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I unfortunately gave the 2nd Season a poor rating before watching these special episodes, but rewatching the series after watching this makes the series a lot better. These special episodes really do tie everything together for season 2, and season 2 shouldn't be considered complete without this. So, I feel like I have to give this a 10 to make up for the poor review of the rest of season 2.

My main criticisms of season 2 were that Yuxiu and Ling'er don't do much and all the fighting is by random side characters we don't care about. Well, these episodes really do put the spotlight ... on Yuxiu and Ling'er, and also explain a lot of the behind the scenes stuff that occurred before in season 2 which involves Ling'er. And also, on second watch I do find myself caring more about these side characters once the complicated interactions are explained a bit better.

Another criticism was that that the power creep brought everyone to grandmaster level and you don't have that hand to hand combat or hand to weapon combat you had before. Well that part is still kind of true, but we do get to see some large diversity in skill levels in these episodes which makes things a bit more refreshing.

The action goes hard, and the story all comes together.

I haven't read the manga, so I don't really understand anything about the story of this anime, and yet, that's alright. Despite explaining nothing, it really does stand on it's own, based on style and atmosphere alone. It's an hour of vibes and feelings, and that's all it really needs to feel worthwhile.

The animation is simply phenomenal. It's not the most polished look, but it has a vibrant storybook style to it which creates a strong mood. It has a very stylized, dreamlike quality to it while simply being beautiful to look at.

The plot and characters are not complex. It spends most the time just ... showing us the slice of life relationship between Shiva and sensei. I think it's a good use of the limited time to express the feelings rather than explaining the world.

It's art. You can interpret your own meanings. I don't know if reading the manga would add or detract from this.

What's the point in remaking a show if the remake isn't better than the original?

The remake is nearly line for line, scene for scene identical to the 2008 show. Even the episode/chapter timings are basically the same, so you could actually watch episode 1 from the OG, episode 2 from this, ep 3 from OG, etc, with no confusion. So the main difference is a slightly different art style from a different studio. Unfortunately, the new art style is not clearly better than the old. I actually think it is a bit worse overall, though there some scenes that look a bit better.

Despite the similarities, ... there are little details which were done better in the OG than in this remake. The art captures some emotions usually better in the OG and a few details were explained better in OG. Also, I like the art in the OG more, as the remake has higher res crisp lines which look very static due to the low frame rate, and the background has too many straight lines and less interesting lighting, compared with the slightly blurrier lines in the OG which look less stationary when used with various VFX techniques. In the OG, usually there are background parts panning or filtered with shimmering parts or something which makes it look less like a static shot.

This isn't nostalgia talking, as I didn't watch the OG Spice and Wolf until this remake came out, so I watched several episodes of both right next to each other.

I'm not sure if I should rate this based on how well it stands alone as a show, or whether it is a worthy remake. If the OG didn't exist, this would be a very nice series indeed, hence the 7. But since it does very little better than the OG, there's not much reason for this to exist, except to adapt Chapter 4.

The OG series adapts chapters 1,2,3,5, while this remake adapts 1,2,3,4. Due to the similarities, you could splice them together and watch OG season 1, and eps 1-6 of season 2, then eps 20-25 of remake, and then OG season 2 7-12.

How do you make a sequel for a story that absolutely doesn't need one? Simple, you do the impossible. Nothing is out of reach for the mighty Hououin Kyouma. Despite being an unnecessary addition to the series, everything this show does adds to Steins;Gate and does not take away from it.

It's not a perfect series, but still worth a 10, because it's still better than pretty much everything else but Steins;Gate.

So if the whole series occurs in a world-line which is going to be replaced, what is there to do? Character development. A lot of character development, especially for Mayushi (who is the real hero ... of this story), but also for Okabe (who doesn't go by Kyouma anymore :(), and Daru, and new characters. Maho is a bit similar to Makise, though not a stand-in replacement as we also have Amadeus playing that role, and Maho has an inferiority complex to Makise.

Some of the plot arcs feel disjointed and arbitrarily put together, but each arc is pretty solid by itself. I can't talk in detail without spoilers. There are both thrilling parts and chill labo party scenes, and sad character moments (which are acted immaculately), similar to the original series.

One of the weaknesses is that a big plot point is explained by villain monologue, which is cheesy and stupid.

The score is the best in anime. Not "one of the best"; there are no anime with better soundtracks than Steins;Gate 0. It builds on the OST of Steins;Gate and adds even better songs. I'd point out specific banger tracks except that they are all bangers.

Honestly, a laudable attempt, but they tried to do too much with too little screen-time. They tried to squash 5 VN routes into 12 episodes, so of course sacrifices were made. It feels like Haru is speedrunning to have sex with each girl. I think it would be better if it concentrated on one girl's route, and maybe you would see a fuller development of the romance and drama. But then they would risk alienating the fans of the VN who have a different favorite route, so I understand why they did what they did. Still, since they couldn't fit all 5 routes, they took ... bits of Motoka's route and chopped it into omake sections at the end of each episode. I think this decision is quite bizarre, since it uses up quite a bit of screen-time altogether (including an additional ED) but is much less comprehensible or satisfying.

It manages to make each route (except Motoka) feel complete and we see some level of romantic development, though perhaps to save time every girl already loves Haru from the start. Within each route there is some drama that develops, and Haru and the girl has to work through some situation to proceed.

The music is outstanding. The OP is great, and there are two EDs due to the weird omake section having its own. My only gripe is the songs repeat a lot, and I wish there were more of them.

The animation is pretty nice. The sex scenes are pretty heavy on the ecchi side. I think Migiwa's scene was particularly artfully done, with the beautiful viola playing.

Sora's route seems to be quite a favorite of most MAL folks, but I can only assume it is because filthy degenerates just love the incest. My problem with it is that Sora is just such a loathsome character that I can't see anyone loving her. So that, (and not the incest) kind of puts a bad taste in my mouth at the ending.

Do we really need a training arc after all that has happened? Come on, I thought we have moved past that already. Honestly, the only thing good about Demon Slayer is the well-animated fight scenes, so who cares about some training, unless we can see some fighting during the training? Alright, we do get some fighting among the hashira, but with no stakes and lower animation, it's hard to care.

What we get is the hashira training a ton of generic nameless dudes who are all totally useless whose only purpose in life is to show off how much better Tanjiro is than them. Why do ... we waste screen time on these dudes who are clearly just npcs?

The Giyuu melodrama sub-plot was cringe. If you are going to establish that hashira are badass, then make them badass. You can't go back and forth between making them whiny bitches and supreme masters.

It does end in a banger, but the ending is just a teaser for the follow-up movies.

Holy shit the female characters suck ass. Despite Nezuko and Tamayo being of central importance plot-wise, they are treated less like characters than even the npcs in training. Kanao mentions going off to train at some point, and then we don't see her train. It's all npc dudes. We don't need to see Tanjiro training; we already know what he is capable of. We do need to see Nezuko train her new powers. Here's a little hint to writers for shounen. Boys like girl characters, so stop shoving them in a box.

As expected, the animation is very good. It's too good to be wasted on this.

It looks nice, and it sounds nice, but it is confusing as hell, at least before The Reveal. Unfortunately, it is so frustrating before The Reveal which occurs late in the series because we know there must be a reason why Xie Lian did what he did, but the show just wouldn't tell us. It almost feels like they are trolling us. After The Reveal is very satisfying, but I don't really feel like it was necessary to string us along for so long.

There's plenty of interesting action occurring in the first half. Unfortunately, much of the tension is lost because Hua Cheng is OP ... as hell, and he favors Xie Lian so much that it feels unfair. I mean, it does not feel like there has been enough development between Hua Cheng and Xie Lian for Xie Lian to deserve such devotion. I know it has been explained to some extent already in season 1, but still, all of that was ancient history, and I want to see romantic development during the course of events in the present.

We get to see Xie Lian showing a lot more power than he did in season 1. Season 1 presented him as a sort of weakling, but here we can see he is actually very strong (though not OP like Hua Cheng).

We have some really nice painted backgrounds and sumptuous character animation. The Heavenly Palace and City of Ghost are mostly 3D, but the outdoor scenes are mostly 2D with a painted look to them. Both are done well, with the City of Ghost looking very lively and interesting, full of lots of visually distinct demons.

The OP is very nice, with a different art style which somehow makes the characters look even more beautiful and emotional. The OP song is nice, too. The ED is nothing too special; background slideshow with some particle effects and music.

Not too bad. I was worried that they were going to focus on some cheesy romcom drama, but, well, it has it's surprises. It does require quite a lot of suspension of disbelief, and the amount of deus ex machina and plot armor here feels even heavier than the main series. But is it entertaining? Yeah; it's Spy x Fam after all. Is it amazing? Not really.

The animation is the same as the show. They didn't go higher quality for the movie, but the show already has great animation, so it's hard to complain.

There are some serious leaps of logic. During the course of the ... movie, I have to wonder, how are they possibly gonna explain this away? And, they just -- don't. Which is fine, but as a result, it is untenable to take any of the movie as canon.

Season 2 can be broken down into to parts. About 5 of the episodes cover the cruise ship arc, starring Yor, though Anya and Loyd get their parts in as well. It is intense, moving, and gives us a lot more development of Yor. It is the better part of the season, and is very good. It is also very violent and far more brutal than what we are used to with Spy x Fam. I would not suggest this arc for children. Yor is a total badass, but we also see her vulnerable side, and she's top tier waifu material.

The rest of the episodes ... consist of short side stories focused on different minor characters of the cast, like Frankie, Bond, Damien, Becky, Yuri. Ultimately, they aren't very important in the grand scheme of things but they provide a much needed breather from the intensity of the cruise ship arc, and they also flesh out their characters. We get to see Yuri in a positive light, and we get a better picture of the world situation. In particular, it doesn't paint East or West as a villain. The downside of these episodes is that you don't feel like there is anything is at stake with these episodes. They are pretty fun, but they are pretty much filler.

Lately there have been very high quality donghua based on manhwa webtoons, and this continues the trend. It's a well animated show with beautiful music and a heartwarming story. It's the kind of show you might want to watch with your mom. And you might want to start treating her better.

In the prologue, we are shown that the mother takes great pains to raise an unfilial boy, and on her deathbed he wishes on a star to sacrifice himself to give mom the life she deserves. In anime parents are usually absent or abusive, so we don't often get to see this kind of parental ... love and filial piety. It's a fairy tale story, with morals and magic, but with a setting and characters more grounded in the real world, which makes it much more relatable.

The show is mostly plot-driven, with characters responding to the situations that arise. A weakness is that some parts of the plot feel arbitrarily thrown in to keep things moving or create difficulties.

The character designs are very nice and have young adult human proportions. Mom is beautiful and Can is quite handsome. Can is already very filial by the beginning of the show, but his flaw is being too protective of Mom and being prone to violence. Mom hardly has flaws at all, being confident, kind, strong, and wise, but maybe brash. But the character traits don't really affect the plot much. The voice acting is good.

The music is great, with a couple good insert songs which you can find in the forum discussion below.

The ending is anime original, and is very satisfying and conclusive.

Story: 7
Animation: 9
Characters: 8
Music: 10