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Sep 30, 2021
“You’re going to go adrift. It will be into a world governed by the absurd.”
Sonny Boy is dense, messy, and sometimes pretentious beyond thematic purpose. Watching Sonny Boy requires patience and thought. In one episode, the audience is expected to sit through an entire five minutes of one character just talking about monkeys and baseball, and unless you’re someone who is either decently knowledgeable in baseball strategy or who is particularly fond of long metaphorical narrations, I don’t see how that could be appealing. Throughout its seasonal run, the show constantly divided the anime community, often sparking new chances to usher in the age-old conversation
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of “this is an elitist anime” vs “you just dislike it because you don’t get it”. And though I hate to admit it, both arguments may actually be kind of right this time. Sonny boy can be difficult to enjoy because it’s hard to grasp, but every episode also made me question whether its artistic value was just a result of symbolism-hungry anime watchers digging through scraps. The show is a divisive mindfuck with a jumbled narrative. Yet still… Sonny Boy has managed to touch the hearts of those willing to stick with it. So if you think that there’s even just the slightest possibility of this anime resonating with you, I cannot recommend it enough. For beyond Sonny Boy’s many flaws, there is so much to experience.
Every episode of Sonny Boy is an unexpected moment. Almost every scene in this anime comes with it’s own unique feeling, story, themes, and focus. Like opening a book with random curiosity of what’s inside, no page is alike. Though the show begins with students suddenly getting thrown into a new dimension, it slowly breaks apart into a myriad of story pathways each with their own things to offer. One episode looks into how the students got where they are. Another episode looks at what the students plan to do next with their lives in their new dimension. There are a couple episodes that uncover the secrets of various students and their unknown pasts, giving them depth while still retaining a sense of mystery. It’s intriguing, and there’s tons of fun in trying to guess what's going to happen next. The way Sonny Boy's creativity branches out to build its story is so crucial to what makes watching the show unique that it would be counterintuitive for me to try and explain things in detail for prospective watchers. But just know that this anime has no limits. The synopsis is just the starting point. The true plot of Sonny Boy is a fluid ball of unknowns revolving solely around the fact that anything can be a metaphor and anything can be explored.
While there is no set formula to Sonny Boy’s aesthetically erratic storyline, there are set rules to the setting. Like in every good work of creative worldbuilding, there must be some semblance of reality in order to create a sense of relativity amongst the viewers. In Sonny Boy, the setting comes with rules that force the characters to act as they would in a real society. Students form groups, they argue, they converse, they share things, they hide things, they create currency, they create cults, they are forced into labor. The societies the characters interact in and the experiences these environments create are all subplots that could act as their own anime. And as a result of the believable setting, the characters within this setting feel very believable too.
Sonny Boy is a fantastic character drama. The characters are psychologically nuanced, they are flawed, they often represent something philosophical to some degree, and their deeper personalities are shown through us through atypical deconstructions over time. With over thirty students, the show definitely doesn’t give every single person screentime, but everyone that’s important to what is happening is a well-structured character with their own likable points. The show covers just the right amount of cast for its run with surprisingly touching depth. And though the character writing in this show is amazing enough on its own, it does even greater wonders for the show as a whole. The realism and subsequent attachment audience members will feel towards the characters is the solid foundation that allows the show to do all sorts of crazy things without making it feel like it’s completely lost all reason.
On to technicalities, Sonny Boy’s art is... subpar. That is if you’re looking at just the drawings themselves. If you simply paused at one scene and looked up close to see the linework and the detail, you would be disappointed. Sometimes characters in Sonny Boy just don’t have faces. The show is absurd enough that no one can tell if it’s a budgeting issue or an actual artistic decision, but there are times when things are just missing. Shoelaces don’t overlap properly, and people walk weirdly. It happens often. But what Sonny Boy’s art lacks in detail, it makes up for in framing and directing. In those aspects, Sonny Boy is truly beautiful. Like the rest of the show, the art is far from the norm. But it’s that exact slight eeriness and boundless creativity that makes the animation so fun to look at. It is, in every sense I can think of, true “art”. The positioning of characters against the background in every frame is well-thought out. Slower moments are paired with just one or two characters on the screen to emphasize the quiet atmosphere. Even the slightest character movements like stares and head turns are impactful because of the way scenes are directed and edited. The show focuses on the right things at the right times, and it knows when to back off or look close. It’s cinematic and engaging.
The music is one of the best parts of Sonny Boy. The ED is an immersive song that usually just plays over a black credit screen. It works in stark contrast to the quiet that plays in the majority of most episodes which makes it obvious and eventually, super easy to look forward to. The way the music suddenly comes in amidst the vast and empty world with empty sounds makes the ending literally and figuratively “music to one’s ears.” The background scores are wonderful and often ethereal. Highly tense and psychological moments get paired with magical sounding light eerie tunes that add to the events occurring on screen. The music stands out without being out of place and while still adding to story points and showing expert use of dynamics. Everything was simply picked out with perfection and masterfully directed into the show.
Sonny Boy is an absolute gem that does so much more than one show probably needs to do. It isn’t afraid to explore, analyze, question, and discuss all at once. Through the limitless creative freedom the show allows itself, it takes the anime medium and art in general to heights often unseen. By having flawed characters that deconstruct away from tropes, and settings that reflect society but still overflow with unhindered originality, Sonny Boy is the culmination of all the good things anime may have to offer. It's a revolutionary must-see.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 3, 2021
Shadows House is what you get when you mix the fun vibes of a middle grade mystery with the relevant messages of critiques on classism. It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but the unique aesthetic, engaging premise, solid writing, and good audiovisuals bring everything together to create a well-formulated anime that anyone can find enjoyable.
Our story begins in a small room with a coffin-like bed. Papers of instructions and details plaster dirty walls while a small door allows access to a chunk of stale bread placed upon the dusty wooden floor. Cramped, ill-fed, and forced to work. These are the harsh living conditions of a
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Living Doll—the living conditions of our main character Emilico.
From the start, Emilico’s personality shines through the screen. She is a bright and cheerful young girl trying to do her best, and everyone around her is affected by her kind nature. Though one may argue that Emilico’s personality consists of traits increasingly common in a typical anime protagonist, Shadows House’s depiction of Emilico as a character is far from generic. As subject to uncomfortable living conditions, there are many times when Emilico’s identity is tested. She is looked down upon by others and is reprimanded for being herself. And when Emilico is forced to obey the rules or when she is under the control of the shadows, her bright personality is sometimes compromised. It is through this narrative that Emilico’s character isn’t simply a compilation of happy generic protagonist traits but rather an expression of the anime’s theme of power and autonomy amidst oppression.
Living among the Dolls in the Shadows House are mysterious beings referred to as Shadows. Shadows are face-less figures that the living dolls attend to. They live much more luxuriously than the living dolls and have bodies made entirely of soot. Depending on a Shadow’s mood, Shadows sometimes emit their soot from the top of their heads. This means that as the shadows go about their classy lifestyles, they tend to leave a lot of mess behind which may accumulate in the rooms they occupy, spread all throughout the house, and dust the objects around them. As expected, cleaning this mess is a part of the job of the exploited Living Dolls.
Though the Shadows are a clear representation of an abusive upper class, this anime doesn’t villainize Shadows as a whole. It doesn’t just say that the shadows are bad or that the masters of the living dolls are bad people who abuse the dolls without reason. This anime is much more complex than that and takes us through the nuances of the overall situation by making the Shadows House a microcosm of real society. The house contains various floors, and each shadow strives to attain higher power by climbing up the ranks which are representative of the floor on which they reside. It is a beautifully plotted setting that is easy to understand and that showcases how power and class work. By having a well-written structure that serves as the foundation for the narrative and involves each of the characters, Shadows House avoids shallow messaging like ‘shadows are bad’ and ‘living dolls are good’ and instead focuses on the bigger picture, portraying each character as a victim of the poor system.
With this in mind, all of the characters act in their own ways and aren’t just labelled as “friend” or “enemy.” These characters have genuine interactions as they try to navigate through the roles they are placed in. Shadows House truly makes the audience feel like every person introduced serves a purpose in the story and makes sure that each of them has their own likable traits that’ll leave you wishing they had more screen time. Even the face-less Shadows were far from lifeless or expressionless.
Most notable of the cast, asides from our main character, is the Shadow Kate whom Emilico is assigned to. Kate is calm and collected and finds Emilico’s cheerful behavior to be endearing. Over the course of the series, Kate and Emilico grow to be close friends that constantly encourage one another and help each other through the challenges they face. Their friendship is fun to watch, and the events they undergo lead them to develop and influence each other in interesting ways.
Presentation-wise, Shadows House doesn’t let the viewers down either. The premise, proper setting, and well-written characters are all brought together by a unique gothic aesthetic that’s embedded into every aspect of the anime. In the art, we can see it in the lacy outfits and intricate backgrounds. The Shadows House itself is a a large manor with secret doors and pillars that perfectly work with the vibe that the anime gives off. The music matches the gothic aesthetic too. The opening song is a particularly fitting instrumental. And while the ending theme is more modern, it contains choral samples that exude a mysterious, almost haunting feel. There isn’t a single aspect of the show or single frame in the series that doesn’t fit the intended style. This is a show that knows what it wants to do and executes it.
Shadows House is an anime more people should be talking about. As a show that is both fun yet thematically sound and mysterious yet socially relevant, this anime has a lot of variance in appeal. No matter what you’re looking for, Shadows House will likely have something for you to appreciate. The story which discusses power, autonomy, class, and friendship all at once, is well-built with likable characters. The expertly integrated gothic aesthetic alone sets it apart from most other anime, both in this season and in general. This is one of the most easily watchable and easily recommendable shows I have seen in a while, and I highly encourage everyone to give it a go.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jun 26, 2021
This review contains spoilers
Josee, The Tiger and the Fish tries to be a romance sol, a self-growth story, and a hobby passion story all at once. While it contains elements to make up each of the things it aspires to be, the movie lacks the nuance to fully become any of them.
As a romance slice of life, Josee The Tiger and the Fish misses the mark because most of the characters are blank slates. Blank slates can still move, can still take part in great scenes (which the movie isn’t completely devoid of), and can grow to be filled along the way with details. However,
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blank slates are not preferable. They are depthless, often boring, and most importantly, don’t make for good romances. This is because romances are built upon emotional connection, and emotional connection is reliant on character background—something blank slate characters don’t come with.
The protagonist, Tsuneo, is a typical bland self-insert. Nothing defines him as a character other than his briefly discussed love for diving and the fact that he plans to study abroad. The latter isn’t even a character trait but rather a part of the plot. You can describe Tsuneo by the things he does in this anime, but he has no character outside of the confines of this story; like every other blank slate, he doesn’t even get a backstory. He has no distinct personality and simply exists and acts in the narrative.
Josee has more personality than Tsuneo. But she still doesn’t get an actual backstory other than a couple spoken details. Like Tsuneo who is defined by his poorly written love for diving, she is defined by her love for the ocean and art. We don’t know what drew towards her art hobby, but Josee at least acts with character rather than being a blank slate pulled by the storyline. As someone who was a bit bossy at first and needed to spend time with Tsuneo to ease up to him, and as someone who reasonably wants to see more of the outside world because she was always kept in her house, her character has enough purpose and depth. She is the only person in the movie that I think passes as a character. And with this in mind, I feel like she should’ve been the protagonist of the story. As the character who grows the most and as the only character with a nuanced personality, it would’ve been sensical and more impactful to have her be point of view for the narrative. There’s literally no reason for her story to be viewed from someone else’s point of view.
The side characters were disappointing. Josee’s grandmother had no active influence over anything that happened. The only time Josee’s grandmother was remotely relevant to the plot was 1) when she hired Tsuneo at the beginning of the movie and 2) when she died. Josee’s grandmother is none other than a plot device used to initiate Tsuneo and Josee’s relationship and then later add story conflict in it.
Tsuneo’s friend Mai is the most useless character of all. Their other friend, Hayato, is useless too but he at least seems to know it. Mai on the other hand has a couple scenes that focus on her to make it seem like she’s important, but none of it matters. We don’t know anything about her except that she’s in love Tsuneo for some reason. There really isn’t any detail or meaning to it, but it’s not even important because it doesn’t go anywhere. After her confession, Tsuneo doesn’t react, and the movie just moves on to the next scene. She was likely only put in the movie to make Tsuneo look like a cooler person which was unnecessary and annoying. To begin with, writers need to stop putting female characters in stereotypical roles like this solely for the purpose of making guys seem more likable especially if it has no effect whatsoever on the story. But regardless of whatever the writer's intention was, her involvement in this movie ended up being nothing more than a hinderance. It was predictable, forgettable, and pointless.
But even with how poor the characters are, the romance still had some hope. Even blank characters can have decent love stories. You don’t always need a backstory or a completely fleshed out personality to at least create the basic building blocks of a good relationship plotline such as angst, yearning, and affection. All you do need is time and character interaction. But unfortunately, when the characters in this movie interact, it is brief and we’re barely a part of it as the audience. Most of the interactions between Josee and Tsuneo happen in montages. And then after that, Josee’s grandmother dies, they fix things, and then they confess to one another. There are a lot missing details to make a strong connection between the two characters. To say it was impossible for them to be in love isn’t exactly true; We know they’re spending time together, we know they’re encouraging each other in some way, and there are one or two scenes (like when Tsuneo gives Josee the lamp) that we can see the two getting closer to one another. But other than that, there are a lot of parts the audience isn’t involved in which makes their relationship hard to follow. There isn’t much deep conversation between them and majority of the time they spend together is shown to us in short random scenes. Josee, The Tiger and the Fish seems to assume that a meet cute a bunch of montages automatically make a romance. They don’t.
As a self-growth story, the movie never finds the proper focus either. As mentioned, Josee should’ve been the protagonist of the story. She is the more important main character, and her growth is the most noticeable. Adding the self-insert Tsuneo and having him be the vantage point for someone else’s story is unreasonable.
Tsuneo’s own growth is flat because none of the ups and down of his development are caused by him or his own action. When Tsuneo gets injured, it is tied to Josee. When Tsuneo decides to get over his grief, it’s because of Josee. It’s great that the two characters encourage each other, but like in every great self-growth story the protagonist needs to have a sense of agency. Tsuneo does not have this, and he is only pulled by Josee and her story.
This dichotomy of Josee being the important variable of the plot and her never truly being the center of the story due to everything happening from Tsuneo’s point of view creates an imbalance that stunts the emotional impact that the character growth should’ve had. The writers chose the wrong lens, and as a result, the audience never feels like they’re with the person who’s growing.
This imbalance also affects the other parts of the movie. One of the best scenes is when Josee reads her story to Tsuneo and the kids in the library. The scene is notable because it is the scene where Josee becomes confident enough in herself to properly read to the kids and show them her art. It also shows that she’s going to do her best to be supportive for Tsuneo. She’s gotten over her regret and is making an effort to make amends. As we can see, Josee is the one who’s making a difference here. Not Tsuneo who is listening to her story. Josee is the one who grew the most and got over the lack in self-confidence the whole movie has been building up for her. Yet somehow, Tsuneo is the focus in this scene. Rather than framing it as the important part of Josee’s development that it is, we look at from Tsuneo’s view. And while Tsuneo does get something out of this moment, he is not the one actively self growing and is not the one the story should be focused on.
Josee, the Tiger and the Fish also falls short as a hobby passion story because none of the character’s passions are actually explored. Other than more montages involving Tsuneo diving, we don’t really delve deep (not a pun) into Tsuneo’s affinity for the activity. He dives, works at a diving store, and knows how to make fish lamps. That’s it. Notice how these are all surface level details loosely linked to diving and not really about the sport itself.
Because Tsuneo’s love for diving is so poorly written and unexplored, the scene where he almost loses his ability to dive after the accident feels lifeless. He’s sad that he might not be able to dive anymore, and the audience may feel some sympathy from that. But it doesn’t have the same emotional punch as it would have had if we actually knew why and how much Tsuneo loved diving. There’s just a lot of missing build up. All I saw in that scene was someone who almost lost the ability to do something he loved. But that something he loved could’ve been anything. The diving itself is not connected to Tsuneo’s character very well, and we don’t even know anything about why he does it.
Josee’s love for art is mostly the same. If anything, her art is mostly just a channel for her development and a way to tie in the storyline of her getting over her lack in self confidence. It could’ve been any other hobby and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference because we don’t really know why Josee likes art in the first place. We learn nothing about either diving or art in this movie. They are just parts of the plot loosely related to the characters.
Now you may be wondering, well if Josee the Tiger and the Fish isn’t a proper romance slice of life, a self-growth story, or a hobby passion story, then what is it? The answer is that it’s a decent movie that simply doesn’t find it’s footing.
Josee the Tiger and the Fish is easy to watch and has a couple moments with lots of potential. Though it’s quite depthless, has subpar writing, and isn’t properly focused, the movie is simple, isn’t problematic, and is paired with excellent production qualities.
The art is beautiful and has calming colors. The visual directing isn’t entirely unique, but there are a couple shots that use angles knowledgably and leave you in awe like the scene at the beach and the scenes where Josee falls down the hill. The only big issue I have with the art is the character designs which fall on the plainer side, but the characters are still distinguishable from one another, so this is somewhat of a nitpick.
The music is by far the best part of the anime. The sound directing is good and the score is fantastic. The absurd amount of montages were manageable because the background music was always incredible, and the slower more focused scenes were accompanied with well-fitting instrumentals. There was also an evident use of dynamics. Trains passing by and the sounds of the city were expertly portrayed with varying levels of loudness. Eve’s theme song was an excellent addition as well. Played towards the end, it gave the movie much needed energy.
Josee, The Tiger and the Fish is an unbalanced movie with an unclear story direction. It has plain characters who don’t offer much to the narrative, poor focus, and a lot of missing details needed to attain its aim of becoming either a slice of life romance, a self-growth story, or a hobby passion anime. There is nothing exceptional about this film, and most of the plot points are wasted potential. Despite this, it’s far from a horrible movie. The one or two memorable scenes may or may not leave a personal impact depending on the viewer, the art is consistently great, and the sounds are stunning. I won’t recommend this anime, and I’d direct anyone looking for something similar to Koe no Katachi which easily has better characterization. But Josee, the Tiger and the Fish is a generally harmless movie. So if you’re just looking for a chill anime with great audiovisuals, this may be the one for you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 30, 2021
This review mentions sexual assault, self-harm, and suicide.
I have rewatched Wonder Egg Priority multiple times in an effort to organize my conflicting feelings towards it. On one hand, it has beautiful visuals, an intriguing aura, and a great first couple episodes. On the other hand, it has shallow concepts, a messy narrative, a lack in direction, problematic messages, poor character development, exploitation of sensitive themes, and a failed execution of ideas. Yeah, the cons definitely outweigh the pros with this one.
Wonder Egg markets itself as an odd yet beautiful dream of self-acceptance full of imagery and symbolism. The first scene of the anime introduces us
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to our protagonist, Ai, in the middle of the street when a strange voice taking form of a firefly brings her to an underground arcade and gives her an egg. Breaking the egg transports Ai to a surreal world that slowly reveals itself as a danger zone where she is tasked to protect a person called a “Wonder” from a creature called a “Wonder Killer”, a representation of the person’s struggles or trauma. Ai then meets friends who also take part on their own journeys to defeat Wonder Killers. Every character has their own backstory and a set of convictions that affect how they act and fight against trauma. It’s a very original and mysterious Ikuhara-esque concept that aims to tackle how we overcome our issues. But with each episode, the anime gets more and more problematic until it completely falls apart.
One of Wonder Egg’s main fallbacks is its use of imagery. Ironically, imagery is the whole appeal of the show and the reason why I admittedly had high hopes for it. But over time, it got repetitive, and I realized that it was due to the constricted nature by which imagery in Wonder Egg is presented.
The wonder killers (victim’s trauma) are always actual beings. There’s the abusive teacher, the abusive teacher #2, the abusive coach, and so on. Not only is this the same thing over and over again, but I find this pattern problematic because when we talk about sensitive topics like self-harm and suicide in real life, trauma doesn’t always take form of one specific event or attacker.
We can see how this issue affects the story in one of the episodes that focuses on Momoe, a tomboyish girl learning to deal with society’s ideas of gender and appearance. Fitting with the theme, the person Momoe was tasked to save in that episode was a non-conforming girl who identified as a boy. This is great. Having Momoe pair up with someone who is also subjected to society’s standards is a very thematic plot choice that allows the opportunity for Momoe to maybe learn something about herself from their encounter. I thought, “Cool, so this whole dream sequence is going to focus on how they accept themselves despite societal pressures.” Perhaps the wonder killer would be a representation of society that they could beat together.
But no. Instead, the Wonder Killer was a rapist… which I found completely random. Yes, rape is an issue. But is it a good issue to poorly tie into the topic of gender norms for no deep reason? Absolutely not. Why suddenly insert a rapist when the topic isn’t about dealing with rape? Doing this just feels like the show is forcibly inserting rapists everywhere. It also feels a lot like the show is just digressing from the initial topic at hand.
If Wonder Egg wants to tackle challenging societal norms, then the issue should be society itself. But this anime consistently uses one specific attacker to encompass the whole issue. In doing this, it only focuses on face-value encounters and makes it seem like the entire problem lies within just one superficial enemy or trauma. It is a wasted opportunity that hinders Wonder Egg from using imagery in a broader way. Had they used the dream sequence in order to symbolize society and its issues as a whole, the anime would have better succeeded in connecting to the bigger picture. Instead, Wonder Egg’s imagery is too narrow, relying on a single person to put the blame on.
Object symbolism in this anime doesn't come with much meaning either. The firefly from the first episode is seen every once and while but doesn’t represent anything. It could’ve been any other bug or small object, and everything would’ve remained the same. Ai has heterochromia which is supposed to show how different she is and tie into the fact that she was made fun of in school. But then the anime contradicts this symbolism by introducing another character with heterochromia who was considered smart and beautiful rather than someone who was made fun of. All of the main girls have different weapons when they enter the dream world, and the show even draws attention to this when Ai first fights a wonder killer with one of her friends. But the weapons barely catered to their backgrounds OR only referenced one small part about their personality. It would be easy to assume that the creators just randomly gave them something cool that would look good with their character design. For the most part, this isn’t a huge issue. But it’s disappointing because the anime sets itself up to be something deeper and because most of these ideas take place in a dream world that’s supposed to be some representation of reality. I love analyzing and reading between the lines, and I thought that Wonder Egg would make me do that with its unusual concepts. But it’s mostly just pseudo-symbolic repetition without thought.
Despite this shallow repetition and narrow imagery, the girls-fighting-against-wonder-killers formula was still a solid one that produced decent results in the beginning of the anime. We got to see girls be badass and overcome their trauma. Everything was running smoothly, and there weren’t any big plot issues. But that’s exactly why when Wonder Egg abandoned this formula, the narrative completely collapsed.
For some reason, the creators of the anime couldn’t stick to one idea. So before we even hit halfway through the series, they started playing around with the messages of the anime. One line that shifted the tone of the narrative was “Boys’ and girls’ suicides mean different things. Men are goal-oriented, and women are emotion-oriented. Women are impulsive and easily influenced by others’ voices.” Suddenly, Wonder Egg was no longer a show that focused on girls simply to show their growth and strength. It became a show that focused on girls because apparently ‘they’re emotional and easily manipulated’. Tying those stereotypical ideas into suicide was a horrible choice. The show tries to make sense of it later on in the anime, but it just ends up being rushed. So the lines came off like something that the writers genuinely believed in.
A lot of the smaller dialogue started relying on similar gender stereotypes as well. For example, some quotes from the anime are “Men who ask women for money are all fake” and “A beautiful woman never needs a wallet.” Both of these lines come from Rika, one of Ai’s friends who is involved in acts of self-harm and lives in a single-parent-household with an alcoholic mother. Knowing this, I assume that the dialogue was meant to show the mindset of a child from a troubled home with absent parental figures. However, I don’t understand why they had to be so stereotypical. There are multiple other ways to display a person’s mindset without having to rely on problematic dialogue. The fact that these messages are repeated throughout the show makes it feel like the anime is exploiting Rika’s background and using these lines more as shock factor rather than to show her growth. This is even more evident when Rika implies that she hasn’t gained a sense of self-acceptance.
After one of her Wonder Killer battles, Rika says “Even if it means hurting myself, I’m going to live.” Anyone who knows how dangerous self-harm can be should understand why this line is a big issue. Not only did the anime actively promote self-harm, but it also marketed it as growth.
Now I like to give shows the benefit of the doubt, so I thought that the line might have just been a part of the story. Maybe the anime is self-aware of how incorrect it is and is only using it to build bigger themes. I tried to think of it as a means for Rika’s characterization to maybe emphasize her troubled background. But I recently rewatched that episode and saw no indication of that line having a deeper connection to Rika’s family life. In fact, that line was part of the last episode of the series that fully focused on Rika, so the anime never clears up the way it poorly handled self-harm. Though I’ve tried to think positively, I cannot find anything to justify that piece of scriptwriting. It blatantly views self-harm in a positive light to the point that I can no longer call this an anime about self-acceptance.
The creators also began flooding the show with too many ideas and cheap plot twists, most of which were crammed towards the end of the anime where the writers didn’t have enough time to cover them all. New antagonists and backstories were introduced in the last few episodes of the series, unnecessary changes to the storyline happened at every corner, and random events were inserted just for the sake of shock value rather than actual relevance to the overarching plot.
Wonder Egg even introduces inter-relational conflicts that never get fully explored. One example of this is with Neiru, one of Ai’s friends. Neiru has a tense relationship with her sister, and when she tells Ai about this, we learn about the sequence of events that led to their complex sisterhood. But the details were incomplete. The anime set it up as a mystery to unfold as the story went along. What really happened? Why did her sister act the way that she did? Even after watching all twelve episodes of the anime, I still don’t know. The show just brings up the issue but never resolves it.
When I expressed these concerns, fans argued that there would be more episodes or at least more content to close things up properly. Though a special broadcast in June has been announced, I highly doubt that the franchise will be able to tackle all of the issues found in the anime and tie all the loose strings together in a twenty-minute episode. The storyline is already a mess and there would be too many relationships to cover. This is a clear production, time management, and story building mistake on the studio’s part. And the need for a special broadcast only emphasizes their shortcomings.
Amidst all of these flaws, I admit that there are still some things Wonder Egg does well. For example, the directing really stands out in some of the quieter scenes of the anime. From the moment we’re introduced to Ai and the world of Wonder Egg Priority, there’s this calming aura of quiet eeriness that pulls you in. The atmosphere is immersive and will keep you hooked to find out what happens next in the series.
Wonder Egg also has stunning visuals. The animation looks like it came straight out of KyoAni with consistent and fluid drawings. The color palette is unique with bold colors that grab your attention, and the artists use this with a good understanding of contrast and tone. Flexible and eye-catching, Wonder Egg’s art is one of the few parts of the anime that remained consistent throughout its twelve-episode-run. Paired with the messy plotline, some may call Wonder Egg an anime that chooses style over substance. And they aren’t wrong.
Looking at it as a whole, Wonder Egg was an imperfect but cool idea that ended up being too ambitious for its own good. It introduced too many plot points without properly bringing them together which affected the messaging and made the show feel less cohesive. While watching this anime, I often found myself wondering whether the creators even knew what they were doing. It seemed like they couldn’t decide the direction that they wanted to go, so they just let the story jump around until they found something that evoked some sort of emotion from the audience. It’s messy writing that falls short in multiple aspects of story building and fails to connect to the initial topic of self-acceptance. Putting aside the solid beginning and fun visuals, I can’t find much to recommend about this show. And though I’m frustrated that we’ll never see how this anime could’ve gone with proper execution, I’ll probably just remember it as another one of CloverWorks’ cringeworthy letdowns this season.
4/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Oct 1, 2020
Burn the witch made me feel like I was watching the 6th episode (and only the 6th episode) in a 12 episode series.
The first part of the anime jumps straight into action with minimal information. We get about 2 minutes of the anime establishing the setting, another 2 minutes of vague implications about who and what people are, and then all of a sudden we’re fighting dragons in the middle of the street. The lack in background isn’t so bad that you can’t follow what’s going on, but the anime would have been a million times better if everything had been laid out properly before
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the plot started escalating (which is how stories usually work).
On a positive note, I thought the sounds were amazing. The greatest selling point of this anime would probably be the background music which fit the scenes very well. The music had a magical vibe that was perfect for the plot. It was also very innovative since it combined different kinds of sounds: modern sounds, orchestral sounds, and even some really cool vocals. I enjoyed the effects and outro too.
5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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