Story strikes a good balance between Rei’s private life and life in shogi. Rei in general is a good, full character, though I don’t really buy the parts of the story where he’s overconfident.

Just as great in terms of writing and animation as its first season. Lacks the same focus in its storytelling.

Trainwreck genius Jun Maeda has his first real spin at the head writer’s helm with Air following Hisaya’s departure after Kanon. It is the first of the three Key/KyoAni collaborations.

It’s a messy series of loosely connected stories that are interrupted halfway through by another story disconnected from the main narrative, and ends with melodrama conjured up from thin air. If you’ve seen Clannad, you know what to expect: teenagers acting like toddlers, vague mystical supernatural happenings, and everyone either has a dead dog, dead cat, dead mom, dead dad, dead grandmother, dead sister, dead brother, an incurable illness, stage four cancer, the mumps, the bends, chicken pox, smallpox.

The studio responsible for adapting Air is a young Kyoto Animation. The animators take full advantage of the summery seaside setting and mystical supernatural occurances. Coupled with the imagery of the clouds and the sky, the elements combine to create a calming atmosphere. While the visuals don’t manage to save the story from running itself aground into an alienating no-man’s land, they do take the edge off of the jarring impact. It is dated in places though, particularly the raw digital colouring and the comically large eyes of the character designs.

There is however, only so much you can get out of a story completely disconnected from reality. There’s no underlying reason or complications for the sad events these characters go through, its just sad, for the sake of being sad, and that becomes a problem when that’s all the story wants to do, because what's being written is no longer personal, or unique, or genuine, and so no longer interesting.

Watchable

Story's poor, animation's kinda weird. I respect its historical importance but not much else.

A good example of KyoAni’s visuals tricking people into having higher expectations than they otherwise should have.

Poor for the same reasons as the Key trilogy, in that it only cares about making you cry, and nothing else, and so feels very shallow.

Very pretty show, very whatever plot.

Passable action flick, pretty slow to get going though. Didn’t really like a lot of the characters. Very original though, creates a great world that looks fun to live in.

Bad, but it knows it

Diminishing returns, less interesting episodes compared to the prior season.

An enjoyable spectacle

The dialogue is catchy and memorable, and the idea of making the humans be the mysteries that need to be solved is smart.

Take the average set of episodes of an average season of the Monogatari series, revolving around characters you don’t know/don’t care about, and remove all the stylish flair Shaft is known for.

The plot progresses in a very mechanical and by-the-numbers fashion. The story lacks tension and the mysteries feel disconnected from the characters participating in the game of solving them. The members of the detective club are all these very boring sterotypes that are all introduced at once and so are impossible to tell apart or remember with much confidence. None of the episodes individually enjoyable to watch, nor is there an overarching storyline that clicks together. The episodes aren’t paced well either.

Yet there times where the show threatens to be good. Like watching one of those shows directed by ex-Shaft employees (Baka to Test, Yofukashi no Uta), there are certain scenes here or there that are familiar, nostalgic, interesting, promising, but they’re very brief, and they’re never sustained for longer than a couple cuts.

The baseball episode here is as good of an illustration as any of the talent gap between Imaishi and the rest of Trigger’s staff.

Story is bad by normal standards and decent by anime standards. Visually, the show looks bland in comparison to the rest of Trigger's catalogue.

The more it gets popular the more I hate it.

Yeah I just liked the girl

Incredibly cynical show, disgustingly so. Written because the author thought it would get popular, not because its what the author wanted to write. A waste of everyone's time.

Bland, passable fan-service.

For MAPPA, this might as well be a masterpiece

Another Jun Maeda masterclass from the master, Jun Maeda.

Wished instead that it was about leaving behind the delusions instead of embracing them, but the message sent in the end isn't too bad. If the story was actually about something it could've been good.

If you enjoy being gaslighted, sniffing glue and inhaling helium, then maybe the story has something to offer you.

As usual for Maeda, things take too long to get going anywhere. There is an exorbitant amount of time spent with Tomoya at his new job for instance, and the first episode takes its entire runtime to reintroduce characters who aren’t even important to the main plot, and the two story arcs preceding the main story are entirely irrelevant to the main story. All this superfluous detail dilutes the quality and impact of the important story moments.

As entertaining as entertainment can be

Feeling a light to decent Activision lawsuit on this one.

Essentially just a better version of Macross Plus

Told you Keir Starmer would get elected

Not really funny but there's so many jokes that eventually one of them lands

Not as funny the second time around.

Franxx has this vague goal to be like Eva, and be a mecha show like Eva, and that’s as far as it got in the minds of their creators. Trigger tried their best. Hard to tell if A1 tried at all.

Frenetic but also aimless.

Rewatched this: yeah this is kinda bad but you know compared to most anime this is still in the upper tiers so the rating stays the same.

Tells a compelling story with a great finish and then it continues for another thirteen episodes.

and another thirteen episodes

and another thirteen episodes

and another thirteen episodes

The only tolerable visual novel adaptation

Boring like everything else Maruto's written.

You're better off watching the TV series.

The only film in the series that really takes advantage of the advances in the medium to deliver a sense of spectacle and scale that the original TV show couldn't while still keeping intact what made the original special. Mari's inclusion is unnecessary and jarring, she's like a character from Darling in the Franxx.

Shockingly unsympathetic mood pervades throughout. Felt uncomfortable to watch the character assassinations on display here. New characters are from a completely different universe, do not gel well with the existing cast.

There is an undeniable originality in Fate/stay night that shines through in spite of its amateurish writing.

Urobuchi talks to the mirror about topics that don’t really hold my interest.

Deconstructs its characters well, but the deconstruction is really just for the sake of it.

stupid

Coming of age visual blockbuster mega event gangbuster extravaganza. Could've had more of a plot.

Colourful cluster of pretty colours.

good energy

The more I think about it the more self-pitying it is.

Much like dyslexia

Says a lot about the shoujo romance genre when its only tolerable example is a parody of the genre itself.

Wataru Watari try to write a likeable character challenge(impossible)

comedy that isn't completely terrible, good artwork.

Utterly shit story but its characters are still very likeable. You can sort of treat the amnesia ghost as a metaphor for the type of people who try to forget the past and re-invent themselves in college.

Very tame mysteries. Setting is well-realized.

Why are all the characters so obsessed with not looking uncool?

but the ending was good.

Kaiki's best girl for sure.

prrrrrruuuuuuuuuuuuuumphf

peak beak steak fiction

shuwah shuwah

her hair? wack. her shoes? wack. me? gongaga.

lying here, ive never watched this one

why'd it end so abruptly

yeah whatever

Like everything Cloverworks touch, it is absolutely hollow.

Agonizingly slow. Very pretty visuals. Mysteries are alright.

An informative review of the various types of whiskeys found in Japan. Tells a story too, occasionally.

Feels like an actual film unlike everything else associated with Oshii where the plot feels rushed. Because Oshii didn't write it!

JJK is about magical martial artists and they fight each other. Each fighter has their own unqiue fighting technique that take between two to five minutes to explain. Despite being about fighting, most episodes are taken up by talking – talking about fights that happened, talking about fights that may happen, talking about fights that are about to happen, talking about fights in the middle of fighting, and also flashbacks about talking about fights that may happen in the middle of the fight they’re in that they’re also talking about. They also all have sad backstories revealed via flashback during a fight. The fights themselves, if you take out flashbacks and inner monologue, last 15 seconds to two minutes. The animation during fights range from okay to occassionally good. The colour palette is godawful.

After each episode I thought “this show’s pretty bad, I should stop watching,” yet I kept watching. The content is standard faire for the shonen anime genre – vacuous, innocuous, slightly pretentious, almost meaningless. So little to chew on in these twenty four episodes just in terms of entertainment that you could condense the good parts to one episode.

The best part about Jujutsu Kaisen I suppose is the fact that it is unobtrusive. It never asks the viewer any uncomfortable questions, or challenges their assumptions, or draws any parallels between its fantasy world and the real world. The dialogue being used as a vehicle to get to the next fight can't really be criticized because when it comes down to it, that's all fans really want.

gojo's beatdown WAS racially motivated bro you can't tell me otherwise

Large improvement on season one. Some great moments. Presentation has improved immensely. Shots are richer and more varied. Looks much better. Story is still stupid.

192.382.32.7

wished there was a plot involving mugi money laundering but this is okay too.

An unfunny comedy that uses self-depreciation and so-called self-awareness (really, just another form of narrow-mindedness) as a crutch to hide the fact that it has no jokes.

Hurrupppppppppppapaahhhhh

The first season isn't that great but there is an improvement in the seasons as it goes along so I'll count it.

A visual novel route + actual storytelling.

Abrupt start, good finish.

Yutaka Yamamoto gets kicked out of KyoAni, shakes his fist at them, makes a good-looking opening for Kannagi - and at that point, he may as well have quit.

(2006) the non-maeda parts are good. i wish the other writer was the one to go on to be a success, and not maeda, but props to maeda for making the most of his non-talent. crazy to think how bad he is and yet how popular his vns are.

I watched these a while ago and while I can remember the plots I can’t remember which film has which plot so I’ll just bunch everything together here.

I don’t like over-the-top gore and violence, especially when its done as a visual spectacle or done to shock. At times it does feel like a lot of what’s on offer in Kara no Kyoukai is merely to shock the viewer. Not really sure about the writing, but there is something captivating about the show’s music and visuals, even if ufotable put it through the digital deep-frying machine as per usual.

-

-

-

-

-

-

one of those doga kobo shows that have no substance

Miyazaki champions the man indirectly responsible for Pearl Harbour like he’s the father of his own kids, using Jiro’s story as the benchmark of human achievement as well drawing parallels between Jiro’s revolutionary aircraft designs and his own revolutionary plagiarism of Walt Disney.

This is a serious story by Ghibli standards, touching on World War 2, and Japan’s dubious involvement in said war, but like the classic genius animator he is, Miyazaki is absolutely unapologetic in his portrayal of Jiro. ‘Like it or not’ Miyazaki says through his film ‘you’re going to admit that the man is a genius, and that I, indirectly, am also a genius, for portraying this genius like a genius.’ I’d expect nothing less from the creator of Dark Souls.

Story is the Miyazaki special - there is no story. Instead, there are a sequence of events told in chronological order, and they are animated, and the characters who were in the previous scene just so happen to be in the next one. This miraculous coincidence occurs throughout the film and continues to occur until the very last scene.

patlaborious. don't care for oshii, his stories aren't emotionally compelling. at the same time, the animation is to a high standard, so it is impossible to ignore in that respect.

There’s a great heavy atmosphere hanging over the scenes in Patlabor, particularly in the slums where the police are searching the various locations the scientist lived at before he died. Keeps your attention hooked to the screen.

Not a big fan of the serious characters though. They’re all squares. The only real fun to be had is seeing them argue with one another. The exceptions are the conversations between Izumi and Shinohara. The scene with two of them in the coffee house is what I remember the best in the film. They add a lot of necessary life and colour. Probably why I don’t like the second film as much, since they’re not the focus.

There’s a very consistent through-line in the plot from the start to around midway, where everything flows smoothly and I’m invested in the film, and then suddenly there’s a series of scenes that feel disconnected from the main narrative, that feel disconnected from each other. I lose interest and drift off, and then all of a sudden the film’s at its final act, then its over. I’m staring at the screen thinking ‘where’d the film go?’

Char Aznable is seeking to end his rivalry with his gay best friend Amuro Ray as a means of getting back at him for killing Lalah Sune. To do this, he needs to contrive a great enough threat for Amuro Ray to take notice and take action, so he threatens the total extinction of life on Earth (least unhinged Tomino plot.)

calling this show good is impossible but it is very interesting.

Heroin-afflicted ADHD fireworks festival visual extravaganza.

very run-of-the-mill episodic thing

too serious comparatively speaking to the tv series.

The term blockbuster is thrown about a lot when discussing it, to signal to others that they perceive the film to be lowbrow drivel, but I think it’s a very good film and a very admirable story. At least Shinkai is trying to be personal with his love stories instead of hiding behind family-friendly themes (Miyazaki), or detached half-baked philosophical musings (Oshii).

good idea, bad execution.

the story's actually alright.

a film of all time

hanekawa fumbled

stupid but earnest

People don’t act like this in real life.

inaba himeko is cute

More suited to be a TV show really, rather than a film, with all of its sub-plots that don’t contribute to the main narrative. Story veers off at the end because the writing is not the best, but it's otherwise worth attending to.

has nothing going for it.

the foot one. pretty good.

same issue with all oshii films where the film ends too early.

Bakemonogatari nostalgia festival

nothing of much interest besides seeing more of the characters

A depressing and well-structured mystery story. SHAFT aren’t at their visual peak here, but its still worth checking out.

Pretty interesting.

Unlike most ridiculous shonen shows, it manages to keep itself grounded in reality thanks to its basketball premise to where the power levels are easily discerned instead of being obviously arbitrary.

Entertaining.

While watching you’ll think to yourself “its not that bad” and when it ends you’ll be thinking “how could it end up being this bad.” KyoAni really need to stop adapting light novels.

Wow crazy nothing happens, amazing. Is this even made by Trigger?

iminesomething goburriandgetagnome pun.

liked the character Elijah.

very boringuh notuh veryuh gooduh

Urobuchi the type of guy to buy a pre-made Lego set and spend the whole day taking it apart.

liked the relevant light novel references. directing isn't poor despite the poor animation. clear though that this was no good from the outset.

the transition from the actual to the symbolic is poorly done and confusing, and in general the show's not entertaining to watch because the characters are fairly unbelievable. the two compilation films fix these issues somewhat by cutting out the unessential scenes. the themes explored are very humanely relevant yet somehow lack emotional resonance. i don't understand how ikuhara can be so boring with material as good as this. Of great academic interest but has little entertainment value

Incoherent story, completely incoherent, but there are scenes here and there that can be salvaged.

O-ke

Psychedelic artstyle by-the-numbers story.

Employs the never-before scene tactic of using action scenes as a means of padding out the story.

In general the impression is a series of darts thrown at a board that are scattered around without much sense or relation between them. This was always the sense you got from the Itamura-directed seasons, but the style here in this season is diluted yet again. At least Itamura’s approach, while brainless, sustained a kind of tempo with his scenes with all the high-speed zooming and rapid cutting – this season’s direction is very listless in comparison. There is no sustained tension or a sense that things are moving forward and are coming to head, or that something will happen soon that will have impact, everything is just kind of strung together.

disconnected where bakemonogatari felt connected. you can tell nisioisin is starting to phone it in.

Nature good industrialism bad guns bad violence bad thank you Miyazaki for teaching me morals I would have never known them without you.

A touching story

Degenerate bullshit, but fun to watch.

same deal as part one

boring

okay

bland

exciting, in a way.

More filler than a Botox injection

I would be written out of the family will if they found out I watched this.

no gamers no lamers no tamers no shamers no kramers versus kramers. where are these peopleses parents?

boring!

an interesting world and boring story.

the same old story

weird teeth and strangle smiles

didnt go far enough.

mad that you dont have five boys lined up im jus sayin

ougi sucks

ougi still sucks

Pani Poni’s a comedy thing whose clear inspiration is Azumanga Daioh, a show with similarly lukewarm comedy and similarly bland visual presentation. Basic idea behind this type of anime is that you drop a bunch of characters in a box and give them each some sort of gimmick that’ll hopefully lead to some comical scenarios. The jokes are anime jokes: the punchline is the set-up, the set-up is absurd, and the punchline is pointing out the absurdity. What Pani Poni considers to be absurd is what you’ll likely consider to be bland. There are a few exceptions like the cat in the vending machine who calls itself God and the inhumane, Kafkaesque abuse towards the miserable rabbit Mesousa, but generally you’re not going to be batting an eyelid at most of what it has in store, an issue since the main crux of its comedy lies in the absurdity of its situations.

Out of its large cast, there’s only really two who are of serious interest from a story perspective, but there’s seemingly never enough time in any given episode to deviate from the comedy and present a tangible storyline to develop them. The first is our main character, Rebecca, your typical eleven year old genius, who seems interesting, and promising, and remains interesting, and promising until the show ends. The second is Rei, the only member of Rebecca’s class who seems real, who seems interesting, and promising, and remains interesting, and promising until the show ends. In the end both Rebecca and Rei are as one-note as the rest of the cast. The only exception is with one instance of Rebecca’s past becoming exposed, and in the aftermath there’s a little heartwarming moment with her and her students. There are other instances where the show deviates from its comedy to tell a story, but its with characters who’re farcical by nature or just too one-dimensional to start with, so you don’t really care either way.

The openings are cool. They use color very well, and mix real-world objects and anime in interesting ways.

budget ghibli, and clearly a light novel adaptation

overall a good story.

straight up heroin.

meme humour is really not even comedy.

Urobuchi the type of guy to set up ten bowling pins directly in the path of the bowling ball and call it a strike.

same as the review

Anime autuer dictector autist Kinohiko Ikuhara compiles his twenty-four episode quote magnum opus unquote into a two-hour long film and a two-and-a-half film respectively in what appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to raise money for his next project. Like every Ikuhara project ever created, the story makes no logical sense, but at least here, the filler is gone. If you just want to see what Penguindrum has to offer in terms of ideas, the films are what you should watch

car honkhonkhonk brrrrrrrrumphf zoom.

when i realized that the show wasn't wrapping up anytime soon

when i realized the show was staying at this low quality forever.

SHAFT could direct a car crash and id still watch it.

not bad

the boredom is sort of offset by how cute the main girl is.

eriri's the worst character yet has the most focus. baffling writing decisions as per usual by maruto.

Yes, they kiss, but does it even matter

Is this Touch?

Suicide is not funny. It’s not funny stop laughing its not funny, it’s a serious issue stop laughing.

bland.

slow and boring mostly. is mature though, and has good animation cuts, and is generally very original in its feel, and is generally well executed but im just bored by it

just watch bakemonogatari instead

to call this a film is a war crime.

bland

bland, inventive, bland, safe, slow, aimless, kindawhateverdude. Ghibli's animation standard always ensures at least something watchable, but never something truly relatable, but that standard is so high that it's impossible to begrudge it taking your time.

woodmanshippaschadoo

Lain’s at its best at the start, giving the impression that anything can happen. Second half concerns itself with the drudgery of exposition and fantasy-level technological powers and secret agents and is divorced from reality.

The atmosphere in the show creates a very dense sensory environment which occupies your mind for a time but there’s also lot of dead space. The general flatness of the supporting characters and the resulting inability to give care about them also doesn’t help much in providing a captivating viewing experience.

Porter Robinson track set to anime visuals. Just a music video.

Asuka force-feeding Shinji sums up everything wrong with the rebuild series: a lack of basic human sensitivity. The farming scenes are nice. Mari's inclusion, as always, feels like an afterthought. Credits roll, and I'm still wondering as to why Anno wasted over a decade of his life and talent remaking a show he'd already finished. Looking over the series as a whole, the conclusion I draw is that maybe the talent dried up, and he could think of nothing else to do.

Because the start is great, it manages to give the impression that the rest of the show is just as good, but somewhere after Asuka's introduction, the show stops being serious and starts being an anime.

don't like shinji's character assassination done here to spite the otaku fans. good otherwise.

boring, as in, formulaic. but it has its gimmick.

very boring. but not that bad.

narratively aimless, stylish to an extent.

whatever

this is my united states of whatever

Ensemble cast spreads itself too thin, leading to lacklustre development. good otherwise.

Enjoyable in its formulaic structure, creates a good atmosphere, dialogue is tolerable.

It arguably never outgrows its cringy characterization. Entertaining though, once it gets going.

Another feel-good family film fun for the whole family including your mother, father, sister, uncle, cousin, nephew, niece, and the planet jupiter.

she shouldve disappeared for good!

structured well, inventive, very fun.

Endless Eight is the definition of tedium. The episodes outside of that are good.

hey hey you you i don't like your boyfriend (no way, no way) i think you need a new one.

I can't show this to my parents with any degree of pride which is the only bad thing I can say against it

It’s a very average, very inoffensively decent effort that executes its many clichés in an entirely acceptable manner.

fire emblem if it was good

oshii's best film, does not suffer from feeling as though its too short like all his other films, at the same time though there's not much content, even in the symbolism.

a disturbingly normal show

Lovely dialogue, sounds very natural. The second half creates conflict where no conflict would naturally exist.

god would father a better film than this but kon's effort here's not too shabby.

fat fuck

hype

As decent as any anime made for otaku can be.

I like all the characters and I like all the episodes and I like the ending, and there's nothing I dislike really, so.

if this wasnt a manga it'd be a lot better.

I don’t even remember what happens in this one. nisioisin my goat

i like all the characters

incredibly embarrassing to watch some of the early scenes, afterwards it hits a groove

Haruki is too naïve, Kazusa is too passive, and Setsuna is too annoying. No personality here likeable enough to carry the story. Too much talking without substance. Neither is there a sense of impending doom that would otherwise make normal scenes feel tense.When an event does finally occur, there’s too much doom and gloom.

There’s a lot to appreciate about White Album 2 from how it constructs its story, there’s very little to actually like in the story itself, because its purpose of being depressing is at odds with the viewer’s desire to enjoy themselves.

how cloverworks managed to get out alive after this mess is astounding.

it really isn't that good.

The story is essentially entirely filler, stalling for time until the necessary events have supposedly taken place for something of true interest to occur, but what ends up happening is that the narrative ends up stalling forever, or what feels like forever, trapping the viewer in a sort of fictional purgatory, where they mistakenly assume that eventually something of interest will happen in the future, despite nothing of interest ever happening in the past.

still.

about nothing

Anyone could write the same sort of story if they tried with very little effort made. Easy to make mistakes and then justify it all under one big learning experience and then pretend you’ve changed forever like the narrator in Tatami. It may be interesting the first time through but after you’ve gone and seen the same type of story like this one done over and over you realize just how tiresome and untrue the formula really is.

The story concerns a girl who goes on a bender and a guy who is hopelessly in love with her. The girl is oblivious while the guy gets involved in various annoying and embarrassing situations in order to contrive a situation in which maybe he’ll possibly have the opportunity to say something to the girl during the course of their conversation which might possibly convey a slight hint which subtly alludes to his feelings about her. The story is backed up by a fluid, rapid style of animation which beautifully conveys the sense of whimsy and something or other that is life and stuff. The dialogue is energetic and brisk, the characters are fun yet oddly tragic, and the music is fitting and illuminates each scene. While the story understandably can’t keep up the energy of its impressive opening act, the ending more than makes up for the meanderings of the middle, delivering a series of very heartfelt and raw revelations about its lovelorn hero that cap off a film of visual and poetic mastery.

honey honey how he thrills me

yessirre?

see where its going and its going nowhere

Kare Kano is considered one of the better romances – a prime example of a backhanded compliment.

enduring another 185 episodes of something i barely like because?

bad!

bad.

bad.

a pity this sucks

thought this was pretty boring.

disingenuous

too stupid.

too slow. read the manga.

nah!

nah.

n\h.

wah.