The Reflection

This project is supported by Stan Lee (producer, voice), yes the American comics creator of known characters from Marvel. Do you think that a person like him will support a "piece of garbage"? Stan Lee will appear here, no I am not kidding and isn't a Marvel cameo.

The Reflection isn't an animation for everyone. Your first impression will be the ART. A lot of persons will consider it awful, wrong, incorrect, a total waste, something that will burn your eyes. However, the show uses a technique that tries to recreate the American comic and animation from the 60 - 80s, In other words, an ... American Comic in Motion. The show succeeded in some way (I consider this show as an experimental animation) but at expenses of motion, smoothness, palette design, fluid narrative, animation. If you are seeking a show that uses "conventional" animation, "classical" art palettes and "traditional" smoothness, better that you skip this show or you are going to be very disappointed.

Most of us were waiting to see an ANIME, but this show isn't. I could say the biggest failure was mixing traditional American comic techniques with some Anime techniques. The result is an awful, untasteful combination called the Reflection. However, even if it fails to deliver a good mix between Anime and American comic, the show maintains the traditional idea from an American comic as we can notice in the story.

The American superhero story, I remember why I decided to stop reading - watching them, even movies. The same repetition after repetition, the same argument and the same characters with the same development and now we can see the same argument in the Reflection.

The typical American comic story, a person or a group of individuals gained powers from a source, in this case, the reflection event. To add spice to the story, we have the typical American super hero comic fight between heroes and villains. In the beginning, this story is a bit unpleasant, but after some episodes, the story starts improving a bit.

I can't say anything about the characters, but they are just a copy of American comics characters with some differences. Ironic as it seems, this world has several "ideas" with lots of similarities with those from Lee's worlds, I wonder why. For example Exon. If he touches his opponent's body for three seconds he can copy their power, ¿where did I watch that? Ohh yes, Marvel comics. So far there is only one character that could have a "healthy" development and is called Eleanor.

Lastly, I decided to watch the series until the end, but the performance will "REFLECT" the final score. So far is very average.

Its finally over, the most controversial anime of the year. That being said, its a highly flawed show with some redeeming factors that put it just above average, but its not a must watch or anything.

Story: The pacing is all over the place, sometimes it moves too fast, other times too slow. I still don't understand the villain's plot and the show seems to end with most of the loose ends tied up, but springs a cliffhanger ending so out of nowhere it would give Madoka Magica Rebellion a run for its money on abruptness.

Characters: One of the most redeeming parts of the show. ... X-on, I-guy, Lisa, and Eleanor are all fairly likable with distinct traits but just enough to make them stand out from their counterparts in other mediums. The villains however are pretty generic.

Art: The art looks pretty good in still shots, but looks absolutely awful in animation, some of the worst I've seen in a long time. The fight scenes are a bit better, but lack speed and impact when blows are landed. All the characters lack flow in their movements and feel really stiff. Every once in a while the animation switch flips and the animation is good for a few seconds, but it never lasts. The character designs however are top notch and I would love to seem them brought to life with better animation.

Sound: The voice acting is good, nothing remarkable. and the soundtrack has some memorable tracks, mainly the OP, Sky Show, and the theme of the Reflection event.

Conclusion: The potential this show had was immense. I'm not sure if the problems were because of troubled development or just apathy from DEEN. I want this show to get a second season because buried under the garbage there are some good things about this show. But considering the reception this show got, we probably won't get one. There are some more complaints I have about the show, but those would dive into spoiler territory.

Give the show an episode or two, and if you don't like I can't really blame you.

I think this anime really deserve better scoring than current measly 4.77.

Sound: The OST and the main song is hands down amazing and totally fitting the anime.

Art: I don't read comic books or anything like that but the art style is perfect for this kind of anime.

Story: A weak point... there is so many other stuff with superhero themes it's hard to see anything really new.

Characters: There is some great dynamic and banter between main cast but we don't really get to know them very well, at least not yet. But I certainly prefer them over any movie hero I saw till now.
I like how ... laid back it all seems despite seriousness of the situations (Mushishi director's influence no doubt).

Enjoyment: I-Guy, I-Guy... :D

The Reflection never tries to convince you that it's not a cheap X-Men knockoff, and you won’t forget it either. It constantly copies many of Stan Lee’s stories and superhero cliches. It attempts using a Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic for nostalgia and fails miserably. The visuals are painful on the eyes, despite being released this year you'd have a hard time finding an uglier superhero cartoon released in the past 50 years.

[Story 2/10]
The story follows people who were impacted by the reflection, a world-wide event that caused a fraction of the population to get superpowers. I don't know how else to explain the reflection other ... than it's just a plot convenience to get the ball rolling. People who were affected by the reflection are persecuted by normal society (like X-Men); they struggle against picking which side to fight for, government or the group of reflected people. The main characters live in New York which leads to some nauseating air-borne action scenes in Times Square that could have been really nostalgic in the hands of a more capable studio. Somehow the show feels slow and boring but the story moves far too fast. It suffers from horrible pacing issues. There is practically no rhythm to the sequence of events. Supporting characters pop in and out of the story giving them little time to develop before being tossed aside. After a few wild shifts in the story, I stopped being able to care about what was happening because it all just seemed like a contrivance for the sake of action, which is one of the biggest issues I've seen in superhero movies like The Avengers and the latest X-Men prequel.

The show is heavily plot-driven and that plot is a mess and in no way interesting. I'm sure it's the kind of story that will keep some fans of the genre watching; it's dynamic and each episode ends on a cliffhanger. Believe it or not, but my favorite part of the show was the ending of every episode. Not just because I was glad for it to be over, but the cliffhanger alluded to a more interesting episode (which was never the case). The story is incredibly contrived for the sake of a constantly moving plot, it's also totally predictable from the moment you understand what's the plot is all about, also the twists never feel deserved. Very little is explained about the setting and the show expects you to use prior knowledge of the genre to understand what is happening.

[Character 3/10]
Characters are not the worst part of this show, but that's only because they're just generic and typical superhero caricatures. A true example of the sentiment ”you can't fail if you don't try.”

The four leads that fill the majority of the screentime are Eleanor, Lisa, X-On, and I-Guy. Eleanor is a journalist turned vigilante when she gets her teleporting ability, she has a desire to protect people in danger because she is the hero and has a generic backstory that motivates her to protect others. Lisa is a wheelchair-bound young lady who can transform her chair into a mech, she has a dark backstory about how she lost the ability to use her legs. None of Lisa's characterization comes across as insightful, the most we get for development is that she is a fan of jazz wow! It really is a shame considering how the reflection gave her more mobility but the show fails to comment on this. Lisa's character makes it clear just how much the show missed the opportunity of saying anything meaningful about the reflection, instead, it merely says look at these cool superpowers!

X-On and I-Guy are the more staple heroes, both of them are featured prominently due to how much inspiration they take from Spiderman and Batman respectively. X-On is a good guy who has dubious methods of getting the job done, taking a painful amount of inspiration from heroes like Wolverine and Batman. I-Guy is conflicted between his public image and his secret identity, beyond simply mentioning this characteristic the show doesn't follow through with his arc. The lack of conclusion for any of the character arcs could be due to the lack of a definitive conclusion episode because, like all Stan Lee products, the ending is just a teaser for another season (which will probably never happen).

All four of the leads are duds because of how predictable their dialogue and how bland their backstories are; either their motives appear a bit cloudy or they are as pure as freshly fallen snow, no part of their individual character development matters in any way by the end.
The Eleanor herself isn’t involving in the slightest, but throughout the show, she impacts her adversaries and supporting characters. An example of this potentially solid character writing is when Eleanor confronts the villain Steel Ruler. She talks to her and we find out her dark backstory that, while slightly unoriginal, was very present in her character’s design and personality. She relates to Eleanor because they both were abandoned, and this is even revisited as a prominent theme in a later episode which I thought made for the best writing in the entire show. The only interesting part of the cast is the villains, while they aren't original, some of them have complete arcs which gives you something to root for when trudging through this drek.

[Art 1/10]
The visuals are shockingly bland for a superhero show. Sometimes for minutes at a time you have only 3 colors to look at with very little detail. There were more than a few times I could hardly understand what I was actually looking at onscreen.
At its worst, it's painful on the eyes. It feels like someone removed every other frame from the animations in post-production leaving the action janky and nauseating. The only reprieve I got from the awful action was the CGI, which was by no means good, it's ugly as hell but at least it didn't make my headache. The Reflection may not have had jankiness issues if the episodes were 50% faster at only 10 minutes long instead of 22, but alas it seems as though the director had very little understanding of the woes he ensued upon this show before releasing it (I doubt he even watched it). There were many shots (sometimes entire scenes) where the characters had no faces at all. The artists didn't draw on any details, only the outlines like a first draft of the storyboards. This was probably due to a strained production budget and poor time management.

I think that Studio Deen was aiming for a comic book aesthetic, but due to a clearly strained budget, the result was lackluster at best.
Some of the superpowers are well conveyed like Eleanor's teleporting because it isn’t affected by the lack of frames and Lisa's mech thing which is CGI and is animated separately to everything else. I'm not sure if it's worth mentioning but the opening is incredibly simple, it’s just a few colors devoid of any detail. It’s the blandest OP I've seen all year.

[Sound 5/10]
As for a musical score, if you’ve seen a Marvel movie you may expect a generic soundtrack from this, but The Reflection has a surprisingly solid soundtrack. The most memorable song is Skyshow, that plays whenever the flying hero I-Guy is onscreen, is fantastic.
Unfortunately, they always use an obnoxious echo effect making it hard to appreciate the song. Skyshow is a good song and I think it’s worth listening to separate to this disaster. The show butchers the song by playing it over and over until it loses any magic its singer gave to it. Just another frustratingly bad decision in this production. The only good choice they made was casting Stan Lee in the English dub. He plays a villain, but sadly the script is so flat that it doesn't do him justice. All of the voice acting is rather flat too. On top of that, the sound quality is pretty awful. I don't know if it was just a bad script or if the actors didn't get enough direction, but the end result of the dub is downright painful on the ears. It is disappointing considering Stan Lee is the show’s main selling point.

As a side note, the show flips to Japan from time to time to follow an idol group by the name of Ninth Wonder, they don't really add anything other than the ending song. Their presence in the show is a blatant advertisement for the group 9nine. They performed the song in the ending credits which is, in my opinion, pretty decent J-POP.

[Enjoyment 2/10]
There were times when I felt moderate endearment to the characters and their turmoil, but the myriad of issues that plague this show got in the way far too often and prevented me from rooting for them. Idiotic characters contrasted with a serious and overwrought tone makes me believe that no one in the production of The Reflection cared about the outcome, no matter how embarrassingly awful it would be. Watching the cast struggle to overcome adversity wasn't engaging in the slightest, because of how half-hearted the effort to connect them to a poignant theme was.

Xenophobia is a prominent theme in just about every piece of superhero media, therefore it’s The Reflection. It’s not executed with any delicacy, instead, it’s slopped onto the script for the purpose of evoking modern day prejudices; it in no way comments on its themes, it just reminds us they exist.

[Final Score 3/10]
Dead on arrival, done to death, and in no way original, The Reflection is a low point in Stan Lee’s career that is best left forgotten.
Its only reason for existing seems to be to callback to Saturday morning superhero cartoons, with a bit of a Japanese twist. If you've experienced any form of superhero media before then watching this will cause your eyes to roll right out of their sockets because The Reflection has nothing new to offer whatsoever.

The premise of The Reflection immediately reminded me of the American superhero show "Heroes." Both have a similar premise: after some kind of event, people all over the world emerge with super powers. However, it took Heroes two seasons and a strike before it started being bad. The Reflection is bad right from the get go and continues to plummet in quality until it ends.

Story:
Like previously stated, the premise of The Reflection is that several years ago, some kind of explosion appeared in the sky and was seen all over the world. Some people were hurt by it and the ones who survived are known ... as the Reflected. The Reflected soon realized that the Reflection gave them super powers. The story follows a young woman, Eleanor, and the mysterious hero X-On, as they follow a case of Reflected who are disappearing. They soon find a sinister plot that threatens the world and it's up to them to save the day.

The story premise I wrote above sounds horribly cliche, right? That's because it is. The Reflection's story severely lacks creativity and the story hurts from it. In addition, the pacing is atrocious. Most of the episodes feel like they take an eternity to finish. At the same time, you'll feel like nothing happened in the episode.

The show ends with a cliffhanger that I won't mention in the unlikely event that you'll watch this show to completion like I did, but the show is really banking on a second season for that cliffhanger to mean anything. I highly doubt that this show will receive a second season, so it just wasted a perfectly good ending on nothing. Thanks a lot.

Overall, I found the main plot of the Reflection to be really lacking and generally uninteresting.

Art:
The art is the main reason I started watching this show. When you watch this show, there are times where it feels like this is a graphic novel come to life. I enjoy the art style a lot and is one of the few good things this show has to offer. However, style can only do so much for animation. The actual animation of The Reflection is serviceable at best and at worst, you'll notice some horribly low resolution backgrounds. Another negative of the animation is the CG in this show. Yes, The Reflection has CG and it does not look good in the slightest. At best, it looks okay but when it's bad, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Sound:
The soundtrack to The Reflection is your generic superhero music. I mean, it works but you won't remember it all that much. There's only one song that sticks out in this show and that's I-Guy's main theme song, Sky Show. This theme was upbeat and fun initially and I quite liked it. However, as the show progressed, its charm quickly wore off on me.

Outside of the main show soundtrack are its opening and ending. I loathe the opening to this show because of how goddamn generic it is. Ignoring the horribly generic heroic music that plays in the opening, the opening itself is barely animated. It's just a bunch of letters on bright backgrounds. It's like the producers figured that it'd be a good idea to put in minimalist wallpapers as the opening in a desperate attempt to save money or something. On top of the opening being boring, both visually and musically, it lasts a minute and a half. I started skipping the opening by the second episode.

The ending is an ad for some J-pop group. It has nothing to do with the main themes of the show at all, nothing to do with superheroes or the characters or anything. It's blatant promotional material and I despise it because it doesn't even pretend to be part of this show.

Character:
Every character in this show is boring. There's really nothing special about any of them. The only character that maybe has an inkling of something interesting going on is X-On and even then, that's just because he's supposed to be "mysterious." As in, the show tells you almost nothing about him and it hopes you might like him as he is.

I didn't like him all that much.

Enjoyment:
At the time I started watching this show, it had a score of around 4.50, meaning that it was the lowest rated show of the summer anime season. My curiosity got the better of me and I figured it wouldn't hurt to watch it. I figured it couldn't possibly be that bad. After finishing it, I can say that isn't all that bad. There are certainly worse shows out there. However, you can only make your own fun for so long, like I did with The Reflection. This show is so slow and so horribly boring at parts, it's near impossible to have any kind of fun. That isn't to say I didn't succeed in making my own fun.

Near the end of the show, the major plot twist/reveal is shown and I laughed my ass off at it because of how nonsensical it was. It came out of nowhere and made absolutely no sense when you think about it for more than five seconds. Despite how dumb this plot twist was, it was one of the few times this show entertained me. Not because of good writing; it was actually the opposite. The bad writing and overused cliches this show has gave me something to work with, but at the end of it all, it's still terrible to watch and hard to enjoy.

Overall:
Was The Reflection the worst show I have ever seen? Of course not, there are worse shows out there. Was it the most boring anime I've seen this season? Easily yes. The only thing this show has to offer anyone is its unique art style. If The Reflection wanted you to feel like you were watching a graphic novel in motion, then it succeeded at that. However, that was probably its only major success as every other facet of this show is either mediocre at its high points and terrible at every other point it has.

I would not recommend anyone watch The Reflection. It's unoriginal, cliche and boring. And unlike Heroes, The Reflection does not have a writers' strike to blame for its poor quality.

This show is a clusterfuck of Stan Lee's favorite heroes. Therefore the story isn't that important but ill talk about it anyway. In this world a weird gas that resembles a nuclear fallout swept over the city and the people the people that survived the attack got super powers and are called the reflected. The story treats it kinda like X-men with the mutant powers thing. our main character is a girl that doesn't know how to control her powers and she goes to a hero in hopes to learn a little more a criminal plot unfolds around her. that's as much as I ... can say without spoiling too much. one more big thing is sometimes the writers will make jump-cut without enough explanation as to why and it takes you out the scene. They do it for a key point which is mostly why I'm mentioning otherwise I would give it a pass.

The art is drawn like a comic book which is very dangerous if not done correctly. this show fails to do it right of course. the animation is a little bottom of the barrel IMO as things are relatively lackluster in direction and choreography kinda like they are trying to play it safe. it comes out kinda janky and slow, it turns off most viewers.

The music is lacking, but not in quality, quantity. they abuse a song which is based out the 80's in combat and it gets old fast. there's a reason they use it so much and they mention why but that doesn't make any better the other songs are not going to stand out much when you hear them because your mind is stuck on this one.

The characters as straight out of stan's library. I mean every design can be connected to another hero in some shape or form and they don't even try to hide some of them by giving them similar names. I-Guy specifically (Iron man) has the same suit when it comes to powers and the design is similar to one from Tiger and Bunny one of the most if not the most popular anime in japan right now. we also have Exon how can copy peoples powers who uses a Spiderman like grappling hook or whatever you want to call it as well as the fact he looks a lot like Robin from teen titans and some other heroes. Those are the only heroes you need worry about for this story but there are others as well as villains which also have designs similar to other characters. our main character can teleport but they are inconsistent about the distance. it seems like they use the fact she can't control her powers more like a crutch for this more than story tool. she is a normal girl so ill give a pass on her design for now.

overall, Stan made a lot of dangerous calls on this and it didn't turn out well. if you love is old comics at least check it out otherwise stay far away from this. there are a lot of flaws you can pick out in this with little excuses for it. they try to write around the flaws and I commend them for that but that isn't enough to make a show go well with critics. even the best writers can't save a show like this in a mainstream audience. it has the makings for a cult classic tho. 3 or 4/10 for a critics review but i am enjoying it as I do like old comics and bump it up to a 5 or 6 because of the effort put it and how well the show handles itself despite its faults.

The feeling of "Saving Anime" was a thing when people knew that Stan Lee were going to lead an Anime. Apparently Stan Lee did lead another anime before with the name of "Hero man" or something like that. Someone told me that it was a good watch, I haven't checked it yet, so I can't really say much about it.

So, unless you live under a rock or you don't like the universe of Marvel, you will probably have heard of him and will probably guess that this anime is about super heroes... but is it that good? did Stan Lee save anime? or is The ... Reflection another anime meant to live within oblivion?

TL;DR: Interesting concept, interesting animation style, bad execution, lazy animation, clusterfuck of Stan Lee's favorite heroes on a meaningless and underwhelming story goes wrong on many levels

On super heroes movies, Earth (specially the USA) is the favorite place for many random things to happen: be it huge robots vs more huge robots, aliens, human race destroying themselves, biological weapons, etc... Now, fuse almost everything that could happen on a Hollywood movie and lets add it to an anime, what do you get there? That's right: a huge mess that goes by the name "The Reflection"

The story goes around an event called "The Reflection", an event that happened a while ago. Its never really explained why such an event happened, and why was the earth affected by it, I've probably missed some "important" details while I was trying to get something from what was being shown at the moment. Leaving that aside, "The Reflection" event consists on a "laser and smoke" kind of rain that stroke down in earth, causing people to awaken inner abilities. Those that were affected by lasers are different from those that inhaled the smoke, yet, those affected by both things are now called "Reflected" and they have abilities on them, so they are pretty much the same, even if the anime tells you otherwise.

That's pretty much what I can tell about the story, because aside of that, nothing worth of your time is actually happening, the last episode of this anime just proves that Stan Lee failed to create a story: He basically took every single super hero he has created and took their abilities just to show them off, making a clusterfuck of colors in the progress. In the end there isn't anything meaningful on the story, because... there isn't any to begin with. 2/10

The animation style of this anime is pretty smooth, people told me several times that the animation style is meant to resemble old cartoons, it is very colorful and startling. One of the things that went wrong, is that the animation is very lazy, there are many fights on this anime that could have saved it from misery, but the lack of fps, lack of physics and lack of impact ruined most of fights. There's also the lack of details animation wise, you can see several still shots that aren't really necessary, for example... Singing without having a mouth, several shots without eyes or mouth, and several shots without a face, now I understand if the scene is pretty far away from the camera, or the faces without eyes are resembling certain feeling from characters, for example, being mad or sad, but that's not the case here, it just happens. 5/10

Sound department is also meaningless, "Sky show" song is spammed through almost the entire anime, an atrocious theme song for an asshole character. There are other soundtracks used on this anime that are quite good, sadly they aren't used that much. The voice acting is also lazy. 5/10

The characters on this anime are completely meaningless and annoying. For example "I-guy", he is an obnoxious character that only cares about being popular and "heroic", he interferes with pretty much everything, his sole existence is meant to screw everything that the "good" side is trying to do (and later on, he transforms into a pseudo batman copy with the ability to shoot lazors from his head) Honestly I could have give a 10 to the characters just because X-on delivered a punch to I-guy's ugly face for being completely retarded. Talking about X-on, he is the most mysterious character that remained mysterious towards the end, he can copy the abilities of the Reflected. About him, the only thing we got from him were little flashbacks from his past, he just happens to be there to fight against Wraith's evil forces and no one knows why (Wraith has to be the most ludicrous villain I have ever seen) there isn't any other character out there that means something, they just happen to be there, there is no back story, no motivation, almost nothing, I haven't seen a such a cast of meaningless characters since Mayoiga which had like 30 characters and only 4 of them were actually relevant to the story. 2/10

If we talk about enjoyment, I will state again how much I liked that X-on delivered a falcon punch on I-guy's face, that was probably the best moment this anime had. 4/10

Overall: 3,6/10 (Rounded to 4)

The Reflection is doomed to be a love-hate series. If you want a typical anime, or are a fan of superhero franchises, then you're probably going to loathe this. If you like artsy animated films and fun shows that capture the pure joy of cartoons, then you'll find a lot to like.

I fall into the latter category but fully recognize the flaws of this show: the story and the characters are not particularly interesting or consistent. The heroes and villains are generic and don't have much in the way of backstories. The story doesn't get explained in detail and lacks a definitive ending or beginning. ... Don't watch this if you require a standard narrative-driven tale.

Where The Reflection really shines is the art and sound: it's visually distinctive with its own unique language, the limited palette and dark atmosphere work really well to capture a classic comic book vibe and allow for some unique action scenes that capture motion and energy brilliantly, and there's a surprising amount of real-world USA (more than just famous landmarks) hidden in plain sight if you keep your eyes open. The use of sound is my favorite thing about The Reflection, where insert songs and sound are kept in the foreground, and are just as important to telling the story as the spoken dialogue.

"The magic of moving pictures" is something that we take for granted, especially as anime fans. If you're conscious of how ridiculously cool it is that a series of flickering pictures can trick our brains into thinking we're witnessing motion, and thrilled when a progression of musical tones can call up an emotional response, then you're probably a good candidate for watching this show. Projects like The Reflection will never appeal to the overwhelming majority of people, which is why well-done artistic efforts deserve praise when their creators go out on a limb to make them - kudos to Stan Lee and everyone else who made this show, you rock!

My goodness that was an awful show.
I haven't ever write a review but i need to take this out of my chest, this could have potential to some extreme even if it is some overused genre (the superhero) but little to no absolute remarkable features in this series pump my anger to the extreme, even Boku no Hero Academia can be enjoyable regardless of the usual tropes and story in the genre but this show didn't even manage to be enjoyable to some degree.
Character development is not even there, the twist make no sense at all, they could have used all this fucking silent ... shots to write the story, action is sometimes decent but lacks for an art-style that can look unique first but rapidly ends up looking cheap and mediocre.
The opening is not even something to enjoy, seriously fucking big letters are something you expect would make people be hook?
I can't believe i finnish this actually because god it's so boring, so much silent again (fuck i hate how they just stare), we learned almost nothing about anyone, and they expect us to comeback or something? the fact that they finnish with a fucking cliffhanger this comvolute mess makes me want to take my eyes out with a spoon. Please people don't waste time on this series like i did, just go a find something better to watch (like i should have done)

The Reflection was the result of a collaboration of sorts between the comic book writer Stan Lee and Studio Deen. I was initially excited to watch the show because the studio behind it had done some excellent work recently and I thought it would be interesting to see what ideas Stan Lee would bring to the table. Unfortunately all of that changed upon watching the first episode of the anime.
The story is probaby the best part about the show. It is a very classic superhero story that one would be accustomed to seeing in comic books. The fight between the forces of good and evil ... that were exposed to The Reflection with the normal humans stuck in the middle of them is very reminiscent of one of Stan Lee's earlier works by the name of "X-Men". Even as this anime takes inspiration from that successful formula, it still suffers from many issues that in the end makes for a very mediocre story.
Moving from the best part to the worst part, the animation was in no uncertain terms, horrendous and hideous to the point where I wondered if whoever was in charge of animating the show was taking this work seriously. It's a shame too, because while the art wasn't all that great, it was at least unique and it reminded me of what I might see in a comic book so I thought it was a great fit for the anime. Unfortunately the bad animation just drags the decent art down along with it.
The soundtrack was mediocre in my opinion but what was worse was that the way the soundtrack was used was bad. An easy example to bring up would be the song "Sky Show" which was used multiple times within a single episode to the point of annoyance. The sound design of many of the sound effects were not well done with many of the hits lacking any sort of impact.
The characters in The Reflection were either very bland or had irritating personalities. The biggest culprit of this would be Exon, one of the main characters. His stand-offish and quiet demeanor instead of creating and air of mystery around as intended, just makes him seem contemptible and obnoxious.
I got little to no enjoyment from The Reflection and it's a wonder how I was able to stick with it until the end. It isn't even the hilarious type of bad where you could enjoy watching as the train wreck happens. It is my strong recommendation that you save your time and avoid this anime.

In space age year of 2017 the eternal cameo Stan Lee decided to create a new comic. Unfortunately he was latter notified that comic was in fact supposed to be an anime.
Seeing how deadline drew near he made a bold move, he panned the camera over the panels and called it animation.
This... thing is a proof enough that we should keep Stan Lee as a cameo and nothing more.
I've spent days watching shit stains on a moldy wall to prepare for this abomination and I was surprised because I couldn't make it past the first episode without marking this anime a work of art.
A work ... of art in a manner that it has about as much animation as a painting. The top notch art style with less characteristics than a piece of dry bread is to be commended for its awfulness.
It is truly a must watch if you like having shit shoved in your face at 10fps.

Hayao Miyazaki/10

The story is about Ellen trying to find meaning for herself and gets wrapped up in a big plot by an evil organization.

This is, however, an inconclusive story about a mysterious incident that caused random people to be bestowed by 1 of 2 kinds of super power types you gain. Those who are hit by green light are given super powers without any physical appearance change, while those who are hit by the shadow are turned into monsters (that retains human minds), and now these mutants deal with prejudice.

The theme of prejudice and segregation is very obvious, but the story doesn't develop them beyond blatant ... bigotry (really unfortunate as they could have expanded that upon different layers of acceptance/racism/physical advantages/handicaps etc.)

The plot made by the main villain makes little sense to the viewers (as it's barely explained aside from the fact to divide mutants among humans). However in the story, the events of mutant uprising was going to be inevitable as society at large are very opposed to the mutants' existence (they give very loose reason as to why).

The other thing that really hurt the series was the awkward pacing of the directing, with constant pauses between dialogues, stand still animations, and janky animation during fight sequences.

Everything else feels like it would have been okay if the story didn't feel so bare bones, along with directing being so choppy.

The theme of dividing mutants and humans is something that was used before (especially in marvel comics). If they delved deeper into the reasons why people were afraid of the mutants, the story could have improved significantly (such as people losing control of powers, imminent threat of emotional out burst and danger, advantage made by their super powers causing people feeling jealous)

So far as to the prejudice, we only know that if you are a mutant you are hated just because you are a mutant. It makes sense for those who has had appearance changed, but it seems really bizarre to those who didn't.

As a disclaimer, I am biased as Stan Lee cameos when it comes to superhero content.
Should you recommend The Reflection?: Nah, read Marvel comic instead, story is simple and directing is choppy like comic pages.

REVIEW WITH NO SPOILERS

Every review here it's talking about Stan Lee, comics and stuff like that... and that's because the anime tries to create a comics atmosphere through the animation. But it fails miserably in it...

The animation is crap... watch the first 10 minutes then you'll understand what I'm talking about.

The story tries to create some innovating elements, but fails in that too and the story becomes boring and dispersed... the only thing that made me not considering this a waste of time was the Sky Show song, that I liked and will be in my phone in the next days. Actually the soundtrack was ... the only thing that could not be consider as trash.

If you are looking for a generic super-hero story with a really bad animation this is the perfect anime for you!

Every mixed your sodas? Well, you always have one person who enjoys it and one person who hates it. This is how I feel about Reflection. The anime mixes comic book art with anime feel and direction. As well as serious yet laid-back vibe as some comic books have. So is it good or just bad? Depends on who you ask. For me... well, I find it a bit refreshing.

Art: For me, the art is amazing. I have grown up around comics and Marvel being my favorite because the idea of humans learning to be more themselves. Just looking at it makes me feel like ... I'm watching a comic book with a bit of anime style which makes the movement much better except with mouths and I will come back to that. But all and all it is pretty and fun to look at.

Story: This one is harder to judge as there are only 4 episodes but so far it is interesting but should be more focused. At first, I feel the focus is on I-Guy but then switches to Xon and Elenor or the 4 Japanese girls. But the world adjusting whether good or bad to 'reflected' is interesting as it does question people's morals as well as self-worth, so I hope to see more of that.

Sound: The sound is enjoyable as it is not too loud but not so soft. Though, I do wish the ending song would match the opening a little bit better.

Character: Again, This one is harder to judge as there are only 4 episodes but the characters are so far are fair. I wish I knew more about them but again only 4 episodes. I-Guy seems to want to be a good person but wants to be famous too, making him have mixed feelings. Xon and Elenor have an interesting partnership which is actually refreshing as they don't argue but don't always agree. They have different goals but silently accept it will lead to the same place. Even Lisa has of a wanting to help people mixed with the fact she wants to be free. So wish I knew more, but so far so good.

Voice acting: This is where it gets conflicting. For the sub, it is really good as it does work better with the mouths not moving as much. The problem is... when you are not good at accents I don't feel the world wide connection. But it does have good dialogue translations. For the English- dub, you can tell stan-lee had a bit more freedom with dialogue. As it is corny and sometimes strange as well as having more trouble voice acting with the mouth movements sometimes sounding underwhelming and monotone. But they definitely do better with accents giving it a world wide vibe and even keeping the sub for the 4 Japanese girls.

Final Verdict: I can feel why people can either love or hate this anime, as does mix some things that one wouldn't do, as well as a strange tone and some corny dialogue. However, it does feel relaxed yet serious like, again, some comics do. And does raise some interesting possibilities. So if someone doesn't like mixing, I wouldn't recommend it but if you do I would watch and judge for yourself.

The wise Ghandi once said "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is the anime industry.
If a few cells of the anime industry are cancerous, the anime industry does not become cancerous."
He was a man ahead of his time, able to foresee such a cancer of the anime industry, is proof of a man that deserves nothing but respect.

Story: The reflection is about a teenager boy named IZUKU MIDORIYA, WHO ONE DAY WANTS TO BECOME THE GREATEST HERO OF ALL TI.... Oh my bad, wrong superhero anime.
The reflection is about a Teenage girl named Eleanor Evans, who learns that she has ... the power to teleport short distances, and um, notorious hero, Exon meets her and they go on a car riding adventure to find other people with powers just like them who are called "the reflection", Oh no, but very bad person evil woman comes and she doing bad things and want to mind control Evans, because she verdy bad villain person..... Ye very mediocre, (5/10)

Characters: DO U GUYS LIKE RIPOFF IRON MAN! DEADPOOL WITHOUT THE HUMOUR AND IS JUST REALLY DEPRESSED! CHINESE KNOCKOFF TRANSFORMER GIRL, VILLAINS WHO ARE BAD FOR THE SAKE OF BEING BAD, A DEPRESSED GIRL, WHO IS DEPRESSED FOR NO REASON, AND RANDOM REAL LIFE IDOL GIRLS WHO TAKE UP MORE SCREEN TIME AND DO MORE WORK THAN THE MC?!? I mean I don't, but if that's your "kink" then you will love the characters. (1/10)

Art: Oh my God, KILL IT WITH FIRE.... They tried on the art, giving it a comic aesthetic, but the unfluid animation, awkward pauses to still images, the terrible understanding of human anatomy... How did anyone in production agree this would be fine to air on television??? (2/10)

Sound: The voice acting is bland and uninteresting. I hear modern dubs produce greater range of expressions and emotions. If you hear closely to the speakers, you can hear the sounds of regrets from the voice actors. The soundtrack was also bland and uninspiring, especially for the climax. (1/10)

Enjoyment: Watching paint dry is much more enjoyable. Sooooo (1/10)

Conclusion: Got kinda excited when i heard Stan Lee would be helping to produce an anime. But when discovering through watching the show, that its just Boku no Hero's adopted, dropped cousin, that was an extreme let down.

Moral: Studio Deen, Get a loan Shark to finance, Konosuba season 3 and recuperate the losses.

Edit note: Rip Stan Lee ;-;

Simply not good! Knowing this was made by Stan lee is quite shocking as he's made Spiderman and iron man and has even made manga and anime before Ultimo and Heroman so it's not like this is new territory for him. The story isn't good but isn't horrific either way very generic but definitely could have been done right just simply wasn't at all, awful pacing, awful exposition and awful writing just in general which makes it feel very boring. Another thing is the animation is just bad, the lack of shading looks low budget and the thick outlines look very amateur and also the ... animation is very slow. The characters also suck they are super generic and have absolutely no depth and feel completely lifeless. The opening song wasn't horrific but was definitely forgettable. This anime was so bad I had to force myself to get through the first episode and after that I was done. This anime is definitely one of the worst anime I have ever seen.

It's hard to know exactly what to think of a show like Reflection, a very strange and unique attempt to bring classic American comic book sensibilities to an anime stage. Ultimately, it feels like a bit of a misfire, but it's a misfire that had potential, ambition, and was certainly enjoyable enough to finish, even if the final product was lacking.

The biggest thing right out of the gate is, of course, the art. Now, personally, I happen to love the style itself. I'm a huge comic book guy, so I was primed to enjoy a superhero show like this, and at times, ... the heavy linework, the interesting color pallet, and the staging makes for a dynamic, unique, and even beautiful show. Unfortunately, the actual animation quality is... well, it ranges from mediocre to outright bad. There are times where the show looks almost more like a Newsgrounds flash animation from twenty years ago than a professionally produced anime. The action scenes can be okay, and there are some fun powersets and abilities to use, but a lot of time the action feels floaty and weightless, with sluggish punches thrown more like how it feels trying to punch someone in a dream than with superhero weightiness.

Now, if the story was excellent, that could make up for a lot, but it simply isn't. It's not a bad story, it's just fairly by the numbers, with traditional superhero story beats like mysterious conspiracies, "mutant-against-human" sentiments, and secret family members, though for the sake of spoilers that's all I'll say on that matter.

There are some fun characters in it - Ian "I-Guy" Izette is a really entertaining take on an Iron Man style hero, being a disgraced alcoholic 80s pop-star trying to recapture his glory, and a lot of the villains are shallow but interesting designs, with Steel Emperor in particular looking super rad. X-On, though, in his obvious Cyclops rip-off attire is utterly generic in personality, too, a stoic and mission-focused hero type who, again, isn't bad, but doesn't bring anything new to the table.

As I said, there's a lot of potential here. I love superhero narratives, and with a bit more pizzazz to someone like X-On, and maybe some more tightened strings on the charming but meandering story of 9nine, four Japanese schoolgirls turned Mahou Shojo popstars en route to America to join the action, things could be really nice, not to mention more time to actually get to know any of our bad guys beyond fun designs and bland set pieces. But the writing is lacking, and if you don't like the art style, there's nothing about the animation quality that's going to win you over.

I liked the Reflection. If they do release a second season, as is heavily teased at the end, I'll probably watch it. But it wasn't especially good. It was just kind of okay, and felt like it could be a lot more.

Also, get ready to have SKYYYYYY SHOOOOOOOOW ALL AROUND THE WOOOORLD stuck in your head. Like, honestly, listen to it once on YouTube, and if you don't like it, maybe give this show a pass, because it plays at least once an episode and usually a lot more than that. Personally, I think it slaps and added it to my Spotify, but man, you have to endure to watch this show.