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Feb 12, 2012
Story - Dreadful. Most pathetic story I have come across for a while. The ending wasn't so much depressing as it was just extremely disappointing. It just got worse as it went on. From the beginning, I noticed something was off because the narrator sounded very old and very depressed. Having someone narrate the story to you in the past tense from the get go takes you out of the real-time immersion of watching an anime, besides the fact that the old man's voice gives an ominous foreboding, which I hate. The most jarring thing about this anime (a hard thing to pinpoint, since there
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were so many) is probably the whole magical Psalms of the King idea. Somehow, reading the Bible gives you magical powers such as controlling other people's bodies and body parts and killing them in a painful way. It's like I'm watching a shounen series. Text just randomly appears and scrolls along the floor, walls, ceiling, and across people's bodies, including their eyeballs. Am I watching Naruto? The second most jarring thing about this anime is how seriously it seems to take history, whilst not being historically accurate AT ALL. At least Samurai Champloo stated outright that it's not historically accurate at the very start. This anime pretends to be historical when it's anything but.
Art - The art itself is fair, although the postures are bad. Characters are not drawn consistently, and tend to be QUALITY at least half the time. D'Eon is drawn exactly like a woman. If I hadn't listened to the voice, there would have been no way to tell the difference between D'Eon and his sister. Yes, this IS a bad thing. I expect a fully grown man to have a more prominent chin, heavier jaw and jaw muscle development and thicker orbital eyebrow bossing than his sister. Also, the third most jarring thing about this series was the 3D CGI. Besides the fact that I hate 3D CG with a passion, it looked absolutely horrendous in this series. The water, the building collapse, and sometimes EVEN THE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS. I am not kidding you, it is that bad. However, the fight scenes are animated quite well (I'm not talking about the choreography, only the portrayal of motion) so that's something to look forward towards if you're a big fan of sword fighting.
Sound - Mediocre. The ending song is okay, I suppose. The voices aren't particularly great.
Character - Poor. The dialogue is terrible, there is not a shred of originality. Everyone says they want to serve France (or Russia), except for one or two guys who just want money, or to watch the world burn. It's boring at best and downright nauseating when you're subjected to the same trivial inane pretentious ass-kissing suck-up garbage from nobles who "just want to serve their country". Is it possible to create believable, consistent characters? Not according to the writers of Le Chevalier D'Eon. The characters are there to show the struggle between "honor and loyalty". That's about it. In case you don't understand how honor and loyalty can conflict with each other, allow me to illustrate using a simple example from the anime. Teillagory is loyal to the deceased Louis XIV, but his honor compels him to overthrow Louis XV and replace him with Louis XIV's brother, because Louis XV sent knights to die on dishonorable missions. How does this make any sense? It doesn't. Characters switch allegiances every 5 seconds, it's hard to remember who's fighting for whom anymore. It's hard to build sympathy for characters who constant betray their comrades.
Enjoyment - Practically none. It was a chore to sit through the labored, expository dialogue and the totally baffling nonsense that was the entire plot. Every time someone died, I felt a sense of elation as that was how the story moved forward. The entire story made no sense at all. Robespierre dying and then coming back to life and then dying again? WTF?
Overall - About as historical as Naruto. If you enjoy watching fencing then this anime might be for you. Otherwise don't bother.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Feb 6, 2012
Story - Set in what I presume is the 19th century, somewhere in Central Europe. The fictional country of Weißen is looking to expand its borders and sees Baselland as a target to incorporate. An aspiring major Balzer has been ordered to push forward with military reform in Baselland, but he has to overcome many obstacles in fulfilling his mission. An exciting story full of the potential to change the balance of power and influence every aspect of life.
Art - The characters are a bit cartoony but the backgrounds and weapons are all very detailed. I liked the clean look.
Character - Balzer is
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an enthusiastic, lively, and cheerful guy, eager to carry out his mission and does not let feelings get in the way of his duties, the kind of character I find to my liking. The manga hasn't gone far enough to flesh out the other characters yet so I don't know what they're really like at the moment.
Enjoyment - From what I've read, I felt a genuine sense of excitement that the military reforms were really going ahead, and that Weißen was going to spread its superior military doctrines to neighbouring states. I especially enjoyed the discussion on the inaccuracy caused by the bore being much larger than the ball that's fired through it.
Overall - Outstanding manga so far, I just hope that it maintains focus.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 5, 2012
Story - Not sure exactly where this is going but, so far, the plot has been moving at a quick but steady pace. From what I can tell it seems like a typical wuxia story. There is definitely a direction that this is going, although I haven't quite discerned an overarching theme yet.
Art - Absolutely amazing. The character's faces are drawn very well, you can see the structure clearly. The action itself is also depicted quite well, which is important because, well, this is an action series.
Character - The character dialogue had me literally laugh out loud. Not saying that it's bad, just
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that it conformed to my expectations of how warriors in ancient China behaved. The manga shows you the thoughts of the characters in detail, which is a good feature because otherwise we would have little to go on in understanding what the characters are thinking, since the dialogue is so typical!
Enjoyment - I was thrilled by the array of martial techniques portrayed in the manga, even if some of them (such as the sword-spinning-in-hand technique) did not seem very plausible. The dialogue and thoughts of the characters were absolutely hilarious to me, especially the whole martial-arts-school-rivalry thing.
Overall - Great manga, amazing action and hilarious dialogue but slightly lacking in the intellectual aspect. If you like martial arts (especially Chinese martial arts) you will love this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 5, 2012
Story - The story kind of jumps from place to place, but it's what you'd expect from a SoL. It all felt very real and I learned a lot along the way, so I can't really fault it for not having lots of action. It is set in Central Asia (or that's where it's been for the first 17 chapters) around what I can only assume the time of the Great Game. The manga takes a break from the main story at times to focus on wood carving, sewing patterns and various cuisines. The story of the English traveller is very interesting, as he goes
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around and collects various information, and he provided great help in saving the bride from her would-be captors.
Art - The art is excellent, going into great detail on wood carvings, patterns on fabric and the like. The character design is beautiful and expressive.
Character - Ah the characters. I don't exactly know what nomadic people are like, but the manga characters felt quite realistic to me. They feel human. The dialogue gave a sense of warmth at times and tension at others, and just felt realistic. The main characters are all quite likeable, especially the bride and her husband as well as the English traveller/researcher.
Enjoyment - I very much enjoyed reading this.
Overall - Outstanding manga, I would recommend it to anyone who likes reading slice of life with a realistic feel to it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 5, 2012
Story - Poor guy finds a sexbot. That just about sums it up. There's something about the sexbot being some kind of weapon but I couldn't figure it out. Along the way people tell Hideki that a sexbot is not an alternative for a real human being, which I agree with, but Hideki apparently doesn't get it. The pacing is so slow it's not even funny. After about 8 hours of reading I finally gave up. I didn't find anything particularly funny. Maybe Hideki's virginity was supposed to be a joke? I didn't find it funny. Everyone makes fun of Hideki's virginity as if it's
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bad, whilst I couldn't care less whether if he was a virgin or not. Oh and also I found the entire concept of "persocoms" deranged and moronic. The purpose of computers is not to be cute, we have figurines and dolls for that. Why would people use persocoms instead of cell phones? Cell phones are so much more convenient. It's so stupid.
Art - Very mediocre. Too minimalist for my liking.
Character - Dreadful characters. Everyone being obsessed with "persocoms" as if they're stereotypical lonely pathetic sex-obsessed otakus. It's not funny when it's being parodied for the billionth time. Chi acting like a retard got boring really fast. I thought she was supposed to be smart? Am I supposed to find retards cute? The female characters seem to do little other than to tease Hideki, our resident virgin, with vague hints of sex.
Enjoyment - Barely any. I really tried to finish it, but I just couldn't stand reading this nonsense and finally gave up.
Overall - Boring nonsense. If you're one of those stereotypical lonely pathetic sex-obsessed otakus that I presume this manga was targeted towards then you might find it arousing. But only if you have a lot of patience, as this manga moves extremely slowly.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Feb 5, 2012
Story - There is little story to speak of. The setting is the pinnacle of vagueness - "maybe on Earth, maybe in the future". So from the beginning we are given little to no information concerning the plot. That would have been fine, as long as I got more information from the characters. Unfortunately this did not happen. The manga begins with 2 random people whom I could only assume were the protagonists. Another man walks up to one of the protagonists and says "hey! I haven't seen anyone for a long time". The protagonist then shoots him with some kind of weapon that blows
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the man in half. The protagonist then says "I bet he wanted my cell". So our main character has paranoid schizophrenia. And this is just the beginning of the story. Two other random humanoid robot-like characters come along and steal the dying man's memory. There is then a shootout and explosions. I couldn't make sense of the action as it was too random and chaotic, and also badly drawn.
Art - The art is very rough and dirty, making it difficult to make out exactly what is happening. Character designs are quite ugly, it's hard to tell the difference between male and female characters. In addition the author seems to have some problems with drawing from different perspectives.
Character - The characters are extremely weird and behave erratically to the point where they are incomprehensible. The dialogue is very strange and makes very little sense, no matter which way I look at it.
Enjoyment - I gained no enjoyment from reading this manga.
Overall - I can describe this manga only as a collection of inane incomprehensible action sequences. If you're looking only for explosions and badly drawn humanoids then consider reading this. Otherwise don't bother.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Feb 4, 2012
Story - Not your typical revenge story. Almost funny in a way, if it were not so brutal. The revenge arc is fairly interesting, where we mostly see Askeladd's and later Canute's characters being developed, with some of Thorkell as well. Thorfinn got practically no character development during the revenge arc and only really developed after he became a slave. I found the farmland saga quite refreshing and not at all boring compared to the previous arcs, even though there was less action.
Art - Outstanding. On par with Berserk I would say, although cleaner and slightly less detailed.
Character - Thorfinn is strange, I
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think the word "edgy" might be appropriate. He seems almost too hostile to be human, and I don't really understand how he could change from a seemingly normal person into an asshole over a single event. It could be argued that he was an asshole to begin with. He did not even ask about his mother, after over a decade of being away from her. Then he turns into a mindbroken slave - well, actually just a really macho silent guy. Was he always like this? It just seems kind of weird. Maybe he's just not used to being treated nicely...(well actually there were plenty of times where he was treated nicely, so that's not really an answer). He gets more talkative and friendly later on in the farm arc though, so perhaps he finished puberty then. His comment on the heavy plow seemed quite random and out of place though. All this happens without much explanation so I'm left wondering how did it all happen, and whether if it was even plausible. Askeladd was a complex character, and appears to reveal a different side of him to everyone he meets. His ways of testing people are fairly simple, although I do wonder if they are reliable. He also claims to be able to see through people with one look, which I again doubt is possible. Thorkell is your token Blood Knight, although better written than most Blood Knights I've encountered so far, he still acts far too immature considering all the life experiences he's had. Does he really want to know what it means to be a "true warrior"? Just start a family already! Canute turning from a useless pussy into a heartless bastard in a flash was quite unexpected, although I suppose mental instability can swing both ways.
Enjoyment - The characters felt quite real and genuine to me, which was a rare experience. The dialogue wasn't just chitchat, it revealed key information about the background or characters. The action was done just right, not so much that it was just pointless killing but also not so little that it amounted to nothing but "farmland saga". I felt a genuine sense of wonder at the world created by Vinland Saga.
Overall - Absolutely amazing series, if you're looking for well-developed characters you can relate to, great action, and a fair degree of historical accuracy then this is for you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 4, 2012
Story - Just as mediocre as the manga. Taking out the deus ex machina that was the Skull Knight was a good idea but then how did Guts ever get out of the Eclipse? Wyald was taken out which I thought was unnecessary. The fight with Wyald was one of the highlights of the Golden Age arc so taking that out was quite unreasonable. The rest of the story is mediocre as usual. Battle of Doldrey - Casca's forces got ambushed inside the Doldrey fortress, and Casca herself got shot with a paralyzing crossbow bolt so that she could barely stand. How did she win?
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By doing a somersault over Adon, landing behind him and slicing him across the cheek, of course! It made no sense, but then Berserk is full of things that don't make sense.
Art - Whilst Berserk MANGA had excellent art, the artwork in the Berserk ANIME is quite mediocre. To begin with, the majority of the action scenes in the anime were panned or zoomed stills rather than animated. When the action scenes weren't panned stills, they tended to be reused animation. The character designs themselves weren't so bad, but nothing special. If you compared the stills from the anime to pages in the manga you would see that the manga was much better drawn, which gives us even less reason to watch the anime.
Sound - The sound is mediocre. Forces didn't really fit the mood or the pace of the action, and the opening song really didn't convey the mood of the series either. Waiting So Long did convey the sense of despair and sadness from the ending of the anime though.
Enjoyment - Having read the manga I didn't enjoy the anime at all. I actually forced myself to watch it because I wanted to know just how bad it was.
Overall - A mediocre series that ruined the potential for greatness due to what I presume were budget constraints.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Feb 4, 2012
Story - The plot is really quite incomprehensible. Gates, contractors and dolls are never adequately explained. They never explained WHY they wanted to get rid of the contractors, some of whom are under their employment. Hei somehow magically learns to use his sister's ability to alter matter on a quantum level at the very last minute and changes all antigate particles into gate particles, thus saving all contractors from genocide. There seemed to be some kind of overarching theme in this series that can be only described as "people with superpowers are still people!" which seemed rather bizarre and irrelevant to just about everything.
Art
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- The art is amazing as expected from Bones. The series is very well animated and does not skimp on action scenes, which have excellent choreography although are relatively short compared to some shounen series. The character designs are excellent.
Sound - Not great considering it's Yoko Kanno who has done some great pieces in the past. The jazzy music fits neither the action nor the talking scenes. Track 24 is possibly the only one that captures the mood of the series.
Character - The characters are not exactly cardboard cutouts but neither are they very well fleshed out. For starters, we almost never see Hei truly relaxed. He always wore a "nice guy" persona whenever he wasn't wearing the white mask of doom. The same is true for most other major characters in the series. Minor characters such as Havoc and Shihoko are developed fairly well for two episodes, where they're relaxed and spill out their true thoughts, and then they're killed off and have no bearing on the story ever again. It's quite frustrating to invest two entire episodes in a quite likeable character only to see them killed off for the rest of the series, especially when the main characters were developed nowhere to the extent as these one-shot characters were.
Enjoyment - I thoroughly enjoyed this series, even though I couldn't relate to any of the characters and I thought the superpowers were really badly used. I especially enjoyed watching the development of characters like Havoc and Shihoko, which made me feel frustrated when they were killed at the end of their two-episode arcs.
Overall - Very enjoyable even with all its flaws in character development, story and sound.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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