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I remember watching this with my aiblings when it was new. Safe to say, we didn't continue to show. It wasn't that interesting to me. It was just average. Not enough for me to drop the show, but I also didn't care to continue watching or keep up with it.

Saw some cool panels of the manga, but I ultimately didn't care to invest in this series. It wasn't that the plot of characters were bad, I was simply not invested in their character or story. From what I saw on Twitter, the manga had a set of ... really good chapters. However, it's not interesting enough for me to read 300+ chapters and watch all seasons. Plus, it didn't have a conclusion that I liked, so meh.

I originally made this review and score for the manga, but it was actually the anime that I watched.

Plot: Akame ga Kill is basically about a boy from a small village, Tatsumi, wanting to work for the capital in order to send money back to his village. His dreams are crushed when he realizes that the empire is corrupt. He joins up with Night Raid, a revolutionary army of assassins designed to fight against the empire, in hopes to getting rid of that corruption.

The Good: not much is good about this tbh, but it had a few good things. I liked the idea of ... imperial arms, that was good. Great animation and arm. The music was good.

The bad: Art and music was wasted on this crap. Seriously, they gave this crap good animation but actual good manga are struggling to get halfway decent anime...

For one, the pacing was bad. It's such a basic story about overthrowing the corrupt government of rich assholes, and they still manage to fuck it up. It's hard to really care about the characters because you barely even get a chance to know them. The characters themselves were cardboard cutouts of various stereotypes. You have the average protagonist guy, the cold assassin, the tsundere, the leader person, the wild big breasted fighter girl, the wild older bro type, the clumsy smart girl with glasses, and the perverted comedic guy. At least, I think the guy with the green hair was supposed to be the funny pervert stereotype; they didn't flesh him out enough. Let that sink in -they didn't flesh out a character enough for him to be a STEREOTYPE. Main villain was trash.

Tone/Genre: Aside from the one-dimensional characters, the tone and genre is off. This anime doesn't know what it wants to be. Does it want to be a dark fantasy? A comedy and action anime? A romantic comedy? A harem? Pick a genre and stick to it! For example: the main character's friends died, and a few seconds later we have slapstick of him joining the rebellion group. By the way, what I just wrote sounds like a major spoiler, but it's in episode one...

Back in the day, we (Fujoshi) were in the trenches. There were some good BL manga, but they adapted a lot of slop. Aside from obviously bad series like Boku no Pico, Okane ga Nai has to be one of the worst BL series ever. And I don't mean the most unpleasant, because it gets worse when you delve into manga. I mean in a way where this manga had every trope that people hated in BL series. SA, ultra girly uke, extreme size difference with the seme being 7 feet tall and the uke being 4 feet rall, this ... ultra girly and feminine twink deluding himself into thinking he's straight, "I 🍇 because I care", the uke having a 🍆 so small it's barely even there, the weird anatomy and art, etc.

It's inspiring how much this series fails. It's like the OG ragebait of yaoi. If this were made today, I'm sure there would be an m-preg omegaverse subplot.

I remember randomly finding this series as a kid on YouTube. Those were the days... Watching anime on YouTube. Clicking on things due to curiosity. It's how I discovered a lot of random OVAs as a kid.

Hindsight, I was too young to be watching this. I remember clicking on it, and it unsettled me. It was the first graphic series that I had seen. Most had sexual situations and gratuitous fanservice, but they never explicitly showed the act. This series was the first one I found that showed that, and it shocked me. I ... remember clicking off of it like "wtf was that?", and then finishing it due to morbid curiosity... in hindsight, the series was trash. The only reason I sort of remember the series is due to the explicit nature of it. Remembering some of the trash BL I watched and then going through the recommended series.

Do I recommend it? No. Do you see the score? It's very bad.

Number 1 on MAL, huh? I disagree. Not that Frieren isn't a good anime. I did rate it a 8. I don't think it beats Rose of Versailles. Sorry...

Frieren came at the right time, for most people. Isekai slop was strong and most mainstream Shounen series had that "cocaine pacing". Frieren was a fantasy series that broke away from the numerous isekai slop series. That isn't to say that every isekai is slop. There are some good isekai series. It's just that there's a large number of isekai series, and a lot of them ... are bad. I can see why fantasy fans were annoyed with the isekai craze. Frieren felt like a breath of fresh air. It was a fantasy series that wasn't an isekai and had quality writing. Unlike a lot of other modern Shounen series, Frieren allowed itself to breathe. Even with the time skips, it never felt rushed or jarring.

Speaking of pacing, another thing is that the show never felt boring. A lot of people do criticize Frieren for being slow and boring, but I disagree. I think the character interactions were funny, introspective, and charming. Seeing familiar background characters or even just random people doing stuff in the background makes the world feel lived in. It makes Frieren feel alive. It reminds me of Dungeon Meshi in that respect. Personally, I like Dungeon Meshi more, but Frieren is great as well.

The weakness of Frieren is similar to the strength, which is the characters. People have a hard time believing that this is a Shounen, which I don't understand. Perverted character trope, hidden badass trope, poorly developed romance, etc. It's very obviously a Shounen. Though credit again for allowing itself to breathe.

I say all that to say, Frieren is a great series that I recommend. A few weaknesses here and there, but a great series overall.

Basara is a roller-coaster from start to finish. I'm actually shocked that they never made a full anime adaptation of this series, because it was very popular in Japan and it has broad appeal. There's slowburn romance, an ensemble cast, fantasy worldbuilding, war, politics, and it can get dark and light hearted at times. It has a strong female protagonist that isn't a shallow girlboss, and the themes are relevant to current events today. I think if this series had a good remake, and was marketed properly, it could be a big thing. It stands the test of time. ... Maybe the art is a bit outdated, but it has that cool retro vibe going on.

I highly recommend this series and the anime adaptation. Even if the anime is just 13 episodes, it's a good series to watch. I definitely recommend the manga, because it's a masterpiece.

If you've watched the anime, then you're not missing out on much. In fact, you'd be getting an inferior product. Though if you didn't watch the original anime, then the movie on its own is fine.

I think a movie remake was a mistake. It should've been a series. Either an OVA/ONA, or an actual TV series. Too much was cut in order for it to fit into a movie. I agree that Fersen was too present, but that's just a bias of mine. I never liked Fersen. I never saw it for him. Unbiased opinion, he had the right amount of ... screen time in a vacuum. The issue was that the movie was so short, that his time seemed too long; also my bias since I don't like Fersen at all.

They also cut out the interesting characters. I remember seeing a rant somewhere that women were in charge of the script and they didn't appreciate people writing off the movie. My honest opinion... I'm sorry but Dezaki was much better. I do agree with Shoujo feminists sometimes. I think that Shoujo is looked down upon, and it's due to sexism. However, they invite lashings by hyping up mediocrity. And trying to frame it as a feminism issue, simply because women allegedly worked on the movie, is disingenuous. Especially since the women who worked on the movie cut out several iconic female characters. They cut out Jeanne, Madame DuBarry, Rosalie, Polignac, and Charlotte. Iconic and valuable female characters, and they were present in Dezaki's anime. Sorry Shoujo girlies, but a man made a better adaptation. It is what it is. It's the same with Revolutionary Girl Utena, where they try to blame Ikuhara for Chiho Saito's manga being a worse version. Yes, Ikuhara was trash for the miscommunication, but Chiho still wrote the story. Her art is good, but the way she wrote the characters was yikes. Especially with her low-key simping of Touga of all characters. But she's a feminist queen /s

Rant aside, I do think the movie has merits on its own. It's a great standalone movie that you can enjoy, if you don't want to dedicate a lot of time into watching the original anime. Personally, I think the original anime still holds up. Though I do understand why they wanted to remake it. This particular art style matches the manga a lot more. The OG anime was stripped of the extravagance and frilly flowers. The OG anime was too masculine. This was a lot more feminine, which matched the anime. I still have some gripes about the art here. Yellow lighting was a choice... Especially since a lot of the characters were blond. They should've down blue/white lighting, like the OG anime.

Similar to Lady Georgie in that I would have to force myself to keep reading if I wanted to finish this series. That's a sign that I didn't really care for it, which I don't. If you have to force yourself to read something, then you don't actually like it. Rule of thumb.

And the thing is... I like this work on paper. Steamy secretary x boss is a staple trope for a reason, and they were attractive characters. Him being a hot vampire added to the appeal. Unfortunately, they were just boring to me. I ... just felt nothing. I don't know.

I'll say that this anime isn't outright bad, so much as it's just boring. Boring anime are a bit harder to quit because it's not like the quality of the show is bad, but it's painfully boring. I found myself almost dreading watching the show. I had planned on forcing myself to at least watch 3 episodes until I realized something. Why am I forcing myself to watch this show? I pondered that while watching this episode, and I just decided to drop it. Gave it this last episode, and I dropped it. If something is really enjoyable ... to you, then you'll never have to force yourself to watch it. You'll just enjoy it. I recently watched A Sign of Affection, and I never forced myself to watch that show. The exact opposite, I looked forward to watching it, and I quickly jumped into the manga. Same with Basara, and I'm still reading it, but I'm going at a great pace. I even have to stop myself from reading Basara because it's so good.

Whatever, I'm rambling. I say all of that to say, the show was just boring. I'm going to watch Candy Candy, eventually, and I hope it's not as boring as this series.

I enjoyed the anime. Though my gripes are similar to my gripes with Library Wars, and that's the censorship. Of course, there's still some depictions that show Japan in a bad light, with the words and actions of the soldiers.

With that complaint, the series is beautifully tragic. The ghibli art style works for this, and the censorship with the flowers makes it more impactful. I don't like censorship of the overall message of the story, but the flowers were a nice touch. It added a surreal element to the movie, made it seem like the MC was ... disassociating. The flowers emphasize the trauma that the MC has to cope with. The propaganda and always listening to the teachers shows another aspect of war.

I do recommend this short film. It's short and to the point. It tells a tragic story. It even has a plot twist at the end.