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Apr 27, 2011
This is going to be the shortest review I ever write, because Shuffle! is a piece of crap that doesn't deserve even 50 words describing it. It starts out as a harem comedy, and is mildly entertaining until about the half way point, whereby it has already trapped you in its mediocrity and you are now a victim to find out what/who the (very terrible) main character eventually chooses out of all the girls.
Once you make it past the halfway point the show devolves into a burning trainwreck that will eventually leave you with an aneurysm. The majority of the cast
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eventually disappears from relevance about 3/4 of the way through. What was once a light hearted harem romp is now a ridiculous anime soap opera drama. The main character is terrible, indecisive, and enjoys ruining other peoples lives. Many stereotypical harem leads at least do SOMETHING for the girls in the harem - make their lives a little better, somehow. Rin does nothing. It is frustrating to watch him. The only lead I can consider worse than this guy is that retard off School Days or the guy off Ichigo 100%. Protip: Don't watch those shows either.
The girls are just as frustrating. Their motivations for liking the guy are pretty bland and basic - one of them has a more solid reason that is touched on towards the end of the show. But the girls are unbelievable. They get rejected and cling until the end of the show. All their worries and development is washed away by the finale. They each love the main character because he is 'kind' although to the viewer he is very obviously a loser.
Do you enjoy ecchi? I guess you might enjoy Shuffle. The sluttiness in this show is laser guided. Whether it's an alternate personality, little sister character with see-through top or crazy ass yandere that just wants to bang, there's a different girl for every taste. There are better harems out there though. Like if it has "harem" listed as a genre it is probably a better show.
Yea, I'm done. Fuck you, Shuffle!
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Apr 17, 2011
Pandora Hearts is an anime that draws inspiration and many thematic elements from the story Alice in Wonderland. It is about a young aristocrat named Oz Bezarius, the heir of a noble house, who becomes the victim of a dark ceremony in the first episode and is cast down into the "Abyss" - a prison like area inhabited by monsters called Chains. While there, he meets the Chain known as Alice, the Black Rabbit.
The show starts out incredibly strong, but its strength doesn't last long at all. The overlying problem with the show is that it doesn't seem to know what
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direction it wants to go in. You are initially presented with a dark and gothic horror that almost immediately makes way for super deformed art and bright, flashing colours. The show remains this way, tying together ridiculous anime tropes and scenes right next to its dark and gritty storyline. Alice quickly moves from a creepy and dangerous entity to a glutton and comic relief character. I think a bit more focus in either area would have been fantastic, but as it is Pandora Hearts can be disorientating and very dissonant.
The characters are great. Oz is a typical shounen lead, complete with a tendency to risk himself for others that borders on suicidal. It's quite stereotypical, but not to the point that I hated whenever he appeared on screen, and he at least presented himself in this honest way for the majority of the show. However the other characters are fantastic. Gilbert is written extremely well and undergoes a lot of development throughout the show, and Xerxes Break eventually ends up as a complete scene stealer as soon as he is given even a hint of his backstory. Alice, however, never quite moves past her brutal introduction and despite being the center of the entire story she quickly fades in and out of obscurity for episodes at a time.
The soundtrack from Yuki Kajiura is extremely strong, and has several pieces that match up to her great scores from Kara no Kyoukai. Some tracks are often described as repetitive, but I had no issue with this myself. I do think that a couple of times a song choice for a scene may have been less then amazing, but the music itself was very good.
This leads me to the ending - there are massive plot points that never get resolved and I wish I had known that going in. For such a great premise and beginning so many things slip away through the story that it is really kind of infuriating. The ending of the series is anime only, and like many other poor anime adaption endings you will be able to pick up the exact moment where the story veers off. Anime only ends can be done right - but this one wasn't. Nothing was answered, and the mysteries that Oz and Alice often mentioned resolving were simply ignored until the end.
What is the biggest shame is how much more could have been fit into 25 episodes, where instead the writers wasted absurd amounts of time with super deformed art and typical anime filler scenarios. There are many plot points that are deemed as important to the main characters that never go anywhere and end up being a complete waste of screen time. The most infuriating part comes towards the end of the show, where you should be spending your time getting your answers to the questions you've built up, an entire episode is instead spent on showing everybody drunk. Put simply I kind of wish the series had cut some of the bullshit, a lot of the comedy moments were poor and completely out of place.
Pandora Hearts is a fun ride and there are some FANTASTIC moments, but ultimately your destination ends up being a hole in the ground that goes straight to the Abyss of Anime-Ending-Only Hell. There are no side trips to Resolution or Answers, you just go straight into the pit. And since I've already visited, I'll try to warn you not to.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 10, 2010
The story is fairly simple - a young man moves from the country to Tokyo to start a new life at highschool, and falls in love at first sight with a promising athletic student (the titular character of the show). In short it's a love story, and while the premise sounds bland, so do those of some of the very best animes.
Suzuka, however, is not one of them. It's often described as "character driven" but this is a terrible thing because the majority of the characters (including the two main ones) are barely likable and have few redeeming qualities. Yamato
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and Suzuka both play to archtypes almost to the letter and this is incredibly frustrating to watch. Although the entire series is based around their romance, you are left with an overwhelming idea that this romance only exists because the writers said it does.
Yamato is ridiculous in his submissiveness, but there are certain points where you can at least feel some empathy and sympathy for him (those these are rare) - he also demonstrates a desire to try, which everybody likes to see. However, Suzuka is intolerable for basically the entire series, and since you as a viewer weren't written to love her like Yamato, you end up spending 26 episodes wondering why you're watching an anime that is literally about her. Quite a few of the side characters are far more likable, but they have almost no backstory and screentime, and can't carry the series.
The art and animation is also fairly poor - I'm not sure when the series was adapted, but it is low quality and not very good. The music is also uninspiring and sometimes I felt it was extremely dissonant. Apparently the sound switches between mono and stereo inbetween certain episodes. I'm not sure if this causes any of it, but the soundtrack as a whole isn't a strong point.
Through the entire show you are just left with a sense of pointlessness as the characters advance nowhere, widdling away screentime with obvious and drawn out internal monologues. It quickly becomes obvious how the show is going nowhere and how easily all of the development could have fit into a series half its length. From what I have read of the manga (which progresses far beyond the anime) things sound like they get quite interesting - but the anime adaptation is very stale.
I honestly can't believe the scores this show is getting - but I know there are other people like me out there who are unable to drop a series once they start it. I hope that those people read this review - and instead of starting Suzuka they find something better to watch. That wouldn't be very hard to do.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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