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Mar 4, 2025
A fascinating little manga. It's simple, particularly in its art style, but it's told largely magnificently with a couple of minor quibbles and a set of characters that are surprisingly engrossing.
Despite its relatively short run, the series sets up and pays off quite a bit, breadcrumbing many of its later reveals. There's a range on these, with some taking place over the course of single chapters and others requiring the full series to explicate. On the short end are usually the ones that tend to do well enough for shock value or an emotional gut-punch, but it's usually where this series is at its weakest.
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Bakubaku's tragedy worked pretty well for me, though I would have liked to see it play out longer and get more time with the character, who felt a little undercooked. I have a similar impression of Elmi and her brother, who has plot relevant reasons for becoming involved, but we didn't get to spend much time with either of their characters, so it's not as emotionally resonant as other characters. There are chapters involving Tajiko and Kageo which throw neat and very dark curve balls at us, which largely typify the more isolated stories within this narrative. They work well enough for what they are, even if they don't go anywhere afterward.
Where things get interesting is in the mid-to-long term. Mrs. Grace is introduced to us as an almost literal black box of a character who no one can understand, but over the course of the series, little hints are dropped about her as she's drawn into the orbit of the central characters until we get a great deal of information all at once that reveals her identity. I like how this played out mostly, but in this case, the large amount of exposition used to fill in the major gaps later end up making me wish it had played out for longer. I do appreciate that the writers had it in them not to resolve this story by the end.
One of the two longer stories that worked best was Rakkasei and Rojica's backgrounds together, in particular the end of almost all of humanity (let's face it: with only one person left, it's the end). They don't really know enough about what happened to the humans and don't listen to enough of Isaac's lecture to get a feel for it, but there is a sense of loss throughout the series that's counterbalanced by the familial love that forms between these two and plays out in small and large doses over the course of the series.
But if any story truly hits, it's C3's. His background has a good balance of coming in small snippets and bits of dialogue before getting a deluge of background that all somehow works well together. Maybe it's because the series is so earnest about it. The story of his creation to fight the giants (basically living, breathing atomic bombs with no limit to their destruction) is a constant drumbeat in the background of his story, but most of what he does in the series has nothing to do with it, just being a part of this small community and being helpful wherever he could. The series misdirects you at multiple points to believing that he's some kind of sinister entity, though in the end, it delivers on him entirely earnestly. I wish we'd gotten more clarity on what Lumo represents and why the scientists who created C3 were searching for something like him, but that's not a problem with C3's character, just a problem with the delivery of his final arc in the series that I still think works beautifully.
I think what this series manages most expertly of all is its balance of tones. It's not easy dealing with this oppressive backstory for the characters and setting, introducing stories that often end in tragedy, and yet not ever feeling like it wallows in them. It's a sweet setting, one largely isolated from the terrors that created it. Isaac seems more interested in it from a historical perspective than anything, and in many ways, he represents the audience in this. You want to hear the rest of his lecture, but we've already picked up the important bits, and for the other characters, there's no point in dwelling on things like massive weapons of mass destruction that are long gone or the end of humanity. They just want to dance, to live in the moment and appreciate those around them. That send off just really works for me right alongside with the lore.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 28, 2025
I can see why people like this series, but I just didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I'd hoped.
I hate to start out a review this way, particularly for something that is this close to my heart. I wouldn’t say the Dragon Ball series as a whole is among my favorites, but like many, it was my first experience with anime. DBZ holds a special place for me in particular, and I regard Akira Toriyama’s work with reverence. His involvement in this series, the last before his death, was sufficient reason for me to dive in without a second thought. Just to give some
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context: I've seen most everything that the Dragon Ball franchise has to offer, including almost all of its crazy movies, GT and Super. There are a lot of problems with those movies and series, but there are elements I love in almost all of them.
Sadly, I’m walking away from this one frustrated. This is far from the worst thing in Dragon Ball’s storied history, but especially given how much this series apes elements of GT that intrigued me (even if that series delivered very poorly on them), it’s just a shame to see another swing and a miss, particularly one that looks this pretty.
So I’m going to dissect this one and piece together both what worked and what failed in this series.
I’ll start with the good. The animation looks pretty glorious, particularly when it’s dialed up to 11. There are fight scenes in this series that can stand toe-to-toe with some of the best the franchise, lacking only in emotional investment. The fight choreography, in particular, is taken to a whole other level in even street-level match-ups, let alone when our characters start busting out transformations and going ham with the energy blasts.
The worldbuilding here is intriguing as well. We’ve been told about the Demon Realm, but this is our first chance to explore it, and there is a lot to delve into. Episodes that focus on exploring new planets within this world, explicating the history of races like the Namekians and Glind, and just letting us see these grand new vistas are some of the best the series has to offer.
And yes, a good number of the characters are also a joy to behold. Toriyama really outdid himself with many of the new characters on offer in this series, with Hybis in particular bringing so much humor through his deadpan responses and behavior. Glorio was interesting and it was nice to see his relationship with the gang develop over the course of the series, Panzy was a surprisingly good inclusion after some concern that she might be the annoying Pan-esque tag-a-long, Neva was always intriguing with the knowledge of many years and a wide variety of experiences to bring to bear, and even our two new Majins, Kuu and Duu, were a surprisingly delightful duo, both in their fights and general behavior. With villains like Arinsu as a brilliant manipulator behind the scenes and Shin stepping up as a side-character to provide necessary background and support, there was a lot to love in the character writing department. There are even some legitimately great one-off characters like Minotaur who just serve as amazing comedy.
Unfortunately, that is where my positives end, and you might notice that I’m hedging a bit on each of the above points. There is some legitimately great animation, but there are definitely lapses, even if they don’t fall quite as low as Super. The worldbuilding is great… when there is some focus on it and the series doesn’t forget about what it set up (remember that they called out the temperature of the First Demon World as around 140°F?). The characters are great… if you ignore all the ones that aren’t. I’ll come back to those shortly.
If we’re going to start anywhere, though, it’s with the narrative and pacing. For the former, I get it, this is Dragon Ball. I’m not setting my expectations low just because of the franchise this is in, but I’m tailoring those expectations a bit, and while there is a story here… the narrative is another story. What are the themes of Daima? I can’t find anything substantial beyond the effort to return our characters from children to adults. There are some insights into oppression in the Demon World, but we don’t linger on them for long. Even the collars around the necks of many of the residents feel like brief asides rather than bearing actual narrative importance, particularly when Shin can easily remove them. The series basically just gives us a simple framework and sends our characters along with brief asides, resulting in some fights that don’t do anything extra. It didn’t surprise me to learn that they were still writing this series while animating it.
But it’s the pacing along that path that is particularly frustrating. There are so many times where the series just stops its narrative progression dead, side-lines characters for no reason or, of particular note, just introduces and removes plot elements on a whim. Huge spans of episodes are just spent getting nowhere, whether because they’re fighting an opponent with infinite stamina, pulling out epic versions of transformations we’ve already seen in the previous episode, falling for a long stretch of time, or getting re-introduced to a batch of nothing villains (I guess some of them look cool doing it). The reason Vegeta, Bulma and Piccolo are largely irrelevant to the plot for the first half is because Bulma was repairing a ship that was… just never repaired. They got picked up by Hybis and forgot about it. They pick up a set of bugs that are all-purpose, including a fusion bug (not that you’d need it, the potara and fusion dance still exist, but whatever), but it just becomes Chekhov’s Fusion Bug since it plays no role in the plot.
Then there’s the characters. Much as I like the above listed examples, there is a lot I don’t like. We don’t see any meaningful development of our main cast. I get that Goku and Vegeta in particular have been through a lot already, but I wish they weren’t just challenged to hit something harder or in a new way. The closest we get to that is some thought puzzles after each of the Tamigami fights, which are fine enough, but barely serve as challenges for either of them. Piccolo is largely just there as decoration throughout the series - hell, even Bulma gets more to do as the resident engineer, genius and Vegeta-tamer. Gohma is just a joke for most of the series until he gets the plot device that suddenly empowers him to win fights with the greatest of ease. The Gendarmerie Force is just a lazy re-tread of the Ginyu Force with no memorable characters that gets a poorly animated fight. But the most disappointing characters are the ones who barely do anything. Degesu gets a whole episode named after him to… hold Dende hostage and proclaim his desire to rule the Demon World. Aside from being Shin’s brother, that’s all we get from him. Barely any set-up, no payoff.
And, unfortunately, a lack of both even hampers good characters in this show. Arinsu is such a good schemer for much of the series and has a pretty interesting plan to boot, but when it falls apart, she just kind of accepts it without any reason why. Her history with Glorio is briefly exposited before being tossed to the side. Kuu and Duu are set up as interesting opponents for Goku and Vegeta and have their own interests to explore, but get interrupted by Gohma hulking out. Neva becomes a Deus Ex Machina whenever the plot requires some new power-up (which then gets ret-conned by Goku to say he always had it in the last episode... which somehow makes this worse - just to be clear, I did not appreciate SS4 appearing in this series that's supposed to take place before Super, where it will never reappear, essentially for the sake of fanservice), and even Hybis just becomes a delivery device for the MacGuffin Gohma needs (which somehow also existed at some random shop by a store owner who knew exactly what they did and could have been bought and used by anyone at any time).
Finally, power scaling. I hate to bring this up, but the series almost forces me to mention it. This is one of the few elements Daima actually does worse than GT because it’s utter nonsense. Getting de-aged didn’t seem to affect them much… until they regained their older bodies and suddenly became far more powerful for some reason. These characters are at their post-DBZ power levels, yet for some reason, they can’t seem to keep things consistent. Our fighters face off against goons with guns, guys who are likely weaker than most of Frieza’s army, and struggle for almost a full episode to get past them. There’s a pair of thieves that can somehow go toe-to-toe with Goku despite no one in this world apparently being any kind of match for the Tamigami, who could apparently body Dabura. I wouldn’t mind if the series was a little strange on the power scaling if it didn’t seem to shift things around for whatever moment it wanted to set up, making for scenes where our characters shift from grossly underpowered to absurdly overpowered, especially given that it also tries to put power levels into a context we can understand one minute and seemingly throws it out the window the next. Hell, there’s even a brand new top dog that sits alongside Zeno called Super Majin Rymus, who only gets a passing mention.
I don’t even mind the ending. Having Kuu take over as Supreme Demon King suits the series pretty well, even if it makes a joke out of basically all the serious efforts to reform the Demon World. Ultimately, though, that tonal dissonance of trying to both make this serious and goofy just never worked for me. The series leaves me with the same feelings I’ve had for much of its run: wishing that we’d gotten something better. It’s a good enough popcorn watch to just turn your brain off and enjoy, but given this was Toriyama’s last work, it deserved better than a slapdash production written on the fly. If you liked this one, great, but I was really let down by the writing in particular. A series with this quality of animation and so much history deserved better.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 24, 2025
This was a short and very efficient read that covers both a relationship and a character journey very effectively while still finding time for a lot of great character moments and a well-characterized cast. None of that is terribly surprising, since the series very much wears its identity on its sleeve. Of course, there are surprises (one big one in particular that I'll get to), but at its core, this is about a young couple who are trying to break out of the everyday and find something more in their lives together. That's an easily relatable story; I don't think it's a stretch to say
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that most people go through phases where they're just stuck in a rut doing a job to keep the lights on without any substantial goals. We've all been there, and falling into that rut as a couple can lead to a kind of mutual stasis.
So when Meiko makes the decision to quit her job at the start of the series, avoiding some light sexual harassment that has been ongoing in the process, that's a courageous move. It demonstrates her desire to break out, to do something more, though it's obviously short-sighted. She doesn't have a plan beyond find work at some point, and without that, they will eventually run out of money. What's more, it also leads her attention to shift to Naruo, seeing all the ways he's let his life fall into that rut and trying to break him out of it with a return to and focus on music.
I love pretty much everything about this since I can understand both of their perspectives: Meiko wants Naruo to be happy in what he does, but Naruo feels like the pressure is now on him to succeed. So when the music industry doesn't come calling, he leaves. It kind of came out of left field for me at first before I read back and got a good sense for how all the preceding events led up to this.
And then, of course, the moment happens: Naruo dies in a freak collision. Moments like these that come out of left field tend not to work for me emotionally, and I can't say this hit me hard. The manga itself has an interesting way of delivering the blow, showing the helmet flying off, a shot of Naruo staring up at the sky with blood pooling under his head, and then going back in time to what he was thinking before the accident. From there, we get a time skip rather than watching Meiko sort through the immediate aftermath.
This probably shouldn't have worked for me, but it did. Maybe it's because the series didn't mire itself in the emotional moments, though there are some of those. Rather, the series asks the question: how do you pick yourself up after this? Messily, it turns out, but Meiko eventually finds herself pursuing the same avenue as Naruo did, investing herself in music and finding a sort of catharsis there, an outlet for expressing her feelings and a greater understanding of Naruo to boot through his songs.
And the series doesn't leave everything with a neat little bow. Meiko could have gone off to do great things as a musician, as it seems she has some talent for it and the drive, but years pass and she finds a path forward through a new boyfriend and pregnancy. It shows her both moving on from that period in her life and keeping some elements around, with Solanin still in her heart as Naruo remains.
So yes, I kind of loved this. It's not the kind of series that blew me away, but it's something where I fell into the rhythms of its characters and felt like I knew them well by the end.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 22, 2025
I don't often go back and substantially change my initial impression of a show, but there are bound to be exceptions to what I'd normally consider the rule, and that can happen when the sequel season is damn near perfect.
I walked away from this season with the view that it had an excellent idea at its core, an isekai that was doing something distinct and interesting with its world and powers, that went pretty hard in the animation department, and had an emotional journey at its center. Unfortunately, that journey centered on Subaru, a character who I have since grown to love but found absolutely
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insufferable for much of this first season. Before you ask, no, that frustration does not stem from him misusing Return By Death (people who say he should have been using it as a reset button are being a little much - dude has to experience death each and every time). It also came off as very edgy, an opportunity to watch Subaru die in a myriad of new and impressive ways that felt like they were all trying to one-up each other.
But then... the show just didn't leave my mind. I credit that in part to finding a number of YouTube personalities who were extolling the greatness of this series, which certainly reframed my understanding of it, but a lot of what changed my mind was my own perception of Subaru through season 2.
I'm not going to go into spoilers here, but it's not a stretch to say that Subaru embodies many of the tendencies we might expect for an otaku who finds themselves in another world. It's not the same flavor of ick as Rubeus from Mushoku Tensei, but in some ways, it's more painful to watch. Subaru is very much in his element being transported to a fantasy world, but also extremely unprepared for the role he chooses to take on in that world, as well as the ones that are foisted upon him by various circumstances. He does adapt... eventually. It takes a certain episode to do most of the psychological and emotional work (and yes, From Zero is easily the best episode of the season, I love it dearly) leading Subaru to take control in a way he's never had the capacity to throughout the rest of the series. It's earned, but it does come a little late to right the ship, so it took another season to bring me on board fully with him.
And that's why coming back to this series to review it is so interesting. Subaru has since become one of my favorite characters in anime, part of a subset of my favorites that are chiefly due to incredible character development (think Thorfinn from Vinland Saga and Shigeo from Mob Psycho 100), and that character journey is only so impactful because we saw him at his lowest in S1. Subaru represents what an unfortunate number of us (I might have been included in that not too long ago) would do and expect if something like this ever happened. He came in as a hikikomori, withdrawn from the world around him in many ways but not entirely socially isolated, and wanted to live out a fantastical rebirth in a new world only to find that the tendencies and mindset he had from his other world didn't go away. He was still that person, and all he could do was start, with a little help, from zero.
There's a strength in that willingness to tear away all the aspects of yourself that hold you back and rebuild. I didn't see it when I watched this show for the first time, but I see it now. It's a beautiful thing, and while there are elements of this season that hold it back from absolute greatness, even the best of its fights is a pale comparison to the internal struggle Subaru fights throughout, and I've garnered a much stronger appreciation for both that and the people around him who help him fight it over subsequent seasons.
This show is popular for a reason, and it all started from zero.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 9, 2025
Re:Zero is such an oddity among my favorite anime. It's the only isekai I'd rate high enough to put it among my all-time favorites, and that's despite initially feeling a little tepid on S1 (my score on it has come up since then). It's one of the few instances where I really didn't like its main character at the outset, but he so thoroughly impressed me with his character arc that he became one of my favorite characters. Couple that with spending a lot of time frustrated by how this series sets up and delivers on its romance, and having to be carried by a
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couple of side characters, its central gimmick of Return By Death and some admittedly pretty awesome action, and it's hard to even remember what really hooked me in the first place...
...oh, that's right. This half season is damn near perfect.
Starting from the gut punch that was Rem's encounter with the Archbishop of Gluttony and excision from most of the plot, particularly after the excellence that was From Zero, certainly set a tone. It probably wouldn't have worked if the series continued to lean into its romantic elements, but instead, the series places more of a burden on Subaru. He grew over the course of Season 1, but he did so in large part because of the people around him, Rem in particular. Despite having allies around him, he is comparatively more isolated than he has ever been from early on in this story, and it only gets worse from here.
But the season isn't going to just send us spiraling downward into despair, at least not yet. Parent and Child is an absolute master class of an episode, the perfect demonstration of Subaru's growth as a character up to this point in the form of a test. Isekai can get creative every now and then, and the idea of having a character return to their original world, even if it's just through an illusion, and reconcile with the family they left behind is one of my favorites. It's one of those choices that's made all the more effective because of who is doing it: Subaru would never have had the kind of conversations he did with his parents before being isekai'd, not as he was anyway, so this "test" ends up giving him some much needed closure. And that would be amazing in and of itself, but there's so much I love about Subaru's parents, the sides of him that they represent, their acceptance and love of him, and their words of wisdom for him. I cannot think of another set of parents I love more in anime, and these two reached that level in a single episode. This rates as one of my favorite episodes in television, period.
That would, however, not be enough to elevate the season to a 10 on its own. If this episode didn't dovetail so well with the rest of the season, it wouldn't be rated this high. Subaru isn't done facing trials this season, and from here on out, they run him through the gamut of physical and psychological horror. Learning of Beatrice's trial is a start, the conflict at the mansion more insurmountable than ever, and his run-in with the Great Rabbit is somehow even more disturbing to read than it is to watch, but if we're talking real darkness, this series takes 3 major turns that chilled me to the core.
First, the second trial. I wasn't quite sure what to expect with a statement like "see the unimaginable present," but Subaru's experience of this trial only makes his return by death ability all the more messed up. Dude has to experience the "present" that occurred immediately after every one of his deaths in rapid succession. It would be one thing if this was just an illusion and Subaru could just mentally divorce himself from it, but he lived these lives, knows these people intimately by now, and the experience isn't just unsettling. It's possible, even plausible, that Subaru is experiencing the actual lives of people in the many worlds he has left behind, gaining insight into a multiverse of worlds created by his life coming to an end and him hitting the reset button. Just being faced with that possibility, let alone seeing each instance of it coming to fruition and watching those either doomed to unknown dark fates or simply left bereft in his absence, is more than enough to break him and another example of how well this series handles its central gimmick.
Second, the witches. Echidna in particular is the stand-out this season, functioning both as a lifeline in Subaru's desperation (as the first person who he can tell about his ability to return by death - that scene of him repeating it over and over to her is powerful), as someone who rescues him from nearly losing his mind to the second trial, and as someone whose goals for him are decidedly more... devious. I love the slow build-up of her as a villain, and the reveal during her Tea Party of her actual motivations - to throw dead Subarus at problems until she finds the optimal path forward - is brutal given how much trust she had fostered in Subaru up to that point. She presents a form of love that is utterly beyond him, one he cannot fathom, let alone reciprocate. And each of the witches does this in part themselves, fostering a different perspective on love and what it should mean for Subaru. Getting to meet Satella and see the depths of her love love love love love love is particularly creepy, but the fact that they end up pushing Subaru to love himself is an unexpected treat that shapes a lot of his actions going forward.
Third, Roswaal. His role in the plot of this series is particularly insidious, functioning as a father figure of sorts to Subaru and one who helps guide a lot of his actions going forward. Season 1 gave no hints towards a greater purpose for him in the story, and given how essential he is to Subaru's survival and the safety of those around him, Roswaal engenders a lot of trust. Yet, at the end of the season, he betrays it all, revealing that he's been the source of the threats against those Subaru loves all along, the means by which Subaru has suffered so much of his physical and psychological torment, forcing him to choose what to protect when he cannot in an effort to break Subaru. It's a betrayal on a different scale than Echidna's, and one that beats him down far more as a result.
And neither Echidna nor Roswaal would be quite so effective if they didn't all come back to that amazing episode Parent and Child, both functioning as funhouse mirror distorted reflections of his parents. Each of them technically does want the best for him... in their very twisted ways. Echidna wants to create the best path forward by micromanaging each of his actions and guiding him to what she believes is the best possible future, very much the opposite of his mother who refused to make choices for Subaru and gave him room to make mistakes. Roswaal wanted to twist him up to look similar to himself, someone who had suffered loss and would be willing to make hard choices to push forward, very much the opposite of his father who wanted Subaru to avoid trying to emulate him too much, allowing his own personality to shine through.
Yes, I've gone on for a while and could continue this for still longer. There's a reason this season is among my favorite seasons of any anime, and frankly, even other seasons of Re:Zero simply cannot compare. It's the kind of fantastic experience I wish I could take in fresh again.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 2, 2025
It's kind of hard to place this one. It exists at a strange nexus point between prequel/backstory and continuation from S2 and the apparent death of Cheng, meant to serve both purposes in the span of 6 episodes. That's a lot to handle, even with an extended premier, and I think it becomes pretty clear that the series struggles to manage that balance even when it's doing certain things well.
If anything stuck out to me as particularly effective, it was watching Lu Guang throughout. The show kept reminding us that what he was doing was unprecedented, not just trying to live his past with Cheng,
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but actively trying to change it to save his life later. That requires Lu Guang to break multiple self-imposed taboos that we've spent the last two seasons learning are carved in stone for a reason: the 12 hour time limit of visiting a photo (vastly extended) and the active if largely subtle effort to ensure that Cheng's life is saved in the future. The slow toll both of those efforts take on Lu Guang is obvious throughout, as is the tension in the scenes where he finds himself face to face with Vein and Liu Xiao.
The background also works decently well, filling in some gaps in the story as Lu Guang tries to relive events mostly as they happened. It's nice to see how much reliving these moments means to him, and there are some excellent moments that give us a lot of insight into how he feels going through all this again. There are a lot of little subtle touches on both these fronts that I would love to rewatch this to reexperience.
Where I think this season flounders is in its broader strokes. It spends a lot of time in these character moments and really takes its time moving the plot forward, only to go screaming ahead at certain points, particularly near the end. The pacing could definitely have used some work here, and while the second season also suffered from this in its own way, this one just seems to be of two minds about it as it tries to cover both sides of its material. To be fair, it still manages both pretty well, but it spends less time soaring than I'd like. None of that is helped by the introduction of new types of powers that appear, particularly in the final episode (everything involving Cheng's mother took a couple of watches to figure out and I still don't have it all down), leaving us with a confrontation that had me playing it back to find out what happened and still not being entirely sure, which was then capped off by a cliffhanger that is also pretty baffling.
In short, I like this season in its subtler elements, but not so much in its bigger, bombastic shifts. It's a nice change of pace from the first two seasons and an introduction to the next season that I'm sure will be worth the wait, but it falls short of what came before via some puzzling choices with regards to its pacing, power usage and surprises.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 1, 2025
These last four episodes are certainly a better capstone on the series than the end to the season was. There was a real sense of closure for many of these characters and, perhaps more importantly, for the central plot. The concept of the world dying and then being reborn with many of the same people being brought back (probably without their memories) is pretty good, and it might actually answer one of the questions I had: why would wolves just forget they're wolves? Maybe it's because they were reborn like this. I also think the ending visually strong and hit a lot of great notes.
The
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story unfortunately started to feel like the writer was playing too much of a role in the plot. I think the series had time to introduce elements earlier like the Tree of All Seeds, the First Mountain, the stone Darcia carried, and so on... or, you know, just not really use any of them. I wouldn't have had a huge problem with Cheza just opening up her path of lunar flowers, them following it to the end, and Kiba and her just opening the way to Paradise. They seeded that early and I didn't feel the need for any of this other stuff to be in here. Maybe the point was to involve more of Darcia and his family history in this, but it felt convoluted and unnecessary. I kind of liked Darcia as an antagonist, but he was also kind of baffling. I don't think it was ever clear after Homona died why he wanted to get to Paradise, yet he was driven there. Maybe it had something to do with the wolf eye he had, which seems to have some power of its own, but that never got explained and his madness in the end just felt kind of off. We also never learn what the whole deal was with the Nobles in the first place or why they came to this planet, so both sides of his remain enigmatic. I still struggle to have much buy-in to all this, even if I kind of end up jiving with the simpler elements of the plot.
It doesn't help that we're left with a lot of questions in the end about how things even ended up here. Whereas the end of the season kind of just left me with a box of unknowns, this one gives me a litany of things that don't make much sense given what we now know. Paradise isn't a location, it's literally the rebirth of the world... but the Nobles sent everyone to an alternate dimension that was a fake Paradise, and everyone seemed to believe it was another location where supernatural wolves live, so were they all just wrong? Was the lunar flower so important for coming out of the ice age that it had to happen this particular way? Why couldn't the world have been reborn without it? Where did the aliens go and why? What was this curse of Darcia's grandfather and where did he go if not to this other dimension? I don't want to nitpick but these were big plot elements that the series just didn't seem to care about at the end.
The series still had the things I loved from the first season and then some. The music is still excellent, the visuals even better, and that sense of closure means a lot to many of these characters, even if it feels like some of them are rushed out the door. It's just a shame that neither ending really satisfies me, with each being frustrating in different ways. The journey to get there still works, but not as well as it should given all this build-up.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 1, 2025
This is a series I really wanted to love, and it certainly had the ingredients for me to love it, but due to a variety of issues with its narrative, I ended up just liking it enough to give it a recommendation.
So I'll start with the positives first. This series absolutely thrives on 3 elements: its soundtrack, its visuals and world, and some of its characters.
The soundtrack might just be the best I've heard in ages. Yoko Kanno has set a high standard in many of her shows and movies, and while I still think Cowboy Bebop is her gold standard, this isn't far off
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and joins the likes of Macross Frontier, Terror in Resonance, and Darker than Black as some seriously slept on tracks (yeah, I know Record of Lodoss War also goes hard, haven't gotten to it yet). If I was rating on music alone, this would be in my hall of fame with tracks that lend scenes exceptional gravity and truly make the emotional elements pop.
Pair that with some intensely powerful visuals and backdrops and this series just continues to wow, even if the OVA outstrips it slightly in terms of iconic moments. There's just so much to love about how this world is set up, and even though we don't get all the details, it's a detailed combination of so many things I love about post-apocalyptic environments. It evokes a lot of what I liked about Casshern Sins, Trigun and Metallic Rouge and while that represents a broad range of opinions from me and the community at large, in this case, it's all positive. This is what worked in all those series and it works well here.
And then there are the characters. I don't think this series would rate so highly with me if not for Hubb, Cher and Quint, all of whom are just exceptionally well-written. I'll go ahead and spoil it now: I'm not particularly into the wolfpack at the center of this story or their main antagonists, but this group of 3 has all the best banter in the story, some of the best relationships and remains the emotional core of the narrative throughout.
Quint's particularly interesting, driven by a hatred for wolves and the sorrow for his lost family while toting around a half-wolf he sees as his only remaining family. If all he was was vengeance personified, that would not be enough, but he has some of the genuinely funniest interactions with Hubb over the course of the series and often functions in ways that make events very unpredictable.
Hubb and Cher go together, so I'll talk about them that way. We rarely see this kind of complex relationship from a divorced couple in anime - I'm honestly struggling to think of one like this beyond Ryuzo and Fusa from Xam'd, and they are lowkey among my favorite couples in anime. I can't say Hubb and Cher's relationship is quite as deep (though it's nice to see the friction between them early on, something a divorced couple would most certainly display), but they have more going on individually for much of the run. Hubb just works as hard-boiled detective who is spending a lot of the series run searching for his wife and feels genuine. Cher is a little more mixed of a character, with Cher's drive to understand Paradise and the lunar flower being kind of just an element of her character rather than one that gets much exploration, and yes, I know she gets more depth as she learns more about Cheza and the wolves, but a lot of her characterization pre-plot still feels half-baked. Still, as Cher's understanding of Cheza and the wolves deepened, she became a much more investing participant in the plot and the one who often helped connect essential plot details.
As for the rest of the series, it unfortunately ranges from decent to frustrating, particularly when it comes to the narrative.
Other characters just aren't as investing as these three.
The antagonists largely come down to three Nobles, including Orcam - who basically isn't a character and dies due to the machinations of Jaguara - Darcia who is pretty interesting but largely enigmatic and largely is present to shake things up at opportune moments, and Jaguara, whose role in the plot seems largely to act as a last minute villain who has history with Darcia that just gets exposited at us. The idea of the Nobles as aliens is an interesting one and I think something could have come from these characters, but for the most part, their value to the plot is enigmatic schemes played out in proxy battles.
The main protagonists are better, but not particularly investing. Kiba remains kind of a black box to the end beyond the role he has to fulfill. We eventually learn his background, but it doesn't give us much insight into him. He's mainly just a classic impulsive protagonist, and the rest of the wolfpack largely fulfills tropes as well: Tsume, the loner with a past that explains his distance from others who comes to see them as a pack; Toboe, a more timid ally who eventually learns to fight for himself (against a giant ancient walrus for some reason); and Hige, the one with a troubled past who seems to have something going on and draws attention while trying to form bonds. That's all a little basic, they have more to them (particularly Hige), but none of them are very interesting. Cheza's kind of interesting and I like the little elements of her backstory we get, but she's also less a character and more a vehicle required to make the plot happen (she even seems to acknowledge that), so it's not easy to get invested in her as a character.
And finally, that narrative. There was a lot going on in here and the search for lunar flowers and the path to Paradise was interesting if nothing else, but it never invested me. Everyone felt too distant from the desire to find Paradise, yet it became the all-encompassing thing they were searching for. Especially after Darcia lost Homona, it's unclear why he even cares about Paradise anymore, and Jaguara doesn't really have a reason to be there beyond just wanting to be alone with Darcia. The wolves all seem driven to go to Paradise, but there's never a clear reason why. The world itself seems to drive them towards it with a lot of lore about the need to go to Paradise, and while some theories are espoused as to why, it's mostly nebulous as well.
None of this is helped by a plot that just seems to end abruptly. I get that the OVA continues it, so this is necessarily a preliminary review, but they don't get to Paradise. All they find is a Noble's version of Paradise, one that is clearly false, and then they leave it. There's no payoff on the central plot of this series, leaving a lot of plot threads dangling, and even the reasons why the protagonists win are kind of just thrown out there in the end.
I'm willing to give it some benefit of the doubt, and I'm more of a journey over destination guy these days anyway, but the production issues this season that led to 4 back-to-back recap episodes that did almost nothing of worth only to lead us to a pseudo-ending here do not do the series any favors. It's a testament to how much I liked other facets of this series that I still recommend it, though the narrative isn't bad... it's just abruptly cut off and kinda nebulous, which dulls its impact.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 27, 2025
There's a set of anime that exists that are meant to pull at your heartstrings and, let's face it, will either live or die on that hill. That leads to a wide variety of opinions on shows like Your Lie in April, Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day and Clannad. Throw everything Makoto Shinkai in there, maybe some Violet Evergarden, and you've got a lot of the commonly referenced series that fit into the "sad romance that will divide fans of the basis of how well they jive with it" subgenre. And yeah, my mileage varies with the series/movies above that I've seen. They
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don't always hit for me, particularly when the tears they try to wring out of you feel manufactured, but they all wring tears out of me.
So, how did A Silent Voice work for me? Honestly, it exceeds even the best of these, and that's despite a couple of these being among my favorites. There's excellence and then there's this movie.
I'll start with the basics. This movie is gorgeous. The animation is just beautiful and particularly whenever it's going full bore on the sakuga, especially underwater, this movie just soars in its visuals. The particular standout among its visuals is the choice to depict Shoya's inability to look at others using the "X" symbols over their faces. That sense that he feels so ostracized, so awful for what he's done, that he doesn't even deserve to connect with people on that basic level is excellent as a show, don't tell method of showcasing his mindset after his childhood, and that sense of alienation comes through in full. His focus on body language, which becomes the only way he really knows how others around him are feeling since he cannot look them in the eye, even becomes the basis of his reforged connection to Shoko, who, as a deaf person, literally bases her language in her body movement. And cementing this as one of my favorite cinematographic choices in any show, the camera actually cuts Shoya's face out of the frame for many conversations, furthering that sense of separation between him and the others he's speaking to.
Then there's the way this movie plays with sound. I know scant little about music theory, but perspective in a story is everything to me. It's part of the reason why Frieren hit me on so many levels: it's a distillation of so many perspectives done in a way that beautifully weaves itself into the narrative. A Silent Voice is more intimate in how it portrays perspective, but it does so on so many levels. It's not just the visuals or the subtle gestures, it's woven into its music as well. Yes, the use of My Generation really frames the attitude of the early movie well, but where its musical choices become genius are when it becomes so much simpler... or, at least, it seems to be. If you have the time, boot up the song Ivs when you get a chance. Kensuke Ushio made some very interesting choices with this song and it sounds kind of... off. The whole thing sounds muffled, and that's by design: it was recorded inside of a piano. That symbolizing of Shouko's experience, the ambient, unintelligible sounds of the world around her that she can barely hear even with her hearing aids, just keeps playing in my head. And the movie plays with silence as well, but also in a unique way: with a single piano note. It highlights the absence of sound around it in a way that absolute silence would not. I've never had a single note resonate so deeply with me, but it cut me to my core by the end of the movie.
And yes, there is the narrative. I won't pretend I'm not a crier. I'm 38 years old and I still devolve into tears on the regular. When an anime hits me squarely in the feels, it rocks me to my core. The last time this happened was when I was watching Fruits Basket Prelude, and while I won't spoil the scene, I'll say that I watched this a few short days after a friend of mine committed suicide and I lost it watching this. A Silent Voice had me like that multiple times. I won't spoil the specific incidences (if you know, you know), but part of what made it so effective was that, much like the characters themselves, I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride. This movie has such incredible highs and watching Shoya and Shouko's journeys through it made my heart soar and drove a knife through my gut in equal measure. It's a story of bullying that enraged me, one of alienation that I empathized with deeply, of crawling out of the pits of despair and falling back into them, of both external care and love and self-care and self-esteem.
It's a triumph a movie that somehow balances its themes without feeling overly rushed. And yes, I know there's more to this story from the manga, but I can't bring myself to nitpick this movie. It's so much of what I love about this medium, about what romance and slice of life can be, and it tells a realistic and devastating story that I just cannot help revisiting over and over again to this day. It's my favorite anime movie and one of my favorite movies of all time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jan 21, 2025
I struggle to describe what makes this series so special to me because it runs deeper than its content. I could go through it and describe what makes each episode effective at conveying something about the characters and their circumstances, I could go through the various arcs and explain why each of them hit. I could praise that beautiful animation and all the settings and excellent fight choreography, the still superb OP, ED and its incredible OST in general, the voice acting that continues to impress decades later, or just give a deep dive into what makes each character somehow more than the sum of
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their parts...
But I don't think that would do it justice because the whole series is more than these elements.
I watched this series when it aired on Toonami in 2001. I was 15 at the time. I definitely wasn't well-versed in anime, though I'd seen a fair few series up to that point, most of them Shonen, so I was looking for some epic fight scenes and space battles. And, this being Cowboy Bebop, I got a fair few of those, some of which remain among my favorite examples in anime or any genre.
And then I grew up with this series.
I rewatched certain episodes. I've never really committed to a full rewatch (though I really should), but I've run back over and through random episodes of this series. I've retraced arcs to follow each of these characters along their paths. Spike has long been among my favorite characters, though the reason for that has changed as I've grown to see him less as the debonair badass and more as a tragic character who couldn't leave the past behind him. I've learned to appreciate Faye as more than just a femme fatale who screws over the crew, seeing more in both her desperation to get out of debt and in her struggle to recapture her past. Jet's arc is probably the one I least understood on first watch, and the shift of his episodes into noir with a matching color palette as well as his difficulties dealing with corruption in the police force are something I can appreciate far more now. And then there are Ed and Ein, who... let's face it, I largely love for the same reasons I always did. They're not terribly complicated beyond some bits of their origin stories, and that's part of the beauty of them.
And yes, the plot meanders. The central plot involving Vicious is essential, but I would never suggest that anyone just skip the other episodes to get through this faster. All the side-tracks the story takes have their own points. Hell, arguably, they are the point. It's a story about people and a dog forming a found family of sorts and trying and largely failing to escape their pasts, but it's so much more than a short description could really cover. It's an Alien parody involving something disgusting and hyperactive in the fridge. It's a crazy fight with a balloon-like clown of a man with the mind of a toddler who might just be the most terrifying thing in the show. It's about an impromptu sprint up a building racing against another cowboy bounty hunter because you hate that he's stealing your thunder while ignoring the demolitions expert turned terrorist. It's about a mushroom-fueled drug trip, a chess game played against a dying master, an immortal child, and a space trucker. It's about syndicates, ecological terrorists and hard-boiled detectives. It's about love and revenge, death and revival, the past, the present and the future.
But most of all, it's about jazz, and that's not just in the music. It's about the rhythm of the show, the improvisation of its characters and plot, and yes, the emotions it elicits throughout. Whether the chords it plays are simple or complex, I vibe with it now more than ever.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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