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Sep 3, 2019
Capitalism lives on and I paid a membership to finish this season (8eps in total) early, here comes the review you're looking for that is not a 10.
Mo Dao Zu Shi did not become popular over a night, since the beginning in 2015, it has gained popularity day by day with the BL fans. The growth of the online novel gained a large following which resulted in an audio drama, a manhua, anime, live action drama, and now a second season to the anime. Not to mention a handful of original doujin music.
Out of curiosity, I decided to give it a try. To keep the
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review sharp, the success of Mo Dao Zu Shi isn’t purely living off the energy of horny fujoshis but rather, the story, is, quite, interesting.
The novel in relation to the anime:
The world in which the vast amount of characters’ lives in is a complicated well thought out map. The sheer amount of important characters is insane, and to keep all of them somewhat relevant is no easy job. They all have a place in the plot. Mo Dao Zu Shi have manged to break itself out into a homophobic China demonstrates that even when the gay element is removed, the story still holds up, now that says something. If you rethink all the hetero anime, dramas and books you have encountered, if the romantic bit was removed, does the story still hold up?
Mo Dao is a mystery, supernatural story that follows the growth of our characters, allowing you to grow an attachment to the loveable(hateable) boys. Personally, I felt season 1 was rushed and missed out a few details. The beginning wasn’t explained very well and the switch over from the past and present is a bit blurry, if you blink you may have missed it, plus, the beginning of the story was already a bit messy in my opinion since you get introduced to a lot of characters you do not know, but it’s introduced in a way as if you knew them for twenty odd years. Chinese Xianxia shows are a whole new genre, if you are not very familiar with the concepts, it may be a little difficult to digest at first. I recommend to re-watch the first few episodes of season 1 of the ‘present’ timeline again after the memoires before season two – that is, if you decide to watch on.
The drama in relation to the anime:
Recent airing of The Untamed drama based on the same novel has received extremely well feedback from the public, from the ladies and gentlemens. Without the gay agenda and reading between the lines for hidden gay interactions, the general response from the public is that – they cannot tell the original source was based on a BL novel. Alas, that’s not the point…
The elephant in the room:
I have a few major issues with the anime, it seems like most people, including me, is being clouded by too many positive comments to the point where we can’t objectively point out the flaws of the anime, especially when all the reviews are 10s. For me, watching the drama has swayed my opinion on all its offspring – including the anime as I watched it simultaneously.
First and foremost, the art is quite the ‘bang’. The anime made a what I would call a Shinkai Makoto mistakes, meaning the landscapes and backgrounds look beautiful while character designs are shite. Other than the clothes, I can’t pinpoint the characters, everyone else is just a blur, Sizhui and Jingyi is just one design. Individually, the characters appear quite slick, but all of them in a single anime? It really does not hold up.
Which lead to the next point, the messy story doesn’t help the large amount of characters that are unidentifiable. The anime missed out a lot of details, including the sworn brotherhood between Mingjue, Xichen and Guangyao and suddenly you hear them calling each other brother in the second season, and no, a narrator saying a 5000 word essay does not count as good story telling in an animated show.
If we were to speak from the perspective of a newbie for Mo Dao, the anime is going to be confusing, the reason why I don’t particularly feel that way is because my head automatically filled in the gaps with the novel and drama knowledge. When in reality, if you just watched the anime, there are too many gaps, difficult to follow the story, the events do not flow together and it jumps back and forth on the timeline too much, you kind of have to take the snippets of the past and piece it together in your head to make a flowing story. On top, it can be difficult to identify whether it’s a snippet of the past or an imagination, eg. the scene where Wei Wuxian is talking to what seems like a 3/4 year old Jinling, when really Wei Wuxian never meet Jinling until the present timeline but that was attached to the flashback - unless the anime implied that actually happened, because they also added a scene where apparently Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji meet as kids, cute, but what the fuck is going on.
In fact, I think watching the live action drama is a better option, it acts out even the smaller details the novel didn’t have (I know, crazy, how is that even possible). It had dedicated scenes to how the Jiang family was wiped out, Shijie’s relationship with Zixuan and bits and pieces that was glanced over in the novel. Plus, you can tell the characters apart because the actors look different. While the drama tells the story slightly differently with some new content due to Chinese censorship, I still think it tells the story better than the anime.
Oh for fuck sake how did this turn into a drama review, they did not pay me to say this.
Bottom line, by the progression of the show up until now, I don’t have much hope for the writing to suddenly improve, maybe in season 3 the Yicheng arc will shock me, but until then this adaption up to season 2 is a meh.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Apr 10, 2019
My earliest Ultraman memories brings me back to the many mornings of 2004. I used to wake up at 6am and turn on the TV as soon as I can so I can catch the last 5 minutes of Ultraman before going to school, coming to think of it, bit crazy they aired Ultraman at such a ridiculous hour, if I went to school at 7am I would have never watched the show. I never fully understood the plot of Ultraman from just the fight sequences, just a guy in a wet suit fighting a guy in a rubber dinosaur suit.
Fast-forward to 2019, Ultraman finally
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got an anime adaptation, a story about superheros.
Animation:
CG animes are usually awful because the lack of resources to make it look nice, but Ultraman probably has one of the most fluid CG animations I have seen in anime, I don’t think I ever recovered from Ajin to be honest, ffs Polygon. The fluidity of the anime looks beautiful, the fight sequences are well choreographed, the slow-mos are timed aesthetically pleasingly. The stills and landscape scenes have beautiful colour palettes, in particular the rooftop sunset scene in Ep1, the car driving into the sunset with skyscrapers in Ep3 and the light explosion sparks. The down side of the CG is that some regular non-fight scenes don’t look too great, especially the large CG crowd scenes, which is understandable since those are more transition scenes and not the main focus like the fights. By the back end of the show, the CG became less prominent and I was less actively aware it was CG since I got use to it.
Characters:
Following contains minor spoilers, proceed with caution.
Shinjiro’s character development is a bit shit or if he had any /major/ development. Upon first meeting Shinjiro, he seems to be indecisive and whiny like a typical shonen hero, but then I saw this quote on Wikia describing him “A somewhat lonely boy with a good heart”, it’s quite accurate, he is just a small 17-year-old boy who didn’t even know his dad was Ultraman for 17 years so… If you allowed yourself some space to think, his impulsive hot-headed action is justified given his situation, his continuous self-doubt if he is fitted to be Ultraman actually made him a little less robotic and more like a teenage boy given a big responsibility. HOWEVER, I’m not sure if he was written like this in the manga or the anime fucked it up, I grew very little attachment to Shinjiro, even though he’s lead and has probably the most screen time, I felt like there was very little development for him and he’s a bit bland.
Moroboshi is a character I grew fond of and began to like, damn he was awfully annoying at the beginning, I guess someone had to play the logical thinking cold character. When he appeared as Ultraman with his katana fighting style, that was cool as heck and I began to be invested in him. The balcony scene in Ep11 had me dying of laughter, brilliantly showcases the dynamics between Moroboshi and Shinjiro’s relationship.
Hokuto Seiji kun again is another character I dislike when he first appeared, bit cocky and the whole onichan thing was like what the fuck (non-related, he vaguely resembled Akechi from Saiki K and that added to the annoying factor). The big changing points for him in my opinion was the little snippets of his interaction with Yapool ojisan, especially the very last interaction they had, ojisan lived his life lowkey in the form of an old man got out of his way for Hokuto, that got me in the chest. If ojisan turned out to be a bad guy I’m going to slap a bitch.
Conclusion:
I’m quite glad this was a Netflix release that released all the episode at once instead of a weekly release, it made watching it smoother and information don’t drop out of my brain by watching it over the course of 13 weeks. The lack of OP and the ED skipped made watching seamless, almost like a long movie. If only all new anime was released like this. Overall a fun watch, has its flaws and plot holes, how Rena is 17 but Ultraman was last active 30 years ago and her mother was killed when she was born?? I didn't talk about the plot today, you'll just going to have to trust me on this - it has an interesting enough plot, aliens and superheroes, you don't need to know any more than that.
I would definitely anticipate in a season 2, I want to know about Hokuto and Yuko, the secrets behind the aliens and who the hell is a dad, I mean, Agent Adad.
Oh shit, I just remembered I forgot to talk about Bemular, well, I guess they’ll have to make a s2 so I can talk about him. Until next time, plus ULTRA!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 8, 2019
Welcome to Karl Marx the animation: The Daddy of Communism.
The premise of the show stated that the anime is made to commemorate Marx 200th anniversary with a serious tone, while most of us (in the west) is taking the piss out of it. I can’t unseen that joke someone made on tumblr calling this as Xi Jinping’s way of making communism appealing to the younger generation, as hilarious and meme like that text post was, some truth lies underneath it. One simple click on Google will tell you that the anime is in fact funded by multiple government authorities, ie. The Government’s Marxism Office. It’s
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definitely propaganda alright. After more clicks around the internet and watching the anime myself, I don’t really understand who the target audience is.
Responses from the public:
Since I never read any of his work, I can’t confirm how accurate the dialogues are. But I don’t feel like I’ve learnt much from the anime. One of the criticisms I’ve seen Chinese people commenting is that the content doesn’t appeal to a specific audience, it’s too simplistic for those who knows about Marxism, but too complicated for those who know nothing.
There’re not many negative comments of the show under the episodes, the review function for the anime is blocked on the Bilibili platform where the show is streamed (I wonder why). I had to look else where for reviews. On the site Douban, out of the 1527 reviews, 50.3% are 1 star and the anime have a rating of 4/10 (as of today 07/03), if that doesn’t tell you something about how bad the show is, I don’t know what will. People don’t seem to have a problem making sarcastic comments and rating the show 1 star due to the quality of it. What’s bloody hilarious is that people are commenting on how Marx will be disappointed if he knew that Bilibili is charging people to watch the latest episodes, capitalism at its finest, yeah baby.
The ONLY reason I can write this review a week early is because I have a paid membership with Bilibili and I have access to the show. I guess it sucks to be you if you can’t afford one, huh.
The animation, music, writing:
The first thing you will notice is that the animation is damn awful, it’s so inconsistent, it switches from 3d to 2d and back to 3d then 2d and 3d and 2d every 6 frames, it’s really annoying and harsh to the eyes, as soon as you get used to the style it changes. Episode five was just a train wreck, the faces looked funny, there was illustrations inserted that was just in a completely different art style and appeared out of place.
The choice of depicting Marx and Engels as hot bishonens is also a mystery to me, I’m not saying they weren’t hot when they were young, I don’t know I can’t find any photo evidence of it (huh I wonder why), but this is what I mean when I say who is the anime for? It’s supposed to be serious toned propaganda for the communist party, yet they adopted a Japanese bishie otome game style. In episode 3, there’s also a weird ass aura between Marx and Engels, the whole show seems like a doujin to me. The ED is also one hell of a meme, the lyrics is all glory and communism with a comical rap section.
It really feels like it’s very low budgeted, neither the animation or writing is great, disappointing considering the government funded this. The pacing of the story is too fast, many characters are introduced but never gets another mention, the concepts are glanced over and never discussed in depth. In episode five, Marx literally aged 20 years and they skipped over probably the most important parts of his life. Engels on the other hand has about couple minutes of screen time the entire show, considering he is equally as important as Marx, he did co-write the The Communist Manifesto for god sake, oops, sorry my bad, god doesn’t exist in communism.
If the purpose of the anime were to educate, I don’t think they should chicken out on the details. Literally everything that was said in the show have gone over my head.
Would I recommend this? It’s up to you and what you want out of this, watch it for a good laugh but don’t expect anything out of it, if you are even remotely interested in Marx, I presume you are intellectually enough to read some books and journal articles.
Enough shit from me, I will now educate myself by reading a free copy of The Communist Manifesto. Ride on my comrades, peace and out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Dec 10, 2018
I should have known the moment I saw the word KyoAni, and that it can turn into shit very quickly. You probably heard this so many times, but the anime had so much potential, instead it’s a pile of slush with very flowery art that matter jack shit.
I admit upon first sight, it’s extremely visually appealing, the trailer gives almost the same phenomenal feel a Makoto Shinkai trailer gives. But 2 episodes in, you’d be gone and the last thing you care about are the specs of dust particles glowing in sunlight, and 4 episodes in, you don’t remember a single shit that happened
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in episode 1. I would argue that some(most) shots are pointless because you are screaming for a plot.
Another thing in terms of production quality, I only found out upon completion that the anime has this high-tech surround sound incorporated, great, I didn’t know, I certainly won’t revisit the show, I couldn’t experience the greatness, tragic.
Yeah okay, I am having a dig at the art and surround sound, but objectively, how many of us have the fancy equipment to hear the difference, hell, some of us watch dub, do you think they care?
Story and Character:
The main review that actually matters -I care about none of the characters.
Let’s talk Violet, she is essentially a robot with no emotions, she doesn’t get any character development, the “ideal” plotline is that she learns emotions and eventually finds out what “love” means – which she doesn’t, or maybe she does I don’t know I can’t tell her emotions. The origin of Violet is also too ambiguous for its own good, what is her back story??? Who is she???? I understand at the beginning it’s vague and we go “ohlala” is she human? Is she roboto? But then it was never explained why a tiny 5 year old human is the strongest thing in war over guns.
The problem with this show is that it follows the one of request kind of story line, similar to Natsume Yuuchinchou, there’s a bunch of characters that come on for one episode and tell their sad life story and then you’ll never see them again. However, in Natsume, there are fixed characters you see over and over and begin to form attachment to their quirks. While in VE you don’t have a very interesting main, or relevant supporting characters.
Let’s break down what we know about the characters:
1. Violet: a robot
2. Gilbert: dead? But not dead? Green eyes?? In love with an underaged girl? Is it platonic or romantic?????
3. Hodgins: Violet’s boss, that’s it
4. Gilbert’s brother: a mother fucker and I can’t even remember his name
5. All the other people at the postal place, boobs mcgee, shounen in heels, the other two girls who are as bland as uncooked pasta
6. Other people: the guy who liked stars, depressed dad, dead boy, I cannot remember anyone else
I really wanted the show to be good and was praying it gets better till the very last second – because it’s really a waste of good art and “sound”. For the record I actually attempted to read the light novel a few years back, I never got past the depressed dad chapter – which is the first chapter, I’m not sure if the translation I read was lacklustre or if VE is just not for me.
Please Violet, please acquire some likeable characteristic, I'm hanging on with a single thread right now trying to make me love you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 10, 2018
Enjoyment:
To put it into context, I’m writing this review 12 hours after I watched it in the cinema. 2 years ago, I watched Kimi No Nawa in the cinema, and there was 5 people, including me. The last one was Perfect Blue, there was 8, and 5 of them was people I dragged along. This time, the theatre was filled, it’s almost as full as a first screening of a marvel superhero movie. I think it shook an emotion inside me to see things you like in real life, the anime community in the west isn’t small, but it’s always online and nothing ever comes
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to the cinema. It’s so different to watch it on big screen, to laugh out loud with everyone when All Might says “shit” or every time Kacchan does his shouty Kacchan things, to feel hype and tense about the boss fight. Shonen series has this tendency to generate a little fire in you, times that by how many other people in the cinema at that time, it’s as powerful as a Detroit smash! Very enjoyable!! My experience of this film is obviously skewed compared to the guys who watched it alone at home with a smaller screen. Nevertheless, here’s a breakdown, no major spoliers.
Characters:
There is no character development for the supporting characters (I would argue very little development for our main boys too), the movie’s target audience is most likely people who have seen the TV series, it’s expecting the audience to know the back story and the quirks of each character. While I don’t think you need to watch the series to enjoy the film, I think it contributes to the enjoyment. Such as, when Kacchan says “Thank you” to Kirishima and everyone is suddenly crying at his character development – because he’s our jerk teenage son who is opening up and being nice finally. Or when Deku says “Thank you” to Todoroki when he uses his fire – because we know he’s reluctant to use his fire quirk due to his father. Or why everyone in the cinema collectively groan when Mineta appeared on screen (tbh I wanted Tsuyu to have more of a screen time, alas!).
Plot:
A stereotypical superhero movie storyline, superheroes fights the villains, superheroes saves the day. Now that doesn’t mean it’s bad because how have DC and Marvel been running for 7 decades, am I right? There is a small plot twist. It’s still an interesting film, although I would’ve liked to see more of the island and the features it supposedly have, that might be interesting, what I’m saying is, I need a Godzillo spinoff.
Art and music:
Pretty good, fluid animation, good use of music, nothing major to have a dig at or praise.
Overall:
It’s like another arc to the existing story, a fun watch.
Melissa is also best girl you can’t change my mind.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 27, 2018
Now this is the peak of marketing, using bishounens and gap moe to sell your products, Sanrio sure know what's up. I'm not complaining, well I am, where's Gudetama?? Arguably the best existing Sanrio character {even though he was 5th in the 2017 ranking [Slightly mad that he dropped a position from 2016 (what about KIRIMI-chan who ranked no.1 beating Gudetama in the food character election)]} sorry I'm going off track.
You see, this is nothing but a huge Sanrio ad trying to increase merch and sales. However, I do appreciate the message behind this, it's true that you can love cute things and still be
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a MAN surprise surprise masculinity is weak.
Can you believe they chose Little Twin Stars who ranked 6th over Gudetama? I'm sorry I can't.
Oh, about the anime, it's not very good.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 1, 2017
Why are you reading this? Why am I writing this? Questions we all ask ourselves. Jesus, Buddha please forgive my sins.
The all age version can be found on your regular anime page, but honestly it’s so censored that you see nothing. So onward with the less censored version, which do show boobs but apparently that’s not the 18+ version yet, idk where you’d find that. If you do ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Actually, no, please don’t send me it.
This has zero plot, and it's not even a real hentai, I watched this with no subs and I can understand it because it has about 5
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seconds worth of dialogue every episode – which is not very long in the first place (that’s what she sa-)
Also, it’s terrible (not to mention the rapes), go find a real hentai, or real josei, drama, or romance anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Apr 18, 2017
Love a bit of shoujo? Fancy a love story between a 10 year old and 15 year old? No? Good.
Look, everyone likes a bit of lewd jokes every now and then but when your entire ‘comedy’ aspects of the show relies on poop and penis jokes, I think you need to find a new genre to write about. The anime is in fact revolves around main characters that are 10, so naturally they are annoying kids who think they are funny when they say penis.
Penis aside. Character time.
Kaho, a 15yr high schooler who fell in love with a 10yr old because he said mean things
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to her since no one else ever did that to her. So, when she gets in a relationship with a kid who cares shit all, she expects way too much and over thinks every damn phrase he says. She’s just very spoilt and empty, definitely need better things to do with her life.
Kanade, oh Kanade and the gang. A kid in his natural habitat who couldn’t care less about being in ‘love’ since he broke up with her because he didn’t manage to hula-hoop 200 times or he thought he was turning into a dog or proposed to her while playing melodica and singing at the SAME time (not possible, trust me). Honestly, I’m not mad, he’s a kid and so are his friends, they act their age (where the ‘shoujo’ part and the entire plot falls apart) they just happen to be huge and bishie.
Other people in the show have very extreme, exaggerated personalities but you probably won’t remember because none of them had development other than the extreme, exaggerated personality. 29yr old lolicon pedo onni chan who drinks bath water and licks used chopsticks? Check. Oppai mcgee who is a stalker and sniff underwear? Check.
All these characters are really gross if you think about it, the dude that was obsessed with an under-aged boy? I call pedophilia. Sneaking in and drug someone to marry you? That's some serious offence.
Plot time.
There is none, if there is, it’s bad.
Overall, the 12ep was not as interesting as the synopsis suggests, the cast had some legit good voices too, the anime was just... terrible.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Apr 6, 2017
This review will cover a little bit from S1 as well as this season.
This arc is a lot better in terms of storytelling I think, S1 was chaotic and the comedy aspects of it was overwhelming (that, or I got used to the style). I believe it might be quite hefty for someone who have not been exposed to Chinese mythical fantasies and its mechanism, especially with the add on of modern internet humour. I found it difficult to follow at the beginning.
Moving on! The Wangquan Fugui arc is where the real business happens, it’s based on Fugui and Qingtong. It followed a same
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vibe from S1 but with a bit more structure. [SPOILER however, I’m slightly icky about how the arc ended, the relationship wasn’t fully concluded for them, instead it (obviously) started to build up to the Yue Hong arc.]
I briefly flicked through the manhua and it appeared that the animation follows the manhua practically panel by panel, so there seem to be very little difference from paper to anime. So yes, the pacing is still fairly fast at some bits not because of the anime. One of the major things I've noticed is that the story gets more complicated and serious compared to S1, a lot more characters are about to be introduced in the new arc, definitely something to look forward to.
Anyhow, the concept of the story is not common and it’s quite fun, would recommend!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 3, 2017
Tag yourself
1. Mindless protag girl who is in love with her onni chan
2. Emo boy who loves his teacher who has boobs
3. Loli girl with princess complex
4. Dude with Freud issues and is in love with girl who has long hair because it reminds him of his mother
5. Hypersexual sadistic lady who has nothing better to do than hurting people for fun
6. Gay gal who doesn’t mind being the friend with benefits
7. Big boob thin body senpai who used kohai for sex
8. Someone who just want sex
And… I am none of these, but honestly that’s legit a breakdown of all the characters and 8. is all the character and all the other
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characters that you probably don’t remember. Honestly for you all who say this is so realistic, TAG yourself and let me know.
Subjectively, I can’t relate since as a high school teen I have no life outside of trying to do my maths homework. Yes, love is a very complicated feeling and such but the anime results in sorting every problem by having sex, like, that’s unhealthy yo
Objectively, some of the sex scenes was just unnecessary, hey we need to throw in a sex scene for the sake of fan service so that the horny kids will keep watching. Sex scenes are fine when it’s done correctly, certainly not in some case.
The relationships were a mess, the characters themselves lack communication, it annoyed me when Mugi thought to himself that he can’t tell Moka that he isn’t the prince she imagined he’d be – WHICH HE TOTALLY COULD, DO YOU REALISE HOW MUCH EASIER THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN you just want to have sex with her stop with the bloody excuses. (They are all scums, no lies, not even close to being likeable)
Anyway, onwards with the good stuff, the OP and ED is super good I like both songs, a bit of surprise to see 96Neko here. The art is quite nice with the still frames every so often, the sakura scenes are pretty.
The synopsis of the show sounds a lot more interesting, it’s a shame that it didn’t do it justice and did not tackle the topic well. That said, it’s not fully terrible, the end of the story [Spoiler] actually pulled the score up for me (not sure if I just wanted it over, nevertheless) the fact that the two part ways is like thank lord go find yourself get out of this horrible loop, but the process of the anime was a pain, the huge chaos and the ntr oh god I’m ending it here before I spiral into the void bye.
Edit: Back from ep1 of the live action, why did they make a live action of this, god it's awful
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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