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Feb 13, 2022
***THIS REVIEW MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS, AND MANY SPICY RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS***
Imagine being animated by Studio Ufotable, imagine being animated by the CG gods, the very same legends that crafted Fate/Zero, one of the best stunning anime ever made. And now, give them a new project that ain't a Type Moon Visual Novel adaptation or a lame video game adaptation, and what do you get? you get Kimetsu no Yaiba, one of the worst shounen I've ever had the displeasure of watching. But how could this anime be bad if it is being done by the amazing Ufotable Studio? Well, more than being Ufotable's fault,
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this is just evidence that the source material is awful. Kimetsu no Yaiba is an anime so bad, not even the top tier animation from Ufotable can save it from being a completely and irredeemable utter disaster. I really tried to like Demon Slayer, I really did, and while it's true that the visuals are good, they won't carry anything if everything else freaking blows ass.
Do you like having headaches? Do you love when characters scream at each other for no good reason while they make the stupìdest faces trying to land an extremely bad joke? Do you enjoy having your eyes being completely obliterated by extremely over the top flashy visuals? Do you enjoy watching a fight extend itself aimlessly with characters outsmarting each other until the other end doesn't have any more tricks under their sleeve? Do you enjoy having random flashbacks of events that should have been told in cronological order being shown in the middle of a fight? do you like characters getting powerups through asspulls? do you enjoy looking at a little demon girl suddenly get a powerup where she grows to be a sexy thot that ends up being useless anyway? Do you enjoy same face syndrome? Do you enjoy listening to Aimer's voice while having Salsa and Merengue playing and absolutely ruining her vocals? Do you enjoy being spoonfed? Do you enjoy being stated the obvious by the character's thoughts? Do you enjoy plotholes? Do you enjoy petty plot devices? Do you enjoy being treated like a brain dead idiot? If the answer to anything above is yes, I suggest you go to the doctor, because there might be something wrong with you, there's no possible way someone can endure watching this turd of an arc and be okay with it.
This Second Season of Demon Slayer is one of the worst battle shounen I have ever seen in my life, not only does the comedy get worse, the whole thing is almost unbearable, because every minute a character has to scream, every minute a character has to act like has some serious mental illness, every minute a character has to make noises or do something stupid because somehow Gotouge Koyoharu thought it would be a great idea to keep you entertained with stupid shit that actually exhaust you rather than amuse you, and while she's at it, she attempts to create action by insulting your intelligence. This arc is a single battle, ONLY 1 BATTLE THAT GOES THROUGH THE ENTIRE ARC. Don't get me wrong, there have been great battles in shounen that have gone through several episodes and have been great, but that's only if you know how to write action, never exhaust it and always come up with something creative that doesn't drown the viewer in a pestilence of more of the same shit, but Demon Slayer does not do action right at all, ever since the fight starts, the following things I'm going to describe, are the only things that have happened in the spawn of 9 episodes:
Monster appear, hero fight, Monster succeeds, hero gets asspull, he gets power up, he succeed against monster, monster is not defeated, hero is surprised and tired, monster gets power up, reinforcements arrives, everyone gets power up, they clash, hero succeeds against monster, monster is not defeated, monster plays asspull, monster gets power up, monster obliterate heroes, heroes gets flashbacks, heroes gets asspulls, heroes gets powerups, heroes obliterate monster, heroes succeed... but they don't... IT WASN'T EVEN THE MONSTER'S FINAL FORM!!!
Imagine writing such crap, give me a damn break, how are you able to create such a boring battle that instead of excite you, bores you to death due to how terribly formulaic and extended it is? This kind of format would work for 2 episodes, but 9? Imagine the fight beween Saber and Caster from Fate/Zero, each time Saber uses Excalibur, Caster gets a new form after being destroyed, now extend it for 10 episodes, how would you feel? like you were scammed? if the answer is yes, then how is Demon Slayer "action" going to be any worth it, if nothing valuable happens through all those episodes? That's the neat part, it's not worth it, it never was, and it will never be. Demon Slayer is absolute balls, braindead and 0% innovative and 100% amount of schleep.
Ufotable, do yourself a favor, abandon Demon Slayer and embrace Type Moon forever and never ever attempt to adapt anything else, do not give shit manga godlike visuals, it won't save them from being an utter and complete failure.
Oh boy, I'm tired, imagine being tired and bored after having watched 11 episodes of "action" and "comedy". Jesus Fucking Christ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Aug 30, 2021
***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***
"Fumetsu no Anata e", or "To your Eternity" (which I'll be calling TYE from now on) is an anime that perplexes me, it has the ideas to be a great series, but ultimately the execution of it fails horrendously, the final products ends up being a hideous joke. TYE has several problems and I'm going to point most of them out:
1- Tonal Shifts
2- Annoying Characters
3- Cheap drama
4- Pacing
5- Plot Conveniences
6- Plot Holes
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7- Inconsistency
8- Pointlessness
9- Identity Crisis
10- Visuals
Starting with Tonal Shifts, this anime suffers from a thing most dramatic anime I've seen do: Creating a tense or dramatic situation, just to make a joke right after. Now, I get adding comedy for the sake of relief, considering some series are very heavy on drama, but TYE abuses of this every time they can. Oh, we just revealed that a character is fated to die? Let’s add dead eyes and then proceed to ridicule the entire scene by making a character do a cartoonish tantrum that completely offsets the dramatic ambiance. This scene right here could have been powerful by only adding a tantrum of a character that doesn't know what awaits them and questioning the customs and the decisions of the tribe, but no, let's just make a visually cartoonish tantrum for the sake of doing so. This kind of things happens repeatedly and gets old pretty quickly. By the 3rd or 4th time this happened, I found myself rolling my eyes, because it's not even funny at this point, only adds to the frustration of a product that could have been actually emotional rather than a tone deaf one.
Moving up to the next point, this anime has so many annoying characters on it, and boy, the focus of each arc is usually the most annoying one, and the worst part? They don't seem to use their brain at all. Oh, a character is about to get shot? oh don't worry, let me just jump and receive the shot myself, dying in the progress on a completely meaningless sacrifice that wasn't really needed, add salt to the injury considering that our MC, Fushi, had the power to avoid this, but sat still not doing anything until the worst happened, conveniently tragic. Fushi is actually the worst offender when it comes to annoying characters, he is as inconsistent as a third world country internet speed, and he is a walking contradiction filled with conveniences and plot holes. He should be very powerful, yet, he barely does anything and let’s people around him die for no reason but to add for shock factor. There is this scene where he decides to flee an island of criminals, acknowledging that said place is unredeemable, but at the very moment he's about to escape with its allegedly now girlfriend, then, the Knockers (our "villains") attack and Fushi is somehow forced to help an island of criminals, because, oh boo hoo, poor things, they don't deserve this (after stating that this island is full of criminals mind you) and what does this achieve? Nothing, Fushi goes, fucks up, and gets himself 3 friends killed for no reason and then flees until it's convenient for him to do a "heroic" comeback and save the day. Another annoying character is a recurring one, Hayase, a god damn bitch that appeared on the 2nd arc, that somehow gets a very unhealthy obsession with Fushi after a time skip we didn't see, getting all powerful on a time skip we didn't see, killing and being on a rampage during a time skip we didn't see, who suddenly becomes the main antagonist of the final arc and boy, her whole persona is just extremely disgusting, incoherent and completely infuriating. Talking about her, she has some "guards" with her which are as great at guarding as potting plats, man, are this guards so damn stupid, blind and useless, it's as if they were paid actors because it's incredibly how negligent they are at their job, conveniently useless.
Moving Forward, cheap drama, each arc has this side plot of a character that either is fated to die, or has an utterly tragic backstory on them, now, this is not bad by all means, there are some great anime out there that are great at creating characters like this and driving their story through character arcs like: Violet Evergarden, Kobato, Natsume Yuujinchou and many others, but the characters in TYE aren't memorable at all, and their backstory is often ridiculed by the tonal shifts I spoke about earlier, and the way the plot conveniently set up things adds to the feeling of being incredibly cheap it makes Clannad look like the second coming of God (I'm not too fond of Clannad mind you), so not only the drama stinks, the characters and the plot direction is ridiculously bad where every faint good intention of trying to make you feel for a character is wasted.
Next, pacing. Dear God, the pacing is very inconsistent, either it moves at snail pace, it does a time skip, or it moves pretty fast. The worst offender here is the time skip that happens during an arc, because it makes no sense, and from it comes a lot of conveniences that are never explained or explored properly (which I'm gonna tackle later) During this time skip, Fushi ages and "learns" things, but then, all this is thrown to the garbage can after the nokkers attacked. The show goes like this: Introduction of a character, make that character know Fushi, attempt to make Fushi "learn" and bond with them, add tragedy, Fushi devolves as a character, Fushi conveniently makes a comeback and wins, then add more tragedy, rinse and repeat. Now, if only the plot and characters were coherent enough to make this edible, but all this bonding happens during very short time periods and it's constantly being thrown away in favor of inconsistency all thanks to the identity crisis this anime has (which I'm gonna tackle later)
Now, plot conveniences, plot holes, inconsistency and pointlesness. This show is filled with them to an alarming extent. Fushi being the center of it all. What is he? What limits does his power have? Is he an idiot? Is he useless? The answer to all of that is yes. We have no idea what he is but a creation of "God". His powers has no limits, unless his brain capacity is on high demand, his powers have no limits as long as the plot demands it to, if the plot doesn't demand it, Fushi ends up being incredibly useless, letting characters die for no reason despite him having the means to succeed. Like when he battled against Hayase after the time skip, where he somehow loses against a human that got invaded by the spirit of a Yandere. It's all pointless.
What did he do during March's arc? Nothing, he stood still, then tragedy happened and he reacts when it's already too late. What did he do during Gugu's arc? Nothing, he wasted YEARS doing nothing, there was an entire time skip and he did nothing, then people died again, and he made a comeback and won, what did he do during Tonari's arc? waste time again, he did nothing but participate on a half assed "tournament", earning praise for no reason only to be taken away the moment Hayase is reintroduced to us again, where he again does nothing until everything is fucked, then he somehow gets useful again. What is the purpose of this character? He gets involved in people's life, just to let them down and kill them due to his own stupidity, it's all pointless.
I swear, Fushi enters on other people's life only to make them miserable: March? Gets himself a yandere waifu and some stupid and pointless deaths. Gugu? Fuels jealousy, forces romance, a strange and pointless timeskip happens and gets all characters of this arc involved in the Knockers' agenda. Tonari? Gets himself and a killer granny on an island of mindless criminal idiots, wastes time flirting with Tonari only to let her friends die, all because he didn't leave when he had the chance to do so. IT'S A DAMN ISLAND FILLED WITH CRIMINALS FFS, How pointless this is?.
Moving on, Fushi's power is inconsistently convenient, he's able to shapeshift into or create anything he had contact with: Arrows, food, weapons, you name it, even the "friends" he got killed, he's able to do all that without any consequence at all, he's able to do many things, yet, he falls short, his power conveniently is useless when people is dying, but is conveniently powerful when nothing matters anymore, it just doesn't make sense and it's never explored properly, it's just there, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. By the start of the 4th arc, I've lost hope on this anime, I tried really hard not to get biased against it, given that I chose to give it the benefit of the doubt trusting the anime would clarify things, but ultimately, the 4th arc is where things got completely stupid, it's where TYE problems became more evident... It's when it became an irredeemable trainwreck... You guessed it, a pointless trainwreck.
We're almost finished with this abomination: Identity Crisis, and this is probably the worst offender of TYE, it doesn't know what it wants to be, at first, it looks like it wants to be a slice of life, making the MC interacting with people to grow, but then, it turns into a battle shounen, with power shenanigans and some stupid shit like the Knockers, powers are not explained properly, they just work and without consequence. The aftermath? nothing, Fushi doesn't grow, he gets people killed, he steal their "powers" (and by power I mean their body and whichever shenanigan they had, like Gugu's hilarious fire breath technique), he then acts like if their deaths meant anything but in reality it never did. During a fight, Fushi is beated to a pulp like a bitch, but either he manages to escape or wins somehow. He never trains, he doesn't polish his abilities, He even claims to be powerless, becoming a crybaby, focused on not killing because "it's bad", which, ultimately, makes him way more useless, but he never grows or learns from this, he keeps screwing up until it somehow works for him.
There's something so inept into trying to glorify not killing people, which becomes incredibly stupid considering that Fushi gets people killed because of that mindset. What is taking a single life, out of someone or something that killed several? Will you risk getting those you love killed just because you have this pretentious thought of being a child of light that doesn't kill anyone? Spare me the thought please, this is so stupid, by not taking action you're letting others get killed, which adds to your toll and you'll feel like shit anyway. Let me quote HBO's Chernobyl real quick: "you put a bullet in someone, you're not you anymore. You'll never be you again. But then you wake up the next morning and you're still you, and you realize that was you all along. You just didn’t know"... We have to get rid of characters that are so scared of confronting someone due to the scary thought of killing someone, it's ultimately very fake and will only get more people killed.
Last but not least the visuals, dear God, what in tarnation is happening on Japan? It's horrifying to think about the conditions and deadlines the poor animators have to endure to animate something like this, whoever directed this should be imprisoned. The art style and animation heavily declines in the 2nd half, especially during the last arc, where you see a wide shot of CG zombies, on a terrain that has no depth of field, no shadows and janky movement, it makes the zombies look like they're floating. I'm not going to criticize the animators, but whoever is in charge of directing and whoever is in the higher ups that decided the deadline for this anime. Animation in Japan is heavily declining, and destroying the poor animators life with deadlines and horrible salary is hardly the answer. We've already seen controversy in Cloverworks with Wonder Egg Priority, and recently, studio Mappa and others where these issues are getting more evident, looking at animation videos from talented people in YouTube looks like it's a work of passion, but when you get to know about the awful reality behind the industry it's sad to see that talent is getting wasted in favor of exploiting their workers on a terrible schedule, hopefully this changes someday.
I have nothing to say about the audio department, because honestly, it barely has any impact to my overall feelings about this trainwreck, the OST for me was only relevant during the first episode (which was the best one sadly), and after that, nothing else came close. It's hard to believe this work was made by the same author of A Silent Voice, what a complete and disappointing trainwreck.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Nov 17, 2020
It saddens me to voice that Osomatsu-San Season 3 isn't really making it for me, Season 2 was already running dry with it's jokes and now Season 3 feels like a chore. The overall wacky feel Season 1 had is nowhere to be seen, jokes are a hit or miss and it's very, very dry. I admit I got some chuckles here and there, but other than that I find myself with a poker face, watching some perplexingly obvious bad jokes. I don't know what is it with me and recent anime comedy, but it just doesn't click with me.
Now, if you still had fun
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with Season 2 despite it's flaws, I'm sure you'll be able to enjoy this one just fine, I'm pretty sure this season will have it's good moments as well as those wholesome moments Osomatsu-San have gotten during it's air time. But if you're like me and didn't enjoy Season 2 that much, then I'll suggest you to spend your time on something else.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Sep 25, 2020
It's been 2 years since 3D Kanojo: Real Girl happened. Why does that matter you ask? well you see, 3D Kanojo was really irritating back when it first aired, depicting certain social topics in a very infuriating way to the point of being very disrespectful: From a bad depiction of a socially akward person to manipulative romance, terrible "friends" and parents, stupid misunderstandings and what not. That anime tried to tell a tale of a socially awkward person and failed at it horribly, what does this have to do with Uzaki-chan wa asobitai? well, they're pretty similar, not just in the way the characters
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are portrayed, but in the way that both are very irritating, and out of those two, Uzaki-chan gets the cherry on the top for being the most infuriating piece of media I've watched in my life. Up to this day I don't get why I do this to myself, I guess it's a masochist sport, but sometimes I feel like I have to contribute with a different view of something that is often overlooked, that way maybe I can help others decide whether or not something is worth their time talking about the things they might dislike.
This anime starts like your usual harmless Slice of Life RomCom, it starts from Uzaki's PoV as she greets her senpai Sakurai, cheering for a successful year in college. Time goes on and Uzaki notices that Sakurai spends his time alone, doing the things he likes in the space everyone respects. Out of curiosity, she then, decides to try to enter in Sakurai's life the next year by teasing him. On paper there's nothing wrong with this, it's like Teasing Master Takagi-san, but with college students and lewd stuff, however, the way this anime attempts to create a romcom is what went wrong. This anime manipulates the viewer into thinking that the way Uzaki treats Sakurai is cute, which, is not the case. Let's view it in Sakurai's shoes instead, Sakurai is minding his own business, enjoying life the way he wants, and then, suddenly, a girl comes in and starts bothering him and starts asking questions like "why are you always alone? do you not have friends or anything", then, proceeds to mock him due to the way he spends his time and proceeds to be a bitch about it. Is it really that hard to understand when people wants AND enjoys to be by themselves? No, instead, This show crams Uzaki into Sakurai's life like if he was a freak of nature which personality should be fixed, forcing their relationship. Still not convinced? let's twist the story this way, let's say that Uzaki is a boy, and Sakurai is the girl. What would your reaction be if Uzaki were the boy teasing the girl instead? Gross and creepy right? Most people ALWAYS side with the girl and of course, people will sympathize more with Uzaki cuz she's a girl and it's cute when girls want to ̶H̶a̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ stalk a guy, no matter if the guy wants her or not. See the problem now? Uzaki is an annoying girl, that is clingy and pushy towards a boy that just want to mind his own business, is it too hard to respect that? I know, Sakurai's dumb ass could have just rejected her, he does show his annoyance, but he does nothing with it, which, is one of the things that bothered me the most and shouldn't be ignored. This anime also spams you with exhaustive "jokes" with Uzaki's awful smug face like: "HAHAHAHA, OMG YOU'RE SUCH A LONER, COME ON, YOU'VE GOTTA LIVE SEMPAI" "OMG THAT'S SO VERY LONER OF YOU, TO BE EXPECTED OF YOU SEMPAI" Yadda yadda yadda.
The way this anime depicts introverts as freaks of nature that should be forced to "live" the way everyone else "lives" their life just because introverts are simply not "living it" is extremely irritating. As an introvert myself, I love to spend time alone and that's not a bad thing, being overwhelmed with attention is not good, it's stressful. Also, enjoying time alone doesn't mean that introverts don't like to interact with others, in fact, I do like it when I hang out with my friends, but they understand when I don't want to hang out. People shouldn't be afraid of saying "no" to others, those who respect your decision are true friends, those who don't aren't worth your time. Now, I understand that the young Japanese population is very shy and need an incentive to open themselves to others, but there's a difference between giving a small push and straight up force your way into their lives. I highly doubt ANYONE would like it if someone they're not interested in, forces their way in and overwhelms their life by being extremely annoying, pushy and clingy, the last thing they'll achieve is to be a part of their lives. This anime forces their relationship a lot, everyone ships them as if they were meant to be with each other, Sakurai's "friends" constantly mock him for "not taking the initiative" and teases him into thinking he's an idiot for not going a step further with Uzaki. This honestly pisses me off to immeasurable amounts.
Ecchi on this anime is dumb, repetitive, exhausting and irritating. Most of the jokes consists of shaming Sakurai in public with very suggestive scenes and dialogues. To create drama IN PUBLIC of things that can be misunderstood is uncalled for, Sakurai's dignity as a citizen could have been compromised just as Tsutsui from 3D Kanojo, but since everything is a joke on this anime it doesn't even matter and Sakurai has no other choice but to accept it. Misunderstandings on romance anime can be fun depending on the context and the characters, but this anime goes beyond stupidity with them, we're talking about freaking adults here, not horny highschool students, how does Uzaki's mom think that Sakurai wants to grope her breasts without considering the fact that she has a cat on her lap? Not just that, Uzaki's breasts are big enough to satisfy him, I could have taken it if Uzaki's breast were medium size, but no, they had to create a dumb misunderstanding that shouldn't have happened if these characters had common sense, but they don't. This anime is unfunny and most of the jokes are exhausted to the point of being unbearable, if someone is able to endure "OMG HAHAHA YOU'RE SUCH A LONER SEMPAI" more than 10 times, good for them, but this is a bit too much, the more I hear her screechy voice with that awful smug face, the more unbearable it gets.
Animation quality is not great, it serves it purpose just fine, but nothing memorable, there was this fireworks episode that could have been really endearing if Uzaki weren't such an annoying girl, but all the emotional weight is thrown to the gutter thanks to her. Talking about her, the sound department is deplorable, Uzaki's VA did a great job at being exceedingly annoying, most of the times the characters are screaming and that is not nice to anyone's ears, not a single music was memorable, the OP is annoying and the ED... is just there I guess.
Man, I'm tired...
I'm tired of how rom/coms are portrayed nowadays.
I'm tired of screechy, clingy, annoying anime girls.
I'm tired of stalker girls seen as cute in anime media.
I'm tired of forced anime relationships with 0 chemistry.
I'm tired of stupid misunderstandings.
I'm tired of illogical ecchi scenes
I'm tired of anime portrayal of "friends"
When will be the day where we see a new Rom/Com that isn't just a stupid waifu wars or waifu pandering garbage with no substance at all?
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Jun 20, 2020
It's been 3 years since Fuuka Anime happened, and I'm pretty sure many of you remember how awful that anime was. What if I tell you that, Yesterday wo Uttate is almost, the second coming of Fuuka?
I really wanted to like YwU, but the more I watched it, the worse it became. For the first 5 minutes of the first episode, I thought that I was going to love this anime, boy I was wrong. Despite the smooth artsyle and animation, this anime was already doomed from the start. You see, this anime is filled with an alarming amount of tropes I absolutely despise on
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anime. Don't misunderstand me, being predictable or generic isn't a bad thing from the get go, the problem here, it's just that the studio never knew what to do with it's plot and characters, so we ended up on a spiral of plot conveniences, contrivances, infuriating characters and very idiotic events that I fail to see as "realistic".
Let's open the package, we get:
- The dense MC Rikuo, who is in love with a potato he met in college. This guy is a complete dunce who fails to say things when he has to, and when he does, he shows his inner stupidity to everyone.
- The Potato Shinako, who is the MC's main love interest. She had a boyfriend who died and now she's stuck in the past (There's nothing wrong with that, until there is)
- The annoying Haru, who claims to be in love with the MC. (I'm sorry to all the Haru Fanboys, but someone's gotta say the truth). Her timing is awful as she almost always find a way to conveniently find Rikuo, as if she were stalking him, blatantly sticking her nose in the business of 2 idiots, "challenging" Shinako into a fight she's never going to win, unless you make the characters braindead.
- The MC's rival Rou, who is cringe inducing. He's only there to spice up the drama. There's nothing much to add up to his character, but the fact that he wants a girlfriend who cooks meals for him lmfao.
Having all that, I already knew what kind of anime this shit wanted to be, and I was hoping that things would end up being different, sadly, that never happened and only got worse.
This anime could have been done in less episodes, if only Rikuo would have made clear that he had no interest in Haru. Instead, despite him rejecting her indirectly, he won't stop giving her hope by fulfilling her selfish requests, which, in the end, would keep hurting her because Rikuo is that stupid. Not just that, despite him rejecting her, Haru would keep pushing her way into his life, hoping that something goes her way. I fail to understand how others like Haru, but if I had someone pushing their way into my life despite showing no interest on them, the last thing I would do is giving them hope by fulfilling their selfish requests. Then we have Shinako, whose pressence is to make things way worse by dragging things up. She's stuck in the past because her beloved boyfriend (who we never got to see what was so good about him) died, and thanks to that, every time she seems like doing a step forward, she gives several steps back. She also suffers from the same thing Rikou does: Not telling things when she has to, prompting others into a spiral of misunderstandings and events that could've been ressolved easily if these characters weren't that dumb.
Thanks to Rikou and Shinako's indecisive being, we got 12 episodes of dragged shitfest full of melodrama and very infuriating events. This is sad because the animation is really good and the visual storytelling this anime has, would have added a lot of value to the anime, sadly, it does nothing when the "plot" and characters have little to no value at all. Animation alone can't save an anime, and we've seen that happening several times. This is just another trashy romcom disguised as a seinen.
If you despise anime where the characters are this infuriating, do yourself a favor and stay away from this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Apr 4, 2020
There it is, the fourth installment of one of the most successful battle shounen of the recent years. 4 seasons and 2 movies in the spawn of 4 years is no joke. Hero Academia had the charm of being simple and for that, I respected it. I used to be a fanboy for the first 3 seasons, thinking it was one of the best recent shounen, peaking at Stain's arc and delivering a great sendoff with AFO vs OFA, and after season 3 ended, I came to realize that it wasn't as good as I initially thought, but I still respected it for it's simplicity.
It
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wasn't until Season 4 came that everything fell apart and I started to realize how the small issues that were present before started to mass, draining the enjoyment and love I once had with this series. You see, there's nothing wrong on aiming for something different, the problem is, that many things that Season 4 introduced, were introduced way too late and/or felt like a spit to the face. Suddenly, the simplicity I praised on this anime, vanished, and every detail on the plot started to be spoon fed to you as if you were mentally ill to the point is obnoxious. I understand the point of adding flashbacks and monologues, that's important when it comes to the manga, because manga lacks animation, so it's understandable that they add the thought process of the characters and what are they thinking on certain scenarios, however, when it comes to anime, you can rely more on "show, don't tell" instead of relying on monologues and flashbacks to explain what's happening. We can see what's happening, we know what the characters are thinking by looking at their reaction, there's no need to keep showing the same flashbacks over and over again. You may debate whether or not the audience that this anime is aiming for needs it or not, but I refuse to think that teenagers need to be constantly told what a character is thinking to understand what's happening. Nighteye's flashbacks were exhausted to the point it was obvious what was going to happen, because, if you remember, Deku is the one narrating his own story, so we know as a fact that he's going to succeed no matter what. All emotional weight Nighteye could've had is thrown to the drain by this fact. His quirk should have been only movement prediction rather than future sight. The only way that could've worked were if Nighteye's future sight wasn't put on Deku, but rather, on another character that doesn't have plot armor and could actually had the risk of dying, like Mirio for example.
Now that I talk about it, remember when I said that this season felt like a spit to the face? Mirio, is part of this problem, not because I hate him or anything, but because it's crystal clear that he should have been the main character since day one, it shadows Deku in every way and his quirk, while it doesn't rely on random power ups, is the best when it comes to skills, it's a matter of seeing how bravely Mirio fought against Overhaul. This isn't just about Mirio, Gentle, while I hated him for being a shitty excuse of a villain, still had a better and understandable background story than Daddy Issues Shigaraki, if Gentle were a Day 1 villain, I probably wouldn't have hated him. Sadly, just like Stain, Mirio and Gentle are just disposable plot devices for Deku.
This season also fell on the same mistakes many battle shounen do (specially, recent battle shounen) and it's the poor power balance these series have. I once praised the creativity behind quirks and how I thought it was a great power system, boy I was wrong. It felt in the same problem Re:Creators had, there's barely any control to it, it was never properly explained, and, because of that, broken and overpowered quirks is a thing. Let's take Hunter x Hunter for example, it's power system is very open and wide, but it's restricted to the user and it's type and achieving incredible powers has a lot of consequences, it's only through long long training that Gon and Killua were capable of improving a lot without random power ups, not a single character in HxH felt broken and/or over powered with no reason. Ever since AFO vs OFA, Hero Academia kept adding over powered stuff for the fun of it. Deku's fight against Overhaul was extremely insulting as it was a battle of insane powers rather of skills: Overhaul transforming himself into a giant while Deku had a battery on his back that was able to restore him, making him able to use his powers to the max without breaking his bones. It was just a flashy fight of insane powers clashing with each other with absolutely no value at all, Bones then relies on adding cheap audiovisual value in an attempt to make this fight memorable, but backfires, as the whole fight isn't even tense at all, specially since we know Deku succeeds. All the budget should have gone towards Mirio's fight rather than Deku. There is this short middle arc for the ones who failed the license exam, which is one of the most ridiculous things I've seen when it comes to power balance, can someone explain me, how the heck does some kids have full control of crazy abbilities and better thought process than heroes in training?
Another big problem of this season, is that it keeps introducing more and more and more characters, which, if done right, shouldn't be a problem, however, we already have a large cast of characters, which, not even half of them are relevant and aren't really fleshed out properly, yet, this anime introduces way more characters, shadowing those that were already established, and even if they get their spotlight, it arrives way too late. If, we had a smaller cast, this could've worked way better, that way characters wouldn't be left out and development would feel rewarding. Giving several characters a tiny bit of development each time the story feels like remembering them isn't a good way to develop or even try to add depth to a character. There is a good chunk of characters that doesn't add ANYTHING to the plot, and makes me think, how the likes of Mineta or the Invisible girl approved the hero test while someone like Gentle didn't. It just doesn't make sense and it's heavily contrived in favor of shitty comic relief and wasted potential.
Talking about Comedy, while it is a very subjective topic, making a joke by explicitly making a character point it out ISN'T BY ANY MEANS FUNNY, it actually ruins the visual joke which are all lame and repetitive anyway. Recent battle shounen comedy heavily relies on doing silly faces and very predictable jokes that are often out of place.
The only thing left out to talk about is the animation, which took a massive downgrade of still frames that were already happening since Season 3. I know there was a movie in the making, but that's not excuse for doing a power point presentation. The scene I'm talking about is Mirio's fight, which entirely consisted on still frames, specially the quirkless Mirio part. Many people excuses this by saying that all they got in the manga was a black panel of Deku Narrating what happened, but that's not an excuse. David Production did a 1 minute lenght of 4 small manga panels for Vento Aureo, so why couldn't Bones do it?
If only this anime had stuck to it's main simplicity instead of aiming for a more ambitious approach, things could've gone better, what I got in return was a disjointed ambitious project filled with plot holes, plot devices, conveniences, wasted potential for ideas that could've worked since day one and many other small issues that made this season a complete disappointment.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Sep 27, 2019
Granbelm was a really misunderstood anime, many people didn't give it the chance it deserved, quickly digging a grave for it and was left forgotten until Granbelm started to stand by itself, and surprisingly, Granbelm managed to exceed my expectations, being one of the best this season. (Warning, slight spoilers ahead)
Granbelm starts as Fate~ish battle royale with taints of Madoka Magika, employing mechas that are called Armanox, where Mangetsu (our MC) suddenly gets warped into another dimension (If you ask, this isn't an isekai, it's just an alternate reality that takes place each full moon, where our girls will fight) And gets targeted by other
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witches until Shingetsu (a mysterious black girl) comes to her aid.
Granbelm's best selling point are their characters. And while some of them might be a little annoying due to how edgy they might seem, most of them have their reasons to participate in Granbelm in order to become the Princeps, which will concede them a wish. However, Mangetsu is the only girl among the others who doesn't have a clear goal, taking part on Granbelm as a way to find that something she's missing on her life. Eventually, the rest of the characters will get their background story that carries their motivation, be it family issues, frustration, or even a curse, each story is carefully developed at the right pace and complements the world building, specially about Granbelm and the wizard's lineage.
Granbelm's first episodes focus mostly on developing and introducing the main cast while Mangetsu experience Granbelm. However, after reaching a certain part of the story, more and more questions regarding Mangetsu will start to raise: Who is she?, why most of her memories are blank?, why does she have so much magical power while missing her witch inheritance? All these questions have an answer, and while I can say that I guessed correctly what Mangetsu was, the execution of her twist was done greatly, with a dark and psychological tone, driving us towards one of the best parts of Granbelm: How much Mangetsu matured during all this time as she deals with her identity crisis, realizing how there are many things in life that are worth and how beautiful is to live without being tied to the things you think you need, after all, if we had the capability of getting everything we could wish for, would we really be complete? Would we be depriving ourselves of the ability to grow?
***Slight spoilers ahead***
After Mangetsu's twist, her connection with Granbelm and the Magiaconatus, we will realize, that the real main character here is Shingetsu, the girl who was gifted with powerful magic in order to attend to the trials of the Magiaconatus as she fights on Granbelm. However, having so much power made her unhappy, the only thing she wanted was to have a real friend, to be with someone you could have fun with, to be with someone which you could count on and have the ability to grow. Many times, even after her childhood friend Anna were eradicated from this world, the anime doesn't forget her and shows us many memories of Shingetsu's past as she was hanging out with Anna when they were kids, noticing how Anna was unable to realize how much things she had in life, as she was slowly blinding herself into an spiral of rage and frustration all thanks to the magic, which became the reason why Shingetsu wanted to be the Princeps after winning against all her rivals, in an attempt to free the world from the magic that retains the real happiness
***End of spoilers***
Another great selling point of this anime, its the animation and the sound department. Granbelm is faithful to the traditional 2D animation as the recent industry is starting to lean towards CG animation, specially seen in the design of the Armanox as all of them are 2D models, which helps a lot in battles as it makes them more fluid. Background scenery is also marvelous filled with many details and beautiful landscapes, all of them with an adequate color palette depending on the tone of the scene. The only thing that might not be that attractive is the fact that the character designs looks for the most part, generic, that, and the odd looking mechas that looks like compacted Gundamns due to how small they are. However, is just a matter of getting used to it. The soundtrack of this anime is really good, with epic music for each battle, sad themes for sad moments or serious themes for serious moments, and what not, the anime also knows very well when to be silent. I've gotta give kudos to the overall voice acting as it was done greatly to portray each character and their personality, specially Mangetsu. The SFX are full hype and add a lot of impact in battle scenes, it reminds me a lot of the powerful SFX Planet With had. I've got one complaint tho, Magetsu's Armanox sounds like Togepi from pokémon xD.
And that's all, Granbelm end up being one of the biggest surprises this season and I must say, that despite not looking that appealing, it was worth my time, specially the time invested in the characters, story and the Stunning spectacle it was, being one of the best anime this season. Give Granbelm the chance it deserves.
Overall: 7.5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 25, 2019
Recent Isekai is a disgrace to Fantasy, there's at least more than 3 Isekai each season and they are all the same: Random summoning to another world (There´s a chance that your mom is able to be summoned in another world too!), shitloads of ecchi garbage, terrible writting, generic characters and the MC is either an Underdog or an Overpowered one that has the personality trait of a potato. There is simply no in between and there is no innovation, everything is the same, there is no world building, there is barely any fantasy on these anime, and then we have Isekai Cheat Magician, which
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tried to play it safe but end up being exceedingly boring.
There's absolutely nothing of value, world is as empty as the personality of the characters, villains are really shallow and since the most common trait our MCs has is being overpowered, there is absolutely no danger. It's just a display of massive power. It's basically The Wiseman Grandchild 2.0, with the difference that the MC also brought his childhood friend with him to this world. (Her being the only reason I decided to watch this).
Animation is really lazy, characters gets out of model pretty often and the amount of still frames are increased by each episode. I don't even remember any remarking soundtrack that stands out with the exception of the OP, that I still don't like because I'm not that fond of Myth & Roid but that's another story.
Last but not least, Characters are by far the worst part of this anime, from a MC with the personality of a potato, to girls that randomly fall in love with him, And then we have Ana who is a plot device to give MC the motivation it needs (yes, killing her in the progress on a very stupid way). The MC's childhood friend is the typical childhood friend who is in love with the MC but does nothing with it and only exists to add random "romantic" moments that goes nowhere. We even have a clone of Asuna from SAO, everyone else is just... there, they exist but they add nothing towards the plot than just being devices for the MC.
I wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless they have a lot of time to kill or just want to sleep. Just no, Stop with this swarm of trashy Isekai anime, we're tired of them.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Sep 20, 2019
Fruits Basket is a special anime, it not only exceeded my expectations but it turned to be one of the best shoujo I've watched in ages. Fun Fact, I actually expected a reverse harem romance anime, but I end up getting something way different instead, Something that would make me grin like an idiot for 24 minutes straight, something that would suddenly change my emotions several times in the spawn of only 24 minutes. Not many anime is able to do that with me, and here is why.
The story of this anime is most of the time Episodic as it slowly introduces each member of
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the Sohma Family as they hint us their personalities while doing some slice of life comedy and heartwarming moments. Earlier episodes focuses on Honda Tohru as she finds herself with the Soma Family while she struggles to live since she doesn't have a place to call home. It isn't until a certain character lets Tohru live on his house that she finally has a place to call home after getting back from high school and work despite the many circumstances where she's driven apart of the things she love. Later episodes focuses on each member of the Sohma family and Tohru's best friends as they shows us their backstory, how they struggled through very difficult moments and, in some cases, how they managed to move on from it and live on.
Each story is carefully developed with great pacing while the animation and the soundtrack gets the job done portraying the themes it handles greatly. Wisdom, Knowledge, Happiness, sadness, any kind of theme is handled greatly and even if these stories ranges through 1 or 2 episodes, is more than enough to make the viewer engage with the amount of feelings shown in screen, making each situation these characters go through easy to understand and easy to sympathize with. It does help a lot that each story delivers a powerful impact thanks to the great voice actin, great animation and soundtrack that these stories ends up being really meaningful.
Best part of this anime is Honda Tohru, at first, she may look like your typical airhead who is extremely kind because why not. But in reality, she is a bridge, a bridge that links with each person she meets and how she is able to make them open their eyes and realize all the things they were setting apart, be it a love tragedy, being listened at, being loved, to be understood, being friends with each other no matter their differences and what not, after all, the magic of developing flawed characters is what Fruits Basket does the best. Honda Tohru is just so adorable and pure, its all thanks to the relationship with her deceased mother that everything fell in place perfectly. Honda Tohru is the kind of friend we all need but don't deserve... God Damn it, where is my Tohru? ;_;
Last but not least, Animation is pretty much really consistent. Beautiful scenery is often the key to the masterful execution of each scene, even to comedy gags. The color palette is amazing as it shifts depending on the tone of the scene; a Dark tone for those really sad moments, a cheerful bright tone for those heartwarming moments and the goofy over the top silly faces and over exaggerated physics for the comedy gags. The Soundtrack is amazing and really fits the ambiance and KNOWS when to be silent (I'm looking at you Violet Evergarden), Each OP and ED are beautiful, I'm not a personal fan of the first ones, but the second OP "Chime" by Ai Otsuka is really beautiful and has a very melancholic feeling to it, and the second Ending "One Step Closer" by INTERSECTION is one of the most beautiful endings I've seen this year and probably since forever, its so damn beautiful and boy I can't count the amount of tears I shed each time an episode ended.
I can't recommend this anime enough, If you liked the older version of this anime then you'll probably love this anime twice as much and even if you are unfamiliar with the source or the old anime, if you like slice of life anime with romance, comedy and really heartwarming stories, then this anime is for you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 18, 2019
Kanata no Astra was one of the few anime that caught my interest this season, I thought it would be an exciting space survival anime with Mass Effect and Mission to Mars vibes, unfortunately, it ends up turning into something way worse.
It had such a strong start, how on Earth did it end up being so terrible? (There are some spoilers ahead that addresses certain issues, but nothing really major that would spoil this masterpiece for you)
Lets start by addressing the main issue, there is barely ANY danger in this anime. Sure, there are some situations where our main characters go through several dangerous situations,
...
but after a while, each situation ends easily resolved, killing any tension as there is little to no consequences for the characters to the point of making some situations feel way too convenient. Worst part of it comes when they arrived to a paradise planet which is a single inland on a planet filled with water... Guess what? Its the typical beach episode cliché that serves no purpose whatsoever but to show us how thicc the girls are while they talk casually on which boy they like trying to add romance to makes things interesting. The worst part of this comes at the planet "Icriss" which is an anagram of Crisis (how original) where a really dangerous situation finally happens, only to be ruined by one of the most convenient asspulls to ever happen, the amount of bullshit thrown at your face in this episode was insulting. This was the point where I started to lose all my faith on this anime.
Beyond this point, this anime starts to fill itself with many asspulls, plot conveniences and a plot hole, the latter being the one that makes things feel way more convenient than they already are. It makes it look like this story was created by someone who had no idea what he was trying to do and was running out of time so he had to come up with random shit. It's clear when you consider the amount of twists this anime pulls after the second half. Having a lot of twists doesn't make your story good, no matter if they end up being random and unpredictable (Even tho some of the revelations ends up being obvious). This only shows how the autor was running out of ideas and tried to fix his mess by adding random twists that doesn't add anything to the plot.
This anime also throws comedy at your screen in an attempt to balance serious moments with comedy and most of the times this doesn't work, specially when most of these gags are derived from crucial revelations. For Example: One of the characters gets an emotional revelation considering his gender and minutes after that, we see EVERYONE making fun of him like if it was nothing, the pacing in this anime is that bad that they have to do cheap fake cliffhangers to maintain tension, only to be killed by the next episode's explanation that ends up getting forgotten easily by adding a random comic relief right after and then proceeds to build up the next twist into another cheap fake cliffhanger.
Most of this anime's issues lies on the characters, as half of them doesn't really add anything to the plot which means that some of them will be set aside and be forgotten from time to time until they're required again to try to explain conveniences or to open the door to the next twist. Also, having so many characters in only 12 episodes will make some of them feel underdeveloped making them look like filler characters (Luca, Qutterie and Yunhua for example)
***Spoiler Section*** ***Spoiler Section*** ***Spoiler Section***
This anime tries to add a 'fucked up' failed cloning subplot that crumbles easily when you realize how one dimensional the "masterminds" behind this situation are and how incompetent they were when they tried to kill these kids without leaving any trace, even worse when the brightest idea they could come up with was to send them into space in an attempt to make it look like an "accident" involving wormhole technology without actually leaving someone behind that could confirm that they were gone for good, or, you know, actually try to get them killed by not giving them any chance of surviving. This only makes the "traitor" look like an idiot since he had several chances to kill them all but couldn't because reasons.
Let's address the plot hole. Supposedly, a FTL civilization was able to create wormholes, but for some stupid reason, they didn't have enough technology to stop a freaking Asteroid from crashing into Earth. Are you kidding me? Then, there's this space ship that managed to remain undamaged after so many, MANY years without being hit by meteors (from said Asteroid) or getting pulled by Earth's gravity or any other thing that could've rendered this ship useless.
***End of Spoiler Section*** ***End of Spoiler Section*** ***End of Spoiler Section***
Aside from plot conveniences, asspulls, plotholes, generic characterization, terribly timed jokes, terrible pacing, constant plot twists and fake cheap cliffhangers, there is nothing else worth mentioning that could redeem this show. Its just plain bad, you'll end up wasting your time watching this unless you enjoy turning your brain off while being surprised by 'unpredictable' plot twists with over the top characters that will make a fuss whenever they can (This includes awkward cringe inducing love confessions). As a Sci-fi, this anime is an insult to the genre.
Overall: 3/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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