Attack on Titan is a modern masterpiece. It’s not just a piece of fiction which has thrown quality season after season, it’s also one of the very few anime to have broken into the mainstream, so much so that people who do not watch anime at all have experienced and loved it. The emergence of the first season of Attack on Titan drove the series’ popularity to levels rarely seen before in the medium. The long wait before the release of season 2 was a major reason (along with certain pacing issues with the manga at the time) for the dying interest in the series
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at the time. By the time S2 aired, Attack on Titan wasn’t the global phenomenon anymore. One Punch Man had broken the mold in a similar vein to AoT S1 and become the new big anime amongst casuals and non anime watchers.
Then came Season 3, and the series was roaring back. The interest in the series had never been higher, and fans flocked back in droves to have their questions answered. Many began viewing the first two seasons in new light once the revelations showcased the intricate planning and immense foreshadowing that had gone under their noses when they’d watched it first. For me, Attack on Titan was always great. Never has an anime made me feel so hopeless if I viewed the world from the perspective of the characters. The absolute mystery surrounding the titans for most of the first season along with stunning animation for fights, memorable OST for almost any scene and emotional dialogue delivered by passionate voice actors made for an unforgettable experience. Season 2 and 3 bring in more revelations, slowly unfolding the mysteries of the world and the titans and shifting the themes of the series. Season 4 has another tonal shift - much greater than previous ones - and it handles it with aplomb.
A change in studios has often led anime series to ruin. The aforementioned OPM was one of the recent big victims of it, but other popular series like Seven Deadly Sins have also suffered due to it and never recovered.
Fortunately, MAPPA have handled the transition well. They haven’t been perfect (more on that later), but all in all, they’ve done a good job producing a new season of what is probably the most popular anime of the last decade.
The start of S4 might have left some people wondering where the original cast went. There’s not just a change of cast in the first few episodes, but also a switch in perspectives. We’re no longer seeing things from the side of Paradis and the Scouts. Instead, we now see it from the view of Marley’s warriors, who’re training to inherit the titans from their predecessors once their time runs out. Gabi and Falco want to inherit the armor but Reiner, i.e. the plot armored titan (Sorry, had to use this once I saw it on Reddit) can’t catch a break. Someone, grant him his wish to die.
Eren’s growth as a character is one of the highlights of Attack on Titan as a series. He wasn’t always a fan favorite because of his hotheaded nature, but as time went on, his perspective of the things around him changed, most noticeably multiple times throughout season 3. Come season 4, his character undergoes a paradigm shift; calm and sympathetic, yet ruthless. As his famous quote goes, “I won’t stop moving forward until all my enemies are destroyed.” He’s a lot more distant, not just to everyone else in the show but also to the viewers. Unlike previous seasons, his thoughts are a mystery and the season clearly displays the divide between him and the other old Scouts.
The handling of his growth as a person and a titan shifter is outstanding, firstly in the manga and then in the anime. Yuki Kaji, the voice actor, supported this exponential growth by exceeding expectations on character delivery. I especially love how well he’s transitioned seamlessly along with Eren as a character and nailed almost every line. There’s hardly a line Eren has spoken in season 4 that isn’t extremely significant to the story.
Oh Gabi! Where do I even begin? She’s supposed to be the female parallel to pre timeskip Eren, but apart from some core traits like being stubborn, she isn’t really that similar to him. Gabi hates the Eldians from Paradis for no other reason other than that she thinks they’re devils and should suffer for the crimes of their ancestors. Eren was stubborn, headed into almost unwinnable battles without a second thought. However, his reasons to hate the titans were justified. His mother was eaten in front of him by a titan, his home destroyed and tens upon hundreds of his comrades butchered by titans in cold blood. He fought for his freedom, and humanity’s.
Gabi, on the other hand, hates Eldians without having seen any of them. She kills people for glory, just for some useless praise. And without spoiling anything, I’ll also add that she’s a hypocrite with her iconic line that’s become prevalent in memes now “But did you see it happen?”.
In her defence, she’s a twelve-year-old girl who’s been brainwashed so it’s hard to not give her some benefit of the doubt. But boy, is she annoying! She’s actually portrayed a lot better at the start of the Marley arc in the anime than in the manga, so I didn’t dislike her as much. She’s neither a bad character nor a great one, but she serves her purpose.
Onto Falco, then. My cute, lovable boy, are you sure you had the same upbringing as Gabi? He’s her polar opposite, able to empathize with his enemies and an antithesis for every one of Gabi’s morals. He views things from a wider angle, often showing maturity way beyond his years. He might not be as naturally gifted as Gabi but he’s a whole lot more likeable. From posting letters for injured people to helping his enemies who shun him instead, this good boy has it all covered. He’s one of the beautiful things in this cruel world.
Pieck is the new waifu that every fan seems to be simping over; Reiner and Zeke share the title of best character amongst the Marleyans for me. Their internal struggles and motives, some of which are only seen by viewers, make a significant contrast to their outer persona, and this holds especially true for Zeke.
Jean remains the character who makes the viewers question their morals because he questions his own and that’s what I love about him. He’s another one who’s come a long way since the cadet days.
Did you think I’d have forgotten Floch? He might’ve been a forgettable side character who didn’t even have a distinct design before S3 P2 (Isayama has himself admitted as much), but he’s one of the stars of season 4, running the show like the chad that he is. He’s an extremist and his actions are brutal; at times, it seems as if he’s doing it to sate his own ego and hate towards those who’ve imprisoned him and his race behind the walls. But despite all this, he’s one of the most entertaining characters post time skip. He’s unpredictable, spunky and has the audacity to pull off stunts that might’ve had your jaws slacking on the floor more times than one. And who can forget the “shh?” King Floch has unquestionably engraved his name as an Attack on Titan legend.
There are so many excellent characters in Attack on Titan that the review would be too long if I talked about all of them, so I’ll stop here.
The character designs in Season 4 see a distinct change, and that’s not all to do with the timeskip or the change in the studio. It’s a mixture of both. To anyone who’s read the earlier chapters of the Attack on Titan manga, it’s no secret that the art at the start was mediocre. Wit Studio did a great job of enhancing the character designs and the art in general, especially in S1.
MAPPA on the other hand have stuck closer to the manga art style for characters (apart from beautifying Armin as compared to the manga, their reasons for which I’d like to know). So there’s a slight change in the art style because they’re following Isayama’s art a lot more closely.
The animation of S4 has been the most talked about point, and for good reason. I’ll mince no words: some of the CGI was downright terrible. There was some genuinely impressive CGI like the Jaw titan, but some very important scenes involving the Attack Titan and Beast Titan were horrendous. It’s not the animators who’re to blame for this but the greed of the production committee and the manga publishers who wanted to have S4 airing before the end of the manga to boost sales.
For almost any other anime, I would’ve let even the terrible CGI scenes slide, but this is Attack on Titan, one of the most popular and highly acclaimed anime ever, and surely it deserved the best treatment possible. Unfortunately, it didn’t get that. Does it make the season bad? Of course not since the season covers one of the best arcs in the manga and the adaptation itself was faithful with top tier voice acting. Could better animation elevate S4 of Attack on Titan to higher levels? Greatly.
My biggest problem with the titan CGI was that it just broke immersion. One moment we had fluid 2D animation, the other we had some janky CGI lacking weight, which made me pause and check if I was still watching Attack on Titan. I’ve re-watched these scenes multiple times and every time, I came to the same conclusion: Attack on Titan deserves better. Remember the marvelous scenes with ODM gear we got in the first three seasons or the titan fights or Levi vs the Beast Titan? Unfortunately, we don’t get that level of animation in season 4, and while understandable given the time constraints, it’s disappointing nevertheless.
The CGI wasn’t always as bad, but had enough prevalence in the most important moments (Eg: Attack Titan vs Warhammer Titan) to be a stain on an otherwise stellar season.
We have some new and honestly breathtaking tracks added to the already great OST from S1 - S3. One of the highlights in the sound composition this season is that there were different composers depending on whose perspective a scene is shown from. For Paradis, we have Hiroyuki Sawano back with all our favorites from previous seasons while Kohta Yamomoto handled the Marleyan side, giving us bangers including Ashes on the Fire. I missed the old OST in the first few episodes because I was worried they’d underuse S1-S3 OST, but they did not. It wasn’t used much because the initial episodes take place from the perspective of the Marleyans. Honestly, having different composers for either side of the conflict seems like a superb choice and helps immersion.
The only real criticism I have about the sound was the OST choice in some scenes in the latter part of the season. And no, I’m not talking about the basement scene here. I thought the basement scene OST choice was great.
Similar to the OST, it took a while for me to warm up to the OP, but looking back now, it’s great and suits the themes of S4. This was a common opinion amongst the community; the majority seemed to have disliked My War for the first couple episodes, then it just grew on people and now it sets the tone for the rest of the episode.
Now that Attack on Titan’s final season (Part 1) has ended, it’ll be intriguing to see what route MAPPA takes for the rest of the adaptation. There’s anywhere between 13-16 episodes of content left to cover, depending on the pacing. Will the production committee see Attack on Titan as a chance to make hundreds of millions of dollars in a movie format or will we have Attack on Titan Final Season Part 2 (lol), only time will tell. I’m not against either, as long as they take enough time and pour passion into making it. I don’t mind waiting longer if it means getting the best production values. Hopefully, that’s the case.
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Mar 28, 2021 Recommended
Attack on Titan is a modern masterpiece. It’s not just a piece of fiction which has thrown quality season after season, it’s also one of the very few anime to have broken into the mainstream, so much so that people who do not watch anime at all have experienced and loved it. The emergence of the first season of Attack on Titan drove the series’ popularity to levels rarely seen before in the medium. The long wait before the release of season 2 was a major reason (along with certain pacing issues with the manga at the time) for the dying interest in the series
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Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 21, 2021 Mixed Feelings
Mushoku Tensei might well be the most controversial anime I’ve come across in a long time. Interspecies Reviewers generated a lot of discussion recently, but that was mostly due to a moronic Youtuber flexing his popularity and trying to mess with MAL.
Mushoku Tensei, on the other hand, divides opinion by simply existing, caused by the character traits and story it follows. Some people, a lot of these LN fans, believe that whatever Mushoku Tensei has done in the anime is just a realistic portrayal of medieval times. Some think that pedophilia and libido for every character is not a good representation. While I knew what ... I was getting into when I first started Mushoku Tensei, my problems begin when the characters get away with rape, pedophilia and sexual harassment and instead, the show plays all of these very sensitive topics in a comedic sense, almost as if they were no big deal. Rape is played off as a joke, pedophilia as a character quirk that has nothing wrong with it, and sexual harassment like flirting. I don’t argue against the fact that these things can be represented well in anime, but I am not supportive of how easily it’s played off as a humorous copout. I’ve never read the novels, so I speak of what I watched in the first 11 episodes of Mushoku Tensei. LN fans insist these issues will dwindle and Rudues will change for the better as the story progresses, which is fine. Hell, it’s not Rudeus or the characters I have a problem with. There were, and are scumbags in the world and there always will be, and I don’t mind their portrayal in anime. In fact, I think some anime have too many characters without flaws. My problem is with the presentation. If you’re going to touch on such delicate matters, there’s a fine line that needs to be tread. They can’t be played off as a joke by the show itself and, sometimes, I certainly felt Mushoku Tensei explicitly did that with its portrayal of those scenes. Also, almost everyone in the show thought with their dicks and tits 24/7, and no, that’s not a realistic representation of the world. If you think it is, you need to get out of your bubble and know more people. The story starts off like any other isekai. A useless otaku meets an accident, dies and is transported to a new world. In MT, the MC gets a completely new start as he’s born into the alternate world instead of having his old body transported. And the first thing that the reincarnated protagonist, newly named Rudeus or Rudy for short, does is ogle at his mother’s breasts and tries to fondle them. Even after realizing that she’s his new mother, he still says “Sucking on a hottie’s tits for free rules”. Already, this left an appalling first impression. It was just awkward? I’ve seen my fair share of ecchi anime with perverted characters, but this was already having me have second thoughts about continuing a few minutes into episode 1. The first episode pulls no punches in showing how much of a trash Rudeus is, as he scrounges for panties of women in his house even before he turns one. What follows are several time skips within a few episodes until Rudeus turns seven. The start is pretty generic, but I’ll be honest, it’s kinda interesting. If you get rid of the problems many people, including me, have with the portrayal of some issues, then the first season of Mushoku Tensei becomes a polished version of what a lot of other isekai try and fail over and over again. Some do it with some success, but those are few amongst the can of worms that the isekai genre is. So Mushoku Tensei undeniably falls on the better side of the isekai scale, lopsided as that scale may be. Mushoku Tensei fans like to call it the “Grandfather/Mother of isekai”, but I doubt the validity of these claims because several other popular isekai novels had already come out before it, and SAO (talking about the anime here) might not be an isekai, depending on what your definition of isekai is, but that’s the one that started off the boom of what has basically become a genre now. Talking about fans, some fans even claim that the people who have issues with pedophilia, rape, etc and how the anime portrays these in good light, are soft snowflakes. According to them, anyone who thinks these things are actually a problem shouldn’t use their own morals on a show. As a protagonist, Rudues is agonizing to watch. This holds especially true for the first half of the season, as he seemed to not even care about how creepy some of his actions were. He’s a degenerate in the truest sense of the word, with very little to redeem his character. I understand he has trauma because of the bullying he was victim to in his first life, but that doesn’t justify his actions. Of the few flashbacks we got of his previous life, he was shown to have been fapping to child porn at the time of his parents’ funeral. Then, in his new life, he still retains the mind of a middle-aged, useless pedophile, who, even in his new chance at life hasn’t changed after spending five years as he’s fantasizing about turning a five-year-old girl he saved from bullying into his ideal woman. Oh, there’s a change this time though, he’s gifted with abilities far surpassing almost anyone in the world. One of the things that I always find funny about isekai is how the protagonist who is usually pretty useless in real life becomes a genius; not just physically gifted but mentally having over 9000 IQ. Having said all of this about Rudues, he becomes better in the latter part of the season, although still having bouts of his lecherous habits. My biggest gripe with Rudeus as a character is that his filthy actions are not driven by physical attraction; if they were, he wouldn’t be stealing panties or trying to grope women before he turned one. It’s his mind that’s corrupt. Eris, the main heroine for season 1, is a typical tsundere who starts off as a hotheaded, spoiled brat before the MC wins her over. I wouldn’t say she’s that interesting so far, but I kinda like her. Roxie is another character who got some attention through the run of the season. She’s a Migurd woman and actually is 30+ but the show never tries to make this known until much later. Looking like a 13-year-old instead, we see a young Rudues, maybe 5 or something, trying to sneak peeks when she’s bathing, changing or even masturbating. And of course, stealing her panties is a given, right? Paul(o), Rudeus’ new papa, is a bastard. He cheats on his wife, assaults girls and rapes them, gets away with it, apologizes to his wife for cheating, then writes a letter to his seven-year-old son saying how he’s gonna cheat on his wife again while bragging about it. Again, my key concern is the show playing these things off as a joke. Considering there are people who've experienced these traumatic events, the author and studio had no empathy from conception to creation. A few of these things might have been fine if the show was a comedy, but it’s not. It can’t claim to be a serious redemption story and still play most of this shit off for shits and giggles. Other characters don’t really have much to talk about; not yet anyway. The visuals in Mushoku Tensei are fantastic; the attention to detail evinces the care and work that Studio Bind put in while crafting the world. It’s got some stunning backgrounds, gorgeous colors and ambience to paint the world and characters. The art is the strongest aspect of the show. My only real critique is the grainy art style which I’m not too fond of, but that’s just one minor complaint I have about the visuals. The animation is pretty fluent most of the time, and more importantly, the animators knew which moments to highlight and which they could put less work toward. The OP playing while showing the ambience is one of the biggest props for Mushoku Tensei. It sets up the episode by giving us a feel of the area that most of the episode is going to be in. Speaking of the OP, it’s pleasant to hear in itself. I know plenty of people skip anime OPs, but Mushoku Tensei gives you a reason not to because it’s part of the episode. Apart from the OP though, the OST is bland and lacking. Nothing else made me pause and repeat a scene so that I could hear the sound again, and I didn’t even notice too much of it. That’s not that big of a deal as this is the case with most anime anyway. Overall, the production values were top notch and you can see that Studio Bind views this a long-term project, considering the studio was created especially for Mushoku Tensei. Although I’m interested to find out where the story goes after this, I’m not totally sold on Mushoku Tensei yet. Most of it is due to the aforementioned problems in its portrayal of serious issues as jokes. The latter part of the season wasn’t as riddled with those concerns though, so it’s getting better, at least. According to novel readers, it only gets better and better from here, so we’ll see where it goes, but that’s pretty much all source readers, right? The second cour is scheduled to be back after a season break, and I’m interested to see how it turns out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jun 27, 2020 Recommended
If someone shits on Kaguya-sama in front of me, I have only one reply for them. “Urusai, baaka!”
Kaguya-sama: Love is War was a great show and one of my favorites of the year 2019. It had an entertaining cast of main characters, a group of just as amusing side characters that made an appearance every now and then, and to freshen things up, a simple yet compelling tale about two geniuses trying to outwit each other in a totally contrasting way to Light and L from Death Note, with top tier comedy to top it all off. It had certain elements that we’d previously seen ... but the overall product of everything it offered was something very unique. Now, take everything I said above and add a progressive plot, some more characters who’re just as delightful as the ones introduced last season and the previous cast getting development as well as becoming even more charming. All this executed so spectacularly that even the first season that I liked so much pales in comparison. Oh, and also, add sick animation, a captivating OP and OST, and you’ve got what Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season 2 offers. In short, this season has all of what made the first season great and does it better. To me, Kaguya-sama S2 is almost a perfect Slice of Life/romcom. This season has taken Kaguya-sama to the top echelon of romcom or heck, even SOL anime in general, in my list. The first season was an introduction to the characters, focusing more on telling the tale in an episodic fashion without a lot of story progression. This season instead, focuses on the plot moving forward. Instead of hilarious episodic stories, we get hysterical episodes with the plot progression every inch of the way. The academic year is about to end so tensions rise during the student council president election as a new foe appears, Shirogane’s family is explored more and Ishigami’s character is fleshed out in the latter half of the season. The anime is not about just making you laugh now. It’s about trying to make you cry before having you burst out laughing, rolling on your couch. One of the (many) reasons why Kaguya-sama shines over other romcoms is because it’s not afraid of doing where most of them would falter. You want the main protagonist being called a manwhore for multiple episodes? It’s got you covered. You want a Monogatari scene reprised? Gotcha. You want a guy’s father saying how his high school son is still a kid and his hair down there hasn’t even sprouted yet to a girl’s father? Sure, it’s there. You want the female lead to think about all the intricacies of the male’s underpants? Oh, you’ll get that. Point to remember, Kaguya-sama is still rated as PG-13. Misunderstandings are the source of a lot of comedy and that’s one thing that you’ll find in a lot of romcoms. Kaguya-sama though managed to create amusing moments not in spite of them, but because of them. I could watch entire episodes on the same jokes and still wouldn’t get bored. But no, we don’t get the same joke used over and over. You’ll have tens of new ones every episode. In this season too, Kaguya continues in her quest to make Miyuki Shirogane confess his love to her. Same goal but the approach has changed. Or rather, evolved. She’s a lot bolder in this season using tricks as well as other people, to be put Shirogane into difficult situations. And sometimes, this puts her in situations that she loves yet fears. This is when, the best girl of the season for me, at least for the first few episodes, Hayasaka Ai comes to her aid. Oh, how I’ve loved every moment of watching her. She shows us a side of her personality that I didn’t think she had. And then turns into another character who’s almost unrecognizable. Frightening! Now, let’s talk about Miyuki Shirogane. Out of all of the main characters in the series, he’s the least talked about and the most underrated. Ishigami-kun is everyone’s best boy while all the girls are contenders for best girl. But our protagonist just doesn’t get enough love from the fans. To me, he was the hero in this season. And he was the hero to the characters as well. He goes out of his way to help people; people whom he doesn’t know that well, and helping them in a way that wouldn’t really benefit him. When, in the biggest moment of her high school life, Iino Miko faces a problem that’s haunted her all her life, Miyuki comes to the rescue, disregarding the fact that it puts his own reputation and image on the line. When Ishigami can’t deal with his problems, current and past, Miyuki gives him a shoulder to lean on. And of course, he’s always there for Kaguya. His acts of selfless heroism made him the character I most enjoyed watching this season. Of course, the others had their arcs and moments but in all of those, Miyuki was the focal point at the most prominent moments. He’s the hero this world needs but doesn’t deserve. Truly a chad! The character who got the most development was undoubtedly Ishigami Yu. As I said above, he’s best boy for a ton of fans and for good reason. The Ishigami arc in S2 had been hyped up by the manga readers and although I personally wouldn’t put it on a pedestal over the other arcs in S2 (to me, the entire season was top notch and I can’t put one arc over the other), delving into his past and exploring his character was fantastically handled. We not only get to see why he’s become so afraid of associating with people, but also him overcoming that and recognizing that the people around him are not as awful as he’d thought they’d be. There’s so much room for growth with him and I’m really looking forward to seeing more of the same in the future. The best aspect of the show? I was in quite a conundrum when I asked myself this question. The season is so well rounded that neither could I think of a real weakness, nor could I find something that I could put over the other aspects that easily. The clean and smooth animation, a deep dive into the characters’ past and personalities, the use of a pretty good OST, Daddy Daddy Doo and everything I’ve mentioned earlier were all so brilliantly executed. Even so, I can’t help but applaud one thing over all of these: the voice acting. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the other facets lacked in comparison. No, no. It’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever come across an anime or a show in general, in which I could so easily make out that the level of voice acting I was experiencing was exemplary. The Japanese voice acting industry is brimming with talent and we see extraordinary performances from these guys all the time. But the level of voice acting from all of the people involved in Kaguya-sama S2 and the range that they exhibited just made me appreciate that what I was experiencing was the makings of something truly special. I feel that most voice actors are able to show their true talent in a show in which they’re able to convey a multitude of emotions and SOL/romcom have the most freedom in that regard. Some of my other favorite comedy shows have had superb voice acting like Saiki Kusuo, Grand Blue, Great Teacher Onizuka but I felt that the voice acting in Kaguya-sama S2 surpassed all of those. Could it be recency bias? Possible but I still can’t find any that I’ve watched that I can say has an undeniably better voice acting performance than this. The cast for Kaguya-sama is very young. For most of them, Kaguya-sama is like a breakthrough anime through which could take that leap which makes them one of the top names in the industry. And I honestly believe they’ve done that. The ones who impressed me most were Yumiri Hanamori and of course, Aoi Koga, the VAs for Hayasaka and Kaguya respectively. The range of tonal shifts that they displayed is fascinating and a treat to listen to. Just watch a video of them voicing Kaguya and Hayasaka and you’ll understand exactly what I mean. Kaguya-sama is easily my Anime of the year thus far. And right now, I can only see two anime, both sequels that could potentially take that title this year, for me at least. Oregaieru S3 and Attack on Titan S4, if it does indeed air this year, are the two. And if they manage to surpass or even equal what Kaguya-sama S2 did, then we’re in for something epic. I’ll miss watching Kaguya-sama every week until Season 3 comes out. It was an anime that truly enhanced the source material and turned it into something very, very special.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jun 24, 2020
Kami no Tou
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The anime adaption of Tower of God was met with a lot of hype, both from the fans of the webtoon as well as a good portion of the anime community in general. It was the first real adaption of a Korean manhwa (disregarding the couple OVAs Noblesse got. It’s getting a proper anime adaption later this year too) and its success could likely open the floodgates to a world of new content that’s ready to be adapted from manhwa.
So, did the adaption of Tower of God live up to the hype? I would honestly say it did not. In fact, it falls way short. ... It’s nowhere near how good it could’ve and should’ve been considering the content that was to be adapted. Most of the reception to the anime as a whole has been fairly positive over the internet, but for someone who’s been a fan of the webtoon, it turned out to be a massive disappointment. When I first read the webtoon, I was sucked in by the dark environment, intriguing character motives, the ruthlessness of the world and the massive and unexplored world that was the tower. One of the selling points of the webtoon is the mystery surrounding everything and the fact that details and lore are revealed bit by bit in a complex manner without any sort of spoonfeeding to the audience. The anime lost most of this and more. Even after complaining so much, why have I given it a rating of 7? Well, even though I am extremely let down by the adaption, it still is a pretty decent anime. Yes, it’s not nearly as good as it could’ve been but it still entertains for the most part, and if I look at it from the eyes of someone who hadn’t read the manhwa beforehand, it’d be a very enjoyable show. The story starts off with Rachel wanting to go up the tower to see the stars that she’d always dreamed about and Bam following her like a dog follows his master. But I can understand why Bam does this. Rachel is such an amazing person: tender, selfless, compassionate, kind and to top it off, she’s pretty cute in the anime too. Why wouldn’t anyone not want to follow this Goddess? On a more serious note though, she’s the only person Bam has known his entire life so when she enters the tower wanting to fulfil her dreams, he follows after her. Simp is a word that’s been associated a lot with Bam these past 3 months. Tell me, do you call a child who’s crying for her mother and only smiles when he sees her close by, a simp? If you do, then I think you have more important things that you need to get sorted first. Anyways, Bam is that child whose mother has left him, and he’s trying to go after her. An understandable objective I believe. Once Bam enters the tower in pursuit of Rachel, we’re introduced to the rules and workings of the tower along with Bam. The floors, the tests that are supposed to be passed in order to climb them, the hierarchy of the tower and the motivations of the characters wanting to climb this dangerous tower are revealed little by little. As Bam learns more and more about the tower, so does the audience. But this is also where one of the major problems with the anime begins to surface. Some of the explanations about the concepts and functionality of the tower are either cut-short or in some cases, completely omitted. This leaves a viewer who hasn’t read the webtoon and doesn’t have a clear idea about these things, confused. The webtoon explained these things in a much more comprehensible manner. Oh, and I’m not talking about the mysterious lore here. I’ve heard a few complaints about people saying answers are not provided immediately. Well, those are important mystery elements that are answered bit by bit as we move further along in the story and something that I consider one of the charms of the series. So, don’t expect every secret of the tower to be just told to you right then and there. Even though the anime does sacrifice the dark atmosphere of the first season of the webtoon, I felt that they still did a fairly good job of creating tense situations, especially in the first half of the season. They retained the ruthless vibe of the tower during the first few tests and even though there were elements that were left open to criticism, they did a good job of it by and large, for the first half, bar the first episode of course. The first episode was a mess. The pacing was all over the place and the less I talk about the directing, the better. After the first 6 episodes, I was feeling hopeful that this would turn out to be a pretty good adaption because episodes 2-6 had been pretty good and almost every episode was turning out to be an improvement over the last. However, this all changed in the following episodes. There were some very important character interactions that were left out, some that were replaced by anime-only scenes which served no purpose but to enrage the source readers, and one of the most hyped and compelling tests in the webtoon to date, was but a mere shadow of what was expected and what it should’ve been. It was plagued with all the issues that I have with the anime all at once: bad pacing, important dialogues being cut and changes made to some of the best parts of the test that were uncalled for. When it was first announced that the first season was only going to be 13 episodes, doubts had already begun to surface in the minds of most of the readers. The first season of the webtoon had 78 chapters and there was no other stopping point except the end of the season. So, everyone knew that there was going to be content that was going to be removed. And that would’ve been acceptable. Not many would’ve complained if they only cut some of the less relevant content and dialogues, but they didn’t only do this, they also removed some of the best and most important scenes that play a major part in the development/decisions of the characters, not only in the first season itself, but also later in the further seasons. To add to this, they put in some anime only things that enhance nothing in the anime at all. If anything, some of the anime only scenes contradict the personalities of the characters. This is purely bad directing and there’s no excuse for this. Cutting some parts in order to fit the season in the limited number of episodes? Absolutely understandable. Removing important moments while adding in some irrelevant and stupid scenes? I’m sorry, Telecom Animation, but that’s not gonna cut it. Yeah, the anime as a whole suffers from pacing issues, but I genuinely feel that there was a much better way of handling it. Some things being sacrificed was inevitable given that they were adapting 78 full length chapters into 13 episodes, but this is where intelligent directing was required. Alas, good directing was asking for too much, I guess. Yes, Bam is a blank-slate MC and he doesn’t really have a personality. I won’t even argue if you say that he’s bland to begin with. But then again, what do you expect from someone who’s only known a single person his entire life and has been living in a cave which has nothing. His personality is shaped with the experiences he has in the tower, and it changes over time into something that turns out to be relatable. Yes, his naivety is annoying at times, but it’s very understandable why he acts the way he does. He’s just a genuinely nice guy who doesn’t know any of the evil in the world. He doesn’t even understand his own actions. He’s seen as the odd one because of how kind-hearted he is, and is the source of self-reflection for some of the people around him. That innocence is what leads to him being so pivotal in shaping the characters and influencing their decisions. And the first person with whom that happens is Khun Aguero Agnis: the star of the first season of Tower of God. The genius from one of the most prominent families in the tower who was abandoned because of an incident in which he betrayed someone close to him, only to be betrayed by the person whom he gave up everything for. His backstory reveal in the anime is honestly one of the very few things that I thought that the anime actually enhanced from the webtoon. It’s what’s eats up at him and what influences a lot of his early season decisions. He’s the most interesting character in the season. His intellectual brilliance paired with unshakeable confidence (apart from a couple moments) and the change in his mental state from lacking trust in others to having faith in certain individuals around him, make him a delight to watch. “What? Is it his mating season? Bring him here! I’ll pull out his banana!” Who else could say this but Rak Wrathraiser or Alligator/Crocodile as Khun likes to call him. A ruthless, proud hunter who picks Bam as his ultimate prey. But on the inside, he’s a big softie and is likely the second most “innocent” character in the season next to Bam. His eyes see everyone as a turtle and his love for chocobars has no end. He’s one of the primary sources of humour in the first season and while they changed some of his gags in the anime, it still didn’t stop him from being hilariously entertaining. I will say though, some of his most humorous moments were cut short or changed. Unfortunately, that quote I’ve mentioned above is from the webtoon and was removed from the anime. Shibisu, the other comedian, Hatz the chivalric swordsman, stupidly powerful lizard girl Anak, the cold-hearted yet beautiful Endorsi, round off the rest of the main cast. They all have goals that they wish to achieve by climbing the top of the tower and some of them are prepared to do so no matter what kind of cruel or underhanded tactics they might need to use. All of them had their characters explored through the season. To an extent, at least. But for Endorsi, some of the defining scenes that fleshed out her character even more in the webtoon, were once again, cut. I will never understand why because they play such a major part in season 2. Another thing that I disliked later in the season was some friendship crap that was pulled. The webtoon is mostly devoid of the power of friendship shit. Though it can be a good addition at times in anime, the use of it towards the fag end of the show was not just pointless, it actually contrasted the personalities of those characters, in the anime season as well as what we have in the source. It was pulled out of nowhere and I imagine it was done to appeal to the younger audience more. And they couldn’t have handled it any worse if they’d tried. I hated the changes in character interactions that they made and that’s one thing that happened mostly throughout the season. I was more forgiving and willing to overlook these in the beginning, but as the season went on, the changes became more and more apparent, and a lot of them were absolutely cringeworthy. The artstyle at the beginning of the season had mixed reception, with some people loving the different feel as compared to other anime while some just couldn’t get used to the change. I, for one, liked that they stuck with the original artstyle of the webtoon. It could have been more polished at times but it wasn’t too bad. The animation doesn’t leave much to speak of. It was solid without being spectacular. If I was to put in on a level, it would be on a higher level than most anime that come out every season yet wasn’t at the level of things that I’d call had great animation. One thing that stood out all through the season regardless of how the other things were handled, was the OST. Kevin Penkin just keeps enhancing his reputation. Whether it be during the intense fight sequences or the emotional moments, the soundtrack simply kept delivering without fail. If I was to be critical though, it would be about the use of the OST. Sometimes, the tracks used didn’t fit the scenes, but that’s more to do with the sound directing. And the overall directing of the anime was subpar. As for the OP and ED, both of them are fabulous to listen to. Helps that one of the best K-pop bands, Stray Kids, provided them. At first, I wasn’t a big fan of the ED “Slump” but it kept growing on me until I began to dig it. I’ve tried to be as unbiased as possible while writing this review. Because if I compare the anime to the first season of the webtoon, I can’t help but wince at how badly they’ve adapted it. Make no mistake, as an adaption, Tower of God is a failure. The oversimplification of some of the concepts and character interactions as well as motivations makes it a watered-down version of the source. While the changes they made might not always look like a problem when looked at individually, the amalgamation of all of them deviate from what made Tower of God great in the first place. Minute details like the addition of single line or scene which contradict what a character is about can make a huge difference to the overall experience. That’s the reason that I said that the anime as a standalone isn’t bad for someone who hasn’t read the source and isn’t aware of what the changes mean. In fact, I’d say the anime would be a pretty good watch. Most of the people that watched it for the first time are of the opinion that it’s a good anime. But that says more about the quality of the source than the adaption itself. That even an adaption as weak as this one can be called good should be a compliment to the webtoon. Anyways, I hope that the staff take note of the criticisms people have had of the anime and improve in the second season. Because if they adapt it well, it’s gonna be a banger! I will say though that if they continue to do it in the same way as they did with season 1, I don't have much hope left as a source reader.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 13, 2019 Recommended
Dr. Stone is one of those sorts of anime which you love even though it’s extremely over the top. It’s realistic while being unrealistic, funny yet with high stakes. It’s set in prehistoric-like times and that’s what’s unique about it. Make no mistake, this is the kind of “you’ll either love it or hate it” anime. It’s got these moments that’ll either make you fall in love with the show because of its execution or make you hate it because of how stupid it might seem. I fall into the former category and I’ll explain why. Dr. Stone is as much a comedy show as
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it is about science. You’ll fall off your couch laughing if you continue watching it. I liked the concept to begin with and enjoyed the first few episodes, but they are nothing compared to what Dr. Stone has to offer later in the season. The build-up is quiet but every following episode is an explosion. This is when I honestly began to dig the show as much as I do now.
The setting of the show is so intriguing that you’ll get sucked right in: Earth has been petrified; turned to stone by a mysterious light that suddenly encompasses the globe. Not one person on the planet is left standing. However, petrification doesn’t mean death. These people are still well and truly alive, but they can’t move, can’t speak, can’t think? Well, there’s one person who’s still maintained his ability to think and through his steely determination, breaks his petrification. I’m talking about none other than the protagonist: Senkuu. Now, Dr. Stone is a show that you’ll only fully appreciate if you can give a pass to its ridiculous science fiction stuff. A lot of what it portrays in terms of science is correct, however, the way the characters achieve it is fairly exaggerated. That’s all down to the genius of Senkuu. He’s a supercomputer in the skin of a human. Senkuu is a guy made by mixing all of the most brilliant brains to ever exist in the real world. He’s just ten billion times smarter. The main focus of Dr. Stone is showcasing the brilliance of Senkuu and his little science team that he manages to gather. The gang of characters that he befriends all have their different goals and personalities. His initial encounters with them are not always on friendly terms but one of the things that’s good to watch about this anime is how these characters work together with an aim to form the kingdom of Science – Senkuu’s ultimate objective. Most of the inventions of the team wouldn’t have been possible without the cooperation and expertise of each individual and this, in my opinion, is one of the major standout points in the show. The story starts off with Taiju finally deciding to confess his feelings to the girl he’s loved for all his life. But, just like all great things, this does not come to pass. Right before his confession, the world is petrified. Along with Senkuu, Taiju is one of the few characters who partially maintained his ability to think, and that was largely thanks to his overwhelming love for Yuzuriha. He’s a hardheaded character (in both senses) who’s a perfect foil for Senkuu’s genius. He does most of the physical stuff which Senkuu isn’t great at, and their partnership together is what helps them overcome their greatest enemy. Speaking of the enemy, that would be Tsukasa Shishio: the strongest person in the show thus far. He is another example of the exaggerations in the show as he’s shown to be powerful enough to kill lions with a single punch. His petrification is cured by Senkuu when he found himself in a perilous situation. However, the two soon find themselves to have totally opposite goals. Their rivalry is a great example of what Dr. Stone is about: brains vs brawns. We don’t see too much of Tsukasa after the initial few episodes but I do expect him to play a major part in the upcoming seasons. The fiery Kohaku is the first of the many characters of the “new generation” that Senkuu encounters in his quest. She’s a fiery girl who’s one of the best fighters in this prehistoric world and one whose story I particularly enjoyed. Then there’s Chrome, the yang to Senkuu’s yin; a science user who’s shunned as a sorcerer as people find his interests weird. I personally think that Asagiri Gen, one of the characters introduced a bit later in the first half of the season, is one of the best in the show. I won’t go into details about him because almost anything I say about him would be more than some minor spoilers. The art of Dr. Stone is great with extremely detailed backgrounds and character designs, but the animation does leave some question marks at times. It’s not that it’s bad, but you can certainly ask for something better, especially for a show that’s garnered this much popularity. There are times when stills are overutilized while the “chibi animations” were somewhat overused. That said, I can’t fault the overall art quality, although I fully expect and hope for this aspect of the show to be improved upon in the second season. Unlike the animation, I have very little to complain about in the sound department. The OST has a variety of different tracks for various situations and their placement is pretty much spot on. I felt the voice actors too did a great job of mixing comedy along with the more serious stuff. The balance between the two adds a lot to the overall experience of the show. The first opening was good, but I think the second opening truly set the tone for the rest of the episode. I never really got bored of listening to it every episode and the visuals during the OP were perfectly directed. Dr. Stone is definitely going to irk a few people due to its approach to the sci-fi genre and the way it’s handled. It has divided opinions over the last few months and I can understand where some of the negative opinions may stem from, but it covers up for it in spectacular fashion. But if you can ignore that, you’re in for a hell of a ride and an amazing watch. It kept me wanting more after every episode and I watched it as soon as possible most weeks during its run. Its transition from comedy, which is better than most pure comedy anime out there, to a darker tone whenever required was one of the highlights for me. Overall, Dr. Stone was a great source of entertainment, and definitely one of my favorite anime of the year.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Oct 7, 2019 Not Recommended
The disappointment of the season. Worst anime of the year. An anime that should never have existed. No matter how many insults I throw at Arifureta, I'm afraid it will never be enough to convey just how loathsome I consider this atrocity.
There are several levels of bad isekai anime. You've got the disappointing kind like How Not to Summon a Demon Lord. Then comes the horrible kind like Kenja no Mago and Isekai Cheat Magician. And then you have Arifureta in a league of its own with not a single competitor in sight. It's so bad that I watched it every week just to ... make myself feel better. I assured myself by saying that anime watching can't get worse so the only way is up. And yet, every week, Arifureta hit new lows that I didn't imagine were possible. Arifureta literally means "common" or "mundane". But in the anime community, this word is now going to be referred to something which is terrible beyond measure. I think I've watched a decent amount of anime, and in all of those, only a couple of shows even come close to Arifureta in terms of the dreadful watching experience I've had. Arifureta has set the standard as high as possible for a show to be absolutely and unreservedly appalling. This is the kind of show that the rating of 1 on MyAnimeList exists for. An anime series that has no saving grace; something that might make you question why you watch anime at all. Even after having suffered through 13 episodes of this tragically forsaken show, I can't quite point out what it was or what it wanted to be. I doubt the creators or the studio had any idea either. It's an isekai but what did the author really want this to be? A harem? Yeah, because all the new girls want to fuck Kazuma as soon as they meet him. The premise of the show has Hajime and his class transported into a fantasy world in order to save it from some sort of disaster that's about to occur. In one of their expeditions, he's betrayed by one of his friends, falls into the abyss of the dungeon and that's where his changes start. He's a weak little boy before falling and then by eating monster's shit and meat, he obtains their powers. When I was watching the first episode and all of this happened, I honestly thought that the second guy that I was watching wasn't even Hajime. By just eating and drinking some crap, his entire body changed shape, his hair color changed and even his voice wasn't recognizable. Damn, what a transformation. He goes from a weak little guy, who wants to look after his friends, to a strong, monster eating maniac who only thinks about getting stronger. His transformation also boosted the shitty level of his character. He was a normal shit guy before he changed and became a stupidly powerful but even shittier guy afterward. Suddenly, we've got this overpowered, invincible "protagonist" (if you can even call Hajime that) who's going around the abyss, killing monsters with his guns and snipers, eating them and stealing their abilities for himself. You've gotta be kidding me! How did he even learn to create guns?! He was nothing but a support-type before, and now he's suddenly this all-knowing, omnipotent genius. Terrible, absolutely terrible and irredeemable writing. So, what was the author thinking when he wrote Hajime? That's a question I'd like answered. His personality changed more times than there are episodes in the season. It's not unpredictable in a good way, no. It's embarrassingly predictable, but it just fluctuates between a guy who wants to save his friends, to one who cares about no one but himself, to caring about a vampire girl he'd just met, to having a dream of going home while caring about no one, to not caring about his former teacher, to caring about his former teacher, to not caring about the friends before his "transformation", to caring about them. It's kind of a cycle that repeats itself in every arc. His attitude towards the people who help him (except towards vampire loli of course) is stupidly obnoxious, and this doesn't change. Since the second episode of this abomination, the characters that are introduced are nothing but objects to praise and aid our amazingly charismatic Hajime. Let's begin by talking about the naked girl tied to, and hanging from the chains in the opening: Yue. After being saved by Hajime (how surprising), the only reason for her existence is to suck up to him. She doesn't have a single personality trait worth mentioning. She really doesn't. All she's done is help Hajime defeat monsters and get jealous when other girls get close to him. I honestly don't have a clue what else I could write about her. Moving on to the other characters in Hajime's "party"; first, we've got Shea, a bunny girl whose sole goal in life is to fuck Hajime. Yeah, not much else to her character either. Then, we've got a masochistic dragon girl who'd like to fuck Hajime. Great. And did I mention that Yue wants to fuck him too? The only character who was even barely relatable, or bearable for that matter, was Kaori Shirasaki, one of Hajime's classmates who'd been transported into another world. She's the character whom Hajime tried to save when he fell and for that, she's shown to bear great responsibility. The emotions she goes through are interesting to watch as she goes from blaming herself to firming her resolve in finding Hajime. Alas, she didn't get too much screentime after those initial few episodes. And even if she did, I doubt it would've made much difference to the overall experience of watching Arifureta. The full name of this piece of shit show is "Arifureta: from commonplace to the world's strongest". What it fails to mention is that this change happens in the span of one episode. Since episode 2, no enemy's even posed a challenge to Hajime. He and his party members are the only characters on the good side who're not totally useless. Everyone else who's not introduced as the enemy is shown to be weak; pathetically weak. Then, Hajime will appear, act as if helping them isn't his problem and eventually be convinced by one of the girls to help them. And then, we'll see our great hero pull out his guns and shoot down the bad guys with little to no effort. All while the animation hurts your eyes and makes you wonder if you're really in 2019 and not in 1969. The other characters are so pitifully useless that it made me wonder how the world wasn't overtaken by demons and monsters before Hajime had his little demonshit-eating transformation. I know I've made this point a few times already but I just can't stress enough how stupid and weak anyone else that's not in Hajime's party is. If there was one anime where the studios deserved shit for their terrible, lazy and disgraceful commitment, this would be it. I don't like to shit on writers or production studios, but for once, I can't say that the deplorable plot or storytelling is the only major reason for an anime to be the crappiest of crap. White Fox and Asread are both massive production studios, especially White Fox. Believe it or not, this is the studio that has produced shows of the ilk of Steins;Gate, Katanagari, Akame ga Kill, Hatarakou Maou-sama and Re;Zero. I'm not a fan of Re;Zero. In fact, I hated it. But that wasn't due to the fault of the studio. The production was top-notch in each of the anime series I've mentioned above. However, for Arifureta, both of these studios share the blame. Big time. I'm not kidding when I say that even Maou-sama Retry! which was produced by a no-name studio had better animation than Arifureta at times. And there's no excuse for this. Absolutely none. The opening was decent as far as the sound goes, however, nothing is noteworthy in the audio aspect either. If you don't already know, Arifureta was scheduled to air in Spring 2018. Apparently, the production was already underway but because the author of the light novels didn't like what he saw, everything was scrapped and the anime postponed till Summer 2019. The utter lack of responsibility by the producers is mindboggling. They scrapped a series because they didn't like what they saw and the final product of what they "liked" is this abomination. I don't even want to imagine what the thing they scrapped must have been. Some of the action scenes were so pitifully animated that it hurt my head just watching it. Imagine playing an action game at 10 FPS. That's how awful these action sequences were. This was a result of terrible visuals and sound combined with horrendous direction and a lack of planning. The worst part of the animation is the CGI of monsters, dragons, skeletons, etc. Basically, any enemy that wasn't human had CGI which would make the games from the 90s and early 2000s look great in comparison. Everything from their movements to their appearance was a pain to watch. Do you want to see a female dragon having a massive rod inserted into her ass? Do you want to see a bunny girl kissing the main character fervently when he was trying to give the girl a mouth-to-mouth CPR? Or CGI so bad that it looks worse than a 1990s game (Heck, even those games had better CGI than the monster battles in Arifureta)? Do you want something to vent your frustration on? Do you want to see what your beloved medium of entertainment looks like at its worst? Even if the answer to all of the above questions is yes, I'd still not recommend this. It's easily the worst isekai I've watched overall. I may have watched some with just as bad story-telling and characters as Arifureta, but they at least had okay animation. Arifureta doesn't tick the box for being decent in any department, be it characters, story, or animation.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Sep 27, 2019 Not Recommended
I’ll be honest here; I sort of enjoyed the first season of DanMachi. It wasn’t great in terms of storytelling or characters, yet it managed to keep me entertained for the length of its run. And I was genuinely expecting season 2 to deliver a similar sort of experience; not overly original but fun to watch. However, what we got with Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka II (Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a Dungeon? II) is just tons of the former and not a hint of the latter. This season is an assortment of overused
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anime tropes with dreadfully poor execution. And seriously Japanese LN authors, learn to be a bit better at naming your shit. Please.
So, in which aspects does DanMachi season 2 fail? Honestly, it sensationally fails in pretty much every aspect that made season 1 a fairly enjoyable watch. The story arcs are all repeated from other anime which has the concepts of adventurers and whatnot and the conflicts feel extremely lackluster. It’s easy to predict how these arcs would conclude. There’s no sense of danger in them and the comedy is totally out of place. The characters’ decisions and actions are mindless and unrelatable. So much so that even a 10-year old’s judgement would be more sensible. The culmination of all of this simply leads to a dull and unenjoyable experience. The story continues where it left off in season 1 with Bell Cranel and his goddess Hestia wanting to make the Hestia Familia the best in Orario. In this quest, they recruit adventurers for their Familia, saving some of their old and new friends along the way. There’s not much else to the plot of this season. When the entire story can be summed up in two sentences, it’s not difficult to imagine that it’s lacking. This season tried to be entertaining by the use of excessive fanservice but falls flat on its face in the execution. They’re so cringy and out of place that even most people who enjoy fanservice would be annoyed by them. Oh, and there’s tons of scenes in this season in which Bell is pseudo-raped. Some people might even count these scenes as part of the fanservice, but it’s pretty repulsive to watch someone being licked off by a hideous monster of a rapist (yes, that fat girl is a rapist in my eyes) which contributes absolutely nothing to the story at all. Conflicts start for the most stupid of reasons like one of the underlings of some other Familia taking a dislike to Bell because of his attitude or another Familia leader wanting Bell as her own. These lead to War games, episodes of hide and seek and monotonous battles which themselves are predictable and dull. There were opportunities to develop these arcs into something that had real meaning and impact on the story at large, but instead, barely anything drastic changes after these battles. The first 3 or so episodes were kinda okay even though they were packed with the issues I’ve already mentioned. I’d hoped that the development we’d had in these opening episodes would add up to something meaningful in the following episodes, but not only did DanMachi S2 fail to do that, it just kept falling in terms of quality each episode. I barely managed to keep up until episode 8 but I’d had enough by that point and finished this simply for the sake of completion. The characters that were entertaining in the first season are intolerable in the second. Every episode made me cringe. Bell, who was kinda fun to watch, is reduced to a generic MC; kind, soft-spoken and one who’ll go to any lengths to protect his friends. He stumbles upon characters with a dark past and resolves himself to save them at any cost. Not that he was much different in season 1, but I’d hoped that the things he’d gone through would culminate to some sort of character development for him. Unfortunately, though, I soon realized that I’d hiked my expectations too much and all I’d get from Bell in the entire season was just constant “Fire Bolt!”. Hestia, who was just about bearable last season, is a bundle of exasperation in this one. I’ve come to hate almost everything about her character; from her goofiness to her fixation on Bell. I’m sorry but waggling your boobs around and then pushing them in the face of the protagonist doesn’t make a character funny. The story delves a little in Liliruca’s past, however, all of it is rushed and it seems that the only reason her past was even brought up was just for the sake of it. There’s no real revelation, just bits of it which are vaguely explained. I wonder if there is actually more to her past or if this was all. As for Welf, the reason for his existence in this entire series is because the author doesn’t want to make it seem like Bell is gathering a harem. He’ll say the odd motivating thing and assist the others in battle, but his presence doesn’t have any significance. The other characters are also meh, and I’ve got nothing much to say about them at all. Because there isn’t much to them in the first place. I’ve really gotten tired of criticizing JC staff recently, but they keep producing crap these days. I don’t even know if it’s their fault or the fault of the source they’re adapting. Most of the anime they’ve brought out in the past 2-3 years have been failures, and on the surface, it certainly seems that they’re the ones at fault. I don’t know how the monetary side of things have been for these series, but certainly quality wise, they’ve produced some absolute shitshows in this time. Whether it be because of abysmal art and animation, substandard management, lack of resources, bite off more than they can chew, or a consequence of all of these combined, it has been a staggering fall for JC staff as a whole. DanMachi Season 2 falls into the same trap. Choppy animation especially in the battles, and repeated panels are aplenty. The overall animation quality is okay at best. I found myself enjoying the opening though, which was probably the only good thing to come out of this series. The soundtrack in general was unoriginal but partly decent. A shit ton of bouncing boobs, unwanted intimate situations to fill the episodes with fanservice as well as to show us how Bell is embarrassed every time he ends up in them and boring ass characters lead DanMachi into a shit hole which is, frankly, unrecoverable from. At least, for me. I’d honestly looked forward to watching this season but I doubt I’d get myself into the next season of DanMachi. If you liked the first season, I guess you could try to continue and watch this season as well. It might be watchable for the fans, but barely.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Sep 18, 2019
Kanata no Astra
(Anime)
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Around a Hundred years down the line from now, we might have human colonies on habitable far away planets and space travel might be common place. It may seem farfetched right now, but then again, who could’ve imagined the progress in technology humankind has made in the last half a century? While learning about the different planets and galaxies, almost every kid might have had a fleeting dream about going into space and experience what it may be.
Kanata no Astra (Kanata: Lost in Space) is set in a time when the aforementioned things have become possible. Science has advanced so much that teenagers are ... going to other planets simply as a mundane school trip. A group of high-schoolers from such a futuristic world are visiting a nearby planet called McPa as a camp. Of course though, after arriving on planet McPa, things don’t go as planned for them as they’re sucked into a mysterious black orb that transports them into space but luckily for them, they somehow manage to find an abandoned spaceship in the middle of outer space. The spaceship would then become their means of travel as they jump from one planet to another in hopes of surviving and getting back to their home planet together. What Kanata no Astra excels at is showing us the raw emotions of teenagers as they battle their way through the harsh conditions of the various planets that they stop by on their way. The feelings of hopelessness, betrayal, anger, joy and relief are portrayed extremely realistically amongst the characters. Add in a bit of drama around the circumstances surrounding their situation and you’ve got a highly entertaining anime that’s so underrated that it hurts. The endless depths of space can be daunting and that’s exactly what Kanata no Astra tries to present to its viewers. As the characters begin to overcome this fear, new predicaments emerge. The mystery about the black orb that got them there, the lack of trust between them as well as the different problems that they face through their journey binds the characters and develops them into a team capable of surviving in space on their own. One of the best things that Kanata no Astra has done is developed each and every one of the crew. They’ve all gotten mini-arcs of sorts where they’re faced with problems of their own and begin to realize what they truly are and their reason for existing. The execution of this is impressive because these arcs don't just start and end in an episode or two; they have their time to take shape. The face of the show is most certainly Kanata Hoshijima, the titular character however. He’s first introduced as a cheerful character who’ll do almost anything to help others even if they might not want it. This is a reason of annoyance for a few, but as they get to know him and his past better, they begin to support him for what he’s done for them. Then we have Aries Spring, the secondary protagonist and a girl whose stolen purse is retrieved by Kanata in the first episode. They instantly strike up as they’re both caring and cheerful as well as selfless. Next we have Quitterie Raffaeli, the irritable blonde whose outspoken nature doesn’t allow her to make too many friends, and Zack Walker, one of Quitterie’s only friends at the beginning who’s a genius at almost everything he does. His calm demeanor in the face of hopelessness manages to save the crew more times than one. The rest of the cast includes Charce Lacroix, the charismatic and dependable guy, Ulgar Zweig, the quiet one who’s at odds with everyone else because of his ill-tempered nature, Yunhua Lu, an extremely shy girl who thinks she’s the source of everyone’s problems, Luca Esposito and Quitterie’s adopted younger sister, Funicia Raffaeli. The way all these youngsters deal with their personal problems and change in order to work together is the central narrative of the show. Now, having spoken so positively about the show, there are a couple elements that do cause an issue. Firstly, the pacing in the second half of the show feels rushed. I wasn't aware that the source was completed so I didn't actually think that this series would reach its conclusion in just 12 episodes. Granted, it's more akin to 14 episodes since the first and the last episode both are an hour long. Still though, the part towards the end did feel slightly rushed as even until episode 9, I still felt that there could be a lot of content remaining. The second issue could be a sort of spoiler so I'll only say that this series won't make you "sad". The art and animation of the show are both impressive. The characters have pretty distinctive designs and the scenes with outer space and the different planets are all drawn beautifully. The animation is fairly fluid, and I didn’t find myself complaining about it in any of the 12 episodes. The soundtrack is pretty unremarkable to be honest although the voice acting is on point. As I’ve mentioned a few times in this review, this show depends upon character emotions and their interactions, and the Voice Actors do a pretty good job in both of these aspects. I’d certainly recommend this show and would encourage you to give it a try. It’s got an extended first episode of 48 minutes and that’d probably be enough for you to check if you’d like it or not. For me, I immensely enjoyed Kanata no Astra and certainly would’ve liked for it to have a few more episodes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 16, 2019
Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi e
(Anime)
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Medieval fantasy anime are rare these days as compared to genres like rom-com and sci-fi. The good ones, even more so. As a fan of the genre, I’m always interested when I see a show set in the medieval age, hence To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts instantly caught my attention after I saw the PV. From the studio that had produced Zankyou no Terror, Zombieland Saga and Yuri!!! On Ice in recent years, there was cause for excitement, even though the PV had made it clear that this was a low-budget anime as compared to the other hits the studio has had.
From the beginning, To ... the Abandoned Sacred beasts throws us into a war between the North and the South, with the South dominating the war for the most part until the North delved their hands into something they should never have: transforming humans into all-powerful beasts of destruction and war. The humans who’d been the victims of this were made to believe that they were special, revered by their army but on the inside, the entire populace was terrified of them. However, such beasts were only going to be useful until the end of the war. As soon as that ended, the army always wanted to get rid of these creatures who, in their view, threatened their existence. That’s pretty much the premise of the story. Not bad. Unoriginal, but the execution was fairly well handled at the start. Now, that’s where the problems begin. There comes a time when you get bored of the same script every episode over and over again. Find an Incarnate, hear about how they’ve been ravaging stuff around the area, talk to them, and then at the end of the episode, eliminate them. That’s the formula that was followed throughout the season. The repetitive nature of the plot had me rolling my eyes from boredom at times. We’ve got two main protagonists: Hank Henriette and Schaal Bancroft. Hank Henriette, the charismatic leader of these Sacred beasts or incarnates, as they’ve been called, is a pretty straight-forward character to understand. Being betrayed by your best friend, who also kills your lover is an easy way to make yourself hate someone, isn’t it? He’s about the only incarnate who’s neither lost his humanity completely nor wants to eradicate humanity for what they’ve put all of the Incarnates through. The threat posed by these mindless beasts who were once his comrades in arms is understood by Hank, hence he takes the mantle of eliminating them before they cause any further damage to society upon himself. And we follow his encounters with his fellow incarnates. Hank rarely showed emotions, keeping himself focused on his goal for the most part. The second protagonist is the daughter of one of the Incarnates. Loved by her adopted siblings, her father as well as the village, Schaal is an exuberant spirit full of positivity until he sees what’s happened to her father, who’s body had changed into a dragon permanently. Even so, she never hesitates to treat him as the same father she once knew. When one day Hank arrives and kills his father, she goes into rage and vows to track down his killer. As she meets and gets to know Hank though, she decides to accompany him and see for herself the reason for which her father had to be killed. As time passes, she begins to sympathize with Hank. Watching their interactions and relationship develop is one of the better points in the show. Talking about the animation, I was extremely disappointed. I was expecting a lot better from MAPPA, who’d done such amazing work in the past. Far too many of the battle scenes, which are supposed to be the best animated panels, are crappily done for the most part. The character designs are better but nothing to write home about. The soundtrack is meh, the voice acting okay. I guess they really had a low budget because there was one soundtrack they kept repeating over and over again in tense situations. The animation or the sound aren’t the factors that brought down the show for me though. The culmination of what Hank and Schaal did throughout the season didn’t have much of a payoff. The first few episodes were interesting, then the loop begins, ending on the same note. This may work for comedy, but doesn’t for action fantasy. The story had potential to develop into an intriguing story that shows the grey side of human nature. But alas, it never took off after the first episode.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 22, 2017
Shingeki no Kyojin Season 2
(Anime)
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The sequel to Attack on Titan or Shingeki no Kyoujin was probably the most awaited anime series of the decade. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that because the first season just made a stupendous impact on the anime industry. Fans waited, and waited, and waited, for a second season to come and after four long years(God knows what the studio was doing for this long), we finally got a second season to one of our favorite, or for some people, one of their most hated anime.
And let me tell you, as a huge fan of the first season and the series ... in general, Attack on Titan Season 2 is a colossal disappointment. The hype that most people had, or at least that I had, was already dissipated when a few days before the anime was to begin, it was announced that this season was going to be one cour. This wasn't just because it was a kick in the backside for those who've patiently waited for four years to only get 12 episodes, but also because those who've read the manga knew that 12 episodes would only let the plot hanging and would move the story nowhere. Unless they skipped lots of details, there was no way we were going to get the action and excitement that we'd longed for after having finished season 1. I put this behind me, like a lot of others, and made up my mind that 12 episodes were better than nothing. The season started in an explosive way and made me remember once again why I loved season 1 so much. The titans, the screams, the expressions of terror on the faces of characters, the fear that one of the characters that I liked might die. All these things along with the amazing battles were the reason why Season 1 had become one of my favorites. And we were thrown into it right away. As the season progressed though, the story began to stagnate and the fears that I held before the season began surfaced. The story just went nowhere. By the time I was at episode 10, I was already not following the series weekly. There were episodes in between that gave me the chills and the feels of the first season and I couldn't help but crave for more when I watched those episodes/scenes. But they were far too little. And I knew that this would be the case for most of the season. The manga content that was adapted for Season 2 was mostly exposition and the action was nowhere near enough to satisfy my thirst. It just had those long minutes of silence, which to be honest isn't what Attack on Titan is, or what made it so successful in the first season. On to the characters, this is an area that was probably the most disappointing for me along with the lack of action. If they could've had character development done well through the course of the 12 episodes, I think that might've made up for the lack of action. For me though, this didn't happen. Our protagonists Eren and Mikasa don't change. They didn't change much throughout Season 1, but you could excuse that. However, the utter lack of character development for anyone, even our protagonists is extremely disappointing. Eren never grows out of his "I'll erase every titan off the face of the earth" shit, and he doesn't really even try to think of reasons why Titans exist. He's just obsessed with killing them and that's all there is to him in the season. Mikasa doesn't get too much screentime but even she's the same "Eren I'll protect you from the world". The only characters that did get somewhere were Krista Lenz and Ymir. I thought they were fleshed out pretty well and had their past revealed a little bit. Having said all that, the animation of Season 2 just went up a notch from Season 1, and Season 1 was done pretty darn well. The art was detailed and the animation fluid. The OST was similar to season 1 with some differences added. They let us get a feel of the events happening extremely well and help up immerse in the world of titans. Both of these get almost a perfect score. Now, I did enjoy certain parts of Attack on Titan Season 2, but overall, it was a real disappointment for a fan. It had its moments when it caught me in the scene and had an effect similar to that of Season 1, however those moments were far too sparse. I'm predicting and hoping that Season 3 will be much more action packed and have our characters develop more. Even if the season was 2 cour, we were always going to have these episodes where the world was explained to us in the first cour, but we wouldn't have to wait another ......so many years to get to the real stuff. Anyway, if you liked the first Season, you must watch this(as you will, haha), because I'm sure whatever they have in store for Season 3 is going to be better than this, at least for me.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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