At first glance at Prima Doll, one might see the 6.92 average rating and the cursed words “multimedia project” in the synopsis and instantly cross this show off of their potential Plan to Watch list. However, the fact that you are here means that despite of all that, you decided to also scroll down to the review section to get an idea of how the show was received. If this is you, then you’ve come to the right place. This review is here to give a spoiler free synopsis of what to expect from Prima Doll and explain how the average score and some of
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the unfavorable reviews don’t do the show justice. Let’s begin.
If I had to describe Prima Doll in one phrase, it’d probably be “moe Violet Evergarden”. If you haven’t watched Violet Evergarden, then definitely go watch that first, because while I do like Prima Doll a lot, Violet Evergarden sits comfortably in my top 5 anime. Both Prima Doll and Violet Evergarden have extremely similar settings of a post-war steampunk European continent and similar character dilemmas of people losing their purpose with the end of the war or being unable to adjust to the abrupt advent of peace. Just like Violet Evergarden, Prima Doll will also sucker punch you right in the feels throughout the entire show. Both shows are very good at creating these episodic scenarios that draw you into the character narratives and get you to empathize with their situation. Even the term “doll” is used prolifically in both shows, furthering the theme of these mannequins that were used as tools of war learning how to live their own lives.
I think it is quite obvious how the description of “moe” plays into the show, with the color schemed moe blob cute anime girls and all. Moe has always been a big point of contention in the anime community, but for the love of Madokami it’s 2022 already. Love it or hate it, moe will have a perpetual influence on anime and just because you don’t like moe doesn’t mean all moe anime are automatically trash. As a resident of the moe trash can myself, I appreciated the moe parts of the show. The slice of life elements served as both a good foil for the emotional high points of the show as well as furthering the overarching theme of learning to live a life without strife. If you are also a cultured moe enjoyer who likes shows such as K-On, GochiUsa, Yuru Yuri, Blend S, Hinako Note, and Comic Girls among many others, then this aspect of Prima Doll should be an easy sell for you. As for comparing Prima Doll to a recent show, it really had a lot of similarities to RPG Real Estate from last season while also outperforming that show in almost every aspect. I feel the tone shift from slice of life to emotional was far less jarring in Prima Doll than RPG Real Estate, and Prima Doll’s character interactions were also more genuine and heartfelt as a whole. RPG Real Estate suffered from having a very weak connection between the overarching theme and what was usually occurring on screen; Prima Doll more deliberately built up its overarching theme throughout the show, making the narrative feel more natural because it was paced better.
The final part of the review will be dedicated to easing any remaining concerns about watching Prima Doll while concurrently refuting claims made against the show by some haters. The topic to address first is definitely the “multimedia project” aspect of the show. While I do understand why everyone hates multimedia projects because multimedia projects typically entail watching the anime, playing the mobile game that is most definitely going to be a gacha, buying merch, following the official twitter posts, and watching the official youtube channel to get the full “authentic” experience on the series. It’s essentially all one giant cash grab and a huge time sink that serves as an excuse for the anime being not very well produced because there’s also supposed to be the mobile game’s story, the character profile cards included with the albums you buy, and the bits of lore dropped from the official youtube channel that’s also supposed to supplement it. That generic umbrella of multimedia project is genuinely awful and I hate it too, but Prima Doll doesn’t fit under that. I was not shilled a mobile game when I finished the last episode in tears. All I saw was “Fin” and then the voice role credits started rolling as usual. There is an official youtube channel for prima doll, but outside of some 5 second clips of the VAs saying some cute stuff using a 3D avatar of their character, I didn’t dabble in it at all. There definitely are songs and albums available for purchase, but those are just for the fans that want to listen to more Chat-noir songs. You don’t tangibly lose out on any type of experience from not interacting with the other forms of Prima Doll media; I personally found that simply watching the anime by itself is a fulfilling standalone experience, so it makes no sense to hate on Prima Doll just for being a multimedia project. There isn’t some character that got their character development shafted on purpose because that’ll be covered in the upcoming mobile game, and the ending wasn’t some to be continued that’ll be picked up with the mobile game but only after you follow the twitter lore they drop over the course of 24 months. Prima Doll isn’t some incomplete halfass show that was only made to sell the mobile game, like Takt Op Destiny.
There are quite a lot of people saying that the ending of Prima Doll was rushed, but I can’t see what they’re talking about. Most people compared it to the likes of The Day I Became a God, which is also produced by Key and Visual Arts. While I haven’t watched that show, I can definitely point to another show done by Key which is Charlotte. Charlotte is infamous for absolute trash pacing for everything after episode 7, squeezing what a 12-episode season would barely be able to cover into the final episode. Prima Doll definitely did not have a Charlotte ending. I won’t get too much into it because having this be a spoiler free review is more important to me than refuting their claims in detail, but I thought Prima Doll’s ending was appropriately rewarding and moving for the amount of narrative buildup that was done with the storytelling.
The final thing I want to talk about with Prima Doll is the VAs. As a big Love Live fan, the first thing I noticed going into this show was Kusunoki Tomori (Setsuna Yuuki) as Karasuba and Kitou Akari (Kanata Konoe) as Retzel. If you’re a Genshin Impact player that plays with Japanese voiceover, then you’ll probably notice that Murase Ayumu doing Nagi in the show also does Venti, Kuno Misaki doing Chiyo in the show also does Klee, and Kitou Akari does Barbara. The VAs in Prima Doll are especially important due to the song segments of the show, as well as each main character singing the ED solo during their respective episode. All the VAs put in stellar work making the OP, ED, and all the insert songs all sound amazing while also bringing life to their characters. Playing Haizakura, Waki Azumi has had a plethora of experience singing theme songs for Blend S as Maika, Slime 300 as Flatorte, Noukin as Mile, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear as Fina, Senko-san as Senko, Ms. Vampire who lives nextdoor as Elly, and much more. Tomita Miyu’s noteable roles other than playing as Gekka include Iino from Kaguya-sama, Riko from Made in Abyss, Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut, and Kuina from Hinako Note among others. As Kitou Akari has had experience working together with Kusunoki Tomori for Nijigasaki concerts as well as Murase Ayumu and Kuno Misaki for Genshin, Waki Azumi and Tomita Miyu have also had very close roles together as a matter of fact, with Tomita Miyu being Fina’s younger sister Shuri in Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear as well as fellow vampires with Elly as Sophie in Ms. Vampire who lives nextdoor. Playing Houkiboushi, Nakashima Yuki definitely has had the fewest roles amongst all the other main members of the voice cast, but her roles as Lisa Imai in BanG Dream’s Roselia is a very engaging and demanding role that she has excelled in, not to mention has had lots of experience singing for. I want to specifically mention Kitou Akari again because I especially love her role as Chiyoda Momo in Machikado Mazoku. Kitou Akari-san is ridiculously talented for being able to pull off aloof and nonchalant characters like Chiyoda Momo as well as more breezy and witty characters like Retzel and Nijigasaki’s Kanata. Okay, rant over. Moral of the story: Prima Doll has an all-star lineup of voice talent. So when I hear haters say stuff about the voices being annoyingly squeaky, or the production forcing the voice talents to strain their voices to match the character, all I can do is scoff at their ignorance, and everyone else should brush off those baseless ramblings as well. It’s definitely one thing to have opinions of voice talents, but it’s another thing entirely to attack them for the roles they act out. I’ve seen some rude and undignified comments about Kuno Misaki’s role as Chiyo and I’m not going to stand for it. Her Chiyo voice is not some one-off fluke that was forced on the production side; she uses practically the same tone and pitch for Beni-enma in FGO and Klee in Genshin. The roles that Kuno Misaki chooses to play and the voices she uses to get into character are her WORK and her TALENT. People that want to attack that based on their own shit taste need to shut the fuck up.
Professor Nagi Tooma fixes up the dolls and runs the Black Cat Café because he believes in the potential of the dolls to move the hearts of others by preserving the peace, rather than fighting the war. Prima Doll was an extremely enjoyable show for me that definitely moved my heart. While part of that might be because I reside in the moe trash can, the show also undeniably has an engaging narrative even without the moe. I think that if you can at least tolerate the moe and are looking for a heartwarming and character-driven emotional rollercoaster, then Prima Doll should be the next thing you watch. Thanks for reading.
Sep 24, 2022
Prima Doll
(Anime)
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Recommended
At first glance at Prima Doll, one might see the 6.92 average rating and the cursed words “multimedia project” in the synopsis and instantly cross this show off of their potential Plan to Watch list. However, the fact that you are here means that despite of all that, you decided to also scroll down to the review section to get an idea of how the show was received. If this is you, then you’ve come to the right place. This review is here to give a spoiler free synopsis of what to expect from Prima Doll and explain how the average score and some of
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Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 18, 2022
RWBY: Hyousetsu Teikoku
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
RWBY is an American animated series created by Monty Oum of Rooster Teeth. Although there are many ignorant skeptics that are very vocal about how watching things in English is weird(?) or that the CG animation is bad(?), RWBY is an excellent show with one of the best narratives I've ever had the pleasure of diving into. This anime here, Ice Queendom, IS NOT an adaptation of RWBY, IS NOT representative of RWBY as a whole, and SHOULD NOT be used as a substitute for watching RWBY. I will definitively say here and now that Ice Queendom is an inferior spinoff that should be treated
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as a non-canon OVA at best, and the rest of this review will serve to explain why that is the case, and why everyone should just watch the original work done by Rooster Teeth if they are interested in RWBY. I hope you will stick around, so let's begin.
Here I will just summarize Ice Queendom's narrative relative to RWBY's narrative to give people an idea of why it isn't representative of RWBY as a whole and cannot be used as a substitute. Episodes 1-3 of Ice Queendom summarize the bare minimum of Season 1 of RWBY. For reference, there are 8 Seasons of RWBY, with the 9th coming in early 2023. Episodes 4-11 of Ice Queendom cover the anime-original plot about nightmares and dreams. This part of the show is largely inconsequential to the narrative as a whole, so I would assume the purpose of this would be such that Ice Queendom can canonically fit into RWBY's timeline without conflict. Episode 12 of Ice Queendom returns to the RWBY narrative, covering events that occur during the final episode of Season 1 and the first episodes of Season 2. If it wasn't already obvious from this comparison, Ice Queendom is more of an OVA or spinoff and absolutely cannot be used to represent RWBY as a whole. Even though Ice Queendom is supposed to be a reimagining of RWBY for new viewers, it leaves out essential plot points and character development that consumers would miss without watching the original. Here I will address Ice Queendom's animation, and compare it to RWBY's CG animation done by Rooster Teeth. Since studio Shaft is doing Ice Queendom's animation, this shouldn't even be a debate about which is better, right? Well... not necessarily. Studio Shaft is infamous for their top notch animation sequences, having done work on Madoka Magica, the Monogatari series, Magia Record, Assault Lily, and more. However, Studio Shaft is also just as infamous if not more so for their inconsistency. While Shaft can produce some amazing animation sequences for action scenes, they can also produce some very awkward and disproportional scenes just as easily. Ice Queendom definitely suffered from this "Shaft Syndrome" where there were some amazing scenes, and then there were some very visually unappealing scenes as well. In fact, you can count the amount of actually impressive animation sequences throughout all of Ice Queendom with two hands (Ruby vs. Torchwick henchman, Weiss vs. Knight Golem, Ruby vs. Nevermore, Weiss vs. Grimm in classroom, Yang vs. giant statue, final Nightmare battle, and food fight). Meanwhile, the amount of times I was put off by the animation quality numbered at least twice of that. Now, while comparing it to the original RWBY's CG animation might be a matter of how each individual viewer tolerates watching CG animations, we cannot ignore the fact that Ice Queendom also uses CG. Yang's bike is almost always CG, and I can say with certainty it looks worse than the Rooster Teeth's CG. There are also several fight scenes where CG is used, and no one can tell me those T-posing abominations are more visually appealing than Rooster Teeth's properly rendered CG. The final point I'll talk about with the animation is the OP. I won't touch on the audio portion of the OP as of yet, but visually speaking the OP is terribly lazy. There is absolutely nothing original about the OP, with every single frame being a clip from the first 3 episodes. Ice Queendom's OP looks like something a mediocre AMV youtuber from 2006 would've compiled, not something from the renowned Studio Shaft. Comparing that paltry creativity with the creative RWBY OPs done by Rooster Teeth is like comparing night and day. This final segment will go over the remaining aspects of the show that I haven't touched on thus far. The soundtrack of Ice Queendom was definitely impressive and was the one part of the anime that did actually live up to the hype. The OP done by Void_Chords is really darn good, and having Hayami Saori sing the ED was a treat as well. That being said, the OST still didn't hit the same as the soundtrack with vocals done by Jeff and Casey Williams. I think it was a missed opportunity not to incorporate more songs from RWBY, but I understand that they probably wanted to create a more original take on the series. I feel that the previous statement can be extended to Ice Queendom as a whole, where the production seemed to want to appropriate the characters and setting to tell their own story or their own perspective of how RWBY is that doesn't really mesh with the direction that Rooster Teeth has been taking RWBY, so there is a lot of dissonance present as a result. I might just feel this way because of how I am an avid RWBY fan that does really enjoy the series, but if anything I guess that speaks for how Ice Queendom really is not authentic RWBY. Throughout the entirety of Ice Queendom there really was only one moment where I truly felt glad I was watching the show, and that was when I realized that we would be able to see the authentic RWBY food fight scene animated by studio Shaft. I think a lot of my gripes with Ice Queendom are a result of the culture clash between western and eastern media. As much as I am a fan of Hayami Saori (I love her roles as Meltryllis from FGO and Ayaka from Genshin among many others), RWBY just didn't feel the same without the English banter that couldn't get translated in the Japanese medium. And while Ice Queendom is getting an official dub by the cast of RWBY, the problem isn’t just the language barrier. Lots of the themes and portrayals of the characters that the Japanese audiences prefer don’t quite transfer over to western audiences. For example, I know for a fact that Japanese viewers are OBSESSED with the Weiss vs. Golem Knight scene that is the adaptation of Rooster Teeth’s ‘White’ trailer for RWBY. Meanwhile, we didn’t even get an adaptation for Yang’s bar fight scene in the ‘Yellow’ trailer which was FAR superior to Weiss’s fight. Based on how the characterization in Ice Queendom went, the Japanese consumers love the whole one-dimensional tsundere ice queen archetype Weiss has going on; meanwhile, I feel that this is Weiss at her most immature state, and we only get to see the more appealing aspects of her character when she matures in Seasons 5 and 6 and uses her vulnerabilities to ease the tension between her team. This kind of culture clash on top of Shaft’s inconsistent animation quality throughout production was why I couldn’t enjoy myself while watching Ice Queendom. Everything felt so hollow and cliché compared to authentic RWBY. The best example I can give is how Ruby used her silver eyes to defeat Weiss’s nightmare which completely undermines the moment where she is first supposed to use them during the end of Season 3. Victory may lie in a simple soul, but when you make it too simple can you really say that it still has soul? Rest in peace, Monty Oum. Even though I didn't necessarily enjoy Ice Queendom, a weird RWBY spinoff is better than no RWBY at all. It is amazing how his ambition crossed overseas all the way to Japan and inspired producers there to do a reimagining of his work. We have Monty to thank for bringing people together like this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Dec 24, 2021
Komi-san wa, Comyushou desu.
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
This review is for Komi-san wa, Comyushou desu. I will simply refer to this show as Komi-san when I talk about it. As for Komi herself, I will simply refer to her as Communication Syndrome, which is the literal translation of the name given to her by the author himself. I will do this for all the other characters as well because the character's personalities are so creatively inspired by their names that it is only appropriate. So for example Tadano would be Just A Person, with everyone following the same capitalized syntax. With the logistics cleared up, let's get to the review.
Here I will ... be concise about my reasoning for disliking the show, because I'm sure this review is already on a very short fuse for most readers due to how Komi-san is put on a pedestal. My first, and biggest gripe with this show is definitely the overbearing amount of on-screen text that demonstrates the director's incompetence, laziness, or both to properly adapt the manga source material into a television broadcasted show. My second issue with this show is that the production quality is not very good. The animation is extremely lackluster and boring to me, but more objectively speaking it is technically unimpressive and downright lazy at times. My third and final issue with this show is the conflict of interest between the genre and topic of the show. Komi-san is supposed to be a comedy, but the topic at hand is Communication Syndrome's difficulty verbally expressing herself to other people. Thus, the ultimate purpose of the show is to poke fun at someone's heartfelt struggle to communicate with others and make light of it. If you haven't already ragequit from reading this far, I acknowledge your patience. In return, I will try to be as impartial and detailed as possible to communicate why I am not a fan of Komi-san. I'll begin by explaining the three problems I had with the show in detail, in the order in which I first listed them. My first problem with this show is the overbearing amount of on-screen text during the show. When talking about on-screen text, I'm not talking as much about the subtitles of the show, nor even what Communication Syndrome writes in her notebook. I'm talking about the boxes of text that appear as if we were reading a manga panel. Ninety percent of this show is reading from these boxes because the show does such a poor job at communicating (ironic, yes I know) the scenario that's currently on the screen, and the scene director is so inept, lazy, or both that they just type out what is going on in the scenario, put it in a white box, and call it a day. Putting aside how atrociously lazy and unprofessional this is and how it very clearly demonstrates that this show does a very poor job at delivering messages to the viewer, it is just very frustrating and overbearing to read so much at a time while you're supposed to be watching the media. Sometimes these text boxes are narrated, and that definitely helps, but other times they have no narration which purely means you're supposed to just read them during the scenario. Sometimes these boxes have four or even five lines of text, and if you're not literate and fluent in Japanese then you'll be reading subtitles along with this text. There are three to five moments in every single episode where there's just simply so much text on the screen that you must pause in order to read it, and that's just unacceptable for something in the animated medium. I'll now address a potential counterargument to my point which would be that the anime is attempting to stay original to the source material with these text boxes that approximate how it looks in the actual manga. To address that counterargument, I'll just simply say that it would simply be better to read the manga at that point. If I wanted to read six to seven lines of text per scenario then I would be reading something, not watching something. The point of adapting something from manga into animated format is to remove that element of reading manga panels and text boxes. I think it is okay for scenes in anime to resemble the original manga source material, JoJo among other very good anime do that all the time, but abundantly plugging in the text boxes is a different story. Especially as a non-Japanese fluent and illiterate consumer watching subtitles, having to watch something that is seventy percent text and thirty percent anime is frustrating, cumbersome, and overbearing. I have discussed so far how the text boxes directly diminish the viewing experience of Komi-san, so I will now explain more in detail how they highlight the show’s other shortcomings. Yes, I am going to talk more about the text boxes. I was not exaggerating when I said it was my biggest gripe. Earlier, I brushed over how the text boxes are evidence that the show does a poor job at delivering messages to the viewer. If Komi-san is truly as thoughtful and well-presented an anime as this community claims it is, then it wouldn’t need these text boxes to explain the scenario to the viewer. Every scene would be so wonderfully crafted and well executed that the viewer would be able to understand the scenario without it quite literally being spelled out. Yet the huge text boxes are there for almost every punchline, almost as if the production itself is afraid the viewers wouldn’t understand the joke so they try to explain the gag. Why else would the text boxes be there? I’ll briefly entertain the counterargument that the text boxes are there to be funny. Here’s my answer. No. They aren’t funny. There wasn’t a single time I laughed because of the text box. It didn’t get even a chuckle from me, though it sure did elicit many sighs of exasperation. I already explained how much the text boxes directly detracted from the viewing experience so, no, they aren’t there to be funny. They’re there to be overbearing, annoying, and bothersome, while covering for the storyboard’s shortcomings because there are way too many moments where the show fails to lay the foundation for the punchline. So, the text box comes out to directly explain the character’s intentions or feelings because Komi-san fails to communicate that to us. By the way, I bet this entire review will be shorter than a compilation of all the unnecessary text in the twelve episodes of Komi-san. On to my second issue with the show, production quality. I personally don’t enjoy this show’s aesthetic, but that’s separate from the production quality itself. I am specifically referring to instances where corners are cut on the production side and the animation is technically flawed or lazy. If you look at my rating for the art and sound, I don’t even think the production quality is that bad; it’s just that one wouldn’t be able to tell that this show’s production quality is merely mediocre from all the false praise it gets. Granted, the production did play their cards right in order to fool the general audience. They frontloaded most of their animation budget into the first episode and also have a gorgeous OP and ED, so that conditioned the more gullible viewers into just accepting that the production was top notch. What those people may not notice is that the entire classroom, where most of the show takes place, is CG. The desks they sit on, and hang their bags on, are CG. If you don’t scrutinize very much then it may be hard to notice that the classroom is indeed CG, but once you do, you can’t unsee it. The more you look at the contrast between the desks and the character models as well as the schoolbags, the more you wonder why they would compromise on something so off-putting if the production wasn’t simply just cutting corners. Another example of Komi-san’s lackluster production quality is some of the punchline zoom ins. Many times in comedy and even slice of life anime, we get a zoomed in focus shot of the character delivering the punchline with an abstract background. Sometimes the background is the color representing the character, or maybe has icons or little mascots that have to do with the punchline or scenario. A majority of these zoom in punchlines in Komi-san just have a plain background that is a single random color, white most of the time. This is extremely lazy of the production, especially since this is a comedy anime and the punchline is supposed to make an impact. Instead the punchline is a single, still, zoom-in shot with a white background and we are greeted by our best friend the text box almost as if this exact scene is precisely how it looked in the manga panel. I will repeat myself just to be thorough: if I wanted to experience the media with manga panel punchlines, text boxes and all, then maybe, juuust maybe I would simply read the source manga instead of watching the anime adaptation. It goes without saying there is very little incentive to watch a show if the production is so lazy and uninspired that whatever is happening on the screen looks exactly the same as what is on paper, and you have to read just as much text either way. My third issue with Komi-san is that there is a conflict of interest where the show is a comedy, but the topic at hand is a high school girl with communication syndrome is trying to make friends. This is where I will entertain the counterargument that some people pretending to be on the moral high ground will use: that I, and everyone else who dislikes Komi-san, is simply a culturally insensitive person who has no sympathy for people with social anxiety. To which I will respond: that it takes a far more culturally insensitive person to actually derive enjoyment from a show which is primarily about poking fun at the stress and fear inducing situations created around a person with social anxiety. While I’m sure the original creator didn’t create this work with that kind of malevolence in mind, the conflict of interest is still present, just not intentionally. The main problem is that the show is trying to sell us a heartwarming narrative about Communication Syndrome’s character development with the help of Just A Person and Childhood Friend, but then as a comedy it needs to turn around and make fun of Communication Syndrome’s anxiety and the misunderstandings that it causes. The show keeps on falling back on the same type of joke where Communication Syndrome is too nervous to speak but everyone else irrationally reveres her so much that it doesn’t matter, which actually belittles her identity as a character to the point where she’s nothing more than Communication Syndrome. The fact that the comedy element in this show would disappear if Communication Syndrome overcame her anxiety is such a backwards way to structure the show, because her character development is in direct competition with the comedy. I think if you find Komi-san funny then this paradox of a show just becomes one big joke that you can laugh off for the sake of enjoyment, but I don’t find it funny. I don’t see what’s funny about a school comedy that makes fun of Just A Person for being just a person and Communication Syndrome has a communication syndrome but she’s pretty or something so everyone simps for her without bothering to understand her as a person. So as a result, I can only see how the conflict of interest in this show makes both the narrative and the comedy contradict each other. To close off this review, I’m going to make a callback to my very first anime review by comparing Komi-san to Sakamoto. Both are school comedies that run the same gag of something along the lines of the main character breathes and then the forgettable, two-dimensional supporting cast all instantly simp for them and its funny because of how it doesn’t make sense or something. There’s very little narrative in both of these shows and whatever narrative that exists is drowned out by the same washed out comedy. There’s very little character development in both of these shows and whatever character development that exists is drowned out by the same washed out comedy. Since everything about these shows is drenched with the same comedy, then people who enjoy that comedy will absolutely adore the shows. Since everything about these shows is drenched with the same comedy, then people who don’t enjoy that comedy will absolutely detest the shows. Komi-san is hit-or-miss in the exact same way as Sakamoto, so it’s not a surprise that I dislike both. That also means there’s nothing wrong if you enjoy Komi-san, it means the show happened to suit your tastes more than it did mine. This review is more here to point out the technical flaws of the show’s production that I feel should be acknowledged whether or not you enjoyed the show. Thanks for reading.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Dec 23, 2021 Recommended
So now that Sakugan has concluded airing, did it live up to the high expectations my preliminary review set for it? Kind of.
For people new to Sakugan and wondering whether or not they should watch it, here's a segment from my preliminary review: "This show is the epitome of wanderlust and ambition, told from the perspective of a father daughter pair. The thing with this show is you don't have to be a mecha or action/adventure junkie to enjoy it. This show simply just does so well at putting into practice the "show, not tell" mantra with character development and storytelling all done in a ... dynamic fashion, and the OST for this show all around just slaps." To put it very simply, Sakugan is Journey of Elaina except Elaina is 10 years younger and traveling with her dad, and the setting is steampunk instead of magical fantasy. I definitely still consider this show the best one-off seasonal show this season, and thus still think it is horridly underwatched and underrated. Sakugan has an AMAZING first episode. In my preliminary review I compared it to the first episode of Steins;Gate and I still stand by that. However, having a fantastic first episode leads to very high expectations. Even having thoroughly enjoyed Sakugan myself, I can definitively say that not all of those expectations were delivered by the show. While the rest of the show wasn't a letdown by any means, it was definitely a weak followup to the first episode for one big reason. Sakugan follows an episodic story structure where each episode kinda loosely connects to each other but for the most part it is a discontinuous narrative split into one small anecdote per episode. The episodic story structure is most likely what most people are disappointed about, which is understandable. If you came here for a bedtime story that reads cohesively from start to finish, you definitely came to the wrong place. However, as shows like Yuru Yuri, Odd Taxi, and Journey of Elaina have demonstrated, you don't need to have a cohesive main narrative to be a good show. From here I'll be discussing the overall shortcomings and strengths of Sakugan. I'm confident I can just namedrop plotpoints without context to serve as examples in such a way that completely avoids direct spoilers, so yay, spoiler-free review. The first episode of Sakugan set up A LOT of foreshadowing, whether it be about Gagumber's past (Gale-force and Rufus), Memenpu's absent mother, the mysterious Urorop, the kaijuu's true origins, and the Bureau of Regulation. This really highlighted how ambitious this production was, and because they foreshadowed so hard, any experienced media consumer would be expect all those foreshadowed points to be addressed throughout the show. In reality, most of those mysteries were only half-addressed and some were straight up ignored, which left the viewers with more mysteries at the end than at the start. It just seems like Sakugan expected to cover a lot more ground than they actually were able to in a single season, or that this was supposed to be a multi-season entry. Either way, this was by far the show's biggest shortcoming and that is being very clearly represented in my 4/10 for the story. However, this is where I think the flaws of this show end because everything else is very well done and enjoyable. Rather than as an incomplete story, I see Sakugan as a character driven show that is very ambitious with its setting and world building. The Labyrinth is a mystical subterranean world straight out of folklore. The episodic story structure really helped show off as much of this world as possible, because it wouldn't have been possible to show off as many colonies, environments, characters, and mini narratives if Sakugan had to be concerned about how cohesive the end result would be. The raw expansiveness and diversity of the people and places that Memenpu encounters on her journey gives a lot of opportunity to stress test her relationship with Gagumber, and leads to a lot of authentic interactions. I feel that the characters in Sakugan are done especially well because its rare to see this type of parent-child relationship in anime. You hardly see parents even get involved with the main character and when they do, they're usually scumbag caretakers that traumatized and abused their child. Gagumber is an awful parent by most standards. He's an alcoholic slob who likes to gamble and has a short temper. Among all of those bad qualities though, his love for Memenpu really shines in the way that he tries to care for her. He may stumble, and not know what exactly to do, but he'll always do SOMETHING because it will always be better than doing NOTHING for his daughter. Meanwhile, Memenpu is adamant about her own self-proclaimed maturity and independence, insisting she doesn't need a deadbeat dad like Gagumba to accompany her. Throughout the entire show, she attempts to use her material achievements in her education and career to supplant her worldly inexperience and naivety. Memenpu's journey is a journey about growing up, but not in the conventional way that people expect. Many people were dissatisfied with how she didn't mature throughout each episode, and I think this is a misguided expectation. Sakugan is a story of Gagumber traveling with Memenpu on her journey; however, he's not traveling with her to watch her grow up. He's traveling with her so she doesn't have to. Memenpu and Gagumber encounter many people on their journey: adults who made bad choices, adults who made difficult choices, adults who never had a chance to even choose, and adults who wished they could choose again. Throughout all of these encounters Gagumber was there at Memenpu's side, ensuring that she didn't have to make any of those grown-up choices, that she could keep her eyes forward on her childish dream. Life is a journey where everyone will be grown up at the end whether they like it or not, but what matters is how they grew up. This analogy can be literally applied to the show itself, and is the main reason why I weigh Sakugan's strengths so much more versus its shortcomings. Because when you go on a journey it isn't about where you end up, but how you got there. P.S. All right, if you've read my Egao no Daika review then you know what time it is! An ambitious character driven show with transforming mechs, riveting social commentary, and banger OST? That's right, welcome to the Xenoblade Chronicles X corner! I definitely cannot deny that a lot of my hype and leniency for this show stems from its parallels with Xenoblade Chronicles X. I mean I did say at the beginning of this review that this show is pretty much functionally identical to Majo no Tabitabi except Elaina got an 8 from me and Sakugan got a 9. I truly, truly cannot emphasize enough how much of an impact Xenoblade Chronicles X has made on me and how horridly underrated and underplayed it is. Xenoblade Chronicles X doesn't have a very cohesive main story, but there's just so much heart put into the overall theme that connects the mini narratives in the game just like with Sakugan. A lot of the reason Xenoblade Chronicles X isn't very popular is because the only console it was released on, the Wii U, was not very popular. Additionally, I think people went in with a lot of misguided expectations expecting it to be the sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles when it wasn't meant to be anything of the sort. Misguided expectations often leads to disappointment, but just because something didn't meet your misplaced expectations doesn't mean that it wasn't a good product. I feel like a lot of response to this show can be put under this umbrella, so that's one of the main motivations with which I wrote this review.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 24, 2021
Blue Reflection Ray
(Anime)
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Blue Reflection Ray is an anime spinoff for the PS4/PC game Blue Reflection released in 2017. From my understanding none of the main characters (Yuzu and Lime are recurring side characters) and plot points carry over from the game, so it definitely qualifies as a spinoff that uses the concepts from the in-game universe but nothing else. So it should be fine watching this without playing the game. Disclaimer that I actually haven't played Blue Reflection, so someone who actually has can correct me on this because their opinion will be more valid than mine.
Getting into reviewing the actual anime, you have already probably ... noticed my score is very high for this show. This doesn't mean that this show is some hidden gem of an underrated masterpiece that I think literally everyone should be able to enjoy, far from it. The rating reflects (haha this guy is funny) my bias that comes from how I interpreted the narrative and plot points of the show. The singular reason why I personally enjoyed Blue Reflection Ray so much is because this show is the closest thing we have to a Kingdom Hearts anime adaptation. Let's go over the similarities between Blue Reflection Ray and the Kingdom Hearts series. -main characters that fight with weapons and powers that are the manifestation of their emotions? check. -the main conflict of the narrative centers on opposing ideologies on how feelings and emotions should influence relationships with others? check. -over the top light/darkness motifs that really hammer home how edgy this is? check. -a grand collective entity of emotions that holds absolute authority over all emotional power? (The Common = Kingdom Hearts) check. -emotions being used as a resource or catalyst to reach this grand collective entity of emotions? (Fragments = Hearts) check. -memories being altered, influenced, or erased by being tied to emotions? check. -the side characters and antagonists are much more interesting and fleshed out than the happy-go-lucky main character who is a walking plot device? check. -very slow and seemingly nonsensical story that only makes sense as the narrative approaches its conclusion? check. This very biased framework was the foundation for how I went about watching this show, and is probably the only reason why I didn't drop it after a few episodes. Blue Reflection Ray as a standalone show isn't very impressive. The art, while unique and fluid, is really inconsistent and looks unappealing to the average 2021 seasonal anime consumer; though, I do give props to them for continuing to draw out every scene regardless and not using some ugly ass CG to fill in the gaps. The soundtrack was good but not outstanding compared to shows with higher production value. The characters I thought were really good, but unfortunately the two weakest characters by far are the two main heroines Hiori and Ruka who we are stuck with for like the first few episodes. Only after a while are we properly introduced to the much more interesting antagonists, and Momo and Miyako become more involved in the main narrative. The strength of the cast in this show is their chemistry together and how they organically come to rely on each other like a very big family, but this also does not occur until the second half of the show. There are a lot of yuri undertones in the show, but there is a whole mountain of shows better for that, so people who are here just for lesbians will likely be disappointed. Blue Reflection Ray is a show that takes a long time to ramp up and can appear as slow to most anime consumers. The narrative also doesn't make much sense which can be frustrating for most anime consumers as well. The thing with Kingdom Hearts is that while it is quite popular, it's a very flawed series. The writer for Kingdom Hearts, Tetsuya Nomura, oftentimes writes stories that are so far-fetched that we can only imagine what he smoked before working on the script. And Kingdom Hearts fans have come to just simply tolerate or even embrace how ridiculous and nonsensical the franchise is. So when watching Blue Reflection Ray, a lot of the downsides of the show like the very slow pacing, the beginning of the show not making any sense, and the two main characters not being nearly as interesting as the other characters, were less like flaws to me than they were features of the show due to its uncanny resemblance to Kingdom Hearts. To get to the heart of things (haha this guy is funny you should really check out his other reviews), that is the main reason why I enjoyed Blue Reflection Ray so much, flaws and all. I ate up Hiori's monologues about feelings and how precious they are, just like I ate up Sora yelling "Kingdom Hearts is light!" as the light engulfed Ansem. I had blind belief (okay I believe you) that the nonsensical narrative at the start of the show would all come full circle so I could see the whole picture, just like I had blind belief that understanding the story of the Kingdom Hearts mobile game would fill in the all the plot holes in Nomura's writing. I got hyped over every fight scene where the characters were talking about the weight of their feelings while literally hitting each other with their feelings. I embraced the ridiculous flawed nature of Blue Reflection Ray because it was flawed in just the same way as the Kingdom Hearts series, and I had a blast every single episode. So what does this mean for you as the reader? Most likely, nothing. This review isn't here to change your opinion. If you didn't like Blue Reflection Ray, then it means you probably will hate Kingdom Hearts as well. However, if you are an avid Kingdom Hearts fan, then I'd very much so recommend giving Blue Reflection Ray a watch. Vice versa, if you liked watching Blue Reflection Ray, then you would probably really enjoy playing through the Kingdom Hearts series. Thanks for reading.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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May 11, 2021 Mixed Feelings
Hi. This time I’m actually reviewing something FGO related, so I’m gonna get this out of the way at the very start. Fate/Grand Order is a really deep and riveting story of journey to find and take back the future of humanity. I find the game’s narrative as a whole to be rather moving, so I genuinely believe that you are doing yourself and this franchise a huge disservice if you have watched or plan to watch this movie or the Babylonia anime without having at least played the game up to that point in the story. People wouldn’t suggest to others to watch the
...
Half Blood Prince movie as an introduction to the entirety of Harry Potter, or to watch the Force Awakens as one’s first Star Wars movie, or to start watching The Office from season 7. It’s no different for Fate/Grand Order. Camelot is the 6th singularity of the first arc of FGO, and Babylonia is the 7th. There is no good reason to watch these adaptations without having played the game up to that point. If you haven’t played Fate/Grand Order, then leave; and if you don’t ever intend to, then don’t come back.
This is the final warning for those who haven’t played FGO. I will be assuming from this point forward that you’ve completed the first arc of FGO, because as I already previously stated, there is no point in watching these adaptations without having played the game in full. Thus, there is no reason to continue reading this review if you have no intention of playing FGO; so, either get lost, or go install the game and get grinding. Alright, now it’s just us cultured Masters. At first, I didn’t know what to think of this movie after finishing it for the first time. Honestly, I was just a little confused because a lot of events that happened in the movie didn’t line up with what I remembered from Camelot. So, I went over to My Room and delved into the Materials section and reread the entirety of Camelot up to the point the movie ended. And then I rewatched the whole movie again. This is the reason for the whole rant in the first paragraph, because simply put, if an FGO player like me needed to revisit the original Camelot story to digest the movie, how lost would someone be if they had no idea what FGO was in the first place? On a side note, if you wanna add me, I have Skadi and Waver available as supports and I’ve grailed Nero, caster Nero, Ereshkigal, Illya, Kuro, and Miyu to lvl 100 for those that want to use them. You can add me (and feed me friend points): 917580838 Okay that’s enough account shilling, time to get to the review. After rereading the Camelot story and rewatching the movie, I conclude that this first Camelot movie was underwhelming because it deviated too much from the original story, and because it was far less entertaining and less impressive than the Babylonia anime. This doesn’t mean it was an awful or bad movie, but it simply didn’t live up to my expectations as an avid fan of FGO who witnessed the raw production value put into the Babylonia anime and who wanted the same type of passion to be put into the other contender the for the most interesting singularity of the first arc, Camelot. I’ll first talk about how the movie differed from the in-game story and why I feel those differences are problematic. During the in-game story, we rayshift into the desert where we very quickly run into Hundred Face Hassan and her group of mountain people abducting Nitocris. After saving Nitocris, she misinterprets the situation thinking that we are the kidnappers and she attacks us with a sphinx. Bedivere happens to be in the area and saves us, before going off into the desert again. After working through the misunderstandings with Nitocris, we are led to Ramesseum Tentyris and have an audience with Ozymandias. Ozy really isn’t pleased with how little awareness we have of this singularity and essentially exiles us from his domain, telling us to go see the Holy City for ourselves. Using the resources Ozy gave us, Da Vinci creates the desert vehicle and we go off to the Holy City where the “haha funny buster gorilla man at the wailing wall” happens and we flee to the mountain villages. During the movie story, we are already riding the desert vehicle. Then, we suddenly cut to this shot in a village where Arash and Bedivere are chatting and Da Vinci joins in to learn about the Holy City. Bedivere quickly leaves after being told what he wants to know and runs into the Master with Mash when he has an altercation with Rushd’s mom. This is where we go off to the Holy City for the “haha funny buster gorilla man at the wailing wall” and instead flee back towards the desert into Ozy’s domain. We’re intercepted by Nitocris and escorted to Ramesseum Tentyris (why would she escort us when we have two people dressed like Knights of the Round Table with us and we have done nothing to gain her trust?) to have an audience with Ozymandias. Ozy once again banishes us from his Egypt, but orders Sanzang (who for some reason is serving him when that doesn’t happen at all in the game?) to go with us. By some random stroke of luck we find a map etched in the gem from the pendant Rushd gives us and somehow understand that we should go into the mountains. After this part, not much differs between the game’s story and the movie’s story other than that the movie’s story omits a bunch of other (important) stuff. So the main difference at this point between the game’s story and the movie’s story is that the movie has us go to Camelot before Egypt. This really skews a lot of the interactions we’re supposed to have with some characters and really makes the narrative proceed unnaturally. By going to Egypt first, our correspondence with Ozy makes more sense because we just arrived at the singularity and don’t have much of an idea of what is going on. But since we are guests to his temple because we saved his subordinate Nitocris from the bandits, we are able to interact with him more boldly and coax him to share information about the singularity. With the movie, the interaction with Ozy is placed under a different light. We’re refugees hunted by the knights of the Holy City, forced to grovel and plead for shelter in his domain. It also just doesn’t make sense why Nitocris escorted us to Ozy’s temple in the first place, because we didn’t save her like we did in the game, and we have Bedivere with us in the movie who unmistakably is dressed as a Knight of the Round Table. At that point we already understand that the Lion King is the source of the singularity, yet for some reason Ritsuka tells Ozy that “he doesn’t know what to do.” This ignorance is excusable in the game’s version of events because we just arrived in the singularity and don’t understand the situation yet, but in the movie’s version of events this just makes Ritsuka look really cowardly and dumb. There is a similar discrepancy when it comes to Bedivere, since we first meet him in the desert when he saves us from the sphinx according to the game. But with the movie we’re somehow already zooming through the desert in Da Vinci’s vehicle (that we didn’t procure any resources to make), so don’t have a chance to encounter Bedivere in the desert. The thing is, though, we must meet Bedivere at least once before the encounter with Gawain because the narrative needs to establish that he recognizes Mash’s armor. So the movie kinda puts in this really distasteful scene where Bedivere shoves aside Rushd’s mother after she begs to him for food, and we catch her before she is slammed into the ground. Bedivere is probably lore-wise the most loyal, benevolent, and kind-hearted knight of any of King Arthur’s subordinates, so the movie storywriter forcing this scene in to cover their asses for reversing the Egypt/Camelot order really gets on my nerves. Of all the ways to introduce Bedivere to the Master and Mash, they chose something like this. It doesn’t even make sense either because as the movie goes on everyone is talking about how Bedivere is so kindhearted and loyal, not even batting an eye about how he shoved aside a homeless widow when we first meet him. And then there’s Sanzang, where they don’t even cover how she used to serve the Round Table and parted ways, but in the movie they still keep in that scene about Agravain inviting her to return to them even though they never discussed how she left in the first place. For whatever reason Sanzang ends up serving Ozy which absolutely doesn’t happen in the game and since Ozy has her accompany you, she joins way earlier than in the game. This usually shouldn’t be a problem, except Sanzang is really out of character because, since she’s not supposed to be with you yet, there’s really nothing for her to do. Instead of improvising new scenarios to ease her into the group as a companion and have her contribute, the storywriter for the movie just had her kinda stand there like a scarecrow. Sanzang pretty much does absolutely nothing until we reach the prison to rescue Serenity which, go figure, is ACTUALLY when she’s supposed to join the party. If this is the case, it really bewilders me why the movie writer went out of their way to change the script from the game if they’re just gonna have Sanzang tag along so unnaturally by having her join super early. Going to Camelot before Egypt also means that Da Vinci "dies" way earlier in the narrative. She’s supposed to accompany us when we meet Ozy, and this opens up the amusing interaction where Ozy declares that he desires her as his concubine but the movie’s scenario doesn’t allow for that. Da Vinci only ever accompanies us in person for the Camelot singularity, so I really don’t understand the thought process behind changing the story in a way that makes her die earlier and gives her even less spotlight. We’ve talked about Ozymandias, Bedivere, Sanzang, and Da Vinci so far, so now let’s address the two elephants in the room. The two characters most affected by the movie’s changes from the game are Hundred Face and Touta, because THEY’RE NOT IN THE MOVIE. We missed out on Hundred Face at the beginning of the narrative because the movie reversed the order in which we went to Egypt and Camelot, but when the west mountain village is attacked, it’s too late to go help them and Serenity is the leader of that village instead of Hundred Face. This means the movie skips out on the legendary scene where Arash shoots us from his bow to go save west village and Hundred Face is just cut out entirely. The movie also skips Touta, which is an absolute travesty, because his master-pupil interactions with Sanzang and archer-bro-moments with Arash are some of the best scenes in the entire singularity. Touta’s absence honestly caused both Sanzang and Arash’s characters to fall apart because their relationship to Touta was just so essential to the role they played during the singularity. I was so excited to see Sanzang blast through the walls of Camelot with her buddha palm, but now that I know that Touta won’t be there, I’m already aware that I’ll be disappointed by that part before it even airs. Let’s not forget to mention that all of the mountain villages are impoverished and would’ve otherwise starved without Touta’s Noble Phantasm. There is one final difference this whole “going to Camelot before Egypt” scenario creates that really gets on my nerves, and that’s how we end up going to the mountain village. In the game, we go to Egypt first and get exiled by Ozy, then go to Camelot and get chased away by Gawain, and then we flee to the mountains at the suggestion of some of the refugees we saved. Since the movie has us go to Camelot first, we end up fleeing to Egypt next where we are denied refuge by Ozymandias, and we end up in the desert with no place to go. This point in the movie is really awkward, because with how the narrative proceeded in the movie, the group really has no leads on where to go and what to do. So the movie director pulls some scenario out of his ass where Rushd HAPPENS to give you some pendant and the sun HAPPENS to shine in just the right way such that it reveals a pattern engraved in the pendant and it HAPPENS to be a readable map with directions to the mountain villages. Instead of, you know, contacting Chaldea which has Romani to consult with, the Trismegistus Spiritron Calculation Engine, and the Near-Future Observation Lens Sheba, it makes soooooooooo much more sense to rely on this kid and some random pendant. If it wasn’t already blatantly obvious, I think the writing in this movie is awful, and it is made even worse considering there was already a parent story to simply copy into movie format. Instead, they took the liberty of making changes to the game’s story and miraculously only made the narrative worse with every change they made. That section took a whole lot longer than I thought it would, but that simply shows how much worse the movie’s narrative was than the original game’s. This section will discuss the Camelot movie’s differences with the Babylonia anime, comparing them both as adaptations of FGO’s two most exciting singularities. If the previous section was mostly about the poor writing in the Camelot movie, this section will address the subpar animation quality of the movie. The entire reason that we, as fans of Fate/Grand Order, want to see anime adaptations of the game’s story chapters is mainly to see the majesty of the game’s story come to life on screen. For example, the first thing I thought about back when the Babylonia anime was announced was that I wanted to see Merlin get attacked by Fou. It’s a completely silly scene with no narrative significance, but that’s the kind of thing that we look forward to in these anime adaptations. We want see our favorite interactions and Noble Phantasms fully played out, as grand as it was in our imaginations. I don’t think the Camelot movie delivered on that. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the animation was bad. But this is the Fate franchise we’re talking about here. Every single anime adaptation from this series is filled to the brim with stunning scenes and dynamic shots... until now. It’s a shame to say this, but the Camelot movie had BY FAR the worst animation of anything Fate related, period. I’ve read some other reviews here saying that the animation was gorgeous or whatever, and all I can say is, do you have eyes? Did you watch the Babylonia anime, or even anything Fate related ever? I don’t know how anyone can watch the likes of Unlimited Blade Works, any of the Heaven’s Feel movies, and the Babylonia anime, and still say that Camelot with its CGI villagers looks good. Within the first 10 minutes of the movie we see this horrendous rendering of CGI townspeople that looked like they came straight out of the 2016 Berserk anime adaptation to burn holes into my eyes at 5 frames per second. Just simply comparing Uruk in the Babylonia anime to the desert city in the Camelot movie is enough to demonstrate the raw difference in animation quality. The low quality, robotic CGI in Camelot made me feel like the city was overrun by zombies that consistently moved at 5 frames per second. Let me remind everyone that this is a movie, which typically means the animation quality should be more impressive than an anime that airs on television. “Should” being the key word here, because it’s not just the horrendous CG during the initial segment at the desert city that stands out. The combat scenes in the Camelot movie were really lackluster, which is an absolute shame considering the notoriety of Camelot’s difficulty spike for FGO’s gameplay. The problem with nearly every fight in the movie was that it felt like it was all staged, as if the characters were only pretending to fight with each other. This is because the studio doing the animation abused screen cuts, which means they’d animate the start of a certain action, and then cut to the result of said action, having our brains fill in the gap. For example, the majority of the time a sword is swung in this movie, we’d see the swordsman wind up for the swing and then cut straight to where the sword made impact at the end of the swing. We barely ever see an entire sword swing animated from start to finish, which is really dishonest of the studio because the very reason why we want chapters of the game animated is to see these things in full motion. This kind of cheap technique is frequently used when the animators are either untalented, underfunded, or both. Although even the best works of animation use screen cuts occasionally, abusing it for every single fight scene is a clear sign of lazy animation. Screen cuts make attacks feel like they have less weight behind them, and constantly changing perspective in the middle of a fight scene takes away a lot of the tension. Plus, a lot of the fights are shot from super zoomed in perspectives so we don’t get a good view of what’s going on. This is yet another effort by the studio to cut animation expenditure because if the screen is more zoomed in, then there’s less to animate (conversely there’s also less for us to see). I’ve just simply never seen any other Fate animation make this many obvious efforts to try and skimp on animation quality, and it really makes the Camelot movie stand out as subpar compared to every other Fate animation. The best animated fight scene in this movie was probably Mordred vs Bedivere, but even then the fight was full of screen cuts and any fight involving Mordred in the Apocrypha animation was still better animated than Camelot. It’s just really such a letdown with all the wasted potential, because the boss fights in Camelot were so difficult and the game’s narrative made them look so powerful. The Fate franchise is so good at hyping up the power of their characters by animating a beautiful Noble Phantasm or orchestrating a battle scene that’ll make your hair stand on end, but instead we get stuff like Tristan standing in place plucking at his bow as Mash slowly marches toward him and Mordred letting Bedivere jog towards her and hit her point blank with Airgetlam. The animation as a whole in this Camelot movie just lacked so much impact compared to when Ushiwakamaru used her Noble Phantasm against Gorgon, or when Ishtar used her’s against Tiamat. Even outside of the battle scenes, a lot of the Camelot movie were just panning still shots of backgrounds. These shots felt out of place the entire movie because the backgrounds they showed weren’t even that pretty, and it’s not like they used the downtime for any narrating exposition explaining what was going on. Exposition would be so easy to do in this context because a lot of the game is simply Romani explaining something through the comms for the player, but they simply let these still shots play out with music in the background. Sometimes these still shots are really oddly framed, like there’s a shot when we’re climbing up to Ozy’s throne room where most of the background is blocked by the walls on either side of the stairs and there’s another shot that oddly lingers on a mountainside with no music or movement whatsoever. It took me 3 rewatches to finally notice three heads (Ritsuka, Mash, and Bedivere) bobbing up over part of the mountain as the party reaches the top, but the shot lasts for so long and nothing happens for the majority of it that it feels just so awkward. Most of the Camelot movie is exactly like this, where there’s just something off about the story, or the animation, or the characters in every single scene that it felt like the complete opposite of why I wanted a Camelot adaptation in the first place. The movie wasn’t necessarily bad, but there was absolutely nothing about it that was super enjoyable or impressive. It felt like less of a celebration of the fandom like the Babylonia anime was, and more like a scheme to produce something that can pass as the Camelot adaptation in the quickest, cheapest way possible in order to sell the movie tickets. One thing that I have not addressed is the time constraints, given that the entirety of the Camelot singularity needed to fit into two 1.5 hour movies which is equivalent to roughly 9 anime episodes. For reference, the Babylonia anime was 21 episodes long. While this is a valid defense for the movie, this doesn’t excuse the weird things like switching the order of the events and having lazy animation. Plus, as I mentioned before, the Camelot movie had plenty of these panning background shots with music playing over it that really served no purpose whatsoever other than filling up time. Cutting all of these scenes out would create up to 10-20 minutes of screen time that could then be used to include more important things, maybe like ACTUALLY putting all the Camelot servants in the movie. Ultimately, it doesn’t even come down to the time they had to work with, or how much money they had to throw at a pretty fight scene. It comes down to the passion put into producing the anime, which the movie obviously lacked. The single best example I can provide for this is the 40 second cameo of the Camelot singularity that was featured in episode 0 of the Babylonia anime. Sanzang’s short narration during that clip was more in line with her character than anything she did during the entire Camelot movie, and additionally that clip managed to show off ALL of the characters from the singularity (including Hundred Face and Touta) in the infamous village feast scene that the movie ever so kindly left out. Those 40 seconds were more genuine of an adaptation of Camelot than this entire movie was, which perfectly tops off how I feel about Fate/Grand Order: Shinsei Entaku Ryouiki Camelot 1 - Wandering; Agateram.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 15, 2020
Psycho-Pass
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
I heard a lot of good things about Psycho-Pass before finally getting to it, so that definitely might've influenced how I went about watching the show. Nonetheless, I really didn't expect it to be... this much of a disappointment. I first got hooked into watching anime for the intellectually stimulating social commentary that many anime had to offer. I still genuinely get excited whenever I come across something that could end up being one of those shows for me, even if my tastes have since shifted to the moe side of the spectrum. Psycho-Pass did not meet those standards I have for a riveting anime
...
that offers substantially thought-provoking social commentary.
To succinctly summarize my experience watching Psycho-Pass, what I expected was a story about a futuristic society that currently faces a moral dilemma due to a leap in their technological progress. Instead, what I received was a society that had regressed to have such a deteriorated understanding of human nature that the average citizen’s moral compass was less developed than our average kindergartener. Where I expected to find stimulating discourse on the structure of law and society, I got a pity party of morons who forgot what it feels like to think for themselves. While these things may sound similar, the show puts too much of a focus on HOW each of the characters fall in their caste created by the Sibyl System, and in my opinion doesn’t explore nearly enough WHY that should be the case. The weight of this completely overlooked potential and the insignificance of what the show decided to pursue instead is why Psycho-Pass is a mediocre show at best for me. In all of my reviews, I always try to fit in a joke or some type of reference that’s thematically appropriate for the show in question, so I’ll be organizing this review by narrating over how this show’s own Psycho-Pass crime coefficient increased as I watched! I’m also fairly confident I can address all of my points without directly spoiling plot points in the show, so yay, spoiler free review. crime coefficient: 0 -> 29, not a target for enforcement The first issue I have with Psycho-Pass is the first episode. Or more like, the lack of impact that the first episode had. While some bad shows may have amazing first episodes, I have yet to encounter a show that I truly enjoyed that didn’t have a first episode that left a positive impact. Psycho-Pass’s first episode gave a run-of-the-mill introduction to the setting of a futuristic society ruled by cymatic scans and crime coefficients. The episode was all-in-all rather boring and uneventful, betting everything on how well the setting of the show is able to interest the viewer. Speaking of the setting… crime coefficient: 29 -> 294, enforcement mode Paralyzer A show like Psycho-Pass that tells its story with its setting must have a believable atmosphere that draws in and interests the viewer. Now exactly how convincing is a setting where, for the sake of civil order, people are not allowed to choose their own futures and are even incarcerated for having the latent psychological trends loosely associated with criminal activity, yet they can choose to spread carcinogens for other people to breathe by smoking cigarettes? Yes, I know it’s small. Yes, I know it’s nitpicky. But we’re going to talk about it. This early on was already my breaking point for the show, and I knew everything after this was gonna be downhill. Like, what kind of anime are you trying create, if you can’t even maintain a setting that has believable qualities that are consistent with itself? There are absolutely no explanations for this. This society of hyper-vigilance, where machines issue the death penalty to people based on neurological readings instead of actual behavior, but suuuuure smoking carcinogens and letting everyone else breathe it? Perfectly fiiiiine. Because “tobacco use looks cool lololol; I’m a meta manslave, so why not.” And while you may argue I’m just being biased/petty, there are plenty of shows that involve main characters who smoke that I can enjoy. Cop Craft being one of them, and smoking where it’s historically and atmospherically appropriate in shows like 91 Days just makes sense. But it just doesn’t make sense here. It’s an anachronism that demonstrates how little care and thought was put into developing this show, despite how popular as it is. Another reason why I dismiss this show as mediocre. crime coefficient: 294 -> 367, enforcement mode Lethal Eliminator The next contribution this show has to my stress level is how slow it was. Pretty much absolutely nothing of note happens up until episode 11. What the show does up until episode 11 is purely insubstantial and it really doesn’t even further our understanding of the setting or of the relationships between the characters any more than we already understood it at episode 2. I have to conclude that this show’s pacing is awful because essentially everything starting after we gain a basic understanding of the world’s setting until the turning point in episode 11 is filler. I really don’t understand how they couldn’t just make this a run-of-the-mill 12-13 episode seasonal show if there are 9+ episodes of pointless filler. Not gonna lie, if I had been watching Psycho-Pass while it aired along with other shows, I would have just dropped it after 2-3 episodes and never picked it up again. 11 episodes is way too long for a show to get into gear. Even episode 12 right after episode 11 is just some pointless filler flashback featuring Enforcer Yayoi’s past. Yayoi didn’t get much screen time before this episode, so I’d understand the point of this episode if this served to somehow educate on us why Yayoi contributes a certain way down the storyline, but after this episode she just kinda goes back to her designated spot as professional benchwarmer. If Yayoi never meaningfully contributed to the storyline before this episode or after this episode, then there never really was a point for Yayoi herself to exist, let alone a pointless flashback episode for her which was placed right after the turning point in episode 11. It was almost as if the show threw a wrench into its own inner works to sabotage any momentum it might have picked up from the turning point in episode 11 by airing a completely irrelevant episode 12 right after that. The show’s very questionable pacing and inclusion of pointless characters like Yayoi really make me question why this is even highly praised in the first place. These are all qualities of sloppily put together productions. crime coefficient: 367 -> 451, enforcement mode Destroy Decomposer The characters in Psycho-Pass sure are a piece of work. Not only are they extremely cliché and boring by themselves, when they come together they create an even more unpleasant viewing experience than they could when separate. I had previously mentioned how most of episodes 2-10 are pointless filler, because it can all effectively be summarized as overpowered behavioral profiler and violent hunting dog Kogami Shinya completely carries everyone else’s incompetent ass and lets the naïve little girl of a protagonist Akane Tsunemori play pretend-police-officer. Kogami is way too convenient of a deus-ex-machina who pretty much single-handedly does all the work of the entire team for the first half of the show, which is an awful foil for Akane because it really highlights how useless she is. She’s pretty much a bystander that’s merely a police officer only in title. I really question why she was chosen as the protagonist, because it’s her fault the show’s lens is tainted by her privileged perspective of being blessed by the Sibyl System and never enduring a single day of hardship in her entire life. Everything in her life has been handed to her on a silver platter because of whatever aptitude exam she managed to score top percentile in and because of her conveniently clean Psycho-Pass. Characters like Kogami keep on praising her talents and uniqueness or whatever, while all I see is them dragging around and doing all the work for this sad cardboard cutout excuse of a main character. This type of interaction would really make a lot more sense if this was a satirical comment on protagonists in anime, like it is in Yuru Yuri or KonoSuba, but I don’t see the “comedy” tag under Psycho-Pass. Watching Akane really reminded me of Sieg from Fate/Apocrypha, except it thematically made more sense for Apocrypha to have a blank slate for a main character. While in Psycho-Pass the entire show felt so awkward because the protagonist didn’t have an ounce of ambition due to being so ditzy and privileged that it felt like she was just being dragged around episodically by random plot points. Towards the end of the show, she seems to grow a spine for herself, but this transition was much too sudden and only shallowly explained at best to even be considered remotely believable. Even the show itself off-handedly acknowledges how useless she is, because once she was forced to step up her game since Kogami wasn’t there to carry her anymore, the other team members all commented if she was feeling okay due to how differently she was acting (because she was actually being useful for a change). The other characters weren’t much different, as Gino is pretty much a self-righteous prick with a stick up his ass for the entire show until the very end where rather than character growth he’s merely forced to come to terms with something due to the nature of how the show ended. Masaoka is just your resident “I’m a boomer,” and we already discussed how important Yayoi was. The one saving grace for the characters of this show was Makishima Shogo as the villain, but even then most of his ideological reasoning for opposing the Sibyl System is sidelined in favor of him acting as the evil counterpart for Kogami. I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential in a more ideological battle like of that which took place between N and the protagonist in Pokemon Black and White. In conclusion, Psycho-Pass was a complete letdown for me. The setting of this show had so much potential to work with, but it seemed to be oblivious of all of that and chose to walk the path of a half-assed production that really doesn’t have any strong points in particular. To give credit where it is due, Makishima Shogo was a very well-done character, but honestly he was the only well-done character such that more than half the time he was the one I was cheering for instead of the protagonists. The music is very catchy, both the soundtrack and the OPs/EDs. The animation is rather impressive; the show especially does a good job of capturing the tense atmosphere of pursuing a suspect in the darkness, with many shots framed by the plentiful obstacles there are for the suspect to hide behind in the foreground. However, in terms of storytelling, the show really comes off as a tactless and hastily thrown together production. Everything Psycho-Pass has to offer comes off as so shallow that it’s easily beaten out by alternatives with similar motifs. Criminal Minds offers a better deep dive into the behavior of criminal psychopaths through the eyes of law enforcement agents pursuing them, Gatchaman Crowds offers a much more involved and thoughtful discourse on social structure, and Babylon offers more academic insight on the relationship between law and society. Even big reveals like the true nature of the Sibyl System merely serves as raw shock factor and actually serves to further diminish the ideological dilemma of the show, making the moral problem a lot more clean-cut than we originally were aware of. This brings me to what I think is Psycho-Pass’s fatal flaw: the entire show lacks depth on multiple levels. None of the characters are given enough breadth for them to feel like any more than cardboard cutouts, the illusion of immersing in this fictional world as a viewer is short-lived and shallow, and regardless of the random philosophical and ideological elements tossed around and teased by the show, the climax boils down your generic fist fight that lacks any narrative weight. In this sense, I think Psycho-Pass bears a lot of similarity to the first season of Attack on Titan. Both are rather unrefined shows that carried ton of hype during their airtime, but further scrutiny will pick apart the shows for what they really are: predictable and robotic interactions between shallow characters who are following a plot that really doesn’t go anywhere or tell the viewer anything even at the very end. Crime coefficient is 451. This anime is a target for enforcement action. Target’s Threat Judgement has been updated. Enforcement mode is Destroy Decomposer.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 27, 2020 Recommended
Welcome back to another one of my reviews. Today we'll be reviewing FGO Babylonia. The show is about humanity's last Master, Fujimaru Ritsuka, and his main servant Mash as they venture through the 7th singularity and---- wait what? That's the wrong show? ...Ahem.
Babylon is a multifaceted show that is a mystery drama, psychological thriller, and political power struggle all stuffed into one show. Our protagonist is Seizaki Zen, the head prosecutor of Japan's Special Investigations Unit. The show follows the entirety of his investigation through a specific incident that ultimately culminates into a quest to define the fundamental nature of good and evil. Without getting ... into spoilers, the show is very ambitious and in my opinion fulfills the quota it set for itself and more. Do keep in mind this isn't a show to watch without thinking, as many of the answers have to deduced by the viewer rather than the show just revealing the plot point for free. This actually does include the ending of the show, that's actually much more close-ended when you actually think about it. Bottom line, if you want to watch something that makes you think, this is DEFINITELY the show to watch. I won’t be intentionally spoiling the show, but I will be using major points and other key events of the show as examples to support my reasoning for rating the show as I do. Please be aware. This review will be organized in two parts, mainly touching on everything up to episode 7 and everything after episode 7 due how much the nature of the show differs between those two points. I will not be discussing the Story, Art, Sound, Character, and Enjoyment of the show individually, as these points will be woven into my analysis of the two aforementioned halves of the show. Let's begin. The first half of the show opens up as what appears as mostly a mystery drama and psychological thriller, as Seizaki is looking into some strange incidents and seems to find a loose connection between multiple cases that seemingly lead to dead ends. This stretch of the show really serves to lay the foundation for Seizaki as a character, and part of what makes the show so enjoyable for me was how well developed of a protagonist Seizaki is. Seizaki is a straightforward and principle-driven workaholic, dedicated to catching the bad guys and prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law. The show does a fantastic job of building Seizaki’s character for us and letting us know what type of person he is. Little things like his coffee mug reading “KEEP CALM AND SERVE JUSTICE” (can we take a moment and appreciate how funny this is?) and larger things like not going home whenever he’s working a case demonstrate that Seizaki is a man on a mission, and his day really only starts when he checks into the office at work. The very first conversation he has on the phone with his wife is a fantastic example of this. Seizaki’s apology for not being able to come home “once again” and his wife’s automatic and supportive response indicates that rather than being a first-time occurrence, working overtime is more of an everyday type of thing for this household. Especially when we learn Seizaki even has a son at home that’s pretty much being solely raised by a mother when daddy is away at work, it’s very clear where Seizaki’s priorities are at. This point is really hammered home in a particular phone conversation between Seizaki and his wife (go figure, they talk on the phone more than they do in person) that doesn’t actually have a shot of either of them talking. Instead, the camera is panning up the staircase in Seizaki’s home, showing the family photos during the conversation. “Family” photos being a loose term here since Seizaki was only in like 2 out of the 5 photos shown, and one of the photos he was in was when his son was really young. This is really just a remarkable demonstration of good directing, as the deliberate arrangement of this shot serves to solidify Seizaki Zen’s character without any exposition at all. Moving to another main plot point, the main antagonist Magase Ai serves as a foil to further strengthen the foundation of Seizaki’s character. Their first meeting during the interrogation room interview is a scene with a ton of depth. Not to mention the really creative shots during the encounter, like point of view shot from Ai’s mouth as a frame looking out at Seizaki, and the unsettling atmosphere created from the emphasis on the unwavering eye contact between the two. The content of the interview itself was mostly Magase asking questions to Seizaki, quite antithetical of a prosecutor interviewing a suspect, and this line of questioning indicate the first seeds of doubt being planted in Seizaki’s other black and white perspective on justice. Up to this point in time, Seizaki has been a by-the-book lawyer with a very conventional sense of unwavering justice, which have contributed to his current position as lead prosecutor. Magase posed very difficult questions, like whether death was evil, that really forced Seizaki to reconsider some of his fundamental beliefs. The plot escalates from this point forward from a minor investigation of cases to involvement in the much bigger Shiniki Project when Seizaki is called to investigate Itsuki Kaika. This leg of the show is the start of the main conflict that plays out in a mystery and political power struggle, now that the character development in the previous arc has set the stage. The Suicide Law introduced by Itsuki’s hijacking of the Shiniki Project is thrust into the center of the show, as the stakes are even further raised to impact the entire country of Japan. This introduces a heavily political tone of the show, as political power and public support now greatly factors into whether this law is enacted or rejected. The show takes advantage of this opportunity to stage the most convincing political debate I’ve ever seen in an anime with some of the most realistic and ideological sound arguments I’ve seen in an anime. There are socioeconomic, ethical, legal, and emotional arguments and counterarguments that were so logically sound that it was an academic treat for anyone with a legal or philosophical education (like me). Aside from how compelling the arguments were, they were also indicative of how a realistic political power struggle would play out, as many of the questions and arguments were posed in a malicious way such to corner the opposition for a decisive blow to their public campaign. This became all the more apparent when an innocent boy who made a viral video on the suicide law was appropriated to make a case against suicide law, and as Itsuki Kaika proceeded to immediately turn the tables and reveal that the boy was in fact his own son that he was prepared to die for in order to give him a needed heart transplant. This level of intense mind games where one party predicts the opponent’s ace card and proceeds to convert that ace card into their own ace card is honestly more epic than an actual full-blown action battle scene to me. The show masterfully takes advantage of the momentum of the turning of tables in the political storyline and directly transitions to Magase turning the tables on Seizaki. Concurrently with this political struggle storyline, the show also runs the more personal storyline of the struggle between Seizaki and Magase, as Seizaki’s investigations team is dismembered (literally) one by one. As gruesome as it is, between the scene before Kujiin’s death where the image of him and Seizaki were shot from a reflection from a pool of his blood and the transition of the dismemberment scene to the ketchup being put over his family’s bento, are examples of very effective visual tools that are yet more testaments to the detailed art direction the show has. The end of episode 7 marks the beginning of more than a month of break in the airing of episodes, and also a stark transition in the tone of the show. Here, Babylon goes full JoJo as the main conflict escalates to an international scale as the majority of the latter part of the show takes place in the United States. The show begins to place a heavy emphasis on the political power struggle part of the show, and also shifts a lot of its focus to resolving the question of fundamental good and evil that was only a light motif during the previous part. While many people disliked this shift in the show’s focus, I’m going to explain here why this shift was necessary, because the show both had nowhere else to go and the show was actually dropping hints that it was going to do something like this. First, the show really had nowhere to go at this point in the Shiniki Project storyline. Any source of opposition to the Shiniki Suicide Law Initiative was so thoroughly trounced and driven to despair, or was dead. The first part of episode 8 demonstrated this very well, and I can say I’ve never quite been so unsettled by a peaceful scene as I was while watching Seizaki at home having quality family time. If the foundation set in the previous part of the show indicates anything at all, the fact that Seizaki is here at home rather than at work means that there is quite literally nothing more he can do about the issue he was investigating, and anyone he was collaborating with before was dead. Thus, the show had nowhere else to go other than expand the scope of the story to an international scale. Addressing the second point, the show was already hinting that it would do something like this. The Suicide Law campaign was portrayed as a very ambitious and deliberate political campaign, and ambitious political campaigns usually don’t just end after succeeding in one city. A much greater scale of the suicide law being enacted all over the world was probably the end goal’s vision. The show had already introduced a lot of political elements with the previous political debate storyline, so adding greater focus to the political power struggle of the suicide law and expanding the scope of said struggle should not have been unexpected. The latter part of the 8th episode introduced Alexander W. Wood, the fictional president of the United States. It is usually quite taboo for a show to add such an important main character this late into the game, but this show pulled it off excellently. While a little forced and out of the blue, the background exposition on the President was extremely detailed and it was very engrossing such that a viewer is placed completely in the mind of Alexander W. Wood and understands exactly how he thinks and how he came to be as he is as a person. Considering how well the show pulled of character development for Seizaki during the first part, the show’s thoughtful handling of character profiles does not change even if the main tone of the show does. The introduction of President Wood serves as a device to smoothly transition to the more philosophical and ideological part of the show. While Seizaki was doing his best to fight against the Suicide Law during the former part of the show, the latter part of the show ponders whether or not the Suicide Law is good or evil. While we see a drastic decline in the amount of suspense and detailed art direction prevalent in the previous part of the show, we see much more ideological clout being touted as the leaders of the world are dragged together to answer the ultimate questions: What is good? What is evil? While not being as entertaining at face value, I personally started watching anime and continue watching anime for shows that have messages that concern the bigger picture. Hence why Madoka Magica is still my favorite show of all time and an uncommon show like Gatchaman Crowds is in my anime top 10. So I found this part of the show equally entertaining as the previous parts of the show, as characters with different experiences and opinions came together to solve the ultimate mystery: defining the fundamental essence of good and evil. I found tuning in every week to this philosophical spectacle to be quite a treat, and anyone else who enjoys pondering this type of academic discourse will as well. Babylon still had one last surprise for us before the show ended, as the global political power struggle over the suicide law drew to a climax. President Wood successfully delayed a young girl from committing suicide with the promise that as soon as he knew whether it was a good or bad thing, he would let her and everyone else in the world know; except, Magase Ai infiltrates the summit where the president is at and mind-controls him to fling himself off the roof while being broadcast on international television. The show once again shows off its excellent scenario writing, creating a situation where the antagonists turn the tables to exploit what was supposed to be an asset of our protagonists. President Wood’s calm demeanor and thoughtful nature renders him invulnerable to the chaos and uproar the suicide law is creating on a global scale, but it also makes him an icon of authority that people look up to. With Magase forcing the President to commit suicide especially after he promised to let everyone know the conclusion he comes to about suicide, the Suicide Law Initiative would steal an overwhelming landslide of a victory and enact global change. This will be the second time I mention how enjoyable this type of mental warfare is, and how a battle of wits this intricate is the most entertaining type of battle I could ask for. Seizaki is aware of Magase’s plans this time around unlike the last time in Japan, and arrives just in time before the President is forced to kill himself. Another very satisfying chain of logic takes place once again, and it becomes frighteningly clear that the only way to prevent a man mind-controlled to commit suicide is to kill him yourself. Seizaki prevents the suicide by making it a murder, and he shoots the President before he can jump off the building. And thus the show comes full circle, as Magase appears before Seizaki, emphasizing how “bad” he currently looks after committing murder as a man named after “good”, as a prosecutor seeking to uphold justice. And she asks him: “What is good? What is evil?” To wrap some loose-ends up, I suppose I haven’t talked about the soundtrack this whole time even though I’ve covered nearly everything else. I think the soundtrack is really good. It is ambient and very appropriate for a show like this. All of the sound, including the OP and ED, is nothing over the top and merely serves to contribute to the general tone of the show. This show is really, really underrated in my opinion. While I understand it was a show that had some shaky development during its air time and it did undergo a drastic tone shift halfway through, it was still really good nonetheless. Just calling it a show that went sour halfway through is really underselling it. It’s definitely one of the most thought-provoking shows I’ve ever watched, next to Madoka Magica. That’s how much impact it made for me personally. I don’t really have a witty way to end off this review like I normally do, so just have my favorite quote from the show which is now probably my favorite quote in all of anime. “I’m still not sure what justice is. I still haven’t found a guideline for judging what’s wrong and what’s right. However, even though I don’t know, there’s still something that I believe is right. It’s continuing to think about what’s right. Even if I arrive at the answer someday, it’s important to not stop thinking about it. Even after you think you know what justice is, it’s important to keep asking yourself forever what justice means. I think that’s what justice is.” -Seizaki Zen P.S. Sorry that this review kinda just ended up reading like a poorly organized book report. I’m still personally letting the show’s ending sink in even as I write this (which goes to show again how deep this show really is), but I wanted to get this review out before this show gets swept under the rug and is never mentioned ever again. It’s one of my favorites and definitely is my favorite show of the previous season. Thanks for reading.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 22, 2019
Egao no Daika
(Anime)
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Egao no Daika is the most slept on show of the Winter 2019 anime season. This doesn't mean it's a masterpiece or anything, but I think this show has unjustly fallen under the radar of most of the anime community. This means it either has gone completely unnoticed by a majority of the anime community, and the few people that did watch it sell it far too short. I definitely believe this show should be given a chance by many anime viewers and I'm going to tell you why.
Egao no Daika is set in the future on another planet, where the population of planet ... Earth has already ruined the environment and moved on to find another planet to inhabit. The story revolves around two girls, Princess Yuuki Soleil of the Soleil Kingdom and Stella of the Grandiga Empire. Yuuki and Stella, though they come from different backgrounds and answer to different governments, have more in common than just meets the eye. The story follows both of their perspectives throughout a war between the Kingdom of Soleil and the Grandiga Empire, which is one of the show's main plot points. I'm just going to leave the setting at that without spoiling much else, since it'll be better for you to watch for yourself. What makes the show interesting is how the story unfolds very personally for each of the characters. Many times an episode may start with something that is out of context (and many times even out of chronological order), but the show drops enough clues for viewers to piece together the context, and doing so is often very rewarding in that it leads to organic character development for the cast. While the characters and the story writing aren't the best I've ever seen, they need to be given much more credit than what the ratings on MAL and what the anime community indicates. The show's portrayal of war is also very intriguing since it shows off the ugliness of the front lines along with the challenges of making the big decisions in the safe (yet comparably stressful) command room. One of Egao no Daika's biggest strengths is opening up an intelligent discourse on the human condition. Especially when it comes to war, it often tries to digest thought-provoking topics when exploring the motivations of front line soldiers that are only pawns in the war, or when a leader needs to weigh their personal ideology against the greater good. The show often calls into question and really evaluates what the greater good should even entail. While Egao no Daika definitely doesn't have the philosophical clout that some other more well-known shows have, what it brings to the table isn't just ideological mumbo-jumbo that some people unfortunately misunderstood it as. Overall, Egao no Daika is a character driven show that explores intricacies of the human condition using the setting of futuristic war. Futuristic war entails mechs and mecha fights, but you definitely don't need to be a hardcore mecha fan to enjoy the show. I think that at its core, Egao the Daika still tells a character driven narrative that touches over some philosophical questions. If you at all enjoy shows that have very human dialogue and characters or thought-provoking thematic elements, Egao no Daika should be right up your alley. The animation quality and some of the action sequences are already enough to carry the show as is, but the direction of the narrative and the thematic elements posed by the show definitely place it several tiers above your average seasonal rando show. As an anime original production with no source material, Egao no Daika deserves to be recognized for that. P.S. If you've played Xenoblade Chronicles X, Egao no Daika's setting, characters, and thematic elements are all strikingly similar. Xenoblade Chronicles X is by the far the most slept on Xenoblade Chronicles game that falls under the radar of most of the Xenoblade community. Xenoblade Chronicles X is also my favorite Xenoblade, nay, favorite game of all time. Seeing the parallels between Egao no Daika and Xenoblade Chronicles X (both in their thematic elements and how they're getting largely ignored by their respective communities) is what gave birth to this particular review. I continue to defend Xenoblade Chronicles X from the haters that misunderstand it and didn't even play it, and I'll continue to advocate for Egao no Daika as one of the most underrated shows of the Winter 2019 anime season. Anything is possible with passion and will!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 23, 2018
Release the Spyce
(Anime)
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Thanks for tuning to another one of my reviews. I promise I’ll crank these out more frequently now, especially since I’m pretty worry-free this winter break. Look forward to me struggling to articulate the greatness of some of my favorite shows ever in some of the reviews I have coming up.
If you haven’t already, check out my updated waifu list! I worked pretty hard to update it, so I’d appreciate if you check it out and leave a comment! Enough getting sidetracked, let’s get straight to the point. I’m doing a review for the recently finished airing Release the Spyce, and I’m doing this for ... two reasons: one, to clear up misunderstandings about the show for the people who dislike the show after having finished it due to the misguided expectations they had for it. Two, to get more people to watch this show and hopefully patch up its average MAL score. Just yesterday, Release the Spyce had a 6.70 average rating. Although at the time of me writing this it has drastically increased to a 7.00 average, shows like Kishuku Gakkou no Juliet from the same season has a 7.63 rating. And Kishuku Gakkou no Juliet is no more than your average, tropey rom-com harem show. While Release the Spyce is by no means a masterpiece, it was the highlight seasonal show of the season for me and I aim to express that through the following review. Let’s get started. To sum it all up in one short paragraph, here’s what my whole entire review is trying to say. I’ll go more into detail later if you’re still here to read it. To be honest, I didn’t start watching Release the Spyce during the Fall 2018 season until episode 9 had already aired. I had avoided the show because the revealing outfits of the girls in Release the Spyce led me to believe that it was just another “skimpily dressed girls battle in your run-of-the-mill battle girl ecchi show” like Ange Vierge or something, but I was way off the mark. Release the Spyce is a moe action yuri spy thriller. Now, you may be confused after hearing that. The bottom line is that Release the Spyce takes two seemingly incompatible things like cute high school girls and high-profile secret agents, mixes them together, and makes it work really, really well. Release the Spyce is a moe slice of life at its heart, with shounen and yuri elements mixed in as supplements. For people who haven’t watched Release the Spyce and are considering it, Release the Spyce heavily resembles most Cute Girls Doing Cute Things shows. If you enjoy CGDCTs like K-On, Gochiusa, New Game, Blend S, etc., definitely give Release the Spyce a watch. You definitely won’t regret it since it’s fundamentally structured like your typical CGDCT show, except the cute thing they’re doing being ninja spies. That’s it for the summary. Let’s elaborate on the things I may have glossed over in the summary for the sake of brevity. The first question about Release the Spyce someone may have is how can something be considered an action thriller if it has overarching moe (cute) undertones to everything? The answer to that is I don’t know, and I don’t care. It just works. Release the Spyce is able to take some awesome action tips from shounens like Naruto and mix it together with the campy cuteness of shows like K-On to create something cohesive, entertaining, and unique. It’s not a surprise since other shows from this season have done the exact same thing by mixing up two seemingly unrelated elements and coming up with something that works much better than it has any right to. To name some of my favorites, Zombieland Saga made an idol show about zombies and Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san made a moe yuri slice of life about loli vampires. Although it’s fundamentally still a moe show, Release the Spyce incorporates many media tropes from the action genre very well. You’re gonna get some serious My Hero Academia vibes with the first episode, with “do you want to become a hero/spy” being synonymous among the two shows that come from two pretty unrelated genres. If you were one of those kids that got all giddy watching the old Batman cartoons that aired on Saturday mornings or really like the Spy Kids movies, then Release the Spyce is definitely worth checking out if you don’t mind that cute anime girls are the focus of the show. To be honest, some of the technology that Tsukikage works with looks a whole lot more practical than a lot of the stuff Batman has in his belt. A VERY IMPORTANT thing to consider though, as you continue getting engrossed in this world of smartphone pistols, grappling hooks, holographic decoys, and invisibility lotion, is that this is a show about cute girls doing cute things. This especially goes out to the people who were “disappointed” by the ending. No matter how badass these girls are and how much the stakes are raised as the show goes on, the focus is on the moe and the yuri of the cute girls. So don’t expect some Tom Cruise jumping out of a burning helicopter to retrieve the detonator to a nuclear weapon or some insane 007 mind game. Release the Spyce may employ many elements from the action and spy genre very well, but that’s all it’s doing. It’s merely employing those elements, not identifying with them. Don’t be tricked; remember: all spies are liars. Got it memorized? Hating on a moe show for not fulfilling your ultimate fantasy of an anime action spy thriller is the same as hating imouto shows, watching Eromanga Sensei anyways, and then complaining about it. (someone please notice my Eromanga Sensei review) From here on I’ll move on to covering the story, art, sound, character, and enjoyment of Release the Spyce. To do this thoroughly though, there will be at least some SPOILERS or references that may become spoilers. If you haven’t already quit reading my review to go watch Release the Spyce, go do it now! It’s honestly a really good time. Whether you’re a moe fan that just tolerates action, an action fan that just tolerates moe, or someone that paradoxically loves both moe and action like me, Release the Spyce will be an extremely entertaining ride. Story: 007/10 The story is honestly the weakest part of this show. I was serious when I said not expect some crazy 007 shit. There wasn’t some crazy plot twist and the show didn’t go all Madoka Magica on us, which led many people (haters, cough, haters) to be let down. That being said, the story isn’t bad at all. As someone who regularly watches moe shows where the narrative is sometimes episodic at best, the story of Release the Spyce is very cohesive, clear, and somewhat moving. Release the Spyce is about our main girl Momo Minamoto, or as she likes to be called, Momochi (lol Peach). Momochi’s father was a police officer that gave his life protecting the city, and Momochi is motivated to step up and protect her home of Sorasaki City to honor her father’s legacy. She looks up to her senpai Yuki Hanzomon because she’s your typical smart, talented, cool, and beautiful senpai that all the girls at the school want to be acknowledged by (yuri intensifies). It turns out Yuki is a secret agent of Tsukikage along with the other girls Momochi met at school and Momochi is scouted to join their ranks, even becoming Yuki’s apprentice (shishou yuri intensifies). From here on out continues Momochi’s story of growth from an introverted schoolgirl to someone who has founded her courage through her efforts and achievements. The cyclical resemblance of the first episode to the last episode is always something I appreciate in shows. Momochi taking her turn after Yuki to be the one standing up for the city and instilling courage in a kouhai definitely demonstrates deliberate consideration and awareness of the overarching theme of a narrative, something that separates mediocre anime from good ones. While it isn’t the most innovative way to lay the foundation for a show, it served its purpose well enough considering how this is a moe show driven by a demand for cuteness as much as it is by the narrative. HEAVY SPOILERS BEGIN For people still contemplating the meaning behind Yuki’s smile at the very end, I think it’s heavily implied from her reaction that she still remembers everything in spite of what she said about having her memory erased. All spies are liars, after all. The only evidence I can offer is slightly before the scene with Yuki and Momochi by the beach, where there is a cut to the old lady’s slight reaction to the butcher shop owner talking about the mysterious allies of justice that protect Sorasaki City, which implies she had memories of her time with Tsukikage as well. Make of it what you will; it’s definitely something they left up to personal interpretation. HEAVY SPOILERS END Art: 9/10 I don’t really know what to say about the art, other than that it’s really moe. All the girls are very cute and the colorful outfits and hair colors of the main Tsukikage members serve to support this. I especially find the purple and the red on their school uniforms and Tsukikage outfits to be very good choices that bring out the nature of the show. Especially with the effect that spyce has on the girls in making their eyes change colors and glow, I can’t believe some people really forgot they were actually watching something moe. Addressing the non-moe parts of the animation style, the opening pretty much does a good job of showing how well Release the Spyce employs action tropes to its advantage. The first twenty seconds of the opening employ a bunch of stuff you’d see in an older 007 trailer, like the zoom in on the silhouettes of the main cast in a plain white background, the camera shutter and search light effects as the cast is introduced, and finally the infamous shot of introducing the enemies through the barrel of a spy’s pistol. With its use of shadows and darkness, Release the Spyce definitely knows when to tone down the moe elements to instill dramatic effect. Even a few of the fight scenes are well choreographed and animated to the point where you question if this is actually just a shounen show. Sound: 10/10 spapapa papa papapapa papapa spy and spice! OST for Release the Spyce is bomb. The opening is probably just my favorite OP this season, like, I’ve been listening to it on repeat while I write this. Nothing more needs to be said about how much value it adds when the VAs participate in doing the opening for their show. The ED is less remarkable, but it also works well and fits in so much that I can’t imagine anything but having the starting jingle of the ED at the end of every Release the Spyce episode. Outside of the OP and ED, the other soundtracks are noteworthy as well. There are some seriously epic battle themes that really shouldn’t be overlooked in this show along with some groovy techno synth that plays for infiltration sequences. Release the Spyce once again makes a good reference to classic spy films with its proliferating use of the trumpet that really does call back to 007 when it’s played during the hype of one of their spy operations. Character: 10/10 Calling back to its identity as a moe show, Release the Spyce boasts its characters as its strongest asset. Since the narrative of Tsukikage and the spy operations are heavily based on the relationships the girls have with each other, it’s natural that they receive so much attention. The shishou and apprentice system of Tsukikage really does kind of make it resemble Greek life with bigs and littles. Going off of that analogy, you could even call Tsukikage a sorority of sorts. The aspect of sisterhood and very close friendship is emphasized in the trust and chemistry all of the characters have with each other. While many of the characters are just kinda tropey by themselves, their interactions with each other are the most genuine aspects of this show that really make it shine. Especially between the mentor and apprentice couples, there is a deep relationship that is the focus of many of the episodes and gives enough yuri bait to fuel all the Release the Spyce fanfictions. Seriously, Mei and Fuu already moved in with each other, so they may as well just get married and have babies. Enjoyment: 10/10 I’ve pretty much already littered the reasons why I like this show all over the review, so I’ll just quickly reprise. I’m someone that was introduced to anime through shows like Pokemon, YuGiOh, Naruto, and Dragon Ball Z. These shows are, for the most part, driven by action and hype. Since then I’ve diversified my anime interests to watch really anything as long as it’s well made, taking a particular liking to moe shows like K-On. It’s pretty irreconcilable to balance both a love for shounen and moe, and I hardly ever see these two genres intersect in a way that doesn’t completely fall apart. Release the Spyce is my first exposure to something that put these two things together, and more importantly, put them together well. Usually girls in some kind of action show are sexualized to a point where it’s just hentai, but Release the Spyce didn’t do any of that. Release the Spyce kept all of the bubbly moe friendship intact and even sprinkled in some yuri bait to keep things spicy. Release the Spyce had action sequences with epic OST that could get me hyped over the curious enhancing power of spyce that fuels the adrenaline-rushing, car chasing, roof hopping, and robot slicing goodness. And then the girls would go back to the café again to eat curry and spread more moe around. In an age of repeating tropes and brainless productions, an anime that took my two favorite things and put in real effort to seamlessly combine them was a ray of light piercing the darkness for me. It’s why Release the Spyce is my pick for best anime of the season and why any other moe/action fans should check it out. This show is much too good to just be another flavor of the season. Overall: 9/10 9/10 means that the show had everything it needed for me to have a really good time watching it, but it also means the show did not perform in a way that made it stand out as an all-time favorite to me. In that way, I would actually have to agree that Release the Spyce did somewhat disappoint me with its ending. Why the show didn’t receive a 10/10 for me is that the ending was mostly predictable and hastily executed. While the ending did cover a lot and I did mention that the cyclical ending really made it stand out, there were still some parts of the ending that didn’t sit right with me. Many people who were presumed to be dead just kinda came back without any tension or drama. While the show did come full circle with Momochi scouting someone new and inspiring them to join Tsukikage, it really lacked impact as well. It really could have been more refined, like fleshing out the epilogue by either showing her apprentice fawning over her like Momochi had fawned over Yuki at the very beginning, or including an homage to Momochi’s father as a testament to how much she grew. But ultimately, that final episode covered so much content that a completely separate episode probably would’ve been necessary to put my ideas into fruition. Seeing how the show was mostly a character-driven moe show, this is really something I can overlook. All in all, Release the Spyce is a very entertaining show that let me celebrate my favorite parts of anime. So, I write this in celebration of Release the Spyce, in hopes that this show garners more attention than it has now because it really deserves to stand out for the style and creativity it exercised when mixing moe and action together in a single show. The secret ingredient? Just a pinch of spyce.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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