yokoelf's Profile - Reviews

Last Online11 hours ago
GenderMale
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, unhappy protagonists that suddenly are teleported/have their lives changed so that 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 critical adversities by themselves. They usually show an inspiring strength to endure the often exceedingly unfair situations they are put into, and sincere courage to face hardships. You see similar situations in anime like Ashita no Joe, Attack No.1 or Candy Candy.

Sasurai no Taiyou follows this trend as well, 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 humor is absurd and full of references to pop-culture like other gag-manga of the time, which would be nice if this aspect didn't overwhelmed the show, taking place over possibilities to develop the story or *anything* of the relationship between the MC and Hibari, which stays limited to funny skits until the last episode. Which is especially bad since this is not a short anime, having 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 may 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 MC of course rapidly falls in love with him (not knowing he's a boy), and when he discovers Hibari's real gender 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 and being successful at the time). I'm a great fan of this type of humor, but it starts getting repetitive and boring once the show is going on, but 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 MC is basically *never* developed in *any* way. Things always fall down to shallow comedy skits of Hibari flirting with the MC 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 a lot of wasted potential in this series, considering its uncommon type of plot.

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