— contains spoilers —
Flying Witch is the most Iyashikei Iyashikei I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching. I wouldn’t call it the best Iyashikei but it certainly fits the genre the best and fully goes for it, it doesn’t really step outside of it much at all. It’s rare to see a show go so fully into Iyashikei, majority that I’ve seen like to fall into multiple genres with Iyashikei as an aspect rather then the entire point, but flying Witch feels like it’s entire point is just to be Iyashikei.
Flying Witch follows a witch - go figure - as she moves into a
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new town, staying with her uncle, aunt, and two cousins. She’s staying there as she had to move out in order to study witchcraft outside of her home with her parents. It does feel a little pointless to move from living with direct relative to somewhat distant relatives, you’re still relying on your family to provide shelter for you. But it doesn’t matter too much because that’s not the point, the point is that we have a Witch now living in the country and calmness insues.
Flying Witch like most Iyashikei is set in a small country town, and this always greatly increases my enjoyment, even if for a very personal reason. I love country towns in japan, I love the way the towns are laid out, I love the difference between wide open areas but then also small streets and alleyways, I love how clean and fresh the air is and I love how isolated it feels to be there. Whenever I’ve been to japan I’ve come out of my way to spend some time in rural areas because I just love the atmosphere there, it’s a very personal thing obviously but it’s adds to my enjoyment whenever an anime takes place in the country and captures the feeling and look right, which flying Witch dose.
Flying Witch despite being an Iyashikei also has a very deep world that it does take some time to build, without weighing itself down with exposition. If you’ve read my Kemono Friends review then you know I love good world building and there’s plenty of it here. It does world building the same way flying with dose, where the characters act like real people and don’t just randomly explain things without reason. If they ever do explain things it’s to people who don’t know or understand these things and want to know more about it, mainly Makoto’s cousins. And oh god you don’t know who Makoto is and I kinda like this gag so I’m not gonna edit the character part in to be earlier.
Our protagonist is Makoto, and I can’t believe I didn’t mention that earlier. As far as protagonists go she’s fairly generic, she’s a bit dumb and has a bad sense of direction which is a very common protagonist trait. She’s serviceable as a protagonist but most of the time I wasn’t too fond of her and she wasn’t what kept me around, but she does what she needs to do and I can at least admit the show would be lesser without her.
Her cousins, Chinatsu and Kei are a mixed bag, cause while I love Chinatsu, I hate Kei. Well, hate is a strong word but I’m not fond of him at all. He doesn’t do much for the story and a lot of the time he just came off as annoying or a buzz kill, I don’t think he was mean to be written this way but the voice acting really kills it. His dialog could be interpreted a few different ways and I’m sure I’d enjoy him more in the manga, but the way the voice actor dose him makes me dislike him. This voice actor is Shinsuke Sugawara and he is not talented, I can not believe that the way he delivers the lines is what the director wanted, he does not have many roles in the past and this was also his first main role, I think it was a poor casting choice and I wish someone with even a little more talent or experience had been cast instead. Although, for reasons I’ll get into later, I think they didn’t want to spend much money of voice acting.
Chinatsu is a cutie, she’s actually voice by someone talented who has a sizeable resume, thank god. And she’s absolutely adorable, she dose cute things and cute things… she’s really cute. What I’m saying is that the whole point of her character is to be cute, but also to be the person invested in the witch world who also doesn’t know anything about it, and thus the other characters can explain things to her and by proxy, us the audience. Chinatsu takes great interest in witchcraft and the ‘other world’ fairly early on and eventually even becomes an apprentice witch. We’re told it’s possible for her to become a witch but becoming one without being born into it is rare and takes a lot of hard work, which just reminded me of little witch academia, was bound to happen.
We never see Chinatsu start to use magic or make potions on her own, she contributes in small ways the what the other witches are doing but overall we don’t see her begin to truly be a witch in any way and for the most part is still in an observing stage of learning. But as I said, she’s just there to be cute and she really is cute, watching her run around and act like such a small child never fails to make me smile and since it’s Iyashikei and is just meant to make me feel good she never really faces much conflict either, things are usually going good which just makes her more happy and thus me more happy.
Makoto’s uncle and aunt don’t really do much, the aunt is really chill and fun and a total MILF, way too cute for her age, I like the uncle although he gets even less screen time, he’s got a real thick accent which always translates weirdly to subtitles but it’s a funny enough gag that Makoto can never understand her.
Akane is Makoto’s sister and she fits into a character trope that really annoys me. It shouldn’t annoy me cause it’s not a big deal but she’s basically set up as a character that isn’t around much, she’s usually off somewhere and thus she isn’t a part of the story right away. But then, as soon as they’re appear in an episode they just keep showing up and staying around after that, usually there’s some excuse for why they went from always being away to always being present but it still bothers me a lot.
So Akane is a set up as a nomad. Shows up for an episode and then goes away again, but next episode they’re talking about her and wondering when she’ll return, makoto says she’s doesn’t show up much and it’ll probably be a few months but then she just shows up there and then. And after that she just keeps being around the house and starts saying she just doesn’t feel like traveling for awhile. I am to an extent glad she’s there, cause she’s a good character but that small aspect will always bother me.
She basically acts as a much more experienced witch then Makoto and she’s extremely well versed and has large knowledge about the ‘other world’ and other mysteries things. She helps explain things to both Makoto and Chinatsu (and the audience) often. She’s a pretty important character and I was surprised to learn that she was voice by Kana Aoi who has very little roles, but she did a great job here! I really liked her performance and I think it fit the character super well. Akane is also host to one of the best gags, where she accidentally ends up making a portion of the ocean and land in china black and white, it’s a really weird but artsy scene and I was hoping it would lead into Akane and Makoto needing to restore it back to normal but the show is very episodic.
In fact, it’s not even episodic, it’s half episodic, most episodes being broken into two small stories, usually with some kind of connection. Early on most stories take a full episode to tell but it doesn’t take long for the show to become 2 stories per episodes. However there is one exception later on that I really enjoy and that’s the café “arc” can I even call it an arc. The second half of episode 7 is a story about Makoto, Kei, and Chinatsu going to café that’s hidden to normal people and only beings who know it’s there can reveal it and enter it.
This café “arc” ends up carrying over into episode 8 and then takes up the entire episode as well. Meaning it takes up 3 sections basically, and it’s a really fun story too, this café has a ghost as a waiter, run by witches and has all kinds of crazy quests. Some of which have really cool designs, like the brining or night who shows up at one point, and then ends up being really nice and gives chiantsu a candy.
The whole café section is full of fun little bits that made me smile or laugh or just feel happy and I wanted to stay there, the vibe of the café was great and I really think you could make a whole anime around just this café. I know the whole café with whacky quests is pretty generic but I really did enjoy this episode and I’d say episode 8 is my favourite from the series. Also pretty much every episode after this is consistently really good, the show definitely gets better towards the end.
Part of the end getting better is in the increased world building, I already mentioned how the café has a ghost and the bringer of night, which were cool things. But from here on out they really just keep adding any neat idea they have. We see a postman from the otherworld who delivers witch newspaper, we see a whale that flies through the set and has ancient ruins on its back, we see land fish, and all other kinds of crazy creative stuff.
The sky whale was a personal favourite, that was a really cool story and if it had been a full episode maybe i would of liked it more then episode 8. It was done with CGI that was actually really well done, the back was a super cool area and it combined with the ruins gave me Laputa vibes, this is another thing that is such a small part of this story but could be expanded into its own series or movie easily. I just love how deep each aspect of this world is, it really makes it feel grand and alive and I hope we keep getting more of both the manga and anime as I want them to continue to add creative ideas while returning to old ones often to expand on them. I don’t know if they return to ideas often but I hope they do.
Music is a huge aspect of Iyashikei, at least in terms of when it’s animated. We all know that music can be used as a great mood setter and it would be too easy to destroy an Iyashikei by giving it a poor soundtrack or a soundtrack that doesn’t suit what it’s trying to achieve. This is true of all shows but Iyashikei has the one of the widest erays of things that can’t be used and absolutely won’t work.
Luckily flying witch knows what it’s doing in this regard and has a great soundtrack fitting the subject matter and always giving a calm atmosphere. I found myself falling asleep many times while going through flying Witch, now part of this is cause I was watching it late into the night but the other part is that it’s just so calming. Of course I can’t read the subtitles if I close my eyes so if I ever got it the point of closing my eyes for too long I’d have to stop, but I think while this would be an insult to most shows it’s a compliment here. It really did its job well and when I had gotten home after a stressful day at uni this was a great way to wind down and just relax. I’m really glad I got to watch flying witch.
If anything I said resonates with you then be sure to check it out yourself, dont focus on the score. Just read what I said and you can figure out my thoughts fairly easily.
May 26, 2019
Flying Witch
(Anime)
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— contains spoilers —
Flying Witch is the most Iyashikei Iyashikei I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching. I wouldn’t call it the best Iyashikei but it certainly fits the genre the best and fully goes for it, it doesn’t really step outside of it much at all. It’s rare to see a show go so fully into Iyashikei, majority that I’ve seen like to fall into multiple genres with Iyashikei as an aspect rather then the entire point, but flying Witch feels like it’s entire point is just to be Iyashikei. Flying Witch follows a witch - go figure - as she moves into a ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 15, 2018
Kemono Friends
(Anime)
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If you don’t want spoilers then don’t read this review but know that if you’re not sure about this show or didn’t like the first few episodes, you have to give it another chance. Kemono Friends is amazingly unique and I love it.
*contains spoilers* Expectations: When Kemono Friends first started airing I originally dismissed it completely, a shitty CG show based off a failed mobile game, how could it be any good. And in a season full of lacklustre anime based off mobile games? No thanks. So I didn’t think about it much and just didn’t watch it. But then it got very, very popular! While it was ... airing a friend of mine kept telling me about it and I kept seeing Japanese meme videos about it. So I noticed that many people were watching it and loving it. However the only good thing I heard about it was that it had hints of taking place in a post apocalyptic world but that was about it. So I continued to disregard, thinking it was still a bad show but that people liked it cause it was good meme fuel and some low tier world building was there. But let me tell you something, BOY WAS I WRONG! Subtle world building: Kemono Friends has an interesting and deep world that explains itself to the audience in an organic way that I wish more shows strived for. It’s a prime example of world building done right, things feel like they exist because they’re a part of the world and not just because the show needs them for the plot. The history of the world feels real because people don’t just start it explaining it for no reason. Think about it, no one in the real world randomly brings up how the combustion engine works and the influence it’s had on the world, because it’s a normal and accepted thing within our world and we can assume that while not everyone understand is deeply everyone knows what it is and knows on a basic level how cars work. Many things are left up to the imagination or aren’t fully explained until a time when it’s more natural for it to happen. This is made even more obvious by the way it uses generic tropes for a different reason to the norm, only showing how unique it can really be. We have our protagonist and she’s the generic ‘I don’t know anything about this world’ like an isekai protag or a transfer student, someone who isn’t familiar with the world. However most anime will use this aspect to get away with having other people explain everything to the protagonist and by proxy, the audience. However long exposition spouts never occur and instead we see our protagonist slowly and naturally get use to the world and discover things about it on her own. Other characters also just assume she should know more than she does and that she’s a part of the world and thus they don’t explain what they think is normal to her, they only do so if prompted by her asking. It also helps that you’ll usually figure things out on your own, either that or at the same time as the characters. You’re never confused about what’s going on or what the show is trying to say. By the end all the questions you would of had have been answered and most of the time you’ll be able to reach that answer yourself if you’re paying attention. Which is again because the world exists and thus you can notice things within it even if they’re not crucial to the plot at that given time. And it feels good when you figure things out and learn about the world naturally instead of an episode 1 speech that just explains everything about the world. But don’t worry, even if you can’t figure things out on your own the show will explain everything to you. However it still avoids exposition dumps by giving out explanations in small chunks, basically this is when the characters in the world learn about them. Just like I said before nothing is randomly brought up. Is someone says something then they’re saying it for a reason that makes sense within the world, it’s what they would say if this situation was real. It never feel like it’s just being said for the audience. Friends: The character designs are really great and I’m sure that played a part in drawing people into the show at the beginning and thus giving the show a chance. All the ‘friends’ have really nice designs, you can’t always tell what animal they’re meant to be based off of but it doesn’t matter since the show will almost always tell you. And knowing lets you pick up on nice details instead of sitting there trying to figure out what animal it is. But most of the time you can make a pretty safe guess and be right or close enough. One of the biggest joys of each episode was seeing the new friends, it was always fun thinking ‘oh hey that animal got a friend’ and looking over the creative design and noticing cool details. The way they fused more conventional animals and humans together is fun to look at, they don’t go into furry territory either, looking more like biological humans just wearing clothing designed after animals. Maybe they’ll also have some ears or wings like an animal, overall it makes for streamlined and easy on the eyes designs. The range of animals covered is also surprisingly large, animals are covered from all different environments and regions, it’s not locked to animals in Japan or just well known ones. Everything from penguins to lions to Tasmanian devils are included. Yes, you read that right there’s a Tasmanian devil friend, an endangered animal that only exists in a small island off the coast of Australia. Pretty well known cause of looney toons but it’s still obscure. To be fair she does only show up for one shot and doesn’t do anything or have any bearing on the plot but she’s fully designed and was able to be memorable for me. Also it’s really easy to remembers everyone’s names since they just share their name with whatever animal they’re based off, real simple. And as for the protagonist, well she’s also got an easy to remember name, since it’s just Kaban, since she has a bag with her and no one knows what a human is for the majority of the show, thus she is named kaban and stays that way even after finding out that she’s a human. Kaban-chan: So very early on serval makes it clear that all the friends have one thing that makes them special and she's really confused about what makes Kaban special since as a human she doesn’t have any sharp claws or teeth, skin is soft and humans aren’t that fast, nor do they have any species specific physical features like wings or something. From right away I knew they were going to make her special thing be her innovation and ideas, since that’s just what it is in real life, humans took over the world cause of their intellect. Serval also makes note of how Kaban doesn’t pant, which is another advantage of humans, we cool ourselves down with sweat and thus can restore stamina a lot faster than other animals and don’t need to pant. Even in the first episode we see things like Kaban knowing how to open up a box to get something that’s inside, which serval is very surprised by. And she also makes a paper airplane to distract a cerulean. After that it only gets more extreme, with Kaban becoming a savour that goes around solving everyone’s problems with her intellect. Fixing bridges, making signs, helping people to coordinate, resolving a civil war. Yer that last one just kinda comes out of nowhere but we get a little war episode that’s really fun cause it uses interesting friends like the chameleon friend just being able to become invisible. The gift of Kemono Friends: So that’s all fine and dandy, but what does the show really offer or say in the end of it all and what’s the point in watching. Well while I don’t want to act like I know what the creators intent with this show was I can say that I think it was deeper than wanting to sell the mobile game, there’s too many deeper and creative ideas going on here for it to be a glorified ad. Personally it’s just a really fun show to watch, when I think back on Kemono Friends I primarily think of an episode set in a snowy area. The episode opens with serval and Kaban caught in a snowstorm and serval is knocked out and Kaban keeps calling her name, in the end this is a total lie and never happen. The same dialog does later but they’re not in a stressful situation nor are they in the same positions we saw at the start. But either way after that we get to see a simple episode that for awhile plays out like most others. Kaban and serval meet two other friends and end up helping them out with some issue and hijinks ensue and world building throw in for good measure. But something sticks out about this episode which is that at one point all the girls get into a hot spring and Kaban is not sure about getting in cause she thinks she could take her clothing off first, this lead to shock from all the others girls as they didn’t know you could take them off! Which confirms they’re almost the exact same as humans on the outside but work differently internally which just raises way too many questions. But yer they can totally take off their animal themed clothing but the point is that it was a really funny joke and maybe it doesn’t matter that much but it’s one of the most memorable part of the shows for me so I wanted to talk about it. Lucky Beast: The voice acting is really good, I mean overall it’s actually pretty average about what you’d expect from this show but I really like the way everyone sounds. That’s more of a personal reason to like it, cause I just like the way the voices sound, but I think it’s worth mentioning. Especially Kaban, cause she’s voiced by Ucchi! In fact Ucchi does a few characters. Ucchi also voices Lucky Beast and Mirai. Lucky is kinda the only character that dies, although not really since his belt voice thing remains and Kaban starts wearing it around her arm and lucky can still talk from it. Lucky was weirdly charming, the way he moves and walks around is cute and he’s honesty and obviousness to the changes of the park adds a good dynamic. She only talks to Kaban since she’s a human and only allows himself to talk to the other friends when a human is in danger, which are the rules. I actually really enjoyed lucky throughout the show and when he finally talked to several towards the end and he treats her a bit different then if she was just another friend and more like he’s actual friends with her and it just made me so happy, he does care about her he just has to follow the rules and thus can’t talk to her most of the time. I’m not gonna say it made me cry but it made me cry. The Waterworks: I cried a number of times throughout the series and I think that’s the sign of really good emotional storytelling, as well as an ability to make me care for the characters. Obviously this is also a very subjective aspect of the show, obviously not everyone’s going to cry at the same things that I do, but I think the fact that it made me cry is important because it means there’s a possibility for crying here, regardless of if it’ll affect you or not. I first cried in the snowstorm episode at the start but that ended up being a fake out and during the second last episode I cried a lot towards the end. The episode was emotionally powerful thanks to the great directing. The framing of Kaban in the final moments of the episode when the cerulean comes down and consumes her is extremely sad, as well as what she says and how she says it. I know it was coming cause I had it semi spoiled for me, I knew something bad was going to happen to Kaban but even then it still made me cry. Luckies “death” in the final episode also made me cry and you better believe I was just very teary eyed throughout the final episode overall, even once the normally sad stuff ended I was still teary eyed because the show as ending and it was just pulling off the ending so well, god I love this show. How do I put this: I really enjoyed Kemono Friends, the animation wasn’t a problem, I love the characters, it made me cry, and it’s overall just an anime I’m not going to ever forget about I don’t think. I LOVE Kemono Friends, it’s a great show and I’ve been struggling with writing this for so long and gone about it so many different ways cause I want to do the show justice. In the end I don’t think I was able to explain my thoughts correctly nor was I able to truly explain what it is about this show that makes it so great and the show is so deep and has so many characters that I wish I had the time and skill to write about all of it and still keep it interesting enough for someone to read, but I don’t. So instead I’m just going to outright say that I love the show and although I may not be able to explain it correctly I really think everyone should give this show a chance, if you skipped Kemono Friends after an episode or two or you just didn’t even try to watch it for whatever reason, then I implore you to go back and give this show a chance. It might just surprise you, it certainly did me. I don’t know if I’ve changed anyone’s mind or if I’ve really shown anyone just how much I love this show, but I wanted to try and if it doesn’t seem like I love this show a lot then you need to know that I do, even if I can’t articulate it well.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 27, 2018
Hametsu no Mars
(Anime)
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‘Mars of Destruction’ is an odd little beast, discussion around it usually falls one of two ways. Either someone is real and says how horrible this anime is or people ironically call it a masterpiece and praise it as the best anime ever made and obviously one way is much more fun to talk about then the other. ... But ‘Mars or Destruction’ is a bad anime, lets just make that clear, however it’s also the best anime ever made, maybe even the best thing that humanity has ever or ever will create. This is the legacy of Humanity that represents the best we can do and we can only hope it lives on forever. ‘Mars of Destruction’ came out July 6th 2005 and it is horrible for a 2005 OVA, it was based off a VN that I can only assume is better than this but much more boring because of it. The anime, for the most part, is handled by amateurs who I can only assume had no idea what they were doing. The studios that have their name tied to it seem to have made a lot of stuff and I’m sure some of it’s good even if I don’t recognize any of them, but the people who worked on it mostly have small resumes. Producer and planner ‘Shingo Kuwana’ probably isn’t proud of this, I don’t know the guy nor do I follow him in any way so I can’t know but he hasn’t worked on much of anything so I can only assume that working on this got him promoted to a God and thus he has left this world and now watches over all of anime waiting for someone to be strong enough to challenge him. Director ‘Yoshiaki Sato’ has actually worked on a few good things but his resume is also super limited which makes me think he may of also achieved a god like status and is waiting for an anime to even got close to as good as Mars of destruction was. The Music… well the music is pure art and that’s not even a joke because the ‘Ludwig van Beethoven’ made some of the music that is used in this show, that’s right everyone Beethoven knew about the greatness of ‘Mars of Destruction’ long before it and was out and made his music knowing it would be used for this masterpiece. That was his intention and anyone who says otherwise is the scum of this earth. But he's not the only great musical figure of the past that wanted to contribute to the greatest creation on earth cause we also got works from ‘Frédéric Chopin’ , ‘Erik Satie’ , and ‘Richard Wagner’. ‘Mars of Destruction’ is able to transcend time itself and if you like any of these people or their music then you have ‘Mars of Destruction’ to thank, cause it’s the only reason they ever made any music, I promise you. Girls vs. Ancients So Mars of Destruction is only a little under 20 mins and the entire first and last min are opening and ending credits, so overall there's only about 18 minutes of actual content here and it’s slow as all hell but at the same time way too fast. The show was clearly trying to stretch It’s run time to be close to the length of a normal anime episode and it does this by making everyone move super slowly, have long pauses between everything they do and just generally be really boring, however it just adds to the humour of it all. But the thing is that they didn’t even need to make it go this slow, they have moments where they try to give a lot of information in a very short time or they just slap some text on the screen to explain things and they could of just done more exposition and then not have made all the “action” scenes super slow. So what's the actual story, well we open on two guys returning from Mars, we get some useless dialog that goes against ‘Chekhov's gun’ and then as they prepare for re-entry into earth's atmosphere they fuck something up and almost instantly the shuttle explodes and the remains fall down onto earth, specifically in Japan. We skip forward some years and find out that ever since that disaster there have been weird creatures called ancients showing up, how do they show up and where do they show up? We don't get told any of this, we just get told that they show up, but surely people see them appear right, do they just materialise or do they come from space, or the ocean or out of the ground, like give us some information. It's not like they have a lot of slow fight scenes and a bunch of blank space with no sound, if they did then maybe they could of removed them to make room for explaining some god damn info, now I know it's an OVA and they probably expect that you've played the VN and thus don't need basic information about the world but later they will give us some very basic information on other aspects, so that's not even a valid excuse. Anyway three girls appear to fight these ancients and then they just kinda stand there for a few seconds… And then the ancients face them and just kinda stand there for a few seconds… And then the girls stand there for a few seconds… The ancients change up and fire two shots at the girls, one hits one of the girl in the head and we get a hilarious over the top fountain of blood just come forth from where her head once was, I don't know if it was meant to be shocking of sad but it's just hilarious, the effect is just so bad. Seriously you can go online and get better royalty free blood effects I'm sure. Anyway with the girls down to two and a third ancient showing up *gasp* whatever will they do, well they get told that backup is on the way but instead of retreating and trying to stay safe till the backup can show up they just run right at the ancients. They fire a lot of shots and somehow ALL OF THEM MISS! We later find out that they're part of a special unit made specifically for fighting the ancients, like if they just resisted bullets really well then that's fine, not much you can do about that, but no, one girl just miss’ literally every single shot. And these shots go everywhere to the left, right, and above the ancients. So she basically fires at everything except the thing she's been SPECIALLY TRAINED TO KILL! Why does this unit suck so much! Could it be… Forced tension. The Mars… of Destruction So the backup talked about earlier final shows up and it's some power ranger looking dude who's all black with blue Neo strips on his suit and he just walks up and stabs the ancients, now later we get told that suit is known as the Mars and is made specifically for killing ancients but it sucks at killing ancients, the dude in the Mars (takeru) stabs an ancient but the ancient doesn't really seem to mind he just stands there and then tries to punch takeru, another ancient gets behind him and just by grabbing the Mars all of his fingers puncher and break the suit like WHAT. This great suit that's meant to be for killing ancients specifically can just easily be pierced by their hands, and the one who got stabbed is still alive. Eventually takeru is able to get his sword out and stab the other ancient and they both die, I think the other one got shot earlier by one of the girls, I only talked about the chick who missed all her shots. Side note: I know I'm kinda going through the entire story but it's a short one episode OVA and I think this style where I go through it all and bring up points as they become relevant is interesting so I'm trying it out as a format. The Mars is like a super suit (mandatory incredibles joke) that only Takeru can use or at least he's the one who can use it best, it's not exactly made clear which it is. But takeru is pretty much just shinji and he has to pilot the Eva in order to save the world form the angles, but he doesn't want to do it but has to cause his father is making him. BUT IT’S NOT EVANGELION GUYS! Don't even dare compare the great work of Mars of destruction to that low tier piece of garbage. But yer takeru is a shinji clone without any of the emotional drive and realism, takeru says he doesn't wanna pilot the Mars but when he has to he just goes and does it without complaint and while he does scream as the suit it getting put on, once it's on he just goes out and starts fighting, he doesn't seem to have any problems fighting the ancients, it's almost like they made him a shinji clone cause it seemed good on paper and evangelion was successful. However they didn't even consider what made shinji work so well. So Takeru is a lifeless character who pilots the Mars which sucks against ancients and he fights them really slowly, what about the rest of the cast, well they're not much better. Not much better There are a fair amount of supporting character, we got some chick who runs the AAST (the special units who fight ancients, can't remember what it stands for). There's also these two American dudes that show up at the end, but all of these have very few lines and don't really do much, but they do say some dumb things which I'll talk about when they become relevant. The only other characters that matter are these three girls and not the three girls at the start, since one of them dies right away. But the two girls who didn't die and one other girls who gets introduced once they come back and is then present for the rest of the episode. Kurita, Aoi is the most important and she's also the one who gives us narration shortly after the first mission is over and this is where we get our huge exposition dumb. It’s nothing I haven't already said. Unno, Yamabuki is the least important of the three, she's the one who shows up for the second half and overall she doesn't do too much, she only fire her weapon a few times, has barely any lines and gets taken out pretty fast, an ancient starts choking her at some point and then she's not even saved by takeru, but instead Aoi is able to save her only to then be caught herself, Unno faints at this point so she doesn't do anything and then takeru saves Aoi instead so Unno doesn't even get saved by the protag. Nakahara, Tomoe is the last girl and she’s a bit interesting, she might be someone who develops weapons or she just happens to have one, but at some point when her friends are in trouble she shows takeru a huge gun that can only work in tandem with the Mars suit and is super powerful, it's also still in its beta form, takes ages to charge, and goes crazy after being fired. This of course is all made to try and make it seem super dramatic, like he might not have enough time or that if the one shot misses it’ll all be over. That's not the case as it charges up in time to stop Aoi from being choked to death and if it ‘goes crazy’ then I can only assume that means that shots will fly everywhere which should be enough to eventually hit and kill the ancients, but we never really get told what ‘goes crazy’ means so I'm left to make up my own explanation. 'Murica Okay so I just went over how the girls have another ancient encounter, takeru gears up in the Mars, Unno and Aoi get choked and takeru saves the day with a huge ass gun. However it needs to be made clear that this whole encounter happens on a road after a crash. You see the AAST where delivering parts of the Mars shuttle that blew up at the start of the episode, they're obviously linked to the ancients since they only started to appear after the incident. The parts are specifically being taken to America. That's all we really get told but obviously you can't drive from Japan to America so I have to assume that they're just taking them to the airport and I don't know why they couldn't make that more clear since it would’ve just taken one line of dialog but nope it's ambiguously going to America. So a super buff ancient shows up and isn't affected by normal bullets and that's why takeru has to use the big gun and once it's all over and ancient comes back to life in a comedic fashion and tells takeru that humans are the invaders and that the ancients are the original earthlings which doesn't make sense. Cause while you may be to able to set up a world where humans are actually invaders it makes no sense that the ancients would just wait a bunch of years and then start attacking after some random ship crashes from Mars. So the buff ancient falls down and dies for real this time and we skip to when the pieces have arrived in America and we see two Americans talking, mind you that they're speaking Japanese for some reason even though they're in America and both Americans. I know it’s for the viewers but plenty of anime has no trouble putting engrish in its show in situations where it makes sense and lots of anime has had foreign characters who speak English sometimes. It really just goes to show the low production quality of this show that they were too cheap to get someone who can speak English and also too lazy to even do some basic translation and write some English lines for the script, even if a Japanese person doesn't know English they understand the letters and could whip together some horrid engrish, I accept that as a part of anime enough that I wouldn't really point it if they had done that. But no Americans, in America speaking Japanese seems much more logical. I'm bringing it up cause it absolutely ruins a line one of them has. After one of the guys gets tells the other what the buff ancient said he thinks about it before saying ‘humanity having roots in Japan, impossible’ first of all that's not even what's implied at all, he's just kind of reaching a random conclusion and jumping the gun. But the thing is, he's trying to say that Japan sucks and there's no way humanity would have origins there, but here's the thing, 1. Humanity didn't originate in America either and 2. He's speaking Japanese while in America and being with another American! Like seriously, he's basically saying ‘haha, Japan, that silly little island, no way that's important in any way shape or form despite me feeling the need to speak the language when I'm with a fellow American’ you can't just be lazy and make them speak Japanese for no reason and then have them mock Japan at the same time, did anyone on the team even have a single brain cell or did everyone seriously watch this and go ‘yep that's fine.’ Urgh, it's such bad dialog and that's not even getting into how the show looks. How the show looks The presentation of Mars in destruction is garbo, I think it tired to have some inventive shots and sometimes they look a little nice but for the most part it looks terrible considering when it was made. It was made in 2005 and when you look at other shows from that time it's shocking, I was really surprised when I found out the release date cause it's not up to par at all, when I originally watched it I thought it was from the early 90s or late 80s and even then there's a lot of stuff from that time that looks a lot better but at least this would of been passable for the time and not considered horrid. The voice acting isn’t much better, there's very little lines and I'm sure it's cause it was short on budget, if the script was long and lots of lines had to be recorded then that’s just more money and clearly this show didn’t have much to work with. The voice acting isn't good and the way people hardly speak only makes it worse, I will say that Unno isn't that bad and I think her voice is what it should of been but everyone else sounds really off or distant but it's not the worst part of the presentation. As stated earlier the music is from classic composers who are famous and after all they made their work specifically for Mars of destruction so at least it's perfect in that aspect. There's some music from the modern era also made just for this but it's by some no name dude with like 4 works to his name and so it's pretty horrid, luckily the other music can make up for it. Now before I mentioned some inventive shots but I'd like to point out that I think it was done by mistake, the show is very dark, a lot of the time the backgrounds aren't well lit and the front isn't very bright either. I'm sure this was due to budgeting reasons, you can make the backgrounds be lazy and have missing details if you're just gonna hide it with darkness. Now the Mars suit has these blue neon strips running along it and when the Mars first appears the screen is very dark and since the Mars suit is black minus the strips all you can see are the blue strips glowing in the darkness which does actually look really neat and then when his sword appear (which also glows) it continues to look nice but I think it wasn't done well purposefully. For that most part the animation itself is also very lazy, people don't move much and when they do it doesn't look right they also cut multiple corners in order to save on time and money. Now there is one part that's really well animated and took me by surprise, when takeru is suiting up there's one really neat shot, it's specifically when the suit is going onto his arm. There's electricity all around him and the way it moves and flows looks nice and fluid. We also see that the suit doesn't seem to be made of hard metal but a more thin and flexible material fabric which also moves through the air and coils around takerus arm before snapping tight onto his skin, it looks really nice but it's the only shot like this and it doesn't last very long, so maybe that's where all the budget went. Final thoughts So it's over, that short little 20 min anime gave me a surprisingly large amount of stuff to think and write about. Since it was only one episode I felt it was fine for me to go into a bit more detail than usual. So let me know if you like it cause if so then maybe I'll review some more short shows and movies, where the length allows me to go into more detail then a whole TV series allows. Mars of destruction isn't good, but I had a blast watching it for how dumb it is, maybe if you're just a reclusive or someone who just wants to watch good shows then avoid it but for someone like me who has spent time laughing and talking about it with friends and people online, making dumb jokes and further spreading the meme that this show is god's gift on this earth just makes each new viewing all the funnier. Before this review I hadn't seen the show in 4 years and as I watched I started to remember all the jokes. If you want to watch it then there's a low quality upload of the whole thing on YouTube which is probably the easiest way to watch it. If you know anything about how I calculate my review score then you're aware that a show like this is gonna end up with a score much too high, I have enjoyment take up 50% of my consideration when rating and the rest going into things like story 10%, presentation 10% and characters 30%. So if I know a show is bad and hate the sum of its part but enjoys the disaster I end up seeing then it's score is gonna be higher than it deserves, but that's how I do things so I somewhat reluctantly say, I give Mars of Destruction a 6/10 and since it's so short I do recommend checking it out, it doesn't take much time and you might find it as funny as I did.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Oct 15, 2017
Natsuyuki Rendezvous
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
Keep in mind that this review is going to be pretty spoiler heavy.
Info This is a prime example of when a great idea and concept is made but then the show just falls flat on its face as it doesn’t fully understand how to utilize the great premise. Natsuyuki Rendezvous is a 2012 anime of only 11 episodes, backed by Doga Kobo it’s a supernatural, romance drama based off the manga of the same name, and it’s so fucking boring! Story So what is the premise of Natsuyuki rendezvous I hear you ask, well it’s basically ghost cucking. Our protagonist Hazuki has fallen in love with a much older ... lady - Rokka - who owns a flower shop. Due to his love for her he stops by the shop daily and buys small potted plants despite owning a very small apartment, because of this his apartment is filled with tiny plants. The point is that eventually Hazuki decides to take up a job at the flower shop in order to be closer to Rokka, however Hazuki eventually encounters Shimao, Rokkas dead husband. He is bound to her apartment which is above the flower shop so he can also be there however no one has ever been able to see him before Hazuki. What follows is Shimao using his ghostly-ness to try and stop Hazuki’s advances on Rokka, eventually he even pulls off some poltergeist and is able to throw objects or make a room shake and the whole time he’s really only able to effect Hazuki as he doesn't want to hurt or upset Rokka and she can’t see or hear him anyway. Now the show starts off pretty interesting, Hazuki tries his best to develope a relationship with Rokka and to his credit he does a great job, the two become close rather quickly and he gets very close to kissing her and at one point possible sex with her however Shimao is always able to at least stop anything big from happening. So this is a pretty neat concept right, Hazuki and Rokka have a budding and interesting romance and there’s this constant Ghost who has entertaining banter with Hazuki and the situation is always weird as we the audience can also always see this ghost. The romance is good, the banter is good and the situations are interesting and there's tons of possibilities. What could possibly go wrong? Episode 4 is what. So the show is going along strong and episodes 1-3 I loved and watch in a single sitting and I bet I would of the got the whole show done in one sitting if it hadn't hit such a hard wall. Episode 4 itself isn’t that bad but the things that happen in this episode set up the downfall and it's because of this episode that I take issue with the show. Throughout the show Shimao (the dead guy) is constantly asking Hazuki to lend him his body, Shimao says he can posses people but only if he has there consent, it's weird how he would know this since he claims up to this point no one has been able to see him so I don't know how he got someone to consent, so I can only assume there's some kind of ghost handbook you get if you die with unfinished business, cause there's really no way for him to know he can do this. Shimao wants Hazuki’s body so he can talk to Rokka and if he's able to do this then he will be able to move on, or so he tells Hazuki at least. His true intentions are a lot more malicious, he plans to permanently take over Hazuki and then continue on with Rokka where he left off, it's pretty fucked up, trying to just move on to a new body. At the end of episode 4 Hazuki, in a drunken state, submits and consents to letting Shimao taking his body and then we get greeted to a scene of Shimao (in Hazuki's body) getting emotional and seeing Rokka and actually being able to make contact with her, this is a good scene and at this point I still had no issues with the show, this is just the thing it needed to spice things up and help the plot more fuel so it wouldn’t slow down however this very thing is what causes all the problem I have with the show later down the line. While Shimao is in Hazuki's body we still get scenes of Hazuki doing stuff and his in some weird alternate world that’s the book world from a book that Shimao was writing but never ended before he died and overall it’s really weird and poorly explained. Overall these scenes are really boring because nothing happens and he also keeps running into different girls that are all just Rokka but she's a fairy or a mermaid of something and doesn't go by that name or know who he is, since they’re just characters in the story that Shimao obviously modeled off his wife. Every time we cut to Hazuki is this world is the worst fucking experience of my life, they go on for way too long have no purpose and don’t forward anything, they’re extremely boring and I can’t find a way that this show was made and people thought it was okay for these scenes to play out the way they do. It’s like Hazuki tries to move a giant pot but gives up because it’s heavy and then Rokka as a mermaid shows up and then Hazuki realises that he loves Rokka so he tried to move the pot again and that's it, but it took like half the fucking episode to show it. Its ridiculous and I absolutely hate this, however right away it’s not all bad. Seeing Shimao in Hazuki's body is actually super interesting, the way Shimao has to try and act like Hazuki and can’t easily completely do what he wants to. He’s so close to his old wife and yet he can’t actually do anything about it, he isn’t fully back, she can still only see him as hazuki. This all comes to a head when he straight up asks her is she loves him of course she thinks hazuki is asking this question and answers with a yes admitting that she has fallen for hazuki however Shimao is the only one who receives this information and of course hazuki doesn’t get to know it. Now up to this point I’ll admit that while I still hated the hazuki parts I was overall still enjoying the show as a whole however the Hazuki sections begin to get even worse as they begin to kinda consume the show, I’m not really sure why this is but rather then shorten the lengthy and pointless hazuki sections down they start to make them longer and almost the focus. While yes hazuki is our protagonist, he’s not what made the show interesting and by himself he actually works really horribly, he works best when he has someone else to bounce off, but I’ll come back to this later basically these sections don’t work because they’re mostly useless and feel like filler. Cutting them back so they took up less time and thus hit the important points more often and had less fluff would of been the much better part and while I can’t remember for sure I’m pretty sure there's an entire episode in the book world with hazuki and it’s just… pain. Eventually we start to learn some more about Shimao’s past which is kind of a mix between the book world and real world that helps us piece things together, turns out he got cancer and was writing the book hazuki is now in when he died, he never got to finish it or something like that. Now while this is a kinda cliche thing it can be done right, ‘Princess Tutu’ uses this as the basis for the entire show to exist and that show is freaking amazing and while it has a few episodes early not that aren't super interesting it never gets as boring as this done and that's because it doesn't do anything interesting with the book world. It also never explains how Hazuki gets into the book world or how it even works or what rules it's run by, which is weird because they spent a lot of time in there and it's clearly an important part of the plot and if they spent more of the time in there explaining what it is or how it works, then maybe it would've been slightly better. Plus these Shimao backstory parts are also boring as dirt, they move so slowly and have a bunch of still or barely moving shots and I feel like the show might be trying to be deep or moving but it's just too much of a slog to really be able to pull it off in any way shape or form. Anyway eventually Shimao tells Rokka what's going on or she figures it out I can't exactly remember but either way, she knows. And then Hazuki comes back to the real world as a ghost that only Shimao can see and this is all also never really explained at all, it's super fucking weird and also not interesting in the slightest. You may think I'm going on about this stuff for too long but it seriously is some boring crap, don't watch this show it's crazy how much of a wall it hits. Anyway in the end it's a happy ending or something. The show had put me through so much boredom that at this point I didn’t care about the characters in any way by the end and so I just kinda watched it to be done with it. Characters Hazuki Hazuki isn't an interesting protagonist, he’s a rather boring person who has lives a mostly boring life and is so useless that he buys flowers everyday despite living in a god damn apartment just cause he likes the girl there, like just talk to her dude. Either way the main reason that Hazuki is able to work as the protagonist is because of the way he interacts with those around him, he has a serious kinda dead pan way about him and doesn't get easily agitated. The interactions between Hazuki and Shimao are at the core of the original premise and some of the interesting stuff, after all Hazuki is the only one who can see Shimao and so Shimao will constantly be floating around or trying to annoy Hazuki and make him slip up and the way Hazuki and Shimao have small banter sessions at each other is fun to watch as Shimao is kind of dick and Hazuki can't really do anything in response. Hazuki's interactions with Rokka are also good because he's like a completely different person when he’s with her, he clearly cares about her and wants to be with her and it's shown multiple times in many different ways in the early good part of the show. Early on in the show we get very few to no scenes were Hazuki is by himself and there's good reason for that, he's always interacting with someone so that he isn't just some brooding guy. When he's trying to forward his relationship with Rokka but Shimao is also there shit gets interesting and this is when the shows is the most enjoyable to watch and what got me into it originally, SO THEN WHY THE HELL DO THEY LEAVE HIM ALONE IN THE BOOK WORLD! Okay they don't really leave him alone, he's always interacting with a different rendition of Rokka as I've stated before but for some reason she's like, kinda dead inside or something. She doesn't have much to say or is super cryptic and it mainly is just a bunch of boring stuff, it's not really Rokka and Hazuki knows that so he has no reason to try and forward the relationship and these side Rokka’s usually go away after an episode or two so they don't develop or really matter in any meaningful way and it's because of this that it’s not the same as in the real world where he has a real goal that's tangible and he knows how to get it while facing an obstacle that only he and the viewer are able to understand and that isn't easily removed. Nothing means anything in the fucking book world. And now I've just spent more time complaint about the premise of the show but really there's not much to say about Hazuki, he loves Rokka, hates Shimao and is useless and the source of my pain once in the book world. Shimao Shimao is a weird character and an interesting one for me to talk about while not interesting himself. Not at first he's basically the villain since he is the obstacle to the protagonist's goal but for some reason he kinda ends up becoming the protagonist by the end, not only does he take over Hazuki's body but his backstory becomes a huge focus. After all he constructed the book world since it's a book he wrote while he had cancer and so we get a bunch of flashback stuff to before he was dead and he was quite different back then in reality, he was much more nice and sweet and overall he seemed happy where in his ghost state he just seems depressed and even when trying to act caring or panicked he just seems dilated and emotionless. The problem here is that sweet and caring dude who has cancer and that we know is going to die doesn't make for a good or interesting character, it makes for piss boring shit as he just spouts generic crap in a way to maybe make the show feel deep or something, I'm not really sure why they do it cause it sure as hell isn’t interesting. The other issue with having him take control of Hazuki and basically become the focus of the show if the fact that this then means that there is no villain in the show, nor is there any real conflict, as I said the juxtaposition of all of these characters and there various relationships and how they all play off each other is key and while you can still create a dynamic like that and take people out of it, you can't in this show specifically and that's a for a few reasons. Firstly it's all the show has going for it, if you stuff it up then you got nothing interesting left to show and so you'd have to be careful with removing someone from the dynamic of changing there situation so drastically that they're not even in the same god damn world. And also because it's a fucking trio, destroy the trio and you have only two damn people left and that's very bad for the dynamic as you just can't have as much going on between two people it also doesn't help that Hazuki really was the heart of it and while Rokka still thinks he is there he's not and it ruins the whole thing. Maybe I'm just repeating myself at this point but I really did enjoy the show a lot at first and it just went and ruined itself hard. Rokka So now let's talk about Rokka, the love interest of Hazuki and Shimao's ex-wife. Now she's meant to be a pretty interesting character because she's still dealing with losing the love of her life while falling in love with this much younger boy and the whole time she's still running this flower shop that was Shimao's dream in the beginning anyway. Now, Rokka is interesting early on, since her juxtaposition is indeed interesting and how she deals with it seemed very real and like the natural progression for her character to take and the fact that she can't see Shimao really helps Shimao and Hazukis interactions shine, after all Shimao can do some crazy stuff and Rokka has no idea about any of it. However she's kinda bland outside of that and it becomes a serious issue once Hazuki is gone. She's meant to be bland anyway, she's meant to be the pretty normal person in all of this while Hazuki and Shimao do all the real interesting stuff, she's just a means to an end off the show, used to set things up despite not actually really being the one who does, she's the reason things happen without actually being the exact reason things happen, if that makes sense. This causes her character to fail completely once the focus shifts and it really is a shame since before that I was somewhat kinda liking her character despite the obvious blandness she presented. Doesn't help that Rokka doesn't fucking change or grow at all. Yes she does eventually fall in love with Hazuki however as soon as she finds out that Shimao has taken over Hazukis body she reverts right back to being in love with him again. Now I know it might be considered normal to fall in love with your dead partner if they come back in the body of the new person you love, but I feel like it's not. Now obviously we can't know but Rokka does truly fall in love with Hazuki and I feel like if that happens you truly have to be over you old partner to a serious degree and I know there's the always loving them and crap but if they come back wouldn't you at least be a little weirded out. Instead Rokka reverts back to fully loving him and sitting around just being with him and then he has to go and Rokka gets all upset about it again cause she has to say goodbye again and it's just like why did you even come back you dumb fucking ghost, you didn't change anything, you just made the show worst’ so Rokka ends up basically having some kind of reset button pushed if you will and now she has to try and get over him all over again and I'm sure this only hurts Hazukis current relationship with her to a great degree. Her character design is also god awful, I know there are people like this out there I'm sure but she has a huge forehead and her hair is done in such a way that really fucking shows it and my god it doesn't look good, her eyes are also done in a weird way that doesn't complement the rest of her design and that doesn't help her, especially when the eyes are right below the god awful forehead. It doesn't look good and it took me a while to even get use to seeing it cause most of the time it's just a really off putting look to look at normally, I don't know what exactly it is but something about it makes me have trouble looking at it even though I've seen shows that are arguably much worse in this area and have no issue with it. Overall all the characters are bad on their own or eventually devolve to that state due to the story writing them into situations that don't work for them or flatter them very well. But this is going on for too long and I’m really just starting to repeat myself and getting more angry plus I really just wanna get this done. But hey at least there's no chance of it being longer than my New Game! Review. Presentation This is gonna be fast, you see all aspects of the presentation can be summed up in one word. Generic. The animation is generic to the standard animation that doesn't really do anything or special I guess the book world does mix it up a little but it’s a blending of styles that first of all doesn't even look good. Secondly it’s been done a million times so it’s not like the show is special or breaking new ground and lastly it’s just a still frame that the characters look really weird in front of, it’s like when CGI is used and looks weird cause its a 3D model. Well the 2D characters look weird in the book world because they have shading and the bookworld environment doesn't making it lack depth and thus the styles clash way too hard. The animation in terms of actually animating is very low effort, all the movements are simple and only things that need to be done, the characters can spend a lot of time being very still or there mouth is hidden so it doesn't have to be animated when they talk, the camera rarely moves most of the time it just stays still and it’s rare for the characters to move too much. It’s very simple and very lazy and can be a real annoyance as it continues to just stay that way as the show goes on. It’s not exactly horrid, I’d say it’s bearable but still a problem nevertheless. Music and sound effects are basic and unmemorable, I’m sorry but I actually can’t talk about it because of how bland it is, and again very unmemorable, so I don’t even fucking remember it. I guess next is the OP and ED which are also really bad, the OP is bland, slow and uninspiring, the images used are mostly still shots and even before I started hating the show I very much didn’t enjoy the OP, but I watched it anyway cause I’m not a scumbag who skips the OPs. (#ForwardingMyOwnAgenda) It’s slow and boring and I don’t like it, and the ED isn’t much better. The ED just kinda slaps visuals together and I feel like it’s going “Look how I deep I am, I’m only using pretty moving visuals for my ED and pretty music” and while the music is nice and pretty the music doesn’t belong to the anime, music shouldn’t make you enjoy or hate anime or the OPs and EDs, enjoy what ever music you want but what the show does for it is the animation and that’s the interesting part and here it’s just horrid. I could get more meaning out of looking at a kaleidoscope for the same amount of time and I bet I’d have more fun. Ang guess what I can just have the song play in the background because it’s not a part of the anime and I can have it play while I do a number of things better then watching crap, so don’t tell me I’m wrong cause the music is good, that doesn’t matter. The voice acting is also super generic, it’s just what it has to be, no one is really that good but none of it’s really that bad either, well some of it’s bad but some of it’s good too so it evens out and hit a dead average. I said this would be done fast, not much to say about the presentation really. Wrap-Up So Basically this show is really bad and after those few early episodes there was little left to enjoy from it, I overall regret having watched the show and I hope that if you have read this and can understand why I found the show horrid that you will also avoid it, I think this show is liked by more people then it’s hated by but that's the same for Sword Art Online and Re:Zero so general consensus isn’t a good way to judge something. If you understood what I was saying and don’t like the kind of things I bought up then don’t watch this show, it’s painfully boring and I wish I had known more about it before I jumped in with high hopes, it’s a good concept gone wrong. Overall I have to give this generic piece of crap a 3/10 I didn’t enjoy watch it at all in the end, the negatives outweigh the positives way too heavily and those positives are the only reason this isn’t a 2.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Apr 23, 2017 Mixed Feelings
Warning: the following review may contain spoilers.
One Room doesn't seem to know who it wants to appeal to and also has no idea how to do a romance anime and doesn’t even use its unique POV perspective well. One Room is an early 2017 short form original anime that's 12 episodes long and backed by Smiral Animation, each episode is roughly 4 mins long and it aired from January 11th to March 29th of as stated before, 2017. One Room before it aired was a show I was looking forward too, it claimed to be a POV (Point of View) Anime which goes through three different stories ... each relating to a different girl and watch as that girl grows or changes and eventually ends up with the protagonist which is meant to me via the POV. minus the middle girl who doesn't end up with you becuase she's your sister, you goddamn weeb weirdos, lol. Anyway the premise is kinda neat but only because it hasn't really been done before and because I had no pass memory to base this off of, after all decisions are made based off memories in relation to the current situation so I had no reason to think that this show was going to be bad while I did had reasons to think it would be good, such as the cute girls and the rarely used POV perspective which I personally have never seen done although I'm sure it has been before. However within just the first episode I realized that it wasn't really what I had thought it was, for starters it's not always in the POV perspective so if you think that this show can get by on innovation alone you are wrong as it doesn't stick with it, we get more separate shots made to look good, shots that can only be achieved by a camera and shots that just don't make sense if it's meant to be POV, so the show kinda flip flops between different perspectives and that means that while this innovation is neat, it's not really a huge point of the show. This does mean we never see the protagonist and it's meant to make it easier to self insert but I personally find this protagonist harder to relate to and self insert myself into then other protagonists that actually have a name and face already applied to them. But I'll come back to why in a bit. First of I wanna talk about each individual story and then after we break those down I'll move on too the girls related to each story. So the first story has us getting up and going to the door as our new neighbors at our apartment complex has gone to welcome herself. She says that shes moved to Tokyo in order to go to university and that her trial exams are coming up soon. Eventually we end up walking with her and help her with her bags as she's coming home from shopping. eventually we get to the house and she asks us to help her study and that's basically the entire point of this first third of the show, we help her study, we grow a little closer and in the end she confesses that she has feelings for us and it ends there. The protagonist never speaks dialog that we hear but due to how she talks and interacts with us its implied that there is in fact dialog that is spoken by us but the show doesn't use any of it. This is a really dumb way of handling things, I know it's meant to be a self insert character and my god how many times am I gonna be saying that. Anyway I get why it was done however there's no point when the other characters interact with us and respond to things that are being said, meaning that he's definitely still saying something, we just don't know what it is and that doesn't feel like me then cause I always know what I'm saying. obviously. The other problem this brings up is the fact that what if it gets it wrong, a lot of the ways in which characters respond is written carefully so that the audience can tell what is going on while still missing half the conversation but they can alo have multiple ideas in there head about how the protagonist worded whatever it was that he said, this is done to again assist with the self insertion but it doesn't work that well when while it could've been worded a multitude of ways and yes could've also had a multitude of implications and tone behind it, it still contains a base meaning due to the way the conversation flows and the characters responds, there is still some meaning to what was said and intent behind it that at a fundamental level can't be changed. Because there is still clear meaning in order to make the conversation flow and the story progress it's possible for the protagonist to say or do something that doesn't line up with what I would do, for example at one point in the second arc when his little sister is over it's a very hot day and she asks why you won't turn the air con on which you do have, it's just unplugged and then she mutters "saving power huh, you could at least turn it on while I'm here" now it's fairly easy to get by with less money than what you usually have, skip some meals and buy less expensive food and while it may not be as pleasant you can get by. If i was a bit older and lived by myself and my little sister was over to visit and was complaining about it being hot then I would turn the aircon on for her and if it ended up costing me more I would be able to make do because I obviously care about my sister and a lot like in this show there's a huge age gap between me and my real sister so I would obviously see her as a much smaller person who I want to take good care of so I wouldn't want to make her be hot or unpleasant even more so since I can't stand the heat, it drains my energy. Now obviously that is an extremely personal and specific situation that not everyone is in. However that was just one example of why having the character not talk only makes the situation worse, we lose out on dialog and have to do extra un needed guessing in order to make the protag more relatable but it fails because it gets it so wrong. I'm sure if you want it then you'll be able to find one or more situation like this that is completely off base and that's why I feel the need to mention and I also need to justify my score after all and let you know what you're getting into. It also doesn't even take the extra weeby route so I have no idea what kind of audience this anime is trying to appeal too, but it ain't working for me. So the story of the first girl is actually the worst and the first girl is also the worst, it may just be that they're independent of each other or maybe one is dragging the other down but overall it makes the first arc the worst but at least the show gets better as it goes with the third and final arc being the best. As I've stated you help the girl study and this makes no sense to me, as someone who didn't do the best in school (cause I was busy drawing comics or writing stories) and now does a writing course I have no idea how I would be able to help a young japanese girl pass an entrance exam for a Tokyo school, the Tokyo area of japan is extremely competitive and japanese levels of education and the harshness of exams is insane so I have no idea how I'm expected to help the poor girl. Again it's a personal thing but this show wants me to be the protagonist so what can I do but explain why it's wrong for me on a personal level and hopefully you can see how it is and how it relates to me and be able to decided on your own if it will make it more relatable for you or not. Another way I distance myself from this protagonist is that when Yui (the first arc girl) first greets us we are in POV mode and the camera looks at her, scans her from top to bottom and then goes back and lingers on her chest for a while, now I get it the whole point of this show is that it's just pure weeb waifu fantasy BS, but it just made cringe a little and this isn't the only time the show gets a little too creepy for me. there's not much else to talk about for the first arc, I'll talk about Yui specifically a bit later so for now let's move onto the second arc, its for all the lolicons and siscons out there who want there own little imouto to protect and take care of and be weirdly attracted to. Now I personally have a little sister who's like 15 years younger than me which overall just made me like this second arc less than I otherwise would of in some specific areas, but overall I liked it more than the first girl and the little sister isn't super young or anything, I think the show gives us an age or year level but be damned if I know but if I had to guess I'd say she was at least in middle school. The little sister has a full name which is Natsuki Momohara, well that's not my last name but it had to be the protagonists last name since it's the last name of her sibling, wow, this definitely feels like it's me. I'm not saying that giving a sister should of been off limits, but you didn't have to give her a last name. sure this won't be as much of a problem in Japan obviously, but more people don't have that last name then people who do, so that's not a defence. The little sister arc is a little weird, it’s the only one where the protag doesn’t end up with the girl who is the focus of the arc since you know, it’s his sister. Which has never stopped anime before but it does here, to an extent. The show still sexualises her like theres no tomorrow. Which is my main problem with this arc, shes meant to be my little sister and I have a real little sister so watching the sexualised shots and angles that the show pulls off (again pulling away from the POV) just make me cringe, one episode went to town with it and did it a multitude of times and was really pushing the boundaries there and it just didn’t feel right. Another reason why the second arc is held back by the sister is the fact that it means nothing f$&king happens. It’s just Natsuki sitting at the apartment doing nothing and then we come home and there's a bit of conversation, maybe a few lewd shots of her and then the episode ends. Yui and after this Moka both have a goal and there's a reason for them to be doing what they’re doing and while this is better then Yuis arc, it did feel like there was more going on with her. Overall she comes over, eventually decided to stay a little longer, compiles some rules that we should live by and ends up leaving after watching a firework display, and then she's gone and nothing changed, doesn't help that each arc seems to be an alternate reality making the middle arc completely and utterly useless, at least if it was all the same universe then we’d have those rules to live by that she made even after she had left. Lastly is good old Moka and Moka is the best girl and also has the best arc for multiple reasons. First off she’s the most cute which for anyone who's read my New Game! Review, knows how much of a plus that is, haha. She also actually has some depth to her and a goal that she's working towards that's more grand then just university. Also for some reason in this universe we’re a writer which is actually pretty cool for me and again that's a personal thing but that makes it a little more relatable since I too am a writer. Overall the Protag doesn’t do that much in the third arc which again only helps it since we get to focus on Moka and her struggles and the issues she’s dealing with, which is how she's able to have some depth despite getting only 4 episodes each 4 mins long taking out time for the outro. So since this arc is all about Moka I’m gonna dive into the characters now and talk about Moka first since we’re on it. So Moka is a childhood friend of ours who we once promised to write a book for, we said we would make a book where she is the main character while she is pursuing a singing career and she's really good at singing, she also uses a keyboard for her music, so more personal bonus points from me. We get the generic “you said you would marry me when you were older” stuff but overall Moka lets the show tackle some interesting issues, it’s a shame the show is short though cause it can only really mention them and hope the viewer picks up on them and then thinks about it once the episode is over, but it still does cram a lot into Moka's dialog and I love it. The main one that stood out the most for me is her state of stagnation, she has been working on her dream since she was young and her goal hasn't changed at all however she is unable to make good progress on it, one episode when she’s drunk and complaining about it she calms down for a moment and asks “isn't it good to meet someone who also hasn't changed since you were little” she of course means how we also still wish to be a writer and it's implied that we have gotten no where as well. This question poses a pretty strong issue which is that while it may be nice for us to be reunited and realize that everything is the same and as we remember it, the world has changed and the world needs us to change, we can’t be little kids anymore, we need to succeed in out job so that we can pay the bills and continue our lives in a comfortable manner. It's the want for things to stay simple but for our jobs and goals to progress but they can only move once you leave the past behind and become an adult but then there's the fear of change and knowing that once you go forward you can't go back. Mokas calm delivery and the way the music stops and then the way she falls down on to her bed all implies that this is indeed the intention behind this line and I’m glad the show found a way to cram stuff like this into its small run time and it definitely had me thinking since stagnation is something that I too both wish for a dread due to its different effects and aspects, the good should stay good and the bad should change, but it's either that everything changes or nothing does. The arc ends with us writing our manuscript where Moka is the protagonist and we go see her and then the show ends with her coming to live with us, it's a nice ending to both the arc and the show and I’d like to think that this is the canon ending as its just done so much better and I don’t feel nearly as dictated from the protagonist, which is funny cause this is where he is given the most pre determined things. He's a writer and has a childhood friend as well as a past and memories all decided by the show that could be off base completely, yet this is where I like him the most and he doesn't do a bunch of talking that we miss out on since Moka talks a lot due to the short run time and her need to explain her situation and her need to develop as well as giving the lines that help give the shows its theme and issues to tackle. Next is Yui and ho boi is she a bland character, she's the most generic anime girl ever. I guess the show wanted to start with that since it would explain the idea behind the show the best and would be a good way to hook those lame ass weebs who are super easy to manipulate. Overall though Yui is super bland, she just shows up and does the good girl thing of greeting her neighbours and then instantly wants out help with studying. Again it's one of the worst aspects of her arc, the whole point is that we help her study but that would not be the case for me or for majority of usual weebs as they tend to be pretty dumb and reject there studies like the fools they are, so why is the arc that puts the most focus on the POV and is really trying to make the character be you, fail so bad at it, it's insane. But Yui does have like one good moment, it's when she finds one of our porno mags and without opening it she knows what it is and is able to understand why we would have it, she doesn't slap us or call us a horrible person and she knows what it is which is a much more realistic way for a girl to react, most people of her age know what porn is however most anime girls are dumb tsun's and so they do dumb things, this kind of reaction is much more real. But Yui seeming like a real girl are few and far between, shes either 17 or 18 since she's applying to college and we have a full blown job so I assume we’re meant to be at the very least 21 years old so the whole romance factor just feels really weird, now 18 to 21 isn't that big of a jump nor should it be weird but she is not drawn like she’s 18. I know it’s common that making a girl moe and cute has the side effect of making them look younger but I’ve seen enough anime to understand how much Moe has an effect on this and I can usually tell what an anime girl's age is meant to be even if they look younger than that, however even when I flick this switch she still seems way too young and it's goddamn creepy that she would be in a relationships with this person. Okay and I guess lastly is Natsuki, I actually like her more then Yui her arc just suffers since she’s the only female character present in an arc for a romance anime, however she's the sister of the only male character present, so the plot itself can’t do anything, however she still has some good moments. Natsuki is a pretty usual littler sister, she has the generic tsun going on and is the cheeky little sibling type so at a base level she's pretty generic but there are points were her actions parody those of the generic little sister role. For instance at one point you come home and she does the typical thing of “what do you want first, your meal, your bath or… me” however after these shots and natsuki strikes a pose nothing happens for a few moments before she starts to make a weird face and then starts yelling about how she's also embarrassed by it. We then find out that she wasn't actually meaning that but just trying to cheer us up since her friend told her that no guy would be sad after being asked that. This is a pretty real reason for why a kid would do something and she gets pretty embarrassed by it and didn't even mean the very thing she asked which is pretty funny and a nice play on it. This doesn’t save her though as she still does do some generic stuff like when she sees the girly magazines she gets really mad and ends up throwing them out but to the shows credit we only found out that she did this from a throw away line that is quickly forgotten about when we tell our sister to just go home which she misunderstands to help set up a manufactured cliffhanger ending to an episode. Also at one point we come home busy after work and while in bed natsuki gives us a message, it's either after work or when we come home drunk a lot of the same shit happens in her arc so I’m sure but it doesn't matter for what I’m explaining. The point is that this is the episode that goes to town with the border line lewd shots of her as she messages us, things like when she slightly more bent forward we get a front shot of her low hanging shirt and it's just like, seriously. When the show was airing I despised this arc, it was the horrible and after this specific episode I was considering dropping it, I’m glad I didn’t cause her arc was over fast and then we got to best girl, however this was mainly because for me this arc lasted 4 weeks, however once the show was done and I rewatched it for this review I found this arc much more enjoyable, I didn’t sit on a week thinking about those horrible shots and just got through the show in no matter of time and overall the sister is cute and pretty likable. One last look at the protagonist too, here's the main problem in a bit better of a summary. We don't stay in POV the whole time and that's what kills it, because then we get shots were the protagonist is hidden behind a tree or something so I know that they are there and that its not me. But we relate to pre-built protags all the time but that's because if you build a character then somewhere along the line there going to have something that you can relate to at the least and since you can see them it's more easy to sympathise with them. The protag is a blank shell to be more like me but I can’t get behind that when it doesn’t commit to the POV perspective and so the very few things he does do, if they aren’t in line with me then its got nothing to stand on, which is why once they gave him some more stuff in the third arc like a past relationship and a job and a goal then I wanted him to get the girl and I was happy when he wrote and then presented the manuscript to her. One thing weird about the show is that it’s got really good lighting, the animation is alright although it's rather pretty. It’s what dumb weebs think is good animation but the lighting is really good and it's kinda odd, I also think it has a nice style that a lot of anime has been doing recently where they blur the edges of the screen, I don’t know why it’s become a thing recently but I like it so I don't mind. There is no opening theme but there is an ending theme, each episode uses a different single visual that just slides across the screen slowly as the credits roll down, nothing special but the music is pretty good, each arc has a different theme and the third one is easily the best one, it also plays a lot cause Moka sings it twice within an episode while we also still get it at the end, it's a really good song so I’m glad it was used within the best arc and the arc where we hear the theme the most and it's played in the last episode for the majority of it. The voice acting is nothing special, it’s what it needs to be no one is really given anything taxing or hard to do and rarely have to show a huge range of emotions or change, they just need to say there lines and sound real and they do it well enough, it’s not bad but there's nothing special about it either, it's a real base line and there's nothing wrong with that, it just doesn’t really help boost the score. I didn’t enjoy one room that much, the start was boring I hated the middle and then only the ending really satisfied me and the last episode is really good if nothing else. In the end the rewatch was much more enjoyable so I’d say if you’re at all interested then check it out because it’s done and all out now and you can get through it in about the time it takes to watch a full normal episode so you definitely have the time, just blaze through it and then see what you think, I personally enjoyed the rewatch a bit better, Yui and her arc are still pretty boring but the sister arc performed much better on the rewatch and the lewds didn’t shock me as much since I knew they were coming. Overall I enjoyed it all right. Overall I give One Room a 6/10 not great, but a little above average, but don’t just look at this score, please read and consider what I said and then based off that make your own decision of if you want to watch it or not.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 5, 2017
Mob Psycho 100
(Anime)
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Recommended
Warning: the following review may contain spoiler.
Mob psycho 100 is a hard review for me to write, not because I won't do it justice (that's a given) but because it's just hard to explain. But I'll try to explain it to the best of my abilities and hopefully no one will want to crucify me. The story is hard to explain, the show has a lot of different small plots, a lot of subplots and no main plot (at least in the beginning) the subplots all come together eventually to form a bigger plot, which leads to some more subplots which all eventually come together again, ... and through all of these we end up with a situation of Psychics invading a base of an organization made up of other Psychics known as claw, specifically there 7th division I belive. Every small thing and subplot leads to this much grander plot which takes up the later end of the show and i really like that everything matters and it's not just a case of subplots stay as subplots and never really amounting to the main plot in any real way. Every character (that gets a name) is also important and tons of the supporting cast actually have something to and do and help move the plot forward in some way shape or form. Now as I said it's hard to talk about mob psycho and we would be here all day if I had to explain all the gears that make this plot machine run but it's very good and I like the connecting stories it also helps build the world and make it feel more alive and real, it’s very well written. Now the presentation is easily Mob Psycho’s strongest point. It uses a variety of different styles throughout the show one of which is extremely hard to do and very rare. The presentation is great because even when it's just being itself it doesn't look like your average anime. You see ONE isn't the best artist, in fact his art isn't really that good at all, he can't draw well, he's getting better over time but it's not good. Studio bones went to great lengths to make sure his style was recreated well, they were able to make it look nice while still keeping the simple and slightly off drawing of the characters. This is further helped by the constantly changing art style, while it sometimes goes really detailed and dramatic but it can also get worse, lose colour and go into a much less detailed and well drawn face, think Nichijou. It's really hard to explain just how many styles there are and how much of an impact they have, plus the animation is so freaking smooth, I love smooth animation and let me tell you… This is smooth. With so many people jumping around and psychic powers flying all over the place it would be really obvious and really bad if the animation wasn't nice and smooth and had bad flow. Luckily the animators knew what they were doing and the fights and psychic powers look great in action. Heck Mob Psycho won best fight scene for the anime awards 2016. It really is an amazingly animated show, I can't believe it didn't win best animation either, that was some bullshit, but that's getting off track. Now let's get into the music, now I took way too long to write this review and so that might be part of the reason why I don't remember any of the background music, but yer I don't remember any of it which is the very opposite of memorable, so I'm gonna say it's unmemroable. That's just how it is but I will admit that it took me ages to write this so that could be apart of the problem. It's definitely not gonna help me remember it that's for sure. The opening and ending on the other hand, *deep breath* BOI! They good. The opening for mob psycho 100 is easily one of the best anime openings ever made, it's greatly animated and is done in just a few shots, what I mean by that is that there are very little hard cuts, things morph and transform into different objects and move around to make for some great flow. Also it is absolutely packed with manga references which is a neat thing for fans of the manga to see and it also gives some nice foreshadowing, however this will only pay off if there are more seasons, which there needs to be. Also you don't need to know everything about the manga to enjoy the opening either, as I said I really enjoy it and I don't know shit about the manga, all that stuff I mentioned before is just cause I do my research. Now the ending is super important for a very specific reason and that's the style that it's done in. It's done with paint on glass animation which is done by using slow drying oil paint on a sheet of glass and then smearing it over and over in different ways to make all the individual frames. It's an extremely hard style of animation to pull off and it's also extremely rare as only one person in all of Japan is working and professionally trained in it, hence the rarity of it. I wanna take a quick side note to say that it's a style used in the show to great effort on stuff like the spirits however I waited till now to talk about it since the entire ending is done like this and it looks amazing. Not only is it extremely hard to do but it's also takes a very long time to do. But Mob Psycho blows it out of the water and the style of it along with the dynamic movement that comes of it makes it look really amazing. The ending also has a lot of small character moments, it focuses on Reigen a character we’ll get to in a bit, in the morning, getting up and doing all the morning stuff before leaving for work and eventually running into mob on the way and that's where it ends. The character moments I was talking about are simple things like Reigen drinking some water before pouring the rest into the pot of a plant he has in his house, how he puts his shoes on and how color is restored when he runs into mob. There's also a great shot of mob slowly growing up, as he has been getting mentored by Reigen from a young age. It's a simple yet touching moment as it shows that despite Reigen kinda being a con artist he does actually solve people's problems and does really care about mob as well. Which helps further push that he only cons people so that they don't end up falling for a real con that won't help them, he just helps them and lie about how he did it. It's a really good ending and even if you decided not to watch the show I'd say try to find it on YouTube (a little hard since a Bones has been cracking down on Mob Psycho 100 content on YouTube.) The voice acting is also great, they each feel so right and fit the characters perfectly. Itou Setsuo hasn't done much but he did Mob really well, he was able to have that monotone vibe he has while also having strong moments where he shows great disdain and rage towards people, mainly the claw members after his brother is kidnapped. Speaking of his brother, Ritsu’s voice actor Irino Miyu who has done a whole lot of work but is currently on hiatus for studying. He did a really good job on Ritsu, Ritsu has a big important character arc within the show and he changes emotions and feeling a lot, he has a serious complex and Irino did a great job with it. He was able to cover the huge range he needed to in order to play this boy who has so many angles to him due to his ever changing situation and power complex, but more on ritsu later just know that the voice acting for him was spot on and very strong. Lastly I also wanna give special mention to Reigen’s voice actor Sakurai Takahiro, an extremely well versed voice actor and if you haven't heard of him his props been in something you have seen if you have seen a good range of anime. Him as Reigen is perfect, he is able to pull off the laid back tone that Reigen has while also giving off a vibe of authority and importance. He is the perfect fit for Reigen seeing as Reigen is basically a con man who has a kind heart and acts like he doesn't care about anything so much to a level where people just think his important. That might not sound like it makes much sense but just wait till I talk about him and you'll see what I mean. Well, the presentation section ran a bit long but it really is where mob psycho shines the most and where it shines the second most is in its characters and after all the small info I've been dropping I'm sure you want to learn some more about these guys, so let's go, characters. Makes sense to start with Mob or Shigeo Kageyama. It's a bit hard to talk about Mob because he has a very monotone voice and doesn't really do too much. His whole thing is that he's a psychic and a very powerful one at that. Mob didn't have to train or work hard to get good either, he is just extremely talented with psychic abilities, Mob however doesn't believe that he is extremely special because of these powers, his had them his whole life and he's had Reigen as a mentor since he was young. Reigen has taught him that he's just very good with psychic powers, however everyone is good at something, people are just good at different things and there is no one thing that can make someone more special than anyone else. Mob also refuses to use his powers in order to harm anyone, at first, he later ends up retaliating at some people and he does also do it sometimes unconsciously when he gets a huge amount of stress put on him. But the point is that due to Reigen's teachings mob is a stand up guy who believes in not harming anyone and that just because he is good at something unique that doesn't make him special. Mob is basically an inside look on the idea of someone extremely talented who doesn't think they are and the way that plays on them, for instance Mob actually thinks that his brother Ritsu is extremely special and amazing since Ritsu is able to do all kinds of things and figure out all kinds of issues without having any psychic powers. I could go on but this review is already long and there's still a lot to go so I’ll move on now. Now Ritsu Kageyama, Mobs brother. Ritsu is my favourite character from Mob Psycho, he has many layers of depth and a very strong character arc. Very early on he just seems like a perfectly normal and nice brother however he actually has a very serious inferiority complex. This is because he has no psychic abilities at all, he is good at other things, in fact his good at a lot of things, most things, but he has an issue with his lack of psychic abilities which are none as far as he knows. Ritsu stresses over this idea and eventually with help from Dimple he is able to awaken to his psychic powers, turns out he was simple just a late bloomer of sorts and always had the powers however he needs Dimple to control the output for a while but Ritsu eventually gets a feel for it and is able to use his powers on his own however they are weak compared to someone like Mob or Teruki although strong against just normal humans. Ritsu, unable to handle this kind of power becomes an eadg lord, this isn't helped by the fact that the student council president (Ritsu’s the Vice President) makes a plan to frame a thug within the school in order to be able to get rid of him and hopefully improve the overall rating of the school and has Ritsu help, it works. Which leads Ritsu into a dark space. Due to a series of events a bunch of gangs around town start to search for mob under the code name ‘White T Poison’ this is all very hard to explain without doing way too much story telling cause as I've stated the plot is very closely interwoven and every event matters. But basically they wanna fight him, however Ritsu ends up confronting gangs under this name and with his psychic abilities beats the crap out of them and this leads to a case of misunderstood identity and he gets kidnapped by claw as they think his Mob. Which leads to Mob and Teruki going to save him. Ritsu also leads a band of other people with weak and small psychic abilities to break out and then in the end help out with the overall fight, however they are mostly useless with only Ritsu, Mob, Teruki, Reigen, and Dimple doing anything of value. Ritsu however is someone like Teruki who believes that using psychic powers in order to harm others is okay as long as there is a good reason unlike Mob and Reigen who believe there is never a reason that validates harming another human with psychic abilities. Ritsu is easily the deepest character within Mob Psychos first season, all the others have great death it's just that Ritsu has a very clear and strong character arc throughout the whole of the season which is important and critical to propelling the plot forward. Ritsu also eventually learns that he doesn't need to be better than mob in psychic powers to satisfy his complex as once Mob, Teruki and himself get trapped in a room that invalidates psychic powers Mob says there is nothing to worry about since Ritsu is there and that Ritsu is so amazing that he will find a way out of it since Ritsu can figure anything out despite not having psychic powers. Ritsu is an extremely talented and smart young man who is held back by the belief that psychic powers make Mob better and worth more than him. Once again it all comes back to that central theme. Teruki Hanazawa is a boy who I believe is the same age as Mob who goes to a different school and at first believes that he is a huge hot shot and extremely special and important due to having psychic powers. (It's almost like this show has good writing and a consistent tone, plot and theme. Imagine that, a well written anime.) Eventually he ends up facing Mob however Mob refuses to respond or retaliate in any way. Mob instead ties to convince Teruki that his powers don't make him any better than anyone else however all this does is agitate him further and eventually Teruki just goes absolutely berserk smashing mob through walls and punching him over and over, endlessly abusing him all the time yelling for him to fight back. Mob stays strong and true to his morals until he ends up unconscious and on the ground however due to the extreme stress of the situation and losing consciousness and thus control of himself he goes into his ???% mode which is even more powerful than his 100% mode. He ends up absolutely wiping out Teruki and the school they are in however in his last moments he puts it back together and this is the event that gains him the codename of ‘White T Poison’ due to the white tee he was wearing at the time. So Teruki obviously starts of as a bad guy and this whole event helps him see things differently, he still believes that people with psychic powers are better than mere normal humans however he can see that no matter how good someone is there always someone better and thus he is able to feel and act more like a normal human since he can see that he is nowhere near close to the best and most special person ever. His hair also suffered damage from his fight with Mob and now he has a wig that goes way too high, it's ridiculous and it's great, by end of the season his hair is back to normal since all the extra hair gets cut off during the invasion of the claw division hideout. As mentioned before Teruki believes that harming others with psychic abilities is justifiable, even after he becomes a good guy he still holds this belief and does so multiple times however all directed at enemies. Teruki is the one who notices something wrong with Ritsu and goes to get Mob and after Ritsu is kidnapped and Mob beaten, Teruki decides to help Mob out with getting Ritsu back and the two invade the claw division hideout and this is where Mob spends sometime actually harming others with his abilities before Reigen shows up and stops him from doing it anymore despite both Ritsu and Teruki screaming for him to fight back as it's the only way they are going to win since Ritsu is getting easily beaten and Teruki can only hold his own without making any ground. Teruki is a strong character, like that's any surprise in mob psycho 100s case. Terukis character arc does basically end once he changes sides and then it's thanks to this arc that he then helps out and is a part of the rest of the season however in the final episode we can see the beginning of a new arc for him as he decides to help train the group of psychics that got trapped with Ritsu who are extremely weak, weaker even then Ritsu is and he does this in order to help them be able to fight back the next time another division of claw shows up. Which will definitely happen considering they showed up and wiped out an entire division, they have all made enemies with claw now. The group agree saying they don't just want to have Ritsu do all the work next time. Reigen is simply put an awesome character, he’s Mobs mentor and he’s absolutely amazing, he's also technically a con artist but he's a con artist for all the right reasons. He helps people out with their problems in a way that actually helps them so that they can't get conned by a real con man who will just take there money and not even solve their problem. For example at one point a woman comes in with an issue and after asking a few questions Reigen knows it's just a simple back problem however this woman believes in spirits and such so she is only going to get conned if Reigen try's to tell her the truth which she won't truly believe, so Reigen gives her a massage saying that it's a way to drive out the spirit and then she feels better after wards, and thinks the spirit is gone plus Reigen gets payed, it's a win win situation. He lies to people however he is really helping them out and in the few situations where he does have to deal with a spirit he has Mob to sort that kind of thing out. Reigen as I'm sure you're aware by now lives by a very strong moral code about not harming other and not believing you are better then anyone for any reason but simply better at just one specific skill. Reigen also greatly cares about Mob. Since Mob was young he has been going to see Reigen regularly after one day showing up, saying, and then showing off his powers to Reigen. Reigen's greatest moment and something that just shows how good he is, is while mob and Teruki are raiding the claw base Reigen shows up out the front of the base and when the goons questions him he simply says he's here to see his associates. Due to the wording and the fact that Reigen is extremely casual and clearly doesn't care that these people are questing him the goons think it’s the main overall leader of claw who was planning to visit soon anyway so they thought he simply decided to show up early. The funny thing is that after going through the facility and Reigen pointing out the horrible morals at play and then helping Teruki, Mob and Ritsu to get out of the anti-psychic chamber he has all but gained the loyalty of the goons legitimately and so when the division leaders find out that they were all mistaken he tries to take his anger out on them but Reigen being the guy he is tells them all to run and genuinely cares about if they're okay and basically destroys the divisions lower ranks all together as they would all much rather follow Reigen. This also isn't the only case of Reigen being the one to save everyone, in reality Reigen is the true hero, of this first season at least. Which helps further emphasis his teachings when they turn out to be right, in fact he beats the higher ups of the division by simply showing that they're acting like children and not accepting the real world for how it is, with some help from Mob he’s able to withstand their attacks. Saying how he doesn't have powers and able to easily take what they're doing really helps drive the point home and that Reigen was right in saying that you don't have to use violence to handle these kind of situations, he simply out logics them only using psychic powers given to him from Mob in order to help hammer that point home to them and after all he doesn't attack any of them, the Psychic power only acts as a shield. After having been given Mobs powers for a brief while Reigen is now able to see spirits however that's it and overall the psychic powers he got are all but gone unlike Ritsu who actually awoke to powers and has them naturally. Overall Reigen is an awesome character who drives a lot of themes and points of the show and is great at hammering them home and being the main true hero of the story by taking apart the organisation by just being the guy he is and using absolutely no violence on his part. Now Dimple is an interesting character who I didn't see becoming important at all, at first he's someone who's running an underground cult that, like all cults, more or less tricks people into joining, however this is more like hypnosis. Either way the trick used isn't able to work on mob at all and mob can see that the cult leader is actually being controlled by an evil spirit and so mob ends up fixing things and then leaves and everyone awakes from the cult they fell into and start to praise mob as they're God although this hasn't really been fully explored yet. After Dimple is taken out he survives and then joins up with Ritsu. He tries to get Ritsu to consent to handing over his body to Dimple so that he can take over and from there eventually work to take over Mob however he didn't know that he was so weak that he can't even actually take over Ritsu at all and so instead he does help him out by controlling the output of his powers. That is until Ritsu decides he wants to pick a fight with mob and Dimple wants no part in that knowing how strong Mob is. Dimple ends up helping mob and Teruki in the claw division attack. After they take out someone Dimple is able to take control of them and uses that to sneak around the facility. I have to say that Dimple has some pretty funny lines, I wouldn't say he's a pure comedic character because most of his quips and responses are just him being him and aren't exactly funny however at one point he wants to go through a door but some goons find it wierd and his excuse is just that he's never been through that door before and so he'd like to. Eventually dimple ends up running into a division leader who captures and has control of evil spirits, Sprite which seem much stronger then Dimple. I gotta say that Dimples fight with this guy is pretty fun and I wish they had done some more with it, hopefully we can get some more next season. But basically Dimple goes in and out of controlling the guy he was using as a vessel as well as going through the roof and wall at different points for some great manipulation of the battle and it's really neat to see, even if he does lose at first. I say at first because this guy just ends up locking Dimple in a jar with a bunch of the other spirits and his whole thing is that he keeps whoever wins the battle as another one of his spirits. Dimple wins and when his let out of the jar he just takes the guy out right away which I like, Dimple like Teruki starts out as a bad guy and in his heart he may still be one, however through a series of circumstances it almost feels like Dimple cares for Mob and Ritsu. He also did help take out at least one person in claw and so it feels like he's part of this team of heros. Overall I did enjoy watching Mob Psycho 100 and while I can admit that the show is extremely well made and has very high production value, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as well as I enjoyed something like New Game! Mob Psycho is amazingly written and presented and everyone who was a part of it clearly put in a very strong effort and churned out a show that's amazing in objective terms. However my reviews are subjective and it’s more about my personal experience with a show and so enjoyment accounts for 50% of my score. Now I don’t know why I didn’t enjoy it a lot, I think back on it and the show was really good and I understand the great value behind it and as you’ve seen I’ve done nothing but heap praise upon it, but something about it limited my enjoyment and the worst part is that I’m not sure what that limiting factor is. I think it might just be the lack of fun in the show, like I said all the quips didn't really seem funny to me and while the great writing is a huge plus for someone like me and I love the characters. It’s all a bit too serious, you saw how often I mentioned the themes of the show and the message it was trying to push, maybe it just spent too much time on that. Or maybe I’m just pure weeaboo trash who only like shows with moe girls being adorable and gay, who knows. With that being said guys I have to give Mob Psycho 100 an 8/10 please don’t tell me to kill myself, cause I’m not gonna do it. TL;DR Story - Extremely well written story where every moment a character has weight and importance and everything is tightly interwoven in the clear and careful ways, really well written guys. Presentation - Ho boi! The presentation is amazing, a nice blend of different styles from poorly drawn minimalist to highly detailed strong set pieces and everything in between and a whole ED made in one of the rarest art forms around and strong voice acting. Characters - Absolutely stellar characters, each have strong character progression even if not full arcs, each character feels very real and are all extremely well written, one of the strongest anime casts ever. Enjoyment - The show is either lacking fun witch limited enjoyment or I’m just a worthless weeb who can’t appreciate this great show as much due to a lack of gay moe girls.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 7, 2017
Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars
(Anime)
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Warning: the following review may contain spoiler.
Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars was surprising in a good way, however that doesn't really change it from what it is, although it does make it more tolerable. Regalia is a show about aliens who come to earth but they look exactly like humans and then some of these aliens can transform into mechas and be piloted by another alien that they are paired with except for the protagonists which are a pair of an alien mecha and a human pilot. Now Regelia sounds like a generic mecha anime, it even takes place in a monarchy like a lot of ... mechs tend to. However the aliens and pilots are all girls and they're also all moe which makes for a rather interesting combo of genres here. Now the story goes that currently a new empire is ruling but there use to be an old empire, the remains of the old empire are its old queen, the queens little sister, the butler of the house and a mysterious young person, I say person because even now I have no idea what gender this person is, I'll just go with boy for simplicity sake but note that I can not confirm ‘his’ gender. Now early on we learn that member of the old empire like the mysterious boy named Johann and the butler like dude Jonathan Marshall use a small sphere object in order to summon a mecha for them to pilot without the need of an alien to do it for them. The old empire starts its attack on the new empire with the goal of reclaiming what they lost and so the queen finds out that her big sister has actually been an alien this whole time and can turn into a mecha and the two fight back against the old empire. We also meet other aliens who are there to help and support our protagonist and also those aliens that are there to work against them. The story is about as generic as you can get for a mecha but the cute girls do help it a lot in terms of enjoyment, it's easy to just look at all the cute girls and be happy with that. Which brings me to a common criticism I see towards Regalia which is that the fights in it aren't very good, now first of all most of the people I saw with this complaint were not very far in and I'd say the last few fights are actually really solid but even without that it all has to do with expectations. Most people who watch mecha anime are expected there to be some cool fight scenes, because mecha. However I feel like while this is an anime with mechs in it and a generic mech like story set up it it doesn't do very many mecha things aside from the set up and of course having fights. It's main draw is the cute girls and at times I feel like I'm watching a more generic moe show, it's very rare that it actually goes full slice of life nothing happens kinda stuff, but it defiantly has a weird blend of that with mecha that causes it to just kinda be cute girls doing cute things and for some reason mechas are there. Overall though I like this, if you've read some of my reviews namely the New Game! review then you would know that I like cute girls doing cute things so this was able to make me actually enjoy a mech anime since more often than not I dislike them with this and Evangelion being the exceptions to that. (Note: I’m not comparing this to Evangelion, those two are so far apart from each other in so many ways, it's just that both are different enough for normal mechas to make me enjoy them, but for very different reasons) The shows animation is nothing special, it's about what I expected and doesn't really do anything neat or cool looking, the transformations into mechs happen within a sphere so you don't actually see it happen they just go from alien loli to alien mech in an instant. Oh yer all the ones who can become mechs are Lolis minus one who's a dude and even then his stuck in his mech state and also can't move, so he's basically dead but not really. The voice acting is actually really good and that's cause this shows got a lot of talent behind it with people like Sakura Ayane, Touyama Nao, and Yurika Kubo. The others are also great but I'm just giving you an example of what kinda talent we got here and also my super bias comes into play because Yurika Kubo. But despite the great voice acting it's not exactly memorable or special, none of the characters have voice tweaks or anything super interesting to say, I don't remember how anyone sounded and that's at no vault of the voice actors it's just how it is. Which is a flaw of the show as a whole though. The opening and ending theme are also super forgettable so I can't even talk about them since I don't remember them at all. The background music is also a mess of stuff I don't really remember. Yuinshiel Astoria, or just Yui is the protagonist and queen of the new empire despite still being a school girl. Also despite being a schoolgirl someone ask for her measurements while she's giving a briefing to the nations and guess what, she actually says them, however we as the audience doesn't get to hear what they are. Yui is a human girl and she has one of the loli aliens living with her, she however thinks that Rena, the loli alien, is her older sister. Older sister because Rena being the alien that she is was born looking like a loli and thus stays that way for her entire life, it seems to be that the aliens are just born at whatever age and keep that body appearance and size for there entire lives. So when Rena come down to earth and Yui's mum took her in and made the two sisters she didn't know that Rena would not physically grow in any way and she died before finding this out. This leads to the classic Rena is the older sister but she's small and Yui is the older looking and much more mature and dependable but younger sister that a lot of anime likes to do since K-On did it and that was popular. I have no gripes with K-On but seriously guys it's over done now and it doesn't even change anything, like in this its just a throw away thing they do once and then it never really matters again if she's younger or older. In K-On it had reason and purpose and actually affected events and how things played out, okay, enough ranting. Overall I actually like Yui enough, she's nothing special really. She looks nice but her voice acting isn't anything special and overall she doesn't do much, at multiple points in the show she fails to be able to do anything without Rena. At one point when Rena has to go away she basically is forced to do nothing but hide and whenever Rena loses control (because she's bonding with a human and not another alien) Yui is never able to regain control of the mecha or stop herself from the danger she's in from being stuck inside, instead Rena will either wake back up or the alternate Rena with red hair will come in and deus ex it. Funny thing she's actually called deus ex, or was it just deus, either way it's funny. Tia and Sara Kleis are two aliens that are bonded, Tia is the loli who becomes a mech and Sara is the pilot. Sara is also the best because Yurika Kubo. I really enjoy Sara and Tia for one very obvious reason, they're freaking adorable. The two work off each other very well which makes sense since they're actually sisters and look very similar, they do have a third I sister however she was captured and put under the control of Johann. Tia and Sara came to earth in search of Rena and Kei (the other loli alien) they find Rena rather early and once they meet up then Tia/Sara and Rena/Yui always fight together as a team. Pretty obvious at this point that the three loli aliens are the three sacred stars mentioned in the title of the show, for a majority of the show Rena and Tia have no idea about this power and even if they did they wouldn't be able to activate it without Kei. Tia and Sara are a little bit of comedic value, they of course have there importance and when they need to they can fight just as well as the others but they have the most silly moments, some slapstick and are just off in the background messing around sometimes. Like when everyone finds the alien dude who is stuck as a mech and can't move, Yui and Rena are off talking to his wife who is explaining how he ended up like that and then as we hear her explain we get a shot of Tia and Sara playing around on the mech and Tia sliding down one of the arms. Either way these two are cute and when they need to they can defiantly fight along with the rest of them, I like them a lot. So who is this Kei, well she's the third alien loli that's also a mech. She's actually under control of Johann but in a different way to Tia and Sara's sister, Kei is under his control without having to be chained into her mech form without a pilot. It's not fully explained what it is that caused this we just know that Kei is hooked up to a machine and Johann runs an experiment on her in order to gain control of her, he goes directly against what anyone thought he was going to do in order to do this and as a result Kei’s older sister (who I think is also a human pilot) Ingrid is forced to follow Johanns orders. For a majority of the first half of the show Kei doesn't say much as she's actually just a lifeless shell of her former self, during this time Ingrid also doesn't say much but she definitely does more talking then Kei who might as well not be there for how little she does in some episodes. However after a battle of Johann and Kei/Ingrid vs. Tia/Sara and Yui/Rena which is one of the best fights in the series spanning quite a few episodes, Ingrid is able to get Tia and Rena to enter some kind of separate realm and then due to there connection to Kei. Them being the three sacred stars and all, allows them to break her out of the mind control right before she's about to shoot Ingrid. Which by the way was actually an extremely powerful moment, I almost cried during it because Kei hold the gun at Ingrid and before she's about to do it a tear rolls down her check because the real Kei trapped inside doesn't want to do this, a very powerful moment. I will say it would of been more powerful if she had actually done it and then had to spend the rest of the series dealing with that fact but I digress. Once broken out of Johann's control and it coming to light that he was the real mastermind the whole time and despite Ingrid being the queen of the old empire she never actually wanted to overthrow Yui and was fine to just find a new role in society as it was. Ingrid is actually a really deep and a cool character, she has so much guilt and responsibility on her shoulders and with the help from the others and the real Kei she finally starts to try and be happy again. Also this is a good to mention that a side character named Retsu has her very faith in a god restored at the sight of Kei. It's a really weird but funny scene and I like the idea of Kei being so adorable that Retsu goes from being an atheist to a believer in some god. Either way Ingrid looks way older than Sara or Yui so she actually almost looks like a mum to Kei, these two are really cute together regardless and have some of the most powerful moments together, plus with the three alien Lolis assembled they get to all form together like the power rangers and form a mega mech which they use to win the final battle, but that also involved some confusing BS with deus. Then we have Johann, who at the start doesn't seem like the main villain. Marshall clearly seems to be in a higher position and we know Ingrid is the queen of the old republic, it's really not right until Kei is freed that we fully learn what has been going on this whole time. It's actually a pretty good twist and later on there's like multiple Johann that show up, like one dies and then another shows up and he jumps off and a cliff but then there are like 10 of him. Me and my friend who I watched this with has a series “ahhhhh” twist reaction and I liked that it was able to that, as I said this show was really surprising it's defiantly exceeded my reputation. So at first we think the enemy is the old republic but it's really just a cover up that Johann is using in order to be able to act out his schemes in the background without seeming like the main leader and also hide behind the idea that it's just the old empire wanting its power back. I gotta say I do feel bad for Marshal, he died pretty early on being killed in his fight with Rena/Yui however he made it clear that he died happy cause he was helping Ingrid and the old empire with its ultimate goal however in the end he was only following Johann’s orders just though Ingrid since he had absolute control of her. He died fighting for what he believed in which was whatever Ingrid wanted, however he just needed up being a pawn in Johann’s game and overall didn't really do anything for either side. Although I will note that Johann has a weird mech, in the final battle when he enters his final form the mech has a very long and phallic object in a very specific place and it's also what the girls hit and destroy in order to defeat, just gonna say… It's weird. Overall despite Regalia being a mess in its genre and kinda shooting itself in the foot by being a mecha anime that panders to a very different kind of audience I actually enjoyed it a lot. The story is extremely generic and the presentation is nothing special outside of the voice acting but the characters are fun and I enjoyed my time with the show. When it comes down to it, if I'm able to enjoy a show and have a good time watching it despite it flaws then that's pretty good. After all I sat through the whole show and for the most part had a good time, I watched it with a friend which may of made it more fun and thus is adding some extra bias but overall I don't think it's affecting the score too much since I did actually enjoy watching it and not just the events surrounding the watching of it. Plus my real bias comes from Yurika Kubo being in the cast. Overall a 7/10 mainly for the hella good time I had while watching despite its flaws.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Nov 6, 2016 Recommended
This is NOT spoiler free, you have been warned.
New Game! Is freaking amazing and has some of the best cast of characters in a moe show to rival love live and K-On! New Game! is an anime from the summer of 2016 (winter for me, I'm Australian) produced by kadokawa Shoten and delfi sound based on the manga of the same title. The manga was written by Tokunou and drawn by Shoutarou. (If I got the two mixed up please correct me in a civilised manner) the manga begun distribution in January 28th only three - almost four - years ago in 2013 and is still being ... published. Both manga and anime are comedy slice of lifes. Under the studio Doga Kobo New game! Begun airing on July 4th 2016 and the final episodes aired on September 19th of the same year making for a total of 12 episodes each around 24 mins long. The show will take you about 4.8 hours to watch and is available on just crunchyroll as far as I can tell (be legal guys) if I missed a LEGAL way to watch it then please be civilised in your corrections. As a 4-Koma slice of life, the story of New Game is surpassingly present. Usually these things have a loose story just to give the characters a reason to be together and make jokes and while this is true there's more too it then usual. Aoba is a young girl (she's only 18) who has just finished school and has decided to jump straight into the workforce rather then attended a university. The company EagleJump makes games, in fact it made Aoba’s favorite game and the game that made her want to be a game designer. The story follows her and other members of the art division (as well as a motion member, programmer, play tester and director) as they make this game. Despite being a situation to have these characters all working together in order to set up jokes there's is a large amount of attention paid to the game and its creation, we see things like people sleeping at the workplace, energy drinks, work being done and stressing over deadlines. It pays more attention than the average 4-Koma slice of life normally does and it's very good, but that's all it is, just good, as nothing too much outside of this happens and everything else is jokes and character interactions. I hope you like reading because New Game has 9 characters of importance, yes a majority of these are technically supporting characters but I feel like they are all important and I like them all a lot, so I want to talk about each of them. Plus there's also the fact that characters is New Games! Strongest point and I'm giving this a high score so I should focus on what made me love it so much so you can understand. So I'll start with the protagonist Aoba Suzukaze, I really like Aoba, she's pretty cool. Aoba is a character designer, she joins the company not knowing how to make 3D characters so she's just made to go through a workbook first learning the basics and getting a hang of the program. I really like this as I do 3D modelling in my university course and we use the industry standard, so obviously so does Aoba. Seeing her use the same program I use on a somewhat regular basis (I don't have the best attendance) is cool. However later on Aoba ends up making a bunch of NPCs all of which have to be done with great detail and made with hard work even if they aren't that important. Since she joined late, the majority of her work are these villager NPCs, she gets to make one important character though and so the show gives this character a fair bit of attention in the game's promotional material since it was made by the protagonist. Aoba interacts with every single other character, being the protagonist makes that kind of a must. However I haven't got to those characters yet since I'm doing her first so I'll get to her relationships with others when talking about the others. Aoba kinda does and at the same time doesn't have development, in the way development is commonly used in anime I would say that Aoba doesn't change throughout the series in the end she's the same person really just with new friends and a vastly different life but only due to her work, the development for her is her relations to others and how her life has evolved due to her job. And she also gets better at the job as times go by, she gets quicker and quicker at making models and such. However for a show like this development isn't really needed, I like Aoba from the get go just like every other character and we learn things about them at a steady rate making them grow into what they already are in the eye of the viewer since we aren't told everything about them right off the bat. To summarise, I love the chick from New Game! Kou Yagami is the art team's lead and the second most important person on the team, she leads the designs and concepts and everything art and design related has to get her approval first. I really like Kou, she's pretty chill and a good person, she expects high quality work from her team members and it's clear how much effort she herself puts in. She's first seen sleeping at work without pants on and although the show has many shots of her in her panties and butt shots there pretty short and it's not a massive thing they use in every single episode and as the show goes on and things start to get a bit more serious towards the end they use it less and less. She’s not a fan service device is what I'm saying. Despite her somewhat lax and chill personality she does put the effort in. And she only sleeps at work majority of the time because she is working through the night, she puts in the work and someone like Aoba says multiple times that she aspires to be like Kou. Kou also did the character designs for Aoba's favorite game and the game that made her decide to become a game designer ‘fairies story’ so of course Aoba has huge respect for her as the character designs were the main aspect that had an effect of Aoba. So Aoba and Kou start off with a strong teacher and student vibe, Aoba needs to learn how to 3D model so Koe gives her the book Aoba followed and she slowly learns how to do it. Eventually Kou gives her a job to make a villager NPC, Aoba spends many episodes working on this one villager as its her first and every time she tries to submit it to Kou, Kou says it needs to be re done and this done over and over as Aoba slowly gets better and better at making a model. Like I said before Kou demands good work from her members and Aoba only respects her for it rather than despising. The two slowly form a better friendship as Aoba gets more familiar with the work place, also starts spending nights and gets good work done fast. The two have a very close friendship by the end, in the final episode (I gave a spoiler warning remember) we find out that Kou use to be the art director but was too strict and caused a new employee to quit which caused her to revoke the role and go back to lead designer. She gets offered to move back into the AD position as the new AD is getting a promotion and so they yet again need a new one, Kou declines however Aoba consoles her saying that she would follow her and they each both have a touching moment to end the show off. Kou also interacts with everyone as she has an important role within the game's creation however only Aoba and Rin matter. I'll get to Rin next so I'll talk about their relationship there. Kou actually gets a fair bit of development towards the end, as I said there's the whole inner battle she has with whether she should be the AD again or not as it didn't work out so well last time. Also at the games release party she has a speech and in it says thank you which the director clearly states is a rare thing to hear from Kou and something that she thought she would never hear Kou say. This of course is only small but it defiantly shows in Kous movements and expressions for the rest of the episode that she is very much not happy with the new AD suggestion. Her talk with Aoba is one of the best moments in in the show for sure and leads to a nice end. Kou has an interesting design, she has blue eyes and blond hair so although it's never said she looks like she's white, but her last name is Yagami so I don't really know what's up with that. She's very pretty and very young for someone in such a high position in the field not even 30 years old, she usually wears the same things and her lower area switches between being jeans or a long brown dress, or she's just wearing panties as she sleeps at the office. A good design overall and I really like it. There's also one episode where she gets changed into really cute clothes since she has to do an interview and photoshoot for a magazine to promote the game, it really is cute despite Kou basically hating the whole situation. Rin Tooyama is the actual AD. She joined the same time as Kou and is also the same age as her. Rin is the calm level head of the art team, she had to direct and control everything after all, she basically does all the planning and makes sure people are doing there work and reach deadlines on time, you know, like what a producer for a movie does. I really like Rin and before the final 4-5 episodes she was definitely my favourite character, she has one moment where she goes down to her panties like Kou, very good stuff. Anyway moving along, as a director most of Rins work is actually in meetings and done off to the side and that's also a bunch of boring stuff, at one point I saw a Gantt chart on her computer which made me laugh because I hate those little suckers. Just gonna say it now but as someone who studies game development at a university level I can relate to a lot of this stuff and it makes me smile, a personal thing but I also have friends who don't study this and love it, some more then me so don't think you have to know the industry well to enjoy the show, just someone that added extra enjoyment for me. Because of Rins work most of it's not actually shown to us, the work is focused on the art team and the last few episodes also give the play testing a pretty big focus, but most other things even the programming is mostly glossed over. Because of this we have to turn to character interactions as to why I enjoyed Rin so much. Rin and Kou are totally gay for each other, just gonna say that right off the bat. You like Yuri undertones? well Rin and Kou are the gay girls. Although it's a little more than undertones with both of them kinda knowing that everyone else sees them as girlfriends. One of my favorite moments is when Aoba is sad about having a fight with a friend and Kou goes over to her in a somewhat sad state too and says ‘Rin dumped me’ rather than showing shock or pointing out that they aren't dating Aoba's just like ‘oh, I see’ to which Kou tells her it was just a joke. But that basically shows you what kind of relationship they have that other characters don't really step around how gay they are together. It's cute and I like there interactions, it's all nice stuff and they both support each other's, it's not super tsundere or anything which is nice, sometimes I just wants girls to have gay undertones while also just acting like the good friends that they are. Rin doesn't have too many interactions outside of Kou. Her job as AD makes her have to be series, even her Aoba interactions are pretty small time and while it's definitely there, no moments stand out to me. Rin also has a nice design, she has red hair that's basically just like Makis hair (from love live, if you don't know love live then go commit sudoku) she also wears very formal clothes but it's like formal pretty, like really light colours and nice frilly parts, she's a very pretty lady while also being a lot of fun. She also thinks Aoba is a little kid at the start, everyone does but she does it first so she gets to own that joke, haha. Yun Iijima, Yun is cute. Yun is another member of the character design team. She's kinda odd in her importance to the story, she doesn't talk much about the work she's done and most of her gags are about her wanting to lose weight which has been done to death in anime. And the Dandy talk gag which is one of the funniest ones in the show, but despite that she's a mixed bag of importance. She's not as important or used as much as Hajime (more on her later) but she's just slightly more important than Hifumi (also more on her later) although she has cute siblings that are in just one small moment of one episode to make a joke, a recurring one that's mostly okay. And sets up a pretty good joke later. However Yun's best moment is definitely when she joins in on the Dandy talk and also when she goes to mess around with the cooling unit to try and make it hot so she can sweat to lose weight at work, not the funniest thing on its own but the setup that leads to this moment is what makes it funny. Yun however works right next to Aoba and she does a lot more early on as she pulls out a table they out in the middle of the work area for the art team and enjoy tea and stuff during lunch, however they kinda stop doing this after 4 or so episodes as they get more focused on the work and they have more characters become important and thus can do more interactions and don't need to focus on just the art team as much. After all of the nine characters only 5 are actually a part of the art team. Which is just a little over half so there's way more to work with once more are in. This puts Yun in a weird spot but despite this I really enjoyed her, maybe it was just her simple design and simple way she just kinda glided through the show, or maybe she's reminding me of nene too much (also more on her later) Overall I liked Yun even though she kinda lost most of her importance and her wanting to lose weight is funny, it's just a little overdone. She also doesn't have that many relations, she just kinda friends with everyone in the art team and Hajime and at the start I really thought she would be more gay with Hajime but they kinda just stopped talking since Yun wasn't doing much. Just kinda in the background working away and thrown into scenes that involve the whole team. Like when they go to a convention Yun is just kinda there with Aoba and Hajime and she doesn't really seem to do much, I'm not saying I don't like her, cause I love her and she's definitely not useless like chitose from orange was (shameless plug, go read my orange review) but yer, she's a weird one to talk about because she does stuff but none of it stands out. Guess now is a good time to talk about Hajime Shinoda, Hajime is not on the art team but rather she's on the motion team, she makes the characters move and yer basically makes movement and motion happen in various points throughout the game and this workload is spread out throughout multiple members of that team. However there are too many member in the motion team, so they can't actually fit them all into the same office space so Hajime has to do all her work in the art team's office space. Hajime is pretty cool, I definitely enjoyed her. Despite being a member of the motion team she's obviously much closer with everyone in the art team but that's to be expected due to her position. She starts off seeming to be pretty close with Yun and I guess in the end that's still true but there not nearly as gay as Rin and Kou for instance. Hajime eventually moves on to be closer with Aoba at least in my opinion. Hajime is good set up for jokes too, the one where she thinks she lost her wallet is pretty good and I've already said how much I love the Dandy talk gag and Hajime is the catalyst for it (kinda Aoba too) Hajime has a close friendship with Aoba and wants to try and act like a Senpai to her since Hajime and Yun were the most recent recruits before Aoba came along and it's cute how grown up she tries to be. I'd say Hajime doesn't really grow that much, she's kind of a simple character when it really gets down to it and she's defiantly the same in the end as she was at the start with no real defining moments. Still a really good character though. I also really like her character design, Hajime bikes and she also wears not much clothing since she'd get hot biking and the period of the games creation seems to mostly take place in summer. Hajime doesn't wear much, her shirts rarely have sleeves and she usually has booty shorts on, this and the show makes sure you know hot fit and nice her body is and I'm just saying it makes for some great shots. Mainly this one elevator scene where Aoba observes her bottom to top and we get a nice shot of how good she looks, this also later leads into the air conditioner situation which I also found pretty funny. Again a good Hajime set up. Hifumi Takimoto is a kinda weird character. I kinda liked her at the start a little bit but as the show went on everyone overshadowed her and she slowly faded into the background. Hifumi is a shy girl who has trouble interacting with people and has a shy quiet voice and I'm so fucking sick of these characters. I guess a lot of people like them it I don't, these quite off to the side characters are not nice to watch, I don't even think it's cute, it's always the same thing and I'm pretty sick of it. You know what I mean right, the shy girls who doesn't talk much or under her breath and is a little weird, I don't know if she's a popular character for this show it's doesn't seem that way to me but I might be wrong. Either way I didn't enjoy her that much cause she's the same bland thing I've seen over and over. In the first few episodes she has a lot of prevalence and seems to be the girl who Aoba will be gay with but somewhere around episode 4 or 5 she just stopped being a part of anything. Her shy attitude doesn't mix well with the other cast members. So while everyone else is off doing something fun she's just in the background doing her work or when everyone else in the office is talking she's too shy to get involved. It's a serious problem because it means that she just loses all relevance and as you get closer to the end she just doesn't matter at all! She's also a member of the art team so she's always there maybe in the background or having one line here or there or being used for a joke where she doesn't even talk, but I don't care because she was always bland and now she doesn't even matter. I don't hate it, it's just that I don't care for her and she does have her uses unlike some characters in other shows. Like I said she basically only talks to Aoba throughout the entire show and so she has very few interactions, even more so given that she just stops doing anything shorty after the show starts. She has one good moment after she drops out of importance and that's at least with Aoba. Hifumi is trying to get over her shyness (I'VE SEEN THIS PLOT A THOUSAND TIMES SOMEONE STAB ME PLEASE!) by becoming friends with Aoba, she says that she wants to befriend Aoba but is worried that Aoba might be mean. Which is stupid by the way cause Aoba is super nice. Anyway Hifumi tries to help Aoba out with an errand and afterward when Hifumi gets all shy Aoba comments on how it's cute and that she might make her get flustered again. Aoba is just having a fun tease and even says she's joking before skipping off but Hifumi takes it the wrong way and thinks Aoba is being a little devil and we get this nice cheesecake shot of Aoba is a devil outfit and it's pretty good. So Hifumi has no growth, obviously she can't even get over her damn shyness and it's the downfall of her. She tries to break out of it towards the end but it's too little too late and outside of that one Aoba scene she's still stays irrelevant in the end. Not too much lost cause as I said she's generic, but she could of been more, a shame really. He design is also kinda bland, there's just not much going on and not much to look at and you're also not going to be seeing her much since she doesn't do anything. If it weren't for the her massive relevance in the beginning and that fact that she's all over the opening then I would be hesitant to say she's an important character, yet here we are. Now let's talk about Nene Sakura, A.K.A best girl! I love nene, she is the most adorable thing ever and I love her and I want to hug her and I hope New Game! gets figures because I want one of her and she is just so great. Now we getting into some meat! Nene is pretty important, early on she doesn't do much and later down the line they slowly start to make her important again, giving her a few movements here and there before bringing her fully into the fray, She at first is just a friend of Aoba's from back when she was in high school, Aoba moved into the work force straight out of high school while nene has decided to go to university first. I don't know if we ever find out what she's studying, maybe we do but I can't remember and that's because it's not important. What's important is that come summer break nene wants to hang out with Aoba but Aoba is much too busy working on the game. However Eaglejump is looking for game testers to start testing the game and help look for bugs and the like. Nene sees a bulletin at her school about this and worried about Aoba and how much work she has, nene takes up a position as a part time game tester for summer break. With nene added into the main cast and working at the company for the last 4-5 episodes which isn't even majority of the show but these last few episodes are where the show really shines and what ended up making it a 10 for me, it would be much lower if the show had stayed the way it was before the last batch of episodes. Nene first joins and is instantly a problem for Umiko (more on her later) as she constantly goes off to see Aoba, however most of her early antics are forgiven as nene is an amazing game tester. She finds a ton of bugs and has long notes with many things that she was able to find, she also finds ways to do things the game doesn't want her to do like being able to endlessly protect an NPC that's meant to die. She's also able to find small inconsistencies within the game and players dialog, as well as finding inconsistencies from past games in the series too now since she had played the older games in the series. She also ends up basically discovering what is somewhat a bug that ends up becoming a feature of the game thanks to the crazy director. Sakura is awesome and is clearly a great game tester, she's super adorable and has some of the funniest moments. Nene is obviously close with Aoba so they have there interactions, mainly they talk outside of work going to and from it and also the moments before nene starts working there we see them having lots of phone calls with each other. They also have an outing to the movie at one point which is super cute and Aoba is able to get an adult ticket and nene has to settle for a student ticket, it's cheaper but she wants the adult one, it's really cute. They're also giving out toys to the kids who go to see the movie and Aoba and nene get some even though they are both adults, they're just so small and cute that they get mistaken for kids, it's really adorable. Nene also has strong interaction with one other character, this is Umiko but as I said we will get to her later so we will talk about their relationship then. I'd say that nene actually does get a fair bit of development in her time on the show, she starts out as this new uni student who clearly doesn't know much about the world and as she goes into the workforce like Aoba did she learns a whole lot more, she developed a friendship with another older working adult and has to stay late nights and do other stuff in order to get work done and puts in the effort, she grows into a full adult despite being a cute little girl all the while. I really like her if you couldn't tell, haha. I also really like nene's design she's also got blond hair and blue eyes making her seem like a white chick, but, again, the name makes it obvious that she's not. I really like the way she dresses usually in a cute hoodie with booty shorts, I'm pretty sure. Not actually sure how her bottom looks but I know she's normal in a hoodie and girls in hoodies are cute, deal with it! Well it only makes sense to touch on Umiko Ahagon now, this will kinda have a fair bit about nene in it too since those two are very close in the show both socially and physically when working (if not in a weird way) I like Umiko, she's pretty funny in a way despite being a little bland at time, due to her important role in the company she gets a fair amount of screen time and most of her character interactions are enjoyable and fun to watch. She also gets to interact with a lot of character, again because of her important role and I'm really happy with this for reasons that should be obvious due to what I just said before. Umiko is a programmer, in fact she's the lead programmer and I really like her. She is around at the start, mainly roping in the director whenever she starts to get distracted from her work and do things she shouldn't be doing. Umiko is defiantly a strict person or at least is shows to be at first but she later on shows a more friendly side with people like Aoba and nene. Umiko is also in charge of looking over the game testers although she is much too busy with her programming work to constantly be looking over them. It's how nene is able to mess around so much early on, however due to her constant antics umiko has to do something and she doesn't wanna fire there best game tester. So instead Umiko has nene's workplace moved to be right next to her and from then on nene works in the programming office space next to Umiko. Umiko at first only interacts with shizuku (that's the director, more on her later) and thus she isn't actually seen much for the first few episodes but like nene she slowly starts to become more relevant and then eventually becomes fully relevant for the last 5-6 episodes, a little more than nene since we know about her before nene starts working there. Umiko also has interactions with Aoba and Kou a fair bit, and of course she has a lot with nene. At first Umiko comes to Aoba saying how there were errors with the models she made, Umiko being the lead programmer obviously has an issue with this and teaches Aoba what she was doing wrong. She then of course gets mad at Kou for not teaching the new recruit fully and correctly. Aoba is able to get the errors corrected very quickly and Umiko rewards her with a goddamn bullet, like an actual bullet and then we learn that Umiko has an obsession with guns for some reason, she doesn't have any real guns they're all air guns, but still. She shows clear passion as she talks about the bullet and the gun it belongs to to Aoba and eventually Kou joins the conversation and we find out that Umiko has a shooting range on the freaking company roof. She explains that she has permission to do so but that doesn't make it any less wierder. It's a freaking shooting range and I freaking love her for it. Such a weird person, she also has air guns lining the back of her (and nene's I guess) workspace. Umiko relationship to Aoba mostly ends there, apart from just updating her on different jobs that she needs to work on that are related to programming, and one really funny joke but that's more so because Umiko has nene do something more so than directly at Aoba, it also only happens because of nene. Umiko also doesn't have much time with Kou outside of there little talk and adventure to the roof to see her shooting range. Umiko does have many interactions with shizuku as I said before, always making sure she stays on track with her work. But Umikos main interactions are with nene as I've said many times before and they are always hilarious. From the get go Umiko wonders if she can fire nene since she's late to the first meeting and from there it just get worse, however nene is to skilled to fire. That's how they end up sharing a workspace as I said and constantly they cause problems for each other. Mainly it's just nene stuffing up and Umiko being hard on her for it. Like nene swinging her feet around at the workplace and accidently knocking out the cord to Umikos computer, which as someone who has done programming before, I would murder someone if that happened. Nene should be dead. Another good one is when Umiko and all the other programmers are basically dead and she asks nene and Aoba to go get energy drinks and to make sure they grab a business receipt and nene says they don't need one since they just need a list of items. Not knowing that a business one is needed in order to claim it as a business expense, which it is. They also buy one super expensive energy drink for Umiko since she's the programming lead and normal ones for everyone else. Umiko does get mad at them for this however she is very surprised and revitalised by the energy drink they got for her which is a nice little moment. Umiko basically is hilarious and I love her interactions and time spent with nene especially how there relationship was at the end of the season, in the last episode Umiko gives nene a gun saying it doesn't suit her and she need a more powerful one. Nene also talks about coming back to do game testing for there next game, however Umiko informs nene that they will use a proper game testing company next time however hands nene a business card and it's just so cute and nice and I love it. Umiko has an interesting character design, I like her simple outfit and hair, she's got just a tiny bit of her hair hanging over the top of her face and I don't know why I like that so much. I guess it made her face more memorable to me, to just have something going on, a good design. And now we have shizuku Hazuki who I'm not gonna spend much time on. She's like a supporting character that's actually supporting, unlike some of these others who could very well be main characters but technically aren't. Shizuku would go into (other semi-important characters) but she's the only one so might as well just make it be her own section. Now, shizuku is the director of the game, despite this important role we don't see her working much or at all really. Instead she goes around and talks with people, being a little silly and funny before being dragged away but Umiko. She isn't that important to the story as she just comes in for jokes, although she is funny. Personal favorite is when Kou is dressed up real cute for an interview and shizuku goes out of her way to go see her, takes a hundred or so pictures on her phone of Kou and then just walks away. WHY WAS SHE THERE, so funny. As I said, she's just there for the jokes. She has many interactions with many characters, pretty much everyone but there isn't much to talk about as she's just making jokes, like when nene is able to glitch the gamera in order to see up a NPCs dress. Umiko tells her to report it as a bug but shizuku shows up saying it's a feature, this causes more work for basically everyone which is good for some nene development but overall it just helps show how crazy shizuku is, but it's part of her charm. Her design has a fair bit going on, she's one of the more complex characters in her design. She's got a scarf and some other thing over her shoulders, she's got long hair, she's wearing glasses. There is a fair bit going on but it's alright to look at, it's not complex in a bad way, however I do think it's too much due to how little she actually shows up and how little she does in the show itself. So for that reason I say her design is too complex for her character but not to complex on its own, if that makes any sense. The animation of New Game is solid, it's definitely better than the average I’d say. It has vivid colours, nice movement and motion that flows really well. The camera is almost exclusively static which can get a bit boring but I don't think it really matters too much. The only animation that I find a little weird is the in game stuff, which is fair because games always look weird in anime. They don't look like the rest of the animation but the also don't look like a game, they like a CG abomination and definitely not something that I would ever want to buy and play. The game seems fun and that I'd enjoy it but it looks way too weird. There is one point where they go to a video game convention and a trailer for there game is showed off and that actually looks solid but I imagine that's meant to be a cutscene or something. The background music is forgettable, I'm sure it's actually good but I can't remember any of the tracks that played. And this is something that I have an issue with cause I remember the background tracks for shows like Nichijou, K-On and NHK. With the exception of NHK these shows are very similar to New Game and K-On is also a 4-Koma slice of life. The background music for these shows can be memorable, it's just not the case for me in new game but that's not to say it's bad, I just don't really remember it well. However the exception is the opening and ending, now obviously I'm going to remember these better, that's just always the case with anime. But the opening is actually amazing. The opening has amazing visuals, like I can't get over how well the opening is animated. We got great colors and efforts flying across the screen, we have Aoba falling backwards into the center of the screen which is done very well as purple circles pulse out from the middle that's she's falling into. Another part has her floating in the center as the other characters fly by her and touch her, spin her and lightly grab her before pushing themselves away, the flowing movement and motion in this part is greatly done and looks well. The opening also have the main four girls moving around in the office space which is beautifully animated like the rest of it and we also get an amazing moving shot from Aoba's eye outwards and as it zooms out it spins around to be behind her in a beautiful environment. The opening is easily the best animated part of the entire she and I love it to bits. The ending is a bit more simple and doesn't have nearly as much going on but the music is great, I like the music for the ED more than for the OP, the endings visuals are lacking in comparison though. It's still beautiful and I like the white dress’ everyone are in, it look really pretty and gorgeous. There's also bits of pixel and sprite art mixed in which is a nice touch. The end part of the ending is extremely well animated though, it's a disc that's spinning cause it must be in use and then when it stops spinning it looks just like how a disc slowly down looks in real life. Discs slowly down in real life look weird they are going full speed and once they are meant to stop they have a brief moment when they kinda stop instantly before actually slowly down. It only looks like this because it's stopped it's consistent speed, however since it just stopped for a moment it had a jerk motion where it goes back slightly however it then resumes its speed, it's still going pretty fast so it's hard to tell what direction it's spinning in making it look like it's now going in the opposite direction. This is not the case and once it's slowed down some more you notice this and it slightly fucks with you for a sec before the disc comes to a complete stop. New games disc spin at the end of the ED pulls this off perfectly. It looks just like a real disc slowing down, I know I kinda went on about disc spinning for too long there but I wanted everyone to know what I'm talking about and how new game is able to emulate it perfectly. Which is hard to do in animation especially this were is clearly not CG. Everyone this was purposefully done for that disc spin and maybe it means nothing to everyone else but I found it incredible, haha. The voice acting is also solid most of and a lot of the new game voice actors haven't been in too much and aren't that well known but they all do a good job, they all convey how there characters would sound in real life and while they obviously don't sound real people because it's a TV show, they aren't super anime voices. Except maybe nene, but she's meant to be super cute. One of my friends seems to think that everyone has a super high voice but outside of nene I can't really say that anyone's voice is high at all, maybe Aoba's is a little higher than normal but it's not as high as anime girls normally tend to get. I enjoyed new game, like I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. It's a really good show. It's has good animation, strong visuals, an interesting story that reflects the Japanese gaming industry accurately (except for the fact that they're all girls) and some great, loveable characters. Characters is definitely the strongest point of the show and my enjoyment comes from there's characters, there interactions and the bond that I created with them. It's like a lot of our Moe, slice of life shows, if you don't like the characters then there isn't hard to enjoy it even with the amazing animation. So if this sounds like the kind of stuff you don't enjoy then don't go watch it, you clearly have a different opinion to mine. I'm not saying that all of this is fact, it's mostly just my silly opinion, but if it's sounds like you share my opinion then please, go check it out cause it's a great show. And if it sounds like you don't share the same taste as me, then consider what I've written and see if you can get behind it, otherwise don't watch it. I'm not forcing you too after all. However with all that in mind guys I'm giving New Game! a 10/10 cause it's incredible! Wrap-up Story does more than it needed too and is a great representation of the Japanese gaming industry. Characters are the shining point and make this show an absolute joy to watch. Presentation is amazing. Enjoyment is absolutely though the roof, thanks to fun visuals and amazing characters.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Oct 17, 2016 Recommended
This is NOT spoiler free, you have been warned.
Orange is not about Oranges! I know, I was shocked too. Orange is about a girl named Naho and her friends each getting a letter from there future selves respectively. It turns out that a transfer student they befriend Kakeru is no longer with them in the future as he killed himself not too long after they meet and thus they are to use the foresight these letter provide to save Kakeru and give him a future and at the same time they also take care of a few other regrets. It's a shoujo so it's got the ... drama, the school and the romance. There's also the weird sci-fi element since they have letters from the future which they kinda just gloss over the whole time travel thing. Like they explain it and everything but it's absolute BS and they would of been better off just doing Science-Fantasy instead of Science-Fiction. But that's not really a huge issue, it's anime so I'm able to just shut up and accept what it tells me, I have my limits but this is more than acceptable really. Anyway thanks to the letters these group of friends end up trying to save Kakeru from his currently inevitable death, and at the same time basically pair Naho up with him. It's a love story, there's a triangle, the usual but with the letters from the future twist and overall I really like it for that. Even if there were no future letter stuff I would still like it enough, it wouldn't of caught my interest and I may of never watched it but if I had watched it I still would of liked it, cause I like romance anime. Even if it's generic as crap. Naho is a pretty solid protagonist, you might want me to go into depth for all these characters and what they do and what makes them tick, which I could do. But I don't actually enjoy that, this is my review so it's meant to just be why I like it. So I'll just tell you how I feel about each character. Naho is the protagonist and being voice by Kana Hanazawa makes her absolutely adorable, I love how cute she is. She looks like the usual shoujo protagonist, she's got the eyes and she just reminds me a lot of Chihaya from Chihayafuru and anything that reminds me that show gets a massive plus from me. A lot of things from this actually remind me of Chihayafuru. Naho and Kakerus relationship is something I should talk about, and how it looks from Nahos point, Naho does straight up fall in love with Kakeru and due to her foresight thanks to the letters of the future she is able to have a leg up, knowing what Kakeru is thinking during certain points and she also knows how not to act. Even then she still sometimes stuffs it up. She really does care about Kakeru and I belive how these people fell for each other, nothing seems fake or forced at all, it all seems very natural and how someone would act. After all Naho has the letters but her feelings sometimes make her still cause the wrong thing to happen. Naho has very neutral reactions to things too, one part I like is when she tried to ignore the letters and continue to protect Kakeru just by acting on her own feelings and emotions, it's pretty material to think that you might need to do this, after all the letters only go up to a certain point, eventually once Kakeru is saved it's impossible to know what will happen then, she needs to know she can trust herself and not rely on the notes. Of course this proves impossible as she definitely needs foresight to save Kakeru and after the initial save it might be easier she ends up concluding. None of this thought process is directly told to us so maybe I'm just reading to deep but that's the vibe I got as I sat there watching it. Suwa is a guy in the love triangle that isn't Kakeru. I like him, his solid enough. He supports Naho and Kakeru to an immense level and is constantly helping to save Kakeru and he actually does more work then Naho does to this level. Obviously Naho is his stability and he loves her and all that but what she directly does is way less then Suwa. Suwa sets up all there time together, he actively goes out of his way to give them time together, he also likes Naho but he gives her up for Kakeru because he can see that she really does love Kakeru and not him. Suwa also finds out in the letters that his future self is married to Naho and that they have a kid, Future Naho says that even if Kakeru was alive then she still would've gone on to marry Suwa and so future Suwa asked now Suwa to keep that aspect the same and confess when he's meant to. But when his meant to confess and comfort Naho he doesn't, he outright just tells her to go after Kakeru, obviously they want to save him but this isn't the night his destined to kill himself. Suwa gives up his future that future Naho claims can still be real even with Kakeru around all for the sake of a better chance at saving him, it's absolutely insane. It's crazy but it also just shows what a good guy he is and it doesn't stop there. He is the no.1 at getting Kakeru to tell the truth. Kakeru is extremely unstable and thus he has many moments where he is extremely sad or depressed or thinking suicidal thoughts but won't tell anyone about it, they notice these moments and know how extreme they are thanks to the letter but Suwa is the only one who starts anything. Sure all the friends help out and in the end there all with him and on his side but Suwa starts everything and is the best at getting Kakeru to let them know what's going on and trusting them as close friends. And thank god he's so good because he also reminds me of a character for Chihayafuru, shoujo art style is consistent! Kakeru kinda sucks, not gonna lie. His alright some of the time, mainly when he is actually happy but even then it's a little bland. His best moment is definitely the relay race which is also just one of the best moments in the show, personally I think Azumanga daioh did it better and with more emotion and that's a comedy for god sakes, but still it's really good here. Now I like shoujos and drama in my romances so i get that everyone is gonna be over melodramatic, they need to be. It helps make things more entertaining and it's how something like romance which should only be interesting for those involved, something that can be watched and even be intense at times. Kakeru takes it too damn far those, he's the most moody and overly dramatic character to ever exist and guess what he also reminds me of someone from Chihayafuru but he reminds me of a cool, calm and collected character. But Kakeru is so freaking moody, I get it his depressed I really do. I'm not trying to be insensitive but here's the thing. One of my old friends from high school was depressed and let me tell you, depressed people are not this bad nor are they bad at all this often. Obviously Kakeru has a lot of inner demons and has a lot to deal with, due to his mums illness she became unstable when Kakeru decided to hang out with his friends instead of taking her to the hospital. Thinking she was a bother to him and wanting him to be free to do as she wishes, she killed herself for him. Of course Kakeru doesn't even find this out I'll the end of the show and it's part of the reason he kills himself. The point I'm trying to say is that yes his had it rough and his bound to be suicidal and this he is, he even says he thinks about killing himself every day, blaming himself for his mother's death. But here's the thing, he sometimes just brings his mum up and her suicide for no reason, like just out of nowhere he will be a huge buzz kill and bring her up. Let me give two examples. At one point we get a wrap up of how major events went in the timeline that lead to Kakeru's death and we get to see differences and such. At one point Kakeru meets up with some old friends of his from Tokyo (his a transfer student remember) and there all sitting there talking, catching up, having a good time and then just out of nowhere he interrupts people to say “my mum killed herself and now I wanna do the same” now he didn't say it like that but it's the jist of it. Here's the thing, you wanna tell your friends about this, maybe seek there help. That's good, do that. But don't do it like this idiot, everyone is having a good time and it's not even your turn to speak, you interrupted people to say this, the mood wasn't right, no one is going to believe you when you say it at such a time. No one is expecting such a massive buzz kill so they shake it off and assume it's a joke, I don't think the Tokyo guys are bad people, they seem like good friends and fun people to be with, I completely get why they reacted the way they did. The other is when Naho and Kakeru are alone and Kakeru is talking about how his grandma has been getting better (she went into the hospital at an earlier point) however he also wants to go home and check on her, Naho thinking his too unstable atm tried to keep him around by saying that she will be fine and all this, she knows that Kakeru's grandma is fine since she's also still alive in the future and the letters say this. However when Kakeru brings up that she can't possibly know, she can't really deny it since she can't let him know about the letters. Anyway, Naho says that his grandma will be fine and he's just like ‘I though my mum would be fine’ and then his able to just pull away from her and go off to his home. Now it's somewhat fair to think like this and kinda even to say it but not really in this situation, I've had friends who had there mum die while they were still in school and such and I'll just tell you that one of them was a scum bag and acted just like this to get his way. Like getting more time of school avoiding chores, it was so obvious he wasn't sad but that didn't stop him playing the dead mum card and I kinda feel like Kakeru is playing it a bit too much. I don't really hate him, most of the time his fine really but fine just means bland and other then that he's just a massive asshole, also his love for Naho is nice but it's a little creepy, he’s a bit too happy about it and is just way too like giddy when with her, plus his smile that he has when with her is also kinda creepy. It's sweet overall and Naho is great but Kakeru just has a lot of not so great moments and outside of that his pretty bland. But he's not nearly as bad as chino. Chino is a perfect example of a useless character, I actually don't know why she's there, maybe the manga she's more important but she seriously does and adds nothing. So she's another one of the friends of Kakeru and thus also has a note from her future self, but she doesn't do anything at all. She's good friends with Azusa another one of the group, we’ll get to her. But here's the thing, Chino is always with Azusa but Azusa is not always with Chino. This is because Azusa actually has stuff going on with herself and she actually has a role in the story and does stuff, Chino doesn't do anything. Anything that Chino does is with Azusa as I said, because of this it's all stuff that could've just been done by Azusa alone, none of it needs two people. It's mostly just stopping ueda (a bully to Naho) from being a bitch any longer. Azusa could do this by herself and since she also has other stuff going on it would make her a fine characters and she is fine. But Chino is useless, Chino is also the only main character to not have a love interest, she doesn't love anyone, nobody loves her and she doesn't have any kind of crush or some sort of interaction like that with anyone. The only Character in the main cast like this, it's a romance and everyone has someone to aim for but Chino is just nothing. She does nothing on her own, she doesn't love anyone, no body loves her. She contributes nothing, she doesn't give extra interactions to other characters, she barely talks with anyone outside of Azusa and when she does it's pretty bland and generic stuff. She doesn't add anything to anyone else since she has so little interactions, she adds no dynamic nor does she really make comments on anything and the few times she does she's more so just agreeing with someone rather then having her own opinion. I don't really know anything about her, she's just useless and really good friends with Azusa. Okay, a little less negative now. Since we just spent some time talking about her let's talk about Azusa. Now I like Azusa, she's way better then Chino. Everything they do together should've just been Azusa, obviously that means Chino can also do it alone but Azusa also has stuff going on so it's better to use someone who matter. After Azusa there's only one more friend and main cast member and since I said everyone else had love interests you can be that Azusa and this last character Hagita are totally into each other. There relation is a big bland since they both obviously like and dislike each other, massive tsun's but they let there guard down and speak there true feelings more than a tsun would which makes it a bit more real. They speak there mind and are true to themselves they just back track sometimes and maybe be a little tsun every now and again and there's defiantly not in a relationship. But it's more than Chino ever gets and I like the little side relationship anyway. Azusa is cool, I like her cause she's pretty casual and chill, I'd say she's my favorite girl of the cast with my overall favorite being Hagita, she's not a super main character, after all she isn't part of the main triangle and she doesn't have a shining moment like Hagita but I like her more than Kakeru and she's not Chino. God I keep talking about how horrible Chino is, sorry to anyone who likes her but you have the worst taste, she is objectively a useless character. If this was chess she wouldn't even be a piece, because even a defeated pawn is worth more than her. Azusas overall role is the story is a little lacking and she's more so there for the extra relationship but she also helps out with Kakeru and I can understand and warrant her getting a future letter too, she doesn't really need one but I can understand it. Plus she's cute and more cute girls is never a bad thing, overall I liked her alot and I think her somewhat a bubbly dialog and personality really helped a somewhat lesser character shine in my mind. Now let's talk about Hagita, Hagita is awesome. Hagita in a way is really underrated, he actually has a ton of big moment and he's probably the most important person in reality. In the future we see that he is the one who figures out how they are going to be able to send the letters back in time, also being a voice of reason making sure the others actually understand what they're doing and that it won't change anything for them but just make an alternate timeline where Kakeru may survive. Hagita also manipulates Kakeru's bike toward the end of the series in order to stop him from using it since Kakeru rode his bike in front of a truck to kill himself and this is extremely important since it means that Kakeru has to walk and thus the others get enough time to save him (I warned you there we're spoilers, no one better get mad at me) his the real hero in the end in my eyes. He is the reason that the letters are able to be sent back and he also ends up saving Kakeru really, even if everyone else did what they did, Kakeru would be dead without Hagita doing what he did, and everyone else told him not too as well. He did it outside of everyone else's plan. Hagita is also a voice of reasons which is nice to have in a time travel show, he questions the morals and ethics behind what there doing, how they are Changing The future and creating a separate reality basically all for the sake of Kakeru living on, how much is one person really worth. A good line he has is when he talks about how they changes the future of the relay race and now Kakeru won it and thus there team, red team, won the whole athletics day. “Kakeru won now, however in the Original timeline he lost, this means the person who was meant to come first has now come second and red team, we lost but now we have won.” This affects so many people, they changed a lot and in the end it was all for Kakeru but they changed the lives in some small way of everyone at that school due to the scale of there change. Hagita a logical thinking, calm head and moments of being the real hero make him a great and awesome character, plus his whole thing with Azusa is cute as I said before. Azusa and Hagita may be a side relationship but I like them both way more than the actual main relationship, but I'm glad with where everyone is. Kakeru is at least good to have cause he affects others, basically is the reason the story is able to move and gives so much to the group dynamic as a whole, chino is just trash. The art style is very shoujo, have you seen a shoujo before? If you said yes then you are a good person and will also know what this looks like. If you never seen a shoujo or don't like them then we can never be friends and you can just look at the screenshots for what the style is. It's almost always the same. I personally like the shoujo style, I think the eyes are great and I also like the way it makes hair looks and everyone just looks so pretty and/or handsome, I don't care if it's unrealistic as fuck, it's good to look at pretty people. The voice is great, I mean we got Kana Hanazawa so that's already a strong point. It's also got Sakura Ayane (God I hope I didn't get that completely wrong) even if she is a minor role. So two girls are legit everywhere and have quality acting, everyone does there role well. I don't know about Chino though since she doesn't do anything, I can't even remember her voice, but I. Sure the quality of it was fine, since that wasn't her issue. (God I'm really ripping into her) The animation itself is consistent and nice, it doesn't really do anything extra or less but then again the shoujo art style does make nature look really beautiful and the show is defiantly beautiful if nothing else. The opening and ending are too generic for my liking, I know I just went on about how much I like the generic stuff and with a lot of anime I enjoy the generic stuff and I say do what works which is why they things can become generic. But I like my opening and endings to have some meat, it not just the bland generic music but it's also the visuals, it's so goddamn stale and generic which is a shame, defiantly one of the worst aspects is the opening and ending. (not as bad as chino) The background music does its job but that's about it, it also doesn't do it with flare or super well. It's just kinda there and a sometimes it not for effect but overall I feel like it doesn't make a difference on my score, it's just there. If that's an issue for you though, well, now you know. Overall it's a mixed bag for the presentation. I enjoyed it, when you get down to it I enjoyed orange for the most part, I spent time watching it and I never really felt like it wasn't worth it. I enjoyed most of the charters, Azusa is awesome guys. And I liked the shoujo style, it's also just been awhile since I watched a shoujo, I need to watch them more so that was also good. It also had the interesting future element. The cliff hangers weren't really cliffhangers, I was never on the edge of my seat or felt like I had to watch the next episode but I kept watching because it was fun enough. If you like romance, mainly shoujos then this is for you, if you haven't seen a shoujo but like romances then defiantly check it out. If you just think the future letter element is interesting then maybe don't watch it, it's a romance first and foremost and the future letters are pretty small when there entire value is to advance a romance. Keep that in mind going in, cause I didn't know that going on. For me it only made it better but some people don't like that. I was never really fully invested though, I was half wanting Kakeru to die in the end, not because I hated him but because it would be the show having some teeth and do something I wasn't fully expecting. I also kinda wanted them to have a replacement, like maybe Kakeru's Ex that they broke him with and basically ruined her life would kill herself, a death costs a death and by saving Kakeru they did make her pretty miserable and she defiantly wasn't happy. But alas, nothing. Orange was solid enough and for that I give it a 7/10 - good. Wrap-up The story is nothing special in reality. The characters are mostly great but have a few let downs especially when the main love interest is bad. Presentation is overall great, I loved it. Enjoyment was pretty solid, but I wasn't super invested or anything.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 6, 2016 Recommended
NOT Spoiler free. You have been warned!
After such an amazing first season, how does the second one hold up. We enter the second season of Kaiji to find Kaiji down on his luck. He still has a huge debt hanging over him and he spends a lot of time gambling still, trying to win as much money as possible. We then find Endou, who's complaining about his latest job, which is finding and bring in Kaiji. Turns out it's really easy because he find Kaiji almost right away, Kaiji notices Endou and instantly starts asking to go into another survival game saying this time he knows he ... can win for sure since he was so close last time, however he is knocked out and taken to the underground hell that was touched on only a little in the first season. The second season has only two arcs really, the first being playing chichiro in the underground and then Kaiji getting a small parole time and playing an extreme version of pachinko on a machine called the bog, which is beaten gives an extreme payout. The story this time isn't nearly as good as the first season, the chinchiro is pretty entertaining and has some interesting tactics but overall it's not nearly as well written or complex as the first season, there's just way too much restrictions now, he's in the underground and when it comes down to it, it really is just chinchiro, there's no extra element to it really. The pachinko arc also has some interesting strategies, the bog is so broken that the only way to win is to cheat your way through it, the various ways that Kaiji counters the bogs defences are interesting but the main issue is that the pachinko arc can be so slow. They must of had way more episodes then they knew what to do with cause while the same amount of episodes did like 3-4 arcs in the first season there's only 2 here. The start and most of the pachinko arc is actually really enjoyable and whole not as good as the first season it's still really good. But it starts to drag real bad and it stays that way for a fair while and then once all is said and done the last two episodes are also a joy to watch. Kaiji is so much more relatable now then in the first season, due to Kaiji advanced thinking and crazy schemes the first season defiantly made him cool but unrelatable, it was a joy to watch but Kaiji is more relatable now which is both a good and a bad thing. Very early on he caves into the underground a temptation of beer and snacks that they can buy with money exclusive to the underground, the money can also be used to buy one day pass’ to the outside world though and so that's what Kaiji wants to age up for. But as I said he caves in and we even see these scenes of him trying to justify it to himself. Stuff like how if he saves all the money he will have enough by six months but he will also have some left over, so he can use the leftover money for beer and snacks. Later he then starts saying that he can just wait for seven months to get the outside pass and he keeps pushing it back and making excuses. This is me all the time, I do the same kind of thing with my money and I also hate myself for it once all is said and done so watching this gave me a little chuckle but I totally felt for Kaiji as he tried to fight temptation and once he failed kept trying to justify it he exact same way I always try to justify myself. However Kaiji being more human and normal also has its issues, toward the end things get real bleak and Kaiji out of nowhere becomes a real coward, he has extreme fear of losing which is fair but he straight up cries and tries to ask for a draw, this is something that season 1 Kaiji never did. No matter how bad the situation got Kaiji would just think up a new plan and try his best to escape the situation but new Kaiji breaks down way more easily. Plus even when Kaiji is going to win it's not some epic situation where he's got a smug look on his face and his filled with confidence. But his crying and yelling in basically relief, I get it, do but season 1 Kaiji was just much different to how he acts now. Overall Kaiji still has some crazy tactics but he also makes a few mistakes and fails to see things as well as he use to, he definitely is still able to pull off some crazy stuff but it doesn't seem as cool. This change has its good and it's bad so overall I'd say that if I were to give just Kaiji a rating it would be about the same as season 1 Kaiji but just for different reasons. Endou actually has a surprisingly large amount of importance this time. We see him at the start of course but since Kaiji is underground for the first arc we don't see him till the second arc and even then we don't see him right way. First Kaiji goes along with a gambler named Sakazaki and tried to help him best the bog, however once this fails and Kaiji takes over trying to come up with his own plan he decides to try and get some help from Endou, since he needs more funds and someone with the kind of connections that Endou has. Endou is also facing large amounts of debt and is going to be in serious trouble if he can't pay it back and there is even the risk of being sent to the underground. Once some interest is worked out and the division of the jackpot is worked out he decided to help out despite thinking there's only a 50% chance of winning. Endou doesn't really do too much outside of this, once Kaijis attack on the bog begins there's only really two characters that matter. However I still like Endou being included, he defiantly ads some extra dynamics and seeing how his situations has changed overall is rather interesting and in the end he ends up taking a ton of kaijis share of the money since Endou loaded more money to Kaiji in a dire situation and thus Kaiji signed without looking, because of this the interest was absolutely insane. Endou is a massive dick but he was needed and I liked him being there since he still worked for the enemy and all. I also mentioned someone named Sakazaki, this is an old man who works as a night guard. He has a wife and daughter but they left him due to his financial issues, he wants to beat the bog so he can buy a house and show his family that he is reliable and win them back into his life, however his a hopeless gambler. Kaiji and Sakazaki meet shorty after Kaiji is out and Sakazaki shows Kaiji the bog and explains its massive payout, he asks Kaiji for help in besting it and offers a share of the money to him if they win. However the plan fails and Sakazaki falls into despair, he stole money from his boss in order to get more chances at the bog and now he's gonna be in serious trouble if his boss finds out. Once his plan fails Kaiji takes control and tries to figure out a plan for beating the bog and he does, he thinks up ways to break down the bogs defences and then has Sakazaki help him with the win. Sakazaki actually plays a very critical role in the plan overall and is definitely needed. Plus his the whole reason the second arc even really happens. However the show doesn't forget what it's characters are for and makes sure to use him to show greed and how horrible humans can really be. Sakazaki releases on Kaiji so much and takes extreme risks to help him out and then as soon as Kaiji loses a chunk of his share to Endou, Sakazaki goes to make a quick escape saying ‘I better go before he starts begging to take some of my share.’ Once again showing what the first season really focused on, it's nice that it here in Sakazaki even if the that point isn't really there much at all. Lastly there's Ichijou the main antagonist, he is the manager of the casino with the bog, the casino is also run by the Teiai Corporation, so Kaiji once again is still fighting them. Ichijou can basically be considered the third in command, he is he favorite manager of tonegawa’s replacement so it basically puts him in third place and he claims that once the head dies off he will defiantly be made the second in command. Ichijou is extremely prideful however his pride and cockiness are his downfall as he fails to see what's going on and is way to lax with letting Kaiji get into a winning position, he keeps thinking he's in the lead and thus turns down potentially outlets and doesn't stay on the defensive enough. Ichijou is also a straight up Cheater, he has multiple devices that he can use to activate more defenses for the bog. Stuff like a sensor that facts a set of flipper making it impossible for any balls to get near the jackpot. Ichijou goes in and out of his confidence, the situation and how likely Kaiji is to win changes a lot and ichijou actually helps Kaiji to win and destroys his own defences in the end. Ichijou was an interesting enough antagonist, he has some clear if not very basic goals and motivation, he definitely is cocky and overconfident to the point of self destruction just like how in the first season tonegawa does the same thing, he lost because of how advanced of a thinker he was. And now ichijou loses because of how much manipulation of the bog he had at his disposal. Overall the characters are a whole lot better this time, last time they weren't really focused on that much since it was more about people in general, plus the first season is just full of death, people die so much in that. Now each characters is given motivations and they stay around for the whole thing and don't just die off, there's also a much bigger range with Endou being on kaijis side, Sakazaki actually living through it unlike ishida from last time and the villain is also just a lot more fleshed out and also has a lot more to fear, tonegawa only wanted to win because he was scared of losing his position and the boss. However ichijou is going to have to go underground to make back his extreme loses if Kaiji wins the jackpot, plus he hasn't even got to his second position yet, his just shy of getting there, he was so close but didn't get there when he feel. Tonegawa at least got to enjoy his position for a long time before it was taken away. Overall I just felt for them more and liked the lot of them more. The art style is the same as last time, I still love the bold outlines on everything and it's still got insane metaphor imagery which is a lot of fun to watch as it's way more over the top then it needs to be. However like I said the show drags a lot and so I did start to get tired of seeing some similar or same metaphor imagery used. Plus a lot of the shots used for the pachinko machine showing the balls doing something was reused a lot and that slightly annoyed me. Plus Kaiji is so desperate to win that his crying a lot, all the people watching him are cause they want him to win as it will show them that any loser has hope. Sakazaki and Endou want him to win just as much as Kaiji wants to himself so they also have tears and whenever ichijou is scared of losing he als has intense tears. The tears are way too intense for me, there think and really runny and apparently endless, the just flow out of Kaiji endlessly for the like the last 4 episodes, it's a bit too much and I did start to despise it towards the end, it just get a bit too much. Once again the voice acting was done well, absolutely no issues there. Everyone was cast well and did an excellent job, although I have my issues with the narrator. He's always there, sure he was always there in the first season but he just annoys me this time, it's mainly because of how much the show drags this time, he ends up repeating a lot of the same stuff and his voice just gets real stale as it always the same tone unlike everyone else who has changes in there voice to match there emotion obviously. But the narrator's endless presence and lack of emotion makes him really stale real fast and I just wanted him to shut up towards the end. The sound is questionable, while there's is the good old ZUWA ZUWA, I feel it's used a bit too much this time around, towards the end it kinda lost its meaning and it felt like it was just thrown in there whenever, the background music is fine but it's mostly bland plus the can't hear it over the sounds of pachinko. It's very likely not many of you had been in at a pachinko arcade before or played real pachinko, I have and the show defiantly nails what it sounds like, the balls endlessly clicking and clacking around. But it's a pain to hear especially as this arc drags on and it is just always in the background, it's not too bad early on and it's really good that they nailed it, but it's too perfect. Which gets on my nerves, while I shouldn't get mad at the show for this since they just made it accurate, but this is based off my enjoyment dammit and this did hamper it to a degree. The opening is great, I absolutely love it's high energy rock and high volume. It's very intense and strong and I love it, I also found myself head banging to the start of it almost every single episode. The ED is alright in terms of music but my god is it creepy and whenever I was watching in a public place like my uni I just felt slightly awkward and really hoped that no one would see since it's just a little intense. But it works and it didn't really make me like it less. I liked Kaiji I really did, the second season was a really good watch and if you liked the first one then there's no reason why you should dislike this one. It's not as good but it's still really good and in the same vain as the first season. However it also has better characters and the presentation is kind of a mixed bag of better and worse but overall I'd still rather watch the first season rathern then this. Towards the end I slowed down on watching this and I definitely wasn't enjoying it as much as this review would make you believe, but the overall enjoyment was high for me and the final episode is really good, I like it a lot so they was a worthy payoff for me which made the final slog worth it. I kinda keep going back and forth here but that's because I want you to really know what i find good and what I find bad and the reasons for it. Also no matter what way I look at it I have very conflicted feelings about this show and what was worth it and what wasn't. Most of its issued can come back to it dragging on for way more then it needs, it's to build tension and make for a big payoff with its great end but it causes more issues then things it helps, either way it's still a very good show. With that in mind guys I have to Kaiji: against all rules 7/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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