yokoelf's Profile - Reviews

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BirthdayAug 1990
LocationPorto Alegre, Brasil
JoinedSep 26, 2011

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Mar 30, 2022

Sasurai no Taiyou (Anime) add

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Contrasting with 2020's anime, which commonly features average or unhappy protagonists that suddenly are teleported/have their lives changed and their frustrations are magically solved, anime from the 70's often features protagonists that come from unfavourable origins or poverty and that have to overcome their situations by themselves. They usually show an inspiring strength to endure the often exceedingly unfair circumstances they are put into, and courage to face all sort of hardships. You see similar situations in anime like Attack No.1, Candy Candy or Ashita no Joe.

Sasurai no Taiyou follows this trend, featuring the tale of a girl who, being switched from her rich birth ...

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Jan 29, 2021

Stop!! Hibari-kun! (Anime) add

Mixed Feelings

|TL;DR|
Stop!! Hibari-kun! has an interesting and unique premise, and an acceptable approach to it, for 1982. The comedy is absurd and full of references to pop-culture, similar to other gag-manga of the time, which would be cool if it didn't overwhelm the show, overshadowing the possibilities of developing *anything* of the relationship between the protagonist and Hibari, which stays limited to funny skits until the last episode. Which is especially bad since this anime has the average-length of 35 episodes.

|Review|
Stop!! Hibari-kun!'s premise is quite cool (considering this is the 80's in Japan): the main character suddenly has to live in the house of a (comical) ... Yakuza boss that lives with his 4 daughters: however, one of them, Hibari, the most beautiful one, is actually a boy.

Hibari is labeled as a "crossdresser" in the series, though it can be considered transgenderism by today's standards. The main premise is that even though Hibari is a "pervert" (that's how his father calls him), he is so beautiful and awesome that people just have to accept him the way he is. He publicly acts like a girl and nobody outside the family knows he's a boy. The main character of course rapidly falls in love with him (not knowing he's a boy), and when he discovers that Hibari is actually a boy he tries to negate it. Throughout the series he keeps trying to convince himself that he's not attracted to him, even though he definitely is, and Hibari always teases and flirts with him knowing this.

Again, considering the spirit of the time, this is an acceptable approach to the subject. This is a comedy anime after all, and nothing is taken seriously. And this may also be the biggest flaw of the anime: even with interesting characters, like Hibari's other sisters, the classmates at school, and a cast of other comical yakuza employed by the family, these characters aren't explored how they should - considering this is an average-length 35 episode anime.

Most episodes just consist of random comedy situations with a fair dose of surrealism and references to pop-culture greatly inspired by other gag-manga of the time like Dr. Slump (which was publishing at the same time and being a hit). I'm a great fan of this type of humor, but it starts getting repetitive and boring once the show is going on, and nothing is actually happening. Some characters receive more episodes focused on them, while others, for some inexplicable reason, are almost ignored. It's really unbalanced.

And this is especially worse considering Hibari and his relationship with the main character is basically *never* developed in *any* way. Things always fall down to shallow comedy skits of Hibari flirting with the main character and him getting flustered or embarrassed, until the very last episode. Actually, the last episode happens just like any regular episode, like the show was abruptly cut in half. It makes you feel there was wasted potential in this series.

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