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Mar 28, 2021
Attack on Titan will be probably go down in history as an anime “classic”. As much as some will dislike the show and this Season in particular there is no denying it. At this point it surpassed Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood as the highest rated show on this website (yikes this didn't age well), maybe partially because of the euphoria and hype for the next Season, but even with that taken into consideration it's a show loved by so many people. And while I enjoy the show I would not claim it to be "peak fiction" or even an extraordinary show.
There are some spoilers in
...
this review, you have been warned.
This Season is a great shift in every sense of the word. At first, we don't even follow the main cast we knew up to that point, then this season is more dialogue heavy than the previous ones and characters take turns that many did not expect. When looking at how much changed this Season and will in the next one I think its remarkable how little Mikasa and Armin changed, who both are or at least were part of the main cast of this show.
Mikasa still being one of the characters I dislike the most. Her whole character arc revolves around Eren, given that she is an Ackerman that also somewhat makes sense in the series, however that does not make it a good character arc. Its also not even given that much attention, we see a glimpse of what might go on with her, but that's it. Her connection to Hizuru is mentioned but not really plays any role in the story or with her character.
Armin's only character trait at this point is that he ate Berthold and his connection to Anni, who still is frozen in that crystal. Everything that happened before this season is either forgotten or already taken as a "finished" character arc.
With those two characters that stayed more or less the same i will now go into the real meat of this Season. Starting with the new characters and the world building of this season as a whole.
We have 16 episodes that try to grasp a world that is multiple times bigger than what we knew up to that point. Given how many manga chapters are left to adapt there also is not much more after this season that could be done. I won't go into great detail on the worldbuilding, but I think it more or less does the "bare minimum" to not be considered bad or boring/generic. The concept introduced with the relationship between Eldia and Marley is interesting, its also conveyed somewhat believable. Aside from that however the world feels shallow. The war between Marley and the Mid-East Allied Forces exists I guess, Hizuru that seems to be influenced by Japanese History also exists. And aside from its relationship to Eldia and their hate for them, we also know barely anything about Marley. Instead of crafting an amazing world with great detail and rich cultures Isayama uses the world as a tool for his themes.
The new characters introduced with Marley are all not bad, but also far from revolutionary.
Gabi is very stereotypical, which is not bad (as we will see with Eren later on) and can get turned into something interesting. But Gabi until the very end of this season pretty much has a predictable arc. She was brainwashed and now slowly learns that not all Eldians are monsters. Also, only changing because she now knows what her hateful actions do to people (killing Sasha) seems like an easy way out, slowly developing her into noticing something is wrong with her ideology without using the death of Sasha would be far more interesting in my opinion. How its resolved now feels believable and is also not bad.
Falco is basically her counterpart, not being completely brainwashed but still being the victim in the end. I dont really have a strong opinion on him, i guess he is a fine character but due to a lack of development nothing special. The other new characters all are similar.
Reiner is by far the in my opinion well realized character in the entire series, from all the characters with internal conflicts his gets attention to the point his character feels pretty well-rounded. His character arc is not perfect by any means and also feels a little short at some point. However, the first four episodes and all the things we know up to now make for an understandable character. He almost feels like the embodiment of the central conflict of the show, knowing the good and bad of both sides and being conflicted.
Eren is what many claim to be the best character this season. And while i agree that what happened is interesting, i would not say its due to him now being a fleshed and less shounen like protagonist. His change is very in your face, he now has longer hair and is much more reserved. What makes all of what happened to his character a little underwhelming, is that we never really saw all those changes happen. We can suspect the reasons and theorize about them, not much more. What makes a great character in my opinion, is actually SEEING a change over the course of multiple episodes and seasons, slowly getting to know reasons for change. We saw more about Reiners reasons for change then we saw about Erens, even Reiners are not what, at least for me, would make a well fleshed out character but still more than Eren.
When it comes to the Audiovisuals this Season is below Attack on Titan standards, but still pretty well-made overall. The more moody color pallet and lighting might fit the overall feeling of the current season but compared to what we had before this season it, to me, feels inferior. Its just not as crisp. The CGI Titans are not much worse than the ones we had in the second part of Season three, they just appear more often.
The OST is not as enthralling as it was the last seasons, which makes sense given the change in tone, but still is pretty disappointing. The voice acting in general is superb, especially the ones of the old cast are really living their role.
Attack on Titan started pretty battle shounen like and in this season tries to move forward, beyond those classic character tropes and unremarkable themes. That alone is remarkable. It does not follow the classic Shounen story and more or less subverts our expectations that were set with the first season. I genuinely hope there are Manga artists getting inspired by Attack on Titan that will produce Shounen with a similar level of ambition in the Future, I would take something like this over the next My hero academia any day.
The biggest problems with this Season is the pacing or how this entire conflict was handled. The show introduces a big unknown world, tries to deliver intriguing politics and a very morally ambiguous story with even more characters. In the end however every single one of those aspects gets insufficient attention throughout this Season. The whole conflict between Eldia and Marley gets explained through a history lesson, every other reason and aspect to that conflict that may be there either is not mentioned or not noteworthy. Character change, as with Eren for example, get explained very vaguely and without much backstory. Trying many things, but not actually going in depth in any of them is the reason for this season being not as good as it could've been for me.
Don't get me wrong I still enjoyed this season. It's still like a fast-paced action movie, that now also tries to be a political drama without taking the time to make said drama believable and engaging. This political drama seems more like a tool to use when its necessary to progress with the story, it's not about the politics or about the world. What it truly is about we will see in the final final season when its core themes will hopefully get a satisfying conclusion that makes all this lackluster worldbuilding, character development and political drama worth it, and even if it's not worth for the themes at least we will still see bombastic fights (I mean that ending cliffhanger was nasty :). Attack on Titan could have been better, with at least 2 or 3 Seasons more on top of those 2 final ones. Its one of the few Shounen where more episodes could've really made a difference for the positive in my eyes.
*sigh* that was a lot of criticism.
I, for one, will watch the last Season and hope MAPPA take the time they need to make it the best Season it can be animation wise. Firstly because then at least the fans leave this series satisfied and secondly the series as a whole will not be remembered for the oh so mediocre animation in its last entry.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Dec 28, 2019
"SAO is finally a good show" - general audiences after this season
So far SAO is a bad series not that no one could enjoy it, its just badly written. I still somewhat enjoyed it for its silly moments and had my fair share of fun watching it. Sword Art Online Alicization - War of Underworld tho is by many people regarded as the Season were SAO finally gets good. Well i disagree a whole lot with that statement and here is why.
Its time to beat a dead horse i guess.
I will maybe write some things some say are spoilers so here is
...
a warning.
This Season trys some new things disregarding its all to familiar protagonist Kirito and choosing Alice as its new one. While i would give the author credit for at least trying he ultimately made many of the same mistakes and that is the reason why he in my eyes failed at truly changing the series for the better.
At the end of the last Season the big bad Pontifex was defeated and Kirito fell in some kind of coma. Now the "dark territory" is set to attack and the Integrity Knights are trying to build up some kind of defense against them.
Alice is our new main character and she has some real writing issues in my humble opinion.She makes some really dumb decisions to protect Kirito wich she does above all else, after seeing some dudes arguing to kill Kirito cause he killed their god she decides to leave. Instead of staying by the side of the people that 1. have influence and 2. know about Kirito and the bad things the Pontifex did she decides to go back to her home city. Why not ask some other Integrity knights to help her hide why go alone? This is just and example of how stupid and impulsive it gets.
Furthermore her biggest character trait is her love for Kirito, i know she questions some things after being treated like trash but this is never explored in any way. The reason for almost everything she does is that she wants to protect him, wich can be fine in a Adventure type setting but not if the reason she is the main character is that the series wants to distance itself from Kirito. Thus Kirito seems yet again as the main reason for almost everything a big chunk of the cast does anything.
Every other cast member is not really noteworthy tbh.
The new big bad that wants to take Alice Fluctlight comes from the outside world. He gets access to the emperor "account" of the dark territory, he does that in a spectacular easy way given that project Alicization is supposed to be the next new still steamy way of war. The amount of security is basically non existent. His and the character of his bro are both complete garbage they are the typical bad guys with no development or even exposition to why they do the things they do in the way they do it. I mean there is literally nothing. We get 2 names and a profit orientated goal....thats it. In the Underworld the worldbuilding gets expanded in a horrendous way, we get a big introduction of maybe all the races that live there. This introduction is the typical "giv em some text for the minimum of information", i mean come the fuck on thats so god damn lazy. All the races we got have the most generic underdeveloped leaders ever, we again get name and 1 over exaggerated personality trait. Ok....1 of them that gets some more spotlight in the later episodes but he never had any kind of character arc he just snapped and in the span of some minutes changes sides.
On the side of the Human empire we have some more spotlight on the characters but again everything feels lazy and rushed. Every Integrity Knight either is a tool for info dumping us, in the last episode some characters where in a pickle and one of the Integrity Knights appeared out of nowhere and gave them the solution that we as a watcher couldnt answer because we never got the amount of worldbuilding required to answer that question. As for the Integrity Knights themselves we got every typical character present the quiet but strong one, the anxious but overcoming it one, the charismatic leader one, the 2 lolis, the overly annoying apprentice one. Every character gets the development that is to be expected after seeing them for the first time most of them overcome their issues in the most predictable and anti climactic way possible.
We also got some characters from the first season that return now and that in probably the most fun but ultimately worst episode of SAO, i am of course talking about episode 5 and its only purpose to show Kiritos Harem wich he build throughout the first Season. Each and every Girl he helped in some kind of way comes to cry at his chair and thats 99% of the episode.
Almost every scene that is not in the Underworld is there to give explanation about the absurd story, its just characterless characters reading some scientific stuff that explains "everything". Present the information in a way anyone could care about and it maybe be decent. But this is for sure not the way my lovely A1 team.
One last little point about the story is that this is supposed to be a war right? I highly doubt that there is only one war front each when the only 2 known empires are at war. The tactics are also questionable if the big daddy emperor is such a great allmighty being why not directly fight then? Why not surround the enemy if you are so much stronger? Why not investigate on the Integrity Knights powers and then search for a solution against those powers?
Thats about all my really major issues, of course there are some more things on the terrible worldbuilding etc. But that would be a waste of time since it should be clear that the Underworld is not the best explored world there is.
The Sound is good but nothing groundbreaking, that is to be expected since SAO is A1s baby and they probably spent a lot of god damn money on it. The overall soundtrack is also not bad but also nothing outstanding, Lisa did the OP if ya like her voice you'll probably enjoy it. The animation/art section is the one that ones again shows how god damn lazy this show is, the overall animation feels smooth most of the time but oh my lord jesus fucking chris EVERY and i mean EVERY soldier from every army looks 100% the same, are they clones mhhhhhh i highly doubt it. The shot composition is as basic and generic as it gets, not a single shot tells us anything about the world or characters, the everything thats not animated in the foreground is done in a lazy (copy and paste soldiers) and generic way that shows that the show once again goes full "lets make our animation look good on a superficial way but with 0 depth or thought put into it".
In the end this Season changes little about the series be it for worse or for better it still is somewhat entertaining and good to laugh at.....maybe not as entertaining as the last Season since edge lord Kirito is cosplaying the sleeping beauty.If you enjoy and legitimately think its good....you do you i guess. Go hate or debate all you want and maybe just maybe we can agree to disagree.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Aug 30, 2019
After some time of reading countless Manga,Comics or what the fuck you call them. I searched for something new, similar to how i discovered the Anime and Mango medium as a whole.
I saw that there was a top list for the socalled "Korean Mangos" or "Manhwa" and while i normally don't trust MAL's top list, i started the top rated one Bastard and finished it in a relatively short time.
Bastard has a simple premise, a father likes girls so much he wants to kill them and his son is his accomplice despite not wanting to be it he drags along since Jin (the Son)
...
is afraid of his father. After yet another murder he gets punched to crap by a slave of the big bully of his school (Manny), he is a very weak boi, but is saved by a transfer student who he falls in love with, the problem here is that this transfer student named Kyun Yoon is the next target of Dongsoo (the father), and thus a very fast paced thriller,with interesting Characters and some silly plotholes is born.
The police basicially doesn't care the first half of the story, since they kill at home it should be pretty obvious that the police would investigate the victims last place, but they for some reason don't even bother. Yet again this could be overlooked but the amount of plotholes and stupid plot convenient moments really showed over time, Dongsoo is following his son pretty god-damn often despite being a CEO in a big ass company and a famous murderer, he also has the ability to teleport everywhere.
The Characters are, pretty well written and unlike most Manga they show rather Humen reactions to disturbing shit, yet while this is a good thing and also the trauma of Jin is again a good thing, the Characters sometimes overreact so much its just edgy and pretty dumb.
The most problematic Character in the story is in my humble opinion Kyun, she got her own story but most of the time she is just used as a reminder that Jin has indeed something to loose.
The art is no the best but the panel structure is great, the same panel with only slight differences to show Character reactions or to show that time passes in the story is great, yet while the Characters look pretty neat i found that the backgrounds looked...rather shit.
Its hard to go into detail on the Characters/story without spoiling things so here...
SPOILER WARING
Ahhhh father-son relationships are wonderful, Bastard is basically that, a story about a rather complicated father-son relationship, i'll get to that later.
While i found the Characters to be overall kinda well written I have a big chunk of complaints about them, Manny is the big bully of the school but later trains Jin to get stronger simply for the sake of his father. The back and forth of his Character was pretty nice to read, showing off as a bully but being "friends" with Jin after school, yet after he lost his legs and finds out that the only person to care about him is Jin and to some extend Kyun. Afterwords Jin tells him about his father and Manny therefore sends this black guy after him, he proofed that Dongsoo his a murderer but also that Jin is his accomplice,later the black guy discovered that he abused Jin and shouldve told Manny, if not it's dumb if yes It's pretty dumb that Manny still wants to avenge his family with Jin, he knew he got abused and that he was the only person to still care about him yet he wanted to smash his legs. Still this is the biggest Character/writing flaw with his Character and i still think he is to some extend well writtin.
Jin and Dongsoo are different caliber, tho. Jin thought of Dongsoo as an enemy since his last memory before the accident that made him so weak is his father standing at the edge of the roof, he thinks that his father wanted to kill him if he is not useful anymore, later on he suddenly remembers (for plot conveniences of course), that he and his father killed for fun ever since he was young. He had the same "Demon" inside of him but through the accident he suppresed the so-called "Demon" and altered his memories, so he can blame it all on the bad daddy. That is of course a nice idea but evokes some problems, why would his dad if he cares so much for his son traumatize him, he knew that he is not the same as him but still. Some might say thats cause he is a psychopath, but no one is born a psychopath or at least not a mass murdering one, i wouldve loved some reasoning why Dongsoo killed all those woman but got none. At the end there is the end of the story, which i find rather problematic Jin forgave his father just because he remembered that in his childhood he had fun killing woman and Dongsoo starts chilling just because his Son forgave him, telling him everything. He kills himself knowing he has no "beast" as a Son, but if this is what he hoped for, why even try to traumatize the own son, why not trying to hide his killing and then knowing for sure that his son is safe. If we on the other had got more background childhood information on Dingsoon this could've made sense, but we got none, so this was rather odd and felt quite dumb, just for the sake of a happy end.
My last major criticism would be the middle part, it just developed the completely obvious romance and got some development on both Jin and Kyun, yet about 2/3 through the story Kyun felt like a silly mary sue always doing the right, forgiving and underdeveloped Character, yet after the middle part arc she got a bit better developed. The female killer was, again, only used for the arc to develop Jin and Kyun, she had some kind of story wich felt rather superficial but still for what we got understandable, to some extent.
END OF SPOILER
Final Verdict/TLDR:
6.1/10
Its not the greatest thriller but it has enough heart to let me forgive some of the silly things. Very captivating with a little downfall of quality in the middle, it recovered fast enough and kept me engaged. Its ok to hate on it if you really can't stand the stupid moments but its also oki to love it if you can overlook some of its silly moments. I highly enjoyed this rather quick Korean thigy and would recommend it to everyone searching for a fast pace edgy thriller.
If you wanna hate on the review pls go do so, i would love to hear some other opinions on the story, of course stay friendly. Thats all i had to say, stay healthy and kill your chicks you cheecky Bastard, have a nice day ;)
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 26, 2019
"it feels like my brain got slurped threw a straw and spit out again" William Shakespeare
Heaven's door is a collection of Sci-fi short Storys by author Keiichi Koike, he is not the most popular Mangaka out there but maybe familier to some (Ultra Heaven,G).
These few short storys are among the few really short storys i ever read that i didnt forget after a hour, a day or probably a month, cause thats the biggest problem i have with those typa storys they are for the most part forgettable, not bad just forgettable.
The short storys vary from very many diffrent Sci-fi concepts from the weirdest yet
...
somewhat most amazing, surrealist concept of Suicide ever to some of the most in depth thought, provoking short storys i ever read.
Another aspect that this manga does on a phenomenal level is the panel layout, its used in many ways not just for the sake of it but to help get the meaning across wich it greatly achived.The drawings are also very good, but could feel a bit silly at times.
I wont go into detail in every story, it would be to much for a written review and spoilers will ruin you those crazy moments. Yea this Manga has alot of those BAM in your face mindblowing moments, but they never come without foreshadowing.
Some of those short storys would be a 9 or 10 but some not and thats why its a 8, i still recommend it to everyone that either liked Keiichi Koike's (some of the short storys have pretty obvious references to them) other works or is looking for a great,short,bizzare,perplexing sci-fi read that you probably revisit more than 1 time to completely grasp the astonishing amount of depth presented to you.
I never cared about the MAL ratings but a score below 7 seems worthy to start a crusade against Humanity.
Level of recommendation: 3000 Leagues/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 24, 2019
One of the most hyped shows this year....yea, but it still has its flaws that even the craziest Big man fights can't hide.
SPOILERS for everything up to Season 3 Episode 12/Season 3 first half
Art:
The Art style this Season changed quite a bit, by that i mean how the whole show is drawn is way closer to the art style of the Manga than in previous Season wich is good.
The overall animation is good most of the time, but a big no no for the art part is that it tells its story not with visuals and instead relying on dia/monologue to explain every bit of
...
information.
Sound:
The voice Acting is pretty good for most of the Characters,but a big fail for this Series is the shallow dialogue they explain tactics way to often and some of the dialogue just explains the things every Human with a functioning brain can see.
As for the music wich always was a strong point in SnK its still pretty good, but the new OP is not as amazing as every OP prior to it, the ending is fine i guess.
Story:
It's Return to Shiganshina time...this follows the probably best action arc so far in the anime, the Story was always a strong point in the series but after this Season the story will get even better and because of this i turned into a SnK Manga fan. This Season is bascially the turning point, but as i said its just the turning point, it builds of brilliantly but all those 3 Season of build up, the story was fine just fine.
Characters:
There you go, this is the point where SnK always had its problems and this Season still has those.
The main Characters wich should be the "stronger" or more developted Charcaters in the series fall flat. In a Nutshell Eren developed from "i will win" to "we will win".Mikasa is still just "EREN" "EREN".Armin is the only one of the 3 that actually is a well developted Character, he is the generic Shounen third wheel Character trope, but what makes him stand out among other Characters of this trope is his development and that it wasn't in the span of 1 episode and instead the development of his Character had his ups and downs but in the end he actually found something to not feel useless about.
The series also had some problems with being based on shock factor, in Season 1 they killed some Characters who no one cared about....in this Season nothing Changed some Characters will die who no one cared about, just to show us "oh yea its dangerous".
As for the rest of the cast, most Characters are Mediocre they miss much development but some still have some points speaking for them.Jean is generic but how he reacts on the Titans seems pretty realistic, its the same with Connie both of them are basically our view on the world because they react in a way most Humans would react if they would see a Titan eating some Humans, despite this Connie is a Character with near to 0 development, the rest of the side cast is similar with every Character having one or 2 good points and 1 or 2 bad points.Reiner and Berthold are both similar Characters that i cant really judge without spoiling Manga things.The one that stands out is Erwin, he is a Character that on the surface is just "SHINZOU WO SASAGEYO" but at his core Erwin is a Charatcer that HAS A DREAM and will do everything to acquire it.
Final verdict:
This was a very superficial Review, but in the end not much changed with this series its still a enjoyable show with some bigger flaws, maybe the show will improve in Season 4 with the new revelations happening in this Season but prior to that its a enjoyable show with a decent story muddled by mediocre Characters.
5.7/10
If you wanna discuss some points i made or just hate this review feel free to shitpost on my profile, the one last point i wanna make is that every anime only that doesnt read the Manga after this Season needs to be a real bad masochist.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 17, 2019
This is my first review on this site so please have mercy!
FT is one of the most popular shounen out there with many haters and lovers at the same time the question that many will ask is "does it deserve the Hype?" and in my Opinionen, hell nah and here is why....
Art
FT suffers the same Problem as many other long running shounen,the animation isnt that good,Character movement isnt fluid and looks just hilarious some times,everything thats not in the foreground just looks like bullshit and at last every Characters face looks the same even though they are not the same age or even gender...
...
Sound
Voice acting is average most of the time nothing special but also nothing that makes you wanna hurt yourself everytime you hear it,the Music is also average exept some of the mains themes that actually are good.
Story and Characters
The Basic Idea of any Battle Shounen is the "i want to get better and beat the hell out of some Bad guys" and thats the same here,the only problem is they never win because they trained hard to get better than the Opponent or make a very clever move ,no they win because as they are all knocked out or unable to fight one of them makes a cliche Frienship speech and than a miricale happends and they somehow win the fight.
Every Antagonist in the series is just a cliche "Bad guy" he just wants to be bad because they have the power, at the beginning i really didnt mind it but after your 4th bad guy that is just the same as the last it just gets boring and dull.
As for our Main Characters there is not much to say i will just let a random Fairy Tail member explain it to you:
"Even after 7 years you havent changed one bit Natsu (you can insert every Character here)" the Character develop not even a bit over the course of over 100+ episode.
Natsu and Grey are both nothing special in the shounen genre in nearly every shounen we got 2 male leads that rival each other and sometimes fight over some useless things,but those 2 are not well done the fights between them should be funny, but for me it felt way to forced and i sometimes even skipped those scenes because they where always the same,as said earlier both dont develop in any kind of direction and just stay the way there are,as a side note the thing that Grey always needs to put down his clothes is just annoying.
Erza is the always serious but in love with the bad guy type,we all saw it and i am not really a fan of this type if it has no depth and the Character is just always serious for the sake of being serious,thats exactly Erza in a Nutshell
Lucy is the only one of the 4 that is not complete shit (thats not to say she is a good Character),she basicially searched for a Familiy because at home she had no real Familiy even though they where related by blood,she found this Familiy in Fairy Tail and thats it end of the story for her Character...
Enjoyment
I enjoyed some fights but the rest was pure shit, i never had the urge to watch the fillier episodes because the Charcaters were so uninteresting, the dilouge is not clever written etc.
It had some fine moments but all in all FT is a show you can watch if you have to much time and dont wanna think about the stuff your watching, but if you search for a show that gets you invested and has a clever story FT is not the show for you.
Final Verdict
FT is a shounen with Characters that get 0 development,cliche Antagonists,a Magic System that is bad explained and makes no sense most of the time,but most important Fairy Tail is a shounen that embraces the "Friendship" way to much by just letting the Main Characters win,not threw hard work but just threw believe and Friendship.
This was more a rant than a actual review and maybe in some parallel universe Fairy Tail has some things that are not complete shit but these are so minor i dont bother to review them
Have a nice Day :)
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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