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Dec 25, 2023
Yuri on Ice has brought a lot of people into ice skating, and that's wonderful. It also starts out being pretty compelling by establishing an interesting narrative of this out-of-shape, anxious, in-the-closet skater trying to drag himself back up to the peak. Unfortunately, it languishes in this mire of protagonist self-confidence issues for which Victor is the only solution, is extremely repetitive (we get to see the same routine again? I wonder what he'll mess up because of nerves this time!), and is absolutely not gay enough. I do not have lived experience as a homosexual person, but other reviewers have spoken about their frustrations
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with this. Yet, the core theme of the show, which is using love to lift you to greater heights, is undermined CONSTANTLY after the first few episodes.
One thing that Yuri on Ice seems to forget is that it is working towards a climax which is... exactly where it started: Yuri at the Grand Prix. This isn't a spoiler, because there is no other conclusion for this show. No matter how aggressively it pushes the angle of Yuri flourishing under Victor, he literally starts the show at the Grand Prix! He is already a top skater worldwide by the metric of success he pursues doggedly throughout the entire show! It would have been wonderful to see him actually grow, rather than only grow more sexually confident. And it would have been wonderful to see him grow more sexually confident, rather than only grow more confident in his sensual dancing. The metrics put in front of us clearly denote one thing: it is everyone's game to lose based on their nerves, and we get mixed signals about where Yuri's and others' confidence stems, and how they handle it.
This show seems to consistently pull back from where it is ready to be in the first few episodes. It is covered in BL tropey scenes and presentations, but the main character is so not worthy of him, and so worried about losing him! I mean, Victor being literally the most important person in the world to most of the cast can certainly feed into anxiety about him going away, but Yuri is the source of the bulk of the drama in this show and his obstinate relationship anxiety gets really old really quickly. The anime tropes at play otherwise are fine, like the mascot trio of little girls, but it is often pretty cringe. Also, the dude who's concerningly into his own sister is absolutely a JP cultural projection and I wish it did not take up as much space as it did.
I only finished this show out of commitment, because I have a partner who is an ice skater. Otherwise, it is not worth watching past the first 6 episodes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Dec 25, 2023
Planetes is hailed as a hard sci-fi classic, with an amazing and well-realized world. The popular perception is that it is a thinking person's manga, that it is lifelike and [insert hyperbole here]. I am impressed by how well the world of Planetes is constructed by someone without a background in it. Unfortunately, the contextualizing socioeconomics, politics, discussions of orbital regimes, etc. are all just window dressing. This manga is not about those things. This manga is about the main cast. They aren't very interesting or extremely compelling to follow. I would not refer to them as static, but I would also not call them
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particularly inspiring models of growth. I'm not reading this manga for them, and they don't help draw me in with their core personality traits, but I certainly have to see the world as they do - and they are kind of clueless? This is where things start kind of falling apart.
Planetes really takes the plowshares approach to visualizing the future: a bunch of low-tech grunts doing jobs. A combination of them as the vantage point and how the author doesn't have a strong conception of the world beyond what's on the surface and perhaps a layer deeper cause it to kind of spiral if you are really intrigued by the topics and start learning about it. This may be a big nitpick since I come at this with about a decade of work as an aerospace engineer on the subject matter of the manga, space debris/trash, but I don't like to grade on a curve. Planetes unfortunately isn't visually impressive enough (although it is pretty and appropriately presents JAXA utilitarian styles when it doesn't get too far into sci-fi for its own good) and doesn't provide enough depth to the real draw for many to garner a strong recommendation from me. It's novel, but if you want hard sci-fi which provides you real value and insights then 2070s space janitors is not the way to go.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 25, 2023
I had not binged a show for over a decade before this one. A lot of shows really don't have heart. 100 Girlfriends has a ton of heart. The cast are all silly cinnamon rolls who are a joy to watch interact in genuinely heartwarming interactions. Now, this is all predicated on accepting the "love at first sight" premise, but the exaggerated nature of this show made that very easy. Having multiple female partners myself, I was very pleasantly surprised by how genuine the show was about fleshing out relationships and how the "Rentaro Family" emerged through the first season.
I wouldn't say that its relationships
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are 100% lifelike or anything, but they are more heartfelt (beyond the constant "I love yous" thrown back and forth; which, again, deus ex heartchina) and don't involve the objectification you would imagine from a show about dating 100 women. 100 Girlfriends leans heavily towards affection as opposed to lust, and this is a key decision. Doing so blunts the negative impacts of fanservice and actually enables it to serve as a tool for characterization! The use of fanservice primarily as a joke also makes it, frankly, more acceptable. I don't even feel weird about showing it to my partners, whose most notable prior exposure to anime was Yuri on Ice!
I watched it dubbed until I caught up, and found interesting differences between dub and sub which actually make me want to go back and rewatch a few episodes about literature with subs, because that threw me for a loop. However, I will say both are absolutely fantastic.
There are a lot of great jokes tossed in here. Other comedy shows I've watched recently have definitely incorporated more modern meme culture, but I think 100 Girlfriends hit it out of the park. With regards to how it stands alongside harem shows? Honestly, it doesn't matter. It's not really a harem show: 100 Girlfriend is an exercise in watching the crazy polycule turning and turning in a widening gyre, but the center, Rentaro, is 800% committed to hold, and so the end will not come.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Nov 25, 2023
I really wanted to like this more. Unfortunately, Promare peaks early on (the trailer... it's the scene from the trailer) and goes on to lose the plot and rehash Gurren Lagann way too many times for me to respect it as an independent work. It ends up attempting a play-by-play of key moments in Gurren Lagann that are super predictable and feel really phoned in. Too much action, not enough character time, not enough plot. Many fun moments, but it's a tough sell for people who aren't super into the concepts and animation. It's all flash, no substance, and the one memorable scene is... super
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flashy, with no substance.
The animation? Fun, dynamic, and an experience that I absolutely appreciated. The plot? Constantly undermined by attempts to escalate and internal confusion between being serious or comedic. The characters? Limp. The Kamina-esque protagonist Galo is not compelling in his tendency to go on about complete nonsense the entire time; the supporting cast constantly calling him out on speaking absolute nonsense does not quite rescue it. Lio, the Burnish leadership, and Kray are the only real characters here - and they're even very good at times - but they feel like crazy people in a caricature world.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 20, 2023
This show snatched defeat from the jaws of the passable. It is a HUGE disappointment. Initially, the uncle and nephew's banter was pretty good, and the uncle in general was hilarious. I enjoyed having a different perspective on the classic garbage isekai story up until episodes 5ish: halfway through the show I fully internalized that it is not a slow burn towards the uncle's self-actualization or part of his journey to perhaps return, or bring his companions to his world, but is instead a watch party for a boring story about a man refusing to grow up.
Is this perhaps a commentary on garbage isekai?
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Certainly there is dialogue to support this interpretation. Does this make the garbage isekai any better? Not really. The increased focus on the "adventures" and the lack of follow-through on reconnecting threads across the show were a huge bummer. I skimmed it after deciding to drop it because it'd been such a disappointment; but even in the last episode we were stuck with a non-committal and gag-filled bundle of status-quo. Lastly, the ongoing focus on the fantasy world does present one other thing: the animation in the real world is in many ways better than what we see in the fantasy world.
I think it had the potential to be something much more interesting.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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