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Nov 12, 2019
Konosuba: Legend of Crimson (because mercy me I'm not typing out the entire Japanese title two more times) is pretty much everything I thought it would be: more raunchy humor, more insane characters screaming at each other, more lampooning of stock Light Novel fantasy tropes - all in all, more Konosuba. While there's a virtue to being surprised, there's also joy to be had in knowing what to expect walking in, and walking out wholly satisfied.
This would be a pretty difficult recommendation to anyone who has not already ready the Light Novels or watched the previous two seasons and OVAs. This isn't a filler movie
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adventure, this is the continuation of the story, and it expects familiarity with Konosuba's character dynamics and comedic rhythm going in. It also expects you to be okay with the fact that Megumin is given the spotlight this time around, as Aqua and Darkness take a pretty pronounced backseat.
And if you've gotten this far, you damn well should be okay with that.
Konosuba: Legend of Crimson follows the lovable lecherous loser Kazuma and his misfit party as they venture to Megumin's home village, a town populated entirely by supremely powerful autistic weirdos just like her. The jokes come at a pretty rapid pace and the hit rate is higher than the show's usual ratio, probably because the source material here is packed into ninety minutes rather than spread out over the course of 6ish episodes. J.C. Staff managed to nail the show's expressively slapdash visual style, and there are some real choice bits of animation to ogle. It's a genuine treat to see Konosuba get the big screen treatment.
If I had any real complaints, it's that the movie perhaps wears out its welcome towards the end. The final action sequence feels like two climaxes piled on top of each other, with less time made for humor, and it is a bit exhausting. Konosuba kind of treads this line of both poking fun at Light Novel isekai wish fulfillment stories and straight up being one, and it's in the action setpieces like this that it teeters closer to the latter category, losing the charm of the former in the process. Luckily the fight's ultimate conclusion gets a big laugh, and the actual ending manages to hit a genuinely sweet note, so that I still left more than satisfied.
Konosuba: Legend of Crimson makes a running gag of how "our guy" Kazuma is repeatedly traumatized by the near-sexual encounters thrust upon him and it's a great laugh. I don't know if Scorsese would call this cinema, but it is at least a good time for fans of the series - and, for those curious, maybe a good reason to check out one of the funniest anime series in recent memory.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 30, 2019
Always a sad affair when you go into a film expecting to fall in love and find yourself mostly disconnected. The Wind Rises showcases Miyazaki still at the height of his directorial powers; it is gorgeously rendered, and the man does not miss one opportunity to put his love for the intricate mechanics of planes on full display. It was also novel to hear Hideaki Anno move from director to seiyuu, and even better to discover that Anno truly gives a great, distinct performance (as expected of the master).
The actual story itself, however, was a struggle for me. This is a film about a man
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driven by a single-minded obsession to design and perfect aircraft, even if his only avenue of doing so - contributing to the Japanese war machine - is in direct contradiction to his peaceful ideals. It sounds like the perfect internal conflict for a character, but the problem for me was that it did not feel like there was any conflict at all. There are oblique references to wartime destruction, but they are almost entirely peripheral, and Jiro is really entirely blase to the collateral consequences of his dreams (whether it be to the world or to his sickly wife). On paper, I can understand the decision to keep the presentation of the consequences oblique to match Jiro's own perspective, but the problem is that it gives his character very little conflict, and it therefore gives the movie very little narrative drive for so much of its runtime. I would never have thought to describe a Miyazaki film as plodding, but here we are.
The Wind Rises feels like it only really gets going in the last thirty or so minutes, in which Jiro works tirelessly to design his magnum opus as his wife's health deteriorates. "Finally," I thought, "drama!" Unfortunately, as soon as Jiro completes his plane (you might know it as "the Zero"), the movie comes to a complete stop. There is no time for Jiro to process the costs of his lifelong obsession, no time for him to grieve or reconcile his artistic achievement with the horror he's unleashed upon the world with anything more than the briefest acknowledgement. These were the moments I was aching for all film long, moments that would let us truly understand and empathize with this man, or at least give us insight into what surely must have been the struggle at the core of his being post-war. Unfortunately, Miyazaki seemed to have no interest in such things, or was perhaps too enamored with the subject to explore any deeper. In fact, if I didn't know any better, I would genuinely think that somebody had accidentally cropped the real ending off of my copy. It is jarring and wholly unsatisfying.
Maybe I will have to come back to this one, but reading 5-star review after 5-star review to see what others saw in this movie, I have found nothing to explain away my disappointment. A weak Miyazaki film is still a noteworthy project with a litany of details to scrutinize and discuss, but The Wind Rises just felt bereft of the heart and soul that I've found in all his other works thus far.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 19, 2019
Trigger, I think we need to go on a break.
Now, I love the studio's punk-like, devil-may-care attitude. It was so cool to see an upstart animation studio so flagrantly try to play by its own rules, especially a studio with that Gainax pedigree. But over time I've come to realize it's less that I like what the studio has actually made, and more that I just like the attitude of the studio itself. I loved the original Little Witch Academia shorts and Space Patrol Luloco, but everything else has, at best, left me wanting.
And nowhere is that more the case than Promare, perhaps the Triggerest
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Trigger production. It's a blend of themes, imagery, plot points, character archetypes, etc. that the studio has mined before squeezed into a 110 minute package. Here more than ever, though, it all feels so surface level.
The visuals are, of course, fucking sick, with this blend of 2D and stylized-3D that reminded me of Into the Spider-Verse's splendor. The opening ten minutes put it all on display in this kinetic and fun action sequence, but that's where it peaks because afterward the script completely falls apart. Goddamn is the dialogue so clunky and mechanical, all in service to a plot that's propelled only by inelegant exposition dumps. Goddamn is most of the cast utterly expendable, and the rest two dimensional (save the villain, at least). Goddamn does this feel like a 12 episode series crammed into less than two hours, with so much happening but very little having any impact. This doesn't even feel like its own film; this is like a compilation film for a show that never got made.
Wait, no, that show was made 12 years ago and it was called Gurren Lagann, but lifting Kamina's design and the entire set-up to the show's second half isn't enough to recapture the magic (and this certainly isn't the first time they've tried). So blatantly aping your past work just makes the shortcomings of the present that much more obvious. Perhaps I'm also just tired of idiot heroes saving the world from assured destruction by sheer force of belief, rather than letting the pragmatic villain have a point, because god forbid we let the characters wrestle with an actual moral dilemma.
The finale is a spectacle that's at least worth a watch on Youtube, but I was so disengaged by then that I could not enjoy it as much as I so clearly should have. It's a shame that such great direction and style and visual-sense are all wasted on a cruddy foundation - the script. I love what you want to be, Trigger, but until you seriously invest in the writing of your works (or Imaishi just goes full, Dead Leaves-style gonzo from here on out), I think I should be seeing other studios for a while.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 25, 2019
Never thought I'd be defending the seasonal Isekai, but some of you dorks are savage - and unfairly so, in this case. "That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime" (or "Slime Time Live" for short) is by no means a perfect show, or a particularly deep piece of fiction, or necessarily the best at anything it does, but there are strong positives and touches of craft that I think are being glossed over.
Slime Time Live is set-up as the typical Isekai power fantasy, where an audience stand in dies so he can be reincarnated into a magical land where his total loserdom is actually
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a source of immense power (along with his literal immense power). I've seen a few criticisms of this show just stop at this description, as if that alone is damning, and I think that's the wrong way to approach this enterprise. To paraphrase Roger Ebert, "A show is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it."
And the how is the crucial thing, because Slime Time Live (at least in the beginning) uses the basic Isekai foundations and hits the beats well without taking itself too seriously. While the show dips its toes in the drama well (to admittedly so-so results), it generally keeps its tone light and even tongue-in-cheek. This is greatly communicated by the visuals. Not only is the animation consistently well-done (and well above par compared to most of its contemporaries), but Studio 8Bit continually includes great little visual touches and artstyle shifts. The studio's efforts reflect what seems to be genuine enthusiasm for the source material, and it really gives the whole production a big boost.
Another of the show's boons comes from its main character. Where a lot of these protagonists come off as vapid husks, Rimuru has enough personality to make him a decently compelling lead, and I think part of that comes from the smart decision to make him a decidedly older man (and not just deaging him either, a la Death March). His manager-like approach to problem solving whatever issue happens to be in front of him, and the way it attracts an increasing load of responsibilities like any real workplace, is a fun twist on the aimlessness often exhibited by Isekai protagonists. It's my understanding that Rimuru's VA is a relative newcomer to the industry, but she manages to infuse a lot of personality into the character through her performance. It's hopefully an auspicious start to a great career.
Slime Time Live also benefits from its supporting cast. No one here is particularly deep or original, but the show puts in the work of developing the side characters enough to keep them from feeling one-note. Take a personal favorite, Gabiru. The incompetent blowhard is a well-worn character archetype, but I really appreciated the little touches (how his well-meaning yet sycophantic soldiers build up his ego across the arc, how he justifies his coup of the kingdom, how the strategy he employs against the orcs is actually sound and he is undone because no one informed him of their ability to assimilate the dead, etc.). None of this was necessary to tell the story, but there's still a level of thought that is just missing from most other seasonal Isekai cash-ins, and if we're being honest, a lot of other seasonal anime in general.
Now, all this being said, the show is certainly strongest in its first cour. As Slime Time Live goes on and the plot starts to expand, its tongue-in-cheek sensibilities start to get a little drowned out under the escalating world-building and increasingly perfunctory threats. That's a fair issue to take umbrage with. However, I also think it would be unfair to say that the show's charm is lost entirely, or that the gradual regression to the genre mold completely counteracts the strengths of its first half. Heck, even as just another entry in the Isekai genre, Slime Time Live is still better crafted than most of the cheap, effortless, and disposable trash heaps that are its contemporaries.
Seriously, if you want to see what a "1" looks like, go watch Death March. Or better yet, don't do that at all, and just take my word for it.
I love dunking on trash, especially of the Isekai-variety, so it's not like I don't get the appeal. However, I think there's also a zealousness to be the first to dunk, and to dunk the hardest, so much so that it can tempt us to not really contemplate the show right in front of us. Complaints about elements like, say, Ranga quickly getting over the death of his father at Rimuru's hands might have more merit in a self-serious dramatic series (like Overlord), but that's not what Slime Time Live is. Watching anime isn't a Space Jam; you shouldn't have to stretch so hard to get your dunks. It's a very easy way to miss out on the better qualities of what you're watching.
Overall, Slime Time Live is a capably-executed entry in the Isekai genre and a perfectly enjoyable show on its own merits. If you don't have any fondness for this type of story, the show probably won't convince you, but it at least has enough personality and fun touches to give it some charm. Give it a watch; if you're not careful, you might just enjoy it.
And so ends my review, aka "That Time I Wrote 1000 Words Defending A Show I Thought Was Just Fine."
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 29, 2018
Death March is the most pro-slavery tract of fiction produced since the end of the American Civil War. Death March's main character, Satou, is the most insidiously passive protagonist I think I have ever encountered. When thrown into a world with a legal and normalized institution of slavery, which includes the prostitution of children, Satou is apathetic at best – and eagerly complicit at worst. Satou is a fucking sociopath.
Let’s explore this.
Satou is thrust into a fantasy world (with inconsistent video game elements because there is no spark of originality to be found here) and, of course, he’s totally overpowered from the get-go. He soon
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enters a city where slavery is accepted, slaves are peddled alongside food items and clothing, and slaves are publicly beaten. The people of this city have no problems showcasing their vehement racism towards “inferior” races. This place is fantasy as imagined by Adolf Hitler, a setting even grimmer than Berserk. None of this phases our hero.
He may not care to watch abuse, and he may think the abusive slave owner is a jerk, but that’s where it ends. He questions nothing about this society or its morals. The problem with the abusive slave owner isn’t that he’s a slave owner – it’s that he’s not a nice slave owner.
Events conspire to give Satou his own cadre of slave girls (Pochi and Tama, who are 10 years old, and Liza). He adapts quickly to giving orders and having them at his mercy. When they reach the surface, he immediately purchases two more slave girls for his harem: Lulu, 14, and Arisa, 11. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?
I’ll be generous and concede that he needed to order Liza, Pochi, and Tama around because of extraordinary circumstances. Once the danger has passed, however, at no point does he ever consider setting them free. In fact, he seems to think that keeping them as slaves is the NICE thing to do.
Satou, delivering the very last line in Episode 5: "They don't deserve to be treated like slaves, but they feel more at ease that way."
Oh, well, that makes it so much better. It’s so comforting to know he’s considering the feelings of his human chattel.
When Liza, Pochi, and Toma are denied room and board because of their race/species, they are graciously given a spot in the stable – like animals. Satou callously leaves them to sleep in a sty while keeping the bed for himself and his two human slaves.
When Lulu and Arisa (again, 14 and 11 respectively) present themselves naked, he is utterly unfazed by the prospect of child prostitution. His only response: “Oh, they have that kind of slavery here, too.” There is no hint of disgust, or even discomfort. The only problem is that it’s just not his bag.
And you know, for as many times as Satou insists “I’m not a lolicon,” it’s a little suspicious how he keeps finding himself surrounded by naked and sexually available children. Maybe he just gets off on exerting his dominance over them – choosing what they do, what they eat, and dressing them up like dolls. Then again, he kisses a prepubescent dryad girl not once, but twice in Episode 8. The show tries to excuse this by having the little girl proclaim her need for MP – but our hero doesn’t even think of just handing over an MP potion, which was shown to be effective just one episode earlier. Perhaps Satou only feels emboldened to act on his pedophilic urges when he’s alone.
Moving from his moral transgressions, Satou is stupid in ways too stupid for stupid people. He is granted a basically unlimited pool of skill points, but instead of leveling every useful skill immediately, he only applies skill points the moment he needs them. For a computer programmer, he seems to lack any sense of long-term thinking.
Satou is solely out for his own self-gratification, unconcerned about the heinous state of the world or the evil that plagues it. All of his so-called “heroic” and “selfless” acts revolve around little girls or little girls that resemble house pets. To quote The Criminal Personality, by Samuel Yochelson and Stanton Samenow, “The criminal's sentimentality reveals itself in compassion for babies and pets.” Notice how little of a shit he seems to give about anyone not a girl or past puberty. His niceness is all a hollow, shallow front, a mask for the uncaring monster underneath.
Seriously, go look up the DSM-V guidelines for Antisocial Personality Disorder. These are the criteria professionals use to determine if someone is a sociopath – and Satou hits all the necessary marks. Satou is a less outwardly criminal, yet more unfeeling and callous take on Tony Soprano. Hell, I'd rather spend an evening with Hannibal Lecter - at least he has a personality and a voice that doesn't sound like nails on a chalkboard.
So why is Satou our protagonist? Does the show realize how monstrous he is? You can center a story on an antihero or even a villainous sociopath, but Death March seems totally unaware of how Satou comes across. Instead, it’s littered with scenes of Satou feeding, clothing, and bathing his slaves, as if that will make us like and admire him. I would hope that any morally sound person living in our time is going to see "doesn't treat slaves like shit" as the bare fucking minimum for goodness – but for the creators Death March, that’s all it takes.
This show is a moral trash fire, and it’s kind of fascinating in that regard. Otherwise, all you have is a sparsely animated, thinly written, and shamelessly lazy addition to the overstuffed isekai genre. I would hope people are only watching this kind of stuff ironically – but I’m not so optimistic. Thinking that this is marketed to children makes me want to throw up.
It doesn’t deserve any more analysis. It deserves to be buried and forgotten – the sooner, the better.
End of Series Update: Satou acquires two more harem slaves, a prepubescent elf child and Violet Evergarden. He heroically saves a horde of submissive, busty blondes and helps another prepubescent child. One of the last scenes of the entire show is two ten year old girls literally licking a clear, goopy liquid out of his palm.
It's pure garbage from start to finish.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Feb 1, 2018
Violet Evergarden feels like the anime equivalent of Oscar bait. It's big and sweeping, trying desperately to convince you that its sappy story really means something, but it's ultimately shallow and entirely surface level. Everything that really matters, the meat of the story - its characters, its themes, its ideas - are so basic that it actually brings down the visual presentation. You're wasting this incredibly detailed art on this story, of all things? Why?
Violet Evergarden is a story about a girl who is some sort of superpowered golem woman (?) who somehow has just been given robotic arms (??) despite living in a setting
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where most people are illiterate and typewriters are still the new hotness (???). She was used as a soldier, but now she's a glorified traveling secretary, writing letters for others in the hopes that she can answer one nagging question: What is love? (Baby don't hurt me)
There are problems with this setup. The setting is a mess, and I have been struggling to try and get a grasp on it. I'm all for alternate reality settings based on Europe (Fullmetal Alchemist nails it) but the schizophrenic tech levels and people's relatively muted reactions to Violet's robotic arms makes it hard to get a sense of anything. There’s other weird inconsistencies, like a scene where characters apologetically bow in a Japanese manner or when a character gets Chinese takeout, paper box and all. Violet herself is also confounding, as the show has yet to make her origin clear, and while that might sound like the setup for a mystery, it certainly doesn't feel like one when every character seems to take her existence for granted.
Violet's character is also a major hindrance. If you've seen one "robot wants to be human" movie, then you've seen all she has to offer. She's dull and monotone and utterly uninteresting to watch because she’s got nothing else to her. I can literally summarize her character in two words: "Muh Major." The emotional core of her arc is her relationship with her now-dead Major, but it's hard to care when they seem to be dragging out Violet's discovery of his death and we only see him in quick flashbacks. His story seems a lot more interesting than anything going on in the present; it's a shame the whole show couldn't have just been set around him as he trained Violet.
She's a weak anchor for the show, and the rest of the characters around her are even worse. For a show that presents itself so ostentatiously, it's really jarring when all of her coworkers are immature, one-note anime cliches that could be from any generic shounen or slice of life show. There's no chemistry among the cast, either, so I have absolutely no interest in learning their "deep and mysterious backstories". Episode 4 was probably the best so far because it actually fleshed one of the cast members out, but her story was predictable and thin so it's not like it makes her all that much more interesting. If that’s the level of quality I have to expect from the rest, I’m not holding my breath.
You can have all the pretty visuals in the world, and some of these landscapes really are gorgeous, but if you don't have a good story or characters to carry it through, what's the point?
And actually, I do want to take aim at the story's visuals - or, rather, the directing. I don't think enough people are ragging on this point, but this is not a well-directed anime. There are so many laughably overwrought sequences that it feels as if the show is desperately overcompensating. I was giggling during the opening of the first episode when Violet's letter flies out of her hand and then proceeds to fly around the city in GRAND, MAJESTIC shots until we've apparently gone from the country to the motherfucking ocean. It's like the opening shot of the feather in Forrest Gump, except whereas in Gump that feather is a visual metaphor for the course of his existence, in Violet Evergarden it's just a way too obvious attempt to impress the audience.
Another galling example is in episode 4. Violet gives another character a curtsy. This is not an important interaction, she's basically just saying hi, and there is nothing pivotal about the moment. Despite the mundanity of the gesture, however, we suddenly get a million cuts and the animation goes into maximum overdrive as a massive gust of wind causes her dress to flutter like the show is announcing, "This is the most important thing ever!" It's completely over the top. Look, being over the top can be great, but it's all about tone, and it totally does not gel with the feel of that particular scene and the general "serious" tone the show so desperately wants to convey.
The directing is a mess because it never seems to know when to stop or when to pull it back. It’s as if the director is convinced that if you make it look epic enough, then you trick people into thinking it’s actually deep and resonant. Instead, it has all the emotional resonance of a fucking Michael Bay product.
And while I'm bitching, can I bitch about the soundtrack? The musical choices (big, blaring orchestras) sometimes come in at the most inappropriate times, or the music is mixed so poorly as to drown out the characters' dialogue. The ED is complete trash, and sounds as if the singer dared herself to perform the song entirely through her nose. From Kyoto Animation, who usually nail the soundtracks and sound designs of their shows, this is just baffling.
Ultimately, Violet Evergarden’s biggest sin is that it’s mostly boring. Everything this show has to offer has been done a million times better elsewhere. Even the “sakuga” isn’t all that enthralling because, in the end, it’s in service to nothing. I can appreciate moving wallpaper as a screensaver, but I’m not going to enjoy watching it for 24 minute chunks. I guess I’ll keep watching to see if it ends up going anywhere, mostly because I don’t want to think Kyoto Animation would fuck up this badly, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend this show to anyone else.
Maybe I’ll be wrong. Maybe it’ll get better. And maybe I’ll win the lottery and they’ll finally announce Nichijou Season 2 and Donald Trump will fulfill his campaign promise of making anime great again. Fingers crossed, everybody!
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 5, 2018
Just five days into 2018 and Masaaki Yuasa sets the tone for anime discussion for the rest of the goddamned year. Shine on you crazy, unfettered diamond.
I had no knowledge of Devilman going in. I knew nothing of the story, the characters, or its now-obvious impact on manga and anime. All I knew was this was a Yuasa joint, and that was enough to get me on board. For the first few episodes, I was wondering what drew someone like him to this Biblical-themed superhero/antihero story - boy, did that become clear later on.
On the tin, this is the story of an innocent, kind-hearted young
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man who fuses with a demon to become Devilman - the world's sole protector against a secret demonic horde. From the get-go, however, the show asks us to wonder if this is a world worth protecting - a place already corrupted by rampant poverty, discrimination, and hedonism. What starts as a battle between a good bad-guy and badder bad-guys ramps up to the ultimate battle of good and evil. There are revelations, if you catch my drift.
While some of these may be nothing new (even when Devilman was first published), the presentation of Crybaby gives it a very distinct personality. I can only imagine Yuasa fought back a raging art-boner when given Netflix's carte-blanche on content - this is a show that doesn't know the meaning of "holding back." On display: Tits, dicks, breasts, semen, vaginas, sex, gay and straight, drugs, blood orgies, bloodshed, massacres, and some of the most gruesome body horror this side of John Carpenter's The Thing. If you are squeamish, there is no censor to save you. The show revels in debauchery as much as its villainous demons.
However, given the themes and subject matter, this all feels entirely appropriate. Crybaby is still very focused on its characters, and this graphic content informs the world and the events that beset them. The show also (mostly) knows where and when to pull back; it doesn't need blood or sex to keep the viewer's attention. Track and field is a surprisingly prominent element, and a girl's envy-fueled determination to become the best mixed-relay runner manages to be one of the most compelling storylines.
The show makes you care about the characters and makes each of the tragedies that befall them hit like a motherfucker. Some scenes are damn near heartwrenching, aided by Yuasa's distinctly expressive animation. Even the villain's end is rather tragic - and perfectly fitting.
Crybaby is pretty openly cynical regarding human nature, but it doesn't descend into wallowing in nihilism. There's actually some heart, and maybe a few hints at hope here and there. The show makes an effort to be timely, and while we'll have to wait to see how many of these efforts hold up over the years, from where I stand it seems well done. It doesn't descend into partisan bickering or blame-naming, but current events weigh heavy on the setting and the overall message. Everyone has some guilt in our sad state of affairs - and everyone has a moral obligation to turn the other cheek. (This from a show where a guy wet dreams so hard he paints his ceiling with spunk.)
Enough gushing. Crybaby is rather messy, and not just in its art style/animation (which can be rather inconsistent, and requires the viewer to be on board). The pacing is relentless, carrying the viewer through at breakneck speed. So much is jam packed into 10 episodes, and some story elements feel a little glossed over or undeveloped as a result. Sometimes events just HAPPEN; for example, a certain character's home explodes, and then in the next episode he is totally fine and the culprit is explained away with a single line. Without having read the manga, I assume some of these things made more sense there and just weren't given enough time to breathe here. Crybaby seems like it could've benefited from another episode or two.
Also, while I am all for gore and violence and whatnot in my anime, Crybaby sometimes rides a line between what's appropriate and what's gratuitous in its more dramatic scenes. Major character deaths are sometimes over the top in presentation, which almost undermines their impact. It mostly didn't bother me, but I could imagine other viewers not being so charitable.
For a more granular point, the rules of this setting are, at times, unclear. How exactly does one become possessed by a demon? There's an answer given, but it's obviously dubious and there's nothing else for us to go on. It doesn't break the plot or anything, but it's still a bit confusing.
Finally, one character's arc stands as an exception to my general gushing. I don't want to spoil anything, but his defection to the ranks of the bad guys feels random, and he is dispatched so quickly that there's no impact. I guess I lost what the arc of his character was going for; his sudden change of heart muddies the water. Maybe it was there for some allegorical purpose, or it's better explained in the manga, but it ultimately underwhelmed me, especially when so many of the other characters' arcs are so captivating.
These flaws are mostly surface blemishes. Despite my ignorance regarding the manga, Crybaby feels like this manages the delicate balance of honoring the original while doing its own thing. This is a Yuasa work through and through, but his passion for the material shines. It's not my favorite Yuasa show, but it's one I very much enjoyed.
Netflix should also be applauded for funding something so bold and uncompromising. It's an experiment I sincerely hope pays off for them - and, perhaps, encourages other studios to branch out.
Or maybe they'll learn the wrong lesson and pump out a vile, sex-laden version of Astro Boy. Either way, we win.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 13, 2017
I was really enjoying this slow burning, contemplative story about people drifting apart over time and unrequited love until it got interrupted by a fucking music video and then just stopped.
This movie doesn't have an ending, or any sort of closure or resolution. There is no catharsis for the audience. Instead, after 55 minutes, we are treated to an abrupt musical montage largely filled with scenes and imagery we've already seen set to a jarringly dissonant pop song. It is an utterly baffling artistic decision and I am scratching my head wondering how anyone could think concluding the film this way would be satisfying.
I mean,
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say what you want about the tenets of the Garden of World's out of nowhere melodramatic, soppy ending scene, dude, at least it's an ending.
The film is gorgeously drawn and wonderfully animated, and I think the second "episode" is actually quite moving, but if this was all it had to say, why even bother? It almost feels like wasted effort. I wouldn't say don't watch it, because even if it's ultimately a misfire, it's at least a higher caliber of misfire, but for something from "the next Miyazaki" this is a real goddamned letdown.
In case you can't tell, I'm still mad. I may always be mad. This is who I am now. Thank you, Makoto Shinkai. Thank you for what you've done to me.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 22, 2017
"If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." - Some anime bad guy, probably.
Well, I've gazed into this abyss long enough. I might get more enjoyment or value from staring at a literal black pit than watching another episode of this plodding, interminable slog of a manga adaptation.
Made In Abyss is enticing enough at the start. The art style, which reminds me of something like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or Studio Ghibli's projects, is right up my alley. While I could take or leave the OP, the ED is catchy as hell (especially when those claps hit, my God). The
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story's setting is probably its greatest strength, and I was interested in learning more about the Abyss, its inhabitants, and the mysteries it holds after the first episode. Even the characters were initially decent enough for me to want to see more of them. Hell, the second episode is basically a bunch of adults telling the MC in quick succession "Your mom's fucking dead, kiddo." How could I resist? What could go wrong?
The answer: The pacing. The painfully slow, drawn out, mind-numbing, meandering, excitement-killing pacing. That's what could go wrong.
I think the first warning sign was how it took three entire episodes to actually get into the abyss. Now, I'm not saying everything has to be all action, all the time, and there's always value in a good build up, but that felt like wasted time when so much of those episodes were spent on (seemingly) superfluous characters. You want to establish the setting along with Riko and Regu's motivations, sure, but it felt like belaboring the point to the point of tedium.
But while that at least served a narrative purpose, the following episodes utterly crash and burn. For a show that tries to tell us there's some sort of urgency, the pacing sure as hell doesn't reflect that. Worse, the beginning of every episode is taken up by an unnecessary, minutes long recap (a debilitating case of One Piece Syndrome). Then, to add insult to injury, it starts relying on cheap cliffhangers and cliche shonen bullshit as if desperate to convince you that, yes, things are actually happening and this is worth your time.
"Oh, we killed 15 minutes faffing about Ozen's house? Well, now she's acting weird. Spooky, right? Bam. Cliffhanger."
"Here's a protracted scene of Ozen just beating the shit out of Regu and nearly shooting Riko with an incineration cannon at point blank range. How do our heroes get out of this? Ha, they don't, she was just testing them! That doesn't feel like a cheap cop-out at all, does it?"
If Riko and Regu were dimensional enough, maybe they could carry the story, but they feel pretty flimsy as characters. I don't dislike them, but I'm not compelled to keep tuning in to see what happens to them next. A lot of people hype the show by mentioning how dark the manga supposedly gets, but if I'm not invested in the characters, then what does it matter to me if fucked up shit happens to them later down the line?
Look, I don't necessarily mind a show that's slow paced if it feels deliberate and purposeful. The Sopranos is 86 episodes of Tony Soprano going to therapy, dealing with his family, and eating gabagool, and that's perhaps the greatest television program of all time; its length serves the story because it is a complex and meditative character study. Similarly, you don't need action or fights for an episode to leave an impact. NGE Episode 15 is probably my favorite of the whole series, and that one features no angels or mech battles, and is instead "just" about Misato going to a wedding.
So understand that when I say nothing fucking happens in this show, I'm not asking for mindless action and instant gratification. However, I need something of substance - character, plot, a worthwhile mystery - and I'm not getting any of that.
Now, I've got nothing to say about the source material, because I've heard great things about the manga. I hope that this is just a lackluster adaptation that's failed to translate what makes the manga work into the anime format. However, I'm not going to continue watching a bad adaptation just because the original is supposed to be good. I'll just get around to reading the manga instead.
This show isn't the worst thing ever. It's pretty, and it's got a pretty good hook, but it's totally insubstantial and not worth your time. Instead of 13 episodes of Made in Abyss, you could watch any number of more worthwhile shows instead. Believe me when I say you'd have more fun playing cave explorer.
And by "cave explorer" I mean getting a finger up the butt.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 1, 2017
The magic is gone.
That may seem like a cutesy little Gene Shalit-esque pun to start off the review, but I mean it with all sincerity: the magic and charm of the original OVAs has, for the most part, vanished from its television adaptation. And as someone who adored the hell out of those OVAs, that's a goddamned shame.
This show has a clear two-half structure: the first was primarily character based, featuring episodic adventures to establish and flesh out the cast, while the second introduces the plot in full force. Now, some were unsatisfied with that first half, but I was willing to go along for
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the ride. While there were some particularly weak episodes (gotta love Twilight pastiches in 2017, because that's relevant), some were quite enjoyable overall (episode 13 really comes matches some of the wonderment that characterized the first OVA), and that sense of fun carried me through.
It's when the plot kicks in that we run into trouble, because the plot... is stupid. Little Witch Academia is propelled entirely by an idiot plot, where things only happen because characters refuse to divulge critical information (Tell Akko not to trust Croix! She literally kidnapped Akko and tried to have you killed! Come on, at least give her a warning!) or characters are incapable of making the most simple of conclusions (Gee, I wonder if that evil magic robot that pushed Akko out of the tower and almost MURDERED her has anything to do with the ONE professor for tech magic who only showed up EXACTLY when this strike started and has tech that looks EXACTLY like that robot! Doesn’t anyone else notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!). Ursula has no excuse not to reveal her identity to Akko; whereas in the shorts, you could infer some personal history and perhaps shame, embarrassment, or regret colored her decision to lay low, the entire fate of the world apparently hangs in the balance now, but I guess it's better to keep everyone arbitrarily in the dark about details of paramount importance and hope everything works out for the best.
Stupid, and what moments aren't stupid are punctuated by an uninspired "Hunt for the McGuffin" plot that just seems entirely half-assed.
Characterization has also taken a noticeable hit. You see, I was hoping from Croix's juxtaposition against Diana in the second OP that while she might play an antagonistic role, she wouldn't be outright malicious, just somebody coming at this problem with a fundamentally different perspective, or maybe she'd have a personal schism with Chariot, and that the resolution of the plot would come after our characters could find some way to bridge these two sides...
Oh, wait, she's just moustache-twirlingly evil? Like a sidecutted knockoff of Snidely Whiplash? Gee wiz, for a second I was worried we might have an arc or something.
That's an even bigger disappointment considering what a good character Diana is. Part of what made LWA great was that, while Diana very easily could have been the stock-snotty bully, the shorts went to great lengths to show that she's ultimately well-intentioned, she just has a different perspective and attitude from Akko.
And it's not like Trigger has completely forgotten what made LWA great; episode 13 is a standout moment, and captures the heart of the original two shorts. Unfortunately, that peak makes the contrast against its current lows all the more stark.
This is a lot to type up for a show about little girls training to become witches, and maybe I just hoped for too much, but I'm really let down. You can see the potential, but it's buried under an utterly bungled execution. My appreciation for the original shorts will likely keep me watching to the end on the off chance that something will fundamentally, radically change between then and now. However, if someone were to ask me if I think the show is worth their time, I would have to honestly tell them no. That hurts.
And this, kids, is why you never wish on a monkey's paw.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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