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Dec 15, 2020
For the viewer: don't watch this now. Wait for more. I watched three episodes and was surprised to find that I had seen... a movie, apparently.
Right now, while Burn the Witch is quite aesthetically appealing, it is a merchandising story so caught up in placing all the bells and whistles that it fails to be believable or likable.
It contains the usual forms: girls with 'personality', throwaway cute characters, stereotype sandwiches, a quelle-meaningful MC catchphrase, thighs, and more thighs. The setting does raises interesting questions - what are dragons?, what is this new society? how does this magic work? - but it's neither well explained
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nor believable. In three episodes, half the city of London perishes under flames and explosions. That raises some follow-up questions: how is this city still standing? Why do people live here?
The characters are also enjoyably frustrating. There is Ninny, our lovely MC, whose response to 'you destroyed half the city and killed thousands!' is 'where's my money!?', Balgo, the village idiot, stereotype gangster 1, stereotype cop 32, quirky anime council members 49-117, et cetera. The only persona who doesn't come with perennial facepalms is Noel; probably because her motives and personality are nil.
Burn the Witch failed to be likable. I can't respect it; neither as a viewer expecting excitement nor as an author expecting craft. That said, the future may bring backstory and believability.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 4, 2020
Hey, pal.
Having coincidentally delved into the webtoon a month before this show aired, I was quite excited about Tower of God. For those new, Tower of God is an epic fantasy story about a cute OP simp named Bam who must climb an SAOish tower chock-full of warring factions to find his gal friend. It's a frighteningly well-built story that investigates friendship and betrayal. Like all great intrigue stories, you'll often find yourself flipping back through earlier arcs and saying, "Oh! That's why that character was doing that." or, "That's who that person was!"
I'm going to go out on an edgy limb here, though,
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and say that the anime should have done more to separate itself from the comic. Hateful, I know, but bear with me; the issue is the sheer amount of information there is to show. Each character has a backstory and motives and an arc which makes some moral point. The anime tries to show all this and suffocates itself. Each normal scene has its own mid- or end-scene during which we learn about why the characters did what they did. In a comic format, that's okay, because the reader regulates themselves - you can scroll back, understand, read the scene again, and feel fulfilled. In video, it's not okay. It's tedious and creates choppy progression. Even to someone who's read the comic twice, I felt like I was watching this show just to catalogue and study for a test.
Added to this choppiness is Tower of God's weak first arc. It's a point of contention between readers whether SIU should have done more initially to explain the tower and its powers. I'm firmly in the 'he should've' category (especially when it comes to the roles, like fisherman). For anime, especially, when you can't scroll up and reread to understand, a viewer's disconnect with the world becomes worse. It's crippling.
So, one word: dynamic. Scenes should be as long as possible. Spoken exposition should be kept to a minimum. The best example of Tower of God's pitfalls is around episode 7, when they play tag: It cuts back to the instructor area so often. There are three flashbacks. Bam whines way too much - we get it, he's naive, I'm okay with that, but don't have him stand there like a headless chicken for most of a minute. That point can be made in a few seconds. Keep things moving. Overall, keep the main plots, but don't feel compelled to meticulously explain why each character does each thing. Sometimes, motive can be established more poignantly when a character acts quickly and forces us to react, when a character surprises us - no need to spoon-feed readymade reactions to the viewer.
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Story - Smack me with a stick, it's great. As explained, though, execution is phooey. 4.
Art - Barebones style, fits the comic. Shinsu purty. I'd like more variety of expression or angle. 6.
Sound - My ears aren't great. Didn't have any issues, I guess. Songs are fun. 8.
Characters - Funky fresh. Go Endorsi, it's your birthday. 9.
Enjoyment - As explained, not great. If I weren't invested in the comic, it woulda been gonzo. 3.
Overall - Give 'er a 4. I can't highly rate a show I wasn't excited to watch. The creators executed the storytelling method they decided upon well. . . but I didn't enjoy that method. It's hard for me to imagine that viewers not familiar with the webtoon would enjoy this show, because of how much is explained and also because of how much is NOT explained. I am interested to see whether future Webtoon adaptations fall into similar genre-translation pitfalls. (I do think there is a difference between the storytelling methods of manga and webtoons)
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Apr 29, 2020
I believe in this one tenet: the most important aspect of any show is how it makes you feel. That's the reason why I rate Symphogear with a 6 instead of a 4. In the more technical aspects, it's frustratingly inconsistent: the majority of scenes, sounds, and plot developments have obvious flaws, but despite that, some moments are well crafted enough to send shivers across your body or make you tear up.
For that reason, I'll tell ya, if you're the sort of person whose enjoyment stems from immersing yourself in the technical aspects of a show - teasing out every detail of the plot,
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wondering at the authors' purpose for story beats or plot devices, examining the background of each scene for hidden details, etc. - Symphogear will irritate you. Symphogear is a show about magical girls who control ancient relics with the power of songs and, yes, friendship; it's an unapologetically 90s-vibin' yuri highschool drama slice-of-action-life with a tongue-in-cheek attitude that rivals the English dub of Highschool DxD. Seriously. Why men can't use Symphogears as well? Not important, not explained. Why the Commander can punch a bridge in two? Well, he watches a lot of Bruce Lee films. Why the Terminator is here? -garbled Engrish-
So, how did this show make me feel? Optimistic! Light-hearted. The main character is a typical dunce-for-friendship, which makes me smile. Having multiple episodes with the most appalling Engrish I've ever heard and a character whose only goal in life is to make meta-jokes about being an anime character couldn't possibly fail to make me giggle. I've seen some folks complain about characters having bipolar mood swings, but that's par for the course with a Yuri high school drama show. Plus, some of these characters have backstories that genuinely justify it - yes, I'm a sucker, and yes, I genuinely teared up a few times. There were several 'advice moments' mixed in that genuinely made me think. And, finally, the premise of this show is undeniable. You sing to fight your enemies. Watching the main character punch the all-organic gelatin-based crap out of some sentient onaholes while singing her adorable head in two was grand fun.
But, I wouldn't recommend Symphogear to a friend. While the first episode is one of the best I've seen, promising a surprisingly gritty world with real consequences, genuine characters, cinematic flair, and an intriguing mystery, the show doesn't follow up. Most importantly, the real threat consistently implied by the writers is undermined by a 'friendship is magic' attitude. You can do both - have optimistic characters reconcile with heavy blows in an emotional fashion - but once a character is dead, golly, they need to stay dead. Otherwise, scenes meant to be emotional just make you think, "Get on with it, already!". As for the sound and art. I don't care greatly about those aspects, so I won't say much - they spent most of it on the fights. The music is gripping, but the novelty does wear off, and they don't do much to break up the formula. Lastly, regarding the plot, I won't shortchange the writers and say that there were no interesting twists. But there are some developments which fall outside the realm of tongue-in-cheek breaks - like, who is the Terminator working for? What's that power?
All in all, the inconsistency is enough to sour good memories. In order to take a show's message to heart, you have to hold a respect for it. By virtue of its cinematically orgasmic premise alone, Symphogear had the potential to rake that in, but I think mixed messages and inconsistent production quality ruin the respect its message deserves. That won't stop me from watching the next season, though - there's just enough silliness, action, dumb drama, and maybe a sliver of mystery to keep me interested. Not to mention, impending higher production quality! Woohoo!
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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