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Apr 17, 2024
The Grimm Variations starts with a bang and sadly ends with a whimper. Each of the 6 episodes is an adaptation of a story. They are Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretel, The Elves and the Shoemaker, The Town Musicians of Bremen, and The Pied Piper of Hamelin. The adaptations are not your Disney stories, then again, neither were the real Grimm Brother's stories as the brothers wrote for adults not children.
So let's get this out of the way.. the artwork is great. The music selections for each episode are supportive. Each episode is visually compelling. Now..
I am always happy to
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see the darker side of Fairy Tails. Episodes 1 & 2 were deliciously dark. I've seen similar twists on Red Riding Hood, but Cinderella was completely new to me. Both episodes were well written. The both pull you in before you know it.
Hansel & Gretel (episode 3) has The Promised Neverland vibes. In fact from appearance to atmosphere you will think it's a rip off for the first 30-35 minutes. Then, it throws a curve ball. Personally, I think it could have used a few more minutes for explaining.
Episodes 4-6: This is where things started to go downhill for me. I don't know if the adaptation of The Town Musicians of Bremen (episode 5) was a good one because I know nothing of the story. I will say I didn't find it very entertaining. To me it's the weakest of the bunch. In 4 the Shoemaker becomes an author and the Pied Piper is ... I do not know what the piper is! Shoemaker was good story it just wasn't very interesting. A lot more could have been done with it. It borders on boring. The Pied Piper has many holes. Many Many holes. It was more than halfway over and I started wondering when the piper was going to start playing the damn flute! It's odd. I'm all for odd when it's done well. This really wasn't. I was ill prepared for the tiny acid trip / Joseph and Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat scene that just jumped out of nowhere. Of course you may love it, but for me it was convoluted and offered more questions than it did answers.
At 6 episodes lasting 48 minutes it's not a bad marathon. It's not bad, but it's not great (however it could have been). It doesn't live up to it's potential, but I'm sure all of us can say that about a few titles.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 16, 2023
I adored Decagon House. Yes, it takes some leeways here and there, but not enough to be troubling. Decagon House is an interesting twist on one of my favorite books (and old mystery movies), Ten Little Indians, written by the one of the greatest mystery writers of all time, Agatha Christie. There's also a nice homage to Sherlock Holmes with some Holmes & Watson moments. Seven college friends and lovers of mysteries arrive on a supposedly deserted island only to find themselves being picked off one by one. Who is the culprit? Will they figure it out before the last of them is
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killed? The idea and thought of it is nerve wracking.
The story is solid. There are no extra characters meaning there isn't anyone in the story that doesn't give you some kind of information to help you make a decision. Because it is a manga there are clues in the panels that the reader may not pay attention to. I dare say, 99% of the readers ignored it. I had the question in my head and moved right passed it just as the writer probably intended. Personally I think the story is woven extremely well, especially given the length. Almost everything you need to figure it out completely is right there. Actually, I almost had it. I had the murderer from the start, but not the why. That little tidbit remained a mystery until the end. Sherlock's usual. Basically, the writer took a Christie mystery and had Sherlock Holmes solve it. Hercule Poirot was busy.
Reading it took no time. It was like binging an anime or reading a book you can't put down. If you're a mystery fan, especially of the old guard mysteries of the early to mid 1900s and/or the subsequent b&w movies that were made based on them, I think you'll enjoy Decagon House.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jul 2, 2023
I'm going to keep this very short. Episode 0 is not peak. It is not lit. It is not even mid. It's just bad. It tells the story of Sylphy, who I believe is introduced late in Mushoku Tensei season 1. Question is: Who asked for it? Don't get me wrong. Had this not been boring. I still would say "who cares, ' but at least it would have been entertaining. There's no reason for tedium. I could excuse the poor art work had the story been interesting, but it was not. And, yes, the art work is not good. There
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are scenes that look pretty good, especially at the end, but for the most part the animation looks like it came out of the 1970's.
Uninteresting. Un-fulfilling. Mushoku Tensei II episode 0 is just bad and it makes me worried for the upcoming season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 28, 2023
Let me sum Opus.Colors up in 1 word: crap. There ya' go. A one word review the sums it up. Did you miss it? Let me review it again. Crap.
Opus.Color is about, um, damn I have no clue what it was supposed to be. A coming of age story? Nope. A story of true friendship? Nah not in the way the ML treated his truest friend. Art? eeehhh debatable. Hot guys wandering around in uniform? That! Well, almost. With better animation they would have been oh so much sweeter.
With art being a subplot or rather a plot device and the name
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Opus.Crap.. oops typo... Opus.Colors one might at least expect beauty. But the animation was flat. Yes, I know it's 2D, but it was flatter like -2D. Is there such a thing as 1D because if so, that's it. Anytime someone like myself that is not a fan of CG animation was praying for the CG to come, you know the animation is humdrum. The colors were stale and in some cases monochrome. Just really boring. Speaking of boring. The seiyuu's seemed bored. I am all too familiar with many of the voices and their work. And they were dialing it in. This was a paycheck. Not anything for them to take pride in or be excited about. It came across in most of their voices. If they didn't care about their characters, then why should we?:
The reason I believe the voice acting was lacking is because the writing and direction were poor. There was a lack of focus and direction that comes across in the anime. Had the storytelling been better than the uninteresting animation would not have been as noticeable or important. The male lead was a whiny brat that turned his back on his one true friend to chase after an old "friend" that hadn't spoken to him in 10 years and wanted nothing to do with him. I'm phooking phenomenal! How dare you not be my friend!
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the one element I enjoyed. The only exceptions to the monotony were the stills of the character art. Many were quite stunning compared to the rest of anime. If you placed them in an anime like Blue Period for instance, they may not stand out as much., but would stand out nonetheless. Still, after seeing the Perception Art in the first episode I was anxious to experience more of it. The art came to life with separate animation (like a video) replete with a song sung by the associated actors. Admittedly, I am a huge NON-FAN of the singing seiyuu. I often say if I want musical animation, I'll go to Disney. An anime about music? Fine. Sing away. But I hate, when in an anime about badminton let's say, they just break into song. Why are you singing? What's going on right now? Just hit the damn shuttle cock!! That's how I felt about the music in O.C. It was unnecessary and served no purpose. The time spent on music could have been used for character and/or story development, of which there was none.
The creators of Opus.Colors seemed to stop short on every aspect of this anime. They stopped short of making it bright and attractive. They stopped short of making the lead characters engaging. They stopped short of admitting it's BL, but maybe I'm wrong. Do teen boys enjoy holding hands nowadays? They stopped short of making it good.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 24, 2017
In less than 6 minutes (the credits take up the last 1:20 approximately) this Porter Robinson, Toshifumi Akai, seiyu Sachika Misawa, and the animation team along managed to tell a very moving story. The only reason I didn't give story a 10 is because I wanted more. We see a young girl (probably a teen), Rin, constantly checking her tablet for messages when there are none. Using the tablet she changes the face of her world. Through glimpses of her memories we see that she's physically alone due to the last ditch effort of a loving father. If you watch it, you may
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get a bit of a Superman feel. The story honestly reminds me of French animation.
The artwork and animation are pretty. They're bright and colorful when need be. Most of all they're fanciful like a young girl would draw. From fields of flowers to mountains and hot sunny deserts to snow and ice Rin draws whatever comes to mind in the moment. I guess whatever she wants to see or wherever she wants to be. The animation is in direct opposition of the character's reality.
The sound is all about the Robinson/Madeon collabo. It's EDM, but not hard hitting, annoyingly loud club type EDM. It adds a great level of playfulness with an underlying sadness to the animation. The vocal arrangements are interesting. It's a good song. To be clear I gave the sound a 10 because everything works well and adds to the animation, not because I like the song.
The character of Rin is a good as it can get in a few minutes. We know nothing about her other than she's loved and alone. My opinion is she also has to be very strong. Her mind seems to be in tact considering her situation.
Enjoyment? Well, I loved it. I'd say I'd watch it again, but I've already done that. I'd love to see the story fully written.
Overall, it's a thoroughly enjoyable animation albeit too short. If you honestly enjoy animation (any type from any nation), I can't see how you'd dislike Shelter. There's nothing to dislike.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 8, 2017
A non-gamer's take on episode 1
I rarely write reviews, but I keep seeing reviews telling those that haven't played the game not to watch this and I think that's ridiculous. I've watched plenty of anime based on games without having any problem. If you need background, it's easy to find. Had the reviewers not said it starts in the middle, I never would have even thought about it because many animes seemingly start in the middle and unveil past history as they move on. So, if you want to watch it, then WATCH IT! With that being said episode 1 was good
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and the story seemed solid. The art work was ok as were the characters. The only thing that stopped me from fully enjoying this was the voice acting. The Korean voice actors have a lot to learn about emoting. Many times it felt like they were just reading aloud, especially one character that seems to be the lead. Sorry, I didn't bother to learn names. I won't be watching this because I can't get pass bad acting. The subs were oddly low on the screen in the player making them difficult to read at times.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 27, 2015
Long review short: Comet Lucifer is an example of wasted potential. What could have been an epic fantasy/adventure turned into nothing more than an insipid kinda romance.
They won't let me get away with my review being short. *sigh* I hate that. Anywho, the artwork is good. The colors are bright. The writing in the first 2 episodes was tight and interesting. It's like they fired the guy with the plot and the other writer(s) floundered from episode 3-12. I had hope for a few episodes, but it was for naught. When the affable guy turns into a killing machine and the ditz pulls shotguns
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out of loaves of bread, "WTH am I watching?" It would have been alright had it been funny, but nope. That is the poorly named Comet Lucifer.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 19, 2013
Let me state for the record that I am not a fan of incestuous themes in anything. The only reason I kept watching once I realized what was going on is not because they were steps, but because the step sibling thing happened when all of the characters were 16/17 years of age or older except one and he didn't count.
Alright now that that's out the way...
I'm a fan of reverse harems. I enjoyed the brothers. They're personalities were well developed except for maybe Iori's, who I forgot existed.. The brothers were charming, humorous, and bishie from #1-12 (like
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I said borther 13 is a kid). They ranged in ages, careers, but they eldest weren't that far from each other which allowed for clashes.
The female character known mostly as Chi was a ditz. As well as the brothers were written she was not. What little development they had, she had none. I was hoping she'd get a slap, but it never happened. I really couldn't tell why any of the brothers aside from the teens would fall her. She had nothing to offer them. The most I could reason is that their mother was an absentee so having a female in the house just confused them completely.
I would watch this for the brothers. I truly enjoyed them and wouldn't mind seeing all them again as brothers minus the step-sister.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 13, 2013
I'm gonna begin this at the end. Blood Lad ends on a cliffhanger. I had not clue it was the last episode until I noticed the count on my list. I was tempted to rate it down just for ticking me off.
I enjoyed Blood Lad. I began it with skepticism because all things vampiric have been letting me down recently. The concept of a pwoerful vampire infatuated with humans and the human world to the point of being an otaku is intriguing and amusing. I like the quick pace of the writing. The animation style is artsy.
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It's purposefully flat and '70s comic looking to give the watcher the sense that indeed this is not the human world.
Staz, our otaku vampire prince, is an anti-hero. He is not a good guy. In fact he tells you he's not. He's a demon afterall. Most of the demons he runs across are in human form, but there are some in other forms. I was never sure if our leading lady was dense or just overwhelmed. She was likeable, but I didn't love her.
Blood Lad is good, but it is too short and the story doesn't end. I hope there is a 2nd season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 13, 2013
I'm going to try and keep this short, especially since the anime is only 3 episodes long. The title is misleading just as one of the other reviewers stated. There is a lack of romance and comedy that one might expect. There is definitely a story there worth seeing, but it isn't realized. The viewer is left to wonder and speculate as to the what happens to our lovely crossdresser. The characters seemed interesting. I found many of the secondary characters of more interest than the leads. How much can you delve into a story and character development in 3 episodes?
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Therein lies the major problem. Aside from that the pacing was a bit off and that has nothing to do with the length.
When it comes to short series and OVAs I rate them based on whether or not I would be interested in watching a full series with these character. I would watch (attempt to anyway) a full series with these characters. In short it's worth watching if, like me, you were looking for something to waste time or just to watch in the moment.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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