Shoumetsu Toshi

(spoilers)

Shometsu Toshi is a real masterpiece. Never before have I been so amazed by a work of fiction. It is pure perfection. The characters, the setting, the plot, the small nuances, foreshadowing, sound effects, music, cinematography... the list goes on and on and on. I seriously don't know where to start with this anime.

To be honest, I watched it as a joke because I got the character in my gacha game. But never did I think that it would be the best anime of all time. First, where do I start? I don't know where to start. Please. Theres too much to this anime ... that is perfection. I think the surge particles (haha, Shoumetsu Toshi reference!) got to me and caused me to forget about where to start.

First, I will start with the characters. They are amazing. Most of them are introduced in the episode where they die, which adds to the despair and suspense that the show instills in the viewer. This show is not for the faint of heart. There is real hurt. Real pain. Real trauma. Real despair. Real life. This show is so meaningful. The characters are great. Theres the protagonist, Yuki, who has experienced so much suffering. Theres Takuya, the courier, who didn't fulfill his tragic past. And all the other ones I don't remember the names of, like the magician guy who Twitter cancelled the evil Lacuna. All these characters have an amazing story to tell and tell it in a way that causes the viewer to truly understand their pain and hurt and suffering. Which only makes the triumphant ending even better.

The show is amazing the plot is amazing. The plot is that there is a giant hole that they must go to the bottom of because a message from Yuki's supposedly dead parent emerged from the area. The hole was formed by The Lost (which is a very cool and cool sounding name) which caused a whole city to disappear. They finally make it to the actual hole in the last episode which was the coolest episode. The ending was amazing. You see,
along Yuki's journey, many people die or lose their siblings or something (she lost her younger brother) and this woman wiht green hair dies and this woman with brown hair dies and this guy with purple hair almost dies but didn't until the last episode, and she is given the choice to give them all a perfect world, reset the universe, where they can all be happy with no repercussions. She is the only one who can make this choice, the choice given to her by her supposedly dead father who is a Data Man now. Of course, she chooses to not reset the world, because she would be sad if everyone didn't go through all of those experiences. The Lost is still growing ever larger and in a few decades, will swallow the whole world unless Yuki chooses to reset the universe (which she did not do). This is an extremely meaningful ending that means a lot because it shows how the right choice isn't always the good choice. I think we can all learn from Shoumetsu Toshi in this way.

One last thing... this anime has EXTREMELY ACCURATE SCIENCES. They talk about parallel universes which is a real scientific concept. I don't see your Steins Gate talking about parallel universes now, do I? They even mention SURGE PARTICLES which are really scientific and make you lose your memories unless you are from another universe. I'm disappointed they didn't mention Alpha, Gamma, or Delta particles, but I'm sure its simply because they realised the simple minded viewers wouldn't understand such incredibly conplex scientific concepts which, if you ask me, was quite kind to the viewers to make this decision because without it we would not be able to understand the magnificent story of Shoumetsu Toshi.
I give this anime a 10/10 and the joe fortnite award.

I cried. Every episode. At every single cut-away gunshot I cried. i thought they would die... but they didn't. The pure resilience despite the despair showed the light of hope at me and taught me many valuable lessons.

Please. Watch this anime.

Great Premise, poor execution; mostly in the editing

This type of anime has been done before many times in the past, However, After Lost is one of the worst most forgettable executions of this decade. There is good to it though so let me tell you what I liked about this before I go into the bad.

The Good
The premise is really great, not gonna lie. There are several underlying themes about coping, loss, understanding, and forgiveness. Underneath a few good episodes sprinkled throughout the series; I'm sad to say that's pretty much where the praise ends.

The Bad
The series feels empty, what I mean is the series ... has a hard time finding it's footing. For example, a few episodes start about like 15 minutes in so they had had to run those 15 minutes in this annoying grainy flashback. There are multiple times the series thinks it wants to drive but that only really happens for one episode. On top of that, we're expected to feel for characters we just meet and have very little investment in. This get's better near the end but it's a little late to do that in the series. The art is passible but the Animation is so lazy, I thought a production as high as this one would at least reanimate a scene if they are going to show it again. Speaking of showing it again, this series love to reiterate by showing the same twice in basically 10 minutes apart from eachother.

Wrap-up
After lost is a mess of show that could benefit from better editing and maybe a rewrite or two but if you want to give a try, you're very much welcome to. Anyhow, thanks for reading.

You know there comes a time when you need to watch something bad. Something you can learn from and get more experience so you can differentiate what is good and what is bad. What works and what doesn’t. Today, I have a great candidate to tell you about. An anime that perfectly fits what I am talking about and explain to you why that you should enter this anime at your own risk for the sake of your own tastes.

Sit Back, relax and play some early PS2 games (You’ll understand in a minute) as I present to you the anime review for Shoumetsu Toshi ... or by its English name, After Lost. Lets begin.


Story: 4/10

On one frightful day, a city suddenly disappeared without a trace. They call this event, “Lost” and it left nothing behind. Except for one thing. Yuki, the only survivor of Lost had been experimented on by a mysterious company looking to find some answers about the events of lost. Until one day, she is broken out and escapes thanks to a courier by the name of Takuya. Takuya plans to take Yuki to Lost due to a message from Yuki’s father saying “Yuki, I am waiting at Lost.” With their plans set, they travel to Lost while slowly uncover the truth about Lost’s origins and the organisation working in the shadows.

The story of this show is decent at best, even if it does like to sidetrack ALOT. It is very much cut up into different story arcs that last between 2-4 episodes that help cover the whole mystery behind lost and the villains’ motives. But I think around the halfway mark, it was starting to get pretty obvious as to what and who caused Lost to happen and I was just waiting to see if I was right (which I was). If that’s the case then the mystery isn’t exactly interesting is it? If the mystery is obvious well before we get the reveal as to what happened, then it isn’t exactly a well told mystery. Yeah sure, it was also obvious who was responsible for Lost from the word go but how it happened was meant to be the intriguing part.

As for the arcs themselves, some I would say are worth it as it does help give context to the story and unravelling the mystery. Although a couple of stories are pretty much filler in my eyes, (in a twelve episode series I might add) some of them were interesting and had some dark themes behind them to make you hate the villains more. Well I would if I had some kind of understanding as to what the villains’ ultimate goal was. That is a problem with the show overall at times because the story is trying to invoke an emotional response but it fails to do so. Sometimes it wants us to hit us with the emotional scenes before adding context as to why this scene should be emotional. If it did it beforehand but subtly, (Just to make sure it is not using obvious foreshadowing) then these scenes would have me invested; yet they fail to do that.


Characters: 1/10

Every character in this show can be described as basically cardboard cut-outs with people drawn onto them. This is because they are just as interesting as cardboard cut-outs. This show does a poor job of making me care about these cast of characters because they are uninteresting to say the least and baffling at its worst. They are the kind of characters that invoke a sense of frustration in you because they can behave and speak like nothing can bother them; all for the sake of just progressing the plot. A scene from episode 1 where we hear what Takuya thinks of Yuki especially infuriates me because it is never built upon and could have led to some interesting narratives.

Which leaves me to another criticism is that our character’s motives and personalities keep changing with little context in order to progress the plot. This is especially true when it comes to our main protagonist Takuya as his motives are never set in stone and changes his personality on the fly. Sometimes he acts as a loner, sometimes he acts like he’s actually a caring person, sometimes he’s cold, sometimes he’s selfless, MAKE UP YOUR MIND MAN! Then there is Yuki who is just as bland as a single, stale cracker. Despite having the goddess of Japanese voice acting herself, Kana Hanazawa, voicing her, she has no personality to speak of and when she tries to have an emotional response, it comes off very weak and uninspired, leaving me to not care for her at all.


Animation: 1/10

HOLY S**T! THIS CGI IS BAD! This is some of the worst cgi I have ever seen in an anime. The vehicles just look horrendous and doesn’t look like they even try to hide the fact it was cg. You see, this is why I said you should play some PS2 games, because this cgi looks like something from an early PS2 game. But even that is insulting to the PS2. I should expect this from Madhouse as they can’t do cgi well “cough cough, Overlord III, cough cough.” This show has been clearly shunted down the priority ladder and it shows. Animation is of nothing of note, the cgi looks awful and the character designs are just bland and rather genericwith nothing notable to mention about them at all.


Sound: 3/10

The soundtrack is rather forgettable as well. There was not a single track that I can point out and say, “yes. I remember that one.” It was either too bland or didn’t fit with the tone of the scene well. It was just there and sometimes was drowned out by the sound effects of this show so sometime I couldn’t hear the damn thing.

The opening for this show has a good song but is hampered by the crappy visuals. "Kotae” by Mao Abe has some great pacing to it and I am a fan of how the vocals are used as well as the instrumentals. But there were clear cheap cuts in the animation department that brought it down for me. If it had better animation, I would say this would be a hidden gem of an opening, but the opening is just alright.

The ending baffles me because it features an idol group that only appear for one episode. So to begin the series featuring them in your ending sequence will just baffle the viewer. Honestly though, it feels out of tone with the rest of the show and is something I skipped immediately after listening to it once.


Conclusion

So yeah, if you didn’t get it by now, this show is bad. There were plenty of problems with the show’s story and mystery, uninteresting characters, awful cgi and forgettable soundtrack. There were only a couple of things I liked about this show but they were swallowed up by the many problems I have with this show. But it is nice to bash something that would not get defended in the slightest due to its s**tiness. If you are reading this by going through this season’s catalogue of shows or going through Madhouse’s library of shows. Please do not watch it. Your time is better spent elsewhere than this show..unless you want to experience what a really bad show is.


My personal enjoyment: 1.5/10


Overall score: 2.1/10 Recommendation: Don’t f***ing bother