Back to Brunk's Profile Brunk's Profile

If I could describe this anime with an amount of words you could count on one hand I'd call it this - an experience.

Cross Ange does very few things right. Its CG is generally bad, the characters can be very inconsistent, the story is all over the place, its pacing is a force of nature, and its "fanservice" ranges from questionable to disgusting. It uses overdone comedy gags. It has a male lead so uninteresting that you can't help but root for him. The main character is so flawed that you can't help but love her. The anime sometimes forgets what genre it is. It ... can't decide what it wants its setting to be. And I loved it from start to finish.

Cross Ange is kind of like a movie that so bad that it's good, with the difference being that this actually shows a semblance of a budget and can be entertaining without MST3K or Rifftrax. It tends to not make sense, it has a ton of scenes that don't need to be there, and it poops all over consistency like it was a Taco Bell toilet. However, despite (or because) all of its flaws, it is a very entertaining anime. I'm not kidding. Aside from maybe Kill la Kill, this show is one of the fastest and easiest I've ever binge watched.

This anime is the ultimate "having fun" anime. It spits in the face of death. The clothing can barely be classified as clothing. You don't even need to be drunk or high to enjoy it. The lead character is a badass chick who takes shit from nobody, and it's great to see a pragmatic character who pisses on things like honor or friendship so that they can reach their goal. Be it freedom or beating the crap out of a megalomaniac, Ange will do whatever it takes to get what she wants, and she does it in a way that makes you want to cheer her on.

Obviously, it has flaws, and if you're looking for a serious anime, you've taken a VERY wrong turn. This is an anime that can be compared to movies like The Expandables, Samurai Cop, or a rejected Quentin Tarantino movie that he drafted when he was thirteen. It's all action, all fanservice, spitting in the face of its own plot, and having literally no real message by the end.

This anime is not required viewing. If you enjoy "trash media", you will love it. I am writing this review immediately after the final episode. I am three rum-and-cokes in, and I jumped back and forth between sober and drunk while watching this series. Hlell, I am writing this review while drunk. It's only really solid between episodes 8 - 11, and everything before and after that is just a poorly designed roller coaster that you can't help but have fun on. This is a very fun anime. You should, however, avoid it if you want anything with a shred of credibility, seriousness, tact, gratuitous sexual assault, fully clothed women, or a compelling male lead character.

I like shit like The Room, Manos: Hands of Fate, etc. This show is nowhere near as terrible as those types, but it falls into a similar category of being terrible technically, but lovable from an enjoyment standpoint. It isn't the anime of the year. From an objective point, it's probably a 4/10, or even a 3/10. But if you told me to rate how much I enjoyed this, it's a 9/10, and it would be even higher were it not for the disrespectful sexual assault scenes.

This show had a lot going for it at several points in the series. However, by the end, most of what it had is wasted or thrown out. Characters, storylines, and even battles - it all goes out the window. Everything that could have made this show great is not utilized well. Whatever is utlized is done so too early in the series. Not only does this cause it to drag out for the last eight or nine episodes, but it makes those last eight or nine actively hurt the show and everything it had build up to that point.

This show easily peaked around episode ... fifteen. At this point, the conflict betweens the characters hit its climax; the plot didn't fare much better from this point either. There are a ton of potential arcs the story could have gone in, but these are left by the wayside so it can get to its real issue around episode 19 or so. Leaving behind these plot points for what it went for is what hurt the series. Its twist is completely unoriginal, anticlimactic, and a disservice to what should have been a great anime. At one point, it was an 8/10; it was a less-than-solid 4/10 by the end.

The art in this show is good, but nothing truly exemplary. Characters are drawn well enough, as are backgrounds, but nothing stands out as amazing. Music is by and large unmemorable, and even the OP and ED's aren't anything special. Zero-Two, the most standout character from this show, is interesting and a very good character up until episode 16. She immediately loses much of her personality and quirks. Yes, they even made their star character more plain than an unsalted Saltine cracker.

I can't recommend this show. If you're interested in it, you're really best leaving it off at episode 15. Everything after that is a slap in the face, and the ending is a kick in the throat. This could have been interesting, it should have been great. Instead, Darling in the Franxx meets expectations in the first half before sharply falling off a cliff and leaving a piss-poor taste in the viewer's mouth.

First and foremost, if you haven't seen at least Fate/Zero, you're going to have a terrible time. Go watch that show and its sequel, Unlimited Blade Works.

Now then, in a vacuum, Fate/Apocrypha is a good show. It has its flaws, but it also has several strong characters, some very good fights, and a great soundtrack. Some if its sound effects are overblown and poorly mixed, some of the animation grows inconsistent in the later shows, and the story starts strong but takes a different and poor turn towards the end. That being said, it is overall a solid 7/10 show.

What might be Fate/Apocrypha worst crime ... is how much potential it leaves on the table. It has the best field of servants in the Fate series and a possibly intriguing storyline of Mage's Association vs. Rogue Mage Clan. If it went this way and focused on different characters, this show could have been a 9/10, maybe even a 10/10.

Let's start with our two main characters: Joan of Arc/Jeanne D'Arc and Sieg. The former is one of the most famous females in history whose possible character arcs are burned to ashes and replaced with a terrible romantic subplot. The latter is a walking Saltine character without the salt. Sieg is an active hindrance to the story. Removing on him and focusing on Servant/Servant, Servant/Master, and Master/Master relationships would have improved the show tenfold. On top of that, he drags other characters down: Ruler, Rider of Black, the main antagonist, and others.

Sieg also lacks in personality. While his character arc is "homonculus trying to learn and understand humans", the way he develops is very poorly done and results in a character who is uninteresting and about as fleshed out as a thousand year-old skeleton. If he was removed and the story focused more on Ruler trying to be an impartial judge to the Third Holy Grail War while trying to keep both sides from wreaking havoc on non-mages, it could have been so much better.

Aside from Jeanne, there are other characters who should have been fleshed out or focused on more. Mordred and her Master are the two best characters in this show, but they don't get a ton of screen time. They could have been the stars of this series and improved it so much. Rider of Black has potential to be a great character beyond "cute trap", but his development is largel halted by Sieg (surprise, surprise). Lancer of Black could have been an amazing dark protagonist or antagonist, but he doesn't really get enough time in the show to be truly great (which is a shame considering who he is). Even Archer of Red and Rider of Red had a great relationship side-story going that doesn't get enough time to develop. It's unrealistic to think every character and potential arc could have been covered in 24 episodes, but the ones they did choose to focus on are some of the weakest possible.

Overall, Fate/Apocrypha is perhaps the most disappointing anime I've ever seen despite being good. This show's potential is there, but it will unfortunately never reach it since it isn't a three-route story like the original Fate/stay night. If you can watch it while ignoring the potential plot lines being drawn in your head, you might enjoy this show a great deal. If you can see the raw potential this show doesn't tap into, it's going to hurt for the last six or so episodes. And remember, prior knowledge of the Fate series is a must. This show won't hold your hand explaining what Masters, Servants, Command Spells, Holy Grails, Greater Grails, and other Fate-specific subjects are.

I once called another anime "possibly the worst I've ever completed". As of last night, Shingetsutan Tsukihime took that title and removed the "possibly" from my statement.

Shingetsutan Tsukihime (a.k.a. Lunar Legend Tsukihime) follows the story of Shiki Tohno as he investigates several murders in his hometown. Helping him is a powerful vampire named Arcueid. At the same time, he is dealing with readjusting to his old home, where he lives with his sister, Akiha, and two maids, Hisui and Kohaku. Further complicating matters is Ciel, a classmate of Shiki's, who seems to have a history with Arcueid and knows something about Akiha that's been hidden ... from Shiki. As Shiki and Arcueid close in on the person responsible for the murders, Shiki's hazy past begins to return to him and reveals a terrible truth about his family.

I'll point out first that I read the visual novel, but I'm not reviewing this as an adaptation. I'm reviewing this as its own show. Even disregarding several changes from the visual novel, this show falls flat. They try to combine several routes at once, which leads to moments in the show that aren't explained very well, if at all. Characters with supernatural abilities never truly explain how they received them. Many characters' backgrounds are only shallowly dipped into, aside from maybe Arcueid's past.

It does have a couple bright spots. The music, by and large, is very good. Arcueid's English voice actor does a stellar job in the series. Some of the fights are entertaining as well.

That being said, the negatives outweigh the positives quite a bit. Most of the series's dialogue feels monotonous. It never feels exciting or overly entertaining, even during the seventh episode when the characters visit an amusement park. The artwork is nothing special. I can only say that the faces are rather inconsistent in the show, particularly with the women. Their faces jump between masculine and feminine. None of the characters feel particularly unique. All of them, from the Catholic assassin to the ancient vampire to the maids, feel the same.

I gave this a 1 largely due to the enjoyment of the show being nonexistent, the characters feeling bland, and the story having little build up or impact. Others might enjoy it, but I now know why Type-Moon fans say, "There is no Tsukihime anime."

This might be the worst anime I've ever completed.

I'll start off by saying that one reason I started this anime was because I learned it was based off of a manga done by the same author who wrote Future Diary/Mirai Nikki. That show was one I found rather enjoyable, so I gave this a watch. In Deus' name, I was wrong. This show starts off promising with the first couple of episodes, but it begins going downhill by the third episode and launches itself off a cliff entirely by the seventh episode or so.

Let's start off with the characters. They're some of the worst. Only ... a couple have a discernible personality, and this is out of a rather large cast. Few of them are memorable, and some of those few are memorable for the wrong reasons (there is a man whose head resembles a 2 x 4 piece of wood; he falls on the wrong side of memorable). The main character is an idiot. He has few, if any, redeeming qualities to him, and no matter what good he does, he goes out and does something mind-bendingly stupid to undo it all. His sister may be worse as a character, but I'll leave that for you to decide.

Big Order's story started off rather interesting, but it only took four episodes for me to lose interest. By the fifth or sixth episode, I just watched it for some of the "so bad, it's good" moments here and there. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of those scenes, but most of the show is "so bad, it's bad". It becomes confusing and dull. Powers that the characters can use are often neutralized in the most convenient manners. Some are so specific it's almost funny.

The show has a few saving graces. Its first and second episode are rather good, and the music provides a great soundtrack (that, rather often, feels out of place; jazz doesn't make the best music when fighting stone titans). Visually, there's nothing that bad, unless you're not a fan of poorly proportionate breasts. Rin makes a good character

Overall, there is almost no reason to watch this show. The enjoyable moments are few and far between. If you want something that occasionally swings into the territory of Ed Wood or Tommy Wiseau, you may find some enjoyment here. Just don't go in expecting something with actual potential. I did, and it turned into something proved to be the worst anime I've ever finished. Mercifully, it's ten episodes long only, so if you want to join in this horror show, it won't take you too long.