- Last Online23 minutes ago
- BirthdayJul 20, 2004
- JoinedMar 24, 2020
Fantasy Anime League You Should Read This Manga My MALentine Story Fantasy Anime League Secret Santa Exchange Fantasy Anime League MAL Bunkasai Visitor Wonderful Wordsmiths RSS Feeds
|
![]()
May 14, 2024
Light novel adaptations of things tend to be very hit-or-miss, and considering this was an adaptation of an escape room video game, I didn't have my hopes up.
I suppose it was a good thing I didn't have my hopes up, because I was pleasantly surprised.
The trickiest factor when it comes to adapting video games into other mediums is that there is no gameplay, which is what defines a game. When a game is defined by the player solving puzzles to escape the room, how can you translate that into text in a way that is still engaging and interesting? For Zero Escape it's especially
...
tough, because much of the story relies on the game's mechanics in a way only a video game can do.
Thankfully, this light novel made the best usage of it's format that it could when adapting a game. There's no perfect way to translate a story relying so hard on game mechanics to text, but this LN did it as best as possible. In fact, it ended up having the main character solve a puzzle that could not be included in a video game (because most players would not be able to solve it, even if the character canonically could), thus making use of its text format, which is brilliant.
It also made minor changes to the story which were absolutely welcome. If the LN adaptation kept the story 100% the same, that would make for a very boring read. I would think "why would I read this when I could just play the game instead and get all of the information the way it was intended to be given?" It still tells broadly the same story but with small new bits of information for the reader, which is greatly appreciated.
The writing is competent and the story of Zero Escape is genius. It's an absolutely intriguing and well thought-out sci-fi story with endearing characters and a solid mystery. Highly recommended, forever.
I would, of course, always recommend you read this after playing the game, but considering the score on this is marked as "N/A" I don't think anyone is planning on reading this *instead* of playing the game.
It's good, extra content for fans of Zero Escape, and it was never trying to be anything else.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
 0
Love it
 0
Funny
 0
Confusing
 0
Well-written
 0
Creative
 0Show all
![]()
May 13, 2024
A Lull In The Sea is an anime that does not make any sense.
The premise of the series is that all humans once lived in the sea until some left the sea to live on land, and the series’s central conflict is about the hostile dynamic between the sea dwellers and the land dwellers. So, pretty rich worldbuilding right?
Wrong!
The society under the sea looks exactly like society on land, which is…odd, considering the sea came first. Shouldn’t land-life be modeled after sea-life and not the other way around? Well, considering there are more opportunities on land, I might be able to buy that the sea
...
society took recursive inspiration from land society, and all of the cool things *inherent* to land that sea-dwellers could never have created on their own, however this still doesn’t make sense for this story, because:
1) sea-dwellers seem to hate land-dwellers at large, and they forbid sea-land marriage because their children can’t breathe underwater and it shrinks the population. So why would they be copying land society and not be very defensive of their pre-existing culture? Shouldn’t they be scared land culture will eclipse sea culture?
2) They have things like stairs, cups, and electricity. What? Forget culture, this shouldn’t even be possible. How the hell are they drinking out of cups? Why am I watching someone underwater iron their clothes with an electric iron that’s plugged into the wall?
It’s lazy. The writers created an interesting concept for worldbuilding and didn’t want to follow through with it. They wanted the reward without putting in any of the work.
But hey, I can ignore lazy worldbuilding if it just exists to fuel the character drama and relationships, which is the heart of most stories—especially this one. Unfortunately, the characters don’t serve it much better.
All of the characters are two-dimensional cardboard cutouts that makes me feel like TV Tropes needs to be credited for their creation. There’s Hikari, a standard male tsundere who is just kind of an ass for no reason, especially to the girl he likes, Monaka, the standard cutesy, shy nice girl who spends a lot of her screentime squealing, Chisaki, the…other girl, and Kaname, who is supposed to be the chill, nice guy meant to contrast Hikari’s tsundere behavior, but he’s so boring I forget he exists when he isn’t on screen. Kaname is the worst offender, because we almost immediately get introduced to a land boy named Tsumugu who is also chill and nice while also being way more plot relevant.
The only reason there are this many characters anyways is so we can have a convoluted love conga line that goes like Kaname > Chisaki > Hikari > Monaka > Tsumugu. If it weren’t for the love conga line half of the characters would be irrelevant.
And oh boy is the love conga line something. It’s needlessly melodramatic, and it causes these characters to freak out and cry and run away, which I find to be very silly considering they’re all friends who love each other and this could easily be solved by just talking to each other. But then again they’re 14, so what do I know? Maybe their wild incompetence is just middle school behavior. It’s hard to tell sometimes.
This love conga line then proceeds to get weird in the second half of the story after a dramatic shift, but I’m not going to spoil it. Let’s just say it doesn’t go how you would expect it to at all, and that’s not a compliment.
I’m particularly disappointed in A Lull in the Sea because I *wanted* to like it, as there were a lot of things I was genuinely interested in. No matter what, I still wanted to learn more about the mysteries of the sea (especially considering the major shift the story takes halfway through) and the setting was super interesting. I also really liked the plotline about blended families and accepting a new step-parent—it was really heartwarming! I even found myself liking Hikari in his role in the blended family plot (although this was, once again, before the dramatic shift halfway through where things got very weird). I also liked the themes of accepting change and having to let go of old things and accept new things.
Unfortunately the worldbuilding just…makes no sense, and the characters aren’t doing it any favors either.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
May 11, 2024
NieA Under 7 currently has a MAL score of...under 7, and I find that unfair.
On one hand, I sort of understand it. NieA Under 7 is a very unassuming series, and at first glance, it looks like any old slice of life anime from the early 2000s. On top of that, our titular character can be really grating at times, and with other characters like the...walking Indian stereotype? (wow, that...has to be racist, right?) It makes sense why so many people would be quick to write this one off.
But, with only thirteen episodes, I highly recommend you hang on.
NieA Under 7 is the type of
...
SOL show that digs deep into the aspects of every day life, and contemplates the characters' feelings and circumstances. It paints the picture of a marginalized immigrant living with a poor college student and their every day lives trying to get by. The marginalization of the aliens is mostly treated as set dressing at first, so the small moments where they dig deeper into it tends to be insightful. Mayu's poverty is treated similarly; it's not necessarily treated un-seriously, but rather it's such a normal factor of life it tends to be brushed over and joked around about---much like how living in poverty actually is. So, just like the marginalization of the aliens, it hits so much harder when they take the time to reflect on it and how deeply it affects the characters. NieA Under 7 is a quirkly SOL, but it manages to capture the exhaustion and misery that the hollow acceptance of your poverty brings.
And it's not just marginalization and poverty. Mayu as a character is one just coming into her young adulthood, the age of discovery and figuring yourself out, but she's much too stressed from work and school to be doing that. She struggles socially and isn't sure what she wants to do with her life. She internalizes her problems and sabotages things for herself even though everyone around her likes her and wants to help. It's such a frighteningly realistic depiction of what it's like to be this age in such dire circumstances that suck the life right out of you.
NieA under 7 is an odd slice of life series that seems rather mediocre at first glance, but it also touches on themes of identity, discrimination, coming of age, melancholy, social assimilation, class, and social alienation. It may not be perfect, but these reflective moments hit somewhere deep and resonant within.
Don't pass this one up.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
May 9, 2024
It’s no surprise that Black Butler is popular. It’s a story full of mystery, cool Victorian-era fashion, death and destruction, and a sexy, sexy butler.
Well, not just a sexy, sexy, butler. Also a sexy, sexy 12 year old boy.
Ah shit, I just acknowledged the elephant in the room.
Okay, so…
I’m not usually one to complain about fanservice in animanga. I’m not a fan, but complaining about fanservice is like talking to a brick wall. It’s just part of the story, so if you don’t like it, either ignore it or don’t read it. At the end of the day, it’s not real nor
...
worth throwing a fit over. Even if the fanservice goes beyond panty shots and bouncing boobs and wanders into the more…uncomfortable variety.
However, with Black Butler I just…can’t ignore it. Not only is the fanservice of a more outwardly uncomfortable fetish (the shotacon audience is eating it up), but it seems to eclipse the story.
Have whatever fetishes you want. It’s not real and as long as you’re not hurting anyone, I don’t care. However I do think it lowers the quality of the story if the fetish content is so present it distracts me from what’s actually going on.
Actually, considering the homoerotic relationship between a young boy and his devoted demon butler is the very premise of the story, it oftentimes feels like the story exists just to be a vessel for the author’s fetish.
And because it’s just a manga, I don’t personally care that I find this fetish uncomfortable or weird (again, do whatever you want so long as no one’s getting hurt) I just find it…distracting and awkward. It feels like it takes over the story.
And this isn’t just because of all of the shots of a young boy being leered at by the camera. It’s also because of the usage of sexual violence in the story.
I’m not against using sexual violence in stories. Rape happens and no topic should be taboo to write about. But in Black Butler, the sexual violence feels egregious.
The young male protagonist is constantly groped and ogled, and has rape written into his backstory. Half the time it’s played for comedy (which is already in very poor taste) and the other half of the time it’s taken seriously. I find it very hard to take sexual violence seriously if you treat it like a joke half of the time. Moreover, when it is taken seriously, it feels…cheap.
Every time this young boy faces serious sexual violence, it feels almost lazy. Ignoring that the rate at which it happens feels very contrived, it often feels like sexual violence just did not need to be here, and was only put here as a quick way to up the drama and the angst factor. Either that or the author just likes to watch little boys be hurt sexually.
And no matter how personally uncomfortable I am aside, it just bogs down the story by being really awkward, forced, and lazy.
I love the idea of Black Butler, but the egregious fanservice and frequent cheap usage of sexual violence really pulls me out of it. It’s not just uncomfortable, it makes the story itself clunky and weird. These pages could be better spent advancing the plot (because oh yeah, the arcs have a bit of a pacing problem as well. No wonder it’s been running for so long).
And that’s without mentioning other common complaints about the series, such as the insensitivity with which a transgender female character is handled.
I’m not here to tell you what you are and aren’t allowed to like, nor am I here with a torch and a pitchfork claiming Black Butler is immoral and should be burned/banned/censored/etc. it’s just a manga. What I am here to say is that these factors spoil the story for me, which I think is quite a shame.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Mar 13, 2024
A light novel giving us the backstory of one of the most iconic Danganronpa characters? Expanding on his character just like Danganronpa Kirigiri did to one of the other most iconic characters a few years earlier? Perfect! Sign me up!
Except...maybe don't, actually. Because Danganronpa Togami is weird. Danganronpa Togami is REALLY weird.
Danganronpa Togami feels like a fanfic writer was given the power to make whatever they wanted canon. While Danganronpa has always been a dark franchise which is no stranger to shock value and crazy twists, DRTG amps it up to eleven. It's gorier and grosser than ever before, and quite frankly I wanted to
...
tear my skin off a few times. Dark themes and gore can be narratively relevant and valuable, but at times it really just felt like someone was trying to write the most messed-up story imaginable. And say, Danganronpa fan, do the words "seesaw effect" haunt you? Well you will not be PREPARED for the sheer amount of ass pulls this novel makes with its big twists. The twists are a load of absurd nonsense which, just as the shock content is there just to gross you out, are just there to bewilder you. And, to add insult to injury, there is absolutely no foreshadowing for most of them. The author of these books clearly think a twist is better the more surprising it is, regardless of what that actually adds to the narrative. And these twists are SO nonsensical because it's trying to be philosophical and deep, but clearly it doesn't actually know what it's trying to say. It's a mindfuck, but not in a good way.
Don't get me wrong, I love absurdity and dark content---one of my favorite anime ever is Revolutionary Girl Utena! But DRTG doesn't have anything to say with its shock content and bizarre twists. It feels like it was written by a twelve year old rebelling against the world for the first time by writing the most fucked up thing they could think of just for the sake of it. Togami is already a divisive character for his objectively inexcusable actions, but the author REALLY wanted to see how far they could push it.
Also, every other line is some obscure pop culture reference, usually to some niche piece of Japanese media or famous literature from around the world. Even my weeb, literature student ass only caught about half of them. Pop culture references are well and good, but WHY are there so many of them? This is an abnormal amount. The author really just wants to share random trivia with you. It's distracting, confusing, and bogs down the story. I doubt even the original Japanese audiences would understand all of them. The author also interrupts the climax of the first novel to talk about how most tie-in light novels are unmemorable but HE'S doing it right, which...okay lol. Whatever helps you sleep at night, dude.
I should also mention that these novels pull in a LOT of details from the author's own original novels, so maybe it would make sense if you read them, but quite frankly that is way too much effort to put in for a Danganronpa spin-off.
But hey, it's not like it's ALL bad. It's got a lot of Danganronpa-typical mysteries and death games with more screen time for everyone's favorite characters, so I imagine any Danganronpa fan can get something out of it. In fact, I rather enjoyed the flashback to the "competition" with the Togami siblings in the second book (that is, when it wasn't full of shock content), and seeing the remnants of despair being remnants was pretty rad, even if what they do is..somewhat nonsensical. I liked the speech about believing in your nakama near the end of book two; that one was very in-character for Danganronpa. And the bit about how AI can't actually create true art yet it's swallowing the artform and ending the world or whatever has aged like wine.
But...are the small morsels of Danganronpa goodness worth it, comparatively? Honestly, I don't really think so. But to each his own.
It's just...odd. It's very odd. And I'll leave it at that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Feb 23, 2024
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is an anime about an unaware reality warper named Haruhi Suzumiya getting into wacky hijinks with her friends because they have to make sure she doesn't get bored and tear the fabric of reality itself.
No, that's not right. Let me try again
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a 2006 anime adapted from a 2003 light novel series written by Nagaru Tanigawa.
No, that's not it either.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is one of the most popular anime of all time and a sheer cultural sensation from the mid-to-late 2000s.
...
No, no, no!
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is...not very good.
I know, I know. "Blasphemy!" I hear you cry! Revoke my weeb card! But truly, I do not understand what had people so captivated by this anime.
Actually, that's a lie. I know exactly what had people so captivated by this anime. A cute, quirky, super special girl who they could either imagine being in a relationship with (if male) or being (if female).
Haruhi Suzumiya is the draw of Haruhi Suzumiya. Truly, a character who deserves to have the show named after her. The problem is that she sucks.
I understand that part of the appeal of her character is her dubious morality. I understand that the author and audiences alike are well aware that her behavior is bad. I understand that we are not always supposed to like or agree with her. However, the keyword to that last statement is "always," and that's what makes this self-awareness mean absolutely nothing.
Haruhi Suzumiya is a mean, selfish, bad friend and people literally cannot say no to her for fear of altering reality itself, and most of the time her behavior is brushed off and played for comedy. It's horribly mean-spirited and I struggle to see what's supposed to be "funny" about it.
Haruhi Suzmiya is canonically bisexual, so she has romantic tension with a man and sexually assaults women. No, really. Enter Mikuru Asahina.
Mikuru Asahina is a character who also isn't very good on her own anyways. She has a stupidly high pitched voice and is a very basic, one-dimensional shrinking violet-type. She could give Fluttershy a run for her money. However, her entire character just gets thrown out the window because about 50% of her screen time is eaten up by Haruhi sexually assaulting her. I am not kidding or exaggerating. Forcibly stripping her, groping her breasts, biting her ear, forcing other people to grope her breasts, forcing her into revealing outfits, and (in the second season) essentially roofie-ing her to make a (also unwilling) male classmate kiss her---all while she squeals and protests at the top of her terribly squeaky lungs. And the vast majority of the time it's played for comedy. In fact, the one time it isn't played for comedy, I was convinced we'd see some legitimate character growth and improvement on Haruhi's part, but nope! She literally just goes back to doing the same exact routine.
Our other main characters don't leave much to be desired either. Nagato is an incredibly blatant Rei Ayanami clone who doesn't have much original going for her. Her whole bit is speaking in monotone and calculating. That's it. Koizumi is a character so remarkably boring I forget he's in the show when he's not directly on screen. He has maybe one character trait which is...idk, chill? Vaguely homosexual? The only thing I can remember about him is that he has a habit of getting too close to Kyon's face.
Speaking of, Kyon, the protagonist of our tale, is somehow the best character. If your stock light novel everyman is the best character, you've done something wrong. However, he's the only one who ever stands up to Haruhi (although, probably because he's the only one she would let do that), is usually kind to Mikuru, is generally helpful to everyone else, and has a very strong narrative voice. He's essentially the saving grace of this show that makes it even slightly interesting or funny at all because of his tightly-written, witty narration.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a product of its time. Unfortunately, it's time was absolutely terrible.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Feb 11, 2024
From the director of Free!, Banana Fish, and Sk8 the Infinity, comes Bucchigiri?!, an anime about a pathetic shrimp of a man who is mean to his loving and supportive mother and is so obsessed with getting in a girl's pants that he keeps crudely ignoring his hot childhood friend who not only is so blatantly dtf, but also clearly cares about him and wants to reconnect with him.
Like this director's previous shows, this one has no shortage of yaoibait, but it falls entirely flat because the main character is such an unlikable snotnosed worm. His kind childhood friend who clearly still loves him and
...
wants to be his friend again is right there, and instead he ignores him to go chase after a two-faced snake of a girl whose only personality trait is having a brother complex. Yeah, the only two women in this show are mom and one dimensional bad archetype. A+ Female character writing.
Wanting to have sex with a girl isn't even an inherently bad character motivation, I would totally be down to watch some guy's trials in dating and girls, but I cannot bring myself to care about it because he's such a selfish idiot about it.
...oh yeah, what was the plot again?
Bucchigiri doesn't have much of a plot. It's literally about this guy joining a gang because the leader of the gang is the older brother of the (terrible) girl he likes and he wants to have sex with her sooooooo badly. And this works out because the older brother has a no-personal-space type homoerotic fixation on him because he got lucked out with genie magic that gave him super strength. And his kind, caring, all-around-great-guy osananajimi is sad about it. That is the entire show.
Still, I'm being a bit mean. This show is very fast paced and full of high-energy action scenes, with awesome character design and artwork to boot. If low-stakes delinquent fun is your jam, you'll probably get a kick out of this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Feb 2, 2024
Blue Lock is not a sports anime. Blue Lock is a sports-flavored action show that uses its “sport” to peddle absolutely backwards ideas that make no sense. I am convinced that the author of Blue Lock is an alien who came to Earth and only learned about both soccer and human society by watching Japan's losing games.
The premise of Blue Lock is that a national soccer training program is instated in which a bunch of the nation's best young male soccer players are trapped inside a facility that treats them like prisoners, withholding basic rights and amenities unless they prove that they’re better than everyone
...
else at soccer by trusting no one and prioritizing themselves rather than working as a team. Players slowly get eliminated until only the best remains, and if you get eliminated, you are banned from soccer forever and your career is over.
That is batshit insane. It sounds like an absolute nightmare of a setting that can only be used to tell a horror story satirizing certain philosophical and political ideologies. But somehow, it's not; it's presented as The Way To Win Soccer. But let's put a pin in that. First, let's look at this absolute inane setting for a sports anime and ask the obvious question: why?
Well you see, it's because Big Soccer is convinced that the reason Japan hasn't won the world cup is because everyone is too focused on teamwork when what they really need is the best striker ever who only cares about his own glory and winning, because the striker is the most important role and the team exists to back him. The purpose of this program is to simultaneously train Japan's best striker and weed out all of the other people who are not Japan's best striker and as such are effectively worthless.
This is accomplished by having all of the characters act as strikers and run an internal competition of who can score the most goals individually, because the real winners aren’t those on the winning team, but those who scored the most goals out of their team, regardless of if your team won or not. They’re motivated to work against their teammates to score more individual goals by rewarding those goals with privileges such as nutritious food, a bed to sleep on, and contact with your family. The goal isn't really to get better at playing soccer (because in order to do that you need to see your teammates as equals), but rather to get better at being the best striker alone by yourself, because then the rest of the team will just have to follow your lead. Teamwork makes the dream work but only when the team are not equals and act under the guidance of the singular best guy. Yes, this plan is how you win soccer and it’s going to train the single guy who will single handedly win the world cup for Japan.
Now, I may have spent my high school years in the school's auditorium rather than on the field, but even I know that not only is that not how soccer works, but the game would fall apart if people tried to play it that way. The author really said "you know that team sport where the entire point is working as a team and that's always how it has been and there are eleven players who all have different jobs to do for a reason? Actually it's a load of bullshit and the striker is the only important role and it always has been, so he should do whatever he wants forever and all of the other roles are for losers" This makes no sense if you think about it for more than three seconds. The goal of soccer in Blue Lock is not to win soccer—not really. It’s to be better than other people. And that is an insane goal to have in your show about a team sport.
Now it's time to take that pin out. While the man in charge of this program is presented in a creepy manner, he is also presented as being right. The show has such a grim, mean, violent tone, but rather than playing it for horror and using it to satirize the ideas it presents (such as our society placing one's worth only on their ability to achieve, how the people in power got there by throwing other people under the bus, and how it claims the only reason you have failed is because you didn’t work hard enough), it presents this excessively heavy tone of pain and suffering as beneficial and character-building.
You were put in an unfair situation that it would have been near-impossible to escape from because you were given an incredibly short amount of time? Well that’s your fault! Here are all of the ways you could have escaped from it but didn't—broken down in detail to show that I am right—and the reason you failed is because you didn't work hard enough, so your entire career is over. You are also the one character who was criticizing my ideas because you, as a sane normal soccer player, value teamwork. I am the one who knows how to actually win soccer, and the next 23 episodes are all going to be people getting better at soccer using my backwards, anti-teamwork, hard-work-fallacy endorsing ideas.
I think my least favorite example of this deeply flawed and illogical ideology is the fact that, as it is presented, the stronger players are given better living conditions, training facilities, and food, and the weaker players are told that if they want to live in those same comfortable conditions, they have to work hard to achieve them. This is bullshit, because in reality, giving the strong players better conditions just makes them stronger, and giving the weaker players worse conditions just makes them worse. It’s actually more complicated than that but I don’t want to mark this review as a spoiler. All that matters is that Blue Lock endorses this idea. The weak players are told they just have to work hard to advance upward so they can live in good conditions, as if the truth of that situation wouldn’t lead to the lack of those good conditions making it impossible to advance. Hmmm…I wonder what this reminds you of?
Just keep pulling on those cleat laces, I guess—just like one of the best strikers in the world who rose out of poverty just by working really hard at soccer!
I don’t even buy the yaoibait team camaraderie it’s trying push so it can masquerade as a sports anime; the blue lock program discourages teamwork by rewarding the players who score the most goals with access to basic rights, and it is making them all work toward the goal of being the singular person to graduate the program with their career still intact because they were better than every other player including all of their previous teammates. I do not buy a friendship formed by encouraging a fellow player to overcome his career ending injury when his motivation for overcoming it is “so I can be better than everyone else.”
I can’t believe in any of these friendships, the inspiring kind where they encourage each other not to give up and celebrate as a team when they win, when this show also includes members of the team double-crossing each other for their own individual goals—which the program encourages because they think soccer is best won when led by a striker who prioritizes his glory over all else. The lunatic running this program explicitly says that one’s individual goals are all that matters, and he as such rewards the teammate that betrayed them. The characters overcome this struggle not by protesting the unfair system, but just by working harder. Then the episode ends with them talking about how awesome it is to live in fear because it makes them stronger.
The blue lock institute aims to breed fear in the hearts of its players—fear of having their lives ruined because they failed at their career—with the man in charge very explicitly saying that their players are failing because they were never taught to associate success with survival, so blue lock is here to reeducate them. And the players proudly say that they are glad they operate under fear because it leads them to success. According to Blue Lock, it is a good thing to live in fear of your own survival because it is the only true motivator to succeed, and that’s terrifying.
Early on in the show, the question is asked: “is it worth it to ruin the lives of 299 athletes just for the sake of one?”
The response?:
“Ruin their lives? Why shouldn’t we? It’s what we need to move forward!”
And that, I think, sums up the inherent flaw that is Blue Lock’s design.
Blue Lock is a highly inaccurate and laughable portrayal of soccer used to push the idea that in this messed up world, one should only think about themself and never care for others, because that's the only way to accomplish your goals, and if you cannot do it then the only explanation is that you did not work hard enough. And living like this is good, because it makes you stronger. The sheer horror of the blue lock program would be perfect for criticizing the individualist mindset, but rather it drives it home as true.
But the reality is that it isn’t true in the slightest. Historically, every time society has operated under this logic, it has failed. The earliest sign of civilization is a healed femur.
The author of Blue Lock not only doesn't know how soccer works, but he doesn't know how the world works either.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Jan 28, 2024
it's an absolute shocker to me that I am the first person to write a review for Danganronpa Kirigiri, and that is because Danganronpa is massively popular, and this should be essential reading for any fan.
DRKG is a competently told series of mysteries focusing on the real star of the show from the first installment in the franchise. If you liked Danganronpa for the murder mysteries, you'll very much enjoy the murder mysteries present here, and if you liked Danganronpa for the characters, you're in luck as well. It does an excellent job expanding on Kyoko's character, explaining more about her family and why she
...
is the way she is. Her relationship to the new POV character, a one Yui Samidare, is both very sweet and exceptionally insightful into her character.
This series also answers the big question of "what happened to her hands" that is never revealed in the main series, and for that alone I would say you should read it.
Seven volumes is a lot, and I do think it could have been shorter, but it is absolutely worth it if you love Danganronpa.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Jan 28, 2024
Free! dominated the sports anime scene when it came out, and reigned supreme for quite awhile before being dethroned by Haikyuu. This show had an absolute chokehold on its fans, garnering obsession even before it was released.
But...why? What about Free! was so captivating? The characters? The yaoibait? Or, perhaps, somehow, the sports?
The answer is I have no idea, because it is one of the most nothingburger shows I have ever watched.
First and foremost, this is a sports story that fails at being a sports story. The narrative of any good team sports story is about a team who wants to win and wants to compete,
...
and in order to do that they all have to come together and learn to work together. You are invested in their sport because they are. You want to see them win because they want to win.
The boys in Free!...don't really care. They're very chill about the entire thing, and even say they don't care about winning. If you don't care, why should I care? At the end, they say "if we win this, we could have a shot at going to nationals!" but I have no reason to hope they win or hope they go to nationals because they don't even care. They care more about their asshole ex-friend.
Right, the characters. Here's the thing: in order for the aforementioned sports narrative to work, you need to focus on the team's dynamic and how it gets better as they support each other, because a team cannot win if they do not work together. As such, the characters and their relationships need a lot of focus.
Free! puts too much focus on the characters and their relationships. In fact, the swimming is hardly even relevant; it's just set dressing for these characters to angst about their old friendship. This show doesn't need to be about swimming. It could be about the goddamn newspaper club for all anyone cares. The swimming is probably just an excuse to get all of these boys shirtless.
Free! does not act like it wants to be a sports anime. It acts like it wants to be a slice of life that is forced to take time away from the hanging out so the characters can do a sport.
But I wouldn't mind so much if the characters and their relationships were rich and well developed. Instead, every single character has about one personality trait (chill, moody, cheerful, comically serious, insecure dickbag) and the way their personal struggles and relationship troubles is presented is so ridiculously melodramatic. They're acting like their old childhood friend not liking them anymore is the end of the world and it's an incredibly big deal, when literally all they need to do is get over themselves.
And then the singular character with a believable struggle (needing to work to improve and feeling left out because he's a newcomer) sacrifices what he was working for in favor of the violent-when-angry jerkwad who refuses to talk to his old friends for the sole reason of being insecure and owning the inferiority superiority complex. Get over it lol. It's really not that serious.
I don't even get the fanservice because all of the characters are remarkably plain-looking. They're so...normal. Just some guys.
Still, I'm being unfair. The show is competent in the story it's trying to tell, the animation is quite pretty, and it's entirely inoffensive. If you have ever wished that there was a CGDCT anime but about boys, this is the anime for you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
|
