Back to Abs0's Profile Abs0's Profile

Art: 9-9.5/10 Character designs are eye-pleasing and there is a decent amount of detail (e.g weapons, clothing etc could be seen clearly). Not quite "insanely awesome" like I would say for Kara no Kyoukai (the original 7 movies not the abomination that came later) or say Mardock Scramble or a lot of other anime, but still looks pretty damn good.

Animation: 9-9.5/10 There are a few very well animated scenes that would frankly put most animated movies to shame. I'm talking about the arima vs minami fight at the end of the episode. The character animation for minami was simply drop-dead gorgeous when she revealed ... her kagune (having her slowly glide to the ground on her kagune was a beautiful touch). In general the kagune animations in this OVA are incredibly smooth and eye-pleasing.

Choreography: 6/10 Unfortunately the OVA (as does the main TG series itself) drops the ball when it comes to fight choreography. Most of the time Arima is just running around dodging tentacles here and there and fights are typically ended by him just running up and slashing the ghoul across the midsection. The most decisive action in the final fight was just a simple spear throw which while arguably more practical is visually unimpressive. If you compare the fight choreography here to the choreography in let's say Seirei no Moribito (and in fact most Production I.G-directed action series such as Real Drive or most BONES-directed action series like FMA and FMAB) it's very lackluster. Now you could argue that the OVA is limited by the manga in terms of how good of a choreography it could actually use and having read the manga I think this argument has some merit. On the other hand I would argue that there is such a thing as Creative License (I know it usually refers to something different but here I use it to mean "freedom to not stick completely faithfully to the source material") and I know that a lot of anime studios do not adapt a manga totally faithfully (see the 1993 JJBA OVA for example) and this may lead to lots of bitching by manga readers but also an excellent and enjoyable work when viewed in its own right (yes I know that OVA had Mitsuo Iso working on it but it doesn't mean you can only take liberties when you have a godlike animator on your team). So I think in this case a more thoughtful and perhaps more daring director could have chosen to alter the scenes so as to depict superior fight choreography. In any case there is large room for improvement.

Direction: 8.5/10 There are quite a few very well directed scenes in the anime but I felt the transitions between scenes were a bit abrupt and not very smooth. There were too many jump cuts than necessitated but overall the choice of camera angles (both perspective and level of zoom) is sound. There were not any outstanding shots that I would call attention to unlike the case with Trust and Betrayal and a few scenes in Hunter X Hunter 1999 which I consider among the most well directed action anime ever. Whilst there is a good amount of foreshadowing in the anime I felt that took away some of the surprise from the reveal at the end so I would argue that is not a sign of excellent direction after all. I would also question the choice of scenes to include as I thought that perhaps a few more scenes could have been devoted to developing the character relationships so we could actually care about the people who died. It would have helped to show a more human side to Arima (maybe show him waking up in the morning or cooking or eating food or something) so he doesn't come off as a complete autist. The meeting between Yamori and Lantern also did not give off the vibes of 2 extremely dangerous ghouls meeting one another so could use some improvement.

Story: The story was weird as fuck. None of the characters acted realistically. Especially Lantern and Arima. I know they're ghouls but...are all ghouls supposed to be mentally messed up? They are literally batshit insane. Lantern wants to experience human life, then she goes out and starts fucking murdering people. Like...what are you trying to go for here, seriously. And I'm not sure why she suicided at the end but that felt weird and out of place. I know it's supposed to make you cry or some shit? But we had like 5 minutes of screen time and she was acting fake as fuck all the way through so...yeah. There was not a minute of genuine emotion from Minami except when she was dying so I can't say she was a very well developed character. Arima is an emotionless autist so not much to say there (he acts weirdly out of character a few times like letting Fura and Minami in on his secret Lantern-hunting mission which he isn't supposed to let anyone know about but w/e maybe he's psychic or something). Fura is...not very delinquent-like. Idk what delinquents are like in Japan but he doesn't act like any delinquent I know of. And especially that guy that died at the start - "we should have stayed and played baseball" - FUCKING REALLY? THESE ARE YOUR LAST WORDS? Come the fuck on man...okay. Enough bitching about the one aspect of anime that I don't really care about.

Overall: Delicious Minami tentacles and some hot Arima-on-ghoul action mmm tasty. Watch this if you're an Arima fan and you can't get enough of those batshit-crazy pretty girl ghoul tentacles.

The story is really formulaic, just like Hokuto no Ken. Guy has his loved woman (sister in this case) taken by someone. He goes around looking for her. He finds people being robbed/raped/killed by gangsters. He beats up/kills these gangsters. Big boss appears. He beats the big boss. Repeat ad infinitum. You get the idea.

The art is really good though. The art style is really polished and looks cleaner than the original. Character designs are great, not affected by the manface problem which plagued the original.

If you're wondering whether to read Jackals, Priest, Red Soul or Dark Mage, well I've read them all and I'll have to say: Dark Mage has by far the best art out of all of them. By far. The character design is just so much better it's not even funny. Now obviously, when 99% of the manga on the market is just stupid bug-eyed moeshit, the bar is set kinda low. So when I was going through these manga the first time round, I just thought "good art" and didn't think to compare them. Now that I've re-read them and compared their art, the difference ... is just staggering. Dark Mage has by far the best art out of the lot.

Also the action is quite good and the plot is enjoyable. Unfortunately it is cancelled so I can't really comment further on the plot. It looked really promising though.

Okay, I overrated this manga the first time round.

Actually, the art isn't that good. Leaving aside the fact that Tama and Shumire look identical even though one is a man and the other is a woman, the contours of the face is just not very well drawn. Dark Mage has better art.

The action scenes, as I said before, are lackluster: Kiron throws an axe. God gets killed. That just about sums up half the "fight scenes" in this manga. The other half is people getting impaled by claws or spears or something pointy like that. Dark Mage has much better action scenes.

The ... story is also a bit nonsensical. There are "gods" who can get killed. But some gods can respawn, apparently. There's also a "king of man", which can kill gods - but it was all a part of Aizen's - woops, I meant Death God's - plan! Yes, Kiron's entire life, including meeting Aida, was all planned way in advance by the Death God, to turn him into something that kills gods, even thought the death god is a god! And then the death god gets killed by Kiron, his own creation. Which somehow leads to his other half respawning and resurrecting Aida. Also there's mana from the stars which is somehow guarded by a vampire (but only if he doesn't drink human blood) who can send it back to the stars and make it beyond the grasp of humans (but not gods), and Shumire can just become a god because she wants to, for some reason. Then she gets killed and respawns and looks like a floating glowing human. Oh and she gives the star mana to Tama, because she can just do that.

Makes perfect sense.

All in all, I would recommend Dark Mage over this manga if you like fantasy and martial arts.

I'd have to give the story a 7 for originality. To begin with, the story is promising and the setting had potential. It left a lot of stuff unexplained though, like why is every single life form a human? Why can wasps speak even though they're so small that there's no room for a brain capable of understanding human language? Why is the praying mantis at the end unable to speak even though wasps can? What's the angel supposed to be? Aren't all the animals supposed to be from reality? So why was there a giant snake thing and that praying mantis-scorpion hybrid? How did ... that retractable claw thing even work?

I have to admit the ending was rushed. It explained most of the stuff that happened, but felt like a cop out. Were they keeping real live human brains connected to a virtual reality, like in the Matrix, or were the humans simulated in software to begin with? How did they even preserve the minds of the humans, since their brains were probably disintegrated in the impact? Actually how did they get resurrected at all, that was never explained to begin with. The only plausible explanation is that the whole scenario, including the past lives of all the humans, were all completely fabricated. Why would they do that? Not explained. It was implied that they were trying to select a creature design that is most suited for battle. But what about ambush, betrayal, alliances and such? A good design could be caught by surprise by a bad design, or betrayed by a bad design, or attacked by a gang of bad designs. In addition, what if a martial arts expert got given a bad design, and a total idiot got given a good design? I thought that T-Rex design was pretty awesome, but she died because she got killed in human form. Surely that's not a good mechanism for selection? It's too dependent on luck.

As for the art, it was okay. I didn't like the character designs. They were lacking in definition, edges weren't drawn with a line, rather just a gradient was there. The cheeks were also too wide, especially on the kid, and the eyes looked kinda bad. The monster designs and gore was decent though.

Overall if you haven't read this manga then try it to broaden your horizons. It's only 10 chapters. You might find it somewhat interesting.

Ever spent 8 hours doing something that's both boring AND a waste of time? If you haven't, then read this manga. At the end, you will be able to say to yourself "I have finally wasted 8 hours of my life reading an incredibly shitty manga for absolutely no reason".

Where to begin with how much this manga sucks? Well, let's start with the surface and work our way in. First of all, the art sucks ass. It looks like it was drawn by an amateur. Sure, you can get a kick out of the amusing facial expressions, but after 50 chapters it gets kind ... of boring. And it's not like Murata's One-Punch Man, where the main character is drawn like shit on purpose and the rest of the characters are drawn seriously for comedic effect. There is not a single properly, seriously drawn page in this whole manga. The art style is inconsistent in a bad way. All the girls are drawn like whores when close up.

The story is pretty much boring as fuck. Main guy is a gary stu who's so good at martial arts he's invincible, and has a harem of girls who he fucks. He goes somewhere to beat up some bad guys and comes back to japan at the end. Wow, so original. There is not a single nugget of wisdom to be found within this entire manga. It's supposed to be about martial arts, but it's more like magic. Characters can dodge bullets and do that flash-step thing. Moves that are wildly unrealistic and totally fantastical like that fist of the north start fist-spamming move. Above all nothing changes in the plot whatsoever. I can't remember anyone significant who died. Certainly none of the main characters died, not even the villains. I guess you could call it a comedy, except it's not funny.

Anyway the manga is pretty much just shit. I'd recommend people to not read it.

One weird thing about this movie is that none of the main characters ever look at you straight in the face. They are either looking left or right. Check the movie if you don't believe me. It appears that Ghibli doesn't know how to draw faces looking directly ahead, or it ends up looking very ugly if they do, which is the same thing.

The action in this movie is not quite on the same level as Sword of the Stranger. Sure, the guy shoots a few people's hands and heads off, but so what? There's no real sword fights, just a bunch of people ... getting shot.

The plot is cliched as well. Wolf girl saves human boy. Destroy forest -> great disaster happens. Boy tries to save forest. etc etc.

Overall I'd have to say that I overrated this movie when I first saw it. It is definitely not as good as I thought. I dropped the rating from 10 to 7.

Pretty much just the worst anime I've ever seen. It's not just religious propaganda, it misrepresents Buddhism and skepticism at the same time. There are no such things such as demons or evil spirits in Buddhism. The "possession" idea is purely a medieval Christian invention. It's downright disgusting that they would cast the "Buddha" as an exorcist. Buddhism is about self-control, as in, control of your own mind - to avoid thinking and acting mindlessly and instead practice mindfulness, being aware of your own thoughts, etc.

But actually, the main problem I have with this anime is that it doesn't have any good violence scenes. ... To be fair, it is PG-13, so I shouldn't have expected anything good. Oh well. I'll never watch any movie not rated R ever again.

Also the art was shit.

This anime is fucking shit.

Musashi challenges an unarmed guy to duel and then gets beaten? When did this happen? Since when did Musashi become an idiot? He never challenged someone to fight unless he was certain he was going to win. And Musashi almost NEVER fought fairly. He always used some kind of underhanded trick to ensure that he would win. Anyone who read his book would know that he had no patience for honor or fairness in combat. Also, losing to an unarmed guy? Top lels. The whole point of Musashi being in the anime is to show that the MC is stronger ... than him. This is unfortunately the standard shonen method of "character development".

This entire anime is essentially just propaganda to glorify "Mutsu Enmei" or whatever the fuck that made-up fictional nonexistent martial is called. IF YOU TRAIN HARD YOU WILL BECOME TOTALLY INVINCIBLE TO SWORDS AND GUNS AND YOU CAN MARRY ANY GIRL YOU WANT! SERIOUSLY! JOIN THE MUTSU TODAY! LOOK AT HOW COOL WE ARE!

No seriously. What's the point of this anime? It's about guy who's a Gary Stu. He goes around beating up everyone who doesn't think he's awesome. Everyone who is not the main character is either an idiot and gets beaten by him, or thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread and worships him like he's God. Every single girl character is either tsundere or deredere for the Gary Stu. Every. Single. One. This got old by the second arc. You could just see the same thing happening over and over again.

And what is up with the guy's morality? [spoiler] He helps a girl ASSASSINATE THE SHOGUN just because HE LIKES HER NAME. [/spoiler] What the fuck. He's willing to plunge an entire country into civil war just because he likes the name of some random girl? How fuck up is that?

The action is boring as fuck because it's not realistic. Why does everyone use a predictable vertical slash that gets telegraphed like 10 minutes before they do it? The same thing happened like 500 times in the anime:

Swordsman uses a vertical slash that he telegraphed about 10 minutes in advance.

Mutsu guy dodges the slash by turning his body sideways.

Swordsman gets punched in the face.

Swordsman does another one of the telegraphed-as-fuck vertical slashes because he's an idiot.

Mutsu guy does the same dodge and punches swordsman in the face.

Repeat until swordsman falls down from exhaustion.

Wow! So fresh! If you thought Berserk was boring, check this out. I think I just found the cure for insomnia. I would only recommend this anime to people who want to watch some guy beat up random idiots with swords (they don't deserve to be called swordsmen) unarmed. That's what this entire anime consists of.

Where to begin with how much Legend of the Legendary Heroes sucks?

The story, to put it bluntly, is absolute shit. Did anyone else get Naruto vibes whilst watching this crap? "Hurr because you have the Sharingan - oops, I meant Alpha Stigma - or Lino Doue or [insert whatever special power here], I and everyone else hate and fear you even though having that power says nothing about you as a person". Yeah, that's how much sense it makes - none at all.

Has anyone else gotten tired of the eye hax bullshit already? LOOK AT ME, I HAVE SPECIAL EYE POWERS! Fucking dumb. ... Did anyone else notice how the Alpha Stigma is basically the same thing as the Sharingan? The ability to "comprehend" everything? Inherent magical powers? Activated by the death of a close one? Trait only present in rare few humans? The Alpha Stigma is basically the Sharingan with a different name.

Did anyone else notice how Ryner Lute is basically Naruto personality wise and Guts story wise? Naruto is a slacker, so is Ryner Lute. Ryner has no ordinary Alpha Stigma! No, his Alpha Stigma is SPECIAL! Just like Naruto's tailed beast is SPECIAL! Also when Ryner activates his Alpha Stigma he throws a hissy fit! Just like how Naruto throws a tantrum when he goes into tailed beast mode! So original! Is there more to Ryner Lute's personality other than "Ah wunna protect mah friens!!"? Same with Naruto! Wow, what a complex and multifaceted personality! Totally not a one-dimensional typical shonenshit protag like Bleach's Ichigo! Did I mention that HE MEETS HIS MOTHER WHO SACRIFICED HERSELF IN HIS INNER WORLD? Can you rip off Naruto any more? I don't think so! Oh, also at the end Ryner Lute swears he will bring Sasuke - woops, I meant Sion - out of "the darkness" (TM). Top kek. And Sion, oh my god, he is the exact replica of Griffith. How he invited Guts - sorry, Ryner - into his little group, how EVERYONE got killed except him, Ryner and the other main character who is a girl (*cough*Casca*cough*). How he sacrificed all his friends to gain power(ahem - become king). Then start wars. Dat inner dialogue resembling that of a megalomaniac.

It's like the author just read Berserk and Naruto and then decided to combine them into one clusterfuck of shit that had an edgier story than Berserk and a shittier cast than Naruto, if that was even possible.

Now onto the action. The action, to put it plainly, sucks. Half of the "battles" are not really battles, just people laughing like retards whilst *black screen* *blood splatter* x_x.

The Alpha Stigma happens to be a way shittier power than the Sharingan to watch in action because it's just a bunch of pentagrams rotating on the screen and occasionally laser beams turn people into dust (but the screen goes black so you don't actually see it). It's shit. At least with the Sharingan (in the Forest of Death episodes at least) you got to see actual hand-to-hand combat, people throwing shurikens etc. In LOTLH all you see is people's magical rotating pentagrams firing magic lightning bolts at others magical rotating pentagram. It's boring as fuck. Sorry, the animation is just so BADLY DIRECTED it hurts. Whenever something cool happens, everything turns black and red so you can't see it. Also, characters don't engage in any real melee combat, they just blink from one place to another.

All in all I wouldn't recommend this show to anyone.