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Apr 17, 2019
Dreamlike , Bizarre , Frenetic , Absurd , Trance-like , Awe-inspiring , I could easily run out of adjectives to describe this movie but never do it justice.
There's a pub crawl , weird romance plot , multiple musical numbers and dance sequences , cowboys fighting politicians , so many individual stories connecting into one story about adolescence and anxiety , optimism , enjoying life and how everything in life intertwine with each other.
It's a movie in concept that would be too wild to ever succeed and be coherent but it triumphant in a mind-boggling way. The story is , to simply put ,
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Is what I imagine having severe ADHD is like. It felt like the authors mind wondered from one strange thought to another , one dreamlike set piece to another , one strange situation to another , but in the end somehow weaving all those together into one coherent storyline and it's just simply bizarre.
At first I was worried characters will be just throw away tools to tie in the plot together of what seemed at the start a bizarre looking collection of set-pieces and funny situations. Oh boy I was wrong , and I'm glad I was. Each character is uniquely bizarre in their own way and ties into some kind of theme but without making them one dimensional and grows as the story goes on.
I'm going to take the main character as an example , she's bright eyed , headstrong , awkward and strange. She's always on the fast-lane enjoying every bit of it. But as the story goes on she learns that she can sometimes stop and look around and maybe she should have.
As for the animation , I truly believe this is the movie that has utilized animation to it's fullest potential and created an experience that couldn't be presented in any other medium. It's bright and colorful , fluid but crazy , with a little bit of Satoshi Kon like fast paced editing mixed in. Sound design was almost perfect inviting us into the amazingly weird world and the musical numbers were absolutely delightful.
The atmosphere of the movie got me so absorbed in it that I felt like I've spent an eternity watching this but not in a boring and dragging way but instead I enjoyed every minute of it. It's surprisingly crammed packed with so much content but never feels like it's rushed and everything feels fleshed out in it's crazy ways. I think this movie is a unique experience everyone should have in their life at-least once. I cannot recommend this enough.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 20, 2019
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| Dragon Ball Super Movie : Broly |
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This movie just blew me away someways that I was not expecting. It was a very pleasant and welcome surprise. I'm going to keep this short and sweet let's go.
- Story (6) -
When it comes to Dragon Ball movies this has always been my main gripe. There's always those few brilliant few moments of action set pieces but it's all wrapped around this messy , cringy throw away plot. They just felt like filler with horribly written dialogue and unfunny humor so we can pass time between battle scenes. But this time it actually feels like they
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put in an effort and it really surprised me. It's still not perfect , first half feels really fucking great ! It's kinda heartwarming and really well paced but after the fight scenes begin , the stuff important stuff that's happening off the battlefield feels extremely rushed. It really does feel like they were running out of time but they just had to squeeze these moments in there to move the plot along. This is more than a serviceable plot , which is a great and welcome improvement.
- Art (10) -
Pure eye candy. That's just what it is ! This is by far the most impressive part of the movie. The art style looks like a mixture of Gurren Lagann and Mob Psycho 100 , and that's itself is one of the biggest compliments I could give to the movie , it'll just blow you away.
How's the animation you may ask ? So damn good ! Fight scenes are choreographed to perfection and so fast paced it'll keep you at the edge of your seat! There's absolutely nothing wrong I could say about the art or the animation.
- Sound (5) -
It was just extremely mediocre , the ambient soundtrack and the effects are well done. But it's also countered by the extremely cringe-worthy "Go Broly , Go Broly" music tracks. Sound in this movie isn't going to make you go "aaah I can't bare it!" but it isn't going to impress you either.
- Character (6) -
The character of Broly was extremely well done compared to the previous iteration where he was just a huge bulky hulk raging with fury that just want to kill everything. Here he's actually given more attention as a character , with a proper back-story and a fleshed out of characterization. Movie does make us feel empathy for him.
As for the other characters , they are your usual Z warriors and they do stay true to their characters from the canon material.
- Enjoyment and Overall Experience (7) -
Easily the best movie in the franchise ! and I enjoyed the hell out of it.
The battle scenes and the animation was exquisite and story itself was fairly okay.
If you're a fan of Dragon Ball this is absolutely an must watch!
I have been avoiding Dragon Ball Super but this re-ignited my interest in it and I might start watching it just to see where this goes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 29, 2018
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| Ghost in the Shell : Arise - Ghost Pain |
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Sadly, this is not the Ghost in the Shell that we all know and love. Yes, it is indeed a dystopian future sci-fi movie with androids. Yes, it has the same characters, (or at least the same character names.) Let's dive in shall we?
-Story-
The story of the new Arise series isn't a sequel or prequel to the existing Ghost in the Shell franchise by Mamoru Oshii, instead it's called a "re-imagining" of its older brother.
Let's start with the world and atmosphere - it's gone.
It's not the atmosphere you would expect to see from a
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Ghost in the Shell movie. Being different is not inherently a bad thing, but in this case it's a step back, and the world feels like just another futuristic sci-fi movie. That Blade Runner style of atmosphere we all loved is gone. This has much to do with the visuals, such as the art style and the color palette they chose to go with. In the original Ghost in the Shell, the visuals did a major part in telling the story. Here, it's just bland.
Despite being a "re-imagining" , the movie does nothing to introduce the viewer to it's characters and it's world. Besides a few action scenes, I felt like nothing really happened. There are many tropes, like the main character not being able to differentiate reality and what she's seeing, and they could have utilized these better. Instead the story doesn't really go anywhere with them. It's not the type of story that's going to ask you a lot of questions or keep you awake.
-Characters-
Oh Major, what a shame they did to you.
As you would expect from a re-imagining, the traits of the characters are not the same as the original franchise. Instead what we got are some characters that are just -there-. You're not going to grow any emotional ties to these characters from watching the movie. There is no depth to any of the characters, as it feels that they are there simply to move the plot along and have some interactions with each other.
A real let down for me was how they handled Major Kusanaji. They stripped her of all her complexity. The Makoto who was struggling to feel human emotions and was struggling to explore what makes androids different from humans is not there. Instead the Arise version of Makoto is your generic main character. No inner conflicts, no depth, just a pretty face who fights. What a disappointment.
-Sound and Animation-
Again, very generic and painfully mediocre.
The mesmerizing music from the original is gone and replaced with generic music that I don't even remember how it sounded like, and that tells a lot. Animation and Art Style is good, nothing special but it's good. However, it does not fit the dystopian setting of the movie at all. It lacks the visual story telling and the set pieces the original contained. Again I was bitterly disappointed.
-Enjoyment-
Ha ha , I did not.
-Overall-
It wasn't an appalling experience, but when you hear Ghost in the Shell, you expect more than just a sci-fi action movie. I feel like this would have been better if they did not slap the "Ghost in the Shell" brand on it and made it it's own franchise.
If you're a Ghost in the Shell fan , you're going to be disappointed with this movie. Even if you're just looking for Sci-Fi action movie, there are much better movies. But if you're really bored and have nothing else to watch, this is a serviceable.
[Proofreading - SomeRandomNerd]
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 25, 2017
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| Fate/stay night : Review |
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Ah the infamous Fate series ! This is something that I wanted to get into for a long time , But my mind went numb when looking at all the different series , the alternative stories and sequels in the franchise and I had no idea where to start.
So with a suggestion from a friend , I jumped straight to the firstly aired series of the franchise. I don't have any experiences with the Fate Visual Novel and I don't intend to read it either. So let's discuss the series shall we ?
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Story - 5
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...
Stay night takes place in modern day japan introduces us to a world of Magic , Fantasy and Mythology. and does a solid job at it too. The world and all it's concepts are explained properly and the story was very straightforward (take that as you will) and it was very easy to follow.
Story follows the story of Shirou Emiya as he's forced to take part in a Holy Grail war. Although despite being called a war , this feels really small in scale.
Story focuses on Shirou's morals as he refuse to kill and he can't back out from the war either but this falls flat on it's face because of all the cringe-worthy dialogue and the flaws of the character himself but we will get into that later.
The first half of the show feels like a really average slice of life anime with some action scenes and story picks up pace in the second half with it taking a turn towards romance/harem genre and action scenes increasing. Yes it does have some twists but most of them are blatantly predictable. It felt like they were going for a grand climax in the last few episodes but I couldn't help but feel it's half-baked and cliched.
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Characters- 3
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This is where Studio Deen royally screwed up. The premise of stay night does have potential to be really good if it's characters can back it up. Disappointingly , that's not the case here.
No beating around the bush , let's jump straight to the point.
The main character of the series.., "The most frustrating , idiotic and sexist dumbfuck I've ever seen" , and nope I'm not over exaggerating.
Sadly his character doesn't get any development as the series goes on and he's still the same dumbfuck when the series ends too.
As for the other characters , Saber stands out. There's not many faults with her and she's a genuinely existing character to watch.
Most common flaw for all the characters is that the series doesn't even give characters a motivation for their actions. Even the main characters tragic backstory is not fully explored.
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Art and Sound- 6
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I'm going to keep this section very brief. Animation for the series is beautiful considering this is made in 2009 , even tho the art doesn't impress me too much.
Character designs of Saber and Archer stands out but others characters are pretty generic looking.
As for the sound department , All is well here. Soundtrack fits the atmosphere perfectly. It's no surprise because this soundtrack is composed by the same person who composed the soundtrack of Ghost in the Shell.
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Overall - 4
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Should you watch this ? Depends on whether you're trying to get into the Fate series or not. If you're looking at it as a standalone series , it's pretty bad and you should probably pass. But If you're looking to get into the fate series , I'm assuming this is where to start.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 3, 2017
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| Btoom! : Review |
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Btoom! is an 12 action anime based on a manga by Junya Inoue and animated by one of my favorite Studios Madhouse. To be honest I really didn't expect much from this when I started watching this and I got what I expected. Would I recommend this to anyone ? Unlikely. Let's find out why
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Story - 3
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Story of Btoom.., is nothing to write home about. The basic premise of the show is a bunch of people are put in a island , given bombs and instructed to kill each other to get off the island. And this itself is flawed
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because..., There's nothing really keeping them there, Just craft a boat and get the fuck out of there maybe ?
And as the series goes on , story doesn't really go anywhere and doesn't really have much of an ending. The supposed "twists" in the series are plain cheating , they clearly show us that happened and then later they show something completely different happened there ? How's that a twist ? That's plain cheating.
We can clearly see that this series tries to tackle a lot of mature subjects as it takes on matters such as rape and trauma but it has no idea what to do with those and saying it falls flat trying to tackle those would be an understatement , it absolutely humiliates itself.
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Characters- 3
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Nope , nothing to see here.
The series doesn't manage to create interesting or "believe" characters. I highlight believable mainly because none of the characters feel human , even though that's what they are pushing for. Every character is extremely one dimensional having one trait that defines them and that's it.
The main character of series is neither interesting , likable or compelling. Only positive thing I can say about the main character is that he does receive some positive development towards end of the series.
How story handles the characters brings down the plausibility even more , as every character is extremely dumb that even the most common thing to do is considered strategy. And have I mentioned how none of them ever gets injured (except one character) ? all the bombs , being blown away , jumping around and even falling from fetal heights.
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Sound and Animation- 6
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I'm going to keep this section extremely short because there really isn't much to talk about here. Both sound and animations are competent , nothing special and nothing bad. Character designs are admittedly pretty good. Animation is done by Studio Madhouse so no worries there as they always deliver. Soundtrack is nothing notable and the Opening Theme is actually pretty good.
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Enjoyment and Overall Experience - 4
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This is an extremely passable but watchable anime. Would I recommend it ? No , there are much better alternatives (Not SAO) , If you want a spectacle of explosions go watch a Micheal Bay movie or Black Lagoon (Black Lagoon preferably).
So do yourself a favor and just pass on this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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May 28, 2017
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| Blame! The Movie : Review |
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Blame! The Movie is an Netflix Original animated by Polygon Studio which is adapted from the hit manga of the same name , written by Tsutomu Nihei.
The movie is about a dystopian , post-apocalyptic , Sci-Fi world and even though I haven't read the manga , I went into the movie pretty hyped up having heard great things about the manga. Did I like the move ? In a way , yes. But was it any good or worth your time ? Let's find out shall we ?
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Story - 6
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...
Okay , the start of the movie was.., Epic!
The world looked and felt atmospheric , dark and it was great. within the first few minutes , we get to see people's struggles , desperation to survive. I got immediately interested in world , which seemed to be the main selling point of the show. But as the series movie progressed , I felt more and more disappointed as it failed to explain any of the concepts of the world properly. There was this talk of a netsphere , net terminal gene and all this gibberish which immediately caught my interest but didn't put much effort into explaining any of them. And when it reached the ending , everything became even more convoluted and left me wondering "What the fuck just happened? " , and not in a good way like Evangelion series.
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Art - 9
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THANK YOU POLYGON !!
My previous experience with Polygon was a series called Knights of Sidonia , which was also a Netflix original written by the same author. And that particular series had one of the worst Artworks I've ever come to pass.
But this time it's different , The movie looked stunning from start to end. Everything from the color palette , lightning and special effects truly captured the feeling of a dark and desperate world.
Character models looked and was animated great ! battles scenes truly looked epic and smooth with vibrant reds and blues.
So in the Art and Animation department , Polygon really hit it out of the park with this one.
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Sound - 7
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Music for the series was composed by Yugo Kanno and he did a great job with it.
Everything blended in with the atmosphere quite nicely and specially Killy's Soundtrack sounded great. All the sound effects with the battle scenes were on point and sounded good. To cap it off I found no fault with the voice acting either.
In short this had a good soundtrack , it could have been better but it's lived up to my expectations.
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Characters - 5
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Characters of this movie suffered the same fate as the World of the movie did.
They immediately caught my attention , but then was left without exploration or depth. Worst part of it was even the main character Killy was treated the same way. Even after finishing watching the movie , I had no idea who Killy was. All the information that was given to us was that his name is Killy , He got a really cool gun and he might be the last hope for humanity. That's it.
The movie didn't really do enough to care about most of the side characters except for a few. It felt like they ran out of time to give the characters much depth.
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Enjoyment and Overall Experience - 5
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I didn't hate the movie , I loved the atmosphere and visuals of it.
I would be really happy if we get a squeal to this and explore the world and characters more , and get answers to all the questions that left unanswered.
So all in all , it was a movie that didn't give enough but left me wanting more.
Do I recommend it ? If we will have good squeals to this movie that builds on this world and characters that was presented in this movie , Then yes.
If not , then no , It wasn't a good stand alone movie.
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| Recommendations |
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[Attack On Titan] A non Sci-Fi version of Blame! , a dystopian world , humanity under attack and forced to live under shadows.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 27, 2017
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| Knights of Sidonia : Review |
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Knights of Sidonia is an another Dystopian Sci-Fi Mecha series that's set in Space written by Tsutomu Nihei who was famous for his highly successful manga Blame! and bought life by Polygon Studios.
I went into the series without reading the manga and without much expectation , and it was an fairly average experience. I wouldn't necessarily say it was awful , but was it good enough to stand out from the rest ? No. Is it worth watching ? Let's find out shall we.
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Story - 6
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...
The premise of the story is solid and competent but nothing unique. Earth is destroyed , Humans now colonize in space on a giant spaceship which in now being attacked. But one of the glaring issues is while it supposed to be this dystopian setting , the viewer doesn't really feel that tension. Beside a few civilians dying in one episode and a few civilian protest scenes , you would expect the environment to be more chaotic. The pacing feels rushed , nothing is properly explained , the show keeping throwing half-baked information at you and it gets rather confusing at times. The romantic subplots feels cheesy.., forced and awkward.
Beside it's flaws , it does provide enough conflicts and space battles to keep the viewer interested , even tho most of it is cliché and predictable.
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Art - 3
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Dear Polygon studio , what the fuck ?
Okay , I don't hate CGI by default. I think CGI can look great when properly utilized , Ghost in the Shell : Innocence is a great example for that. But here , It's an atrocity.
I feel like they could have at least put some effort into making the different characters look unique , But No. Even the main characters of the series are indistinguishable from most of the side characters in the series. I was genuinely confused about who is who most of the time. This isn't helped by the poor characterization which I'll get into later.
All the backgrounds and environments are kept pretty simple , which isn't entirely a bad thing because it's doesn't feel bloated. Everything look black or white most of the times. Something that deserves fair points is how they animated the space battles , which looked fairly good most of the times , everything felt smooth and the effects were adequate.
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Sound - 6
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This is where a series like this could have truly shined. But sadly , Musical score of the series is almost non-existent. I value the soundtrack of a series very highly , and I felt this series could have profited from a good soundtrack and the lack of it was clearly apparent.
But what they should receive major points for the fantastic opening theme , which I never skipped even though I was bing watching the show and heard it 10 times in the past 12 hours.
I should also point out that the sound effects on the series was really well done , so plus points for that.
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Characters - 3
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Oh boy! , This is one of the sections that the series really faltered. I already mentioned that the characters were indistinguishable from each other because of the poor characters designs and the artwork , that really highlights how poor the characterization were. They didn't just simply look the same , there were no unique characteristics to identify them , most of them had any unique personalities and was pretty generic.
The main character was one of the most boring and bland protagonists I've seen in quite a while. In the first episode , his introduction was him stealing bread and doing somethings he shouldn't be doing. You would expect some kind of punishment , But the writers say "Well , Fuck that" and gives him a job as a pilot ?
I did hoped that the main character would get some development later on but character development was ignored here , almost completely. The MC was the same bland and interesting character when the series ended as when it started.
Most of the female characters in the show are there as romantic interests for the main character , and not interesting or unique , although fairly likable.
So in short , characters are bland and uninteresting.
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Enjoyment and Overall Experience - 5
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Enjoyment ? Honestly , not that much. The most enjoyable part for me was the opening theme. At times it felt like a chore mostly because I had to put in an effort to even differentiate characters from each other. and I expected more out of the soundtrack.
Would I recommend it ? No , But if you really like Mecha's ,Love Triangles and Space battles , you might want to give it a try.
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| Recommendations |
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[Neon Genesis Evangelion] Just a much better Dystopian Mecha series , that excels and blows Sidonia out of the water in every department.
[Attack on Titan] A series that truly captures the desperation and intensity of what it feels like to be corned and attacked as a race.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 23, 2017
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Naruto Shippuden : Review |
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Naruto. The series that sold over 220 million manga copies, winning handful of awards along the way. An anime that ranked as one of the most watched series in Japan that got tarnished by a greedy studio and has received tons of internet backlash throughout the years.
Let me start off by saying Naruto is by no means a flawless anime. It's the exact opposite. The series had too many fillers. Sometimes the animation quality was below par and pacing can be painfully slow at times. But please bear with me here. I'm going to tell you why it has
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been the best experience an anime gave me in my entire life and dig into what made the series popular while also explaining its flaws.
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Story - 8
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The story of Naruto has been a mixed bag. While it's not bad, it's certainly no Berserk. But what it is, is beautiful (probably not the word that can be often used to describe a shounen anime), but it really is. It's unpredictable, it's thrilling, it plays with your emotions, it's funny, it's tragic, it's sometimes downright frustrating but it is, more than anything, wondrous and fun while being able to take itself seriously when it needs to. It starts off where the first part of Naruto ended and the very first scenes gives us a sneak peak of things to come. The series eases you back into the world of Naruto with a slow paced , almost SOL like first few episodes. And the story then on is presented in a collection of long well constructed story arcs with the bigger picture stories of Sasuke and the Akatsuki being told parallelly till a certain point. Down the line this is series deals with more mature themes and darker tones and manage to execute well on most of those themes if not all. The story is mainly hampered (not ruined) by fillers and pacing issues which I will discuss below.
Let's start with the filler. The amount of filler in this show is staggering. It counts as 219 total filler episodes which make up 44% of the series as a whole.
The issues that lies within the filler episodes is that they are not allowed to make any significant changes to the story or specifically its characters. This being a mainly character driven plot, this becomes a huge issue because any significant event in fillers could affect the characters so they can't move ahead the plot line at all. So mostly what we get is poorly written mini-arcs and episodes that don’t affect any of the characters or the world in any significant way. This is worsened by the below par writing for these filler episode as they are not written by the original author Masashi Kishimoto himself.
However, there are exceptions for this. Some of the filler episodes can be genuinely enjoyable but those are few and far between. The fact that filler can't move the plot along fuels the second big flaw. Which is,
Pacing Issues. Aside from what I've said above, even some of the non-filler episodes are very slow paced. This is mainly only an issue at the start of the series. If you're into characters chilling down and wasting a lot of time, this may sit well with you. But even then some of these episodes might be below par for your taste. Once the series kicks it into high gear around 70th episode, it mostly manages to keep that pace up.
Now that we got the flaws out of the way, let's talk positives.
The main strength of the series is its characters, who drive the plot (which we will discuss in detail later). After the first 70 episodes, things begin to get lot more interesting really fast. The world of shinobi gets expanded exponentially, and if you're a fan of deep lore in stories, this will fit right in your wheel house because it begins to explore the roots of the world and its history very deeply.
Another thing that this series does very well is explaining its core concepts to the viewer. The techniques that characters use and how the things in shinobi world works are explained in detail. Also, the concept of Chakra and what a versatile and detailed power system it is compared to other shounen series really stands out.
The amount of themes explored in the series are vast. It explores all the basic themes of a typical shounen and as it goes on it delves into themes such as the nature of humans, self sacrifice, discrimination, manipulation, roots of war and peace, difference of perceptions, the line between good and evil, and alienation. It manages to deal with all these themes without abandoning the shounen type feel or becoming pretentious.
Something that the author, Kishimoto, really excels at is setting up events. For example, during the early episodes of Naruto (the prequel to this show), he has already started setting up major events that happened in the last of episodes of Shippuden. In the beginning, we look over these little details and minor events and have no idea that they are going to have such an impact later in the series, and when it all comes together in the end, you feel so satisfied. Most of the times these events and twists will take you by surprise and maybe you'll have fun trying to figure out them before they happen as Kishimoto drops clues for you to pick up throughout the entire series. Same thing applies to the moments that tug at your heartstrings , they feel genuine because how the story builds up to those moments.
Being a battle shounen ,of course there are going to be battles, and this is one area that the series really shines.
As I see it , battles can be broken down into three different segments in this anime , The battle of wits , The battle of ideologies , The physical battle. All three come in union to make some memorable and truly great moments. Each characters ideologies and philosophies gets tested time and time again by their opponents and we can see even the main character himself doubt his ideologies towards the end. When we see someone gets broken inside as well as the outside it's devastating to watch. To put it blatantly, Naruto has the best combat scenes I've ever witnessed in an anime. I have to mention that this style of combat is heavily inspired by Hunter x Hunter. Kishimoto does a fantastic job putting emotions into its battle scenes which are backed up by gorgeous animations (at times, we'll get to that later) and a mesmerizing soundtrack, and with these combined it really sets up fantastic visual storytelling through combat. Kishimoto does an excellent job at setting up the events leading up to the fight to make it feel all the more personal and these battles often comes down to which character outwits the other rather than who can punch harder. This makes characters like Shikamaru Nara who have very little ability make a huge impact in the series.
Variety of the fighting styles is massive, ranging from intimate hand to hand style combats, tactical combats, long range jutsu battles, and most often a mix of all of these!
The last arc of the series has been very controversial as the constant change of antagonists has irritated some of the viewers. But in all honesty, all of the antagonists that presented had different motives that drove them to do what they do and distinctively different from each other which made them very enjoyable. That being said, the final part of the war arc was really disappointing as the final villain of the series is the worst character that the series had to offer as the villain had almost no personality and motives were shaky at best. Without spoiling anything all I can say is that decisions taken during the last war arc felt like it was done to unnecessarily prolong the final battle and messed it up with a poorly written villain and bad story decisions. But the final episodes after the War arc manages to reign it all in and give a proper farewell to the series it so richly deserves.
Throughout the series you will witness friends become foes, foes become friends, unlikely alliances formed and broken, that precious character you loved die, revenge plots, plot twists, characters growing up, politics, romance, and the world itself change. It can be flawed at times but it's a full package and Kishimoto always seemed to have the ending and everything planned out from the very beginning.
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Characters - 10
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Now this is the core of the franchise.
Each character in Naruto is very distinctive from each other. Each has a core motive that drives them, a unique personality, and a specialty in different skill sets. And hats-off to Kishimoto for his brilliant character design as he used a very bright color pallet and made each one very distinctive to make each of them stand out.
No matter which kind of characters you prefer, you're sure to find someone here that you can relate to. What the series really does well is making sure that you'll be attached to the characters emotionally. And you will cheer them on as they try to achieve their goals , watch their philosophies and ideologies gets tested , watch them break or prevail and break down crying at their deaths.
You will get to see how what's happening around the characters change them , mold them. Witnessing how tragedies that's happening around them having an effect on their psyche is one of the strongest points of Naruto Shippuden. It's fun seeing small character interactions from early episodes grow into full blown relationships.
Now let's move on to the "Villains"
This series checks all the boxes when it comes to antagonist character archetypes.
*Self-Righteous Villain with a God Complex* [checked] , *Money Hungry Villains* [checked] , *Religious Psychopaths* [checked] , *Villain who is after Revenge* [checked]. I think I've made my point there. But what makes this villains so enjoyable is that no one is a villain just for the sake for being a villain. The best kind of villains are the ones you can empathize with, the ones that you feel for and understand them and make you question your own morality, this is something that this series excels at. As same as the main characters, the villains too have core motivation driving them. They have their own beliefs, ideologies and they are willing to fight for what they think is right. You might find yourself cheering on the villains more than the "heroes." The morality here is blurred.
But coming back to the war arc, its main flaw is the final villain (which I will not spoil here). Compared with the other villainous characters from the series, the final character is very bland and their motivations are not entirely clear or most likely not relatable to any of the viewers. That being said, this character is only in the series for a very small amount of episodes and the others certainly do more than enough to make up for it.
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Art and Animation - 7.5
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Again we have a mixed bag here.
This show can look stunning when it wants to, and by stunning I meant big budget movie level of quality. But at times the quality can drop way below par.
I think I should specially mention Hiroyuki Yamashita’s work here. He mainly works on battle scenes and this man is a genius when it comes to it. Even though he only worked on a limited number of episodes, his episodes pushes the animation, choreography and stylishness to 11!
Despite this I can't give it a higher score because this show is wildly inconsistent with its animation.
And as for character designs, we already talked about how Kishimoto made his characters very distinctive and imaginative and how the bright color pallet fuels this.
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Sound - 10
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This is an another strong point of the series. Yasuharu Takanashi has made a masterpiece of a soundtrack for this series that manages to highlight the intensity, the tragedies, and the sorrow of each moment. The emotions that Kishimoto wants to portray make it through to us so well because of this soundtrack. It connects us with the world of Naruto Shippuden in a special way. I would recommend listening to tracks like Samidare (Early Summer Rain) to get a taste of what the soundtrack is like.
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Enjoyment and Overall Experience - 10
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Naruto Shippuden is more of an experience that needs to be had than just a mere show. It played with our emotions for over a decade and now it has been concluded. The enjoyment of Naruto Shippuden goes beyond just the series itself. This series has a very big community and fanbase that you could interact with. And its lore is so vast that you would never run out of things to discuss about it. Although it has its share of major flaws, this series is a journey that shouldn't be missed if you're fine with the hefty commitment. It's by no means a flawless anime , but it's an anime with highs that more than makes up for it's lows. It reaches for the stars but makes a few tumbles along the way , but the best moments of Naruto are some of the best moments in the medium itself.
And with this, I conclude my review for this series that defined a generation.
Sub or Dub ? : Sub is recommended
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| Recommendations for Similar Series |
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[Naruto] : Yes, the original series. It's essential to watch it before the Shippuden series because it contains a lot of character development and build-up for the Shippuden series.
[Fullmetal Alchemist : Brotherhood ] : This series contains most of the things that made Shippuden great such as good character development, good soundtrack, and excellent world building. This series does it in about 70 episodes which is truly a magnificent achievement. If you like Naruto Shippuden, it's a given that you will like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood as well.
[Hunter X Hunter (2011)] : A series that greatly inspired Naruto. Both anime feel very similar in style. If the inconsistencies of Naruto bothered you, you'll find a much more consistent pacing and quality of writing here. Whether the highs of Hunter X Hunter matches up to the highs of Shippuden or FMA Brotherhood is up for debate, but you won't have to sit through any lows like you have to endure with Naruto or Naruto Shippuden.
[Proofreading - SomeRandomNerd]
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jan 31, 2017
While you watch this anime , The only question you'll be asking yourself is , "WHY DA*** IS THIS SHOW POPULAR?" while continuously face palming yourself at an alarming frequency.
I normally don't bash anime's but appreciate the good in them but This series did not have anything good to appreciate , It's as simple as that.
Now I only watched 3 episodes and It might seem unfair to review a show at 3 episodes but I don't see how anyone would watch past 3 episodes because It's unbearable .
The Main Antagonist is a teenage boy , No special traits and as generic as you can get
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, who gets accidentally enrolled in a School for monsters.
The plot of the series is , "THERE IS NONE" ,
Boy meets a girl , Weird attraction immediately , at the end fights some monster , Girl turns full vampire , and the Boy and Girl wins , repeat that 3 times and you have your first 3 episodes of Rosario + Vampire.
3/10 , Straight up bullshit
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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