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Jul 8, 2016
♪ these zombies don’t eat braaains,
but they’re still gonna kill us all,
so all board the steam traaain ♬
choo-choo
That’s the general summary for kabaneri or as it was known before release: "attack on titan: trains edition" or as it’s known after release: "Shit: standard edition".
for those of you who followed along with the show on mal throughout its run you may have noticed the steep decline in score after the final episode, though you shouldn’t really be surprised cause it was declining consistently since like episode 3-4 it was just more of a slow decline, if the public opinion on this show was given physical
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form it'd be that of a half built water slide, some twists and curves but eventually going down and just when the pool is in sight the rest of the slide is a straight vertical dive so sudden you smash your whole body in the water and lose consciousness... tortured metaphors aside I think part of the spite people have for this show derives from just how high their hopes were for it at the beginning, the optimistic suckers.
rather than going aspect by aspect let’s just split this review into the Good and the Bad shall we?
the good:
-the animation was pretty good all throughout
-music
that’s about it, and even the animation has to come with an asterisk due to the occasional use of dodgy cg. And of course the music was gonna be good, they had fucking Hiroyuki Sawano AND Aimer, that’s like getting the musical equivalent of a second Christmas with dragons.
if you’re wondering why I didn’t include Egoist above it’s probably because I didn’t really like the OP much, and before you say I’m just some weeby elitist douche with no taste in music I’m only half of that, and I actually really like Egoist, which is why this opening felt so disappointing, I know she can do way better, at least two of the three theme songs for the project Itoh movies are in my phone worn out from replaying them so often. But I guess this is just the best you can get when you force her to work with such lousy material.
Remember how I said this was supposed to be the good section, HA, neither do I.
the bad:
if this series was an adaption everything wrong with it could basically be blamed on the source material.
SO in no particular order here are the issues I had:
-Bad Characterization: the characters are just so...average at best, in episode 2 or 3 glasses-so-i-look- smart, i.e. ikoma tells his "tragic backstory" ignoring the fact that the question he was asked didn’t justify dumping his entire life story out of nowhere his story is generic, cliché and can be told basically through a 3 second animation of his sister getting bitten and him turning around dramatically, And you know what I find most obnoxious about it? the fact that the characters and indeed the writers seem aware of just how cliché it is since the character he talks to predicts this and flat out CALLS it cliché, and yet still are we meant to care?
another bad aspect of the characters is that everyone besides the main cast seem to have about 3 brain cells between them, they yell, make wild accusations and just generally behave like dipshits, its actually funny how they constantly dis and distrust ikoma and mumei and call them kabane when I’d say the kabane are smarter than they are, please explain to me how these supposedly trained soldiers who've lived their entire lives around kabane can’t seem to tell the difference between a gray malformed lumbering creature incapable of dialogue and a regular dude screaming “DONT KILL ME”. at times they even say shit like: "that’s what a kabane would do" or "in the end, she’s just a kabane"
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are you for real you bunch morons?! a kabane is, once again, very clearly visually distinguishable and D-O-E-S-N-T SPEEEEAK, shouldn’t just the fact that they’re telling you to fuck off show that their NOT kabane? I purposefully avoided saying “can't think” because that'd describe 80% of the people in this show pretty well, and at least the kabane can learn sword fighting and boxing, bizarrely.
Let's harp on the characters some more I quite enjoy it, the sheer level of idiocy on display here sometimes borders on self-extinction, honestly these people don’t need the kabane to get wiped out, seems like just five minutes with a sharp object will suffice and I’m not even exaggerating, in one episode one of moss-head's friends pisses of a soldier, and what does that soldier do? he doesn’t let him off with a warning or just arrest him, ya know cause he’s supposed to be an adult and disciplined soldier, no, he literally pulls out his sword and plans to KILL him, and he would’ve done it too if protag didn’t step in, I don’t know who’s dumber, the soldier or the kid who pissed him off cause apparently his plan was to guard against his sword with his bare hands! What’d you think was gonna happen mate? He’d just cut through the fat and get stuck? then you’d have him right where you want him? Mind you this still doesn’t seem as bizarre to me as the fact that he can even be fat when all throughout the show a point is made that food is pretty scarce and you have to ration it.
oh boy I’ve been wailing on the characters for quite a while, and I’m not even DONE. but since I’ve dragged this out long enough I’ll try to summarize the main antagonist as quickly as I can - a huge twat. that should do but if you want a more in-depth description of the scale of his twatiness he’s just so comically evil its obnoxious, if this guy were a video game villain he'd be one of the billionaire morons from the resident evil series who keep investing in zombies and monsters as a brilliant way to take over the world.
-dialogue: mediocre at best, so much so i don’t feel like there’s much to add here really, if that whole "fill belly with rice" line didn’t make your body do a little involuntary “blegh” sound you may want to see your doctor cause apparently your gag reflex stopped working. all its attempts at character's ideologies and philosophies just comes across as generic at best, and just plain bullshit at worst usually whenever stupidly villainous villain guy attempts to justify setting babies on fire and feeding them to their dog, and then him eating that dog.
-kabane: and finally perhaps the most important aspect the show failed at (depending on who you ask) as you may have gathered from the beginning of this review, initially at least, there was quite a comparison drawn between attack on titan and this show, and while many things helped erase that discussion(mostly things like attack on titan not being total shit) the one difference most important between the two is that the titans, while not always, at least at times came across as these truly unnerving, scary fucked up creatures that really helped give a sense of urgency to the show, the kabane on the other hand are basically faster, shoot-in-the-heart-not-the-brain zombies except they’re not even that! cause several times just lobbing their heads off seems to do the trick quite well.
So let’s summarize, at the beginning of this review I said that before its release kabaneri seemed like: "attack on titan: trains edition" but now it can be seen for what it was meant to be and what it ended up being, it was meant to be "Attack on titan-ish: hope you didn’t forget attack on titan exists, here’s something to hold you over till then" and what it ended up being is "Not even really attack on titan-ish: we probably should have just taken the time and effort put into this and released attack on titan sooner huh..." and now that I ranted all over you(and even if you didn’t agree thanks for reading this) i guess I’ll just make like kabaneri and have a shit conclusion, bye.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Feb 5, 2015
The Breaker NW is a Korean manga or manhwa and if you're unlucky like me and read the mal description before finishing the original then you're probably really curious about this one.
well NW isn't over yet at the time of writing but it looks like its heading towards a conclusion and thought id just write some stuff i had to say about it, (ill probably update this once the series is over) so lets jump right in:
Story: when i had only started reading NW i had somewhat mixed feelings about it, the original ended very well in my opinion but at the same time it
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sort of set things up oddly for its successor(if you've finished the original, or once again, unlucky like me and read the description you probably know what I'm talking about), and that's not really a bad thing, it helps gives a sense that NW has its on structure as a complete series rather than being built entirely around the original and just being a continuation of it. and while that's all good it does give the series a sense of slow progression, don't get me wrong there's always action and the plot constantly moves forward its just that the plot device that was set up by the original makes it feel slow, but maybe that's just me. other than that though the story is great, the series does a great job(NW and its predecessor) of creating a world and you really feel like the murim are on one hand people but on the other hand this different race who have their own rules and code and are an entire society built in parallel with regular society with constant struggles and conflicts to maintain what is clearly a fine and delicate balance between the two. there are also plenty of clans and styles of martial arts that help expand the murim world even more and keep you at the edge of your sit wondering what the next move will be. i will say this though, and you cant take this as a good or bad thing but NW seems to often depend on not "suspension of disbelief" but rather "suspension of belief" in which no matter how many times a character does something insane of extraordinary the others just cant seem to accept it and are shocked anew each time, I personally liked this, the series knew how to make it work and did a good job setting the intervals between each time this happened.(oh and p.s the main character went through so much shit that he has transcended just zombie or badass)
characters: OK this is one aspect in which i had to debate with myself a bit, again, when i had only started reading NW i had mixed feelings, one of the reasons for this is the new characters introduced, most of the main cast has been replaced and i didn't know how to feel about the new characters, with some feeling like they were recycled or copies of characters from the original and some just feeling like the show had gotten a little bit lost in fan service, don't get me wrong I'm not opposed to strong female characters but i don't think that the panty shots were necessary, but luckily for me NW eventually set me at ease and the characters grew on me after developing beyond their first impressions and i while never felt there was much back story in the series that didn't stop me from liking them, on the contrary, that means i liked the characters based solely on their actions and personality during the present events(which is harder to pull of than it sounds and there are show that just try to give the characters a tragic past rather than making him interesting during the events).
art: OK this one should be a no-brainer, NW continues the original manhwa's tradition of having amazing art that's very detailed, but most importantly turns the fight scenes from something in between the plot into the main course and does a great job of setting the tone of the situation and expressing the characters emotions. I really have nothing more to say about it, its absolutely spectacular and i think you need to see it to believe.
so final thoughts: in case you haven't noticed i went through 189 chapters of NW in just 3-4 days and why is that? because 'The Breaker: New Waves' is awesome, its thrilling, its exciting and you don't really need all these details when it can be summed up in one sentence: the more i read, the more i want. and so with that i can honestly say there isn't a person i wouldn't recommend this series to(the same applies to the original, obviously) and regardless of how it concludes it is definitely worth reading.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Dec 8, 2014
okay lets make this perfectly clear right away, i don't think trinity seven is bad, not at all, its without a doubt the best harem manga/anime Ive ever seen, its just that its still not that good. i think the problem is with the central premise(this is about harems in general), its possible for more than one girl to like a guy, but for seven of them?! alright even so i guess someone has to be that likable, but for all of them to be okay with him also being with someone else? hell no, and for him to be as boring as harem protagonists
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usually are?! bull-hell has frozen over-shit. you see the 2 main problem with making/writing a harem anime/manga is that its an essentially unrealistic situation, so the girls cant be too realistic or developed, and since he already has dozens of girls all over him, the protagonist is usually a shy, awkward social reject type, so as not to completely alienate the audience(which lets face it, is men, oh sorry my bad i meant boys/horny teenagers with high tolerance for bullshit). and as such you end up with a show with no likable characters or development or plot.
and now we have trinity seven, a harem that actually tries to have those things...
well lets how that goes...
first of all the plot is nothing too great, its not bad and at least tries to have its own identity creating a world of magic and alchemy that to me at least had some original ideas, however original doesn't necessarily mean 'good', the ideas themselves have some potential and are mentioned frequently but i never reaaally understood how magic worked, nor did i ever feel bothered by that, if i didn't understand its not because it was too difficult, the series just didn't establish it that well and i never felt inclined to go back and read it again, and even though i didn't it didn't seem to mess with the rest of the show too much, you can either take this as a good this or a bad thing, it could either mean that the writer didn't want to bombard us with too many details when we probably weren't gonna pay attention anyway, or that he just established a bunch of stuff and then just forgot, but overall it was okay, it was never too boring and did a pretty good job of making me wanna read the next chapter, while there were more chapters anyway, but now that I'm back to monthly release i realize that a lot of it had to do with something i call 'short burst effect' - when you binge a show and think its great, but then when you're finished and have to wait you realize its flaws.
the characters - now this is the part i feel the readers of this review who already read the manga would disagree(you know who you are, and that's okay i ego-read reviews of shows i already have an opinion on sometimes too) and that's probably because i don't think the main protagonist is that great, hes probably the best harem lead Ive ever seen, but once again, that doesn't mean hes that good. hes good by harem standards but in general I'd say hes pretty generic. the female characters, what about 'em? they have feelings for guy do you really need to know much more? well too bad! I'm joking of course, once again the series tries its best to have more diverse characters and development, but come on, its a harem for fucks sake! even the best development wont be that great cause still all leads to the same thing. there are quite a few of the girls who are more opened about their feelings and it was a breath of fresh air at first, but the ways its conveyed and the characters behavior by the end just came off as repetitive. nonetheless i don't really dislike any of them, I'm either neutral or a bit inclined but no more.
finally the art is nothing too spectacular, it gets the job done, i have some qualms but with art its more a matter of taste so you should probably just Google image search it and see if its your style or not, but if you're lazy than there isn't anything offensive or bad about the art style and i kinda liked it at times.
so let wrap up, kinda generic, some intrigue, some different characters from the usual, some laughs, some action, no drama but you don't really need it, and as a whole - i probably wouldn't recommend it, BUT - if harem is your thing, or you wanna watch at least one, or you can get over the flaws then trinity seven is still by far the best harem i can think of - and i would recommend it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 1, 2014
Nanatsu no Taizai is one of the more recent manga I’ve read, and i must say, when i first saw the trailer for the anime (which i saw before reading the manga) i was skeptical, it didn’t look too good, something about the faces i think... but after giving the anime a shot i liked it, and then i started reading the manga and i loved it.
The story:
let’s skip the mandatory plot synopsis, and jump right in. the first thing i liked about the plot was the main characters’ situation, how they are considered traitors and are constantly moving forward, it helps keep the pacing
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up and the story progress since they are always chased by somebody else, but also at the same time they have their own agenda and goals, so it’s not like they’re just being pulled along through the plot but are actively moving it forward. Another thing i like is the setting, its set in a fictional kingdom (though based on a real one) in a medieval period and it has couple of pretty imaginative locations. But the plot isn't perfect, obviously. it suffers from something i don’t think I’ve seen in a while and that’s 'deus machina because i said so' syndrome, sometimes i had no clue why certain things happened and while it does feel a bit contrived it was never a too bad as to make me want to stop and I’ll now explain why: in a different review i mentioned something i called short burst effect - in which you start a new series and you binge read it, and when you can’t binge anymore cause you reached the last chapter and have to wait now, if a series is still good after you've had time to calm down and read something else, is the true mark of a good running manga - and Nanatsu no Taizai is just that. No matter how many plot holes there were i never got mad at it, cause Nanatsu no Taizai doesn’t try to sell itself as anything other than fun, and fun it is. i became immersed is what I’m trying to say, i liked the characters, the fight scenes, the general plot and how it progressed. that’s the main reason i gave it such a high score because despite its fuck ups, if a series can immerse and make you care about it, you can forgive it, it’s like a good friend - they may not be perfect and have their flaws but if you like hanging out with them you forget about that stuff, so to conclude this drawn out section - Nanatsu no Taizai, despite its flaws, became like a good friend for me because it’s fun.
The characters:
The thing i like most about the characters is, and i don’t think I’ve seen this very often, i found something i like about every one of the main cast - the sins and even the plot princess Elizabeth. while the sins are in their own right...how to put this?...ridiculously OP (over-powered if your dense) but despite this they don’t come off as invincible and while each one individually could beat almost any other character one on one, the sins are traitors (duh!) and are bombarded by strong enemies in large numbers and that gives a sense of threat, making the characters a bit more vulnerable and real (as real as they can be for OP badasses). Another thing i really like is the sins...well, sins. Each member of the seven deadly isn’t a representation of their sin, they are merely given a sin based on the nature of their crime. For example, while a character may be the sin of wrath he isn’t some hot-headed spiky haired dipshit, it’s just that the crime he committed he committed out of wrath and may he himself usually be very calm, as one would be if they were as powerful as him. while we haven’t seen all of them yet the series shows the characters history, showing us what their sin is and how it connects to the plot, which i really like, we haven’t seen many of the sins backstory yet, but i found myself caring much more for the characters that did have their backstory told, which is a pretty amazing feat considering how unrealistic this characters are in terms of ability, and sometimes personality. The characters all have great chemistry and just seeing the relationship and dynamics between two characters can be hilarious and also very interesting.
The art:
there’s not much i have to say about the art itself, its pretty good. as i said, when i first saw the characters in the anime pv i didn’t like it too much, but it grew me and then i was able to appreciate it, since although some characters designs aren’t really to my tastes, generally everything is well drawn and professional. the thing i find most likable about the art is just how much fun its feels the artist had drawing it, especially during the fight scenes, which are way over the top, but since they still have a sense of scale and the characters still struggle against strong opponents a lot of the crazy moves or attacks still have impact.
Some more stuff:
this didn’t really fit into any category but i still wanted to say it, the thing that i think i love most about Nanatsu no Taizai is although it’s not trying to be anything more than just fun, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t try at all, i get a sense that the author really cares about his work and that’s what make it really great for me.
So to conclude:
Nanatsu no Taizai is fun, and by not trying to be more than that and making itself really fun it ends up being more than that, and so i wholeheartedly recommend Nanatsu no Taizai.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Nov 30, 2014
a short intro - this is my first review, i didn’t choose akame ga kill because it's what i wanted to review most, but because it was something i felt i could review. In general I’m going to be more critical of the manga in this review because i feel that are plenty of reviews that can point out the positive aspects, but let me preface this by saying that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if you already read the manga and disagree that’s fine, but if you haven’t and are still on the fence about reading then i suggest you take
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what i say into consideration when deciding. Or not. Whatever. So let’s dive in:
Story:
The story in akame ga kill is rather straight-forward, the empire, which for some reason goes unnamed is plagued with corruption because of the prime minister who controls the empire through the emperor - who is a child, for some reason… but you don’t really need a summary MAL already has one, I’m just here to point out some things that bothered me that would, at least for me, deduct quite a few points. The plot can best be summarized as this: there are bad people, night raid kill them so a revolution can eventually happen. the general plot of akame ga kill isn’t really the main focus, since, speaking as someone who read the first 51 chapters of the manga and then continued to read it monthly, i can’t really remember much about the plot other than night raid having to kill someone because their shit. one thing i notice frequently in manga, this one including, is something i call ‘short burst effect’ - it's when you start reading a new manga that already has quite a few chapters out, and you get psyched, you feel something, i don’t if its dopamine or whatever, the point is the series seems great, you can’t wait to read the next chapter and you can because its already out and you give it an 8 or a 9, however, once you finish reading and are left with weekly/monthly releases you have more time to calm down, read something else, think harder about what you read, and that’s when the flaws you didn’t notice because you were so psyched - rise up, and whether or not you still want to read it after that short burst period, when you have to wait weekly/monthly is what ultimately to me decides whether any running manga is really good. Unfortunately, after reading 51 chapters and having to wait a month for the next chapter i found something lacking, and after a few months i notice a lot more flaws with this series now than before, most of which are in the characters.
The characters:
As i said, akame ga kill's main plot isn’t exactly revolutionary, so that means it should have really good character, right? Well, not exactly, the characters are by no means bad, they’re quite varied personality wise, and there were a few that i quite liked, however a while before I started this review i looked back at the characters and realized something odd, there didn’t seem to be a single characters who couldn't be summarized in two sentences, maybe three at best. and that’s the third biggest problem i have with the characters, they’re not nearly as fleshed out as they appear to be, with most characters getting a couple of pages in a chapter about their past, which doesn’t necessarily have to be a deal breaker, but when your show is pretty much nothing but murders, you got to try harder than that to make them sympathetic or likeable. the second problem i have with some of the characters, and not only the main ones, is a lack of motivation, yes there are characters with genuine motivation behind their actions, but it seems to me that the series relies too often on the 'crazy' card - why does a character do this? Because their crazy, or just cause, why does this character like to murder or torture - because that’s how they were born and that would be fine if it was only one or two but quite a few seem to have no motivation to be an asshole other than they were born an asshole(you got to wonder what incestuous gene pool all these characters are coming from).
I get that one of the main themes is corruption, but corruption isn’t some bizarre disease or plague, its people, and without proper reasoning behind it it just doesn’t seem to make much sense. and lastly, my biggest problem with the characters, and the show as a whole is main character death, yes if you didn’t know yet akame ga kill is known for killing main characters, and i don’t have a problem with that, on the contrary, if done properly it can lead to some real heartfelt moments, and some might argue that there are, but for me this problem corresponds with the first two problems, the characters aren’t nearly as developed as they seem to be, and as a result i just didn’t really care whenever someone died, because they died before they got any proper development and the other characters seemed to shrug it off in 2 chapters, sure it was still there, but there was no change in the characters overall, and they only seemed to remember they care whenever the plot brings it up, I’m not saying they have to be emo or something, but they should at least be a bit more serious or something, the characters all together seem to behave the same all throughout the series, and their behavior initially feels incongruous with the setting, its odd to me that this people can joke around and be generally normal people among themselves, but then suddenly cut people in half without flinching or caring.
The art:
It’s pretty good i guess.......
Oh fine, akame ga kill's art IS pretty good and i generally like it, but, and this is probably the least important point here, the art to me doesn’t match the tone the series tries to set, it tries to be dark and gory at times but the art is just so polished and precise that it just falls flat.
In conclusion:
Despite its flaws i find myself in a position of being on akame ga kill's side because it might not be the best, or even as good as other hail to be its a step in the right direction, because i get the sense that it’s at least trying to be more about the characters and dark themes like what is justice? and killing for the sake of justice, now if only it could implement them well that'd be great, but if you’re looking for a fun series to read all at once and not think about too much you can certainly do much worse than akame ga kill.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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