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The human mind is home to every single one of the greatest inventions that we, as a species, have seen; be them practical devices or amazing stories, there's a near infinite amount of beauty which originates in the brain of many a-homo sapiens sapiens out there. The human mind is also home to whatever the fuck this is, so it more or less evens things out to a middle-ground between "wonderful" and "God please we need another great flood and this time without Noah's ark".

Junji Ito is, undeniably, one of the greatest horror writers in recent history, and Uzumaki is by many considered to be ... his magnum opus, his créme de la créme, and for those who don't understand Latin nor French: his bestest, goodest work. It takes a single man's mind to come up with such a story as that of Uzumaki, and when I mean "a single man's mind", it is in the sense that absolutely nobody else would have imagined such blasphemy which would have gotten him burnt at the stake a few centuries ago. In simple terms, he should consult a psychiatrist.

Uzumaki provides a rather basic horror plot: "some small rural town has a curse!", but the main thing about it is that the curse in Uzumaki is one that revolves around spirals, which at the time in which this story was originally written, were generally seen as a good or positive symbol in Japanese society, which prompted Mr. Ito to subvert said notion to create the basis of the story's plot. The first problem you'll find here is that such notion is, well, part of Japanese society, and perhaps also too localized in time (1990s), which makes at least a part of this anime's appeal be lost, since there's no real perception being subverted as a ways to achieve greater impact on the audience given that most Western audiences and perhaps many Asian/Japanese audiences do not (any longer) have any "positive" perception of spirals; in fact, while spirals might refer to cycles, beauty or nature in Japanese aesthetics, they are often associated with negative connotations in western audiences, such as madness, hypnosis, chaos and else, which in turns, completely nullifies any attempt at having a cultural impact on most of the younger people, specially those who are not from the Japans.

Now, the cultural impact of Uzumaki's plot might be an important root for the story's whole existence, but it is far from being what truly seeks to make an impact on those consuming it. This piece of Junji Ito's works does not rely on cultural cues to make the audience feel horrified, but on sheer visceral depravity: the type of events that are seen throughout Uzumaki will certainly make a lot of people want to look away due to the incredibly disgusting and morbid nature of it: ever wanted to see two humans turn into giant snails and then mate? Here you will get to see it... lord, believe me, you WILL get to see it. Such morbidity is what Uzumaki relies on for shock, and while it is certainly its most interesting aspect, it is, however, one of its greatest problems: the nature of everything revolving around spirals, and the rapid onset madness of the plot, which in turn leads to the aforementioned morbid events, make it so that it very quickly becomes predictable and much less impactful, which will make those with a stronger stomach rapidly find the anime to lose appeal given that whatever remains to be seen won't feel as horrid as that which has been already showcased earlier.

The horror genre is a complicated one: it is certainly hard to write a story that's convincing, after all, most horror relies on supernatural phenomena, which in turn needs to provide a coherent argument as to why such phenomena happens which can then cancel any necessity for suspension of disbelief by those consuming it: having a story about a ghost haunting a house, and not providing a coherent reason why the people who live in the house just don't go live fucking elsewhere, makes for lazy writing, since it'll require the audience to ignore all logical thinking in order to be capable of enjoying the story, which certainly makes it harder to take seriously. Perhaps the greatest problem with Uzumaki is that it cannot be said that it manages to do just that; watching this miniseries implies a rather large amount of suspension of disbelief, because the characters tend to act irrationally, and no explanation is ever given for such behavior. For reasons not explained (or at least not explicitly-enough so), most of the characters have highly illogical reactions to even highly more illogical events: it'd seem as if everyone wants to pretend everything is a-ok in a town where people are dying in inhumane ways and in which everything is clearly NOT ok by any interpretation of the word. Because of this, Uzumaki's plot quickly becomes void of rationality, which in consequence makes the story feel highly forced and convenient, thus, it makes it appear to be badly written, which will certainly bother those who are here for things other than human snail mating or watching people's body contort and deform way past natural limitations.

As stated at the very beginning of the previous paragraph, creating horror is complicated, and this is because the sense of "horror" consists of many negative feelings which need to be transmitted onto the public: anxiety, despair, restlessness, disgust, and many more emotions and states of the mind are the building blocks of a good piece of horror media, and to achieve them, you need to build an atmosphere through many audiovisual aspects, and in the case of an anime, these include the animation, color palettes, soundtrack, sound design, character design, voice acting, the plot, and many other bits and tads which make up the whole picture. Uzumaki, however, lacks much of them. The sound design is mediocre, the soundtrack mostly absent, the character design ranges from regular to absurd, the voice acting is at many times devoid of effort, the animation is hit or miss... there's just too many issues here. Uzumaki's production value is less consistent than a bipolar teenager's emotions, and it is not only clear throughout the 4 episodes of the anime, but it varies even throughout the very same episodes: the first episode starts off well, but the second has some horrendous animation quality, while the third and fourth tend to switch between good and bad. The whole anime is in black and white, and while this manages to make the entire thing a bit more unsettling, it also feels like a lazy way to avoid greater detail through color, lightning and other visual cues. The fluidity of the animation creates a bit of an uncanny valley feeling; it attempts to feel human-like, but it is not nearly fluid enough to feel convincing, which makes it perhaps be more awkward than anything else. All of this makes Uzumaki feel annoying to watch, since it creates no real atmosphere, no real horror, no real "art"; it instead feels like a bad attempt at adapting the story and adding the label "avant-garde" to justify the crappy production, crappy plot, crappy pacing, crappy you, crappy me, we are a crappy family!

No, Uzumaki is hardly a "good" anime in technical terms, it is just simply shock content disguised as horror, with a lackluster production and lots of issues everywhere; it is a pathetic adaptation of an acclaimed manga, but as bad as it is, it still somehow manages to provide a decent amount of entertainment, and it is not bad at making you go "Jesus what the fuck is this shit, I feel bad for those poor bastards who were asked to animate this" in many occasions. That said, it only works as entertainment, not so much as an impactful story or something memorable for anything other than its horrid morbidity. Give it a try if you got guts, but don't show it to your kids, like, really, that's not a good idea.

Guilty pleasure. These two words are the best definition I can give "Kaii to Otome to Kamikakushi". This is an anime that is not great, hell, it's probably not even good by most standards, it surfs the waves of mediocrity quite well, but it's washed away whenever it tries to be properly good, and even then, I can't help but to think of this anime as an enjoyable piece of media.

Let's be honest here, likely all of us, at one point of our lives, got a bit of an interest for urban legends, myths and the paranormal. The number of views on YouTube videos about ... such topics don't lie, these legends and myths are definitely a huge interest for many people because they allow us to think of reality as more than just what we can regularly perceive, and because practically everyone likes as a bit of a morbid curiosity for the unknown and the occult. Japanese mythology and pop culture are filled to the brim with such stories and legends: from ancient tales of evil spirits seeking revenge to a non-existent train station that travels between dimensions: "Kaii to Otome to Kamikakushi" decides to capitalize on these fables, old and new, and build its world and plot around them.

What this anime presents before us is a plot that mixes many of the aforementioned urban legends and myths, both Japanese, Chinese and other foreign supernatural stories, and mashes them together in an attempt to create a cohesive story in which two protagonists who possess supernatural powers try to hunt down and eradicate "rarities", legends which come to existence in the human world to cause trouble. Although the plot isn't necessarily too different to your average youkai exorcizer anime, the main point of interest is the relative fidelity with which the anime tries to adapt myths and legends and present them in an audiovisual form to the viewer. When we read about something like the Kisaragi Station urban legend, all we can do is get a mental image of it, so having a piece of media that gives it a shape and even an atmosphere makes it considerably enjoyable, since it almost is as if said myths were brought out of the confines of our imaginations into real life.

One thing truly worth nothing about "Kaii to Otome to Kamikakushi" is that, unlike your average horror top 15 YouTuber with the most monotonous voice imaginable (you know who I'm talking about), the writer decided to be way more liberal and recur to much lesser known legends, some of which are so obscure that one would think they were made up. For instance, one of the legends in the anime is roughly called "The tomb of the book princess", an obscure legend tied to a temple in Nagano about a princess who'd spend all of her time reading books and, after passing, kind of a curse was put on the books she used to read, by which you'd be able to borrow them, but upon returning them you'd also have to also put a new book in the shelves. One of the few sources you can find for this one legend is a 2012 Japanese article, which cites even more obscure sources. There are other legends dealt with across the plot of the anime which are also rather obscure or unknown to the average person, but from this example alone you can see how much thought the deeper end of this story's got. This is one show that feels exciting to watch, mostly due to the curiosity of whatever myth they'll deal with next, so it doesn't fail to be dull at that: it's an anime that pokes at your sense of wonder.

However, truth is, that's as far as things can be truly praised for this particular piece of media, because most of its aspects are average at best. Its animation is pretty much average, the art for various scenarios can be atmospheric and fit the bill for whatever situation or legend is currently at hand, but this is nowhere near a P.A. or KyoAni work, and it's arguably, at times, on the lower end of quality in terms of animation. The sound design is not remarkable in any way, and while the OP and ED tracks are honestly catchy and enjoyable, the insert music isn't particularly memorable nor does it do a commendable job at intensifying the atmosphere of this anime's scenes. The cast in this anime is rather mixed, with some great voices and some young blood taking care of the most important characters, but the delivery tends to be quite average.

Beyond the technical aspects, though, lies one of the actually big issues that "Kaii to Otome to Kamikakushi" struggles with: it feels like a random, rushed mess of multiple ideas put together with glue. Besides the focus on the supernatural stuff, the anime also spends a portion of its running time with ecchi fan-service, with the struggles of the protagonist as a wannabe novelist, and with other somewhat menial aspects that, quite frankly, are not interesting if you're here for the mystery and paranormal. It starts off rather well and progressively trails off into more random stuff until it pretty much becomes unrecognizable and ends up feeling almost like some sort of parody at times. The plot fails to explain a lot of its aspects and lore, and leaves the viewer wondering how or why many of these things actually happen, just to end in a painfully abrupt and unclimatic way. There even are characters that appear like they might be important and might even be introduced rather early, just for them to end up being almost entirely inconsequential to the story. This all makes this anime feel rather incongruent between its more serious approach to its main plot point and its crappy carefree side-times.

Finally, time for the one true question: "Should I watch this?". Well, the fuck do I know? I'm not you (thankfully?), I don't know your taste in anime. Now, my personal recommendation, however, would be that perhaps you should give this one a try: it's a 12-episode anime, and it's fairly entertaining, so getting through it shouldn't be too much of a pain, but just know that you won't leave here as satisfied as you possibly got to be during the earlier episodes, because if this anime is good at one thing is at getting crappier with each episode. Oh, and by the way, if oyu run one of those average top 15 horror YouTube channels like I mentioned above, it'd be cool if you make a series of videos focusing on the myths the anime deals with, it'd be entertaining.

Highspeed Etoile... a funny pun could be made with this anime's name, specially if you replace "Etoile" with "Toilet", but I guess I'm past the age in which said puns are actually funny, but, eh, "Highly Peed Toilet", there you go.

Racing, as in, racing with cars. Interesting sport, if you like seeing people inside a box with 4 wheels doing like 86 laps around the same circuit, with the most exciting moments being when the racer in 6th position makes it to 5th after trailing the driver in front of him for the last 31 laps. In other words, it's not exactly a fun sport ... to watch for a lot of people, at least not regular sports car racing: it's tedious, it has some anti-fun rules, it's noisy, and it lacks the excitement of derby racing, rally, off-road or drifting, but nevertheless it is what Highspeed Etoile is all about: futuristic sports car racing.

I must admit, I've never been one to like races: my dad and brother used to like them a lot back in the '90s and the early 2000s, but for me, it's one of those things I'd rather do in a videogame than to sit down and watch for like 2 hours. The interesting thing about this anime, though, is that it looks like a game, and it's actually somewhat enjoyable, mostly because unlike actual racing, it provides a formula that's more than "look, here are like 18 cars doing the same shit for the entire afternoon". Highspeed Etoile is mostly about the racing, sure, but it provides us as well with many scenes about the daily life of the characters, and gives us insight into their thoughts and feelings in the racetracks and outside of them, which makes it more appealing than real-world racing.

What can be really said about this anime, though? Well, there are many things to go over, and truth is, most of them are bad things, so let's try to deal with the elephant in the room first: the 3DCGI animation... it's bad, really. Anime is known for, well, being animated, 99% of the time in drawn two-dimensional animations, so the anime that make full use of 3DCGI are, generally, very lacking in quality, and Increased-speed Etoile is one of them. The characters basically lack any actual facial expressions, most of the time they've got a poker face and the few facial expressions they do show are, generally, extremely simple and uncommunicative. The overall character design ends up being generic, and filled with fan service (really, they made EVERY SINGLE GIRL have massive hoogaboogas), and the backgrounds tend to be lacking in quality or detail, to a point in which they feel like taken from a 2000s game. The one thing, however, this show's animation did good for is its main component: the racing. The 3D animation works well for the fast-paced nature of these high-speed races, and it must be said that 2D would have not worked for this at all, and mixing 3D and 2D animation would have made things far too awkward. However, a better job could really have been done for the rest of the show's portions, because they feel dull and boring.

Moving on from that aspect, perhaps the focal point of the anime is the next thing to discuss: arguably, Very Fast Etoile provides a faithful, realistic portrayal of racing (if you ignore its futuristic aspects), using a lot of real world rules and terms. At times, the anime can get a bit specific on the topics it deals with, be it the rules of the sport, or car setup stuff (I'm really not into racing). Now, truth to be told, as it is rather realistic, it also ends up, at times, having the same issue as real-world racing: it can be god-damn boring. Each race plays out similarly: you get a look at each character, you get to know their thoughts, they race, they change tires, they race again, maybe one ends up crashing or having to retire, and all of this happens while two commentators give what is possibly the most uninspired commentary you've ever heard in any sport. I must admit, though, that in the later episodes, things can get a bit exciting, but of course, you gotta first sit through like 8 episodes of a pretty much mediocre anime, in great part because of one aspect: the characters.

The characters... god, they're bad. I did mention that the 3DCGI didn't help their looks and expressions, true, but they're just fundamentally bad. Our protagonist is a generic underdog who starts out at the bottom and from the first episode you know she'll inevitably end up being the best, and god, she's inept, like REALLY inept, to a point in which it can get annoying. Across the anime, you'll see how she makes the most stupid mistakes imaginable due to a lack of discipline and childish impulse, and while this obviously drives the plot, it does create a huge contrast between the realistic nature of the sport portrayed and the seriousness and professionalism of the other characters. Not only is the main character inept, but she's also arguably annoying: she's a derp and extremely unaware of her surroundings and situations, and this sort of behavior quickly gets old as it is more annoying than funny. The rest of the characters have rather confusing personalities, and some entire lack one. For instance, "The King" seems to keep his calm at all times and be a really regular guy, but he later can get a bit aggressive and kind of become the "bad guy" for a bit, but there's a degree of inconsistency with this, because the characters can sometimes react entirely different to two extremely similar situations, which is simply confusing. If all of this wasn't enough, there's also the voice acting, which is simply lacking, and at times mediocre: there's a lack of passion in the way the characters speak, specially for a sport anime. There's just nothing going for these characters, there's little background to them, they lack any defined way of being, and to make matters worse, you obviously end up having to recur to suspension of disbelief when you've got an American, an Italian and a Chinese character speaking Japanese like native speakers.

Now, the rest of Fast-Moving Etoile's aspects are nothing to write home about, but not necessarily bad: the sound design is not bad, and the soundtrack is actually solid, being mostly alternative J-rock with electronic elements. The atmosphere the anime creates is decent, and the races can be somewhat captivating at times. One thing that is a bit clear about this show, though, is feels like it was made as advertisement for various brands such as Sega, VRChat or Yokohama, among other videogame and motorsports-related brands, as their logos are everywhere: in the characters' outfits, the advertisement in the racetracks, the cars, etc. This does make the anime feel somewhat real, but at times it just makes you wonder whether all of this wasn't just put together as an advertisement cash grab.

"Ok, ok, we get it, it sucks, but why did you make this a 'Mixed Feelings' review instead of a 'Negative' one?", you might be asking yourself right now. Well, I don't have an obligation to answer that question... I'll do it anyway: it's because Highspeed Etoile (I got it right this time) is a bit of a guilty pleasure of sorts. It can be entertaining, specially later on, and it's just admirable that the people behind this anime made the effort to turn it into a coherent adaptation of real-world motorsports into anime format. Even if pretty much 80% of the aspects of this anime are just bad, this is something that can be enjoyable depending on your taste. Should you watch it? If you like racing, perhaps, otherwise, you should maybe ignore this one. Highspeed Etoile is certainly an anime made for a specific crowd, and arguably those in said crowd will find it appealing, while the rest will fail to see it as more as "anime girls and just two dudes race around a racetrack for 20 minutes, 12 times".

It would seem as if each season, we get one or two anime which are a complete, absolute throwback to a few decades ago: clichés, simplicity and a return to the roots of anime. Yes, Astro Note is one of those anime that has no business in this time and age, but which nonetheless makes its presence known for those who will acknowledge it, either to throw them back to their younger days and fill them with nostalgia, or to allow the modern youth to experience what anime was like some 30 years ago.

Astro Note is straight-forward in its plot, its characters and its setting, ... it has all the clichés of a late '80s and '90s anime: varied color palettes and colorful character designs, dumb action, sci-fi aspects, mechas, space travel and an overall lack of a deeper lore. The anime tells a story that's easy to follow, albeit rather uninteresting, and instead it focuses more on the relationships between the characters and the daily events of their lives, using its plot merely as a motor instead of necessarily a focal point of the anime.

If its meta contents weren't some of the most retro things there are to find here, Astro Note makes sure to provide a full-on old-time experience: the animation is rather fluid and at times can be very detailed, but at the same time it has that sort of granular, slightly-lacking quality that makes it seem outdated, which creates a bit of an interesting contrast given that decades-old anime didn't have such degree of detail and smoothness. Its sound design doesn't lag behind the animation, as the anime prefers simplistic and at times repetitive sounds, with a soundtrack that is pretty much city pop-influenced and draws heavy influence from '90s anime OPs and EDs. The general feeling of the audiovisual experiences in this here anime is rather upbeat and accessible, but certainly a bit pompous for people who like more grounded and serious experiences.

One of Astro Note's highlights is, certainly, its variety of characters; their design is vibrant, varied and somewhat unique. No characters look alike, you've got everything: a regular male protagonist in his 20s, an adult NEET with an unnaturally elongated-head, a cute and small gentle old man, an idol, and even a talking dog-like creature. Each character has a certain degree of simplistic development, and their personalities and stories are defined and somewhat relatable. In a way, the cast in Astro Note is both peculiar and nowhere out of ordinary, each character as its own appeal, but none of them are necessarily unique in the way they act or think: they can be good people at times, and bad people at other times, many of them face issues that you or me might face in our lives, they can sometimes make you admire them, and they can sometimes make you see them under a bad light; none of them are perfect, they're just normal, and thus they're rather relatable.

Now, as nostalgic and appealing as this anime can possibly be, it is not without its faults, and in fact, it's a bit more of a flawed anime than anything else. No, it's not bad, necessarily, but it's certainly not remarkable. Astro Note works as a filler, perhaps as something you might watch alongside other things in your "Watching" list, and this is because it's quite frankly tedious: it doesn't follow an interesting plot, it's a bit more of a slice of life without a clear trajectory, as a romcom it inevitably falls into regular clichés, and it provides no innovation at all in its storytelling or character development. It is repetitive and perhaps predictable, and watching more than an episode or two in a day is a bit hard because the anime certainly fails at being captivating and capable of retaining its viewers' interest as it lacks a proper structure, suspense or, a deeper plot. Astro Note relies entirely on its recurring topics to provide entertainment: the antagonists trying to sabotage the protagonists, the male main character trying to win the female main character's heart, the talking dog trying to not be found out: it's the same thing over and over again, and it's tiring.

Now, the question is: is Astro Note worth watching? It can't be said that it's not worth watching, but it's certainly miles from being a must-watch. Anyone with a taste for the oldies might find this appealing, specially those who grew up in the '90s and 2000s watching similar anime, and mostly for the sake of nostalgia. Otherwise, this is just something some niche anime fan might watch, because there's simply nothing fascinating about Astro Note, it's just an OK anime, another one in the huge sea of Japanese media, which is filled with many great works that are certainly much, much more appealing than this. In other words, unless you've got the time and interest, this is an anime you can skip, albeit a decent one, in case you're willing to sit through its 12 episodes.

An anime that behaves like a regular TV show for an adult audience. This is the best way that "Japan Sinks 2020" could be described, it is an anime that just does not aim to be one. While arguably over 90% of all anime shows out there tend towards fantasy, the supernatural, futuristic sci-fi, or just have characters with some superhuman capabilities, the show we've got at hand is one of the rare ones that remains entirely realistic at all times and never really breaks into over-the-top action or any other clichés commonly associated with this sort of media.

Nihon Chinbotsu 2020 parts from a very ... interesting concept: Japan sinking into the ocean due to a mass-scale natural catastrophe. Now, while the premise is indeed interesting, it's merely adapted from the novel "Japan Sinks", published in 1973, and it is one that's been adapted to other type of media: movies, manga, TV shows, etc. This, of course, adapts this story to anime and sets it in the modern day... and it doesn't really work too well, due to a myriad of factors. It is worth nothing that Nihon Chinbotsu 2020 is not a direct adaptation of the original novel, and instead takes a lot of creative liberties with the source material while still working with its core, so much of what you will see in this anime is an original experience.

Now, where shall we begin? Perhaps the most notorious thing about this ONA is that it entirely breaks out of the regular topics that this sort of media normally deals with, by touching into MANY taboos that anime has always avoided; while most series tend to focus on plots set in alternative worlds, or have a really partial, idealized or superficial vision of Japan and its society, Japan Sinks 2020 jumps straight into the mud by portraying topics very few anime touch on, in a considerably realistic manner: drug use, addiction, rape, mental illness, sociopolitical issues, and the actual impact of death and destruction on people's lives and psyches. Throughout the 10 episodes this animation provides, there's no shortage of controversial things to be found, many of which might just be rather shocking due to their portrayal being gruesomely realistic for what pretty much is a bunch of drawings with motion. Many characters will sometimes die in sudden, and at times brutal manners, leaving the viewer little time to even process what's going on. The absolute breakdown of society as a result of the catastrophe illustrated by this show demonstrates how many individuals can and will let their moral values go down the drain. Everything to be seen here comes off as bleak and depressing, like a bucket of cold water to the average anime viewer who might usually be used to more lighthearted stories, or at least ones that draw a noticeable line between reality and fiction.

Reality, and fiction. Yes, a line is drawn somewhere, but in the case of Nihon Chinbotsu 2020, said line is considerably blurred. Regardless of how we may look at things, this is definitely a sci-fi show, because it's simply not geologically feasible for Japan to completely sink into the ocean, so the events to be found here remain entirely as a theoretical concept, but within said theoretical concept, we get a very real and very gruesome depiction of what an event like this one could (and likely would) be like. One great thing this anime manages to do is keep you on the edge of your seat, because the plot develops itself in a coherent manner and carries a constant tension, never truly allowing the viewer to feel calm as they expect the unexpected. However, while the story provided to us is rather great and captivating, it is also considerably rushed, and that brings me back to the very first sentence in this review, which points out the main issue with Japan Sinks 2020: this is not a plot designed for an anime.

TV shows normally have episodes that last 40–50 minutes. That's double the runtime of the average anime's episode. In this time, a single arc or event can be developed in a lot more detail than in the roughly 20 minutes of content anime tends to provide per episode. Considering this anime has 10 episodes, the plot is just bound to have a quick pace; that's a bit over 3 hours of actual content, excluding OP and ED; it will likely take you longer to read the novel this is based (or more like inspired) on, which has some 300 or 400 pages. The speed at which the plot develops leaves little space for reflection or for some better character development; some heavily shocking events will sometimes happen, such as someone's sudden death, and the characters won't even really stop to mourn or at least mentally process what just happened, because that would take minutes away from the short timespan in which the plot develops. The end result of this is that every single event here lacks any more impact than perhaps an initial shock, and it then hardly seems to carry over to the rest of the plot.

On top of the plot not really working for an anime format, the animation is... bad, honestly. The art style aims towards a certain type of realism; it's not flashy nor colorful, instead it uses muted, more realistic color palettes and reduces all the eye candy to create a much grittier image that is much more compatible with what's being portrayed. While the animators did a great job with that, the animation still is rather uncomfortable to watch at times: the lines are rough, the different camera angles make the animation look awkward at times, the art style tends towards being realistic, but looks too rough, while the animation often times falls short in terms of detail, and at times attempts at being realistic and instead just creates some rather ugly frames. At times, this feels like an anime from the early or mid 2000s, and it breaks immersion. However, one highlight that must be mentioned is that whenever it comes to portraying the misery of such a disaster or death, the art and animation goes out of its way to be detailed and gruesome: the death of some characters is portrayed in brutal manners, some of the scenes to be seen are way too gory even for the average anime, and the depictions of the ruins of a Japan is very good.

The character design is very realistic, but also feels plain and uninspired in its visual aspects. The voice acting isn't exaggerated, it feels considerably casual and make all the characters feel much more human than in other similar media. However, one big issue to be mentioned here is that the characters' personalities are just BAD, and their development is BAD. This show, being a Netflix original, naturally goes out of its way to be uncommonly multicultural, as we see that many of the main characters are not Japanese, or are just half-Japanese. While this is in no way an issue, and if anything, it is a breath of fresh air for the usually-copious anime character design, it does feel rather forced. The ethnicity and origin of the characters does play a role in the plot, but it feels like it does so only for sociopolitical commentary, as it never actually takes any major incidence. One thing that is often just annoying about Nihon Chinbotsu 2020 is how its characters feel completely disconnected from the events happening around them; they'll start speaking English randomly, for seemingly no reason, or they will do something odd that feels completely unnecessary, such as taking some 5 minutes of an episode to rap about how they feel, and while this might work to show a sense of normalcy in the face of disaster, it just doesn't feel natural, and that's in huge part due to how rushed the plot is, not really allowing for events to take any impact or for the viewer to properly notice any shift in a character's personality or mood.

Now, lastly, there is one more issue with Nihon Chinbotsu 2020, and it is probably the one that can be the most annoying: it is many times absurd. How so? Well, perhaps in the way it portrays society's breakdown, tending towards something that's more similar to The Last of Us' scenario rather than what many might consider to be a more realistic outcome in which a lot of people don't just become completely uncivilized criminals. Perhaps it is in the way that seemingly all characters die in very unlikely manners. Or perhaps it is in the way one can predict which character will die next, and how. Or perhaps on how it would seem like the protagonists manage to survive almost all situations by the skin of their teeth. As the plot advances, it gets rather annoying and tedious, and all the shock from the events seen in the earlier episodes fails to replicate in the later ones due to it becoming somewhat formulaic.

After all of this, though, a question remains: is Japan Sinks 2020 a worthwhile anime? In more than one way, no. Should I watch it? Yes, it is worth watching. This is an anime that was not meant to be an anime, but it is also a story that wouldn't have been easy or even good if done as a regular live action TV show. It nevertheless is an interesting experiment in an industry that has perhaps become known for repeating the same concepts to boredom, it is certainly a breath of fresh air and makes for an entertaining experience, albeit a somewhat quality-lacking one. This ONA tries to be more than it can possibly be, and maybe it even falls short on what it can actually be, but it's still sometime worth experiencing. Yes, I give this a 7, and a "Mixed Feelings" review, because even if it's an engrossing anime, it is a bad one in a lot of practical aspects. You should go ahead and give this a try, though, because good or bad, it's undeniably a highlight in a massive sea of copious media.

Let's look at the current year, shall we? Uh, as I'm writing this, it says here that it is 2024. Mind explaining to me why this anime came out in 2024? Because this is something that should have come out in the '90s, and should have promptly been forgotten and only kept alive in a few 30-year-old people's minds because of nostalgia from a time in which their brains weren't particularly capable of judging how good an anime could be.

The most attractive thing about Gekkan Mousou Kagaku is probably its English title: "Delusional Monthly Magazine". When someone reads this title, they'd probably expect something bizarre ... and out-of-the-box, but instead all this anime has to offer is an extremely formulaic fantasy pseudo-comedy that goes everywhere and reaches nowhere. Everything you may find in this anime has been overdone to a point in which it's basically impossible to create anything even remotely original or actually entertaining.

Gekkan Mousou Kagaku has a very simple premise: there's a lost continent of mystic humanoid creatures (i.e. furries), and our protagonists want to uncover it, however, there's an evil enemy that will always try to interfere with our protagonists' efforts. From this extremely basic, regurgitated idea, we get the same formula almost every single episode: characters find a lead > they go to some place and start working on the case > antagonists show up > a battle ensues > the antagonists lose and threaten the main characters with attacking them again > repeat until boredom. Apart from a few episodes, this is the same thing over and over again, and each episode feels loosely related to the previous one. This follows the exact sequence that almost all '90s and 2000s TV shows aimed mostly at children followed: Dora the Explorer, Pokémon, etc. It's pretty much the same thing, but even then it feels rather watered down.

The plot in itself is not only basic, but boring, uninteresting, and heavily predictable: from the first moment of an episode you know how it'll surely turn out; any suspicion you might have about something will likely turn out to be the case. The monotony of all this anime's events is only ever broken by absolutely nonsensical interventions by one character or the other, for what would seem to be some extremely low-level comedic relief that should be accompanied by a label that reads "For 3 to 5 years old". One situation I can mention is a battle suddenly turning into everyone dancing for seemingly no reason, and while this might break the annoying repetition, it also tears apart the flow of whatever the fuck's going on, and only confuses you while you sit there and wonder what decisions in your life led you to wasting your time by watching this of all things in the world you could possibly watch.

If how monotonous the entire thing is wasn't enough of a deterrent for anyone who enjoys even the slightest amount of entertainment, Gekkan Mousou Kagaku is probably the most generic anime I've watched in a while. Almost everything here feels generic: we've got a charismatic male protagonist, a co-protagonist that works entirely as (crappy) comedic relief and tends to be contrarian, a loyal pet, a duo of antagonists who look alike and speak at the same time, and their evil-looking, cryptic boss. You've got the same jokes being repeated over and over again, that one catchphrase from the protagonist that just comes out as annoying, very basic, usually low-quality backgrounds and an ambiguous setting in what seems to be a mix of Japanese and European culture, with both modern and old technology, which gives the anime a vintage feeling which is odd more than anything else. The characters are extremely plain, the only ones that have even any amount of depth are supporting characters that only play an actual role later in the anime, but all-in-all every single character here feels like it is made out of plastic and written by an AI, or a 15-year-old (or by an AI using a 15-year-old's prompt).

Is there a saving grace to this anime, though? Surely Gekkan Mousou Kagaku can't be ALL bad... right?... well, no, there really isn't. The only highlights that can possibly be mentioned are some small details in the animation, such as some drinks having smooth bubbling animations, or a few other minor effects, and perhaps the design of a few characters which feel a bit fresh when compared to most anime characters (namely Tarou and Gorou), but that really is about it. The animation is lacking, specially in the facial expressions department, as at times the character's emotions might hardly match their facial expression, if at all, while at other times they'll keep a poker face when they should at the very least show a TINY BIT of emotion. Not only that, but the animation is generally choppy. The color palettes are honestly a headache, this anime is way too colorful and that contrasts a lot with its setting, which feels a bit old school and as such you'd expect it to be more muted and serious. There's a huge mix of colors everywhere, and some of them make some really awful contrast, which reminds you even more of all those '90s caricatures which had a bunch of characters with color combinations that stood out (such as green and orange, or yellow and purple). Not to mention that almost every single episode has the same 10-second sequence EACH FUCKING TIME a character turns into a Motalian, in which their transformation is showcased. This literally should have been released in the '90s, not in 2024.

As for the rest of the technical aspects: the sound design is lacking and the soundtrack is just bad: the OP is some crappy trap with some pop breaks, but it's horrendously cheesy and unoriginal, however, the ED is somewhat solid, while the insert songs are entirely forgettable and uninspired. The voice acting is hit or miss, the characters sometimes feel robotic and their voice acting falls off at times, making certain scenes (specially action ones) feel incredibly dull, as if they weren't terribly boring already. One example is a scene in which a character puts on a serious facial expression as the camera zooms in on their face: you'd expect them to passionately scream their next line, but instead they just deliver it very casually, creating some extreme dissonance between image and audio, just to put some contrast on that, if you've watched Shingeki no Kyojin, imagine one of those scenes in which the camera zooms into a character's face in a high-tension moment, and the character instead of screaming something at the top of their lungs, they just casually say "Move forward"... it'd suck, right?

There's not much else to say, the truth is that "Delusional Monthly Magazine" is simply a bad anime that can only possibly appeal to furries or children. It is completely lackluster in quality and entertainment, every single aspect of this show is lacking, and in all honesty it wouldn't be a surprise if the entire script was written using an AI, not only because of how basic it is, but also because it tries to be deep while absolutely NEVER explaining a massive amount of lore that would at least allow the viewer to understand what the heck is the entire plot actually about. If it wasn't bad enough, once you get to the end, you just realize you sat through all this boredom just so that it all ends as if it was literally a children's book.

Don't watch this, really, don't waste your time on this, there are over ten thousand anime out there, and 90% of them are better than this. There really is nothing to be found here.

Failure. Perpetual, painful failure. The same process again and again, the same unwanted result. Can fate actually be changed?

Steins;Gate focuses on one man's battle against the world and all logic known to humans. "Mad Scientist" Okabe Rintarou, AKA Hououin Kyouma, an eccentric, seemingly paranoid delusional 18-year-old scientist who, unexpectedly, creates a time machine that allows him to send phone messages back into the past. From this premise, the entire story of Steins;Gate begins unraveling, and so the questions start: is it ok to change the past? how many times would you do it? why? and what would you do if the results from it were ... unexpected?

Steins;Gate begins off as an extremely confusing anime, the first few episodes are hard to understand, as they feel like the paranoid delusions of a schizophrenic man: delusions of grandeur, an "organization" chasing after him, talking on his own, and other nonsense. However, as the episodes go by, everything slowly starts clicking into place perfectly. The pacing of the story might, at times, feel off, but it's nevertheless very good. It drives us to where it wants to, taking its own time, explaining everything as it goes while still allowing the audience to figure things out on their own with some logic, just to sometimes prove them entirely wrong, while still maintaining a completely logical explanation to all of the anime's events.

This anime was recommended to me as an emotional one: it was supposed to make me cry. However, I can't call Steins;Gate a sad anime, as this adjective doesn't fit its nature. However, one adjective that perfectly fits it is "grim". Few times have I watched anything as grim as this. Steins;Gate's story is architecturally designed to make you feel hopeless, to suffer as you see everything go wrong again and again, and as you see the protagonist's mind deteriorate more and more. The despair that this anime manages to induce at times is much greater than any other anime I've ever watched; it is a feeling of utter desolation, like everything is lost and all that's left is to give up. It's an anime that will pain you, it will mess with your head and toy with your emotions, while trying to make you pretend things are actually alright, since you and the protagonist are the only ones to know everything that happens.

The concept behind Steins;Gate's plot revolves entirely around time traveling, as previously mentioned. The way this is pulled off is quite simply amazing, the entire plot makes sense and doesn't seem to ever contradict itself. The interesting thing is that the way time travel is done throughout the anime isn't, generally, through some machine that physically transports you back into the past, but instead through changing the events of the past or transporting the protagonist's mind back in time. What defines the plot, however, is that the protagonist, Okabe, is the only person able to retain the memories of a previous timeline, which eventually becomes a truly despairing thing, as he's forced to carry horrendous memories as he loops back in time again, and again, and again. All of this works like clockwork to make you psychologically hurt, it starts piling up on you, and you begin to get lost in the story as it keeps branching, going back and forth, seemingly to no avail; it truly is despair-inducing.

Visually, the anime has some great animation and pretty good character design, but what defines it are its dark and gritty color palettes and locations. Not only is Steins;Gate's story grim, but the entire visual style too: it feels desolate, abandoned. In the anime's visuals, the shadows are harder than the sunshine, every single place feels dark and void of life, the entire world of this show transmits a feeling of impending doom, and while at first this sort of visual style definitely feels off for what starts off as a quirky sci-fi anime, it all quickly starts feeling normal as the plot progresses and everything progressively gets worse, to a point in which the entire world matches the audience's feelings perfectly.

The only thing I could possibly complain about in this anime is the sound design. At times, it feels a bit lazy, with some sound effects sounding compressed, sometimes not even feeling like they fit the action being carried out, and other times having the anime miss a chance to implement certain sound effects to add greater impact to certain scenes. Soundtrack-wise, I must admit that the OST to Steins;Gate was somewhat forgettable, it hardly stood out, and I can't remember any of it other than the OP and ED songs, both of which are not bad. The voice acting is, for 90% of characters, spot-on and pretty good: the voices fit their characters, and while at times the characters' personalities might not entirely fit the situation, the way their voice lines are delivered are always spot-on: the sadness, the happiness, the misery, all the feelings the characters experience are perfectly portrayed by their VAs, which makes for a very convincing experience.

I decided not to really spoil the plot in this review because I'd truly recommend anyone who hasn't watched this to go ahead and do it, and if possible, play the Visual Novel first. Steins;Gate was an anime I wasn't planning to watch in the short-term, but fate made it so I did, and I wouldn't go back in time to undo it. It's quite frankly a masterpiece in many ways, with a perfectly-written plot and an atmosphere that seeps into you and slowly consumes you. This is one anime that understood how to connect with its audience, eerily so, and therefore, I think this is an anime everyone should watch, including you.

Railroad crossings. There's one near my house, but it has nothing fancy, nothing to even stop you from crossing when the train's coming. I've had to wait next to it a few times in my life as a long freight rain passed by, however, I don't have any particular memories about it other than wanting to go out to the street whenever I heard the train's horn when I was a child. Fumikiri Jikan, on the other hand, revolves around a bunch of people making memories at a railroad crossing, memories they carry the rest of their lives. What an odd setting for a story, ... isn't it?

The best way Fumikiri Jikan could be described is with 3 words: A confused manga. Yes, you read that right, not "confusing", but "confused": Fumikiri Jikan is a confused manga, because it doesn't know what it wants to be, the feelings it wants to convey, or where it even aims to go. Throughout the 83 episodes in this manga (MAL currently says 85, but there don't seem to be 85 at all) the reader is presented with a plethora of varying scenarios and a wide array of characters with their own unique personalities. The structure of the manga is presenting us with a different couple of characters (at times it's a single character, other 3 or more) each chapter, with the story for each one of them generally being continued throughout the volumes. While one of the main topics of the manga is romance, it often times deals with absurd humor and even horror, so as mentioned previously, the manga really doesn't know where to go a lot of the time.

The one big problem Fumikiri Jikan has is that it is rarely able to maintain its composure. We'll be presented with these different scenarios which are either wholesome or melancholic, and more often than not, the story progresses in a beautiful way just for the punchline to be something either disgusting or unfunny which ruins the entire mood. This happens too many times throughout the chapters to a point in which you'll read everything with skepticism, because you'll likely end up disappointed. Another huge issue with this manga, which might be more personal, is that it often times will make you uncomfortable through indecent and disgusting scenarios: an incel lusting over a girl, the bottom half of a donkey trying to "hook up" to a teenager, an old man wearing thigh highs practically harassing a school girl... These try to be funny, but they just inevitably come off as creepy. As a final issue to be mentioned is that Fumikiri Jikan is generally repetitive, and ends up going nowhere: the different sets of characters often times carry out the same sort of conversation, with the same outcomes. The highlights throughout the entire manga probably are the individual, unique chapters that present us with more original and specific scenarios. However, most of the time, it's just the same exact thing, over and over again, and it becomes predictable quite quick, and since most of these characters tend to develop feelings for each other, we're basically caught up in their romance which almost always ends up being inconclusive, blue balling the reader without giving them a satisfying resolution.

Moving away from the plot(s), the art style is, for the most part, good. The character design is at times unique, and at times somewhat generic, but not bad at all, with the backgrounds being probably the most detailed things of all: for a manga about railroad crossings, the mangaka went ahead and made detailed depictions of real-world crossings across Tokyo, and each chapter is somewhat nice to look at due to the level of detail of the places they take place in. However, over the last volumes the art style starts getting a bit irregular, with some chapters having oddly three-dimensional characters which feel entirely off. Other than that, one thing more than a single person might dislike (myself included) is the amount of fan service: Fumikiri Jikan has a lot of it, and while thankfully it's not every chapter, it sometimes goes really far with it and for no good reason other than to appeal to the weirdos or for (generally ineffective) comedic impact.

So, what is Fumikiri Jikan exactly? It's... its own thing. It goes everywhere it can go to, without ever really reaching a destination. It has ups and downs, it sometimes fails to be funny, and it sometimes makes you laugh out loud. It can make you feel sad or melancholic, and probably make you feel creeped out or disgusted not a minute later. It is a manga that most people will like and dislike simultaneously due to its sheer inconsistency. There's probably something for everyone in Fumikiri Jikan, but probably not everything for anyone.

How much can you convey in 3 minutes? Is that enough to tell a story?

Fumikiri Jikan is a 12-episode anime with 3-minute long episodes, with each episode focusing on a different pair of characters interacting at a level crossing. These topics go places: from friendship, to love, to the absurd. Being the first work of newcomer studio EKACHI EPILKA, this anime provides an interesting concept that's easy and quick to digest, while capable of making the viewer laugh, feel weirded out or even feel emotional.

Each episode just revolves around two characters having a dialogue, or one character having a monologue. Most characters have two episodes ... dedicated to them, and between the couples we can include two siblings with a cellphone addiction, two friends with one of them being in love with the other, or an old man reminiscing his first love. The stories we get to see vary a lot, and they're not always necessarily followed episode by episode: for instance, the first pair of characters only shows up again in the last episode. This kind of makes it a bit harder to keep up with the plots, but it also creates enough variation as to not know what to expect next.

The thing that's just great about this anime is that it doesn't overstate its presence; it's fast-paced, simplistic, it gets to the point quickly, so it makes for an enjoyable watching experience when you want to kill time. Humor is a constant in all the episodes, some having it as a secondary theme, while others being totally focused on it. Love is also a recurring theme, even love between siblings (yeah...) and between an old man and a teenager (yeah...). The stories can be unique or mundane, but they never fail to entertain.

However, one of the main issues with this anime is how inconsistent it is: some episodes are plainly great, while others are just awful. Two of the episodes, for instance, revolve around some guy obsessing over a girl while having dirty thoughts that will make most people just feel really creeped out. Another episode revolves around a naked man (off-screen nudity, thankfully) speaking to a teenage girl, asking her to help him cover up his private parts. This heavily contrasts with the more wholesome and just truly enjoyable episodes. Another issue Fumikiri Jikan runs into is that, at times, it starts off great just to completely ruin the mood at the end, namely in the way certain situations are resolved, such as the old man finding his first love's daughter and falling in love with her... that just ruined a whole nostalgic, melancholic story that was certainly emotional, by ending it in a plainly disgusting way.

Quality-wise, the soundtrack is alright, the sound effects as well, but these don't necessarily take a lot of protagonism due to how short the episodes are. The animation, on the other hand, is mostly mediocre, and so is the character design. The animation feels too static at times, while it's not necessarily bad, it feels dated, but it's forgivable considering this is the studio's debut. The character design is, for the most part, plainly uninteresting, with some characters just looking so alike that it's easy to confuse them, with their facial expressions being simplistic and their emotions not being conveyed as well as they could be.

Fumikiri Jikan is, nonetheless, a really good experiment and an anime that feels more like it was done as a hobby, rather than seeking popularity or anything similar: a work of passion, one could say. It's something I'd enjoy watching again, and it has a structure that allows for an endless amount of different stories, with different themes; it's a shame that there was never a 2nd season, but the 36 minutes of content that's left for the records is probably enough to satisfy most people.

Death. Desolation. Guilt. Loss. Suffering. Depravity. A trip down the deepest, most harrowing aspects of the human condition. Elfen Lied is the one anime that was not afraid to reach extremes to tell a story.

Released in 2004, Elfen Lied still holds up quite decently to this day. While its animation and sound quality are obviously subpar to the average modern anime, it makes it up by having really great scenery and a fantastic plot and lore. A Diclonious, a humanoid being with "vectors", invisible hands, and a desire to exterminate the human race; this is the main focus of Elfen Lied's plot. The story focuses ... on Kota, a college student who moves to a town he used to visit as a kid, in which his cousin lives, and on Lucy, a diclonious who escapes the facility she's being held in.

Elfen Lied gives us a story that has no filters whatsoever, dealing with every single piece of depravity and darkness that our world has to offer. Murder, rape, child abuse, inhuman experimentation, animal abuse and other extremely dark topics come together and bind to shape the characters and the world in a way that explains the events that take place through the 13 episodes of the anime. While a good chunk of the appeal of Elfen Lied revolves around gore and nudity, these only complement the plot and work as a way to allow it to develop the way it does. The diclonious are a mutant race which are basically genetically coded to exterminate humans, but they're not unlike humans, as they also have feelings, emotions and desires. However, humans are known for being judgmental, and throughout the events of Elfen Lied we see how diclonious are discriminated against, provoking their murderous instincts, which contrasts with their human condition.

The way Elfen Lied manages to be impactful is in the way its story is told. Its plot isn't rushed and the different aspects of its lore are explained gradually, as to not confuse the viewer. Our main character, Kota, lives through the trauma of his sister and father having died, while Lucy lives with the guilt of the things she has done to someone she loves. Kota and Lucy eventually meet, while Lucy develops a second personality after escaping the facility she was held captive in. As the story progresses, we get to know more about their past, and why they are who and how they are. The story then progressively introduces more characters, all of them with equally messed up backgrounds. Then, as everything moves forward, so do our characters, as Elfen Lied has a very good character development (for most characters, at least), as we see them change their ways of being and thinking at a coherent pace, unlike other animes which either rush it or delay it too much.

Elfen Lied's visuals are amazing, to be fair. The character design is quite good, with that of Lucy's (and her alter egos) having a huge meaning in the lore. The scenery and backgrounds still hold up very well to this day, with some real beauty in them. The gore is detailed and ludicrous, there's just a certain degree of satisfaction you get from watching the gory scenes throughout the anime (most of them, at least) due to how well they're made.

The voice acting is, for the most part, good, but the sound design tends to fall off a little bit, but that's probably because it's hard not to compare Elfen Lied to modern animes which a much greater production value. The soundtrack is one of Elfen Lied's strong points as well; while there aren't that many tracks in it, and a few of them are a bit overused (namely the main theme song), the atmosphere it helps create is great; the anime's atmosphere is thick and tense, it has a great power to transmit a sense of both melancholy and dread into the audience, fully enveloping them with the fucked up darkness the story isn't afraid to touch on. Very few animes manage to make someone feel as uneasy or emotionally impacted as this one.

The entirety of Elfen Lied also works greatly through its allegorical aspects; the story, lore, characters, imagery and else make a lot of reference to religion, to a point in which Elfen Lied can almost be interpreted as a metaphor for the Bible at times. The attention to detail throughout the whole show is amazing, although it's quite easy to miss when you don't pay attention. This results in the entire lore having great depth and an even greater impact than it already has.

Generally, I aim my reviews to those who've already watched an anime, as I tend to focus a lot on specific plot points, effectively spoiling the entire anime, however, I can't bring myself to do this with Elfen Lied, as I want this review to hopefully be read by someone who will be interested in watching the anime after reading it. If your heart can take this and your stomach can digest it, Elfen Lied is a must-watch.