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Mar 28, 2024
For context, I'm writing this after re-watching the series after watching the first half of the second series.
I will preface this by saying I like this anime overall however for Season 1 it is a poorly executed adaptation, so much so that Season 2 had to go back and try and fix many of the things that Season 1 messed up.
Overall the series is fun, it has interesting concepts that allow it to stay fresh and stand out from the masses, the characters are likable, however season 1 doesn't give enough time to develop them, this is a common issue with season 1, it doesn't
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give time to anything.
The story is horribly paced, everything is so rushed and even without reading the source material I can tell that huge amounts have been skipped over to 'save time' which is such a baffling decision by the studio as you need that development to give context to events within the story, in fact you can tell much of it was needed by the way Season 2 had to go back and put back in a lot of that missing context.
A Second season should exist to progress the story, not be there to fix the mistakes of the first season, and the fact that they are having to do this is a condemnation of the first season.
The problem is that story arcs seem to be condensed into single episodes, sometimes two episodes if you are lucky, the worst case of this is the ending where we go from Point B, to Point D, to Point H, to Point M, to Point W, to Point Z and every other letter in the alphabet is left out. I wish I was exaggerating but huge amounts are just cut out for no good reason.
Season 1 is a hot mess, it needed 24 episodes, or it needed to cover less material, it's not like they needed to get to a certain point in the story for Season 2, because as said, Season 2 spends a lot of time going back and filling in gaps.
With this anime, I like the world, I like the characters, I like the overall story (what butchered fragments remain) but it is hard to recommend Season 1 to the point that I almost feel like saying skip it and go straight to Season 2, however Season 1 still provides some context that is needed
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 1, 2024
I loved the first season, so I was looking forward to seeing this second season.
A quick disclaimer, I did rewatch the first season before watching the second season, mainly because I had forgotten much of what had happened in the first season and had mixed up the plots between it and Bibliophile Princess, but thanks to that I was able to better compare the two seasons.
The reality is, season 2 is just not as good as season 1, the first episode is good, the ending is great, it has a few good moments here and there, but overall it has far too many problems and
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is just lacklustre, don't get me wrong, it's not bad, but this was a series I rated as 'Great' but now it is mealy 'good'
So initial thoughts on the opening scene of episode 1 were, they increased the budget and quality of the animation, it looked impressive, visually stunning and it drew you instantly into the series, it was a very strong start. However there is always a catch, it was of cause a 'flash forward' a tease of things to come, and we would have to wait almost the entire season just to get to that point.
And then there is the animation, because as you guessed, the high quality animation was only for those big 'money shots' beyond that the animation is mostly similar to season 1, except we have more extreme contrasts in the quality of the animation, it is inconsistent on which scenes are given a higher focus on detail and which are not, and some scenes you would expect to be given more of an animation budget, they either cut short or just reduce to a sequence of still frames. It is also jarring that you can have really high quality animated scenes, and then within the space of a few minutes a scene where the characters are sat in a room, and their faces aren't even drawn / animated.
So I guess its time to discuss the story and the big issues with season 2, and don't worry I will keep this spoiler free.
Episode 1 as stated teases Sei on one of her expeditions dealing with the monsters and the miasma that causes them - so far so good, after all, this has been the entire setup of season 1.
After that teaser it quickly picks up where season 1 left off, she has returned from her first expedition, so a plus for consistency, she now however wants to do cosmetics because its an isekai cliché, but apparently she already sells stuff and has has traders sell her ideas because that was a thing we didn't see in season 1 and was just skipped over, but well, here we are.
But now she also wants rice, so its suggested she goes to a port town to check there for it, but she'll need a disguise, but Al can't go with her because he will stand out, even if he wears a disguise? This doesn't make much sense, nor does the need for her to wear a disguise, but lets not think too hard on it.
Now we also get a tease of the big upcoming storyline, which is, when the national situation is over and Sei has helped them cleanse the miasma from all over the nation, all that will be left is the question of her engagement, but lets not dwell too long on it because here comes the first story arc for season 2
Due to an incident in the port town, a Prince from another country has come to study, but has obvious other intentions, but what is he after, what are his intentions, and why is he so keen on finding out about Sei?
Well, none of it matters because it may as well be a filler side story, none of it adds anything to the main story, it just pads out the episode length, and during this time we don't get to see much of Al at all
Considering that the main point of this series is that it is a love story, following the relationship between Sei and Al, I do not understand the point of the first half of the second season as it artificially separates our main characters, meaning we don't get to see them spend time together and have their relationship grow, and as I also said, it doesn't further the main story, there just is no point to it other than to waste everyone's time.
The Second half of the season actually gets back to the main story, we have a return to Al and Sei's budding romance, and a need to deal with the miasma and monsters that spawn from it.
This is where we see things finally get back on track and it is more like the season 1 that we know and love.
The only thing that was jarring and superfluous is when we get a scene in which Sei suddenly finds herself confronting her own feelings and thinking that she may be in love with Al. However season 1 ended with the reveal that her power is love, and she had become aware of that and had to confront that, knowing that her power was linked to her feelings towards Al, so at that point she was aware that she loved him.
Then we got a little bit of for a lack of a better phrase, political machinations and very quick relationship angst, followed by a very satisfying ending that almost made up for all the issues of the season.
However I do wish the ending was given more time as it felt a bit rushed, if only there was a filler arc that could have been cut, maybe then they could have also included one of the other subjugation expeditions, rather than just saying she's been on several on them without showing any of them.
Another issue I have is that we spend far too little time with main characters from season 1 like Liz, Johan, Aira and Kyle doesn't feature at all.
Season 1 felt special, Season 2 feels like it spends a lot of time treading water.
So with all that said, you can start to see why I feel it fell from greatness, what we have now is simply, 'good' which would be enough for many other series, but for this series, it is rather disappointing as we know it can be better
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 15, 2024
There have been a lot of these lately, usually the plot is reincarnated into an Otome Game as the villainess and trying to avoid the doom ending using the knowledge of the game, here however the twist is that the 'villainess' reincarnates back into herself six years before she meets her own doom with nothing but her memories and her diary of the intervening years to help her avoid her fate.
I will say that because this current trope hasn't been overdone, I do find myself enjoying these types of series, the only issue I've had with most of them is that in most cases, they
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start strong, but then tend to lose their way, usually ending with you feeling unsatisfied with how it ended.
This is in my opinion one of the better entries in the genre, while it doesn't do too much special and certain things are easily predictable, it's strengths lie with its consistency. It takes what is the standard formula and executes it well.
Even though the story may feel 'standard' and you can predict certain aspects, it actually sets up those plot points in the story, which probably aids in the audience predicting where things will go, there is no random ass-pull or deus ex moment, we're not throwing in a random amnesia plotline, or putting in literal gods for a shocking twist, and characters actually follow an internal logic that actually makes sense.
The series is well paced, and also doesn't have any obvious plot holes,
Which brings me to the characters, which is the strong point of this series, the characters are actually given depth, they get to grow. The characters, like real people have well preconceived ideas, and they all have reasons for having those ideas, after all preconceived ideas often don't come out of no where, but when those ideas are challenged, they have to slowly change their way of thinking.
Of cause Mia takes the biggest journey and undergoes the biggest change without realising it, but she's had more time to reflect on things.
However it is satisfying to see see Sion's growth, because it wasn't just something that happened at the end, but because we had Mia challenging his notions of justice for a while.
If you like the genre then you can't go far wrong with this entry, for me it sets a standard baseline that the genre should be looking to achieve. Hamefura is still the GOAT though.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 11, 2024
There have been a few of these series now where the MC leaves adventuring or just starts a new life in some remote place / village and settles down to the 'slow life'. And when it sticks to that premise, I do find myself enjoying those kinds of series, though a few have disappointed when they quickly abandon that premise.
So would this series be confident in its core premise and trust its audience? Or would it feel the need to add in extra elements because it lacks the faith that it can hold our interest without them?
Yeah, it's the latter.
For me this series is at
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its best whenever we are at the village, and any scene that features 'best dad' is a winner, short scenes with Angeline and her adventuring ways, as well as how they would come to obstruct her ability to return home were fine, for me that did add to the overall series as a whole.
All the 'conspiracies' and the slow shift towards being more focused on Angeline, that is where things for me dipped in the overall quality, a lot of it was unnecessary, I know it feels like it wants to have some greater story, but all it does is take us away from what should be the 'heart' of the series, and its a distraction. Give us more time in the village with 'Best Dad' the friends he makes, and the slow life he cherishes.
On the whole this is a good series
If they kept it simple and straight forward it would have been a better series
But with the plots, conspiracies and all cliched elements that were added because it clearly thought people would be bored without them, for me it stops it from being a great series and just winds up being 'mostly good' which is why it gets a 7/10 but I don't think I can easily recommend it
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 9, 2024
This series is a bit of a mess as it lacks focus and isn't sure what it wants to be
The Harry Potter comparisons are apt, but clearly in an attempt to avoid those comparisons the series tried to add in all these extra elements and became an even bigger mess than Harry Potter is.
It's a magical high school romp, except they are either skipping class a lot or the school just doesn't do more than two classes a week.
It's a revenge story, except the MC doesn't seem to have much interest in carrying out his revenge
In an overall story premise that makes little sense
The school
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is dangerous because magic is dangerous and can consume the person, but its also made even more dangerous because the teachers and other students are actively out to harm all the students for no real reason other than 'they can'
So you see where everything breaks down, its a mass of ideas, but the worst thing is, they aren't all mixed together in a blender, its like the ideas are all put into a tombola and then drawn out one at a time, focusing on whatever has been drawn out and forgetting about pretty much everything else.
This is why I say it does not know what it wants to be.
One big issue is the cast, it has a cast of six 'main' characters, and yet that cast is often just stripped to two or three of them, and they are just painfully dull
It's actually some of the characters that aren't the main cast that are some of the most interesting and are given some development, backstory and also quite crucially, personality
Thing is, there is clearly potential here, somewhere amongst everything else, and it is not an outright bad series, but nor is it a good series, it does have some good moments, but those good moments aren't enough to elevate it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jan 9, 2024
To understand my thoughts on this series, you need to understand my thoughts on the past few seasons of anime and how much of a disappointment much of it has been in general,
Anime that lost their direction, or anime that tried to stand out by either putting a new twist on things but but just ended up being boring, or looked to be edgy, and forgot that they also had to be engaging.
Not to mention the amount of anime that have stumbled and lack consistency, that have left me feeling unsatisfied or unfulfilled.
To use food analogies, it's like being served the salad as a
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main dish
Now I won't deny that we've had some really good steak getting served up, but not often enough
Berserk of Glutton is not a steak, but it is a burger, and that is all it needs to be
It doesn't try to do anything different, to do anything new, it doesn't seek to deviate from the recipe and deviate from the path of a good burger, instead all the tropes, all the ingredients are there in the right quantities, after all there is a reason these tropes are so common and overused, its because they work, and in the hands of a competent cook, they taste good.
It is seasoned / paced well, and the end result is a tasty / fun burger that will satisfy your stomach until you get to yet another bad anime.
What? Is that not enough of a review? You want more? Such gluttony.
On the surface the story is very cookie cutter
OP MC starts out as Weak MC with apparently a weak skill that turns out to be an OP skill, which he doesn't know until it triggers and we know how the rest of this trope plays out
He finds a sword that is ignored in the bargain bin, that is pretty much perfectly suited for someone who has a talent like his, and it also talks, think Familiar of Zero and Reincarnated as a Sword.
He is mistreated by obvious bad / evil guys, but is protected by female hero who he admires, who they plot to send to her death, and he then vows to protect.
It is when we get to the character Myne that things get more interesting and we also get a hint of a wider story
Which brings us to characters
I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but the majority of the characters at the start of the series are pretty much two dimensional. The only exception are Roxy and Fate themselves.
It's only when we leave the capital that we see a shift in this
I would say Set is the first character to be given this treatment, even though we do briefly encounter Myne before him
But Set is the first person who is given a proper character, he has to deal with his past while trying to protect his future. The fact that he has such a minor role in the series, and yet is able to stand out far more than some of the others tells you the significance of good character writing.
Aaron is another character that is given heavy focus along the way and is well written.
Myne we don't get to know much about as a lot about her is kept a mystery, but we do get to know her personality, and certain things about her are slowly revealed as she starts to trust and like Fate more
The only reason I'm not going into more detail here is I don't wish to get into spoilers
In all honesty, I can see people giving up on this after the first few episodes as it doesn't do enough to set itself apart, it walks those same tropes far to closely at the beginning and it's only when he leaves the capitol and heads for Galia that we actually get some development going and the burger starts to come together.
It's enjoyable, and sometimes, that is enough
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 9, 2023
With the amount of hype that surrounded Bocchi when it came out, I found myself afraid to watch it, I knew it wouldn't live up to the hype and I would only be disappointed, so I decided to not watch it straight away so I could judge it on its own merits away from the buzz and hype.
I'm glad I did that, because if I watched it at the time, I would likely not liked this series and scored it accordingly, which would have been a travesty, as Bocchi is a good series, but it is not as good as people claimed and it really
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was overhyped.
Now I know what people will say - "Why am I saying it's only 'good' and why am I calling it overhyped" that's a pretty strong statement so I'll have to defend that, well, it's a good job that I'll do that by breaking down the core aspects of the series and the main points of 'praise'
Firstly, the characters, the characters are 'fine' they have personality, but they lack development.
Ijichi tells us what her dream/goal is, but her character doesn't grow as the only thing she was working towards was creating a band, and her personality is lost when compared to the others.
Ryou, we're told why she left her old band and why she join this one, her main personality traits are that she always has no money, and she's the most musically serious one there, despite being unreliable in general. Yet there is zero character development or growth, nothing that she is working towards.
Kita, the earnest outgoing social butterfly, she's here because she's everything that Bocchi is not. She actually has goals that she is working towards, but as for character development, if being able to play the guitar after one episode is development, then, I guess?
And then there is Bocchi...
She is given plenty of character and backstory, she has goals, and the thing is, she does undergo character progression, but here's the rub...The way they handle Bocchi's social anxiety and social awkwardness, and her attempting to overcome it, is done more for laughs than in any meaningful way. The development might as well be none existent due to how they handle it, one minute she's a total wreck because they are playing it for laughs or to just remind you that "she has social anxiety don't cha know" and then the next minute because the story demands it, she's overcome all signs of anxiety, and then in the scene after she goes back to being a wreck because it was a whole 5 minutes since she was last a gibbering mess, honestly you get whiplash trying to keep up with these swings.
The animation is good, it does the job, but it is not amazing, they clearly chose a style that was distinctive but also allowed them to keep costs low and allow them to keep it a little more 'simple' so they could put more time and budget into the 'Bocchi moments' but the animation is nothing amazing nor is it anything special.
The band animation pieces do not reach the levels of 'God Knows' from Haruhi, they aren't even on the same level as K-On! that isn't go say that they are bad, because as said, the animation here is good, but it is to put it into context, there are plenty of other anime that it is on par with, so we don't need to overhype it and make out that it is something that it isn't and pretend that it is amazingly animated.
Likewise the 'Bocchi moments' also seem to got a lot of praise and hype for being so 'unique' and yet Studio Shaft have been doing things like that for almost 20 years now. There is nothing new or unique here, Clover works simply stood on the shoulders of giants and used those known techniques to great effect in Bocchi.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with that, this is how animation and the industry works, but what is wrong is losing perspective and overhyping a show because you haven't seen any anime by Shaft.
Bocchi is a good anime, it is a good comedy anime, but the issue with Bocchi is that it is focused on being a comedy anime, it is too focused on playing everything 'for laughs' the visuals are centred around this, the storytelling is centred around this, the characters are centred around this, everything it too focused around having one more gag, that we end up losing what could have been a great anime.
People compare Bocchi with K-On!, yet aside from being totally different tonally and stylistically, Bocchi is massively inferior to K-On!
K-On! is a masterpiece in visual storytelling, which is what you expect for Kyoani, we learn a lot about the characters through their designs, their rooms/possessions, and their actions, inflections and how they carry themselves. It shows us their character and then it develops them, and they all undergo character growth. They all have dreams and goals, and some of them may be smaller goals that they work towards, but, we have actual characters here.
Then as for how they are as a band, Yui spends several episodes learning the guitar learning to sing and play at the same time, it's not a one episode and done thing,
This is in contrast with Kita, who struggles to learn for one episode, and then after that can play guitar, but does still practice and is still having others teach her.
And then we get to song writing, a process that has them also trying to find someone to write songs for the band, but it's not just a one time thing where we only spend one episode on the lyric writing and never mention it again, because we have Mio writing several songs, Mio posting lyrics to Ritsu and Ritsu thinking its a love letter, Mio trying to get inspiration for lyrics by going off on a trip, Yui writing a song dedicated to her sister.
But in Bocchi one episode is dedicated to writing lyrics, after that lyric writing is never mentioned again, and yet we get additional new songs.
So I hope this review explains why Bocchi in my opinion is an 8/10 show, and why I feel it was overhyped.
It is a very good comedy, I did enjoy it, but I do feel the hype does it a disservice.
If you go into this with lowered expectations, you will probably enjoy it
But if you go in expecting it to be amazing, it will likely not live up to those expectations, and you likely will be disappointed
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 3, 2023
To preface this review, I first watched the series when it came out and loved it, but after being disappointed with season 2, I decided to go back and watch Season 1 again and see if it still was as good as I remembered, or if I just was caught up in the hype.
So first things first, I did end up changing my score as I was a victim of the hype, it wasn't the 9/10 that I had originally given it, the series has some flaws, and the animation, while slightly above average, is not at the standard it would need to be to
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be up there with the top ranking Isekai's
But for me, the story, characters, and character development still stands up, so it is a solid 8/10
Everyone should know the story of this series by now, so I'm only going to talk about it briefly, besides, it isn't the most interesting part of the series.
The main storyline with the waves is a backdrop where the only influence it has is on places that it hits, and characters who it has directly affected their lives, beyond that there is no sense of impending doom as everyone else engages in their own petty politics or schemes, or there are just some other goings on that have to be dealt with.
It's very much like they are the main dragon storyline in Skyrim that no one pays too much attention to, until they are forced to, because the rest of the time everyone is just focusing on the side quests and would rather be doing those.
Then we get to Myne / Malty's false accusations and her schemes, this is just an excuse to have Naofumi alienated from the others, and have him travel the land for the first half of the series, and while this is the part I prefer, it is more character driven than story/plot driven
Then when we get to Melty and the second half, and hints of a conspiracy, it becomes a lot more story focused.
However it's the second half of the series where we start to get issues, for me the conspiracy plot line didn't work that well as it felt rushed and violated the principle of "show don't tell" and in general things feel a lot more rushed. After taking its time on the first half, it feels like once they got to the second half they wanted to wrap up certain parts of the story and as such didn't allow it to breathe.
At a certain point it felt like it just said "we're done now, let's wrap it up" and honestly, I feel that is where the issues of Season 2 came from.
As said before, the first half was the part I enjoyed the most, it was focused in on the characters and their development, and while it was the part that was the most simplistic in the story, being more of a character drama, it felt the more rewarding.
For me, this was the reason why Season 1 was so good, yet season 2 was such a disappointment
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 3, 2023
I might be in the minority in that I thought the first season was 'fine' it was enjoyable, but it used too many familiar tropes and wasn't special enough and didn't do enough to set itself apart from many fantasy/isekai/reincarnation OP MC plot anime.
So for me I enjoyed Season 2 more than I did Season 1 because it stepped away from much of that, the characters are still the same, except we don't have to go through their backstories and faux betrayals, instead we can just enjoy them for who they are.
One issue with season 1, was the bloated character roster, but for season
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2 you can't just Thanos Snap away most of the bloated cast, so it has to find ways around this. The 'cheerleading squad' is left behind so we get a tighter focus on the characters, and many of the still expansive cast of characters that do still follow along for the ride don't get much screen time anyway so that it focuses on the main story, the new characters, and still having the small core group members to tie it all together.
As for the series itself, it started strong, you normally expect events to build up, but this just threw out that convention and announced its arrival. after that, it did start to go off the rails when they went to the land of the spirits, for me this felt like the weakest part of the series.
After that we got to the time travel part, and I seem to be in the minority in that I liked this part of the series, in fact I would go as far as saying that for me, this was the strongest part of the series.
This is where it actually focused on the story, on unravelling it's 'mystery' which some of it you could see through anyway, but... The focus here was tighter as it got away from a lot of the background noise and the excessive cast roster, instead for a good portion of it we focused just on the two main characters.
It's easy to see why a lot of people don't like this part however as Anos tends to take a backseat and isn't the main focus, and also as a result of that, we don't see him be OP and Deus Ex his way out of every situation with a condescending wisecrack.
But for me, this section was worth it because it allows you to have that 'pay off' at the end.
And then we get to the end, and I won't spoil it, but I can understand why some people got confused with some of the things that happened, the different terms and concepts that this series brought in or expanded on, but it probably helped that I binge watched this series across two days, otherwise I might have forgotten a lot of the jargon and otherwise seemingly meaningless details if I had watched it over a period of weeks.
In short, this in my opinion is better than season 1 as it was able to stand out more from the crowd, but it still has its flaws, and I don't think anyone would consider it a masterpiece.
If you liked Season 1, you should like this, although judging by some of the reviews, I wouldn't take that for granted. If you didn't like Season 1, or don't like this genre, then this won't change your mind on things.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 19, 2023
I will preface this review by saying I generally love the Isekai genre, and I like trash Isekai for the pure enjoyment factor that it offers
That being said, the Spring/Summer seasons has given us many poor offerings and too few gems for Isekai fans with either mediocre series, or series that are just dull or outright bad.
Fortunately this series is not dull, but while it did have enough to grab my initial attention and was entertaining enough to keep me watching, it was the very definition of mediocre.
This series took a paint-by-numbers approach to creating an isekai series, there is very little original here, and
...
in a space where you need a unique twist to stand out amongst the crowd, all this does is tick off all the cliches one by one.
So in the end there is nothing special here, it is highly forgettable, and while comedy is highly subjective, for me, the comedy here just didn't 'land'
The ending is also unsatisfactory as it seems to expect a second season to pick things up and conclude events, yet I am not convinced this series has done enough to 'earn' a second season.
This series isn't 'bad' not in an objective sense, there are a few ways this could have been bad, but it managed to avoid them,
The animation is average, the sound is average, the story is average.
Also for it to be 'bad' it would have had to have done something different, to actually take a chance at being different and then failed, but this doesn't attempt to be anything special or to stand out. You can't fail if you don't take any chances.
Finally, it could have been dull and boring, yet this does manage to be entertaining.
In conclusion, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who doesn't enjoy trash isekai, and even then I would caution people that this is nothing special and one that will be forgotten about quickly.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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