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Jul 4, 2023
The first cour or season of Jigokuraku has some serious quality issues, although it was enjoyable overall. Honestly the most disappointing thing was the "high" of the first episode before it mostly fell off a cliff and sort of muddled around until it somewhat got its footing back. The first episode is well paced, intentional, of high quality animation, and deliberately contemplative and mature. But then the dialogue, pacing, amount of attention, animation, and directing seems to have experienced some huge budget cut. The most annoying part is the abrupt change in temperament and personality the main characters experience from the first to the second
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episode. It's like a switch was flipped. They turn into bumbling shallow characters that get shocked by everything and lost easily, with exaggerated reactions, into a very cartoony juvenile anime. It doesn't help that ostensibly the show is just another shounen for teenage boys, involving a mixing of tropes from Naruto to battle royale anime and even Claymore. I still dig this sort of stuff, but it's a huge bait and switch from the very first episode. The storyboarding and pacing can be downright awful, sometimes dawdling, with poor cuts and sloppy editing. There are even instances of brain freezes where intelligent and hard-boiled characters become utterly oblivioius and we go through a shounen style brain fart explanation designed for a reddit ELI5 in order to stretch the length. The most infuriating is when a villain character that just appeared for the first time will suddenly lay out ALL the mysteries in the show and laugh maniacally, like a bad Scooby Doo villain, which reinforces the whole mature anime suddenly reconfigured to suit a childish audience accusation. Spoiler much? You just ruined all the suspense. The animation just never recovers from the third episode onward. It turns into a literal slideshow in many fights, with bad art approaching Seven Deadly Sins bad. Watch a three frame flower bloom in the last episode! Very little time, money, or care was given by the studio after the first episode. MAPPA is notorious for its uneven quality and lack of reliability. A less well-known and less capable, but more dedicated smaller studio would have been better for the anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jun 24, 2023
While the first season was all about the visceral fights and violent atrocities, the second season of Vinland Saga leans heavily on introspection and personal growth. Unfortunately it's frequently a bore-fest with snail pacing and excessive melodrama. There are many moving and memorable scenes, but the context and build-up can feel draining and saturated with cloying sentimentality and depression. There are very few adult anime that can stick to humorless brutal realism mixed with the everyday mundane without being tempted to spice it up by going completely medieval, which it eventually does, but never forgetting it's original vision. That being said, while the acting itself
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is stellar, the dialogue is about as simplistic and as sparse as it gets, almost like there was a word budget of some kind, and they needed to spread it out and milk it for what it's worth, contributing to the very slow pace. I know this is the Viking age, but they might as well be neanderthals chatting about taking a dump. There's some serious questions about the premise of the entire story, of the logic behind the MC's inner drive, and of the McGuffin that is Vinland. It's like listening to five year olds discussing how to achieve world peace. While the moment to moment struggles can be engaging, the overall goals are beyond naive and elicit eyerolls constantly. And it's all the worse when the excellent music tries to accentuate the frivolity of many of the conflicts. Excessively long and repetitive sequences of the MC's inner demons also don't help. This will also irritate many people, but I am firmly in the "this is an ugly anime" camp, seemingly deliberately so, with its thick lines, furrows, wrinkles, scars, and heavyset bodies. It's in the same vein as Attack on Titan's final season, also another MAPPA eyesore, but not as horrible. It's a really mixed bag here, with enough good points and a unique story to make you want to watch, but also forcing you to trudge through lots of mud all the while.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Apr 14, 2023
I actually avoided the game because it looked stupid. Another indulgent Japanese game with low production values, serious lack of game design focus, and trashy anime tropes with excessive, cloying amounts of pretentious existential dread. I'm pretty sure they challenge GOD at some point at the end. I've heard all the fanboys gush about the story and philosophical and emotional threads pulling at their naive hearts and minds, so I avoided it even more. I've heard this said way too many times over mediocre or ridicuously farcical Japanese media. Let's not forget, these are still androids with big bosoms, stylish blindfolds, and maid suits with
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extra high heels piloting mecha and fighting robots. I already shun this genre of anime like the plague.
While I probably couldn't stomach a terrible mashup of game styles in a 100+ hour button mashy video game, maybe I could at least see if they weren't lying about the story, by watching what seems like a condensed version without all the filler, in CG anime form instead of cheesy 3D cel-shaded gameyness. The first episode was actually pretty impressive both visually and atmospherically. There was enough seriousness being shone, they kept the production values high, they kept the mystery intact without huge contradictions, and it didn't devolve into some panty-shot safari. Unfortunately, everything plummted afterward.
A huge drop in the ambition and production values can be seen. The exposition explaining the machine lifeforms was godawfully slow and boring, filled with still frames, lacking any dramatic flair or captivating directing, while the low-fi speech synthesis of the machines grated my nerves every second and I would have to skip past every time they started talking. It's basically animal crossing but 100x worse. The anime becomes episodic and repetitive, going through the same procedural of a cast of robots infatuated over some human ritual or desire, culminating in a random boss fight based off of that obsession, and finishing off with no revelations, plot advancement, or character development. Some new characters are introduced, but they pop in and out without warning, little explanation, and the whole thing, story and all, becomes very disjointed. There's little dialogue outside of the ramblings of the male android, who acts like a puppy, while the other stays mostly mute. The male android actually seems to be a one man show, playing different characters in lieu of actually having characters of differing personalities interacting with each other. He goes from wide-eyed naive enthusiasm to indignant anger to professional stoicism in a matter of 30 seconds. The story basically goes nowhere and feels like it's completely lost.
Then we have the whole robotic sentience existential crisis thing going on. It's so shallow and superficial feeling that I couldn't even pay attention to get angry at any perceived inconsistencies. I didn't help that it was as interesting as a roomba waxing philosophical with beeps and blorps. In fact, there was very little of the "despair" I was expecting from them. It all just sounded like mindless chatter. It's about as thought provoking as a silent movie with it's heavy silence weighing down on you more than the actual content inspiring dread and mystery.
The music, as I recall, was also praised through the roof. I've heard this same composer in various other games and the sing-song music was always overrated and very same-y. Lo and behold, I was exactly right. The same style of boring, amateur feeling music is used here, not in a particularly gripping or competent way either.
The anime actually reminded me of another anime I recently watched, and it beacame patently obvious the smilarities between Nier Automata and the second season of Made in Abyss. The discovery and unraveling of mysterious lifeforms, locales, and phenomena. The questioning of existence, purpose, and fate. The guardian robots even have similar modulated voices. One episode even centers around a cloistered village with "friendlies" that worship a deity, which is the entire setting of Made in Abyss S2. However, the two shows can't be further from each other, polar opposites in quality and vision. Not saying Made in AByss is some masterpiece, as it has all sorts of offputting strangeness to it all, but it's one goal of achieving a lasting unsettled dread over the abyss makes Nier Automata feel like children prattling over where the keys might have disappeared to.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Apr 7, 2023
Yes it's another Isekai western fantasy anime fresh from the assembly line. We have the same recycled tropes here. Overpowered protagonist with zero personality who behaves like a child, even with a whole lifetime of experience. Harem. Magic School. Hero. Demon King. Ham-fisted demon or elf racism moralizing. No clear oveararching conflict, plot, or antagonist because it's designed for only one season, with a vague cliffhanger at the end in case it gets popular enough for a sequel. The gimmick of this particular isekai anime is right in the name. He's an exorcist of Japanese lore, so he can do all the exorcist stuff like
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throw paper talismans and summon ayakashi monsters. The battles and spell effects are actually the most impressive part of the anime. Unfortunately, they are wasted on short, one-sided fights with no resistance. The show would have been interesting if they had given the plot breathing room instead of allowing the protagonist to merely blink to solve all problems, nipping it at the bud before even allowing it to even bloom. The MC is especially irritating with his smug smile and know-it-all air. The biggest twists in the show are heavily foreshadowed, and the MC constantly contradicts himself in claiming how he wants to keep a low profile, but ultimately just does something flashy. He mostly speaks drivel as logic or even the semblance of wisdom is cast aside on a whim to keep things "unpredictable". They try hard to give him a sense of moral ambiguity and the bad boy, anti-hero charm, but he just ends up being an erratic psycho that the other characters won't stop characterizing as "kindness". It's just as bad as every other edgy, anti-hero protagonist from before.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Apr 1, 2023
To Your Eternity Season 2. Kind of boring honestly. The emotional impact of the first season is gone. Fushi's character development never goes past where he left off. He's still basically a mindless, bumbling infant who never understands anything. He's just a walking plot device. The first half of the season is him experiencing hundreds of years of travel and reading, gaining no new friends, no new experiences, and definitely zero amount of wisdom or self-discovery. Eventually he goes on a training arc, and defends a large city-state from a horde of nokkers, but there's zero suspense since he's immortal after all.
The first season was
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known for it's emotional, character-driven story arcs. You got to know each character on a personal level, their struggles and aspirations, along with their tragic fate, and Fushi went through developmental milestones as his consciousness grew to become more human after having met and spent time with these people. The fight against the nokkers were always secondary.
Sadly, this time around, they tried to turn it into some tower defense anime, and tried to raise the stakes and epic scale without laying any real foundation first. Fushi has already been alive hundreds of years. Why should he care whether these people in this particular place live or die? There is no connection or buildup to one. There are new characters that aid him and help him strategize or politicize, because he can't do either, but they ultimately have the least amount of personal connection to him. Even their backstories are equally dull, poorly fleshed out, and their motivations severely lacking. They are just talking side characters.
Things that you could give the benefit of the doubt to in the first season, because the show was new and just oiling it's wheels, are never resolved here. Fushi's powers to transform into others or duplicate objects continues to expand arbitrarily and to absurd levels, with no clear rules or logic. The mystery of what the "black one" is and it's ultimate goal for creating Fushi becomes even more nebulous. Finally, if you were thinking of some sort of deep philosophical debate about immortality, resurrection, and the ethics of life and death, run away. The first season literally had more to ruminate over.
I don't mind that they reused the OP/ED songs to save money, and the animation there isn't bad, but the rest of the show is basically the cheapest moments in the first season stretched over 20 episodes. There are large inconsistencies, and the frenetic pacing leaves most moments feeling rushed and mediocre. Not that the first season was a looker, and it at least stays faithful, even at a lower level. The music is also far more subdued, as if consciously knowing the overuse of the anime's best tracks would debase the phenomenal score if paired with such mediocre animation and directing. There are no new tracks by the way, at least none recognizable. This is very similar to the large drop in quality and placement with Seven Deadly Sins and Attack on Titan when it came to music usage.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jan 9, 2023
If you thought seasons 3 and 4 were a travesty, this new followup to Seven Deadly Sins is a beast of it's own. If you ever thought, hey those really bad cutscenes in cel-shaded anime video games were awesome, this is the anime for you. You have the full on 3D environments with clear geometry and textures rendered in real time using PS3 era computing power with "stickers" as faces and the most awkwardly handcrafted animations around traced with a balled mouse from the 90s. Even the eyes will stretch when the face contorts, just like real life! It reminds me a lot of the
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CG Berserk, except I actually enjoyed that one because it was meant to be creepy and unsettling.
If you loved Boruto and the cheap cash grab it represents, as well as it's braindead story designed for children and starring the deformed children of your favorite characters, this will also please you. There's a manufactured and poorly supported rift between the main character Tristan and his father (everyone's favorite Meliodas) which makes for a good excuse to exclude him from all conflicts, and every other adult in the show, because otherwise the whole thing would be over in two minutes with Meliodas flattening the bad guy's castle in five seconds and the rest for the credits to roll, much like how Naruto is too "busy" rubberstamping endless documents as village chief in Boruto's show so his son has to save the world himself with his weak-ass powers. The villain department is even worse. Just a one-dimensional racial supremacy sob story using a recycled character, his hatred based off one of the most hilarious moments in Seven Deadly Sins. It makes for a pretty funny parody of the show. I might watch the second part if I'm bored once it's released.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 3, 2022
Others have already talked about the dated tropes, the repetition, and the mindless story and meta jokes. These are all true. The crass softcore porn and cheesy lines can actually be rather funny and entertaining, for a few episodes anyway, until it wears thin. This anime would have been better off with half the number of episodes. It overstays it's welcome with nothing new to offer. Even the latter half is the same endless boss battle that keeps repeating. I was waiting impatiently for the main villain to finally be confronted and the show to finally end, but the episodes just dragged on and then
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there's a cliffhanger. And for the whole time, there are no stakes. The MC is immortal and omnipotent so there is zero suspense. We already know all the women will fall in love with him. That's well established from the beginning. So ignoring the throwaway story and cheap, hackneyed jokes and fanservice, what else is the draw? The art style is very 90s fantasy, much like the original OVA, and the animation is surprisingly good with high production values. They have "good" 3D monsters that don't look video game-y. The spells look pretty awesome when charging, although the payout can usually be kind of dull and fleeting, like a diver making a huge leap but slipping into the water with no splash. This is probably because they stuck with the low framerate, primitive look and dull palette to keep it all consistent. The music is generic heavy metal, nothing to write home about, although the ending can be catchy. I really don't see the strong death metal influence, other than some passing butchered names. ALl in all, just watch it for the lulz, maybe skip around for the set piece animations, but don't waste your time actually watching it completely through.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Oct 9, 2022
This is yet another profession based isekai anime. If it wasn't clear by the title, it's about Pharmacology. The colorful style and smiling characters means it's also one of the mindless shows designed for children, devoid of any real suspense, plot, conflict, or grander design. If it wasn't for the stellar animation and some flashy spells, it would be ridiculously boring, all of which are wasted on a highly uneventful show. There is a random villain they throw in at the end so they can tick off that box, and he is immediately eliminated after a few lines. Otherwise, it's just smooth, perfect sailing for
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a former pharmacist who reincarnates into a medieval fantasy world and opens up a pharmacy to bring the world out of the dark ages. He has both wealth and status, born into a family of prestigious pharmacists that even treat royalty. The queen is already indebted to him by the third episode. If it sounds really boring to you, your expectations aren't far from the truth. The main character even gets god-like powers to harness all the elements and synthesize any drug he wishes from the very beginning, and a magical x-ray eye that can see both physical ailments and diseases. It's so ridiculously easy for him. There is a pretense of some science and natural principles involved, but they dispense with it quickly as this veritable embodiment of a god of healing conjures up magical pills from thin air, flies on a broom, creates cataclysmic natural events, and heals injuries like jesus does with his hands. Unlike Dr. Stone, you won't be learning any useful chemistry or technical knowledge. Yes, the black plague was caused by fleas from rodents carried by ships, and that's about all you will learn. The show is just another low effort quickly manufactured anime for the season. It's very innocuous and benign. Great for kids I guess. It's Pokemon level intelligence with some drug names thrown in as a facade. The only thing really worthwhile is the father, who is hot. Maybe you would think there would be some allusions to the current real world pandemic. Absolutely none. Keep it as risk free and bland as possible.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Oct 9, 2022
This is yet another isekai, male chauvinist style, low quality, turn your brain off, overpowered hero with a harem, young Japanese boy wet dream anime. It's not a rapefest and they keep the obsequious female servant fawning to a lower level, but it's no different than all the rest. Also characteristic of the subgenre, the main character is basically a generic black haired creep that laughs like an awkward teen, and is self-righteous and moralistic with a side streak of edginess and overconfidence. You won't remember or care about any of the characters or the story. The dialogue is basic and crude and so are
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the story plots. Like I mentioned before, the goal is for immature boys to live vicariously through the avatar of an overpowered, assertive, and faultless paragon that all the girls swoon over. Even the goddess who reincarnates him becomes his lover. There are no pretensions of anything more. If you hate this type of show, then you should turn back now. If you can ignore most of it, however, there are some fun elements like the magic, the cool looking 3D knight that follows him, and the general clean looking animation and battles, although sometimes they lean too heavy on the 3D video game cutscene territory.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 25, 2022
This is yet another example of why MAL scores are worthless. An 8.5 by a large number of people, yet the actual reviews are abysmal. It's like being sucked into watching the Rings of Power by fanboys artificially inflating the score and Amazon manipulating reviews by banning them from their website or selectively deleting negative ones, plus the cherry picked blurbs from review sites they use to plaster the entire internet with commercials for the $500 million turd of a show, because they need to make that money back. Yes I know I haven't said anything about the Jujutsu Kaisen movie yet, but it's so
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mediocre that it's easier to make comparisons than to talk about it on it's own. This is yet another Attack on Titan Final Season, inflated sky high by deceit. They've even done away with the scores for reviews since I last came here, and the review quality has plummeted, reading like essays written by 5 year olds, so there is something trully horrifying amiss.
Jujutsu Kaisen never had a great story to begin with, and was always pretentious in it's grave demeanor, but at least the anime left a lot of mysteries and loose ends to give you the faintest hope that there was something more to it. This movie just shatters the illusion. It's one of the daily, forgettable curse exorcisms and throwaway one episode plotlines given an entire movie to itself. The main character is basically Shinji Ikari from Evangelion, without the pretense of religious symbolism or psychological complexity. Even the power he wields is a generic monster in the show. All the other new characters have zero development, barely any screentime, and are gone in a split second. The main villain has the most hackneyed destroy the world survival of the fittest scheme in existence.
90% of the movie is wasted in the typical Jujutsu Kaisen style of standing there posturing, making angry threats, and trying too hard to act or look cool but failing miserably. Even the most mundane conversations between allies are childish threats. It gets grating very quickly, with zero character development or story progression. The only reason why I was able to watch the original anime was by ignoring the obnoxious characters and to focus on the animation and action sequences, including cinematography, which were always stellar. This has none of that. It's a sloppy imitation, with awful hyper pacing, very robotic movements, and just looks like the inside of an ADHD kid's brain. You can clearly see it's the same team, but they weren't given any time to polish it and instead just threw the first draft of everything into one long sequence. Without the right timing and momentum, you are basically watching random arms and legs and monster guts flailing around. It was ridiculously boring and I zoned out most of the time. Speaking of zoning out, the music was also some really mediocre Japanese rock with your typical bad Engrish thrown in. It could be laughably bad and out of place, especially in the beginning when the characters are "dramatically" walking around their campus to some intense metal even though absolutely nothing is going on. This is emblematic of the whole movie. Loud and blustering, with fast action during fight scenes, but utterly devoid of substance and meaning underneath.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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