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Apr 28, 2019
A bit of a foreword: At the time of writing, only six chapters are available through fan scanlations. Kodansha is publishing it digitally in English fortunately, and hopefully they continue to, so seek those out if you want to read. The review is somewhat short. But it’s only for the first 29 chapters. Through this review, I just wanted to introduce others because this doesn’t to seem be very popular.
This is one of the better-planned and well-written “transported to another world” manga (not exactly isekai, though they too are included in any comparisons I make). No doubt about it. Fan of that genre? Go ahead
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and read it. If you’ve lost trust after reading the countless other sad excuses of shitpiles that infest the manga world right now, this one might just be the saving grace of the genre for you.
Without going into spoiler territory, essentially, heroes are repeatedly summoned and returned from ‘another’ world after progressively difficult rounds with the party size incrementing each round and the peace of their own world (city?) dependent on their success. The systems of summoning, leveling, revival, jobs, and the flow of time are somewhat unique. I did feel that a plot device was used only once, but it is easy to see the extent of thought the author (it’s an author/artist combo) put into this story of his. The afterwords are always worth a read, no matter how wordy they are. While throughout the first volume the system seems somewhat shallow, and certain elements unexplained, it gets sufficiently fleshed out gradually, sometimes through those afterwords. The main characters themselves are also somewhat more bearable than your typical tropes and from what I can tell, it is likely that they will grow out of their base molds in future volumes completely. That still doesn’t mean they can’t be infuriating though. Especially one bespectacled JK I’d rather not focus too much on.
While I implied that the characters can be somewhat trope-y, the MC is anything but. I can’t quite put my finger on his personality yet, but he’s somewhat conflicting in nature (which can/may be good). At one point, you’ll see him declaring himself a misanthrope, and then later on you’ll see him behave absolutely buddy-buddy with his countryside hometown friends. It is stated early on that his beef is somewhat only with city people, but then his ‘I despise humans’ doesn’t make much sense. It isn’t angst though, and the MC is definitely likable and his logic understandable, if a bit confused. Regardless, I’m interested in seeing how the author deals with him coming to terms with saving the people he hates in future volumes. We haven’t seen as much of the other characters yet but they also exhibit such potential in terms of depth. The interactions between the main party more often than not are really good, though, and I increasingly feel it’s an innate flaw of the medium itself, sometimes I did find it generic.
The ‘NPCs’ also have some good characterization and, surprisingly, growth that is partially forced by the accelerated flow of time in the other world. Said flow also leads to some interesting world building and character choice consequences as well. Like I said, well-planned and well-written. In terms of romance, there is nothing between the main party yet, but it’s funny that our ‘misanthropic’ hero manages to make two NPC girls fall in love with him. It is definitely sad realizing that their love for MC will never pan out but it is treated satisfactorily (I am hopeful that some romance eventually develops between the main two. Can’t see it yet tho). And I use the term NPC for ease here, not to say they feel any less real and the term doesn't do them justice. There are quite a few such side characters who I think are better than one or two of the actual main cast. Now that can be good or bad depending on the way you look at it.
While at first blush the art is not very pretty, it definitely flows well. The actions sequences are really good with some heavy gore. Character designs, especially enemies, are varied which is enough for me to say that the art is good.
So there, it’s a good story, with a good mc, good side characters (except one out of many) and is very enjoyable. I binge read it in a single night and what do you know, its 6 AM in the morning (thankfully, on a Sunday). There is absolutely no reason you shouldn’t give this a try. It might not be breaking grounds, but it is definitely very good at what it is and a welcome breath of fresh air in a very saturated genre.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 26, 2018
Originally, I’d written a review upwards of 2000 words. A rant basically. I have tried to get my feelings on this ‘0’ in as little a word count as possible and it still is long. Heavy spoilers in the review. And a suggestion: Don’t watch. Erase SG0’s existence from your memory.
So if you were like me when you first heard of this, or maybe you read the synopsis somewhere, and thought that they’d cover the dystopic setting of SG’s future and got all excited, well, the staff of this anime basically slapped you in your face and said ‘F*** you’. With a grin. If you
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haven’t figured it out yet, I’m absolutely pissed that they ruined the sequel of Steins; Gate in the way they did. The dystopia does makes a cameo around episode 20, 21, and that’s it. Those two were some of the two better eps of this absolutely horrendous abomination.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not angry they didn’t show the Dystopia as much. I couldn’t care less. No, I’m taking issue with how they ruined nearly all the characters, had no sense of storytelling with whiplash-inducing narrative shifts and a poorly written plot. See, the LN plot might have been great, idgaf. The anime didn’t manage to convey the plot in any way that can even be considered average.
Near the start, around episode 12 or 13, the show basically completely throws away all the plot points it developed before. Now see, until this point, the show was good. I had hopes. The original was fine till that point. Then shit happened and as we all know that shit hit the roof. I thought same could be the case here. But no. At that time, one generous person enlightened me that they were basically adapting all the routes from the game. They had just gone from the Suzuha route to the Kagari route. Or whatever. Point is there was ‘0’ continuity. I should have realized at that point to hold no hopes in the capability of the show’s creative team.
A minor aside: on the point of Kagari. I call her Kagabitc*. Remember Orihime from Bleach? Replace ‘Kurosaki-kun’ with ‘Mama’. That’s all she is. And true to my Orihime comparison, she served more to boil my blood than to contribute anything meaningful. And the show spends, what, 6, 7 episodes on her. Threw the entire pacing off. Then there wasn’t even any form of proper payoff and eps 16-19 happened. Uh, I’ve never seen worse action and worse character deaths in anime and just generally, that entire part was shit. Story and animation. At one point, the show tries to become matrix all of a sudden with cringe worthy results (and stilted animation to boot). ‘0’ was convinced Kagari is important. I considered her trash. That’s about as much valuable word count I’d like to waste on her.
Now, I could go on and on about all the things that infuriate me about this shitshow. But I’ll save you the rant. I’ll focus on two instances of my disappointment towards the end of the show.
In episode 20, there is a powerful scene when Rukako dies in the Dystopia, and Daru says it’s a relief. Okabe looks at him (thank god he just looks and not scream his lungs off) but the expressions they all have, their cold acceptance of reality just causes him to tear up and scream not at them but at seemingly their fate. Or the sky. Who knows. Point is this was a really strong scene. It conveyed emotions more vividly than words ever could. It gave me hope, anticipation that at least the rest of the last arc of the anime would be just as well written, that there wouldn’t be pointless dialogue about feelings that could have been better enunciated through expressions and actions. You get where I’m going right? In the fucking next scene itself, it throws away all it has built up in terms of emotion by spelling basically everything out that the earlier scene managed to convey. And just for good measure, it has even more monologues. Hey, I’m not saying monologues are bad. The first series had a lot of them. But most of them were wrapped under Norse mythos (remember those fun lines? There’s almost ‘0’ such cool stuff in this season), Kyouma’s antics or something else so they didn’t exactly feel like an exposition dump. You had to think, for a vastly better part than is required here, what the characters meant and feel. ‘0’ assumes you are an idiot. Basically.
Ep 21 saw Kyouma finally return (yeah, ep 21. That’s how long it takes Okabe to be awesome again. Till then he’s just an angsty crybaby). And that episode was great. Still I distinctly remember even with Kyouma’s return the show managed to nonetheless trip over itself. Then the abomination of episode 22 happened.
In a nutshell, he cries over killing an AI (remember the AI Kurisu I mentioned?). Like really? A program. And brah you’re crying over that? What? And to make it worse, the only way the show seemed to think to make us believe this shit possible was to compare this episode with a similar one back in the OG, ep 23 I believe, when real Kurisu dies. Seriously? Back then, Okabe didn’t know that ‘Steins;Gate’ existed. The reality before him was either Kurisu or Mayushi. That’s what made it powerful. But now at the time of this ep he does know. By attempting to draw parallels in hopes of evoking similar feelings of strong emotion, a pretty underhanded move, they quite conveniently ignored the existence of SG world line where Kurisu is alive. They have to reach that place, that is what the entire narrative before that point had been leading up to. Mayushi has to go to the past, convince past Okabe to save Kurisu. So to enable Mayushi to do that, Amadeus has to die (I say ‘die’, but really it shouldn’t be considered anything that dramatic). To spell it out, what would have happened if Amadeus was erased? Kurisu would live. An AI based on a human for the actual human… Is choosing one or the other really such a hard choice. Was SG0 trying to tell me that Okabe had fallen in love with the fucking AI as well? Huh? To further compound the issue, there is a second at the end of the parallelism when AI Amadeus’ lips are focused upon, with fucking lipstick on. If you try to tell me that they weren’t trying to remind you of the kiss, the single best kiss probably in all of romance anime, from the OG, then I’d call you a fool. And oh, do they let the horse die then? No, even when sending a d mail (called d-rine for plot convenience… its explained, but it still kinda is ok?) they have to play this stupid issue up that somehow erasing Amadeus should hold any sort of emotional impact. It’s an AI for fucks sake. And the poor direction, the overblown melodrama, definitely didn’t help.
I hope I managed to get across my feelings of intense disappointment with this season. If you’re a fan of OG Steins Gate, then I can only tell you not to watch this. Let the cat die, it’s not worth saving. I will say this though, the last half of the last episode is something really special, reminiscent of the epicness of the original. Gave me chills throughout. The first half was still bad though lol. Thanks for reading this really long and rant-y ‘review’.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 22, 2018
Right at the outset, let me say this. Its Major, but don't expect the first season of Major here in '2nd'. And oh, spoilers in the review.
TL;DR - Its a great anime, but if you hold high expectations of this like i did, then maybe you might be slightly disappointed. However, it's still worth the watch and i have high expectations of subsequent seasons. If you're a fan of Major, definitely go ahead and watch. If you like sports anime in general, give it a chance, see if you like it. I'm sure subsequent seasons will be really good and this might be important for
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those.
This season of this possibly long series basically tackles the question of how expectations might affect a second generation (third actually) of a professional athlete family. And it portrays it well. Just it's not that interesting to me. The original Major, the entire series, was a testosterone filled, action packed and at times tear jerking series about the triumphs of Goro in his journey of becoming a baseball player. The first season of it as well fits that description. It was also about establishing the motivation of Goro, the early trials that he faced like his father's death, the motivation Gibson gave him and the like, and while great in itself, it largely helped propel subsequent seasons to greater emotional heights because we knew what Goro went through. His father's death and that epic match at the end of the tournament in the first season.
I came into this expecting similar things. Now when i compare that with the new MC, Daigo, and his inability to cope with expectations placed on him because of his father's success, it just didn't have the same impact. I kept expecting Daigo to come up with a cool move or show inhuman determination that made everyone acknowledge his genius and make my spine tingle and my hairs stand on end. He doesn't. The show itself doesn't. And i guess the point is, the show and he shouldn't. Those kinds of things would be at odds with the theme its trying to deal with. Major 2nd feels much more grounded. Daigo, at least for now, isn't a baseball genius. The show repeatedly pounds you with that early on. The progress he makes throughout the show in terms of skill are minor (like learning how to bunt). Even later on, he doesn't make as much of an impact on games like Goro did. Mostly it's Daigo's best friend, and Satou's son, Hikaru, who is shown to be the baseball genius that the team needs to win games. And apart from him, the emphasis is more on Daigo dealing with his inferiority complex and how the entire team contributes collectively to their, and Daigo's, success.
Needless to say, that requires strong secondary characters. And often, I found myself skipping through bits of the show because the character conflict it tried to drive just fell flat for me. Most of the characters are boring. The original had Goro to single handedly lead the show. Here it understandably tries to focus on multiple characters. Multiple, underdeveloped, weak characters. And did I mention how much I find the FMC this time irritating. Uh.
(A bit of an aside, Mayumura's son is voiced by the guy from Konosuba - I didn't even need to check - and the entire time I found his lines hilarious because I kept seeing him in a comedic light. Still that guy is probably the most fun character in the show for me)
The show has its moments however. It shines when there are matches to be played instead of conversations. The baseball is exciting as ever which kept me watching this. We look at what a few of the characters from the earlier season are doing and the final match of the show is great as well. Its basically a second generation version of the last match Goro had while a part of Kaido. In terms of characters that is, not epicness. It pales in comparison to the last match of major's first season as well. And I say that while not exactly remembering the specifics of how that match played out. This series still has a long way to go to get to those heights.
A bit of a cursory comment on the other aspects. Art is good, nothing standout, consistent throughout. Sound...hmm i don't remember much about this lol. OP is ok. The second ED is just 'Uhh!'.
That was long, and I probs repeated myself more than once, thanks for reading. Here's hoping there is more baseball and badassery next season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 6, 2018
The first part benefited, i believe, from having only 13 episodes. This sequel suffered from it. Not in the sense that it was rushed, but in the one that they had too much time. (i gave the first season a 9 btw) Over the course of the review, i try to contrast what made the first season great and this season suck, and to anyone who hasn't watched it, i definitely recommend the first. The second maybe only for completion's sake.
To use the cliched phrase, as much as i hate it, the original K 'showed' and didn't tell. Much of the enjoyment i derived from
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it was from its reluctance to just hand me everything on a plate and have me try to read into what was being shown. While the sequel tries to do the same at times, most others, it just punches you in the face with what it wants to say. The most infuriating part? More often than not, it doesn't have anything to say. Atleast nothing we haven't heard already a thousand times (without going into details, its the same old crap about the strength of humans, and the belief that they can do the right thing...sigh, it basically became a shonen in the end, with all the bullshit ' i believe' and 'i dont need anyone other than friends' being thrown around)
It also doesn't help that the female characters are little more than a broken record that can repeat just the single line (especially the insufferable cat, i really hated her this time even more). Like seriously, while i didn't particularly mind the excessive fanservice at times, they are even lesser than 1-dimensional characters in terms of traits. This issue unfortunately spreads over to other characters that were quite good in terms of personality from the first season. Here, they just practically repeat the same lines over and over (looking at you Anna). If all the extra time was instead focused on characters like the blue king and...well only him i guess, it could have made things more interesting. After some thought, there are at most one or two who are interesting apart from him. Not exactly great for a show that has so many characters is it? But i guess you cant blame the show though. I feel like all that could have been explored in terms of character was done in the first season itself. So, this time they had to focus on more of the same (case in point: the red clan) or try to introduce a stupid conflict that was a nonentity anyways (the blue clan). Hence, why i feel they had too much time.
Now on the matter of plot. Its simplistic to say the least. Not that the first season was anything great in terms of complexity. But it wove multiple threads, revenge, coming to terms with past mistakes, trying to help a friend, all trite plot lines to be sure, but the execution was great. Also while the powers involved in the story themselves are grand, the plot felt grounded in more human emotions. This season it tries to be something more. But just fails epically at it, probably the only thing that was truly grand about it in the end anyway. That's about it without going into spoilers.
To go over the rest of the elements in brief. Animation is good. Sometimes too good. Enough so that a lot of times you can easily make out that they are reusing clips. And they reuse clips. A lot. And i mean a lot. Get it? A lot. Yeah, its that bad, that many 'lots'.
Art was good too. Really good designs and art choices. Not the colors though. It just felt strange sometimes.
Music kind of changed styles as well, became more dancy, helped the fights seem more like dances, which i think was what the directors were going for so it helped i guess. No particular standout songs though.
Overall, a disappointment. While i had some fun, i would have much rather spent the time on some other series. If you're a fan of the first and can't help but have more, go ahead, maybe you'll feel differently. If you're reading this without ever having seen K for some reason, go right ahead and watch the first. The first. And maybe forget the second exists before its too late.
(Whew, that was long i think. thanks for reading. maybe i should keep a tl;dr version...)
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 4, 2018
So, uh, i just glanced over all the reviews and while there are a few good ones, most seem to be saying the plot is incoherent or slow and characters don't get time to shine. Suffice it to say, as i watched the anime i didn't feel most of these emotions. Though there was that sense of intrigue that few other shows have managed to instill in me till now. I won't be going too deep about any particular element, just scratch the surface of what i believe have been, quite unfortunately, poorly understood or appreciated. I definitely recommend watching the anime though.
Now, i actually
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saw the first episode of this anime quite a few years back, at least 3. Back then, i believe i was in my 'action badassery' phase and wanted all main characters to be this sort of OP and decisive guys. And i had kind of dropped this back then because the mc, surprise, wasn't. (the shounen ai elements didn't help as well, or what i interpreted as such).
So coming back into this with that view, and to persuade anyone who might be wary due to 'weak' characters, i found all characters (except one annoying cat) to be quite great, including the MC. There's a lot you have to read between the lines here. Much of the relationships between the characters aren't exactly spelled out, especially those between the kings (i really loved those). And while many reviews seem to say there are a plethora of characters and not sufficient time between them and what not, without going into spoilers about the factions, there are in fact only a handful that the show ever truly focuses on. You won't be getting an exact dismantling of each thread that makes up the characters, an exacting analysis of what makes them tick (would that even be interesting), but try to understand what their motivations are and the show gives sufficient hints to fill out the answers. A fair compromise for a show with only 13 episodes. (Really though, half the time with most complaints its like 'It tells too much!' or 'It tells too little!'. You should just see the anime and see for yourself which case it is, i suggest).
Then the other part, plot holes. Or an incoherent plot. The show takes its time, but it, again, focuses on whats important, leaving just enough to let you answer most other questions. And try as i might, i can't just think of any particular plot hole or thread that remained to be resolved (well a few, but that's mostly related to the conclusion which im sure is dealt with in the sequel).
For the rest, art is a bit strange in terms of colors sometimes, but its not bad enough to prevent anyone from watching, so dont let it stop you.
Sound, again nothing great, nothing bad, shouldn't even be a reason why someone doesn't watch anything to be honest (unless its reaaal bad or creepy).
As an overnight marathon, i had great fun with it. And also the feeling that i may not have appreciated the show as much had I watched it all those years ago. My mind says, 8/10. The heart, 9/10.
(Eh, that was kind of long, thanks for reading. i also believe this is my first review? Let me know if there's anything strange in there, thanks again.)
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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