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Sep 13, 2016
Spoilers included inside of course.
What kind of story does Instant Bullet want to tell? It's meant to be a story of anger, regret, sorrow and redemption but does it really accomplish it? I personally don't think so.
So what did IB do right? It tries to tell a story about the forgotten people in society, the 1% who have been hurt and have nothing to live for, the ones who hate the world for what it's done and want it to end for all the pain it's caused. In a sense, it does accomplish that in terms of giving us characters we can sympathise
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with and whose backstories feel genuinely painful. I actually like that we don't get to see their full backstory and how they turned out. The manga gives the bare minimum for some characters especially the witch, and lets us use our own imagination to play out how the characters in general grew up and the suffering they endured along the way, which brings me to my next point; I liked how in general almost all the characters have had some form of childhood trauma. It's the most powerful period of everyone's lives and having a messed up childhood reinforces the idea that every single one of them are loco.
Now to the problems - I had no problem following the story at the beginning all the way up to close to end. Now I know it's probably because the story got slashed but that's when the story decides to go full deus ex machina and lost sight of the original plot. The IBs all wanted to destroy the world for their own personal reasons. I really expected the story to become really dark after the witch's death but it flipped the story on it's head. Now instead of wanting to destroy the world because of what happened to his childhood friend and his girlfriend, he now tries to save the world? The protag kept stating that he was the one who wanted to destroy the world, which I could've bought if it was flower girl, but it felt really asinine after all his claims.
On to his childhood friends, what purpose did they serve in the manga apart from reminding him of trauma? Were they supposed to be his redemption? It seemed to slant that way and now that I'm writing this out I do feel that maybe they were the reason why he decided to save the world but it came out of nowhere and felt like a bad asspull.
Oh and don't even get me started on how there's supposed to be 20 IBs but we only see 8 of em.
Now should you read this? It's only 27 chapters so why the heck not? Just give it a shot - Maybe you'll come to enjoy some thing I didn't.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Apr 25, 2014
The first thing that came to mind when I watched it was the beginning scene of Disney's Up. Similar to Up, Furiko takes us on a quick and enjoyable albeit clichéd journey of two people falling in love. The story of Furiko could probably fit into a dozen animes/ mangas, which may result in some disliking it because it brings nothing new to the table, but I still found it enjoyable. Probably because I'm a sucker for stories such as this. Anyway, the story proceeds as such: bad boy saves model student from other bad boys and she falls in love with him. He
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gets annoyed at first but eventually gives in and changes himself for her. They grow up, encounter their share of monetary issues, they power through but in the end she gets a terminal illness. I knew it was coming, but it still made me feel sad nonetheless, especially when he tried to slow down time.
Short films in recent years have had an emphasis on animation, so it is a nice change when it comes to Furiko's hand drawn animations, with further emphasis placed onto the animation and story. The animation and drawings incite a sense of nostalgia, because it is very similar to old school animations with the character design and movements. The story and animation move at a nice pace, allowing the viewers glimpses and suggesting how their story proceeded while not bogging them down with the details. Considering that it was created by a comedian who named himself after his favourite fighting game, it is an impressive result.
The music is a big reason behind why I rate Furiko highly. The melancholic music fits Furiko very well even though the same BGM is used throughout the entire short film that shows the life of two people. The music in the beginning scenes with the high school invokes a sense of nostalgia, and compounds the sadness of their problems and the eventual loss of the girl.
Overall, Furiko is what every short film should aspire to be. In a time where everyone is trying to make their stories more complicated and issues contrived, Furiko chooses to use an already over-used story and simply made it interesting through the animation and music. It is definitely worth a watch is you have a few minutes to spare and have the sudden urge to experience a sudden bout of emotions.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Apr 23, 2014
As the name suggests, Gundam Seed Destiny is a sequel to the popular Gundam Seed. Now Gundam Seed was the first Gundam series that I ever watched, so I was happy to find out that there was a sequel for it. Sadly, the sequel disappoints greatly with regards to the plot and characters.
Story: 4
The plot revolves an anti-coordinator group known as the Blue Cosmos/ Logos (Think KKK) that happen to be in charge of the Earth Alliance forces (Who thought that would be a good idea?). Due to a series of incidents that were caused by this group, the Earth Alliance ends up going to
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war with Zaft. At this point it's difficult to separate Seed and Destiny anymore since almost everything has been rehashed; Earth and Zaft go to war over certain incidents, there are 3 druggies who end up being competent pilots, the Minerva looks almost like a clone of the Archangel, Strike has been given a face lift and given a new name, a destructive weapon capable of destroying part of Earth and hell even the captains of the ships look alike.
Now I wouldn't mind them taking out the parts that made Seed good, but blatantly copying everything is just stupid and unenjoyable.
Art: 5
The amount of stock footage used is staggering. Granted, this was also a problem with Seed but in almost every fight, stock footage is reused at least twice. Apart from that, the animations are not particularly eye catching but they serve their purpose.
Sound: 8
Seed had really good music, and Destiny didn't disappoint on this. In fact, I found myself enjoying certain songs from Destiny more than Seed.
Characters: 3
Here is the crux of the problem. In Seed we had the POV of students thrust into a war and them learning to adapt and deal with the horrors of war. In Destiny however, almost all the main characters seem to be John Does.
Shinn - Shinn's back story is a typical sobstory that makes zero sense when we stop to actually think about it. He's angry at a country for the death of his family because they were too stupid to evacuate early and were running into a battlefield? There are limits to how stupid a character's backstory is. Also, there seems to be zero development for him. He still acts as an annoying prick throughout the entire series.
Kira - Kira was an interesting and realistic character in Seed who had to deal with multiple issues such as the loss of Fray(sp?) and Todd, going against his ideals to fight and fighting against his best friend. In Destiny he is frequently referred to by viewers as Jesus Yamato because he acts exactly like how Jesus would. He is always taking the moral high ground (No killing, stop fighting) and has zero variation at all.
Athrun - Out of all the MCs, Athrun was the most realistic one to watch. His conflicting emotions from Seed carried over to Destiny as he has had to make choices between his allegiance to his homeland or to his friends. His relationship with Cagalli was just annoying to watch because it could have been solved if only they had communicated.
Overall: 5
Perhaps Destiny was spoiled because of my expectations, but as a sequel Destiny falls flat. If it was a stand alone perhaps the characters could be excused for what they were, but taking what made those characters interesting in Seed and twisting it around to make them extremely boring John Does mean that it just isn't a worthy sequel to Seed.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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