from that first time), I found myself having a good time, which is something I can't really say is true of anything else I've seen... like ever. Kill la Kill was the 41st anime I completed watching. I've come across animes that have made me cry, laugh, and question reality. Many were a lot deeper than Kill la Kill, but none brought out as much sheer joy and energy in me by simply being entertaining so consistently. I suppose what amazes me most is that this managed to feel fresher to me than just about anything else, even the first few anime I watched. Truly, I can't thank Studio Trigger enough for giving me something this special.

Overall 10/10. I mean, come on. I basically just salivated for several paragraphs. What do you expect? To summarize, Kill la Kill is the best campy, stupid, over-the-top, nudity-filled piece of ridiculousness out there. And you're missing out if you don't broaden your horizons and give it a watch. Just recognize that the ride won't be like what you're accustomed to. As its cast shouts triumphantly, "Making sense isn't our thing!"

Let me preface by saying this is only a review of season 1. (if you're curious, I scored season 2 a 9.) Fate/Zero's first season is so stunning, so full of suspenseful moments, so rich with developed characters, that it's ever-so-close to being a masterpiece, but a few flaws are unfortunately glaring enough to pull down what could've been a 10/10 anime to an 8(ish).

Story - 7/10: Fate/Zero does a lot of very good storytelling things. Many of the episodes in season 1 are masterfully paced, gradually building your interest until you reach the end of the episode and suddenly wonder "what? How is ... it already over?" and feel compelled to watch the next one....... At least, that's USUALLY the case. Unfortunately, a few episodes stick out like a sore thumb in this regard. There is the 45 minute information dump that is episode 1, which honestly I think is given more unfair criticism than it deserves, but is still a bother. What annoyed me significantly more was the decision to go with such a slower pace towards the end of the season. Look, I'll be blunt: 30 minutes of different characters philosophizing and drinking is like watching paint dry. Here's the thing: Fate is really, REALLY good at raising interesting questions about life, morality, etc. Where it goes awry is when it acts as though it has answers. Mostly Fate's "answers" tend to go something like this: Edgy cynical guy is right, but even though he's right, stupid hero guy/girl still needs to do stupid hero things but hey by the way doing those things is really going to depress stupid hero guy/girl but he/she is still going to do them anyway. It gets worse in UBW, but it's still on display here when Rider starts telling Saber how to rule. What's even more maddening is that it's because of the slow pacing towards the end that viewers are stuck with a cliffhanger ending. Look, cliffhangers are nice... when they're necessary. In this case it just felt like bait. There's also an issue in how the slow pace contributes to apathy surrounding characters, but we'll save that for the character sections.

Art - 10/10. If you're at all familiar with Ufotable's Fate entries, this score should be no surprise to you. Capitalizing on a budget that could've probably bought Michael Bay himself, the animators create a true thing of beauty here. I don't really even know how to do it justice other than to say that the character designs are stunning, the battle sequences are off-the-chain, and by and large the animation is enough to blow anyone away. Fate/Zero is the type of show that reminds a viewer why they spent an extra $100 to get that badass samsung/sony/LG television. This, this shit is why you buy a nice TV.

Sound - 10/10. Like the animation, this is truly exceptional stuff. Whether it's the ridiculously immersive and realistic sound effects that are added to the battle sequences, the outstanding voice cast, or the epic soundtrack that gets one's blood pumping like no other (look up battle of the strong on YouTube), everything here serves the series beautifully.

Characters - 8/10. Fate/Zero starts without an obvious main character, and, for the most part, this makes it all the more enjoyable. We get well-rounded development of every master and servant. I loved this at first because it got me engaged in every narrative and made me feel like anything could happen. The issue perhaps, is that after awhile the trick starts to work a little too well. Near the end of this season I found myself getting apathetic about the battle. It's perfectly good to embrace the fact that characters are morally grey, but when you reach a point where it just feels like "everyone sucks, one way or another", that is the point where the switch is flipped and suddenly "everyone is interesting" becomes "no one is interesting". And that will invariably take away from the fun of watching them. Again, I blame the slow-paced episodes near the end of the season. They managed to make the show go from fun to depressing in less than an hour.

Enjoyment - 8/10 - when I look back, I can't forget the shitty feeling that I got near the end of this season, although ending with at least a touch of action managed to keep it from being too bad. What I also can't forget is a show that was full of gripping narratives, beautiful action sequences, and (for most of the time) fun, fascinating characters.


Overall - 8.5/10. Fate/Zero is a must watch, despite its flaws. Definitely stick around for season 2, which is even better.

Note: this is a review for season 1 only, written prior to any viewing of season 2.

Given it's title, it's only natural to walk into Oreimo with the fear of it being shallow and perverted. Thankfully, it isn't, but I almost wonder if the creators themselves tried too hard to avoid that.

Oreimo's opening episode starts out the series with promise. We start by seeing that Kyousuke and his little sister Kirino, aren't in the best of sibling relationships. Kyousuke is annoyed at the way Kirino ignores him and is nasty to him. It's clear he wants to be on better terms with her. The ... door to that is opened too, when Kirino confesses her secret hobby to him: she's obsessed with Meruru and, in particular, the little sister eroge games from it. Oreimo handles this well, as such a thing could easily serve as the preface to a hentai scene. Instead, we see only some very subtle and slight sexual tension. Because we don't see Kirino's thoughts, and only brief bits of Kyousuke's, it's unclear if either is actually attracted to the other. This simply lurks underneath the bigger focus of the episode: Kirino's shame in her hobby, Kyousuke's acceptance of it, and the ensuing bond that comes from it. At the end, Kirino tells Kyousuke to play one of the games, and there's even a rather funny bit where he begins.

So it sounds promising right? Based on this pilot I fully expected Oreimo to tackle the brother-sister dynamic in an interesting way. It looked like Kyousuke was going to join into Kirino's hobby out of a desire to get closer to his sister, but that maybe some sexual tension would lead to huge problems.

But nope, nope, nope. Instead Kyousuke just kind of plays the game a few times without any consequence. He finds Kirino other otaku friends to help her out, and I'm honestly not sure what they contribute to the plot. Granted, they both work somewhat as characters, but for the most part they hardly even interact with Kirino and do little to nothing to develop her character.

Oreimo is one of many animes that also seems to believe in doing soft resets at the beginning of each episode. Conflicts introduced in one episode very rarely are addressed in later episodes, either because they have already been "solved" in a rushed fashion, or because the show apparently just forgot about them. This further compounds Oreimo's central weakness: IT DOESN'T MOVE ANYWHERE. Basically every episode is just a weekly example of how Kyousuke can help out his little sister. The only exception is a hodge-podge addition where he hangs out at a childhood friend's house, which is honestly worse as there is no clear reason why it's important to see. In the end the result is largely the stale story of a white knight male helping out a tsundere female, with the only notable distinguishing feature being that it's brother and sister.

The incestous aspect of this show could have made it interesting, but that wasn't the case. Occasionally the show attempts to use it for slight of hand tricks, but in such cases it's always executed poorly. For the most part, it's just a running joke that doesn't lead to any actual consequences for the characters, which leads into another point I'd like to make: Oreimo pretty much sucks at making good on the conflicts it teases. For example, in the very first episode Kyousuke finds the little sister eroge DVD and suddenly realizes, "This is the one thing I really shouldn't own!" and expresses fear for what would happen if his parents found out. Later, his dad finds out and doesn't give a shit, nor does anyone else who discovers this "hobby".

Furthermore, a frequent annoyance I had was how often the characters didn't behave honestly as human beings. Kyousuke's confrontation of his father was simply a bizarre interaction. Very often it felt that people simply behaved in dishonest ways to move the story how the creators wanted it to be moved.

The only thing more dishonest than the characters are the creators of this show. It sets viewers up with the expectation that it'll largely be about a brother-sister relationship, with the eroge/anime simply being a catalyst of sorts. Instead, it spends most of its time being an apologist for otaku culture. I don't hate otaku's or anything, but it's disappointing that Oreimo more or less just tries to shout at us to accept them. The point could've been brought across in a much better way. Furthermore, they spend way too much time on it. As a result the show basically ends up being about Kirino's hobby and Kyousuke finding ways to help her with it, which trust me, somehow manages to be even more bland than it sounds.

Perhaps I should move on to the positive things about this show. It is beautifully animated. The visual aspects of it look very good, there's some cool variation in what we see in it's OP, even. It's no masterpiece; there are many times when little sets it apart from a typical slice of life anime. But it's mostly very, very good.

Additionally, for all its flaws, Oreimo manages to be a mildly sweet story about how a brother comes to love his little sister (no, not that way). The final episode is well-done and does leave the viewer with some sense of feeling and closure. It's just that such feelings would have resonated much more strongly if their delivery mechanism hadn't been so predominantly generic.

Overall, I'd probably be lying if I said I'm not going to check out Season 2. Why? Because Oreimo does have potential. That much was clear to me. It just committed a slew of errors in execution that couldn't be ignored. I'm going to be optimistic and hope that things were better strung together in S2. I'll probably be wrong but that's fine I guess.

Sometimes a series ending is so messy that it calls into question the very quality of a show which a viewer once instinctively praised. Such is the case with Durarara. I recall watching the first season and feeling glued to the TV. "Who are these fascinating characters?" I asked myself. "What are they going to do next?" I was caught up in the suspense and the strong charisma of most characters; I dismissed the headache the show gave me as complexity which would soon pay off.

The problem is, Ketsu shows that it didn't pay off. For all the countless crazy plotlines and character arcs that ... we had introduced, there is little overlap between any of them, and nothing even close to a cohesive glue holding it all together, other than the show's verbalized claims about the nature of abnormality versus normalcy; words which at first felt fresh when spoken in the early days of the series, but by this arc had worn out their welcome.

In the end, Durarara fails to offer anything new, whether it be in terms of thematic issues explored, character development, or story content. Which sort of calls to mind the question: what is the justification for x2's existence? In the end it is entirely redundant of its predecessor in just about every way. I was greatly, greatly disappointed. I hoped x2 would expand the greatness of the original, and show us more about how fascinating the world's characters are. But just about every character is notably more bland than they were in the first series. Be it Kadota, Izaya, Shizuo, Namie, Reiji, Celty, whoever, no character is developed any further at the end of this 36 episode run. Durarara x2 suggests that, upon closer inspection, the world we once found fascinating is actually rather dull.

Death Note is, IMHO, perhaps the most overrated anime of all time. While it starts off as a fun, invigorating thrill ride, it fails after that, for a number of reasons.

Death Note begins with Light Yagami receiving a notebook with a special power: any name he writes in it will die. Immediately, Light makes things interesting by choosing a questionable route: he begins writing in the names of criminals. When he starts pushing it too far the police get involved and a battle of wits ensues between him and the mysterious "L" a superdetective with a hidden identity.

Sound intriguing? It is. Watching the two ... match wits is fun and entertaining.

So why does Death Note fail?

It's actually rather simple: Death Note fails because its protagonist doesn't stay morally gray. No, Light Yagami may start off that way, but the fact is he becomes as black as the devil after only a few episodes, killing innocents and doing pretty much nothing to redeem himself. As a result he becomes shockingly boring and annoying on his own. His character, in fact, really only has value as an antagonist to the vastly popular L, which is a flawed way to design a TV series. Put simply, the MC needs to be more likable than what we got here. Look, I'm not saying protagonists should be saints or even overall good people. You're talking to a guy that loved watching Walter White in Breaking Bad, but the fact is that Light very clearly becomes a simple villain early on in this show. It's no shock, then, that (HOLY SHIT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT W SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT) the show largely goes to shit after the death of L. What exactly happens next you ask? Basically Light acts more Light-y and fights a couple of one-dimensional L ripoffs and loses. I had my hopes up that they could carry a storyline without L, I really did, but they simply did not do so. They failed, and badly.

What's all the more shocking is that, despite picking a fairly interesting premise, Death Note fails to provoke any thought after its first batch of episodes. Basically we just see that Light's vision for humanity is totally f---ed. A stronger choice would have been to make it a deeper shade of gray, forcing the audience to consider some really tough questions, but Death Note doesn't do that. They instead depict an irredeemable little bastard that no one has issues rooting against. It's no better than the completely flawless and noble hero that's pure good. In fact it's honestly worse.

Look, Death Note isn't a "bad" anime by any stretch. Hell, the suspense we see early on is enough to make a damn good one. But it's time to freaking stop with all this bullshit about how it's a "classic" or "masterpiece" because anyone saying that is ignoring the godawful quality of the latter half of this series, not to mention how poorly written any character not named "L" is. There simply isn't much too this show in terms of depth or motif, either. At best this show is shallow suspense--- at worst it's shallow boredom. I've noticed the Internet tends to simply overrate any media that's "dark" and this seems to be no exception. That's not to say dark anime, movies, etc. can't be good. They can. It's just that being dark doesn't automatically make you good either, despite what many online would have you believe.

Side notes

-The dub actor for L deserves a medal, he is to date my favorite dubber
-Some of the weirder OPs and EDs are in this show, that's for sure. They seem rather random, almost arbitrary
-Writing female characters certainly was not a strong suit of this staff. The only major one is a boring, failed play on the yandere trope
-"I'm L." Can't deny I got chills.
-Backwards, Light's name is "I'm a gay moon". Probably my favorite piece of anime trivia ever
-Matsuda deserves two medals

If you've watched all of Mirai Nikki, whether you loved, hated it, or felt very meh about it, this will improve your experience.

There's some filler but it's mostly good filler.

Much more importantly, Mirrai Nikki: Redial gives us what the finale did not: closure. It's all very simple but handled properly and well done. Granted, the resolution still leaves you with a bit of a headache, but at least it is a real resolution, which is more than you can say for episode 26 of the show. What's weird, actually, is that I found out that the ending to this OVA is the ending to ... the manga. So in a sense, it's a bit strange that they created this as a separate thing rather than just adding it on to the final episode. But being someone who streamed all of this together many years later I can't complain :)

Tbh, this episode is better than Mirai Nikki itself in my opinion. I strongly recommend ANYONE who has finished the series to give it a go. It's 20 minutes that will improve your experience with the show.