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Apr 25, 2010
Alright bros, time for a heads up. The first 25 episodes of Death Note are goddamn V.I.P. quality material. You want plot twists? Done. You want to see two chessmasters continuously one upping the shit out of each other? Check. You want to see some fucking intense notebook writing action? Double check. You want to see some L x Light foot action? Well, you're a sick bastard, but yeah, it's in here.
As far as the plot is concerned, the basic premise is this. A shinigami named Ryuk is bored with life living in the shithole shinigami realm, so he decides to drop a death note
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into the human world so he can watch some bitch ass losers get jocked on. Model student Light Yagami finds the death note lying on the ground and passes it off as a bad prank, but takes it home anyway. He soon discovers that the shit is legit, and that he can kill anyone he wants, in just about any way that he wants, just by writing their name down in the death note and imagining their face while he does it (along with a slew of other rules which come into play). Light's only desire (revealed to you through a series of cheesy "I WILL BE THE GOD OF THE NEW WORLD"-esque lines) is to use his new found power to bring about a peaceful world. The only thing standing in his way is ace detective L, who is dead set on wrecking the shit out of whoever's responsible for the recent string of criminal deaths.
But yeah, just, the first arc in general is badass as hell. It doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't, and it sure as hell isn't apologizing for being over-the-top. Xanatos Gambits will be pulled, psychological mind games will be played, cheesy lines will be shouted, names will be written into notebooks in intense manners while ominous Latin chanting goes on in the background, but this is how shit gets done in the Death Note universe, and I'm not complaining. However, the biggest problem this anime has is that the second arc blows in comparison. The previous problem Death Note had with pacing only gets worse after the time skip. Everything grinds to a halt, and the decrease in writing quality leads to serious Flanderization problems. Everything just feels rushed and tacked on.
Art and animation are well done. I think the character designs were made to appeal to yaoi fangirls, but it's forgivable. Sound is done nicely as well, although both OPs and both EDs are pretty terrible.
When it comes to characters, you'll most likely only really care about Light and L. Both of them go through sufficient character development. The main problem is that the other characters are just sort of there as plot devices waiting to be utilized, and most of them either don't develop at all or develop unrealistically (Matsuda comes to mind). A lot of the careful development the characters underwent in the first arc was totally fucking wrecked in the second arc though, because the writers started making everyone act out of character to further the plot along. Mello and Near were hardly in the story long enough to get fleshed out, and Matt was introduced and then got stomped by haters in like two scenes. I mean, was it really necessary to even write him into the plot to begin with? Surely his place could've been filled by some random goons or something.
Anyway, it may have its flaws, and it's definitely not the greatest anime ever, but it's still pretty fucking cool.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Apr 22, 2010
**THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS**
Okay, well, this anime is kind of awful.
Chronologically, this isn't even the first in the .hack// timeline, because Bandai keeps tacking shit onto this franchise. Anyway, it's basically about what would happen if Shinji Ikari played video games. Tsukasa, the main character, wakes up in The World, the first Virtual Reality MMORPG since some supervirus stomped all over the internet. He can't remember how he got there or who he is, and soon discovers that he can't even log out of the damn game. After running into some douchebags who want to jump his ass for supposedly hacking, he acquires some
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wacky ass jello bullshit that flies around and kicks peoples asses for him. From there, Tsukasa and his friends attempt to figure out the reason as to why he can't log out, and end up unraveling the dark secrets about what The World really is.
Sound cool? I thought so too. As it turns out, Bee Train pulled a fast one and replaced all the cool aspects of playing an MMORPG (like bitchin' ass spells, gunblades, implying other player's parents are really the same gender, etc.) with half-assed attempts at exploring the concepts of escapism, and how interpersonal relationships affect us as humans. Now, I consider myself a sophisticated member of society. I have no problem with slow paced, character driven shows, but if I'm going to be watching a show that's 85 percent dialogue, I'm expecting a lot more in terms of plot and character development than what I was given. They even managed to fuck up the lesbian undertones by making one of them a cripple. Come on, Bee Train, cripple porn? I never thought you'd sink that low.
The art is fantastic. Beautifully painted backgrounds, imaginative character designs (although that's to be expected, considering they were done by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto) and for the most part top notch animation come together to make the anime really stand out. Plot aside, if you really dig artsy shit, you'll be able to appreciate the detail that went into the show.
The sound is great too. The soundtrack has a way of both perfectly fitting and amplifying the tone of the scene, and the voice acting is pretty awesome as well.
As for the characters, they start off as your typical bunch of anime cliches but then the metric fuckton of dialogue hits and character development starts to make its way through. Tsukasa starts off as a stoic jerkass who develops into Shinji Ikari: Part Deux, Mimiru is the happy-go-lucky only-sane-one (especially considering the dysfunction junction that is the rest of the cast) who plays the game for fun, Bear is the cool old guy/big damn hero/Shepard, BT is the condescending information broker (who hates lettuce, remember that), the Silver Knight is the cliche shounen hero that FIGHTS FOR JUSTICE who, through character development, stops being so bombastic and douchey and starts being a more approachable big damn hero, Subaru is the shrinking violet/woman in charge with a twist, Crim is the ridiculously over-the-top large ham with unrealistic hair and an unnervingly large sense of honor, Helba is the hacker, Sora is the lovable jerkass who assaults women in-game, etc. Most of them seem to take more pleasure in standing around talking to each other about their real lives than in actually playing the game, though. I guess that's the point, seeing as the anime is all about interpersonal relationships, but it certainly does bog down the dialogue with a lot of useless information. And implications about lesbian cripples. Ugh.
Overall, if you like boring shit, you'll love .hack//SIGN.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Apr 22, 2010
The english dub of NGE is superior to all subs forever. Haters will try to convince you otherwise, but tell them Spike Spencer has a message for them and punch them in sack, and then proceed to watch the dub.
The basic plot of NGE is something like this, setting aside SEELE, AT Fields, Instrumentality, and all that fun stuff. Shinji Ikari, the 14 year old son of NERV commander Gendo Ikari, is called to NERV (an organization whose task is defending the goddamn world, for starters) by his dad in order to pilot a big ass Gundam (called an EVA) and fight against a Cthulhu-esque
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monster (otherwise known as an Angel) that's wrecking the shit out of Tokyo-3, after trying out some weak ass shit (like n2 mines, which are non-nuclear but equivalent to a nuclear bomb in strength) with little avail. As the first episodes establishes, the Angels are some bad motherfuckers, and the only things that can go toe to toe with them are the EVAs, who can only be piloted by the specific 14 year olds that are able to sync with them. From there you're introduced to the NERV staff, the other Eva pilots, and their classmates as the big damn heroes fight off the Angels, one by one...sort of. That's when shit gets real.
If the ending leaves you mindscrewed, there's a pretty popular Eva fanfic called The Bible that presents some of God's theories as to what went down in those last few episodes. It's an alright read, if a bit bombastic.
The artwork as a whole is pretty impressive, especially for both its time and the budget Gainax was on. Let's just not talk about those last two episodes though. As for the character designs, your millage may vary, but I thought Sadamoto did a pretty bitchin job on them (I have forgiven him for the manga).
Sound is pretty good, if a bit inappropriate at times. I heard Anno originally approached Yoko Kanno to do the soundtrack until Beethoven told her to fuck off and then proceeded to record the first OST. I wouldn't be surprised.
As for the characters, whoa. For starters, one area NGE does not break any new ground in is civil rights, as I couldn't find a single black guy in the show. Shinji is the biggest woman ever, and you'll probably want to get her into an armbar after the second episode; it only gets worse from there. Asuka, pre-character development, is your typical tsundere redhead, Rei is the emotionless girl who's gotta have blue hair, Misato is your best friend's hot older sister with boobs and a drinking problem, Gendo is a cold, manipulative bastard, Toji is Anno's night alone with Fist of the North Star, Kaji is an inferior Japanese knock off of James Bond, Ritsuko is Gendo's dummy plug if you catch my drift, Kaworu is Shinji's gay lover, SEELE are some secret spooky douchebags behind monoliths, and so on and so forth. The character development is actually well done though, and the series does a pretty good job of deconstructing a few standard anime character tropes (as well as the mecha genre in general, although this is another your millage may vary thing). It's not as revolutionary as NGE fanboys make it out to be, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do. Even if that is a few comas and a lot of homoerotic subtext.
Overall, if you want to watch a guy mercilessly beat the shit out of his own characters physically and psychologically, complete with synchronized dancing, losers getting stomped by a group of 14 year old girls with big fucking mechas, cheesy religious symbolism, and the most infamous trainwreck ending in anime (although the entire second season of Code Geass gives it a run for its money), then this is the anime for you. Alternatively, you could watch Mars of Destruction, which is basically the same story except shorter and a lot more hilarious. The choice is yours.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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