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May 14, 2018

Darling in the FranXX (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Preliminary (17/24 eps)

Don't go in here expecting the next Kill la Kill or Gurren Lagann as the synopsis and studio may well suggest because you will be sorely disappointed, instead go in here expecting something that is much worse than mediocre in every single department possible and be just as disappointed.

Understandably, the OP is not the same kind of genre presented in more action oriented series, but that doesn't excuse Franxx from having poorly designed mechs crammed with symbolism and fanservice its writers seemingly love to hamfist into the audience; while fighting even more shoddily created CGI enemies, the mech's nonsensical mechanics are powered by the emotion ... stability or angst of two pilots, supposedly setting up the series for some sort of impact twist. Sure, there's a few well placed burst of animation drawn by well known figures in the animation industry, but other than that, combat movements seemingly resemble the frame-skipping style of Kill la Kill, yet lacks all of the energy, innovation, and impact that the previous Trigger show has familiarized us to.

The biggest concern here is the pacing... why does it have to take the writers 15 episodes to resolve Hiro and 002's interpersonal problems where they could have just revealed one of the most predictable and straight forwarded "twist" ever by the second half of the first cour? It's not so much that there is no need for buildup, but it's rather because of how quick and conclusive it felt despite all 14 episodes leading up to it, naturally, it doesn't help its case either when the story is comprised of one hell of a poorly executed script filled with unnecessary elements that have seemingly been abandoned by the later episodes, as these recent releases have showcased to us.

17 episodes in and none of the world building theories starting from the first episode has been answered, or even touched upon at all. With unanswered questions stacking from every single corner of a new introduction of an element along with the show's incentive for mystery, Franxx seemingly pile itself with questions in the form of every single train wreck imaginable. Even worse is the decision to rather sacrifice world building for a compelling narrative weaved from well choreographed fights meant to catalyze the relationships between the large cast, we are instead treated to episodes of pointless fanservice, constant addition of problems, and secrecy with no purpose.

Despite massive doubts in the music scores due to Franxx's inability to understand the usage of appropriate music to amplify certain scenes, or the hype surrounding the "new OP" when it's literally just a remix of the first one, for the most part, Franxx's debut was tolerable, unfortunately of course, this later changed when the realization of how much this incompetent show can possibly lower it self down to hits me all too damn late.

With pretentiousness oozing from every single line of dialogue starting from the first episode and usage of black cuts, unnecessary melodrama with terrible beginning and endings, non-existent world building despite its mystery, and a pacing slow enough to feel like every episode is an exposition of the last rather than a cohesive and climatic crescendo of events, we, are ultimately presented with one of the hypest show of its season.

Apr 13, 2017

Gakkougurashi! (Anime) add

Recommended

Putting this message at the end would just contradict the label below, so all I can really say here as far as it goes is that if you’re a fan of the moe genre and seeing it being “deconstructed” or done in a completely way, I definitely recommend that you check this show out for yourself.

---THIS IS A CONCLUSIVE REVIEW THAT CONTAINS SPOILERS--- (please do not read unless you have already finished the show and just want some random dude’s opinion about it)

Perhaps the greatest factor which contributed to my enjoyment of this show was the way in which it was presented. Not only ... the girls are faced with an apocalypse at their hand, they also have to worry about the more pressing aftermath of the apocalypse: their infected classmates. Yet despite having these elements at play, the girls still find themselves reminiscing and reenacting their light-hearted highschool life which seemingly went unaffected by this disaster. This is why calling it a deconstruction of the SOL Moe genre is a little difficult, because as the viewer you get a good perspective of whatever is happening outside, yet inside the School-life clubroom, the girls never fail to enjoy their touching story of a rather atypical highschool life. It’s two different story that, when presented and interacts together, everything seemingly connect with each other to give form to an amazing narration and a deep level of suspense which pulls the viewer in to see how the story develops.

A cool thing about Gakkougurashi is how the character interaction played out. Initially being introduced as typical archetypes, the girls are then placed into situations where their skills and knowledge interact with each other, ensuring each other’s survival and all the while forming an even bigger bond between them. Without each other covering for one another’s back after coming to an understanding of their weak and strong points, they wouldn’t have made it in one piece.

As if it wasn’t hinted enough by all of the girls’ desire to graduate, Gakkougurashi is ultimately an anime about moving on. It isn’t about trying to be most badass zombie slayer, nor was it about betrayal and survival of the fittest, in fact, the anime version intentionally avoided this kind of subject because in one of the early chapter of the manga, there was a scene where Kurumi assumes that Yuuri has abandoned her because of the reluctant expression on her face as she looks a way while Kurumi was asking for help, only for such a thought to be interrupted by Yuuri’s clever method of exploiting the zombie’s attraction to sound. Obviously, this scene was rewritten to be cut out from the anime series, and for good reasons too, because something like that would have been perfect foreshadowing for themes of betrayals in a more extreme situation, but that’s not the point of the anime Gakkougurashi.
Thematically, this is why the highschool club setting works so naturally well with Gakkougurashi: the girls doesn’t want to move on because the life that they knew so well was unexpectantly robbed of. Them staying behind in their highschool wasn’t just because of the convenience in which it provided but also because that it is presented to be the closet and most important thing to them before the world came tumbling down.

The graduation in the final episode is full of meanings to support this sense of acceptance and moving on too, because graduation in itself is the act of moving away from an important time in your life, by holding a graduation for the girls, it essentially delivers a power message telling that they have also graduated from their need to rely on the highschool to cope with the world (of course, the more important reason here is because of the previous zombie invasion)

Hell, every other visual representation in the final episode even supports this. Especially Miki who finally find her friend who is unfortunately already infected but despite both her and the ending theme “We Took Each Other’s Hand” talks of regret of letting go of an important individual, she gave her a sad glance with a slight teary eye but did not carry a stronger emotion on her face, showing that she have come to terms with the way that this new world have to function in. And of course, all of this happened with the school standing behind their back as they make their way outside of the gate in search of the next survival base, having already grown stronger and moved on from their highschool life, ready for the outside world.

Apr 10, 2015

Shinreigari (Anime) add

Recommended

REVIEW CONTAIN CONCLUSIVE SPOILER

For the first half of the show, Ghost Hound have got everything right, from the creepy soundtrack that formed its designated atmosphere to the countryside setting that we're so fond of in horror anime. The series gave off the same kind of atmosphere that Higurashi and Shiki gave me, which shows how great it was directed. The unique camera angle amplifying the creepy tone of the series to a level where "horror" would be one of the appropriate genre for the series while the colorful and unique representation of the "hidden world" surely did its job to allow the viewers to see ... the story in a more frightening way, making them more prone to the dark assumptions that viewers can't help but to make in a series like this.

The pacing was perfect in almost every way, just enough room to maintain a balanced space, captivating the viewers with various thrilling experiences and allowing them to make assumption about what will happen next, whether its the horrifying secrets that the three main characters would find out about their past or the problems that forms around their morbid town. The show does maintain a large cast near the end of the series but all of them were thoroughly developed, what also support this is the three main characters as they were interesting to a certain point where seeing their interaction as they help each other uncover the secret to their past is one of the main focus, for both the series and its viewers.

While the series does maintain a great sense of atmosphere and characters development, its ending fall short to what most viewer would have assumed for it to played out. Near the end of the series, the original plot (Solve Taro's past trauma, who did what and the various morbid discoveries that each character would discover as they delve deeper into the past and the "hidden world"), was left behind to be replaced with two new ones, which unfortunately ruin the ending for me, as these two new plot line have almost nothing to be relevant with the original purpose of the story, sure there were some connection here and there but it was far too fragile to be in truthful relation with the original story, it just felt like the show tried to expand its storytelling limit and failed pretty bad, resulting in the undesirable answer to the whole affair about Taro's kidnapping incident as the viewers only received a happy and simple resolution to the the scary kidnapping that was so well presented that it should have made most viewers expecting something a little bit more shudder worthy.

Overall Ghost Hound was a very well played out series from beginning... to the middle, for the way that the ending was told results in a total lost of the original plot. But don't get me wrong, if you're really into thrillers and the like, this series must be on your "plan to watch" or "completed" list because, ending aside, the series did a great job of presenting itself as a psychological thriller in many ways.

Dec 15, 2014

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (Anime) add

Recommended

The moral of Higurashi: Good friends help you hide the bodies, bad friends are the bodies.

Story: 9
The overall plot tells me that the story follows Maebara Keiichi a boy who moved into a village that hides many past horror and future drama, together with his group of friends who can either turn into psychopaths or really good friends (the kind that help you hide the bodies) uncover the dark secrets behind Hinamizawa and Oyashiro-sama's curse.
The concept of this is possibly one of the most confusing for someone who would decide to turned on his anime casual mode (me for example) and watch this, the plot ... isn't something simple that you can graps right away but you can certainly mislead yourself by thinking that it's just an anime well cute girls kill each other because of... well, stuff.
Or, you can just think it as a far less lazy and alot more bloody Haruhi Suzumiya's Endless Eight. That being said, this series is divided into many arcs, some arc may seem similar to each other but in truth it's different choices and different point of view with a possible chance of the yielding the same result as the last time or more questions for the viewers or even answers.

Art: 7
The art style certainly sticked to the VN adaption without making them looks like children with very big limbs, but then it's nothing special as the animation fail at some point in the series, in fact, I'd say it was sub-par in comparison to other series that was aired at the same time (Haruhi Suzumiya is a nice example but that series far exceeds it's timeline, animation-wise), I didn't really bother to review much about this anime first before watching it and at first I thought it was just a happy harem with a bunch of lolis but apparently I was taken by surprise to see... LOLIS DYING, ALOT OF LOLIS DYING. It is also worth to mention that if you are not used to art style like this it's going to take a few episodes for you to ignore/love it.

Soundtrack: 7
For this first season the soundtrack did not particularly stood out well in comparison to it's sequels, the main BGM (Main theme) actually sounds decent and fitting to the anime, though. Unfortunately, while I can see how other people says that the OP is beautiful, I cannot, mostly because I find that the voices changes far too often and it was a little too slow, but if you did bother to read the lyrics it really tells the story of the anime well, once again, the ending have very great lyrics but I do not enjoy the Engrish very much.

Character: 9
I love all of the characters, from the possible archetype tsundere Mion ,the yandere Rena, or the... well, fabulous Maebara Keiichi. How the anime begin to explore these characters never cease to not make me regret watching this at night. In one arc they're a psychopath and in the next they're the victim, and of course, at one point they also stick together and show My Little Pony what friendship really is, yea, take that bronies!

Enjoyment: 9.5
Later on in the series as the story progress and the viewers start to symphathize or laugh with the characters, they also start to want more answers to every ending of a "question" arc, the viewers also start to make their own theories on the story, and just to make sure that they got it right, they'll keep watching. Whether it's joyful laughter from comic relief or maniacal laughter from slaughtering a character Higurashi did all of them, one of the many reasons why this series is a must watch for every horror lover.

Dec 14, 2014

Akame ga Kill! (Anime) add

Recommended

Score: 7
Contain minor spoilers
Genre (what it should really be) Action, Fantasy, Adventure, Shounen, Drama (let's be honest, they tried)
Biggest disappointment of the season? Or one of the best? Perhaps this review can help you decide.

Story: 5
On it's surface, AgK may look like an anime with a Tokyo Ghoul theme to it (gore, dark story, seinen), but if you look at into this anime a bit deeper (or none at all!), you can see that it's just a typical shounen who is willing to kill off it's character to rush through the series and paint the screen with blood. The sentence "A group of assassins named ... Night Raid is rebelling against the corrupted Empire" explain the show's plot pretty well.

Art: 8
The art certainly showed that White Fox can animate an action series, eyesgasming detailed shots and awesome slow-mo moments, but at the same time it should also show them that they shouldn't be try to change the mood with art styles that looks like something from a gag comedy, but hey, atleast it worked, one minute you're watching intensely and using your psychic power to see who's going to die, the next ten minutes you start shipping the cast together.

Sound: 8
The soundtrack, while it does shine itself when the chances come sometimes, the OPs and EDs are especially enjoyable to listen to, the voice actor for Akame certainly did her job well once again, both in character voice acting and Skyreach, as for the other cast, well, nothing really drew me into their voices as most of them were average.

Fight Scenes: 6.5
While I do enjoy the slow mo and awesome freeze frames manga-like drawings, it is just your anime original fights, one character uses a power exclusively only for that situation and never uses it again for some reason, this can get annoying sometime as AgK's fighting is supposed to be serious but it's still using some turning point that you'd see in Kill la Kill, a comedy anime.

Character: 6
What can I say, most of them died when I was on episode 12 so there wasn't much development beside some kind of dark/badass backstory so the viewers can try and sympathize with them. Tatsumi himself feel like a generic shounen MC as he get over his comrade's death as soon as the next episode start, even if there were scenes that showed how much he valued them. While the whole cast of this show may have look like characters that have roles similar to those of it Fate/Zero (many characters that have balanced screen time, making you think that they're all main characters), it is not, as you get half way through the series you'll find yourself making bets with other fans on who's dying next, heck, you'll even find yourself wonder where the hell Akame, the title girl is.

Enjoyment: 8
I decided to turn off most of my brains function and paid attention to any of the negative stuff mentioned above when I watched the series.

In conclusion, AgK is a must watch for anime casuals, but it can be a miss for anime veterans as the following words can describe how the story move forward: Target, Eliminate, (possible character death), (cry) Fanservice, Repeat.

Oct 26, 2014

Another (Anime) add

Recommended

*Review contains minor spoiler*

Story - 9 The plot is so intriguing that I sometime even wish that my new class would have a curse like it, no, not because I want everyone to go batshit crazy but because it'd be so cool to get to the bottom of a mystery like this. The pacing of this series is perfect, which may not applies to generic-shounen-boys because it takes a few episode until the curse is revealed to the male lead, even so they managed to remove any possible cliffhangers and ended with a happy-ish ending (yea right, watch it and see) in 12 episodes + ...

It’s time to ditch the text file.
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