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Apr 23, 2023
It's one of those "_let's think about the human condition_" stories, where the author personifies philosophical questions about our way of life and adapts it into an action story.
It comes off as slightly pseudo-philosophical and edgy, thankfully not too much like many other authors out there who need to remind you of their misanthropy every 2 seconds. You can enjoy this one without being reminded of _the political and economic state of the world right now_.
The overall the story is that there are parasites that invade human hosts and slumber until the human in question is brought to the brink of despair by some event
...
in his life. This fit of rage/despair manifests into a full-on transformation that is enabled by the presence of those parasites. Humans basically become monsters that represent to some extent the desires they have. These humans are categorized and there's a push for these infected humans to integrate society, some becoming heroes with their transformations. These transformations have limits and the human can lose control, bringing about total loss of humanity. From there, things start to happen and the story develops.
___
__Pros__:
__Artstyle__ is incredible, one of the best I've seen.
- Motion is well portrayed, you get a good sense of speed and urgency. Faces, especially hair, is extremely detailed, every strand is drawn. Some scenes look like they're a black-and-white screenshot from a blockbuster anime movie. Effects like dust, particles flying, bubbles, viscosity are all life-like. There's also instances of Berserk-like monster details with the demonic/root-like designs that are heavily detailed and precise. Character design was pretty good overall, a lot of monstrosities. There's also some pannels with overlaying frames that are sometimes interesting to watch. It's very enjoyable to look at and I'd say it carried the manga to a significant extent.
img220(https://i.imgur.com/cuKKp4k.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/ZUnC9dZ.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/uvh7xAm.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/pwcmdrf.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/OBZR4KA.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/fYK2D5u.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/rjojw4V.png)
img220(https://i.imgur.com/O3lY0qL.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/x5OmPIf.png)
__Story__ was fair.
- __Story premise__ was good. Initially, it revolved around the mystery of the parasites, their origins, the special condition that the main character needed to fulfill to bring to life his goal. It's enticing at first, with characters popping out every few chapters to deepen the mystery even more. That was until we reach the later part of the manga, but still, credits where it's due. The way it also got political in some arcs, where there were debates about integrating society or resorting to genocide, quarantine, etc. Also a lot of references to real-life reactions to the events unfolding, that you'd find on Twitter, Youtube comments, etc.
- __Story segmentation__ was, at least for me, very well segmented. You could follow a very natural timeline of how events unfolded and the scale/depth of the story increased in a linear fashion. There was no jumping all over the place with rollercosters of story development, it was pretty straight forward. Easy to follow, no need to look up theories online or anything of the sort. It's not to say that the story was "simple", but the way it was presented was intuitive.
- __Raw__ emotions and violence were on display constantly. There was a lot of gore, a lot of sexuality and the author didn't shy away from putting masturbation. One of the characters had a porn problem and you'd get unfiltered porn addiction perspective, with voyerism and other sexual obsessions of the sort.
__Combat__ was nice.
- Action was really well portrayed, as shown previously in in my statement on the art. Characters had a variety of skills that associated with their own history/person. You had a lot of "up my sleeves" moment as well.
___
__Cons__:
__Story direction__ in later parts shifted in a not so good way.
- It basically turned into a superhero comic. I lost that sense of mystery. The villain took the narrative way too far into the cliché comic bad-guy archetype, instead of remaining in a non-specific mystery that humanity is solving.
- The main character diverted from his main goal, and that stuck until the very end. It's like the first part of the story was just a catalyst and not something we were ever meant to come back to, which is a downside for me. The __ending__ was not satisfying, slightly disappointing even.
- The answer to the mystery of the parasites and some of the characters' backstory was extremely generic and it was basically made unimportant. Completely brushed off at the end.
__Side-stories__ were a bit lackluster and flat.
- Certain arcs were not very interesting and became very flat. The one that really bored me and I'm ready to bet bored most readers, was the one with the guy who became a girl and was at the festival while the main story was lightly unfolding in the background.
- The romance was half-assed, although the only redeeming quality is that it wasn't over the top and hollywood-esque. It was fairly stoic, the main character's new girlfriend was kept at a distance for the entirety of the show, but it was still extremely bizzare of a switch. The main character was ready to die to bring back his original girlfriend to life, only to be side-tracked barely a few days after.
___
__Overall__,
It was initially very good and promising. The art is its strongest point. It unfortunately fell short past a certain point and the story did not conclude well enough. It's enjoyable but could have been shorter.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 2, 2023
It's a manga drawn and written by Nikiichi Tobita and it's an officially licensed product by Bandai/FromSoftware, published by Yen Press.
I say that because many might come to think that it's some fan-made nonsense, because the tone of the manga will probably take most Elden Ring fans by surprise.
It's a __comedy__ manga. It featured a single real fight in 11 chapters and it basically lasted 2 pannels.
I expected and would have liked it to be an actual canon and serious manga, but it's not the end of the world.
I give it a __7/10__ because I personally don't like comedy adaptations and you'll see why
...
it plays such a big role (unfortunately for me), but it's otherwise surprising.
I'll state the __pros__ and then the __cons__.
___
__Pros:__
__Art__
- The art is 100% faithful to the game (below is an actual picture I took ingame, versus the first pannel).
img220(https://i.imgur.com/IwWIQXM.png)
- The quality and detail of some shots are impressive.
img220(https://i.imgur.com/mTaBcou.png)
- There's a nice "sketch-like" quality to the drawings. It's a bit difficult to describe but sometimes the lack of crispness in the image gives it a nice feel, especially in the context of Elden Ring. You can almost see the pencil smudges.
- It also has this nice movement effect it uses sometimes to portray shaking (first pannel).
img220(https://i.imgur.com/LMpUJGu.png)
__Reference to source material__
- You basically follow the __real quest of Ranni__ and the references that are made along the way are very accurate. It takes you by surprise a bit. They even left in the funny/weird way of how Blaidd is initially summoned (when you need to snap your fingers when you hear howling) and also the fact that Ranni shows up at night only
img220(https://i.imgur.com/nmv3uyP.png)
- There's actual references to __gameplay strategy__ (i.e. using soap consummable) and __building your character__ (building strength or int).
img220(https://i.imgur.com/HFkdtcR.png)
- There are references to the __items__ the NPCs actually give you ingame (i.e. Margit giving you the pouch for expanding your talisman slots or the crafting kit and cookbook you get from the first merchant) and it also explains what it does. There's like an embedded __tutorial__.
img(https://i.imgur.com/syGZkps.png)
____
__Cons__
__Fighting__ is lacking and purposefully left out in exchange for more humorous ways of approaching confrontation. I'll give 2 examples that should make it clear.
- Margit spares the main character because he pities him that he has no armor or clothes, and is using pathetic wolf mimic to fight him.
img220(https://i.imgur.com/1tHJC5F.png)
- Blaidd and the Bloodhound Knight from the Evergaol fight by comparing the dolls they made of Ranni
img220(https://i.imgur.com/xwhhvWP.png)
__Humor__ is not befitting of Elden Ring, for my personal taste. Seeing fights reduced to doll contests is not my cup of tea, especially when we're speaking of a lore as "godly" (as in, very religious and serious) as Elden Ring's. I'll give 2 examples of how they basically mock Godrick.
- Godrick's "grafting" was turned into a joke attribute that makes him a sort of feminine american girl fashion diva
img220(https://i.imgur.com/YvacJ7S.png)
- Godrick holds a "grafting contest", with the jury being knights and Melina and whatnot
img220(https://i.imgur.com/UpDGXES.png)
____
__Maybe Pro, maybe Con__:
The fact that they made the main character a __player__, I don't know if it plays in favor of or against the manga. They break the 4th wall and make it clear that the tarnished main character is a player like us. He doesn't know why he's here and wants to "level up", etc., yet there's no indication that it's a game. I don't know how to feel about it, maybe it'll tie well with the game, but I'm sure it'll make people feel more immersed in some sense because it reflect actual player thoughts during the game.
img220(https://i.imgur.com/5vHWSbR.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/tO4pgyq.png)
____
__Summary__
If you would like an Elden Ring adaptation to be faithful to the game's tone (serious), you might be disappointed as I am. However if you like how something very serious can be turned into light-hearted banter, you'll probably like it a lot, especially if you played the game yourself.
I found it somewhat amusing at first, but overall disappointed of it being adapted into a comedy.
This motivated me to start modding the game instead of just spamming NG+X with a new build everytime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 1, 2023
5/10
I'll make these 2 important points first:
• I think that the manga is so highly rated only because it's mostly rated by those who didn't give-up halfway or didn't bother to attempt it (given its length), so naturally I think its rating is heavly skewed in its favor. There's an interesting statistical analysis article from 2020 on MAL, done by Shymander, where you see at which episodes people drop it or put it on hold (google "_One Million Strong A Statistical Breakdown of One Piece_").
• I'm giving it a __5/10__ because everything other than the main lore and world-building are below average, meaning the characters,
...
the art, the combat, parts of the storytelling, and the general tone (i.e. humor). Despite the relatively low rating, it's a massive compliment when taken into context.
It would have been better as a novel, rather than a manga.
I'll start with the __pros__ and then with the __cons__, and I'll try to keep it as concise as possible.
____
__Pros__:
__World-building__ is absolutely S-tier. The sheer amount of "life" that was bred into the world is insane.
- The amount of __races__: humans, giants, fish-men, dwarves, skypieans, cyborgs, zombies, toys, harpies, minks, snakemen, etc. etc. The way each race occupies a piece of the story, having their own personal struggles, history and goals. It was even directly emphasized with Big Mom's wish.
- The amount of __islands__: technically millions but even in the story, so many islands were reached. A lot of them were touched upon in the history, many of which were extremely diverse not only in their populations but also in their personal history that also ties up the the main lore most of the time, leaving hints here and there (i.e. Roger passing through X island and doing Y)
- The way the __sea__ itself is divided: I personally like vertical universes, meaning there are dimensions "above" and "below" (heaven-earth-hell template), howeve One Piece was able to create a massively developed horizontal universe that was enticing (north blue, east blue, south blue, west blue, redline, grandline, new world, ocean world and sky world, etc. etc.) that inspired mystery and fear. Although, I'll admit that the sea divisions didn't go as far as I would have liked. However it's still very fair.
- The emphasis on __eras__: it's always a plus to have the "ancient" world and the "present" world, constantly going back-and-forth between the two. Withdrawing information from the ancient world to feed the present world's underlying foundation and causes for the way things are today. Even ancient era stuff __leaking__ into the modern world (i.e. constantly hinting at cyborgs).
__Lore__ is fantastic. It turned a seemingly boring little pirate world into a grandiose treasure of ancient history, government conspiracy, massive plot twists and mysteries.
- The way __devil fruits__ were turned into a classed system of "types" (Paramecia, Zoan and Logia) was a great surprise. I originally expected it to be a fairly mundane, but then it expanded and eventually reached the point of __awakenings__.
- The way __haki__ was also classed (observation, armament, conqueror) and also had its own little hierarchy with conqueror haki being a matter of inheritence (at least as far as I understand). The way it can __rival__ and outright negate devil fruits (what we originally thought would be the end-all of powers), with marking figures like Shanks and Roger.
- The __ancient history__ that's being carried by so many elements, such as __historical ancient weapons__ that can be used to rule the world, __oddly placed technology__ that hinted to the __void century__. The introduction of __poneglyphs__, ancient language that can only be deciphered by [few] people, and then road poneglyphs, with the promise of a final island.
- The involvement of __government censorship and conspiracy__ and the introduction of a __surprise antagonist__ (Imu) which I think was probably the most important reveal so far and the way he was introduced after introducing the empty throne. Also the introduction of an __anti-government unit__ that also has its mysterious figure-head AND happens to be the father of the main character. The odd behavior of Shanks, and much more. Simply insane stuff.
- The __factions__ (World Government (+Marines), Celestial Dragons, Pirates, Revolutionary Army, neutral scientists, etc.)) and their sub-divisions (7 Sea Warlords, etc.) create very interesting dynamics and it ties up the world lore very well.
____
__Cons__:
__Art Style__ is horrible.
- The character design is absolutely horrendous. Characters look like a VR Chat lobby. Half the people are built like wisdoom teeth and others like bowling pins. It's distracting, especially when there's a serious matter and you have a guy built like a humpty dumpty version of Andre The Giant with lipstick and high-heels staring at you in the pannel. Also everything is round. Faces, eyes, bodies, nothing is well-proportioned and crisp, it always has to have that rounded-out goofy shape.
img220(https://i.imgur.com/CukTldm.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/B6lspch.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/8Z9MIYE.png)
__Characters__ are lackluster and uninteresting.
- Luffy, the __main character__, is absolutely horrible. Unlikeable, uninteresting, doesn't drive any kind of moral dilema or emotion forward. He's a headless chicken who's running around, recklessly bringing everyone around him in his troubles. You never feel like he's actually challenged on anything. He appears, doesn't know what's going on, beats the strong guy and on to the next. These 2 quotes in the image below summarize it: "_I don't want to hear where the treasure is, I'm not going on a boring adventure!_" and "_I want a world where my friends can eat as much as they like!!_". Awful.
img220(https://i.imgur.com/7KVXJsx.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/U6DFpp8.png)
- The __Straw Hats__ as a whole are just a mess. Uninteresting character development (if any) and there's always the annoying Usopp, Nami and Sanji, are all absolutely detestable. The others are just a mess. Zoro could have been something much much better than what we were given. The only one with any value is Robin because of her backstory, her goal and I suppose her age also plays a part in her maturity. The whole crew's character development feels like it just stalled from beginning to end. All their interactions are boring as well. Character development is always hard to put into words because it's something you intuitively catch when watching the characters, so that's as much as I can say without babbling too much.
- There's also way __too much unimportant characters__ that get pannel-time for absolutely no reason other than build upon the goofy moments of the story, which brings me to the next point..
__Tone__ of the story is way way way too goofy to be enjoyable. Every single scene is reduced to an anti-climactic goofy mess.
- Misplaced and cringy humor. Sanji and Usopp are classic characters for that. Funny-face humor all manga long is incredibly tiresome and off-putting, without getting into how terrible the "jokes" are.
img220(https://i.imgur.com/tyDS5Qc.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/HGEnxjR.png)
img220(https://i.imgur.com/eK1R3u8.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/IlWACP3.png)
img220(https://i.imgur.com/yES4W7i.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/wgdIGyx.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/GbGyjFA.png)
We could go on for pages, but that should point out the idea.
- The tone is also reflected by Luffy's character development, previously mentionned. Quotes like "I want a world where my friends eat as much as they want" while he's in Gear 5 beating down Kaido...absolutely anti-climactic.
__Fights__ aren't exciting or thrilling.
- Powers and combat scenes are, again, very goofy and very very cookie-cutter. The worst thing being that Luffy is a rubberman for most of the story and his transformations being random goofy nonsense as well. There are some specific powers that are nice like Law's chambers, but practically no others.
- A very sedated form of violence (2nd pannel below) where statements like "I will annihilate/burn you to ashes" are instead reduced to "_It's time to kick his ass!_".
img220(https://i.imgur.com/Yud8Gfi.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/3urLCbX.png)
__Storytelling__ is very spaced out in terms of main storyline. I can already imagine how the anime must be terrible on this aspect if it's already a problem in manga.
- The side-stories being injected inbetween the main elements of the story are absolutely boring and uninteresting. There's about 20 side-stories going on during Wano's arc and they're all less interesting than the next.
- Every single important pannel needs a 3-pannel comedic relief arc for some reason. It becomes unbearable after a while.
____
__Summary__
__Pros__:
- World-building (10/10)
- Lore (10/10)
__Cons__:
- Art style (2/10)
- Characters (2/10)
- Tone (2/10)
- Fights (4/10)
- Storytelling (3/10)
__Overall__:
5/10, would be better as a novel than a manga.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Oct 22, 2022
Fantastic story and lore, realistic art and very raw and crude violence & sexuality.
I'll try to keep it as spoiler-free as possible.
The story of a Samurai who's identity has dubious origins and later those supernatural origins become the central part of the plot, with a massive backstory that dictates the present world's fate.
Story-wise (10/10),
The story starts off with an attractive Samurai who seems obsessed with having sex with prostitutes. Later we come to know that this obsession is not exactly sexual, but rather there's a supernatural element and purpose to it, and the effects of it are very clear. That becomes central to unveiling the
...
origins of the character and opens a deep backstory and lore that'll soon become the driving plot behind the characters' actions. In other words, the story is very progressive in its unfolding and what makes it amazing is the twists that are foreshadowed basically chapters back. One in particular is very striking because it's a bizzare non-sensical statement the character makes in the first few chapters and then suddenly it all makes perfect sense in the last few chapters. That individual Samurai you see at the beginning eventually becomes part of a millennial old God-given prophecy that will change the demographic of the world (Attack On Titan's backstory draws a lot of similarities). Throughout the entire manga, a ritual is taking place without you directly knowing it before near the end. The character is also caught between two "factions", making him an undetermined ally or enemy for a major part of the story. My only itch with the storytelling is that it can sometimes get confusing and lose track a bit.
Characters-wise (8/10),
The main character is Gen Tsukinosuke, an attractive male ronin (masterless Samurai) and there's his indirect "associate" who's a transgender woman prostitute (male who disguises a female prostitute) who's in love with Gen in a distant way (because Gen is not about that) and wants to protect him/serve him as long as he lives. The transgender prostitute is also very often portrayed masturbating while Gen has sex with women. Later, new individual characters as well as new "factions" appear. There are anti-Shogunates, Shogunates, Shinsengumi (shogunate police), beast-men, international political foreigners and the main antagonists/anti-hero. Gen is very principled and sensical in his approach, he makes for a great character to follow. The opposing forces are also well presented. My only gripe with the characters was that the beast-men were very few in numbers and very oddly integrated in social settings; you would have expected stronger reactions. Also one of the factions Gen is affiliated with are not present enough IMO, especially that they're the central "group" of the plot. That may have been by design, in order to keep us guessing more, and if it was, it worked, but it felt a little bit off when reading it.
Art-wise (9/10),
The art was very interesting. I don't know the name of that style, but it's a style you'd find in very old romance novels/books, where they tried to draw photorealistic images of people. Faces are extremely expressive and realistic.
__
Sexuality and violence,
Sexuality is extremely prominent. Sex, masturbation, rape are all present in every chapter. Violence is also prominent. Head slicing, castration, infanticide/foeticide.
__
Overall, a manga that slowly unfolds its deeply rich lore, slowly sneaking supernatural elements to create the world. It's raw and crude. It has a lot of similarities with Attack On Titan's lore, if that can serve as a reference. It deserves a continuation.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Oct 20, 2022
A very short tragedy manga about a Samurai's plea and vengeance.
The manga was released in 1960 and it uses the feudal era at its setting to essentially testify an outcast's life and his resentment towards the classes that discriminate him.
What makes the main character an outcast is his status as the son of Buraku, a real class of people that exist(ed) in Japan.
"Buraku describes a large minority group in Japan, historically descendants of outcast communities of the feudal era, which mainly comprised those with occupations considered "tainted" with death or ritual impurity (such as executioners, undertakers or tanners), and traditionally lived in their own secluded
...
hamlets and ghettos."
The translator also left this note about the controversial publishing of the manga:
"Chidaruma Kenpou: Onorera ni Tsugu is a very controversial manga that was published in the '60s and was soon removed from shelves after being protested against by Buraku groups for its arguably negative portrayal of a Buraku main character. In recent times, it was restored and republished in this new version, but derogatory statements connected to Buraku and their history have still been blanked out. These missing bits have been restored as much as possible in this English translation."
Story-wise (8/10),
The story stars Gennosuke, the son of Buraku parents who died. He makes his way through a Dojo and is portrayed as being very persistant and recklessly relentless. His ultimate goal is to plea for the law of the land to be changed in order to make Buraku a protected class. This plan gets discovered and people realize he's a Buraku himself. This doesn't sit well among Dojo members and causes a cascade of events that end up with him carrying out an ultimate plan of vengeance. The story itself has nice minor twists but it's also fairly predictable and extremely short (even though it spans over more than a decade within the story). There's nothing particularly wrong with the story, it just wasn't exceptional and life during the time-skip should have had more story development. The time-skip almost felt practically useless given how few "changes" were portrayed after it passed. The ending is also a very nice twist that's a bit poetic. He's ended by someone of his caste, eliminating each other in the end, which only benefited the "bad guys" in the story.
Character-wise (10/10),
Gennosuke is very impulsive and intense. You see the emotions he goes through particularly well; you can feel that he's very troubled by what he's living. Fits of violent rage and fits of crying rage constantly on display, with no room given to "normal" scenes. There are basically 2 other important characters which make up his immediate circle, with nice twists to both of them.
Art-wise (7/10),
It's clearly very old but it's not bad by any means. It's simply underwhelming compared to newer art styles, it lacks detail and has this grainy texture. During fights, it can have some nice strokes that give the impression of speed/swinging but it can be bland or messy.
Overall, the manga is short and sweet. Enjoyable.
It was most definitely an inspiration for Shigurui
Gennosuke...Gonzaemon...crippleness...challenge to inherit Dojo...Irako son of "filth"...a distaste of the caste system...the revegeance plot...slay the tiger...even the sword style at some point...
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 21, 2022
It started off bad and it got even worse.
I haven't played the game, so let this be a considered as either a source of bias or a source of impartiality, however you see fit. I'm guessing that having played the game could help you enjoy it more, since you get to see characters you liked in the game being animated and interacting in a new scenario.
Pros:
• Good amount of gore and violence
• The voice chat-boxes appearing on the screen were a nice touch
• Some select scenes had a good amount of intensity (usually raging moments)
...
• Biochips being installed into slots to serve as powers, as opposed to innate powers or having a melting pot of "species" with different abilities, which suits a human cyberpunk universe better
• Nice outro song
Cons:
• Art-style is very Western cartoon-like; it looks similar to something like Justice League Dark: Apokolips
• Animation could be very abrupt and desynced with the background at times, momentarily looking like some amateur youtube animation video
• Color palette is not what I'd expect from a cyberpunk anime, it was missing those key notes of neon pink/purple; it looked flat most of the time
• It follows an episodic format where the main character(s) take on side-quests/gigs and their relationship evolves (barely) with a pseudo-overarching romance/love story; only episodes 8-10 follow a larger mini-plot
• Main character was extremely edgy, everything was an f-word bomb and things like "I'm built diff", written in such an edgy way with a dialogue very Catcher in the Rye-esque, cringy society outcast
• A lot of little story plots are tossed at you without any mystery (i.e. episode 2 where the plot to lure in David is non-chalently and monotonically presented)
• There's this weird thing where characters live shocking things and react inappropriately, often times overly-stoic and lacking any kind of genuine emotion (the worst one being in episode 1 where David's mother's dies and it's apparently 'ok whatever'), yet it fuels him towards the end of the show, adding a weird inconsistency to it as well
• Barely half-way into the anime, the "gigs" become nothing more than an excuse to create gaps between character dialogue, rather than them being the focus point; in some episodes, you'll even see multiple gigs cut into 30 second long snippets only to leave room for, mainly, the romantic story that's taking place and the loss-of-self the main character is going through. Other examples are in episode 4 and episode 7.
• The music is constantly spammed over everything and anything, it feels desynced and unfitting half of the time
• There's too much effort on trying to force the main character into a "sob-story" (episode 7's dialogue with Lucy being a prime example with that "chasing someone else's dream" line)
• The scenery when they're out of combat becomes very repetitive at some point and follows this [30 second combat scene] --> [dropped off by chauffer] --> [dialogue with David], rinse and repeat
• The show could have exploited more of the "hacking" or "digital world", but they kept it very surface level, making the show look like some kind of Lupin the 3rd with a cyberpunk gimmick
• It's mostly a romance story masquerading as something more than it is, and the main character is mostly devoid of any concrete purpose
• The ending was very bad
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 13, 2022
Pros:
• A scientific basis for some of the key phenomenons, like the method used to hybridize the main character, as well as the simple things like a flesh & blood diet influencing a ghoul's strength (natural aversion to human foods)
• Emotions were portrayed very well, the main character was very expressive and had moments of genuine insanity (i.e. at the beginning with the realization and in the ending with the worm)
• The real protagonists (detectives) were not overpowered by ghouls and actually had some "weapons" up their arsenal (as opposed to the classic humans being overwhelmed and having to resort to using some kind of
...
double-agent)
• The character's development is well segmented, as to show the "5 stages of grief" that he goes through before reaching that ending, which serves as a prelude to the 2nd season that will most likely use that same formula but in reverse
• Satisfying sound effects in some moments (i.e. rain and wind such as in episode 10 during the meeting
• Satisfying level of gore
• Uncontrollable demon inside archetype
Cons:
• The main character is very frail and weak, both mentally and physically; as opposed to characters like Naruto or Ichigo who, despite being "consummed", are still strong-willed and physically strong outside of their inner-demon. It can be an intentional character design, but not one that I found enjoyable or well done. He's also very NPC-like until episode 8 where he seems to gain some actual purpose.
• The ending was horrible. The main "villains" were introduced way too late (last 2 episodes) and they were completely forgotten barely half an episode later. The attention was turned towards that random Jason psychopath, who had no apparent purpose other than torturing. They could have at least came up with something like extracting Rize. The invasion/battle starts, you see rudimentary fighting, the one-eyed Owl appear for a split second and then it turns into a pseudo-intellectual philosophical breakdown of the main character and turning his hair white.
• Fights seemed promising at first but got stale and limited very very fast; characters are hell-bent on using weak punches before finally unleashing their power and even then, their power seems like something out of a 12 years old's drawing book. Weird tentacles that don't have any clear reason for being the way they are, weird colors, and so forth. Rudimentary and rushed.
• I did not feel attached to the ghouls at all and I was siding completely with the CCG the whole time. Ghouls were not made to be likeable, but instead pitiful with no redeeming qualities (except the main char's plea and Touko's)
• No backstory is offered in regards to the origins of the ghouls, felt like you're missing part of the world building and the character isn't used to address that issue
• Trying too hard to turn it into a philosophical evil vs good, victimhood nonsense when it has nothing much to feed off in the first place, very forced
• Tries too hard to make the ghouls seem like victims rather than it being a genuine conflict between ghouls and humans (except for the very end)
• The show becomes very slow paced from episode 4 to 8
• Abrupt and odd cuts in key parts (i.e. first fight against Nishki and then against Tsukiyama)
• Art can be bland and childish at times, animation can be weak
• No character was likeable except Amon (young-man detective)
• The actual detective work was very rudimentary and just plugged in to put the detectives into context, but with no actual thriller or mystery
• Talks about "S" rated Ghouls but nothing much developed on those in-between, might as well just said "the strongest" if we don't get to explore the rest of the rankings
• The music is sometimes very unfitting in fighting scenes; the music overpowers the mild combat and creates a feeling of desync between audio and visual (i.e. Mado vs Touka)
Overall:
Good idea, rudimentary lore, odd pacing, weird cliff hangers, disappointing fights. Started off very strong, dipped and then restabilized but at a much lower level than the start. It was "fair" but had a lot of flaws.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 23, 2022
The first 4 episodes were extremely promising, but unfortunately they took a wrong turn.
Given that every episode is 3 minutes, it made episodes 5-13 more bearable than they otherwise would have been.
The show essentially follows this format:
Highschoolers (divided into nerds and bullies) have a mundane problem. This mundane problem then becomes the core idea of a life lesson. In this case, an elderly gentleman, and eventually others including the school principle, shows up and summons a fart from his rectum. This fart is a deep-thinking philosopher who addresses the situation and helps the highschoolers out of it by instructing them and giving them a valuable
...
lesson. The number of wise farts increases over time and advice is then given by multiple farts.
The first 3 episodes started out this way:
Elderly fart addresses a physiological problem and educates the viewers about human anatomy
Same thing as episode 1 but with another problem
A new female fart appears and corrects the elderly fart by suggesting that this time, the problem isn't physiological but psychological instead (the topic was love)
Based on those 3 episodes, you would think that the show would use male-fart to teach the viewers about human anatomy/physiological processes and use female-fart to teach the viewers about human emotions/psychology.
Unfortunately, it started diluting the stories, less lessons were offered to the viewer, more farts joined the show and started to become subjects in the show themselves, rather than being the ones who are wise. You started seeing the lives of these farts and live their little problems, which was honestly not very entertaining after having been shown once already.
Art-wise, it's fairly detailed and has a pencil-strokes like style with static, low fps, paper animations. It has a style similar to what you'd except from one of those Youtube parody animations. It's very caricatural as you can imagine. The expressions are exagerated by either being overly stoic or being overly expressive.
They also have an odd music video outro with real people and a CGI version of the wise fart that made the whole thing feel more official than it originally fely like.
The show is basically one whole parody/joke show taken to TV-level production.
Overall, I can only rate this as a "short film"/"video" type of anime. The first 4 episodes were enjoyable, the rest went downhill very fast. Started out top echellon, but it's counter-balanced by the rest, so I'll give it an average rating of 5/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 17, 2022
The anime should be a 10/10 but the abysmal pacing of the show puts it at 7/10.
Imagine that you're a dog and it's dinner time. You run up to the kitchen only to find your bowl completely empty. You look up at your owner thinking "what's the deal here?". Turns out your owner decided to play a little game. You'll receive one single nugget for every 5 minutes you sit like a good boy. You end up finishing your meal in 7 hours.
That's how watching FMA 2003 felt. For every piece of relevant or exciting content, you had to sit through an unbearably useless 15
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minutes. It's only towards the last 10 episodes of the show that everything starts flowing at a decent pace.
Normally, when a show has slower pacing, it's to help with character development. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case. 50% of the episodes felt like dragged out fillers.
Story-wise,
It felt like a Bioethics class' case study for an exam, and I mean that in a positive way. As viewers, we were given alchemy in a somewhat scientific form, without straying too far and turning it into god-like powers. It was very fairly dosed and that's a great way for the show to keep the power ceiling consistent throughout the whole show. It was then easier to immerse ourself in the context, seeing that the main people suffering were humans and those pseudo-humans, which we can draw a lot of parallels from in today's world, with what we're foreseeing in artificial intelligence's future.
The story nicely touched on the elements of souls and more specifically the process of doing alchemy itself, getting a first-person view of the actual "process" that takes place when doing it (i.e. the gate). The way it touched on alchemy being "playing God", with the introduction of a specific faction, was a good way to approach it from a religious point of view (i.e. Scar's "logical loophole" for using alchemy).
There are a lot of parties are involved, which makes for a nice intersectional story. We get to see the various factions (military, humans, pseudo-humans, the main characters, etc.) fighting for the same prize, and not only that, but some factions had to rely on other factions to get their plan working accordingly. Those crossroads in the story were nice to see because it kept the story connected with everyone (although at times felt slightly convoluted with the amount of backstabs there was).
There was a ton of plot twists and shocking scenes, and they were all surprising and well thought-out. A lot of focus was also put on family drama, which can sometimes be daunting, but in this case, it integrated itself successfully in the story.
The ending was phenomenal, especially with the way it re-opens up an entire saga that could loop forever. It also doesn't need a movie sequel. Everything wrapped up so nicely at the end. You also get a little philosophical debate on a key part of the story (who's right, who's wrong). Very satisfying wrap up.
The main issue with the story was the point I touched about in the beginning of the review. Lackluster pacing. Half of the "incidents" that happen can easily be cut out of the show and wouldn't the change the story one bit. The pre-text for most of those useless scenes were "looking for answers", which was quite honestly cheap.
Character-wise, the show wasn't great at forging any character except for Edward and Scar. Most characters are extremely average, and in fact, in some cases, characters you were supposed to get attached to didn't have much of an impact. Some scenes fell short exactly because the impact wasn't great enough. The humor felt a bit repetitive and not exactly the best (Ed's height being the running joke for instance). They also used recurrent flashblacks a little too much, especially in the case of Scar. It's not terrible, just not really good.
Combat-wise, I'm glad they kept alchemy fairly equal across the board. They even added underlying scientific reasoning in the attacks/techniques some people used. The only issue was that the fights themselves weren't too exciting. They could have done much better with the animations and camera work. We never got to saw the quality of the scenes we saw in the intro's.
Overall, a very good subject that introduces very good topics and ethical dilemnas, but with an unfortunately horrible pacing that stagnates character development and and otherwise perfect plot development.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 11, 2022
The movie's main strengths are the animation, then the music, then the art. The story is its main flaw.
Story-wise, even as a self-contained story, it lacks too much substance. You follow a triangle situation between 3 groups, but most of the fundamental motive(s) of the characters throughout the movie are never explained. You just have to assume a lot of what's going on and there are some script flips that also don't make too much sense, makes you go "why is he doing that all of the sudden?".
Combat-wise, the animation is fluid. Great detail on the fights. It's enhanced by the camera work such as
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slow motion, camera shaking, change of angles, x-rays and wind effects. There's a great focus on technique as well; precise moves with several close-up shots, showing you movement of the skin, etc.
Character-wise, the characters are very charicatural (in a good way). The thieves are your classical nonchalent/funky guys, the main bad guy is an all-American terminator alpha male butcher who seemingly isn't phased by anything. The samurai is very inclined on his honor and so forth.
Music-wise, it has a nice Western/Bond-like OST, especially with the detective/thriller undertone the story has.
Art-wise, the art has that American/Boondocks-ish feel to it. One complaint for me is that there's a little too much CGI. The CGI, for CGI standard, is good, but I can't stand CGI at all, no matter how high quality it is. The CGI is usually applied to fire and water in this case.
Overall, it feels like a somewhat pointless episodic shortfilm but with great art and combat. It was fairly enjoyable.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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