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Apr 30, 2022
This anime is worth watching for Boji's underdog story ALONE. There, I said it.
Still here? k I'll try to detail a little more..
You can't watch this little guy struggle to achieve his dreams and not feel emotional about it, it's impossible. His friendship with Kage also really pulls at your heartstrings, 10/10 there.
But it fails at EVERYTHING ELSE. Whenever the story tries to build other characters, it makes you wish it would go back to Boji instead (except MAYBE Hilling, 10/10 best stepmom) specially Miranjo.. dear god WHAT A CLUSTERFUCK OF A CHARACTER.
Miranjo really just drags the whole story down. Won't bother with details, but
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after doing basically ALL THERE IS WRONG IN LIFE, she gets a happy ending w/o a SINGLE punishment just because she had.. wait for it.. A TRAGIC BACKSTORY *shockedpikaface*
Miranjo sucks. Just skip all scenes that dont show Boji and you will enjoy the show.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jun 17, 2021
I was very tired of Isekai, filled to death with more stupid cliches and mindless fan-service than any other anime genre. When I found out the LN for this one was considered the father of modern Isekai, it had me interested, but expectations were low.
I was NOT prepared for what came next. Im going to focus this review mainly on the aspect that won me over: the character development.
The realization hit me as hard as good old Truck-kun: the vast majority of modern Isekai titles are just failed attempts at trying to replicate the experience of Mushoku Tensei. This is where it all started, and
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nothing that came after can really match.
EVERYTHING HERE CLICKS! All those mindless and dumb cliches we've seen a million times before were first used here, but here they ALL have a purpose, they all enhance the story and character interactions in ways other titles try to mimic but fail for some reason or another.
For example, the Escapism. Most Isekai titles make the mistake of dismissing the life the protagonist left behind, focusing completely on him getting everything he wants in the next one just for the audience's wish fulfillment. That is NOT the case here!
Rudeus suffered heavy bullying in his previous life to the point of withdrawing from society and becoming a shut-in, scaring away any further attempts at normal human relationships. These traumas didnt just magically disappear once he reincarnated, its all still in there, which gives him severe cases of PTSD everytime he hits a roadblock on his journey, meaning the author is constantly making correlations between his first and second life.
He is a perverted, sly bastard who doesnt think of anyone but himself, but mostly because he never had a chance to be anything different.
He's NOT in this new world to become an outlet for our wish fulfillment, he's there to find REDEMPTION. This is the story of an extremely flawed and scummy man trying to learn from his past mistakes and become a better person, and so far the anime and manga have succeeded greatly in portraying his progress.
All the power fantasy cliches and tropes are used here as lenses to shed light on real life problems such as bullying, depression, alcoolism (in the manga), PTSD, misogyny and pedophilia, all while still being very fun and entertaining to watch/read. THIS is what modern Isekai should ALWAYS have been about!
Many people are bashing the anime in the reviews mainly because all men in the series so far are huge assholes, including the mc. THEY ARE MISSING THE POINT. You cant have meaningful character development if the characters are already perfect SJWs in the first place. Becoming a better person is a long and painfully difficult process, expecting it to happen all in just one season is naive, to say the least!
I immediately started to read the manga after watching season I and am now starting the LN, so trust me when I say this, it only gets better and better! This series has the bone structure of a typical Isekai title, but filled with all the meat most are missing!
I never thought I'd writte the words "Isekai Masterpiece" in my whole life, yet here I am. Thats how good this show is.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jun 10, 2020
UNIQUE PREMISE!
Our MC Senku vows to use real science to advance technology and bring back to life the society we know, which was wiped out by a mysterious worldwide phenomemon that turned all humans into stone statues.
The enjoyment of the series lies in the ingenuity and cleverness Senku and his friends display to overcome the odds by creating history-changing scientific advancements well known to us (antibiotics, long-distance communication, guns etc) using only what few resources they have available to them in a wild, hostile world full of great mysteries.
This gimmick works very well because the whole proccess of reaching these achievements is displayed like
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a puzzle, with the characters taking many risks and showing great effort in order to assemble all the pieces and combine them.
Watching Senku and friends succeeding in making a new invention gives the same feeling of excitement as gaining a power upgrade after a training arc in shounen, and the clever, badass ways they use these inventions to overcome whats threatening them (other humans or nature itself) feel like epic shounen battles, truly a breath of fresh air into the genre!
GREAT PHYLOSOPHY!
While almost all post-apocalyptic series tell us very edgy stories to rant about how shitty and cruel humanity is, heavily criticizing both our nature and the society we created, Dr. Stone chooses a very different path.
The phylosophical debate is represented by Tsukasa and Senku. The former is the first antagonist, which rejects the old society for being cruel, flawed and corrupted, so they should use the apocalypse as an opportunity to start over from scratch with a new society based not on science, but on his own values and principles. The latter is the protagonist, and he believes its not up to them to decide whether the old society was worthy or not, and that they should restore everything to what it once was and let humanity decide their own future.
Many viewers, like me, will agree with Tsukasa at first. After all, humanity can be very cruel, flawed and corrupted, and our current society has many flaws that we all wish we could change, so if we were in Tsukasa's place, we would probably do the same. Through Senku, the author provokes the viewer stating he will change our mindset and views on society, and to my surprise, HE ACTUALLY FUCKIN DID IT(to an extent).
The entire story of Dr. Stone is a recapitulation of 10,000 years of human world history, displayed in a way that highlights all of humanity's greatest achievements and the struggle we had to go through in order to get to where we are today, without glossing over our mistakes and shortcomings. It is very easy to say our current society is worthless when all we point out is its bad side, but what about everything good it accomplished?
Of course our society is full of flaws and problems, BUT SO WHAT? Humanity has proven time and time again it is capable of evolving and overcoming huge problems with the power of science. Look at all these major issues we've solved in the past, why would we not be able to do the same with our current problems in the future?
This rhetorical question is the heart of Senku's argument and the Dr. Stone series is Senku's experiment trying to prove to the viewer that he is right, and even though I don't agree with him 100%, it does make a lot of sense. Watching these two grand ideologies clash is amazing and gives the viewer much to think about.
CONS:
To make the invention achievements sound reasonable and realistic, the author had to make a huge sacrifice: he made nearly every character in the show look and feel extremely exaggerated purely for plot convenience. The core of everyone's character is just one quality/flaw cranked up to 11: Senku is a bottomless well of knowledge, Taiju is endurance personified, Tsukasa is so strong he can kill lions with one punch etc (they are all teenagers btw LOL), their abilities are so unreasonably outstanding its hilarious, so even though the science behind all the inventions is real, the characters really aren't, which is great for comedy but makes most of them feel shallow and underdeveloped. Senku is the one who really carries the show as far as characters go (Ryuusui is best boi though) and thats about it.
Also the first few chapters have bad pacing and a TON of exposition so it might feel boring at first, I highly recommend watching the anime to get over the slow introduction quickly and get right to the good stuff. Once Senku reaches the village, its all badass from there!
OVERALL:
Dr. Stone is a fun and unique adventure filled with excitement, mistery and 5000 iq badassery. It reminds us that humanity can be awesome and have its moments of brilliance, that we should be proud and appreciate how far we've come as a society despite how long our road up ahead still is. If you're tired of your typical shounen battle series and are looking for something fresh, Dr. Stone is the way to go.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jun 8, 2020
Have you ever rewatched a series from your childhood simply for nostalgia, but realized its actually much BETTER than you remember it was as a kid? To my surprise, Digimon Tamers managed to do that for me.
Digimon Tamers and Digimon Adventure are very different. DT features much darker and mature themes, with more realistic characters facing problems that feel very real despite its setting. It has all the power fantasy tropes you'd expect from the series, but it takes its narrative and characters to very original, unexpected directions.
There is no "chosen one" trope here. The humans and digimon are not destined for one another, they
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must choose each other out of their own volition and develop their bonds in order to adapt to a new life of kill or be killed, because in Tamers the digimons kill each other to absorb data and become stronger, pure survival of the fittest at work. The fear of death feels much more real in this series; the MCs get scared when they first meet their digimon and the relationship between the MCs is not friendly at first, they make mistakes when put in extreme situations etc, all which makes the characters feel more real.
Thanks to the survival of the fittest approach, the villains are not all bad for the sake of it, each have their own reasons for doing what they do, theres no absolute good and evil here. And the character that incorporates this concept the best is, without a doubt, Impmon.
Impmon is one of my favorite characters of all time, and the reason why I wanted to writte this review. He starts off as comic relief, being arrogant and cocky despite being very weak, he wants to get stronger and digivolve without human partners but fails hard at it, so no one, including the audience, takes him seriously. But all the humiliating defeats he suffers start getting to his head, he develops inferiority complex and hunger for power, and when he makes a deal with a powerful deity and finally digivolves into Beelzemon, he takes his pent-up frustation out on the MCs in the most cruel way you could imagine. Later on, as he starts feeling guilty for the horrors hes commited, Impmon realizes what he wanted was not power, but love and appreciation from others, which puts him on the path to redemption. Impmon is the best written character in the entire franchise, i've never seen a character go from comic relief to villain and then hero before, and I love him for it.
I wont spoil it for you, but the moment Beelzemon gets his "revenge" is the darkest and most shocking moment in the entire Digimon franchise, which also kicks off one of the greatest final arcs in the entire shounen genre, D-Reaper. The final arc of DT is worth watching this series alone, the final fights are very epic and have a lot of feeling behind them, tackling themes like depression, grief, suicide, redemption and the depths of human's destructive nature in a surprisingly mature way, certainly not something you'd expect from a kids show.
This is the only anime from my childhood that I actually enjoyed watching without nostalgia goggles, so I really recommend you all to watch it, even if for the final arc alone!
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jun 7, 2020
"This is the madness of BOOBS!" - a VERY cultured character (not kidding, someone says it in this manga LUL)
Ahhh Soul Eater, the love child of Bleach and Naruto, kidnapped and raised by Cthulhu and infamous for its bad anime adaptation (dont worry, the manga ending is better). Let's see if I can convince you to read this beautiful, wild mess.
Story: 7/10
Soul Eater is a shounen battle manga with big focus on plot, which is ironically its weakest point. The plot is simple and fast-paced, with some decent twists here and there, which is very serviceable for a typical shounen, but nothing out of ordinary
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for people who are used to the genre's tropes. There is a LOT of wasted potential here, like poor effort into world building, very poor lore exploration and confusing conclusion of some plot points, but all of that is overshadowed by the series qualities.
What makes SE really stand out from other shounen is its unique blend of comedy and "creepiness", two ingredients you don't usually see together. By creepiness I mean it has horror elements, clearly inspired by H.P Lovecraft (hell theres even a being whos pretty much Cthulhu), which are used to great effect to illustrate the plot's main theme, Madness.
The internal struggle every character has to face throughout the series to keep their insanity in check is portrayed with sinister, abstract artwork, which keeps you often on the edge. Its not Junji Ito levels of horror ofc, but some panels have managed to creep me out, which is more than I can say for other non Junji Ito attempts at horror manga.
The comedy is pure GOLD. Some characters are already funny by themselves (Excalibur is bae), make them interact with it each other and the result is the biggest amount of laughs I've ever had with a shounen battle manga. Some of its great amount of fan-service have not aged well though (intentional boob grabbing and skirt flipping etc), so if that really bothers you, its better to give this manga a pass.
The battles are very epic and well made, the main characters can lose badly so its always exciting and some of the powers are very interesting and creative, a full meal course for any shounen battle fan.
Art: 10/10
How does the author manage to blend comedy and horror elements so well? The answer is superb artwork. The cartoonish visuals of SE are Halloween themed, with lots of references to classic western horror movies, which works very well for both fronts. The flexibility is astounding: the drawing style changes drastically depending on the tone of the scene, with characters going from making light derpy jokes with cute faces to killing people with maniac Joker expressions in the span of a single chapter. This series was published monthly with 40+ pages per chapter, so this back and forth between tones has enough build-up to not feel out of place. A true marvel to look at, still leagues above most of shounen manga published nowadays.
Character: 9/10
A death god with hilarious OCD fits, a narcissistic ninja that thinks hes greater than god and a stubborn nerd girl with daddy issues. BEST. MAIN CAST. EVER.
Death the Kid, Black Star and Maka are very likeable, memorable MCs that will entertain you when interacting with pretty much anyone, being able to go from hilariously pathetic to super badass in a way very few MCs manage to pull off. I finished this series only hours before writting this review and I miss them already.
The rest of the cast is pretty meh, one-note characters with shallow personalities (except Dr. Stein and Medusa, they are great), but thats fine, their interactions with the MCs are very entertaining even though they are not well developed.
I have two big problems with this cast though, the first being the "main protagonist", Soul Eater. How can a character that is named after the series itself be so underdeveloped?! His personality is so boring and shallow you'd never believe him to be a MC (to me he's in a supporting role at best).
The second is the unexcusable lack of romance. The main gimmick of the series is that some people can transform into weapons and partner up with meisters, in a relationship that in many aspects resembles that of a couple. This premise SCREAMS romance, yet sadly it doesnt go any further than a very small hint here and there. The partners even live TOGETHER AND BY THEMSELVES GODDAMMIT! Argh, so much wasted potential..
Overall: 8/10
The funniest and creepiest shounen I've ever seen! A weird title yes, but that just shows how unique this series is. If you're looking for a funny shounen with lots of epic fights and fan-service, look no further.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 31, 2020
SPOILERS AHEAD, BUT SRSLY DONT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS CRAP!!
The villain makes a clone of Syaoran, which keeps chasing the original in order to kill him.. then through some convoluted happenings, the clone is thrown back in time, decides to live a normal life, gets married with Sakura clone and have a kid..
Which turns out to be the original. WHAAAAAAAAT???
YES, both the Syaoran and Sakura CLONES are the PARENTS of the original Syaoran. This is by far the most absurd and retarded plot twist i've ever seen in my life. I actually lost more brain cells while remembering this crap to type this
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review.
DONT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS MANGA! YOU'RE WELCOME!
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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May 31, 2020
Sup, turtles!
ToG is the answer to the very important question "what if Hunter x Hunter and One Piece had a baby, then stabbed the baby and each other in the back for mysterious reasons?". If you need more reasons to read it (I think I got it all covered already), I'll get in a bit more detail with NO SPOILERS.
Story: 9/10
Do you like Hunter x Hunter and One Piece? What about a series that combines the best aspects of both?
The first season is pretty much one big homage to the Hunter Exam arc, with the main plot device being our main cast going
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through a series of life-risking tests, most of them very entertaining to watch. The tests are well made and become a staple throughout the series, though they start getting less frequent as the series starts expanding its incredibly detailed world and all its underlying themes.
The Tower is absolutely MASSIVE. I have not seen this rich level of detail in world building since One Piece, hence the constant comparison. SIU went to great efforts in order to make the world of ToG feel alive, full of mysteries and events that affect the world without direct relation to the main cast, with many different factions fighting each other to achieve their own specific goals. The floors are for the most part very unique, basically their own pocket worlds with different rules and plotlines (very much like the islands in One Piece). The series is worth reading for the world lore alone, but there is so much more.
MYSTERIES. This world and its characters are so full of interesting mysteries its hard to choose what you wanna find out the most first. The way some of its mysteries end up being revealed can be a bit lackluster at times (looking at you, Garan "Exposition" Jarad), but there is always something being hinted at or foreshadowed which will make you keep reading because you don't need sleep, you need ANSWERS!
What are you willing to do in order to fulfill your dreams? Do the ends justify the means? These questions are at the center of nearly every character interaction in ToG. Unexpected alliances and shocking betrayals are so common the community gave ToG the lame but fitting nickname "Tower of Betrayal", you never know when a newly introduced character is being honest or hiding their true intentions, which keeps you at the edge of your seat most of the time.
The battles go back and forth between cunning tactical skirmishes (usually led by best boi Khun) and over-the-top DBZ power clashing fights, so theres enough here to please all shounen audiences.
Art: 6/10
This is a webtoon, so dont expect the art to have manga levels of quality. The first 50 chapters are barely good enough to be called professional, but the author improves A LOT over the course of the series, to the point where its actually very good now, for webtoon standards at least.
Character: 10/10
ToG has a huge cast of entertaining, relatable characters, but here I will focus on its most unique aspect, the two protagonists. Bam is the amalgamation of every possible cliche a shounen MC could have: a classic Gary Stu, the Chosen One blessed by fate with the power of Asspulling, whose only motivation is to get stronger for the sake of protecting the people he loves, something we've seen a million times already. But dont let his lameness deceive you, IT IS INTENTIONAL. The author made Bam as cliche as possible to constrast him with one of the best written characters i've seen in recent years: the anti-hero MC, Rachel.
Rachel is the true star of the series, the ultimate antithesis to everything Bam represents: she's weak, self-pitying, envious, manipulative and capable of doing anything to get what she wants, someone you could hardly believe to be a shounen MC. You feel a surge of hatred everytime she appears, so much that the hatred for her is what binds the entire ToG community together lol. People hate Rachel because she is far from being what an ideal MC should strive to be while still being extremely relatable, and relating so much to such a hateful character scares most viewers. She's an ordinary person struggling to become the heroine of the story despite not being chosen by fate like Bam, refusing to accept the fact there is nothing special about her and willing to do anything to fulfill her dreams despite of that. She is you, the viewer, isekaied into an over-the-top shounen battle world with nothing but your average wits to rely on, determined to leave your mark in history despite not being favored by fate.
Fighting against fate with everything you have despite knowing there's very little chance you can win is the human condition in a nutshell, and that is what elevates Rachel to the level of outstanding fictional characters like Guts and Spike Spiegel: she feels like a real human being.
This clash of Idealism x Reality, Destiny x Human Spirit represented by Bam and Rachel is the driving force behind ToG, and the author is slowly blurring this constrast with Bam starting to make cold hearted decisions, because in ToG, the MCs cant force the people they defeat into accepting their ideals (REVOLUTIONARY, I KNOW!), a clear sign of maturity and development to his one-note character, so you can expect these themes to get even deeper as the story goes on.
Overall: 9/10
ToG is a masterpiece in the making. It has nearly One Piece levels of world building, outstanding character designs, epic fight scenes and plenty of interesting mysteries to hook you in. The only reason this series has remained unknown for so long is its manhwa webtoon origins, a very new medium that is only starting to get mainstream attention, hopefully the anime adaptation will give this series the praise it deserves. Give it a chance, you wont be disappointed!
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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May 31, 2020
BEHOLD, one of the grandaddies of modern Shounen Anime!
I must assume you've grown up in the US, because thats the only place in the west where people have never watched or even heard of Saint Seiya in their youth (the english dub is atrocious, so I can't blame ya). It was a MASSIVE hit in Europe (no JoJo reference intended haha) and Latin America so I have very fond childhood memories of it, but I will try to be as impartial as possible.
Story: 7/10
Some people will tell you Saint Seyia is a very cliche 80's shounen battle anime, and for the most part that
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is true. But is it really a problem when this series has CREATED most of the cliches it shows? Together with Dragon Ball, SS has made popular many tropes which are widely used by modern shounen today, so you must take the cliches here with a grain of salt, kinda like visiting a museum.
The most important ones are the Underdog x Hierarchy trope (where a renowned group of powerful people are defeated by a group of protagonists which are considered to be much weaker, ex: Black Clover, Shokugeki no Souma) and the "Boss Rush" arc structure (the protagonists fight extremely powerful foes one after another in a race against time, ex: Bleach). Bleach is basically Saint Seyia with swords btw, Tite Kubo admitted SS was his biggest inspiration for Bleach.
These two tropes are essentially the plot of Saint Seiya: in order to save the goddess Athena from iminent doom, Seiya and co. will surpass their own limits time and again to defeat foes initially perceived as much more powerful than themselves. Every single arc in SS is like this, which may make it a little too simple and repetitive for modern tastes, but it uses these tropes to such great effect that chances are you'll still have a lot of fun regardless.
Art: 9/10
The SS manga was revolutionary at the time of its release for using a very delicate, almost feminine art style in a shounen manga, at a time when nearly all other shounen were testosterone filled Hokuto no Ken clones. Don't let the delicate style fool you though, the fight scenes are brutal and shows a LOT of blood! That delicate, retro art style was adapted well in the anime, and while it can seem dated at times, its still a marvel to look at, specially the awesome armor designs!
Sound: 10/10
I absolutely ADORE the soundtrack in SS. All the OPs and EDs are timeless gems that me and my friends still sing at karaoke bars to this day, so many years after finishing the series. The uplifting, exciting battle themes, as well as the melancholic ones are all beautifully orchestrated and well timed. If nothing else in SS leaves a lasting impression on you, its soundtrack most certainly will. They simply dont make soundtracks like this anymore.
Character: 3/10
This is where the series falls short, unfortunately. For reasons I dont really know, the anime lobotomized most of the protagonists, erasing key personality traits you can only find in the manga. With the exception of best boi Ikki, the main cast are all goody-two shoes with few differences between them (Athena/Saori is basically a walking plot device, barely any character in there). However, the main antagonists in the first arc, the Golden Saints, are all badasses who represent the 12 Zodiac constellations and are easily the highlight character-wise, you will certainly relate to some of them.
Enjoyment: 9/10
Watching "weak", underestimated people overcoming great odds and arrogant people getting rekt is a never-ending source of enjoyment, at least for me. If you like other anime that focus on these same feelings, then SS is a must-watch. The aura of mysticism the astrology influence gives off is very alluring and gives this series an unique feeling of epicness, AND THE ARMOR SUITS ARE SO. FREAKIN. AWESOME!
Overall: 8/10
Saint Seyia is one of the OG Shounen Templates. Combine it with DBZ and you basically have all the building blocks every modern battle shounen has been built upon, its influence was so great it even inspired other manga genres such as shoujo (Sailor Moon was heavily inspired by SS, among others). Again, if you've grown up in the west and never heard of it, you're probably american haha.
DONT GOOGLE SAINT SEYIA ENGLISH DUB. Watch the uncensored sub.
If you're a fan of shounen anime, you own it to yourself to at least watch the 1st season, the Sanctuary arc! It is one of the most iconic shounen arcs of all time, as important to the genre's identity as the Frieza arc from Dragon Ball Z (not kidding). Watch the first season and try not to burn your cosmos, I DARE YOU!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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