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Psycho-pass, more like Psycho-ass, am I right? This show is pretty bad tbh like it thinks it's smarter than it is but really it's just a bunch of farts. The MC has a big forehead which scared me for a bit, but eventually, I got used to it. People like to say this has one of the best anime villains of all time, but the villain is literally just a doggy poo poo version of Johan from Monster. Ahh, Johan, Aw man I really wanna rewatch Monster now, what a GOATED anime. It seems this anime was inspired by Ghost in the Shell, but it ... seems it forgot the PICKLES!! And by pickles i mean good writing, cause holy shit I was bored at times, I really wanted to continue watching The Shield. Aw, The Shield, one of the best TV series of all time and the best series finale I've ever seen. Michael Chickleas as Vic Mackey is such a stellar performance. OMFG I'm just realizing this anime is so bad it's just making me realize actually good shows and movies. This is the same dude who wrote fate/zero, I watched one season of that and it was aight; some weird sus stuff there tho. So in conclusion, psycho-pass, more like psycho-trash. GOT EM

A pretty bad adaptation of one of the greatest manga arcs of all time. I do think adapting this arc as a movie trilogy provides more positives than negatives. Although it would suffer from some cut content (which in turn would affect the characterization and thematic depth) due to not being able to adapt everything in comparison to a TV series that has more time, it would be able to reach the extremely high artistic standards of the manga.

Berserk has some of the greatest art in any comic book, which makes it one of the hardest manga to adapt properly (also in part because ... of other aspects, like how it uses the comic medium to its full potential). A TV anime would not be able to do it justice because of the limited budgets and extremely tight schedules that plague a lot of shows in the industry. The budget, resources, and schedule of a movie would be able to emulate the ridiculous standards set by the manga to a much larger degree than a TV series. Unfortunately, the movie fails here and in many other parts too.

Right from the start, the film is littered with janky and bad CGI in a mediocre battle scene that showcases many of the other issues to come. CGI is used a lot in this film and it does not fit well at all with the 2D animation (which by itself is relatively decent). This in itself is pretty disappointing considering the art is one of the biggest strengths of the Berserk manga. The movie fails largely in the animation and a lot of the visuals, not living up to the transcendently dark yet beautiful atmosphere of the manga. Although, an apparent strength in this movie is the background art, which is pretty good most of the time.

As mentioned before, although some depth could be lost by reducing this arc to a movie trilogy because of cut content, this can be saved by some rewriting and making each film around 2 hours. The runtime of this film sends a bad sign as when removing the theme song, the preview of the next movie, and credits it’s less than 70 minutes. This issue is reflected in the terrible pacing, and an egregious amount of cut content that removes almost all the characterization, thematic depth, and subtlety that make this manga so amazing. If this is your first time getting into this series, these fantastically written characters like Casca, Guts, and Griffith will seem stale and boring to you.

This film also weirdly prioritizes a lot of action scenes and trivial scenes that are largely unimportant in the grand scheme of things. In turn, largely skipping a lot of the character-building moments and dialogues (until the last 15-20 minutes) that make Berserk so beloved. Important parts like Guts backstory are skimmed through in an uncreative and poorly directed 30-second nightmare sequence (where if you were new to this series you wouldn’t get it at all). Speaking about the directing, IT’S ASS. It seems this director has a pretty limited idea about what makes the source material so beloved based on a lot of decisions in this movie. Even with the running time being bad, the film itself could have probably been a lot better if it were handed off to somebody more experienced.

If you want to get into Berserk just read the manga because this series will not get a great adaptation anytime soon. It’s one of the best dark fantasy series in fiction. The 1997 TV anime adaptation of the golden age arc is pretty good, the only issues are some cut content (although it’s mostly minor and nowhere near as bad as this movie) and a limited budget which could be seen in the animation being stiff at times.

DISCLAIMER: This is a review I did on anilist just copy pasted here. It is spoiler-free as well.

The delinquent/yankii subculture was very popular in Japan during the 1970s-1990s, which in turn became reflected in its pop culture during this time. The delinquent manga was a very popular sub-genre during the 1980s-1990s being reflective of its era, with its pompadour worn protagonists and side characters exploring the lives of their youth as they get into fights with rival gangs, experience romance, form stronger comradery with their friends, among many other exciting adventures. This subgenre created many popular series that stand as some of the most iconic ... and best-selling manga to this day such as Rokudenashi Blues, Crows, Bad Boys, and the title I'm reviewing right now, Be-Bop High School. Despite being hugely popular, almost all of the manga in this sub-genre never got TV anime series (The only examples of tv delinquent anime are Otoko Ippiki Gaki-Daishō from the late 60s, Hareluya Boy from the late 90s, and just recently Tokyo Revengers which will be getting a TV anime next year) only ever getting live-action (Film series and TV series) adaptations. This is due to a variety of reasons like underage smoking being banned on TV which is a common trope in these series, delinquency being a big social problem in Japan during this time, the success of the live-action market, among many other reasons. With the success of the OVA market starting in the later part of the 80s, a lot of popular delinquent manga managed to get adapted as OVAs (In this case there was a lot more creative freedom, and they wouldn't have to deal with strict guidelines/censorship adapting these series as OVAs in comparison to attempting to do the same as a TV series). Now, this brings us to Be-Bop High School, which was adapted by Toei Animation (Who also did other delinquent OVAs) as 7 50 minute OVAs (Except the last one which was 40 mins) between 1990 to 1998.

Compared to the other delinquent OVAs I have watched this is one of the better adaptations that is decently well made and treats its source material with care. This is a pretty great delinquent OVA series that encapsulates a lot of the qualities that I love so much about the genre. It has great humour/funny gags, a good cast of characters with their own interesting chemistry/behaviour, natural world-building, and just some very fun hijinks/adventures we get to enjoy. I also feel like it understands the appeal and charm of its genre very well, managing to avoid a lot of the cliches/pitfalls and annoying writing you might come upon in some delinquent manga (Ex: Protagonist being a superhuman who never loses, lack of focus on the characterization or the lives of the characters with gang fights occurring all the time, style over substance).

I say this as on the surface it may appear repetitive and lose its charm very quickly with this duo of characters (Hiroshi and Tooru) trying to get girls while running into hijinks with rival gangs. But as mentioned before it understands the appeal/popularity of genre very well, adding a lot of variety to these adventures. Instead, focusing time to explore the daily lives of these cast of characters, which also organically help build into larger world-building (Our protagonists occasionally travel to other prefectures/cities going about their lives/to pick up girls and running into minor characters or antagonists who soon become a major part of the cast and become more fleshed out, as well as the setting they come from), characterization, as well as the larger conflict with gangs/romance and its use of humour. Episode 5 is my favourite episode in this series and very clearly highlights what I'm talking about, as with some other delinquent series it would have resulted in some generic gang fight but goes in very interesting/funny directions I didn't expect.

The character design for this series is great, a very effective art style that manages to capture the various moods and expressions of these wacky characters. The art direction and direction of these episodes are fine, they're nothing special but certainly not bad (There are some standout moments though like the beginning of episode 6 or the use darkness/light in some episodes to highlight the tense mood/danger of a particular scene like the dart gamble scene from episode 2 or the train shot during the night in episode 6 reflecting the protagonists piercing eyes in the shadows during a fight). The fights themselves were fine, some were very great, particularly those from the earlier episodes. However a good chunk of them in the later episodes definitely could have been improved as after a while, some of them looked less unique (Particularly due to the direction and perhaps a tight budget in some areas with the use of close/limited shots). Overall, this is a great delinquent anime, and I highly recommend it to fans of this genre and people who have some interest in it. It sucks that it ended kind of abruptly but I'll take what I can get (Especially since the manga is still being translated to this day and probably won't be finished for well over a decade lol).

Episode ranking: 5>6>4>3>2>1>7