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Story: 9.5/10. AoT's story is one of the most intricate and well told in not only the manga/anime medium, but in many fantasy stories as a whole. The level of plotting is so layered; while seemingly hollow at the start, you learn as you go that everything is intentional, from the world to the characters to the sequence of events.

Unfortunately, while I feel the ending will be controversial, it is one that gets better on reread/rethink due to its open-endedness. There are very interesting philosophical elements at work, and once that's acknowledged, it's very interesting to re-assess the story and characters from that lens to ... get a new point of view on the themes of this story. And at its core, I think as AoT went on, it became an incredibly strong thematic work.

I did wish for some more things to be answered, and the story did feel a tad bit rushed towards the end, but overall it is an incredibly tightly-knit story, and even at its worst it is good, especially in this medium.

Art: 8/10. Starts out ok but is very inconsistent. Ranges from realistic anatomical drawings to almost chicken scratch. By the second half, the art has improved drastically, and by the end, it is definitely a top tier manga in terms of art style.

Character: 8/10. This is another element of AoT that gets better as you progress. Characters admittedly start out rather one note and hollow. There are lot of deaths and sometimes it feels a character is just introduced to die, although even those characters are given at least some care, personality and history to formulate some sort of small attachment.

Where AoT shines is in its second half. Characters, both main and apparently side, become fleshed out and deconstructed. What starts off as one-dimensional and superficial becomes incredibly layered and thought-provoking, just like the plot and worldbuilding.

While AoT might lack the character diversity of other shounen, it definitely shines in layering most of its key players with depth while creating an overall cast that at the very least makes you invest in their stories.

Enjoyment: 10/10. I started this manga around 2013/2014 after the anime. It's been a long journey and I will miss it. A manga like this, a story like this, comes along perhaps once or twice in a lifetime, and the experience of reading it as it went along, not being able to find out the mysteries immediately, made this one of the most memorable fantasy experiences of my life thus far.

Overall: 9.25/10. AoT is a series that can capture many types of people, whether they are manga/anime fans or not. From its tight plot to its handle on its themes, it is one of the best shounen to be put to page. While I do think the ending was a bit unsatisfying, it possesses elements that are really genius, but unfortunately you will have to work to piece it together before that becomes apparent, and I think it could've been executed a bit better and user-friendly.

But 98-99% of this story is perfect, and the remaining 1-2% ranges from ok great, a rarity in shounen and even most completed works these days that lose steam anywhere from 20-50% of the way through.

In the end, AoT goes down as one of my favorite fantasy stories to date, and will probably keep that spot for a long time.

Story: 10/10. This is one of the best stories in a modern shounen. Season 4 is a testament to this, deftly addressing open plot points and questions we've had for years. It becomes clear everything since the first episode was planned out expertly, an intricately woven tapestry where everything has been intentional and planned out.

This season also masterfully handles the concept of 'show, don't tell', which tends to be a problem in shounen anime. Complicated plot developments, exposition, and character development are conveyed fluidly and naturally through on-screen interactions and dialogue.

And above and beyond the tight plotting and narrative is the natural introduction of ... themes of warfare, nationalism and the dangers of indoctrination. This season operates as both an incredibly entertaining piece of shounen and also an interesting delve into the dangers present in fixed mindsets of adversity and hatred.

I think it'll be a long time before another anime like AoT hits that can nail so many aspects of good storytelling.

Art: 8/10. Due to COVID and the shorter preparation time for this season, the animation and art did tend to suffer at times. The most infamous criticism is the use of CGI.

Overall, I did not mind the use of CGI. Granted, I do prefer mostly 2d unless the CGI is hands-down incredible (like in Beastars or any Ufotable work). The CGI here is usually great, but it does stick out at times. For me, this didn't really detract from the show, as the direction was top tier. And in terms of CGI, it is definitely better than 99% of most anime CGI.

Other than that, one small criticism I do have is towards the latter half, particularly with dialogue scenes, sometimes the art quality suffered a bit. I expect this is due to the crazy production schedule + understanding that this will be fixed in the Bluray edition.

Sound: 9/10. A phenomental soundtrack all around. The only criticism here is the tendency to overuse the trailer music at times, but given the trailer music is so good, it's not that big a deal.

Character: 10/10. One of my criticisms of earlier AoT seasons is that the characters felt flat and rather one dimensional. From Season 3 onward, this problem has been addressed and continually improved on. S4 is no exception, fleshing out characters incredibly in a short period of time.

This is hands down the best season in terms of characterization. We get new takes on established characters, some great deconstructions on 'hero vs villain', etc. In the context of the epic scale plot, the characters have their own set of intricacies and roles to play.

Enjoyment: 10/10. Anime of the Year for me hands down.

Overall: 10/10. I believe after Season 3 it was clear AoT is not 'just another shounen', but AoT Season 4 truly cements it as something special. We see with this season the truth of everything behind AoT; the masterful narrative, the intricate themes, and the interesting character studies. AoT has only gotten better over time, and I think S4 is definitely a peak for the series in terms of narrative, character and thematic impact.

Homunculus presents interesting ideas and concepts, but does not follow through with them well. It has sparks of brilliance among the drudging dullness of the story, and does present a rather great ending, but I fear the only thing I'll remember from this manga is how insane it is people drill holes into their skull (and yes, this is real).

Any broader message or themes the author was trying to hammer in are diluted by the silly abstractions and absurdities and the meandering story. The incredible artwork is hampered by mediocre paneling and composition that clutters and obfuscates the scene too much at times. Characters ... range from forgettable to somewhat interesting, and while this is intentional, the characters who do get attention never break much ground into what I'd call 'good' character writing, besides the main protagonist.


Story: 6/10.

Art, Composition: 10/10, 6/10

Character: 7/10

Enjoyment: 7/10

Overall: 6.5/10

Whether you consider TPN Season 2 by itself, or as a reflection of the manga, I believe it's a failure either way.

To give it the benefit of the doubt, I'll consider it as a standalone entity for now, but I do think it's important to consider what exactly it's doing with the manga material (I'll get to that towards the end).

Story: 5/10. TPN Season 2 is all over the place in terms of pacing and progression. Timeskips are utilized without shame, glossing over much-neeeded world and character development to just deliver us the barebones 'big events' that happen. This feels less like an anime ... story and more like a recap of an anime.

The story is also rather...boring. Season 1 had a core conflict from the start, with a clear progression full of twists and turns to a resolution. It developed the characters quite well, was engaging start to finish, and had a wonderful resolution.

Season 2 is like a very boring journey that feels more like an obligation than an adventure. There is no sense of tension, wonder or progression to any set goal. The worldbuilding is lacking, the only form of it being a few demons chasing kids and characters scavenging for good. The anime could've taken the time here to explore the demon hierarchy, perhaps more about the world of demons vs humans, etc. Yet, it meanders way too much without having anything at its core.

Art: 8/10. Not much to say here, it's pretty decent artwork.

Sound: 7/10. Soundtrack is alright, maybe a bit of a step down from Season 1, but still fine.

Character: 5/10. Characters in this season are incredibly flanderized or just pushed to the side. They're not necessarily bad, but they aren't great or even good either. Perhaps this is an inherent problem with having a larger cast (whereas the first season focused more on a handful of characters), but even in the case of our mains like Emma and Ray, they feel very lackluster. There is little to no development or conflict provided to them, and even when the potential of a dangerous situation comes up, it's resolved just as easily. These characters aren't faced with anything that makes them grow or struggle, since everything they need is handed to them quite easily for the sake of the plot.

Enjoyment: 4/10. Not much to say here. There were some ok moments, but overall it felt like a lackluster experience.

Overall: 5/10. I wrote this review from the lens of an anime-only (as best as I could), but now I want to just say a few words by considering this series in the context of the manga.

It is clear the anime is not trying to be 'different' or tell 'a different story'. It is just speedrunning the manga as fast as it can to the end, skipping entire arcs and adding original content just to tie up loose ends (and not even in a good way). I wouldn't be surprised if this is the final season of TPN, and that the author and studio want to go their separate ways and work on other things.

I would have more respect for the anime if it tried to atleast do something new, but I believe the end result will not please either anime-only or manga fans of TPN. Manga fans will be upset that so much was cut out, and in the end, I believe anime-onlies will be upset at what is clearly a rushed adaptation with pacing problems and no depth.


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UPDATE: Turns out I was right about this Anime being a speedrun. Now that it's finished, I'm updating my score:

Story: 5/10 -> 2/10
Art: 8/10 -> 6/10
Sound: 7/10
Character: 5/10 -> 2/10
Enjoyment: 4/10 -> 1/10
Overall: 5/10 -> 2/10

Story: 6/10. Nothing special. Very fun in the moment but forgettable after a few days. The worldbuilding has the breadth of an ocean but the depth of a puddle.

HOWEVER, it is extremely fun. The creativity is up there with some of the best shounen. Even if a lot of it is superficial and just arc-specific fun, I appreciate the creative aspects and the adventure. It captures a charm few shounen can.

Art: 8/10. Decent, nothing amazing.

Character: 6/10. Honestly a weak point of the series. There isn't much diversity or complexity to the characters, but their interactions and goals can be interesting.

Enjoyment: 8/10. A fun read. ... Great to sit back and relax to.

Overall: 7/10. A flawed but decent series.

Honestly I think Kingdom so far can be split into two parts:

Part 1: Everything before the Invasion of Zhao
Part 2: Everything after

I like both, but 1 in my opinion is extremely better and has a 'masterpiece' status for me. After that, Kingdom is still decent but starts to stumble a bit in overuse of tropes, some questionable decisions, and pacing.



Story: 10/10 -> 9/10.
...
Art: 9/10 -> 10/10. Art is incredible and only gets better.

Character: 9/10 -> 8/10. The characters for Kingdom aren't necessarily the most deep or complex, but they are intriguing, entertaining and you'll find yourself rooting for them. There are incredible standouts as well. However, as time goes on, the cast becomes very bloated, and it becomes hard to recognize or care for new additions; also, the older additions tend to stagnate more, having their development at the beginning then staying the same for hundreds of chapters.

Enjoyment: 10/10 -> 8.5/10. I ploughed through around (I think) 450 or so chapters of Kingdom in like a week. Some of the arcs are my top in manga. The Zhao Invasion arc is when I felt the pacing slow down, a lot of weird plot decisions were made, etc. It's still a decent arc, but has a lot of hiccups. And after that I feel wary of Kingdom's future, and whether it will ever reach the heights of some of its best arcs.

Overall: 9/10. A top tier manga. After 600+ chapters it still manages to captivate me with its battles, worldbuilding and developments.

Story: 5/10. So far, there is little in the way of an actual narrative besides the fights. There's been implications, build up, some set up of certain things, but it's hard to tell where all of this is going or leading to. Sometimes the series just throws random new developments at your face, and episodes later still hasn't explained them, so you're left wondering wtf is going on.

While it can be interesting and good for pacing, hopefully the series will deliver on all of this rather than just keep blowing through itself full speed. The first 2 or so episodes were good at both ... giving consistent quality fights and developing the characters well, but the recent episodes (4 especially) were honestly garbage. 5 has been a return to form in some ways, but seems to also exacerbate problems like the power scaling.

Art: 10/10. Great looking show with amazing fights and choreography.

Sound: 7/10. Decent enough, gets you pumped but not a lot of memorable tracks.

Character: 6/10. Ok so far, will need to see how they develop. As mentioned already, it feels like empty promises right now and a hint of something better to come. The characters right now range from forgettable to going in a good direction and might be interesting later on.

Enjoyment: 7/10. It's a fun series to watch, I look forward to it every Monday.

Overall: 6/10. Barely decent, does things well like the fights, and handles the pacing well enough except for Episode 4 which was a catastrophe and should've just been skipped (funnily enough that episode alone brought the user score down from like 8.2 to 7.9, that says enough about how bad it was). Has potential to be a good 7 or even 8/10 if it can develop its characters, start making use of its world and actually for once explain its power system. As it is now though, the only thing propelling this series to above mediocre is the awesome animation and art style, fresh pacing that doesn't bog itself down too much and the potential the series has for more.


EDIT: After a few more episodes, I am revising my rating:

Story: 5/10 -> 4/10
Art: 10/10 -> 9/10.
Sound: 7/10 -> 6/10
Character: 6/10 -> 3/10
Enjoyment: 7/10 -> 5/10
Overall: 6/10 -> 4/10

Series definitely is below average for me, as this deep in we have a very lazy cast of characters with little depth, the plot is mushed together and severely lacking, episode 4 was a pace killer and I'm baffled as to why it was an episode, the power system is nonsensical and will probably lead to egregious power creep with no reason, etc. It's a good series to watch if you want to just have eye-candy, even then though I'd say there are better series out there with phenomenal art AND actual plot and memorable characters.

Edit 2: Now that the anime is ending, I am revising my rating ONCE AGAIN.

Story: 4/10 -> 3/10. Nonsensical and pure drivel. No sense of pacing, building tension or atmosphere, or adhering to premises.
Art: 9/10 -> 9/10. No change there.
Sound: 6/10 -> 5/10. Overall forgettable soundtrack.
Character: 3/10 -> 2/10. Purely nonsensical, one dimensional characters.
Enjoyment: 5/10 -> 3/10. Started out great, became a pain to watch near the end.
Overall: 4/10 -> 3/10. Good for some occasionally hype fights, but pretty bad if you expect any ounce of depth or writing quality outside of eye-candy fights.

Seriously I read this two times to try and understand why people hail this as Uzumaki's best work. Can't see it.

Story: 4/10. Starts out really good. Atmosphere is set up, the tension is palpable, and the threat feels really real. The first third of this manga is amazing in this regard. After that, it falls off to goofy and comical levels and all tension is just obliterated. Was never scared reading this manga past the midpoint.

Story: 7/10. Decent when it needs to be, otherwise pretty plain and static.

Character: 5/10. Majorly forgettable.

Enjoyment: 4/10. Would be way higher if we just consider the first ... third of this series, when things were actually being built well, but considering the goofy comedy this thing became, was sorely disappointed.

Overall: 4/10. Itou should stick to short stories, I think the problem with this manga is he couldn't keep the suspense and creepy-factor maintained for such a long run, compared to a 1 or 2 chapter story.

Honestly this manga is one of the most overhyped things for little reason. I'm pretty perplexed.

Story: 4/10. There really is none, at least none of substantial note. 99% of the 'story' is just fights after fights. The fights are very hit or miss so far, I'd say right now the series is 2-2 (good-bad), possibly 2-3 since this current fight is extremely uninteresting and plain.

The fights themselves try to balance certain themes and character moments, but the funny thing is a lot of these break down if you think about it for just a second or two, and you're just left with a ... string of nonsensical, incoherent arguments made by the characters.

For a battle royale series, moreover, the series relies a lot on gaps in logic, nonsensical power scaling and strategies that make no sense in the context of the series. There are also narrative points and set up that are just never explained at all, I will avoid spelling them out since this is spoiler free, but some of the foundational elements of the battle royale are just handwaved away.


Art: 10/10. Excellent artwork, although sometimes it's hard to tell whats going on in some panels. But seriously, the artist is incredibly talented, and is able to invoke a sense of realism to the characters.

Character: 7/10. The author tries to flesh out each individual fighter, whether god or human. The quality of these backstories range from absolutely mundane and cliche to really interesting and well done. I actually enjoyed a good amount of them, but only one character had a backstory and was personified in a way I'd consider superb. If the writing for this character was injected in all the other characters, easily a 9 or 10/10 here, but nope.

Enjoyment: 7/10. Despite the asspulls, flaws, lack of logic in the worldbuilding/overall narrative cohesion/some of the fights, I can turn my brain off for a bit and enjoy the series as a battle royale.

Overall: 6/10. A slightly above average battle royal, mainly due to the incredible artwork and some interesting fight situations. However, a ton of flaws hold it back from reaching what could be an 8/10 series.

Imawa no Kuni no Alice has an interesting trajectory as it goes through its run. It starts out purely with the thrills of the deathgame. There's a ton of hype, tension and strategy, gore and nail-biting atmosphere, etc.

By the last 10 chapters though, the series is almost purely philosophical. The games, or rather the strategy behind them, are no longer the key focus or even in the forefront, it's purely a battle of ideals, at times the author (most likely) using the characters and their situations as ways to convey his thoughts on the past/present/future and societal issues as a whole.

I believe the ... series achieves the perfect blend of both somewhere in the middle to the beginning of the end of its run. I would say one of the arcs within that perfectly encapsulates the essence of the manga: the strategy, the tension, the memorable characters, and the philosophy behind it all. Before and after, the arcs can be hit or miss, but all are well written and interesting.


The main core of the series though is the complex games and characters involved in them. Both are stellar. There are tons of memorable, unique characters, since it's a deathgame there will be tons of throwaways to set up tension, but the minor and major characters all have personality, intrigue, backstories and moreover aren't just idiots.


The situations/games and the strategies therein were so diverse and fun to read, and the unique characters kept me for the ride. The complexity and quality of the games vary but the more simplistic, non-memorable ones (in terms of technical aspects like the setting/strategy/situation) are mostly towards the beginning, the great ones are in the middle and near the end. These latter games forego much plot armor, and the strategies some of these characters come up with are insane.

The best part is almost 99% of these strategies are logical and not just written with the characters knowing things they shouldn't or bad writing, a major plus for a deathgame manga.

Overall, 9/10. A stellar manga.