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Sep 25, 2018
So this was one of those anime I'd often see recommended back when I first got into anime in the late 90s and early 2000s, but for whatever reason, I never got around to watching it at the time. But now that I finally found it on Nozomi Entertainment's YouTube channel, what I found was a product of its time that's aged rather poorly. Or maybe I've just grown too far out of the target demographic.
I'd heard that this was a magical girl series going in, and while that's technically not wrong, it's pretty clear that it expects its audience to identify more
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with the pervy guy who runs the club than any of the girls. At least it never quite hits harem territory, even if it's about a nerdy guy, the hot young women that surround him, and a gay guy whose only character trait for 90% of the series is to "humorously" hit on that nerdy guy (I don't think I've ever seen an anime filled with as many gay panic jokes as this one, and it's exactly as uncomfortable as it sounds). The main girl still has a lot of screentime and a character arc, but it's nothing deep or that interesting. Sae's whole thing is that she's clumsy and doesn't believe in herself, which she feels the need to tell everyone around her over and over again, until she finally learns to believe in herself. It's the same kind of thing you've seen plenty of times, usually done better than this.
That isn't to say that everything about it fails. The alien threat is interesting in that it actually manages to feel alien and isn't like anything I've seen in a magical girl series before. I liked the gag early on where two of the girls treat being part of a group of magic users trying to get into a big fight with aliens as boring and worth blowing off.
The nerdy guy's absurd pervy fantasies managed to make me laugh once, even if they failed more often than not. And there was one small story arc between the gay guy and one of the girls that ended up being kind of sad and sweet. I just wish the rest of the show could have had an emotional core like that.
This probably still makes it sound like I disliked the show more than I did. It's hardly awful, and I don't regret my time watching it. I feel like I would have been really into it if I'd seen it at around age 14, but in my early 30s, I don't feel like there's a whole lot for me here.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 7, 2017
So I'm the type of person who gets really annoyed by well directed anime trying to work with shitty scripts. Like I thought Windaria was ruined by its writing, and Macross Plus only drops in quality whenever anyone opens their mouth. So I didn't have very high expectations for a Gundam series that has a reputation of being all style and no substance.
Here's the thing: they're right. The characters don't have much depth, there isn't any message beyond the most basic "war is bad," and watching it doesn't even add much perspective to the UC Gundam universe. But sometimes, style is
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enough. The series is gorgeous, has a great soundtrack, is paced very well, and might be the best directed Gundam series I've ever seen. I think the big difference between this and the anime I criticized above is that in this case, the script knows to stay out of the way. It's more the framework for an experience than something you're supposed to focus on, and it works well enough for that. My only complaint is that it still assumes that you're familiar with old school Gundam and therefore doesn't bother explaining the world or conflict, so it's not something someone new to the franchise can just jump into.
Thunderbolt is the greatest spectacle in the Gundam franchise. Go in expecting a horrific popcorn flick, and you should have a good time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 2, 2016
This show feels a lot like a 14 year old trying to write something meaningful. There's lots of sad character death, brutal war scenes, and tragic backstories, but there's little to no depth to anything, and it's mostly told with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face. I mean they might as well have called the second episode "Crawling in my Gundam, These Wounds They Will Not Heal." The direction was decent, and it felt like everyone involved was really trying, but the short runtime really killed most of the potential this had. Sadly, the last half of the final
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episode finally does seem to come together into something surprisingly well done (and it's really the only reason I'm not scoring this lower), but by then it was too little too late to save the series.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jan 23, 2016
So Seed is one of those really divisive series. It was really popular among the general anime crowd when it came out, but has a mostly poor reputation among Gundam fans, who complain that it's largely a rehash of the original series. I'm a long time Gundam fan who got out of the fandom for a bit when this was popular, but I finally heard there were digest movies that supposedly did a decent job condensing the series, so I figured I'd give it a shot and try to give it a fair chance.
Gundam fans are right about it borrowing a lot from
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earlier shows. Like most of the first film seems like it was based on a loose outline of the first Gundam series, and there are characters who are basically Amuro, Char, and Ramba Ral with the names changed. And I do feel like I would have enjoyed these parts more if I were new to Gundam, but they didn't do it poorly enough that I hated it or anything. And during the second movie, the plot does veer off into its own unique thing. Sadly, by the third movie, that thing is mostly "everyone's either Kira's friend or a puppy kicking, mustache twirling genocidal maniac." One big theme in Gundam series is that there are good and bad people on both sides, even if one side is clearly worse overall than the others, and during the first two films, Seed embraced that, so it was sad to see it dropped for seemingly no reason.
Most of the characters were sadly rather bland, though this may have partially been due to how they chose to condense the TV series into these films. But in any case, I can only judge what I've seen. Most of the side characters are just there, Kira is boring and generic, and the villains in the last film are pretty interchangable aside from who they wanted to exterminate. On the plus side, I rather liked Cagalli and her relationship with Athrun. To the point where I think it would have been a much better series if it focused on them.
Art wise, this is sadly was made during the awkward transition from painted cels to digital ones, and to make it worse, it embraced the ugly style of character design that was popular in the late 1990s. The result might be the ugliest Gundam series ever made.
I don't hate this, but I can't really say I'd recommend it to anyone. There's a good chance you'd enjoy it if you haven't seen any Gundam series before, but then why watch this instead of one the original series, 08th MS Team, or Iron Blooded Orphans? I really don't know who this would be for aside from people who are nostalgic for it now.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 19, 2015
So I'm one of those weirdos who actually liked the F91 movie despite it having massive problems. For some reason, it had several spinoffs. Crossbone is great, and you'll usually hear about how it's a must read from Gundam fanboys. You'll occasionally hear Silhouette Formula 91 mentioned, but unfortunately, it's completely forgettable and not worth your time. But I rarely hear people mention F90 aside from listing it as something that exists in the Gundam franchise. Having finally read it, I'm just baffled. This is easily much better than most Gundam comics I've read. It's paced really well,
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the art is good, the action is mostly easy to follow, and the characters, while not particularly deep, are better than the cardboard cutouts you usually see in half assed Gundam comics. It is a little unfortunate that they brought Zeon back when part of the point of F91 was to finally move the series away from that particular conflict, but with execution like this, I can't say that I care that much. And honestly, a faithful adaptation of this would have made for a better film than F91. It's not amazing, but it's a good Gundam story that's been sadly overlooked. If you're a Gundam fan, track this down.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 19, 2015
So I'm one of those weirdos who actually liked the F91 movie. It had huge problems, but if viewed as a clipshow of a good series that never got to be made, you can get something out of it. And regardless of what you think of that movie, the Crossbone Gundam manga salvaged the setting and characters into a good series. After reading that, I became curious as to whether any of the other mange set during this period were as successful.
Sadly, Silhouette Formula 91 is just mediocre. Characterization and plot are minimized to make room for mobile suit combat and
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discussions about mobile suit combat. And that combat is more often than not awkward and hard to follow. The manga tries adding a little more depth when the crew encounters Neo Zeon refugees living on an abandoned colony, but they don't really do a whole lot with that, either.
I wouldn't call this terrible, but it feels like Bandai wanted to make some model kits, so they assigned a premise to a manga author, who in turn did what he was assigned, but never had any passion for the project. It's not very good at what it does, but it doesn't fail in any interesting way. This has to be one of the most forgettable parts of the Gundam franchise.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Oct 26, 2015
So after the first season's focus on social networking and gamification, the series has moved onto tackling democracy and mob mentality. The results are more mixed than last season. Part of the problem is that it feels like the first several episodes spend a lot of time twiddling their thumbs and not really going anywhere. The Gatchaman are famous now, they got a new member, a friendly alien has shown up, and it doesn't feel like much happens with them for a while despite there being a new enemy. Then it feels like they rush into the major event that drives
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the rest of the series, and it feels really contrived and oversimplified. I know any series like this tackling something like that is going to be a little bit, and I've see criticism of the last season along those lines, but it feels like it's done poorly enough that it really takes away from the impact of what they were trying to say. However, the last 1/3 or so finally gets back into the swing of things and is the sort of thing you wanted out of a followup to CROWDS. It's just a shame it takes so long to get there. I still think this is worth watching for fans of the first season, but don't go in expecting something as good as CROWDS again.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 1, 2015
In the future, the world's most popular popstar is an AI. But little does the public know that she's incomplete and relies on the emotions of a human woman to perform. But what happens when these emotions cause the AI to act on its own? Sadly, this is the B plot, so you'll have to sit through scene after scene of some pilots being dicks to get your answer.
Seriously, this series really doesn't hold up. The characters are completely unlikable, and none of it makes much sense. Isamu might be one of my least favorite anime protagonists ever.
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He shows up, treats everyone terribly, keeps ignoring what he's supposed to do in a job he supposedly wants, but the anime frames everything as if you're supposed to be sympathetic to him. The rival is only slightly less of a dick, and he also does terrible things with little to no consequence. Most of the series is basically a dick waving contest between the two of them. They're largely fighting over a woman from their past who they've become reintroduced to. She's sad, and she can sing, but no longer does. That's her entire character.
The weird thing is that this is has great direction and some of Yoko Kanno's best music. So you'll get what's visually a great dogfight between the protagonist and his rival, but they're arguing about nonsense from high school the whole time (like they literally argue over who bought the other one lunch more), and show no attempt to avoid killing civilians. In fact the entire reason the protagonist went there is to blow up some government drones because the government cut funding to his project. Which pretty much makes him a terrorist, but the anime never acknowledges this. If that scene had actual stakes or something, it would probably be one of my favorites, but as it is, it's just weird. Luckily, there are a few times where the series shuts up and just lets itself tell a story through music and visuals, and those moments make it feel like it's a completely different anime. The highlight is the much lauded concert scene from the second episode. It really is one of the best pieces of animation from the 90s. It's just sad that little else in Macross Plus comes close.
I don't hate Macross Plus. On an audiovisual level it's fantastic, and it's quite watchable. It's just dragged down by a terrible script by a usually good writer. I'd recommend watching some highlights on Youtube over watching the series as a whole, but if you're a fan of mid 1990s style animation, you still might want to give this a go.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 15, 2015
In the afterward, Osamu Tezuka himself says "In my own opinion, I have never done a series as poorly as this one," and I have to agree. It meanders all over the place, nonsensical plot twists just pop in out of nowhere, and there's no real focus. It's actually kind of hard to follow despite trying to be a simple children's action/adventure series. There are bits and pieces that work on their own, and Tezuka's art, even this early, is always a delight, but there are far, far better Tezuka books you can get. For Tezuka completionists only.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Dec 20, 2014
So this is one of those forgotten 80s OVA's written by someone who thought mad libs were the best way to come up with a story. You see, the Biblical Noah's demonic twin brother, also named Noah, is trying to kill a girl whose DNA has a program written by god that gives her Bodhisattva powers, since she would somehow prevent him from creating a new universe for demons once the universe's entropy reaches zero. If any of that made sense to you, you're either a smarter person than me, or you should seek out a psychiatrist. This anime is really a
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series of weird events and setpieces that just follow each other with only the bare minimum of an attempt at linking them together, and none of the information it gives you helps you make much sense out of it.
The art varies from passable to ugly, the animation is never good, the fight scenes suck, with characters seemingly teleporting whenever they're not on camera, and there's barely any character or story to talk about. On the plus side, the amount of nonsense this constantly exposes you to keeps it much more entertaining than a lot of shitty, obscure OVA's, though it never quite hits that level that makes you laugh like Troll 2 or The Room. For a hidden anime gem of that sort, watch Crystal Triangle. But if you're having trouble finding an entertainingly bad anime, then give this a shot.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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