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Jul 12, 2024
I went in looking for a way to kill an hour and a half and I left crying.
The primary criticism of this movie is the pacing. I really, genuinely do not understand this. First off, we are following the story of a pseudo-immortal elf thing. Their memory will shine the brightest on the most important things in their mind, and time flows in an instant and whatever. I've seen worse uses of that excuse.
The movie is thematically focused on parenthood, primarily motherhood. You'll notice that the events of the story skip around *a lot*. But focus on what they're skipping to! *The plot
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isn't being driven by the world that surrounds the main character.* It's being driven by the changes in the parent/child relationships in her life! The viewer is not really supposed to care about the different kingdoms and politics. They're just a vehicle to what actually matters to the protagonist.
I wanted to leave a spoiler-free review, so to conclude, I'll just share that I really don't like movies much. I didn't care for Your Name. The reason is because an episodic show can achieve so much more, purely due to time constraints. Most movies don't make me care about a character's relationships enough to get attached by the end of it. In my mind, Maquia achieves FAR more than 95% of your typical blockbusters, and also achieves as much as a great season of anime. It just knows how to cut the crap and get to the point, and because of the perspective of the main character, it doesn't feel contrived, but focused.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jul 12, 2024
The art and music are all 10/10, I'm not going into more depth and don't feel I need to. Don't watch it for the art or music.
A common gripe with this show is the side characters. And to be clear, I wouldn't watch a show about any of them. They're not particularly deep or compelling, at least in a vacuum. Their relationships with the main character aren't compelling either, again, at least in a vacuum. That is to say, if the plot was changed to something we're more used to seeing in a romance, this show would be hot garbage.
The problem with this show
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is that it's labeled a "romance". It is NOT a traditional western romance that focuses on the relationships between two or more people. It's a romance between the main character and his own life. Despite what is presented to us, there is no "main couple". There is only Kousei, and almost everything else should be treated as metaphoric.
If the main character is the locus of attention, then what's the purpose of the side cast? Why does the show take multiple episodes to deal with two of Kousei's rival performers when they have almost no bearing on his own story? Why does a certain character experience unrequited affection for the main character?
It's because Kousei is not, by himself, relatable to anything but a tiny fraction of viewers. Most people won't relate to all of the side characters either, but they serve as necessary reference points in trials similar to Kousei's. Conversely, there were a character in the show that *actually* understood everything Kousei experiences, it wouldn't be interesting. The side characters keep the viewer from sinking completely into Kousei's psyche and being unable to understand it, and instead provide analogous experiences that a greater number of people will understand, helping them bridge the gap between the viewer and Kousei.
It's a very monologue-heavy show. The visuals and music are very strong and suited to the show thematically, but the real meat of the whole thing lies in the thoughts of the characters. When this show puts a character's thoughts on display, it's poetry that is usually very easy to digest yet is thematically meaningful.
It's not a tutorial on how to love life, but it will tell you what it feels like and what it doesn't.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jul 12, 2024
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing particularly poor about this show. It's watchable. All positive reviews will go on about the visuals and sound - I find the visuals to be par for course for the amount of hype this show got; the music is good.
But there's nothing it does that makes it outstanding to me. The plot is just lacking in substance. There very rarely feels like anything is at stake. Every mystery is solved by bs. There are very few interesting characters, and I wish our main girl were one of them, but she's not. Jinshi is far more complex by the
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end of the story, and that's even with the show spoiling a plot point about him that it hopes you'll forget.
Actually, that's how I would describe the central failure of the show. It spoils itself. There is no suspense, and any twists and turns are given away before they happen.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 7, 2023
Let's get a couple criticisms out of the way:
- The CG isn't perfect, although it's great compared to what we're used to in this medium.
- It's raunchy and gory and crude, which is going to limit the target audience.
As for praise, I'll first cover the adaptation and then the actual work of art:
- This is an outstanding adaptation of a manga that is a little rough around the edges in terms of quality. You can draw the comparison to Demon Slayer in this sense. All the elements of the presentation direct the viewer to reflect on what the author wanted the reader to conside.
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The soundtrack is top of the line, and really "sounds like the subject at hand" to put it vaguely.
- Mappa. Need I say more these days?
As for the source material:
- This show, as a work of art, is impactful to me because I am of the target audience. A recurring criticism I see of CSM is that the protagonist is not relatable. And you know what? They're probably right. I bet less than 75% of the population can actually relate to Denji even a little. But that's still a lot of people. I haven't gone through what Denji has and you'd better believe I'm not as depraved. But I sure have been poor enough to where certain common foods seemed luxurious, and you better believe I've been horny enough to seriously consider taking some decent risks! He's relatable because he's a hyperbole of what we feel, and that's how the author wants us to learn from the literature. Take some other hateable MCs from times past: Shinji Ikari, Subaru, and others in this vein. Most of us wouldn't act very much like them in the situations they were in. The point is to get us to think about the fact that we might be faced with analogous decisions, and maybe to scare us by thinking about the real odds that we make the wrong choice.
TLDR: I think the "unrelatable" card is invalid for too much of the population for it to be a valid criticism.
I don't think it's a masterpiece yet, but I'm excited that it could be one if future seasons build upon this one well. This is a good work of art.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 7, 2023
You've all seen reasons this show is great from the other positive reviews, here's why some of the common criticisms are undue:
"But it's not relatable!" I'm an adult male with relatively few social issues compared to our protagonist. She's relatable not because I feel every little thing exactly as she does, but because it's a hyperbole of my own feelings that are hard to express artistically.
"But the characters are annoying!" You were or are a teenager. Lower your expectations for maturity.
"But K-on..." I know these shows technically overlap in genre (cgdct), but BTR puts much more emphasis on comedy and artistic representation of
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a mental state than K-on, which focuses more on teenagers acting like 5 year olds (it's fine if that's what you're into, but call it what it is). They just aren't the same beast.
As for my specific praises of this show:
- Bends the limits of expression via animation in ways I haven't seen before
- The humor appeals very directly to, let's say, people under 30. This is a plus for me.
- The commentary made on the music is actually reflected in the sound in real time despite not being blatantly obvious! It's such a good touch.
The main criticism that someone would have that I actually understand is that the humor appeals to younger people a lot more exclusively than other shows do. It's a trade off that I'm fine with.
10/10 so far.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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