- Last OnlineDec 26, 2020 7:49 PM
- GenderMale
- LocationMichigan
- JoinedJun 25, 2017
RSS Feeds
|
![]()
Sep 28, 2020
-[Context]-
Summer 2020 has been loaded with long-awaited sequels, some ecchi trash, and a show called "The God of High School" that is most certainly being overhyped (pending verification). That being said, there's a lot for me to watch in these coming weeks. A few days ago, I decided that the first show on the chopping block would be Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai. The last three anime I'd watched were Kenpuu Denki Berzerk, Shigofumi, and SukaSuka; all of which are emotionally heavy dramas with strong emphases on character. Needless to say, I needed a break. This show was the perfect weightless snack that I needed to cleanse
...
my palate. However, as I'd kind of expected from the start, this show was not for me.
-[I do not like slice-of-life*]-
I do not like slice-of-life*. The asterisk is there for a reason. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but in general, I don't watch slice-of-life anime. Slice-of-life anime achieve nothing but taking a unnecessarily large slice out of your actual life. It's the type of shit you watch if you receive nutrients from a feeding tube. Utterly braindead, pointless, repetitive garbage. I astounded that people with jobs, family, and friends would take the time to watch this show.
-[The Ratio]-
Do you have a friend who simply cannot let go of an old joke? Isn't it tedious to listen to them parrot it to no end? Maybe the joke wasn't bad at first, but it lacked the longevity to merit repetition. Still, though the friend believes that repeating the joke will produce the same response. Yadda yadda. You get the point. I'm obviously alluding to the biggest mistake I've seen in slice-of-life anime which, in part, leads to their abject tedium. They're so goddamned repetitive.
How long exactly can one carry a joke? Well, it sort of depends on the format. Through something like a comic strip, you could reasonably carry on a joke- well- forever. You see, comic strips are a very low-investment type of media. If someone opens the weekly newspaper and reads an 8-panel comic strip, that process takes maybe a minute to complete. Contrast that with someone sitting down and watching a full-length 12-episode anime (with a second season coming by the way), and you begin to see the problem. The repetitious style of comedy does not lend itself to the TV-anime format. Now, I'm not so ignorant as to say that you have to watch these anime in one sitting. Obviously, it's meant to be watched on a weekly basis. Okay, sure. Then we're comparing a 1 minute investment to a 24 minute investment. Now, I'm not too good at math, but spending 24x the amount of time for such little payoff is just not worth it in my opinion.
-[Conclusion]-
Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai is the hot new piece of anime trash that people will watch and rate 10/10 because "Uzaki-Chan is fucking cute!". It isn't horrible, it's just a very poor investment of time. Go ahead and watch this show if you somehow have nothing better to do. I, personally, have a lot on my plate, so I'll pass.
Uzaki-chan is not worth my time. 5/10.
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
![]()
Sep 6, 2020
Berzerk is a very, very slow burn. It took until episode 18 for this anime to prove its worth to me, however, I get it. I can understand why some people would rate a show like this so highly. Still, though, I don't believe that Berzerk (1997) is deserving of a 8.48 rating. Here are my thoughts.
-[Presentation]-
When it comes to anime, aesthetics mean a lot. It's only natural that Berzerk would be subject to this sort of criticism, even given its inherent disadvantage. And so, I must say, Berzerk is wholly underwhelming in terms of presentation. First of all, the animation is a huge letdown.
...
Don't get me wrong. I understand that 1997 technology could not produce animation that could live up to the intensity of Berzerk, however, nonetheless I have to honestly criticize it.
One of the biggest downfalls of this show in the early episodes was the lack of weight behind the characters' words. "His skill... and his strength" are not shown in any meaningful way through the animation. To me, it looks like the young-adult Guts was mindlessly swinging his oversized sword over his head. There was no weight behind the blows. To me, it was tantamount to a kid swinging a giant pool noodle. The choreography was almost nonexistent- it was lame. Luckily, as the show progressed, this problem seemed to disappear. This wasn't necessarily a result of improvement, though. It was mostly just due to the fact that Guts was actually 1-shotting every enemy he came into contact with.
Next up on the chopping block is the sound design. Berzerk, again, is dated. The sound design reflects this fact. It wasn't terrible, in fact, in many cases, I'd say that it mostly met my expectations. The sounds of clashing swords do well to ground the show, even in spite of the animation's shortcomings.
The soundtrack doesn't make many appearances, and when it does, it respectfully rests in the background. There are a few exceptions to this rule, of course. First of all, "Guts" the song is a meme. I try to ignore it, but even in the anime the memability rears its ugly head. Whenever anything remotely emotional or philosophical happens, they play this song, and it really cheapens the moments. It's a good song, but holy god it's overused in the 25 episode runtime. Secondly, the OP. What even happened here? It doesn't suit the anime at all. It's like the F.R.I.E.N.D.S theme song, but with Engrish. Even the lyrics have almost nothing to do with the show. Lastly, as you may have expected, the ED. Another song that has little to do with the show. At least in this case the song did match the overall tone of the Berzerk. With the exception of these three songs, the soundtrack does an okay job at setting the tone of Berzerk. It was okay, but not exceptional.
-[Story]-
Along with the characters, the story is one of Berzerk's greatest strengths. Admittedly, it doesn't stand out until a little past the halfway mark. Until that point, Berzerk is rather tropey and bland. Once this show starts burning, though, it blazes. It's just sad, then that the story gets cut so short. After finally setting all the pieces in place, at the absolute climax of the show, it ends. It's frustrating. It is most certainly worse for the fans who had to wait 19 years to finally see an animated continuation. Compared to that, I guess I lucked out. Regardless of the extreme cliffhanger ending, I do believe that the story showed a lot of potential. I can't wait to watch the 2016 continuation.
-[Characters]-
The characters were far and away the best part of this show. Guts is not complicated. He is the embodiment of perfect simplicity. Griffith, on the other hand, is convoluted even by the end of the show. It's hard to nail down exactly how he feels at any given time. Same with Casca. The side characters showed promise until the end. It is rather disappointing that the ending of the show disallowed for any further insight into their characters, but it is what it is.
-[Conclusion]-
Berzerk was good, but it could have been so much better. I believe that a show with as much potential as this deserves a better adaptation. I'm sure many people, especially the cult following, would agree with that statement. If some of the blatant presentation issues were to be addressed, then I could confidently put Berzerk on the pedestal that so many others have. Until that point, however, I've settled on the kind-of-controversial-but-at-least-it-isn't-a-6-or-less rating of 7/10. Berzerk was pretty good.
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
![]()
Aug 30, 2020
-[Potential]-
Anime, as a medium, has a lot of potential. I recently finished watching Parasyte, an anime that, on the surface, doesn't seem very interesting. The artstyle was unappealing and the titular parasites were almost entirely forgettable. It looked like any other Sci-Fi horror anime, but when I watched it, I realized that it was so much more. Parasyte was daring, unique, and absolutely loaded with subtext (even if that subtext did become a little ham-fisted at times). I really like that show, even if it isn't one of my favorites. It earned my respect by exceeding my expectations. Now, to contrast, In/Spectre was none of
...
the things that I just listed. Kyokou Suiri is wasted potential.
-[Not Daring]-
This show is so by the books that it almost writes itself. Protag-kun and Protag-Chan are very basic stereotypes. Even the side characters are basic beyond belief. There is absolutely nothing that stands out about the cast of this show aside from protag-chan's (rather irrelevant) bodily quirks.
The story is probably what stands out the most about this show. Yes, indeed, the story stands out for sure as a piece of drawn-out garbage. This show would have been much better off as a monster-of-the-week show about two likable problem solvers. Despite this, though, the staff decided that there would only be 3 problems for the entire season, and one of the three problems would take up 75% of the runtime. Now, if you ask me, that's quite daring. It's just too bad that their risk was rewarded with a 75% boring anime.
-[Not Unique]-
This show is basically the incest baby of GOSICK and Noragami. The characters are GOSICK, and the plot is Noragami. 25% GOSICK, 25% Noragami, 50% water. There really isn't a thing that stands out about this show. Not a thing. I really don't have much to say in this regard. How am I supposed to write about nothing? In/Spectre didn't invent supernatural culture, Lolita fashion, or self-insert characters, and that's basically all this show is.
-[No Subtext]-
Okay, so here's the thing. This show doesn't even have any surface-text. There was absolutely no meaning to be found in Kyokou Suiri. I've struggled (for hours now) to find any moral of this story, and come out empty handed. It just feels like this show wasn't about anything. In my mind, this anime was probably created to hype up the source material and introduce the characters to a broader audience. If that's the case, which it likely is, then I guess that it succeeded (which is also sad). Shows like this shouldn't amass an audience as great as this, but they always do, which is dumb. Don't worry, I'm not gonna go on my anti-weeb spiel in this review. I'm already tired of writing about this show.
-[Thoroughly Unimpressive]-
The story, as previously stated, was very poorly put together. This show could have maybe passed as a movie, but definitely not a 12 episode anime. The conflicts were drawn out and completely uninteresting. The romance subplot (if you want to call it that) is basically protag-chan meeting protag-kun, then a 2-year timeskip happens and they end up in a mostly one-sided relationship. During the 4 hours of runtime, none of the characters- not even the main characters- were fleshed out in any meaningful way. This ended up being fine, because as it turns out, they weren't even intended to be characters, just eyecandy meant to promote some shitty manga. 5/10.
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
![]()
Aug 8, 2020
Surprisingly enough, I actually liked BOFURI quite a lot. It's rather pretty, pretty cute, and acutely aware of its purpose in the industry. BOFURI isn't an attempt to reinvent the wheel, not by any means. It's more of a touch-up to the wheel with some spiked rims and such. Considering that this is an SAO-inspired, female-led, slice-of-life comedy, I really was blown away by how much I enjoyed this show.
-[Brutally Funny, Cute, and Brutal]-
BOFURI is adorable. Truthfully, I don't do moe. It just isn't my thing, however, this show was cute, and it had enough substance (at least in the beginning) to keep me watching.
...
Most of the cast is extremely likable, and obviously, they're mostly cute girls. It's a cute show. That being said, though, it's also kind of brutal. Maple, while she's blundering around in the virtual world absolutely cannibalizes enemy mobs and even players. She's metal as hell, if I'm being honest.
-[10/10 Art]-
This show looks great. The artstyle is the modern anime default, which is to say that it looks really good. The scenery in the game is beyond beautiful (they even revel in it in one scene). The character designs are memorable and fitting, at least, until later in the show. The animation, however, was unprecedentedly good. If I'm being honest, frame for frame, this show could whoop a shounen anime's ass in terms of animation. Every frame is handled with a level of care unbefitting an unestablished franchise. It seems like the staff who worked on BOFURI actually cared about the quality of their work, which is a nice change of pace in the industry.
-[Falloff]-
This show started off so well. The first 8 episodes were great, but as BOFURI drew nearer to the end, I knew things were going downhill. For whatever reason, be it staff overwork or time constrains, this show does not maintain its initial level of quality. It's such a shame too. It was going so well until the ball was completely dropped.
I believe the harbingers of this show's downward spiral were the bumbling twin lolis. They were the last characters to join the main cast, and the second that they became establish characters, the show took a nosedive. All at once, the show became nothing but cheap jokes, cheap moe, contrived drama, and naturally, as a faithful SAO successor, surrenderance to the OP MC trope. It really killed my enjoyment of the show. When Maple became a ditsy, indomitable Kirito with every ability under the sun, the show was over. It's just unfortunate, then that there were still 4 episodes left. In the words of Gordon Ramsay, "Damn. What a shame."
-[Regardless...]-
Despite my criticism of the final third of the show, I do believe that BOFURI was a worth-while watch. Before episode 8, I gave this show a 9/10. That's pretty huge for me because, in general, I detest shows like this. Watch it if you will. It's up to you. 7/10.
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
![]()
Aug 7, 2020
BREAKING NEWS: MHA is STILL on a downward spiral, as author is completely lost on ways to further extend his cash-cow series. On-site reporters note "...but it still looks good tho lol."
-[What's in a Shounen? Good Animation and Nothing Else.]-
OH BOY, here we have the second movie installment in a franchise that had already expended its usefulness after its 3rd season. This show, as of season 4, has absolutely nothing left to say. It has returned to the equilibrium state of shounen anime, meaning, it's completely empty.
So what's left of the shambling corpse of MHA? Well, "Da graphix good tho" is a completely valid
...
praise of this show. Despite being dead, even a corpse can put on a show. Really! Watch any LiveLeak video. Crazy stuff. The animation is by far the best aspect of the movie. It looks amazing during fight scenes. During the rest of the movie, though, the animation is on the lower end of average. There's so little effort put into normal scenes that you'd swear that you're watching a powerpoint rather than the product movie of a multi-million dollar franchise. It's seriously lazy. By the way, I don't count adding the stock anime intensity lines as animation. They're literally just putting in a transparent template and zooming. It's goddamned lazy. However, again, I concede that the sakuga was great (when it finally happened).
-[Bad Writing]-
The story was dumb. Despite the fact that class 1-A is the target of 93% of all hero-related hate crimes, the Japanese government somehow thinks that it's a good idea to send these children a million miles away from any backup. Obviously, this was explained in like 5 seconds in the movie as "Well they gotta learn somehow right lol" and glossed over in an instant. After 1-A is separated from the rest of superhero civilization, some random, c-grade, non-recurring villains decide that they want to steal a cell restoration quirk from some kid who lives on some random bumfuck island in the middle of nowhere. Then they do it. That's pretty much it. I mean, nobody was expecting the story to be anything impressive, since this is a selectively-cannon side story of a show who's main narrative already isn't good, so it's whatever.
But how about that writing? It sucks. The choreography is great, but that's it. Characters become ape-brained when they're out of combat. The main antagonist's philosophy is inconsistent and also, rather dumb. Yep, it's a shounen alright.
Finally, I'd like to hone in on a specific piece of writing that comes in near the end of the movie. Get ready for this one, guys. Sit up in your gamer chairs. They actually make a decision that would majorly affect the status-quo of the entire show! That's crazy, right!? Yeah, it is!!! Until they write it out in literally the next goddamned scene. XDDDDDDDD boy I love anime. BY THE WAY EVERYONE, this anime is rated 8.13 out of 10! HAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah, fuck exactly 41,000 people for propping up this garbage.
-[Heroes Rising, Franchise Falling (Everything Else)]-
The OST was (I believe) the same minus one song in the ending fight. The characters are the same generic shitstains as usual. Deku and Bakugo are the only dynamic characters yet again. Unfortunately, that doesn't prevent the writers from somehow believing that anybody wants to see the 1-A side characters do random bullshit. We don't. Writers, believe me, you will never build the side characters up enough to justify their screentime in a 100 minute long movie. Nobody cares about bargain-bin JoJo, Tapeman, or 8-limb-guy. Leave it. And anime viewers, I say to you as well. Leave it. Please, for the love of God, leave it. 6/10.
Let MHA die.
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
![]()
Jul 30, 2020
I just finished Re:watching this show for the third time. Looking back, I'm not sure why I never took the time to put my thoughts on this show into words. Regardless, after 4 years in development, hopefully, this review will have been worth the wait @Aquamirror.
-[For Starters...]-
Re:Zero is a show that I absolutely adore, however, after 4 total viewings, I believe that I'm ready to objectively review this show (at least 99% objectively). I try my best in all of my review to be unbiased, but that's basically impossible, since everyone has tastes and opinions. Nobody is free of this sin. So, to begin with,
...
I'll properly come out and say that I have an unfair bias towards this show. I'll try to keep the fan-splaining to a minimum, but I'm only human, so have mercy.
-[Near-Perfection, but Not Perfection]-
Re:Zero is a masterpiece, and I give it a 10, but it is flawed, if only slightly. Before I cream about how great this show is, I need to address its flaws.
One flaw of this show is the overuse of exposition. Ach! Oy Vey! Yes, as much as it pains me to admit it, this show suffers from the most counter-intuitive flaw for a psychological thriller. It seems that for as much convolution that exists in this show, there's a nearly equal amount of dumb, flow-destroying exposition to go along with it. Many anime have it worse in this regard, but for a show as regularly good as Re:Zero, this problem is far too prevalent.
Random degradations in animation quality also come up at times. This isn't much of a flaw for a casual viewer, but I'm an ELITE mouth-breather. I analyzed every frame in the show and to my dismay, found that, at times, Subaru's irises shift in size and shape, Rem's (and probably Ram's) bangs are lazily shaped when she's out of focus, and finally, the premiere, borderline-tropey anime flaw, characters, at times, completely freeze and/or stare into space, only moving to shift their stare to the current speaker. Now, these are some major nitpicks, and for a show as long as Re:Zero, there was a shocking lack of animation quality drops.
Finally, the ending arc. I'm not sure if it was intended, but this arc feels unbelievably off. Like, how in the fuck did Subaru get past the White Whale on his first try? Shit's insane. I'm just assuming that it's because the writer didn't want to deal with the interaction between Return by Death and the Fog of Erasure, but come on, it just doesn't make sense.
-[Not Perfect, but the Greatest]-
Regardless of its flaws, Re:Zero is by far my favorite isekai anime. I feel like it is the closest thing to perfection that can be achieved given all of the time and money constraints posed by studios. A show like this shouldn't have even been this successful. Think about it, Re:Zero's market is so split by its own nature. It's a pastellic, seemingly generic anime with lolis, maids, and short skirts, but it has an R rating for all the wrong reasons. Despite this inherent contrast, Re:Zero's audience is nearly all-encompassing. Why? Because it's the best, that's why.
The artstyle just works. You wouldn't think the modern anime style would lend itself to a gory horror show, but somehow, it does... at least as much as it can while perma-cucked Japan censors all of the interesting stuff. I mean, we all know that it's censored in post, so maybe one day, it'll meet the same fate as the JoJo cigarette and be freed on a later date.
The characters are great. They're the most memorable to ever come out of anime. Rem is THE waifu that everybody knows. Everyone has heard of the Emilia vs Rem wars, regardless of whether they've seen the show or even watch anime. Subaru even has a car named after him (kek)! On the real, though, they grow in great ways throughout the series, even if it does take some time for the story to get to some of the more important ones.
The world-building is amazing. Despite my previous criticism of Re:Zero's use of exposition, I believe that the world-building in this show was well-done. Some information is spoon-fed to the audience, but there's so much more that isn't explicitly revealed about the world that it still leaves you curious and/or confused about certain facets of the political, geographical, and scientific intricacies of the universe. I was so curious that I actually went ahead and read the novel. I hate reading, so this was a huge deal.
Finally, the story and concept are everything that anime of the time needed. Re:Zero is brutal and brutally honest. The world is basically hell, but even worse, because there's hope. Subaru is a great insert for every weeb, especially when it comes to his flaws. He represents this community so well. Yeah, we'd get our asses beat. Yeah, we'd fancy ourselves to be the protagonists. And yeah, we'd probably have a strong distaste for those who are objectively better than us. If anything was unrealistic about the show, it'd be the fact that it only took 2 cours for a weeb to grow as a person. My life's been going on for about 60 cours now and I'm still a living piece of shit. Ecks dee.
-[In Conclusion]-
After 36 hours of watching the show, it still holds up. I believe that Re:Zero is a great, if not the greatest isekai to have released at this point. Maybe I'm wrong, but if you believe that to be the case, I'd love it if you'd refer me to a better anime. Now that I've finished this show, I have to wait for the 2nd season to finish airing, which'll leave a giant void in me in the meantime. Re:Zero revitalized my love for anime, but betrayed me by ending before my desire. If that isn't a masterpiece, then I don't know what is. 10/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Apr 27, 2020
Your boy just watched his first classic. Old-school weebs now have no basis on which to call me an oblivious newfag retard. Thank god for that.
-[In Summary]-
Akira was pretty good. Aside from the visuals, this anime basically fit my preconceived notions about pre-2000s anime. The show is rough around the edges, but overall, quality enough for people to justify themselves watching and respecting it above all modern pieces of animation. That, and liking vintage things makes you look cooler because old things are more obscure by nature. Anyways, into the organized section of the review.
-[Wait a minute, my eyes AREN'T bleeding?]-
Akira's animation is phenomenal. Let's
...
get that one out of the way. Everything is so fluid that it puts 90% of modern anime to shame. TO BE FAIR, though, modern anime have more appealing and more complex artstyles, which are harder to animate. Since like, 2010, the anime artstyle meta has shifted to a marketable, sharp, and clean design- usually with wonky hair and eye colors. This leads pretty well into my next point:
There obviously was a lot of effort put into Akira- far more than modern anime, which is why a show made over 3 decades ago can compete even today. Most anime boomers seem to value this aspect, since high-effort anime are basically extinct in this climate. For this reason, Akira's animation stands out as proof of pure, respectable, non-corporate art. While 21st century anime are more generally appealing, Akira seems to tickle the fancy of people who truly love and care about animation. There's no need for an anime like Akira to have a protagonist with spiky off-colored hair because it's THAT good. This is not to say that it wouldn't benefit the anime, because it would.
Seeing this movie made me fantasize about what a modern passion-project anime would look like. I think Your Name might fit that bill, but I'm not exactly sold. I think I'll have to rewatch that to be sure.
-[Audio Stuff]-
The OST was good. I liked how sparsely the soundtrack was used in the anime to set the tone. As an inherently visual medium, anime can feel cheapened when music is overused. Other than the OST, though, the voice acting was unremarkable-to-bad, and the sound design was a rather mixed bag. Some sounds came through as clear and realistic, while others (specifically, dogs barking, vehicle noises, and some general collision noises) lacked that overall fidelity. This is obviously a result of the lack-luster recording technology of the time, so it is understandable. Still, though, if I'm to believe that Akira >>>>> every other anime, then I demand perfection on all fronts.
-[I AM CULTURALLY IGNORANT, PLEASE EXCUSE MY CULTURAL IGNORANCE (writing & story)]-
Okay. I did not enjoy the story of this show, nor did I enjoy the writing. I've taken history classes, so I'm well aware that things were not always dai-jou-bu in the world before my generation. Still, though, as someone who has not experienced the fear of wartime, I cannot relate to such themes. Akira is heavily focused on scary things like wide-spread civil unrest, rioting, and government conspiracies. As an American, I can relate to all three of these (at least to a small extent). In my world, it's 2020, a pandemic is going on, and basically nothing in my life has changed except that my favorite 24-hour Wendy's closes at 7:00. I'm sure that to someone born around the 1970s would see the profoundness in Akira that I don't, so I will largely ignore qualms related to the theme of war, as well as general 1980s scientific ignorance, since those aren't the fault of the work, but of the time.
With that disclaimer out of the way, yes, even despite me ignoring two of my grievances, I didn't like Akira's writing. There are so many flaws in this show's writing. The plot is contrived and predictable. Lots of dialogue comes off as cheesy and/or tropey. Character writing is also very lame, with 0/4 main characters being interesting. The character growth in the movie is not done well. One character ends up becoming chaotic-evil because he has a migraine or some shit, which is pretty dumb. Then, there's beef between two characters for some nonsensical reason. Also, the main protagonist of the story has little-to-no situational awareness, which seems to be a part of his character. Incompetent protagonists are okay, but it feels impossible for a character to be so oblivious. As a result, this aspect of his character feels inauthentic. Overall, the character writing was definitely the worst part of this movie, with the rest of the writing being only slightly better.
-[Overall]-
Ayup. That's a classic anime alright. The movie wasn't perfect enough to warrant a great rating. There were a lot of flaws that dragged the score down. If the show was as quality as the animation, then I'd understand this anime's near-universal praise. Unfortunately, though, I don't think that Akira is the pinnacle of anime. It's still pretty good, though. 7/10
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
![]()
Apr 10, 2020
WOW! This season was SHIT.
I usually like this show, but holy fuck this season was bad.
-[25 Episodes of Absolutely Nothing]-
There were two arks covered in this season. One was moderately interesting, the other was complete filler bullshit. Both arks were lame, played-out, and melodramatic. The interesting ark had a neato concept, but the execution was majorly lacking. The other ark was, well, not so interesting. I'll spoil it: it was a cultural festival ark. Maybe a UA festival would be interesting, right? Nah. Unlike season 2's sport festival ark, this one had almost nothing to do with quirks. Instead, this ark is
...
dedicated to a side character who nobody cares about at all. Basically, this was a really fucking slow and boring season. From start to finish, the status quo didn't change at-fucking-all.
-[Sakuga?]-
So, how about that sakuga? Well it was pretty good- for the 4 times it actually happened. The fight scenes in this season weren't bad- they just weren't plentiful in the slightest. The rest of the art, though, was dogshit. Really. This season looked terrible. The animation quality was utter trash. There were very few good-looking scenes in this entire season. Dialogue scenes were horribly generic, with eyes following the sound of a character's voice, and everything else remaining completely motionless. Obviously, the whole budget was spent on the sakuga scenes (as well as hookers for the staff), because single other frame was 3/10 at best.
-[Characters]-
The new characters introduced this season were just okay. One was interesting, and all of the others were pointless. None of the characters will be recurring in the major story, so in reality, even the good character is worthless.
There were like, 4 instances of character growth in this entire 2-cour season, so there isn't a whole lot to talk about in this regard. The growth was mostly believable, if not a little sappy. Honestly, the longer this show goes on, the less of a fuck I give about any character who isn't All Might. Even Midoriya is getting old at this point. He's fucking static and uninteresting. Back when he was growing during the first 2.5 seasons, he was tolerable, but now he just feels like any other shounen protagonist, who only exists to spout out garbage about the power of friendship and shit.
-[Comedic Value]-
The little enjoyment I derived from this season was from watching it with my friends. It was fun to laugh at how terrible this show has become. Other than that, I barely enjoyed anything about this season. It was bad. If I hadn't already read ahead in the manga, I probably would have just dropped the show after the first arc finished.
-[Overall, Plus Ultra]-
My Hero Academia is empty now. After the fall of All Might, this show lost all of its appeal to me. All-dude was such a great character and his dynamic with Deku made the show thoroughly entertaining. Sure, I'm invested in Midoriya's character, but he can't carry a show by himself. He isn't an interesting enough character. In the seasons to come, this show is gonna get fucking dumb, so get ready for it. The author knows how fucked he is at this point, so he's just pulling things out of his ass to drag this show on as long as possible. I just hope the next season looks good, cause if not, I'm out for good.
4/10
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 29, 2020
-[Real-Talk]-
Okay, fess up, fellow reviewers. It's high time you admit that you rated this show poorly just to be a contrarian. There is no way that somebody who watch this show came out the other side with a sub 7/10 review. It's just not possible.
There are a lot of hot takes in the review section of this anime's page. Yes, steamy, smelly, bullshit takes. Listen. Art is subjective to a point. If you don't resonate with a "melodramatic" romance story (you cold unfeeling bastards), then that's fine. You don't have to give it the 10/10 it deserves- you'll just be wrong at the end
...
of the day.
-[Mastapiece]-
Your Lie in April is a fucking masterpiece. It is not up my alley. I like romance, sure, but I couldn't give a fuck less about music/sport anime and that's at least half of what this show is about. Pretentious, interpretive, full-of-shit concert music. That being said, though, I love Your Lie in April. Everything about it is great. It's a borderline-flawless anime. I'll discuss in more detail in each section, but this is basically the TL;DR.
-[Story, Writing, and Characters]-
A lot of people who gave this show a bad score seemed to think that the story was generic. This is not the case. To be clear, the SETUP for the story is generic. Everybody has seen a love triangle. Everybody has seen the childhood friend cliche. However, a story can be much larger than its foundation. A lot of people seem to have missed that fact. Just because you recognized a trope in the first episode doesn't mean that everything after that follows suit.
Another critique shared by our impaired friends is that the writers "tell instead of show" the emotion behind music. "Well yes, but actually no". The anime has professional music critic characters who explain that, yes, emotions can be shown through the sound of an instrument. This, first of all, isn't a bad thing. Anime viewers aren't professional music critics, and this show doesn't have the runtime to allow the viewer compare and contrast different renditions of each performed piece in the anime. OBVIOUSLY. Second, the anime DOES show this (in the first performance of the anime, mind you) by making Kaori's performance is made so drastically different than the others. It's like these people were on autopilot the whole time they were watching the anime.
Finally, the characters. Lots of people seem to hate Kaori, and think that everyone else (other than Kousei) is "pointless" and "half-assed". The Kaori hate is incomprehensible and I don't even know how to address such an odd, misguided point. Kaori is just a conventional exuberant rom-com waifu with little in the way of development flaws. However, hot takes regarding the side characters were flat-out untrue. 3/4 members of Kousei's friend group receive meaningful development, with the only outlier being the Nao girl, who, admittedly, didn't really do anything for the story. Kousei's music acquaintances receive their fair-share of backstory as well as real-time development. I don't understand where anyone was coming from calling these characters either "pointless" or "half-assed". "Half-assed" applies to maybe 1 character, who is a true side character, and basically just a friend-of-friend.
-[All in Agreement? PRESENTATION]-
Thankfully, most reviewers were sentient enough to acknowledge this anime's astounding presentation. The production value of Your Lie in April is unmatched. Really. I can nitpick maybe two things that were off about the visuals. #1, sometimes the animations moved too quickly and made character movements appear janky. #2, the artstyle was odd, but this only served to make the show seem more unique and beautiful. Other than these two things, the visuals for this show are complete gold. I can't even imagine how much it cost to make this show look so good. The word "sakuga" loses its meaning when so many of the frames in the anime are treated with the utmost amount of care. For a 6-year-old show, Your Lie in April still looks brand new.
Needless to say, the sound design was beautiful. The deafness of Kousei's underwater piano was fittingly haunting. The visual representation of this phenomenon made come to life. The voice actors did a superb job on every single character. The OST of this anime was head-and-shoulders, god damn-ass amazing. Obviously, as a show about music, it would be a real catastrophe to be lacking in this department. Luckily, Your Lie in April doesn't lack. The soundtrack is perfection. Pure, unadulterated perfection. Listen, as I said before, I'm not at all interested in music anime. This show, though, may have single-handedly changed that.
The presentation is marvelous.
-[Overview]-
Please, fellow reviewers, have some more self-respect. I get it. Trashing such a popular anime will get you more attention than praising it. This show's already been praised to high-hell- so what's the point in adding onto it? Well, in the long run, integrity will get you farther than being a contrarian. I, personally, won't lie to myself to appease such shallow people whose views are decided by others.
Your Lie in April is amazing. 10's across the board.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Mar 28, 2020
-[You Lose, Bitch!]-
Okay… God damnit. I’ve changed my mind about “The Rising of the Shield Hero”. In my previous review, I was too harsh on the show. While this show is no masterpiece, it is worlds above a 3/10. That rating was hyperbolic and the reviewer was nitpicking and biased (I win, bye bye).
-[Regarding My Previous Assertions]-
First thing’s first: let me address what my previous critiques of this show were. This could serve to clear up the misunderstandings at least by the 19 people who found the review helpful. For conveniences sake, I’ll use the old headers as well, just for some continuity. (also, for
...
the 0 of you who are interested, the old review is on my blog)
So, #1, “[From Subversion to Tropey Trash]”. Okay, yeah, this show does devolve into a very predictable fantasy story. As every anime fan knows, the beginning of “Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari” is amazing. It’s splendid. It’s absolutely superb! Su-bu-ra-shi as my fellow nihons say. Then, towards the middle of the show, a viewer might start to lose interest. Things slow down and all the conflict seems forced. The end of the show was a step up from the middle- but not by much. It wasn’t nearly as good as the beginning, but at least it didn’t feel as contrived as this show at its lowest point. 7/10
#2, “[Not Art]”. Upon first viewing, I thought that this show’s art was dreadful. Actually, this is my bad- sort of. This show wasn’t appalling. Some of the visual effects are pretty good. Character designs are amazingly well done- and some of the animation is a little bit impressive. However, I still believe that this show’s still-shots are lacking majorly. As is the case with most modern anime, faces and eyes do not move in accordance to what is actually happening on screen. Eyes are hardly ever pointing at the right thing, some characters are smiling despite their contrary dialogue, and eyebrows- the oh-so powerful expression-enhancers- are not utilized to their fullest. Overall, the art in my opinion could use some work. 6/10 art.
#3, “[Sound]”. Voice acting was fine. Filo and Melty are still annoying, but that’s because they’re kids- and rather eccentric ones at that. The sound design was above average- with claustrophobic scenes actually sounding claustrophobic as well as enchanting ambient noise being thrown into the more atmospheric scenes. The OST for this anime, though, is pretty bad in my opinion. I like the idea of fantasy strings combined with a bit of bass for impact, but the execution wasn’t there. The strings were way too loud to the point where it was sometimes distracting. Also, the OPs and EDs were sonically unimpressive and I didn’t like them. 6/10 sound.
#4. “[Characters.exe]”. Again, I sort of have to agree with myself. Most of the characters in this show are complete, ham-fisted garbage. I again say, the only good characters are Naofumi, Raphtalia, and Elhart. All of the other ones are absolutely unbearable. In fact, I believe this flaw is the exact reason why I dropped the show at episode 17 last time. In that episode, Filo gets her character arc. Unfortunately, nobody cares about Filo, because she’s just a moe chicken loli. That’s literally all she is. Worsemore is the following episodes, which focus on the rest of the heroes, all of whom are indecisive, back-tracking pieces of shit. This problem persists even into the end of the show. Somehow, these fools can reconcile and go back on it in the same fucking fight and it’s ridiculous. Bitch and Trash are horrible characters with motivations that aren’t fleshed out to a necessary extent. Overall, If I had to rate it, I’d give the characters in this show a 6/10. The main duo and Elhart aren’t good enough to justify a 7/10 because the rest of the cast is just too heavy.
-[In “the now”]-
That’s pretty much everything I had addressed in my previous review. Now, though, there are other things I’d like to address in the present.
First of all, like I said, the conflict in the middle of the show seems forced. And here’s the reason: Bitch and Spear-Dunce are basically just Naofumi’s Team Rocket. They show up out of nowhere, for no reason, and cause a minor problem- and are summarily dealt with. This makes every one of their appearances come off as cheesy. Like, how am I supposed to take such a laughably evil duo seriously. Honestly, for me, they just came off as comic relief. I feel as if the writer did this intentionally, since Spear-Dunce was often at the butt end of jokes whenever he appeared.
Secondly, Naofumi. Man, this character really props up this piece of average shit anime. I mean, I get that he’s the titular character, but seriously, based on what I’ve seen, I couldn’t watch a show about any of the other characters. Even Raphtalia’s backstory made me lose interest, and I actually do like her as a character. I just love Naofumi in a purely analytical and mostly heterosexual way. He’s a great character and I don’t think any other protagonist would work in a show like this. God-tier protagonist.
Third and finally, Montages. The gratuitous use of montages is actually a pretty big flaw with this show's writing and directing. Jesus Christ, you can find one in every single episode. It's absolutely ridiculous. I get it, sometimes a montage is the best way to lay out a short story, however, this show goes way too ham. Montages are sometimes a shortcut and sometimes a crutch. In this show, I'd say they're both.
-[Conclusion]-
Ahhh. Finally, some weight off my shoulders. Ever since I’d written that old review, I’ve been bummed out. It felt like since that was up, I wasn’t allowed to give Shield Hero another shot. Now, though, I’m taking that review down and putting this one up. I’m much happier with how this one turned out. Here’s to open mindedness!
Shield Hero is a 7/10
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
|
