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Nov 21, 2016
The review will be mainly of the first 4 seasons.
From the very name of the anime you already understand you are going to see something out of the ordinary. “Yuujin” is not a word very commonly used in anime, its either “nakama” for comrades or “tomodachi” for friends. However Yuujin carries with it a weight, and it tells you this show is not one of those simple “happy go lucky” ones, and boy didn’t it carry a lot of weight.
The show starts off right in the middle of action and uses the action as an exposition of its nature. This serves its purpose of engrossing
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the watcher because he gets intrigued by whats happening and wants to know more, then gradually the protagonist introduces himself and explains his upbringing. More or less by first 10 minutes we are thrown into this fantastical world where there are youkais, beautiful and hideous , and we sympathize with the protagonist’s ordeal. Just when we think this might be another run of the mill “getting away from youkais” show, at that very moment the show hits you with emotions.
The show primarily deals with the protagonist Natsume Takashi returning the names of various youkais his grandmother collected and while he returns it he has a glimpse of their interaction with Natsume Reiko, his grandmother. And each and every of these interactions deal with the themes of loneliness and companionship, and yet they never get boring or tedious to watch. Yes that is the biggest strength of the show. It deals with simple themes that resonates with a lot of people, true, but it deals with the in such a way in so many different circumstances and situations that each time it tugs your heartstrings, and sometimes can leave you in a mess of tears while at other times with a lump in your throat.
But then thats not all. Natsume Yuujinchou would not have been a great show if it just showed some flashbacks and hoped the viewer would empathize and lap it up. As one watches different seasons gradually some micro relationships develop. Natsume develops as a character, and so does the people around him. The relationship between Natsume and youkais are beautiful to watch, and it is heart warming to see him being treated the way he is in the anime with his bitter past. Also, many a times he is shown to confront his past head on and come out stronger and that servers as a constant reminder to us, the watchers, that a lot of things we did when we were kids were due to our lack of knowledge and understanding, but it is upto us to make amends to the people we did wrong.
Natsume Yuujinchou deals with a lot of themes which are a little too relevant in today’s society, the themes of never judging a book by its cover, inclusion, forgiveness, friendship, understanding and acceptance. Natsume embodies the principle of live and let live and he sticks to his principles throughout the show, and brings about a change in many people. In a world of confrontation of humans and youkai he is one of the few who tries to understand them both and tries to find a way out of a tricky situation by mutual understanding, which is all too relevant today.
All this said and done, the enigma and the fulcrum of the show is Natsume Reiko, the protagonist’s grandmother, who comes off as an asshole at first but as we get to know more and more about her story we empathize with her and realize the cause of her actions, it is really astounding how much a character who is alive only in others memories get an insane amount of development.
Natsume is an episodic show, but each episode be it the “returning of name” episode or a “fight against youkai/”evil” exorcists” episode, drives the overall characters a little bit forward in their life. Another important thing about the show is none of the humans are really “pure evil”, they each have their own agenda, and so are most of the youkais. And you cant really choose a side. In fact many a time you will be rooting for the youkais.
However the best part of the entire show is watching how Natsume increases his youkai and real life friends, and how he changes from an introvert to someone who starts to have fun. You cannot but help yourself to a smile when you see Natsume playing with his youkai friends whom he despised so much in his childhood and then run off to enjoy with his school friends which he did not have in his childhood as well.
The animation gets progressively better each season and the OSTs are kept the same, Ops and EDs are beautiful and the music really complements the show. It had to though, since these atmospheric shows depend a lot on the music.
Overall yes, I can say Natsume Yuujinchou is an experience. It will crush your heart many times, yet will fill you with a bittersweet satisfaction. It will make you want to watch more and more even when it is episodic. You will fall in love with Natsume’s cat nyanko sensei, fall in love with the antics of his school friends and the “middle” youkais and by the end you will get engrossed in the atmosphere so much that you wont be able to separate your feelings for humans from youkais, unlike the first episode where you would think Youkais are evil beings. And by the end you would want to begin again.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 6, 2016
So lets see, I have seen the anime world pretty divided in opinion about this one, some calling it a masterpiece and some calling it trash. So I am going to start by busting a few myths. Unfortunately spoilers will follow.
IT IS NOT A MASTERPIECE AND CERTAINLY NOT TRASH.
IT IS NOT A CONFUSING, CONVOLUTED HOTCHPOTCH OF IDEAS AND IS PRETTY SIMPLE AT ITS CORE.
Now that we have got these two away lets start analyzing to see what the show really is.
As I had said before this show is how you interpret it. And no, do not stop after watching episode 1 because it is essentially
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the exposition episode and is meant to introduce the world and its weird rules. And its not supposed to make much sense and thats what the rest of the episodes are for. And unlike the umpteen reviews that tell you nothing makes sense in this anime, let me tell you the main idea of this anime is really simple. You just have to use a teeny tiny bit of your brain to understand it. And if someone like me who doesnt like to use his brain while watching entertainment can get it in an obvious manner, none of you guys should have a problem.
So how did I interpret the story. For me it was a love story, a story of growing up, a story of heartbreaks and most of all a story of finding your one true dream and chasing it. The romance in this story is definitely not for everybody and I am sure a multitude of people will brush me aside saying no romance but I will stick to my point that this is one of the most beautiful romance stories I have seen, complete with a love triangle to boot. And this is one of the best stories which show that childish love is mostly an infatuation and in most cases it doesnt last.
The characters in the show had my attention. Specially Mamimi Sewajima, who loved the protagonist Naota's brother, and was brilliantly scripted. I felt for her, I rooted for her, I couldnt hate her even when she did terrible things, on some level I felt pity for her.Her backstory was seamlessly blent into the anime, which shows capable writing as well. And her relationship with the MC was something to look forward to.
I copy a portion from wikipedia here which I got while searching the exact name for the character
" In Naota's monologue at the end of FLCL, he says the last words she said to him before leaving to be a photographer were: "So long, Naota-kun". It is implied that she can't return Naota's romantic feelings, even though she has genuine affection for him". Watch it and you would know how poignant this line is.
The other girl, Haruko was equally eccentric if not more. She is essentially the main source of crazyness in the anime and her relationship with Naota was one that made him grow up. And it was plainly evident amidst all the chaos.
The other characters like Eiri Ninamori , Naota's father etc were interesting but not that much and the main attention was hogged by the aforementioned girls.
Which brings me to the story. The story here is as I said of growing up, but presented to you in a manner which is not so obvious, much like TTGL(same people duh), the action scenes are over the top, and there are a huge number of plot devices, and that you can surely dislike, but there are no plot holes / plot armour at all, or rather there cannot be one because of the nature of the story, so if you hate the series because you hate the over the top nature of it, you are missing out. Could stuff have been made better sure, but the faults arent enough to warrant the hatred that I see around.
Finally the music is unbelievably good, at par with the best, so are the artwork and animation, and I enjoyed the series quite a bit.
All in all FLCL can be enjoyed in a lot of ways. This is how I enjoyed the series. You can probably find symbolisms here and there if you want but thats upto you. This series isnt a masterpiece just because it presented itslelf differently. Calling something like that is foolhardy, but its a damn good ACTION/ROMANCE story and yes that is the genre I give FLCL.
Overall grading 7-8/10(depends on how it ages), try to concentrate a bit and look through the "over the top" action, the story is very simple, the moral is very simple and this warrants a watch.
Art and animation-8, Music-10, story-7, Characters-7, Enjoyment-8(40/50)
p.s.- I purposely left a few of the characters untouched and the story not very well explained, so that you watch and discover stuff yourself.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 7, 2016
Anime review(part 2)
tl;dr at the bottom
Anime:- Major
*check my previous review on S3 before reading this*
This is for seasons 4,5,6 epilogue and world series OVA.
Genre:- Sports, Drama, romance
As I had said in my first review the first 3 seasons are appetizers, the real deal starts from season 4.
These three seasons are undoubtedly right at the top of sports anime genre, treading a path very few sports anime do. Most of the anime have a school setting in this genre, while a select few like Giant killing, One outs and a few others go on to show us the professional nature of sports. And Major
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sits on the top of these undoubtedly. While One outs is essentially more of a thriller than real sports, Giant killing manages to portray the problems of a football manager in a professional league rather decently. But between 12 episodes and 72 episodes it isnt difficult to see which of them is more comprehensive. Also major is baseball and GK is football. major is from a players POV while the other is from a manager's.
Season 4 picks off right from where S3 left. As usual things feel a little surreal and rushed, but the anime still manages to be realistic and shows a few of the basic problems someone faces when they go to an unknown country with little to no knowledge of the dialect(or language if you please). The hero is still OP but if you think he is going to breeze through everything well lets just say you might be surprised. Honestly what they show in this season has probably happened somewhere in baseball already. (Its still actually not far fetched at all since lionel messi did worse stuff in Barcelona practice to his teammates than what they show here). in what they very skilfully introduce a growth chart to the protagonist. the matches get way more intense and I can safely say I havent enjoyed baseball matches so match since One Outs, it makes Diamond no Ace matches look stupid. The matches do not drag, are finished within 2-3 episodes, and the main focus is actually more on the humans playing baseball than some tricks(there are tricks but they do not overwhelm the character interactions). Sure a bit of shouneny stuff are thrown here and there, but thats never a deterrent to the actual show. (Those who want to focus on that aspect of the show and bash it are welcome to, but tbh if you use a convex lens so much, you can pretty much give up enjoying anything). And yes this season has some of my favourite character interactions.
S5 goes bigger and better. The main storyline which started from S1 becomes greatly important. And things are settled. But the drama is extraordinarily intense, and tbh I havent seen more drama in a sports anime anywhere. (maybe baby steps, but still the intensity is lower). The final game is my favourite of the entire series and the conclusion is something I did not expect. This season for me was the pinnacle of a drama sports shounen, something that cannot be bettered, ever. But this season was also about romance. Romance started to bloom slowly but surely. And it was interesting to see our protagonist juggling baseball and romance.
I thought it was over with S5 but I was wrong S6 was almost equally brilliant and handled one very important aspect of a sportsman(or two), and they did it very well. They didnt overextend it and neither did they undermine its importance. The focus shifted from the games to Goro(the protagonist) as a persona and his problems, as well as his arrogance which led to his downfall. How he overcomes the odds and how his teammates get inspired from him(In fact the entire series is like that). And finally at the very last episode we get one of my favourite confessions ever. This season had splendidly done drama and showed the life of a player beautifully, the problems and the ups and downs.
The world series OVA was essentially a bridge between between S6 and the epilogue, which had essentially 2 games and more of shounen sports stuff, but it is essential for a sense of completion.
Finally the epilogue. The epilogue is my favourite part of the entire series. I love how they make things go the "full circle". I love how they show the protagonist grown up. I love how at the very end they show the entire 6 seasons in 5 mins while the first opening starts playing. I am a huge sucker for growing up anime, and this was the pick of the lot. I teared up at the end when they showed the entire journey of the guy. I grew up with Goro. Only flaw maybe a timeskip, but they couldnt have done a better job IMO.
There are a lot of things I take back from the anime. And a lot of regrets and wants crop up. I want a love of my life like Goro had, someone to fall for me as his girlfriend did. it taught me that having talent doesnt mean anything unless you practice hard enough because somewhere in the world there will always be someone better than you at what you do. It teaches you to value your friendships. And it made me nostalgic about mine. And finally it showed how life had a weird way of repeating itself(you would know what I mean when you see the anime).
tl;dr:- Incredible drama, the best baseball you will see, a story about growing up, a heart warming epilogue, thats all you need from an anime like this. the most complete sports anime ever.
rating:- (Animation, Music, Story, Characters, Enjoyment)
S4-8,7,8,8,10(41/50)
S5-9,8,8,8,10(43/50)
S6-9,8,9,8,10(44/50)
World series OVA(7,7,6,6,10 36/50)
Epilogue-10/10(sorry couldnt split this one :) )
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 7, 2016
Anime review(part 1)
This review will have the first 3 seasons mainly.
Firstly, Major is essentially one of the most complete anime you can find, I will give a list of who can enjoy this anime, and you will see it really does cover a very broad spectrum of watchers.
The first episode of major was incredible, so incredible that I was literally hooked into a marathon. While one of the more well know drama VN/anime maker Jun Maeda requires at least 10 episodes to start the drama, this anime gets you into the drama in the first episode itself. By fifth episode you are literally reeling in
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shock about what happened, trying to digest everything thats going on and by eighth episode you have seen stuff that literally a 26 episode anime shows for its full length.
And no the pace isnt rushed at all. While it would be far fetched to say this anime has yuwasa level genius compact presentation, it will not be very wrong to say 8 episodes of the first season can rival few of the "popular" drama anime out there and beat it in its own backyard.
After you reach this point do you realize what the story is about. the drama lessens considerably and sports takes a front seat. Yeah the matches in the first season lack tension, but I would say they are extremely well thought out. thats because the baseball matches are of little league, league of 10 year olds. if you put matches of the nature of Diamond no Ace /One outs in that age it is absolute bollocks, but the author does not falter in that. yeah things are slightly simplified and sometimes matches are overdramatized but cmon, this is an anime, you have to keep people hooked. There are quite a few shounen tropes here and there and some "unreal" powerups, but they never reach levels that damage the slice of life nature in the anime. In fact you will see that these "unreal" power is not without consequences, the consequences are severe and the author seamlessly blends this to form the "drama" background of the anime to make us feel this can happen in real life.
The transition between season 1 and season 2 is slightly abrupt and this you will find in all the cases. the last episode of each season always felt a bit rushed with too many things happening and it felt more like a prologue to next season than a season finale. While that isnt very bad, but that hurts the enjoyment a bit. Season 2 is probably the weakest of all seasons but the games get noticeably tougher and more interesting. Since our boy has grown and so are his side characters, the conflicts attain a much more mature tone, with teenage hatred and malice thrown in in good proportions. But of course things always turn out for the better after the baseball game.
The protagonist is Overpowered, sure, but not so overpowered that he KOs everybody, he loses pretty badly at times and uses it as stepping stones to become better and better. In other words this protagonist is like Lionel Messi/ federer, no one in regional level can hold a candle to them but at the national level or international level everything aint a cakewalk. So for those who get irritated by Overpowered characters bear with it, its not like No game no life or One outs this one, this anime shows proper reasoning and growth of the protagonist to be overpowered, he suffers a lot like you and me and only through diligence has he received his power.
The technical aspects of baseball are extremely accurate as well, but this anime isnt about "only" baseball like its counterparts I have mentioned before. like Cross Game its more about slice of life. And honestly cross game just showed 3 years worth of stuff, while here we stay with the protagonist from when he was a kid. We see his sufferings, his undying love for baseball, his habit of not giving up and literally fighting for his life on baseball mound and then how he deals with the consequences. Even when he is overpowered he is incredibly unlucky in life initially and we see how gradually the people around him gives him happiness. The romance between the two main characters starts blossoming little by little in the second and third season and that romance is realistic. It is obvious that a guy who lives for baseball will not fall in love easily and so thats how it is here. the romance reminded me a nit of my own though.
So overall the first 3 seasons are good, but they are kind of a set up to the brilliant next three seasons. These three are much like the appetizer. Its almost telling the viewers, look baseball in schools are kids stufff, the professional world is a whole different ballgame dont confuse them. but if you love the sport you are going to go the distance. There will be obstacles but only through hard work you can overcome them, talent isnt everything. And that is the absolute truth in this world.
Decent animation, good opening songs that stick to you after it was over, decent games, good drama and some slice of life lessons. thats what sums up the first 3 seasons. Wait for the review of next 3 though, because they are at a whole new level.
rating:-Animation, Music, Story, Characters, Enjoyment
S1-7,7,8,7,8(37/50)
S2-7,7,7,7,7(35/50)
S3-8,8,7,7,9(39/50)
people who can enjoy this anime
people who liked:-
1. naruto, dragonballz, fairy tail
2. Cross game, H2, Touch, Diamond no Ace, Giant Killing and the likes
3. Bakuman, Shokugeki no Souma
4. Any shounen romance
5. Inazuma eleven and all the kids cartoons
6. Anohana and even Full metal alchemist brotherhood.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 21, 2015
Now that I have got your attention via my ratings (even when I know many will insta dislike my review), read the last paragraph at least. lol
Do try and read through this fully..
:p
One Punch Man, saviour of anime or just a creator of an idiotic fanbase?
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So its over, the most anticipated anime of fall 2015. An anime which generated so much fanbase that it routinely got subreddits of the day and had a subtopic created in meme pages. But as experience teaches us, popularity does not automatically convert to quality but we also cant deny if we act as hipsters and start dishing out
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bad reviews just because they are popular, it makes us look like the fools. So where does One Punch Man stand really?
First of all the manga deals in a lot of themes, there are gags, there are subtle references to society, there are fights and there is "man of steel" esque destruction. It is a shounen action at heart and never tries to be something else. you will find over the top action, lots of dialogues in fights, lots of punches and kicks thrown, yeah, until the protagonist comes in.
Yeah One Punch Man is about this, it just shows the futility of the powerup times in dragonballz, the "deep philosophical talk" in between fights and even takes a jab on people talking in space. It is telling you, "look there are so many tropes in shounens, but you know what at the end of the day its all about one finishing move, one punch" and to do so they created an insaney op hero as a jab to all the OP badasses out there, and then giving a hilarious backstory of how he got his power. Which serves twofold, naive watchers and kids might try to follow his regimen and get fitter(of course some adult discussion is necessary so that the kid doesnt overwork himself), and this has actually happened in japan and secondly more seasoned watchers can understand this as a parody of all the various training regimes in different shounens.
However as you can already imagine, you know from beforehand how each fight will end, you know whatever be the opponent he is going to kill him by one punch, and that no matter how you look at it will reduce the thrill of the anime. But the anime intends to be that. Its almost as if it is telling you "I am not you standard shounen with great fistfights, so if you expect sudden twists, you better drop me, I aint for you". But then inspite of this the anime hooks a large section of the watchers, even watchers which are calling this one a shit anime. Why is that? it is because "one punch Man" isnt about One Punch Man, it isnt about Saitama killing villains, its not how whether he can recreate a big bang with his punch, its about something else. but to show that something else the author needed to put the obvious storyline in the way he did, and at the end, that cannot count as positive, even when I understand what his intention was.
One punch Man is about Saitama getting recognition he deserves, you root for him, want him to show the others how good he is , but then suddenly you find someone else to root for, a hero with no powers, trying his hardest, because "its not about winning and losing its about whether you stand up to somebody", and OPM delivered this to perfection in 1 line better than any other shounens have done in 200 episodes. And as more and more heroes get introduced, starting from the tsundere loli to the ninja and the martial artist, you tend to harbour some affectionate feeling for some of them as well(the names are sometimes hilarious as well Puri puri prisoner) and hate when they dont recognize saitama. this anime makes you either love/hate the characters, and unless its indifference thats pretty much a job well done for an anime.
And then in the final episode, MADhouse delivered one of its finest animation masterpieces. It elevated the manga by linking some stuff with the very first episode itself, created such fluidity in animation without much CGs that ufotable will be proud of them and used the correct soundtracks at the correct moment to create an epic final battle, a battle which lasted more than one punch. It is very rare for the anime transition from manga to be so brilliant even during the gags, but this last episode exceeded all expectations. When I read the manga , because the story wasnt that interesting(already said why), I wasnt really sure about the anime, but based MADhouse took that and created an anime which will rank among its best animated works for years to come(yeah you can fuck off hipsters, I have seen people saying the animation was bad trust me, either they are idiots or dont know English).
Oh yes one last thing, episode 12 actually makes you feel for the hero and villain both, in a way very different from any other anime out there.And the scrnshot you will find everywhere is actually a great depiction of how it is very lonely at the top. One came searching for a fight of a lifetime and got it, while the other at least had some enjoyment but still couldnot use his full potential. The last gag after credits was genius as well.
But as with all half decent anime, the problem was a cancerous fanbase which increased exponentially given the nature of the anime. the anime was fun, there were fights and OP characters with great animation and blood pumping music. Goku and Superman vs Saiatama posts flooded the groups and memes flooded the pages which resulted in antagonism towards the anime by a certain section. But is a cancerous fanbase the right parameter to judge how good an anime is? because then you are judging an anime not by the anime itself buy by the people who watch it, which is preposterous. I urge all the people to ignore all the OPM posts and judge the anime just as itself without the fanbase and you will see that even if it has created such a fanbase, it is still a damn good shounen, which makes you feel without melodrama and gets your blood pumping without shouting for one episode.
So in the end what is the answer to my original question. Saviour of anime? No. "Just a creator of cancerous fanbase? No. this is an anime which made the world look up again. This is an anime which taught the world there are anime beyond DBZ. This is an anime which made the common mass who only watched DBZ look up and see how "compactly" an idea can be presented.
This is an anime which finally started putting the wheels in motion, so that the world can now move on from Dragonballz and realize even in that genre, even with just fistfights and no psychological battles, you can make a good anime and probably the anime which will inspire many more to actually delve more into the medium as such. And thats why probably it is a "New Wave" in the world of anime, even if it is not a saviour.
actual rating- MADHOUSE/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Nov 29, 2015
Genre:- Slice of Life, Romance(yes its there and not yuri), Drama
tl;dr- A slice of life anime that ticks the right boxes, leaving you with a warm fuzzy feeling. If you need a healing anime and cannot really get into Aria and the likes because of less drama, this one just might be for you. It pulls your heartstrings in the first half and gives a memorable conclusion in the second. An anime that everyone should watch. Of course I cannot guarantee that you will like it or it is flawless, but then it will all depend on how much you focus on the flaws itself.
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Overall this is one of the better SoLs out there and the second best P.A. Works after Uchoten Kazoku.
Animation and artwork-7.5/10(character atwork is great, use of palletes extraordinary, but it falls short of other P.A. Works in the background scenery. Some are badly drawn and blurred in 720p, filtering issues are there)
Sound- 9/10(Exemplary, could not skip the 2nd Op and ED for once, the insert songs and music greatly heighten the atmosphere, not one which I will download OSTs for, but it acted as a brilliant compliment to the anime)
Story and coherence- 7.5/10 (Doesnt divert much from the main storyline, though sometimes goes in random direction to develop a character, overall we can call it a meandering river with small rivulets, but most of the water flows together from source to sea)
Characters-7.5/10(4 characters obviously dont get equal development, but each is given time to develop. Even the weak link becomes completely different person in the beginning than in the end. Relationship development between two main characters are beautiful to watch, and the development of side characters top notch. I fell in love with all of them after the anime)
Enjoyment-9/10( Something that made me not skip episodes or drop in the middle to pick up later. Hooked from first episode, and kept me in the journey till the end)
(40.5/50=8/10)
Now that we are done with the ratings let me focus on some aspects of the anime.
The show initially may seem like just another cute girls doing cute things show. But no its much more than that. What I did not expect is the romantic angle to the show at all, because it wasnt mentioned anywhere. In fact the romance though subtle plays a very important part in the show, and the relationship between the lead female character and her lover reminded me of mine, so I could connect at a personal level. The lead character though is a bit absurd because she is unaware of sexual harrassment and such in the beginning and some weird things happen to her(nothing like sexual assualt and rape mind you, its actually funny), but looking at her age it is a bit too much far fetched.(But I know a few girls in real life at that age who really did not know anything about sex at that time). Anyway the lead character doesnt start off as somebody pampered and already has a strong character, so to see her molded into something better is a treat to watch. Plus the character interactions and dialogues are handled skilfully and the reactions seem totally realistic and believable.
The one big flaw however is the romance angle which might be argued is a bit too convenient setting and conclusion, but for my purpose its okay, no complaints I like it.
As with every slice of life there are plenty of quotes which will impact you. One particular thing which did for me was, this,
"Marriage is a promise not to let your spouse be alone, ever again. yes, even if one of you pass away first"
In today's world of divorces and marriage related violence(what am I saying marriage related violence was since forever) people need to relook at the original reason for marriage. Most of the people today see marriage in a completely different light, so reading this quote brought a smile to my face. Too many people nowadays forget about this. And yes, this show shows a beautiful relationship between husband and wife as well.
One thing that this anime does exceptionally well is using of screenplay to heighten the effect of an event. To show how an action simultaneously changes lives of two people, to use "movement" and "direction" as an allegory to their lives. And yes uses the fucking trains..
The ending episode, however deserves special mention. There was no miracles, yet there were many. The yakisoba guy was a badass(watch the anime to see what I mean). The setting was the bonbori festival, which made it all the more beautiful and P.A. Works could have delivererd better but they did just enough with the artwork. The OST used literally brings tears to your eyes and tears your heart off yet healing you at the same time. I dont know what the movie shows, but in my opinion this was the best ending this anime could get, it couldnt have been better.
The ending quote sums the anime up
" I am probably still a bud,
But thats why I stare up at the Sun so high.
I quench my thirst with water.
I am a bud thats trying to bloom."
~Ohana
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 21, 2015
Anime review:-
Anime:- Gosick
Genre:- Supernatural/Mystery/Romance
Number of Episodes:-24
Rating:- Animation and Artwork-8/10, Music:-8.5/10, Voice Acting:-7/10, Story-8/10, Coherence-7/10, Characters-6/10, Enjoyment-9/10(53.5/70)
To review Gosick is a really tough job. This anime has so many things going right for it and the fact that yet it fails to satisfy is what makes it so difficult. I would not go so far as to call this anime the anime of two halves but from the time the anime changed its ED it lost its charm. Let us talk about the positives first and then we will try to figure out where it went wrong.
The artwork is really nice for the setting in early
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1900s. Its nice to see all those horse drawn carriages and the different dressing sense of people of that era. One thing striking is the Japanese still wore kimono in that era whereas the Europeans had a distinctly different dress sense. The animation is nice too, par for the course for a 2010 anime, nothing to spectacular but does its work.
The OP is really good, it has a light ring to it and sets you up nicely. But whats really good is the first ED. It has taken its place among my favourite Eds and perfectly matches with the tone of the show. Its really a shame that they had to change it and I didnt like the second ED as much. In anime music was nothing spectacular so I had to give an average score. The voice acting however was really average. It doesnt really bring out the characters and feels just vanishes into the countless ordinary voice acting of various anime you have watched. You dont remember much of the dialogues after you complete the anime, thats as much a fault of script as the voice acting.
The story had a tremendous amount of promise. It starts of episodic or 2-3 episodes together in a story. Initially it feels like a detective mystery anime. It would have been good if it had stayed so. But the author had other ideas, linking the female protagonist to a dark and oppressed past is okay if you have a good story to back it up. The author actually tried to. Linking the world wars to the main storyline was a wonderful idea. Some of the cases had WW I linked with it too. An oppressed mother was also there to support the story to boot, with a travelling magician helping her and stuff. “The eternal love of the mother for her child with her making the final sacrifice to save her child” idea was there as well. There was a nice little romance between the main characters. The cases were presented in a way in which the viewer can solve them if he thought hard enough all the clues were there. So you could think with the show. I mean all this essentially is the formula for a really great show and for the first 13 episodes I could not understand how it can go wrong. Well, for the last 13 episodes too I could not understand how it went wrong but I will try my best to figure out.
The story lost its thrilling nature after episode 13. Episode 17 pissed me off. And yet there were flashes of previous brilliance scattered here and there in some of the episodes. The thing is there are two ways to make someone look intelligent. Make him/her unbelievably intelligent and get an almost equally intelligent antagonist, or make him/her decently intelligent and surround him/her with dumb characters. Sadly Gosick does the latter. The male protagonist is as dumb and cheesy as they come. The ending dialogue of the anime is as cheesy as they come. These were two big flaws in the anime. Then, trying to mix up supernatural and logic leads to disastrous effects most of the time. Gosick is a living proof. Also initially starting off with an episodic tone and trying to “increase” the number of episodes involved in those small stories is a nice idea but here they faltered somehow. They made terrible use of the characters they created. There is almost little to no character development of any of them, which results in little to no empathy at their deaths. The only good part was the mother-daughter bonding and the rest somehow left very little mark though all the ingredients were there. So in the end the problem with this one would be wasting the potential of a great cast of characters, losing the thrilling nature of the first half by trying too much which draws the viewer and cheesy script writing. Yes that should do it.
Well I wouldnt say I didnt enjoy the show but I hoped to enjoy it more.
Final Verdict:- Its a show that I would recommend if you like mystery which are solvable if you use your head, it wont mindfuck you but thats not a bad thing, also you might be left a little dissatisfied at the end with the show but you have to live with that. Its worth watching, its not a bad one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Apr 11, 2015
“All of us are in love. It hasnt all been smooth sailing. Mistakes may have been made. But the love we felt when we first met our sweethearts is certainly the most cherished thing. We will take those feelings one by one and carry them with us into our futures.”
There couldnt have been a better ending words to this anime.
Anime review:-
Anime:- Hatsukoi Limited
Genre:- Romace/Comedy/School/Drama
Number of episodes-12
Rating:- Animation and Artwork-7, Music-9, Voice Acting-9, Story-9, Characters-8, Coherence-10, Enjoyment-9.5(61.5/70) This is for par-8 scale, if rescaled to par-6, this anime will get a 7.5/10(above par/should be watched by this genre lovers)
This anime was suggested to me by
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a friend. I have to admit had seen this one in the myanimelist but I didnt think it would be that good so skipped it. However since he suggested and he knew what I liked I gave it a shot and I was totally taken by surprise.
This anime deals with first love. First love of 16 characters. Yes you read that right, 16 characters. And surprisingly the story does not feel disjoint. Every character's life gets interwined with the others in one form or the other. And that is one of the greatest aspects of this anime. The story seems bland, a staple school life comedy for quite large sections of the anime and then it suddenly hits you with some mature handling of the embarrassment and confusion of first love and the depression of your first rejection. And yes there are quite a few situations of misunderstandings in the anime and they have actually been handled pretty well. They might seem really ordinary, but the way they are handled is what makes this anime really worth your watch.
Animation is well not really that great, that the backgrounds are painted is actually pretty obvious in many places. The character drawings are decent. The music and OSTs will take you by surprise. Some romantic scenes have Clannad-esque OSTs(probably somebody from Clannad worked here) and the ending song was just amazing. It also had two different eneding for two of its episodes since the normal ending wouldnt have fit well, and it worked like a charm. And I was somehow impressed by the voice acting. They brought out the emotions really well. And as I had mentioned before the anime was coherent , they managed to interwine all the characters into one single big story really well.
Final Verdict:- Of course at the end of the day this is a generic high school romance story but a high school romance story done right for the most part. Thats why it is not exceptional, but you cant miss it if you are a lover of this genre.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 27, 2015
I had been looking for nice romance anime(not manga, because there are plenty there) after I had watched most of the common ones. I found this on my kissanme bookmark and remembered somebody had recommended this to me before but since I was not a fan of horror genre I didnt watch it immediately. But somehow from the first episode of this anime I was hooked and it turned out pretty good too.
The artwork and animation was beautiful. They used the artwork brilliantly to differentiate between the “main characters” and the “other people” at a level even superior to Durarara!! The “ghosts” were also drawn
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very well, as a mass of dark formless matter which took different forms at different situations. The use of darkness and colour heightened the atmosphere and it was almost like I was living in the anime which definitely is a proof of how good it is.. The music was very good too. The OP and ED both were catchy and the in anime OSTs were almost perfect. The voice acting also didnt leave much to be desired. The various emotions of differently people were splendidly portrayed.
The anime is pretty coherent. It is based on the life of a dead girl and goes back and forth in time, in her memories, to arrive at a solution to what they were searching for. The timing of the “old memories” episode was perfect too. Many a time I have been irritated by the “old memory” episode, I found it out of place but not in this one. And of course I enjoyed the anime. A lot. Its been a while since I enjoyed a romance anime this much..
Which brings me to the plot. The plot was refreshing. It had a bit of mystery and horror. But the way they handled the “ghost” and the “disorder” was amazing. The ending was almost perfect till they messed it up a bit going in the path to appease the commonwealth. It was a touching story and showed how bad “fanaticism” can be. It subtly also showed that this fanaticism never yields good results even though it itself is a supernatural anime. The romance factor is handled well too, the way I like it, with a nice development and fulfillment at the very end. I call these type of anime “soft romance” and trust me if its done well, it can put many proper romantic anime to shame. This one almost achieves that.
It is a very good watch. I sure most if not all will find something to connect to
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 15, 2014
This is one of the rare anime out there which exudes poetic brilliance. It is very disheartening to see when people talk about anime, they think mostly action/shounen. I think the slice of life genre is much more bountiful and enjoyable than those popular shounen anime that people watch. And this anime reiterated that view.
While I rate an anime the order of rating is Animation, Music, Story, Characters, Enjoyment. There is a reason behind that order. It is in this order that an anime catches my attention. And it is in the reverse order that an anime "continues" to catch my attention. Nagi no Asakura
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caught my attention due to its out of the world visuals. They are nothing like I had seen before in any "completed" anime. I realized it had huge similarities to Glasslip, a currently airing show and I was right. They are from the same studio. However contrary to Glasslip, this anime is not slow and the fantasy elements are interwoven with the story beautifully. The opening music is beautiful, the in-anime music captivating, both of them caught my attention while watching the first episode. But by the end of the 1st episode the animation and music took a back seat in my mind, it was the story and lovely characters that stole the show, as it should be. This is a story where "fantasy meets reality" was portrayed at its best. Clannad after story was a better as a story but the fantasy part was not portrayed very clearly and that led to many complaints. However this story does not pretend to an ordinary slice of life. It starts off underwater with clear indications it is more of a fantasy story. However there are subtle elements of real life that make it rise above a children's fairy tale. Hints of class divide, the changing environment of earth due to human activities, the fundamental difference between childhood and adulthood and coping with the everchanging surroundings are magnificently and subtly included in the fantastic plot. The plot features a time leap as well and the social difficulties arising from it is shown in a very beautiful way. All said and done, its the characters that stole the show. They may be slightly stereotyped but that does not make them less lovable. The complexities of adolescence of kids are included in the character traits of each character and you feel you have seen them before somewhere in real life. However the greatest feature of this anime is the climax which occurs at the very last episode. You go through all the emotions of joy, sorrow,hopelessness, optimistic, despair and end up with happiness. When bad things happen you seem to be always hoping against hope that in the end it will be alright. However at the very end of the 2nd last episode I had honestly almost given up, but then the ending tied everything so beautifully that I was amazed. It was the most heartwarming ending I have seen in any anime, ever. People complain that status quo was reverted but for me the ending showed how people moved on with their lives in spite of all the difficulties.
Verdict- My longest review should tell you by now how influenced I was with this one. It is the best Slice of Life I have seen in the last few months after Usagi drop. Everybody will thoroughly enjoy this one, thats a gurantee.
Rating? Well lets see, I am a bit overwhelmed but still.. Animation-11/10, Music-9, Story-9, Characters-9, Enjoyment-10 (47/50) which puts it in my top 20.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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