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Warning! Long post! Scroll down for a TL;DR

I really did not expect to dislike a Watanabe anime. Except for Kids on the Slope, but that’s only because I’m not a fan of teen dramas. The premise on paper looks okay. Kinda done before, but it’s Watanabe so I’m expecting it to be executed well. Unfortunately, I think Keiko’s absence really hurt the writing of this show, especially toward the end.

The only thing I found interesting about the story was that I wanted to see if something interesting would happen. What is going on with Skinner, how are they going to get a cure, how these ... flat characters were going to be developed. Unfortunately, the show just gets more confusing and boring as it goes on.

In the last few episodes, we have a random assassin trying to kill one of our main characters and all this mumbo jumbo about this Hondrum cult controlling children. And, we don’t even get a real ending. Supposedly, they find a cure, find Skinner and then the show just ends.

Axel is a try-hard Spike Spiegel. That’s it. He’s badass, he’s charismatic, he’s devil-may-care, he’s vengeful, he’s… a bit disillusioned with the world. The only difference is that he lacks Spike’s depth and sadness. Apparently, he was in this gang, which I guess is why he was in prison. But, we don’t know anything about him beyond that. Cowboy Bebop could get away with keeping its backstories vague because it’s old.

Chris has an even worse backstory… and that it’s similar to Spike. At least it’s more developed than some of the other backstories. She is a weird character. A couple moments that stick out to me is that one time she got mad at Axel for something that wasn’t even his fault, he was running from a bunch of guys and she pointed a gun at him and called him a jackass. Like, what? Another time is when she’s getting ambushed by a russian organization group and when she’s LITERALLY at the brink of dying, THEN she starts kicking butt. See, this show just does not make any sense. Oh, I forgot to mention, her hints with Axel is also pretty shallow. They didn't really tease that they were becoming a thing until like the last few episodes and it isn't like Spike and Faye where we slowly watch her soften up to Spike.

Elaine, I don’t even know. She’s a hacker girl. She’s got this cult backstory and a rivalry with this girl I don’t care about. See, even when they try to develop the characters, I do not care, it feels like they’re just pulling ideas out of their butts.

Ryuji, or… more like Toby from Catherine, he’s probably the most human character out of the cast, but that’s not even saying much. All we know is that he’s awkward, kind of ditzy, and is kinda your average teenage boy. He has family issues and he apparently became a troubled teenager because of that. And… was a spy for some reason, which for some reason brings him to tears. Another pointless, vague backstory and again don’t care.

Doug, I think that’s his name, I don’t even know who he is, he kinda banters a little bit like everybody else, but he has no distinct characteristics to him. He barely even has a backstory to him, one fault of being a short anime.

How Watanabe can mess up the cast of characters, I don’t understand. I mean, when you look at his other projects, all the characters have distinct personalities. You know who all the Bebop members are, you know who all the Samurai Champloo characters are, you know the difference between Carole and Tuesday. Here, the only characters who have somewhat of a personality are Axel, Chris, and Toby, while everyone else is just one dimensional.

I think one of the problems with the anime is that it has too many characters. Off the bat, we get like… 5 characters. Axel, Chris, Toby, Doug, and Edward. And sometimes they don’t really have much to do. At least anything significant. I feel like they should’ve gotten rid of at least one of them. And, I think they should’ve taken the Cowboy Bebop route and slowly build the cast up. Like, we start with Axel. And over the course of these episodes, they recruit all these other characters for their group, Lazarus.

This looks like Watanabe is trying to create another Cowboy Bebop. I mean, look at the intro, even the intro is very Cowboy Bebop ish. When you look at Watanabe’s other projects, some things may take inspiration from Cowboy Bebop, but they also still feel like they’re own thing. Mugen, yeah he’s got the charisma, the skills that pay the bills and the afro hair, but he’s also got a huge temper and is an extreme simp for women. Space Dandy, a little bit closer to Cowboy Bebop in vibes, he’s also charismatic, carefree and badass, but he’s also a simp, a lot more goofy and quirky. And Carole and Tuesday, COMPLETELY different animal.

So… what’s good about this anime? Well, the action. The premise of racing to find a cure before the apocalypse starts is interesting. The english dub is surprisingly more natural-sounding than usual for anime. Some of the music is decent. And, the animation, especially for the action scenes is fine.

TL;DR

The story doesn’t make sense. A lot of things don’t make sense about this show. The key-jangling Cowboy Bebop references, Axel and Chris's romantic tease, this random ass assassin chasing after Axel, little nitpicks like how Axel was able to fly in mid-air one time, this girl who was in this cult who is mad at her, this guy who is living in this controlling rich family, the abrupt ending, the fact that they have to LITERALLY find this ONE guy to get a cure for this apocalypse going on, because he won’t get off his lazy bum to develop it himself.

Half of the cast is one dimensional, the other half is a little less than three dimensional with vague and/or pointless backstories I don’t care about.

As always in a Watanabe anime, the action is fun. The premise might’ve been done before, but I think it could’ve been pulled off better. The english dub doesn’t sound as contrived as other anime. Some of the music is decent sounding. And the animation is good as always, especially for the action scenes.

If you are hungry for some more cowboy bebop content, this could be an okay filling for you. But don't expect much from it.

I think I get what Miyazaki was trying to go for here, but the movie struggles with being too ambitious. From what I'm hearing, in interviews, it seems more of a reflection on Miyazaki's worldviews rather than actually being a good film. I don't mind this being different from other Ghibli projects, but it really wasn't a good movie, Ghibli or otherwise.

About 75% of the film is a basic slice of life adventure. By the time things get interesting, the movie is almost over. Instead of spending so much time on the mundane stuff, there should've been more time spent on the symbolic, spiritual and ... fantasy-world aspects. There's something with these things, but I couldn't bring myself to care about anything else. There are even some important characters that don't get introduced until that 75% of the film is over. With the more complex stuff being mostly glossed over and zoomed past since the film doesn't have enough time to develop them by that point, it's hard to process them.

The characters have barely any personality because not much is done with them and they are trapped in this pretty basic story. The only characters that actually have personality are the heron and the minor characters. They were funny and quirky, design and character wise, but again, they don't really do much, or I had a hard time understanding them. For a Ghibli film, some of the characters are hardly expressive. I can kinda understand why with Mahito, but there still should've been more done with his character in terms of personality and development. He doesn't really actually progress much throughout the story and the growth he does get is very rushed. It's hard to understand what these characters represent when so much was going on so fast in so little time.

Even a couple of the character designs look straight out of other Ghibli films. Examples being Mahito and one of the old ladies that look like great value Grandma Sophia.

The only highlights I can give to this film are the music and animation. Still Ghibli-like.

The film left me bored and mostly confused, which rarely happens with a Ghibli film. For what it's worth, if you're really interested, it might be better to stream rather than to watch in all sitting. And it may require repeat viewings to get everything. Still, I wish the movie took more time to develop the world and characters.

I am quite a fan of the Academia series. I had watched up to three seasons and still need to get caught up with it but this movie is not quite as good as the show. To start with, the movie was a confusing case in that it felt like it was something to be enjoyed as its own but also felt just like a My Hero Academia episode at the end. But still, people who haven't seen the show will still be confused about a few parts and people who have will be left feeling like it could've had more.

To go into deeper detail, ... the story is the main problem. It still has all the decent characters we've come to know but I just felt like most of the cast's roles were reduced in favor of two new characters who serve more as Eri replacements than their own characters. We don't see Uraraka trying to impress Midoriya, Kaminari being a gentleman to women, Asui making snide remarks, heck even Mineta seemed like he was going to be an interesting character with his toned down pervertedness but he was even sidelined as well. They all pretty much feel like shadows of their former selves as a result of their reduced roles. The heart of the series is this whole cast working together and to throw that out the window for most of the movie in favor of having Deku and Bakugou develop a relationship with these two kids who are nothing more than cute damsel in distresses like a certain white-haired abused child makes the film feel disappointing and stale. As I said, I haven't gotten up to season 4 or read the manga so I can't say for sure if Eri had overshadowed the cast or not. I only know about her based on research.

What's worse is that one of the kids got on my nerves with her mean, snobby attitude at the beginning. And whenever they tried to give these kids depth, I still didn't feel sympathetic to them. The girl's bitterness towards heroes just because feels shallow. I know that they wanted to make her a foil to the boy's more caring nature and it was for character development but they could've at least gave her a reason as to why she hates heroes and/or to find a way to make her stand out other than just being annoying. What really got me concerned is that they are allowed to roam by themselves without any questioning or adults and they look around Eri's age. They even tried to make me feel for these characters by giving a reason for their free-range behaviors by going with the cliched mom death and father being too busy but it didn't work.

The third act, however, makes up for the meh parts of this film. It actually felt like a My Hero Academia episode, they finally got the cast together to fight and it was the most awesome, intense fight I've ever seen out of this franchise. I don't know if the rest of the show is like that but I hope it did have some more moments like that. Oh, and even though Deku and Bakugou's relationship is still annoying to watch, just watch this part of the movie and see what I'm talking about. They did something so heart-warming and touching that I never thought they would do.

Now this may be kind of nitpicky but another problem I had was that I felt that the movie should've just been a long tv movie as it didn't quite feel like a cinematic experience at all but rather a long tv episode.

I would give this movie a 6.5 out of 10 and the .5 is just for that ending. If you are a fan of the series, you might find some enjoyment out of this but don't expect it to be better than the show. Look at it as a standalone and as a standalone, it's a decent film.

Even though I'm not a fan of KyoAni, I have tried watching several of their works. I don't know why, I guess I can't resist the animation style, and I'm sure that they can be capable of creating great things but everything I've seen from them fell short. A lot of their projects tend to focus a lot on melodrama and there's a lot of crying and tragedy in their stories. This out of the ones (Clannad, Kanon, and Air) I've seen appears to be the most darkest of them all due to its emphasis on war as well as dealing with stuff such as ... heartbreak, depression, and grief.

There is even one episode with a little girl that has a similar story to one of the characters of Clannad. It's the one where she's losing her mother to some unknown illness and the thing that she has in common with this girl from Clannad is she's becoming orphaned at a young age and has to live alone, taking care of herself. I don't understand the point of these episodes, they're just trying to emotionally manipulate the audience in a contrived way and why nobody appears to have come to take them into a home? Not only that, it's also implied in the light novel that the girl had depression! Judging from her dialogue when she said something like "As a child, I could do nothing but cry". Why? Because she appears to have no caretaker or therapy to help her cope with her grief! The child is going through death of a loved one at a really early age and nobody even cares! How stupid is that?

I tried watching like 6 episodes of it before dropping it. There is crying in just about every episode of the show, which isn't strange for something that's a bit like a soap opera but you know, this is why I'm not a soap opera fan. There is little in the way of comedy or light-heartedness despite its colorful tone. Violet Evergarden is much too involved with trying to pull at the emotions of the audience. There are people being mean to others and the people that Eleven Evergarden (I'll get to why I call her that in a minute) meets always has to have some tragic backstory at hand.

Besides the plot being way too sappy, I also don't like the story of it. What's the point in the idea of having people write letters for people? It's such a childish idea, I mean, why can't people write the letters themselves? It's like a 4 year old came up with this.

The character Eleven Evergarden seems like she has some interesting character development of learning how to feel and understanding other peoples' emotions but one thing I didn't get is why she seems so sheltered as to not know why "I love you" means? Maybe they explained this more but I just wasn't patient enough to watch it to the moment. And in the first episode, she undressed in front of a guy like, I'm just going to call her Eleven because she has as much social skills as Eleven.

There is no memorable music in there and this is coming from someone who loves just about any soundtrack in a piece of media.

I think that Kyoto Animation has potential due to their exquisite art style but just need help with toning down the melodrama of their stories. Maybe adding quite a bit of light-hearted comedy while keeping the melodrama to like a minor amount or so would make them more tolerable for me to watch and then maybe there would be a better balance of drama/comedy and happy/sad.

Its story and even its characters are derivative of other anime such as Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Trigun, and Michiko to Hatchin but lacks the charm of what made Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo and Trigun good. I was surprised that Shinichiro Watanabe didn't even touch this show. Many things about this show take cues from few of the previously mentioned anime that he was involved with, from the characters, to the story, to the genre, to the art style (which was silly at some points), to even the music sounds like Cowboy Bebop's jazz soundtrack. If you've seen these anime, you would've already seen Cannon ... Busters, you're not missing out on much.

Philly the Kid is like a combination of Spike, Mugen and Vash down to the afro. He's a bounty traveling with two girls which causes violence to follow them (Vash) and he has a cynical, sarcastic sense of humor (Spike) but unlike Spike, those traits make him more annoying than charming. Like, I think Spike had more sense than he did, Philly is just a butthole.

Samberry A.K.A. Sam is friendly and naive to a fault, which can even get her in trouble. I don't mind her being a friendship type robot but she clearly has the guts to hurt people when they hurt her friends yet sometimes she doesn't take a hint when people treat her and her friends wrongly or appear to have hidden evil traits, she just thinks everything is a game.

Casey is like Ed in her childlike, sweet, tech-savvy personality but somehow manages to be even more annoying than Ed. She's a Charmy Bee-sounding robot who's constantly blabbing her mouth about everything, she has no personality flaws, and has a stubborn obsession with anything technology.

Sometimes I don't blame Philly, if I was around two dense robots, a Mary-sue who thinks that everyone is her friend and another who talks like a freaking 8 year old, while I'm trying to survive in a world that is so different from their naive minds, I would get annoyed too.

Even the secondary characters are mediocre. Prince Kelby seemed like a nice guy with a sweet relationship with Sam who for some reason turned into a cold, jerkish guy and his relationship with Sam ended up being... I don't want to spoil it. And the worst character of them all, 9ine (probably a reference to the singer) is your typical amoral, rude anime character who drinks to an unhealthy amount.

There's rarely any memorable songs in there. The only song that's catchy is Showdown, which is definitely the most memorable song out of the whole show. And the ending theme, Regardless, while not as memorable still sounds good.

I don't think this anime is as awful as some people make it out to be as there are several good things about it. It has some funny parts, even a few witty dialogue moments and the beginning and ending were interesting. The way the show sets up the characters were interesting, we have a friendship robot, an outdated robot who wants to be upgraded, and an immortal who has tattoos of the amount of times he dies. And the last two episodes had more tension and even character stakes which is unfortunately rare in this series as the characters are quite two-dimensional. I didn't expect it to be renewed due to mixed reviews but here's hoping that the second season will have as good of a story as the last few episodes or else I'm skipping it. It's disappointing that this was written and directed by the guy that co-directed The Boondocks and I was happy to see an anime with a predominantly black cast.

Cannon Busters gets a 4.8 out of 10.

While I`m biased since I don`t like harem anime, I thought this was a formulaic series with nothing much special going for it. There`s little to be interested at here besides Ryo-ohki, who is a sweet and cute cat-rabbit animal with a personality and the first episode when compared to the rest of the episodes in the series was okay. This also had some good music, though I disliked the dub, the actors sounded like they were just reading their lines and Ayeka`s voice sounded too old for her physical age. It started off great and interesting until Ryoko came along. I was interested in ... what will happen next but once that grouch Ryoko came up, the series started dropping the ball more and more. There is not much of a plot here and all it focuses on is silly comedy and melodrama.

Why is everyone all gaga for Tenchi? He`s a bland average Joe character, he`s not that cute or handsome, he is whiny, dense, and an all-around forgettable character. Sure he had an interesting story in the first episode but character-wise, he`s iffy.

The animation and designs show their age. Tenchi is supposed to be the guy the girls are hot for, yet he`s not even that hot, he just looks like a boring everyman character. A lot of the animation is excessively goofy and there is a lot of exaggerated facial expressions for the sake of comedy, which I blame the decade it came out in for. I know that it fits the style of the show but I`ve seen some anime that came out around that time that had less stupidly poor goofy animation.

Aside from the space element, action, and a little mystery, it`s not much different from your average harem anime. It`s disappointing because there could`ve been more plot and for a series revolving around a bunch of quirky girls living with a guy, I was appalled by how much drama and crying there is in this show. It can jump from being a romantic sitcom to a space opera melodrama and it just didn`t mix well. It`s almost like it didn`t know what it wanted to be.

Back to the characters, most of them are just busy fighting over Tenchi and therefore, aren`t that interesting. All of them are either crybabies, dense, bratty or all of the above. Sasami is the nicest one out of the whole cast but even she turned out to be a Mary-Sue with her overly friendly attitude she has towards everyone. There was even one episode where she was crying over Mihoshi leaving but from what I`ve seen, they don`t interact that much, they`re not that close so why is she having such strong feelings about her leaving? She`s like what, 6-9? And she cries too often in the series!

This series is so overrated and I don't get the appeal of it. Watch something better like Wreck it Ralph or Road to Avonlea.

3.6/10

After hearing that this show was similar to My Hero Academia, I decided to give it a shot because I liked that one quite a bit despite my dislike for superhero fiction. I saw from the world, the story, and the premise is so similar to My Hero Academia that it seemed like the writer that wrote that manga took ideas from this anime. Unfortunately, My Hero Academia does its ideas a lot better and more uniquely than this iffy anime.

At first Kotetsu seemed like the somewhat adorkable type character and he seemed interesting and seemed like he could be my husbando later on but ... then, it turned out that he was a hot-headed man who acts like a child.

Blue Rose is the typical bratty teenager who's lashing out at everyone because she hates her job and wants to give up being a superhero. Though, she did change her mind but she's still a little brat, especially to Kotetsu.

Barnaby is an underdeveloped superhero cliche as seen from when he saved Kaede in the second episode when we expected her to be dead or injured. Like, how did he turn invisible like that Clay Aiken song and save Kaede all of a sudden when he wasn't seen under the debris in the first place? Not to mention, how cold and vindictive he is makes him another unlikeable character.

Agnes is the bossy woman who is incompetent at her job and should be fired for being such an angry woman.

I don't think that anyone was good in there except for possibly the Dragon Kid. The other characters and their immature personalities just makes me want to give them a slapping.

The other props I can give to this anime is that it manages not to be boring like most superhero fiction and the story, while mediocre, was probably the most interesting aspect of the writing, and the art is quite good. The dub doesn't make their frustrating characters anymore tolerable to watch but they've done what they could do.

Just watch My Hero Academia, it is so much better with better developed and kinder/mature characters (most of them at least, some of them aren't), less realistic and complex, more unique, and it's hilarious.

3.7/10

I have been avoiding this anime for like two years now, thinking it was "Oh... another silly melodrama". So, I waited until the anime was finished airing, then I checked out a few clips of it and thought maybe it wouldn't be as bad as I thought. It turns out in some ways, I was right, there were a couple of overemotional parts but the anime in general was fairly decent. I was worried about how the story would turn out from the beginning.

The anime is more like a Kyoani anime, since you have your male protagonist meet and befriend some girls. It has a ... little melodrama in it, but it doesn't try to pull at your emotions as often as a typical Kyoani anime.

The story isn't anything really special. It's about this orphaned shogi player with a traumatic family background and he struggles with socializing and depression. It tends to be too slow-paced and struggles with inconsistent pacing. The first like 10 episodes of the series has Rei bonding with these three girls named Akari, Hinata, and Momo, but the rest of the series is about shogi and Rei withdraws from the girls more. One of the good things about the series is Rei's bondage with the three girls, the girls were my favorite character but in the teen episodes, the series throws that out the window and the girls are reduced to side characters. Add in a little excessive drama but we'll get to that with the characters.

The show mainly focuses on Rei and to a lesser extent, Akari, Hinata, and Momo (before the teen episodes, that is). After that, the show starts focusing more on Rei's relationship with the secondary characters who didn't get much screentime during Rei's bondage with the girls. Those are Rei's family and his shogi associates. Rei is an okay character, it took me a lot of time for him to grow on me. He's a quiet character who struggles with depression which can make him come off as a crybaby to me.

The three girls are adorable and they provide the levity and light-heartedness of the show and that's why they're my favorites. They're a good balance to the gloomy melodrama of Rei's life. They are also resilient, strong, caring people who are going through a hard time too but take each day as it comes and I respect that in characters.

As for the secondary characters who Rei interacts with beside the girls, they don't really get much development. I remember Nikaido and Kyouko getting a little development and backstory but they are still weak characters as they do not get that much backstory or character development as to why they're the way they are so I couldn't sympathize or relate to them. They both just come off as arrogant, loud characters to me. So, overall, the secondary characters are weak and not compelling.

The art and animation is the most beautiful, realistic I have ever seen in anime. Shaft's quality could rival that of Kyoani's art and animation. I do remember the character designs in the beginning were inconsistent since some of them didn't really fit the scenery but that was brief so that's forgivable.

Do I recommend this anime? Maybe, it's not for everyone. It's not great but it was fairly decent to me. It turned out better than I thought it would be but I do think that the anime should've laid off some of the melodrama it had. I would rate it like a 6.4./10.

I haven't seen much shounen anime. I watched bits and pieces of Naruto and Dragon Ball Z so this is my first shounen anime I actually sat through and watched the whole way through. I was a little leery of it since I heard it's a superhero anime that's based on Marvels and DC Comics and I was never much of a fan of their movies but I was surprised that I actually found this anime quite enjoyable. That made me think that maybe I don't like watching superhero films because the theater makes them loud and all that and I am sensitive to loud ... sounds, I thought it was also the speed of them. It's weird though because I like action stuff.

I can't compare this to other shounen anime since I haven't seen much of them yet. The story is immersive and creative. It made me wish that we lived in a world full of quirks. It showed the great intensity of trying to become a hero, well-written in a way that most superhero movies don't do.

The characters all were distinct with unique personalities and abilities. All-Might was compelling and strong with a charming, likeable personality. Aizawa is an attractive, cool teacher even if he can be too strict. Ochako is a bit too polite but I still think she is a great character mainly because of her cheerful, amiable attitude and also she FLIES. Asui can say things that may offend people but she's also sensible enough to not be annoying with it. The only ones I didn't like were Izuku (wipe your snot, Izuku) and Mineta, who were crybabies but also in the case of Mineta, perverted. Izuka is not as bad as Mineta, he's just mediocre but what I liked about him is that he's cute and badass. Oh, I almost forgot Katsuki is another character I don't like because I don't like overconfident hot-headed characters and he was such a bully to poor Izuka.

The art is a little simplistic and nothing to write home about, the animation however is charming. It's one of the anime that has a really good dub, the actors were charming, funny and brought fresh life to their characters. I love its goofy comedy and its exciting action. The anime is a bit derivative and not completely groundbreaking but it executes most of its tropes creatively.

The plot is inconsistent, like there was a subplot where Hatchin was chasing after a thief who took her shoes in episode 3 but by midway episode 4, that subplot is completely thrown out the window. Though, the main plot is a buddy road trip show about two young girls who clash a lot, the writer did put a fresh twist on it but it ended up being executed pathetically.

Michiko and Hatchin’s relationship is cliched, starting off not really liking each other but then growing to genuinely care for each other. None of the characters are particularly likeable, Michiko, while a refreshingly cool, badass black ... lady is really hot-headed, immature, and irresponsible and Hatchin is aloof, dense, and bratty. They tend to fight a lot like young sisters, though that’s toned down by the middle of the series. The characters are overall, mediocre.

The only redeeming values are some of the comedy in it (though there are some corny ones). The music has a more latin/brazilian vibe to it, some of it is jazzy but it’s nevertheless catchy. The voice actors did a fairly good job bringing fresh life to their characters (I watched the english dub) though the only downside is Hatchin sounds a little too whiny but it’s not too big of a problem since she has a whiny, emotional personality. But she does sound like a 10-year-old instead of an adult trying to sound like one. And the charmingly beautiful art and animation.

Good quality production values, fairly decent animation, fresh voice acting, and groovy music is wasted on a poor script. Too bad Watanabe is only part of the music department in this anime. If he had a more major staff role, this anime probably would’ve been a lot charming. I can see why this anime was never that popular: It’s too forgettable to be recommended. If you want something better by Watanabe, go check out Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, they are much more memorable with a more creative story, clever jokes, and likeable, realistic characters.