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Hello everyone! I am zerriet and I am 17 years of age. I started watching anime back when I was 7 with my first anime being gundam seed and second one being D Gray Man, both of which I immensely enjoyed.
My love for anime immensely spiked after I went for a convention in 2011 since it helped expose me to various different series. From there, I learnt that there are a lot of better anime out there besides the more mainstream ones like the Big 3. I started reviewing as of late 2013 because I felt the need to express my opinion on shows which I watched and hopefully, be able to recommend to others about it.
A key idea of reviewing is to always analyse a show from different perspectives, hence there is no show that is purely bad or purely good. It is always about weighing the good and the bad. Sometimes, when it comes to more complex series, it is essential to not think from a one sided manner and hence be able to understand why some people like the show and why some people dislike the show. This is also why I sometimes dislike the score system on MAL because people usually separate an anime into different components rather seeing it as one medium, which again affects one's perception of an anime at times because having subjectivity sometimes adds to objectivity.
Nevertheless, what I hope to accomplish is set up a Youtube channel for reviewing anime and become as successful as Gigguk-a reviewer whom I highly admire.
Edit: Seventhstyle was taken down by its host and replaced with some religious site. As of now, I work as an intern at a manga studio, hoping to produce a good piece of work.
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All Comments (33) Comments
Unfortunately, at this point, my impression of Erased has somewhat gone down even more; I've given a final rating of 7. I still stand by all the points I brought up to you in my last response.
I can understand the lack of development for characters like Yashiro and Airi, given the time constraints, but I don't think that should be any excuse (not accusing you or upset with you or anything, just fyi); I judge the anime adaptation on its own merits and demerits, without comparison to its manga source.
For the grandmother, the only subtle hint I can think of leading up to her appearance is that it'd perhaps be a decent metaphor illuminating a mother-daughter relationship different from the one between Kayo and her mother, and then comparing/contrasting them. But even so, I think that's a little bit *too* subtle, to the point that the grandmother's appearance just feels spontaneous and contrived; I won't ask to make it "more obvious", but I think *some* mention or introduction of the grandmother prior to episode 9 would've been good to better set up for the emotional resolution of this conflict. And like I said in my last response, her sudden appearance and backstory infodump dampened the effect of Kayo's arc climax, making the closure feel rushed and underwhelming.
Moving on to new territory then, I also didn't really like the direction the second half of episode 9 and the first half of episode 10 took; having resolved Kayo's character arc, Satoru then has to save the other children potentially involved in the murder cycle: Hiromi, Aya, and Misato. And the latter two in particular have almost no development, very little screen time, and very little purpose other than being generic characters that need saving. This scenario is made worse by how... jarring and dissonant it was to spend so much time with Kayo, but then turn the focus over to these very minor characters. Needless to say, I have no investment in them this late into the story, and so their scenes as well as Satoru's actions on how to get close to and befriend them have no weight.
Then there's episode 11:
- Regarding the pseudo-NTR controversy, I do think it's a legitimate criticism, even though I personally have no strong feelings about the issue. Given how much the anime has been hinting and teasing at shipping/romance between him and Kayo (the anime is even more blatant than the manga about this), combined with all their relationship-building scenes, I think people have the right to feel upset. You can argue from a realism perspective (not realistic for Kayo to wait that long, and Satoru never claimed to have feelings for her anyway, and vice versa, and that Satoru's objective was to save lives, not find romance) that this is all acceptable, and I wouldn't disagree (especially since the characters themselves are happy), but from a storytelling perspective, it's probably not the most satisfying development for many people, also because we get almost nothing between Kayo and Hiromi in terms of relationship-building.
- Yashiro's backstory and motive turned out to be pretty underwhelming (I understand the manga is more in-depth regarding this, but again, I'm judging only the anime) - just something about drowning hamsters and delighting in raising a survivor, which conveys a sort of shallow edginess. But then again, such a shallow backstory was to be expected from a psychopathic child murderer; perhaps it is not objectively bad writing, but that doesn't make it good or compelling writing either, imo.
- Episode 11 felt pretty rushed, even without comparison to the manga. It just felt like there was this jarring tone shift. Suddenly Satoru wakes up from a 15-year coma and then the story breezes through his interactions with his friends and loved ones, leaving me unable to really feel much emotional weight behind them.
- Kumi. It's far too late in the story to introduce a new character; I would have preferred it if the anime had used that time to better the interactions between Satoru and his friends, who are already established characters.
And then finally there's episode 12:
- That whole rooftop scene honestly made me cringe at some parts... like really, Satoru goes out and says to Yashiro "Because you needed me! I was your reason to live. I was your hope. I filled the hole in your heart!" That was just really cringe-worthy dialogue with inappropriate undertones... regardless of its validity. And then Yashiro proceeds to say that "I can't live without you". Seriously, this whole thing was just... dumb, sorry to be so blunt. It just comes off as excessively melodramatic and exaggerated, especially since this involves a *psychopathic child murderer*, to the point that I can't really take this scene seriously. It felt more comedic to me than anything serious, really. And so in the end, Yashiro as an antagonist leaves no lasting impression on me and just comes off as a generic serial killer.
- Airi appearing at the very end had me feeling nothing whatsoever, for obvious reasons. She had little purpose, not enough screen time, not enough development, with the story just regurgitating the memory of her talking to Satoru about believing in people, in a shallow, failed attempt to make her seem relevant still.
- "Power of friendship and trusting others" theme. Been there, done that, and Erased didn't execute it any more profoundly. And Aya and Misato being part of the group of friends towards the end felt pretty superficial to me.
So in the end, there's almost nothing in Erased besides the Satoru-Kayo relationship-building that leaves any lasting impression on me or gives me any genuine feelings. The anime has gone from good to just average for me.
Sorry for only spouting criticisms though. I agree with most people that the first half of Erased was pretty great, with palpable tension and suspense, and a good atmosphere. And we both agree the cinematography is great as well. Unfortunately, I don't really have much else for which I can really praise Erased as something excellent. I'm not so big on the character interactions though (it got just a little bit irritating to hear the characters say "See you later" all the time, Kayo saying "Are you stupid?", and Satoru saying "Yokai" and "I said that out loud"... seriously, I swear these lines made up at least 7-10% of the total dialogue, and that's not good).
Cool to hear about you interning at a studio! You're free to ask for my opinion on your story draft if you want haha. I am currently working on my own novel, though I only have ideas and outlines and haven't actually written anything yet. As a general rule of thumb though, I try to limit the number of characters to what's really necessary (with some flexibility, of course) in order to give them proper development, purpose, and screen time, and this is partly why I don't like Erased's methodology in the character department; Aya, Misato, Airi, Kumi, and some other minor characters don't have enough substance to them to warrant being in the story, and furthermore, their scenes and dialogue take time away from the more important characters and conflicts. So yes, this is just me, but I prefer a smaller cast of characters, not the large sizes you see in, say, long-running shounen anime.
It's definitely clear that Revival is a flaw in the show, but I must heavily insist that it is indeed a game-breaking one. The feeling of knowing that at any second, for no particular reason, everything is just going to be reset completely sucks all suspense out of the show. It is impossible to care about what happens because the the MC has infinite tries to get it right.
The way to tell if a mature theme is being handled correctly is to ask yourself "could this be substituted with anything else and still be just the same?" In this case, the answer is yes. Child abuse was not an essential element to the story; it was just a dark, depressing thing the writers threw in their to make Kayo sympathizable, which of course is in order to shortcut the process of giving her a character. It's bad writing in its most sincere form.
You say that Satoru isn't a white knight, but then you describe him as "He went from being fuelled to save his mother, to saving his friends and then just making things right in general". You have just described a white knight archetype. His only goals are to be morally righteous.
Kayo was a mess. She had like 4 lines and most of them were her "are you stupid" catchphrase.
"Puppy-love" type relationships don't usually involve become aroused at the thought of someone's naked body. But maybe that's just me.
Thanks for your comment, but I remain steadfast in my viewpoints.
I wrote some more about the subject in this comment, if you'd like to take a look:
http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1489868&show=450#msg45135629
That being said, I do acknowledge Erased's merits. The anime has good cinematography, as you said, and uses that to generate good atmosphere, suspense, and tension. The emotional moments, mainly those involving Kayo and Satoru, are generally well-executed, especially that breakfast scene in episode 8. And Sachiko is a great mom.
All in all, I think Erased is a "good" show, but I can't really give it more than that, personally; it's probably an 8 for me (you can see from my votes that I tend to be somewhat generous; the majority of them are 8's, and I pretty much never give below a 6 unless it's like ecchi hentai or something... but it'd take a hell of a lot for me to give a 10 haha). There's just not much in Erased that really... stands out to me as something really special. The most notable thing is the relationship between Kayo and Satoru, but even that is not something I'm absolutely wow'ed by; the effect is probably dampened now that Kayo is mostly out of the main plot, which I don't think was a particularly good decision. I think a lot of people were drawn into the anime by her character and interactions with Satoru, and their relationship-building for over 2/3 of the story, but now that she seems to have taken a lesser role, there's not as much emotional investment (and there are only 2 episodes left, which will probably be mostly spent giving resolution to Satoru and the killer). Aside from Kayo though, the only characters I find at least decently fleshed out are Satoru and his mother; the others don't leave much impression on me (Airi hasn't gotten enough screen time, significant development, or plot importance; Kayo's mother got some background, yes, but the way it was executed/resolved was lackluster to me, because the story suddenly decided to bring in the grandmother out of nowhere, and give sudden exposition and unsatisfying closure to Kayo's "arc", which felt rushed and underwhelming; there's potential in Kenya, but so far he hasn't gotten much *personal* development, outside of helping Satoru). As for the killer, I don't think people should expect too much out of his "motives"... he's a psychopath murderer who kidnaps and kills children, there's not going to be anything "deep" about his background, or anything we'd be impressed by; it's just going to be messed up. And you can read my thoughts on the mystery in the link I sent you above.
So yeah, overall Erased has been a good show, but I don't have particularly strong positive feelings about it.
I also don't just arbitrarily dislike shows that achieve high ranks or critical acclaim, I'm definitely not a bandwagoner though and I can't help but notice that it's always a lot of the same mega hyped and advertised shows from the same kind of producers with similar genre elements or premises that get those high rankings so it's like are people rating things based on the actual perceived quality of the show or based on the genre, producer and politics. When a lot of the top 25 show is produced by the same producer that always hypes and advertises the crap out of their shows and a lot of them could be described as of the "Nakiani" or "Crying anime" genre where the goal seems to be to tug at those who are susceptible to that sort of things emotions and give them the "feels" I can't help but wonder if shows are getting their acclaim for playing that angle as opposed to anything else. I don't feel like I'm the only person that seems to have noticed and pointed out this pattern.
It's just these sorts of things that make the anime community and especially MAL come across as just kind of fake or at best reactionary.
Also don't worry I can tell the difference between somebody just asking some questions and somebody posting on my wall to start shit as both tend to happen often enough. Generally if people don't act like a complete MAL douche to me as you put it I have absolutely no reason but to be polite to them in kind. See I'd like to think I'm not an asshole even if the things I say can come across that way, I just see no reason to BS people about how I feel about the politics coursing through the anime community lately and how frankly I think they're being lead along by the nose by big empty advertising a lot of the time instead of just coming to their own conclusions and forging their own tastes and opinions. Again as long as people own their opinions and explain why without being an asshat about it no harm no foul even if I don't agree with them.
As for your post, well it just strikes me as common sense lol. Yeah we should be the past point and better than picking out some random hype show in somebodies list and saying their opinion doesn't matter because they didn't give it some arbitrarily high rating. So fucking what, like how overconfident does somebody have to be in the objective righteousness of their personal opinion to pull that sort of thing. Sadly it happens a lot in the anime community these days and is frankly coming from people that really don't seem to know a lot about anything other than how to be a loud mouth and follow whatever is trendy and popular so again it's just kind of tiresome and makes me sigh at how immature people professing to watch mature and adult oriented animation can be.
Anyway, if you like the show, that's fine. I personally thought it was awful. I could go into detail but I'm sure you wouldn't want to read all that. lol
If I am REALLY bored and have nothing to watch or do, I might pick it up. When it comes to Aldnoah.Zero though, I'd probably only watch it to analyse it and point out it's flaws. A lot of people got annoyed at me, "If you don't like it, why are you watching it" and all that stuff... It got really repetitive replying to those people. I guess it's a bit different now since more people are more open to criticizing it but I'm not sure if I could stand going through it again... I'll think about it though. If I do watch it though, I'm not watching it on crunchyroll... I don't want to give A-1 Pictures money. lol
If I watched season 2, I'd just be doing what those parasites at A-1 Pictures want me to do and that is watch their anime and giving them money. I might have been tempted to watch it if people were praising it but apparently the majority of the community is bashing it so I don't really have to. lol
The first season kind of pissed me off with it's lack of originality, effort and charisma. At first I just didn't like it but seeing the promotion for the 2nd season
I might watch it at some point if someone can give me a good enough reason to but for now I don't think I will...
Monogatari series is definitely one of those must sees, even if just to try it out. I didn't care for Nise, but I enjoyed Bake and Second Season. Unfortunately, my memory is so bad I don't remember much about any of them. If you like those shows, I'd also recommend Katanagatari.