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Jul 24, 2024
The only watchable rom-com released in the past decade was Love is War. Astro Note is kind of just such a middling and frankly just boring rom-com anime that brings absolutely nothing to the table.
The most fun thing about this show was that fact that Gintoki and Kagura's voice actor are coincidentally caretaker and child in similar roles. That's about it. I'd actually go ahead and say that the characters are the least of this shows problems. The show is host to many typical rom-com tropes, such as a love triangle, dense protagonist(s), and comedic side characters. And actually, the side characters --residents of Astro
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lounge-- are pretty fun. They fit the rom-com setting quite well and I could see them interacting in ways that could be funny. The problem is that the scenarios of this show are extremely insipid and boring. Teruko, the
Wakabayashi family, and Shoukichi are barely even present in the show even though they are core residents of Astro lounge. It really does make these potentially good characters just turn bland and fade into the background, where we can all suffer the same old rom-com love triangle setups involving shoin, Mira, Takumi, Aoi, and the dog.
While I was quite surprised at how solid the foundation of the show was, from decent characters to a very normal rom-com setup story, I could tell that the show was still an anime-original for how corporate and bland some of these episodes end up being. A lot of the episodes don't even make use of any of the characters and the comedy completely falls flat. There's a lot of plot devices and direct confrontation that's handled poorly, and despite the show trying to be comedic every step of the way, there was never any compelling manzai or comedic moments that I found fun. For example, there's an episode about a bug eating contest and it starts out like it could be fun, but there's no interaction with the characters AT ALL. The setting of the bug eating contest is purely there to progress Mira and Takumi's relationship rather than it being actually funny or interesting. Like, can you believe that the only thing that happens in this contest is that Takumi eats a lot of bugs and ends up winning, with literally nothing in between? None of the other Astro Lounge participants compete with each other, sabotage, or otherwise goof around? Is this even a rom-com? It's kind of disgusting actually...
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 21, 2024
What I hate about this show is that it just slaps on some supernatural beings into the show without integrating any of the actual historical accounts to the shinigami/Japanese folklore. For example, Tengu are said to be mischievous and enjoy playing pranks on humans. Why is Jiro just a literal human being in an anthropomorphic crow body? How about the fact that Buchio was reincarnated from a cat, so wouldn't it make sense for Buchio to have cat-like tendencies, reflexes, etc? I just fail to see the appeal. Even in a game like Touhou, Tengu are seen as people who love gossip, which makes sense
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since their nature is to enjoy pranks. It's not an exact connection, but at least there's some sort of background that makes sense to the folklore/legend that they're portraying in the game.
This show fails to even do the bare minimum when it comes to connecting folklore to characters, which makes me give it an extremely low score. The setting and characters are mere surface-level and don't create any depth for the story.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jul 21, 2024
This show made me want to play some golf. Something that other golf shows like Birdie Wing failed to do. And I think it mainly has to do with the fact that Tonbo's a show that's highly grounded in reality, focusing on character development while also not forgetting to apply actual concepts in golf to the show.
Tonbo! is more of a slice of life and coming of age show than a show about competitive golf when it comes to the first season. While golf is always on the horizon, a common theme in the show, and is what brings people together, you can tell that
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the show is trying to weave a picture of an adolescent girl who uses only a three-iron club to commemorate her parents. Throughout the show, her connections to golf and people increase, which is evident in the increasing number of golf clubs that she uses. She refuses to leave her shell that she calls her island because she is scared by the outside world. Yet gradually, through her experiences of taking baby steps forward, being supported by everyone around her, and through her passion for golf, she can attempt to enter the world of competitive golf.
Of course, the other characters aren't bad too. There isn't too much of a focus on them other than Igaiga of course, who is another great father figure towards Tonbo. Igaiga's sense of responsibility in Tonbo is ingrained in him due to his passion for golf which makes him want to see the height to which Tonbo can reach in the world of golf. The genuine character interaction between Tonbo and Igaiga is charming, as you see father and childlike behaviors that suit them both. It's fun to see them bond and progress as people.
Finally, the focus on golf is like I said, always on the horizon. I enjoy how each episode talks a little bit about how the mechanics of golf work. The visuals and explanations are simple and straightforward, but they show the viewer how golf is played and what strategies people use to tackle different holes. The mindset, the type of iron, the wind, the grass, the way you stand, the way you swing, and so much more are talked about in this show, so when Tonbo does out-of-the-box strategies, it's that much more interesting to watch how unorthodox methods achieve the same goals as orthodox ones. To me, the discussion and commentary of golf in Igaiga's monologues is one of the main reasons why the golf play-by-play is interesting. Again, going back to Birdie Wing, the show doesn't focus on even the type of hole or how it should be played, nevermind going into detail on how the player should stand or put their club face, so it's nice to see this show attempt to tackle golf on a play by play level, and this depth is exactly what the show needed to stay interesting.
The show does fall off near the end of the season. There becomes the focus on practically irrelevant romance on side characters with not much personality, and it does just seem kind of shoehorned in rather than progressing the plot. Tonbo and golf are no longer the focus, and instead, romance is? The art and animation are also a bit offputting at times, blending in CGI models and 2D animation at times. The golf course CGI is fine because it provides a good visual for the show while also being presentable, but yeah it's fine for the most part. The facial expressions and lip sync are also basic and could be improved upon, but overall I am excited for season 2 and thus put it at a 7.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 15, 2024
This show just fell off a cliff.
Reiterating from my previous review, this show is a face-slapping type one. The main character, who seemingly has no talent or is completely outclassed by his arrogant, talented, and genius opponents somehow subverts expectations by beating them anyways. No matter the OP magic or talent that these genius people have, Mash will always find a way to destroy them with just brute force strength. No less also using complete out of the box methods which adds to the comedic absurdity of the show. To illustrate an example, Mash forms a tennis racket out of his wand and does a
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serve to hit his opponent who is wielding OP magic which makes him invulnerable to pain and beats him.
The problem is that the show got way too serious, the fights became way too boring, and characters were always a weak point in this show. Lets go by them one by one.
First off is the story. Sorry, I'm here to watch Mash pretend to be a magician while using muscles to destroy his competition in a comedic manner. Instead we get some BS arc about Mash needing to become a divine visionary (which is fine in it by itself), but the problem lies in the fact that it's all so very serious. He does it to stand up for poeple who aren't born with magical talent, and he also does it to prove himself useful in the fight against Innocent Zero (An evil organization I can't care less about). Clearly the show isn't even trying to be serious despite the theme seemingly being so. For example, Mash is the only known documented unmagical person in the show. Curious how there aren't any people that lack magic used as slaves or something to support political tension or anything. Nope, the theme is just pulled out of the authors ass to create plot. That also includes lack of political intrigue, where people are using Mash as a pawn piece for their little power games, but instead it's just devolved into the headmaster helping him out. Who the hell cares? So despite there being a seemingly serious plotline, I can't really think it anymore than some comedic show anyways. Characters similarly are there for mere comedic purposes, but more on that later.
Fights are also just way too boring. Part of the fun of Mashle was Mash pretending to be a magic user. Now that the cat's out of the bag, the fights become way more lackluster. This also comes as a problem due to the complete lack of creativity in the fights and environments. There's obviously tournament arcs or battle matches to be fought, but they're so tame compared to actual fun battle shows like Bobobobo or something. The matches have too much of a simple theme and rules. For example, one of the matches in this season is where you have to collect keys from seemingly immortal phantoms. You'd think this would create situations where people would camp exits to snatch keys from people who have ingenious methods, but the show doesn't even bother with that. Secondly, the character abilities themselves are super boring. While people in the first season had kind of interesting or unique abilities, like dragging people underwater to their own subworld, this season just features generic OP superpower magic that Mash beats. Going back to the tennis racket example fight, that is a fight that Mash should have never won. The person he fought against has the ability to reflect pain and receive none of it, so if he just decapitates his head he would win instantly. Obviously for comedic purposes this isn't what happened. The whole point of the show is that Mash overpowers his opponents in funny ways, but he just wins due to plot armor at this point. The point of the show is that Mash overpowers his opponents due to his own ingenious ideas or powers, but instead it's just his opponents acting stupid. None of the fights are interesting because it's just his opponents acting completely stupid rather than Mash acting smart. Fights are also very boring because they feature boring magic. There's no fun magic that gets shown, it's just generic super OP powers like moving at the speed of sound.
Finally, the characters are a complete joke. The friends that Mash hangs around with are all so one dimensional. A random lovestruck girl, the coward tsukommi, and the obnoxiously annoying boke. Despite the show forcing a interactions with Mash and his friends, it's all extremely unfunny it's all just the same tropey jokes being pulled over and over again. Again, the only fun part of season 1 was the face-slapping bit, so the comedic interactions that the author attempts are just all so useless. The antagonists and enemies are even more of a joke. They're even more boring and lack any presence. One of the enemies is an obvious villian type character where he treats humans like trash and thinks anyone born without talent is useless. Wasn't that the same exact personality of Abel Walker, the person that Mash beat last season? It's all so repetitive and generic. These enemies that Mash face have no personality, and they repeat the same pattern of having OP magic and getting beat by Mash before turning a new leaf.
To illustrate the complete lack of good characters or fights, lets look at Frieren. There's a magical examination arc in that show as well, but the contrast is stark. In Frieren, despite very little screen time, each character isn't just a generic archetype. They work together with each other, have unique magical abelites that puts as having different advantages and disadvantages in battle. The environment vastly changes the fight as their magic interacts with them. Even the theme of the challenges are really being used to their full limits, with teams using their magic and surroundings to their full ability to fulfill the tasks given. Because there are some team challenges, characters are forced to work together which also brings character development and also more interesting fights. The fights make a lot of logical sense since you've been exposed to the history of how battle between magicians has evolved. People use more physical attribute magic compared to pure magical forces because of the advanced defensive system that's been developed, for example.
The only good thing about this show got ruined, and all of the other aspects of this show are completely outclassed.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jul 14, 2024
The anime is just as I expected what a good adaptation would be, given that I read the source material years ago and it was just a fun experience to watch the anime.
The art stays true to the manga. Despite there being some jank animation sometimes, the animation and art look great and fully embodies the comedic pacing, facial expressions, with voice acting to boot. The balance between comedy and the dungeon exploring never gets stale or awkward, as they seamlessly chain from one scene to another.
Each monster that the gang encounters, the people that they interact with, and the different floors of the
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dungeon offer multitudes of different experiences. Senshi is able to cook different monsters and conjure different dishes, Marcille is able to showcase her arsenal of magic -- and her lack thereof sometimes, Laois his pretty blockheaded personality with an obsession towards monsters, and Chilchuk with his tsukommi. Every encounter that our party meets is not only action and comedy, but also a way for characters to deepen their friendship and for the viewer to see genuine character interaction with each other. It's also fun to see how characters tackle different monsters given their understanding of monster behavior and anatomy.
It's a state of the art show with not too many flaws, as long as you enjoy the genre and theme.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jul 3, 2024
This show is absolutely trash and all about the one-dimensional plot, writing, and characters that this show deigns to give to the viewer.
I can break down a lot of trash points about this show in just the first 12 minutes of the first episode. The show's first scene of
Guideau, our MC, and her duo Ashaf is one where they are casually asking a baker in a subway station about the witch that resides in the city. Rather than some witty exposition, worldbuilding, character interaction, or research, our MC just happens to bump into one of the witch's apprentices who introduces the witch to her.
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See how terrible this plot is already? "Somehow, our MC got lucky and found a direct connection to the witch." And this is only the first scene of the first episode!
Then, instead of being shown anything about the witch, the apprentice just talks about how the witch is cool, nice, strong, and helps the weak: something extremely unusual since witches bring disaster. So then you're shown a scene where the witch saves the city by easily restraining a monster rampaging. Okay, but you're not attached to this story since...it's all so effortless. The witch just throws a spell and the monster gets captured. Then you're shown typical hive-mind crowds of police and civilians brainlessly praising the witch of how kind-hearted she is! Wowza. Finally, our main character Guideau rushes in and tries to kill the witch because she's extremely angry and holds grudges against witches. The problem is that she's weak and gets subdued easily so she gets bailed out by Ashof who saves her and they both leave the scene.
And this also brings us to the point of utter cringeness when talking about character personalities. Guideau has grudges against witches. She wants to take revenge. Yet, she's also quite weak. Ashof comments how "it always goes like this," meaning that Guideau always rashly rushes at witches and tries to kill or beat them despite being much weaker. I have to remind you that holding a huge grudge, being angry towards them, and wanting to kill them is different than the temper tantrum that Guideau is having. If the author wanted to write a realistic character with these same traits of Guideau, being that they want to kill witches no matter what, Guideau would instead mask her emotions and try getting close to witches if possible before striking when they least expect it. Being overly hostile towards witches doesn't mean acting stupid when the circumstances don't favor you. If Guideau hated witches, and based on past experiences, wouldn't she patiently bide her time until she sees an opportune moment rather than just impatiently striking at a witch with nearly zero chances of winning? Guideau is already a character who doesn't learn from past mistakes, can't mask her emotions for her long-term goals, and is the equivalent of a five-year-old child who's constantly having a temper tantrum. You can both be extremely angry at something and still have a scheming mind!
Just like how the story doesn't bother with exposition and directly introduces you to the witch's apprentice despite there being no reason, the show also introduces extremely shallow characters with seemingly only one or two traits assigned to them. This gets further accentuated when --oh wait-- the witch is evil! What a reveal!!! The problem with the course of events in this story is that you're merely told that the witch has a good reputation and because of the crowds, know that public sentiment is on her side. But you never actually experience this, so it's such a shallow point that it doesn't shock the viewer when the opposite is true. Witches had a very bad reputation in the city but this witch turned it around. Do you ever see this happening? No, not really. Do you ever see public sentiment turning from one way to another? Also no. Do you ever see the witch exerting effort trying to save the city from other people? No, she just easily deals with the problem for the police. Finally, do you care if the apprentice gets betrayed by her master when the apprentice was introduced just a few minutes ago? Also no. This also makes the witch's true intentions all less impressive. So who cares whether or not the witch held a grudge because her mother was persecuted? You, the viewer and reader never experienced it. You have zero stake plot point because you don't have much of an opinion on this witch at all since she was introduced a mere 5 minutes ago! This is all due to terrible pacing and story. Of course, everything is shallow when you just introduce and do nothing to make the viewer care about either the characters or the story.
Terrible, terrible, terrible writing. I won't even go into how below-average the art and animation is.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jul 2, 2024
The problem with this show is just the lack of genuine interactions that happen in the show. This is in respect to the fact that the beginning is actually quite good. It shows and tells the tale of a girl that was abandoned by the gods and her family, and her struggle to stay alive in a seemingly hopeless world. Then the theme shifts to the most happy go lucky story ever where everyone she meets just happens to be a good guy.
The first major problem happens in episode 3. In episodes 1 and 2, it does a good setup of describing Ivy as a
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character quite well and her bond with the slime, Sora. At the same time, it shows how influential her past is in her current life and her relationship with her past memories. Overall no complaints there, but then episode 3 just puts on the most predictable tragic backstory that was heavily hinted at but never shown. Less is more here. Am I more interested in Ivy, whose backstory isn't completely discovered but heavily hinted at, or am I more interested in Ivy who has such a predictably boring and bland tragic backstory that it might as well have never been shown in the first place? It's just such a waste of time and lack of good storytelling; I really do not care about such a boring backstory that was already spoonfed to you in the previous two episodes. No new information is given, and the people who abandon Ivy are similarly two-bit villains that have no character to them at all, their only roles in the story is to villainize Ivy.
The second major problem is just the lack of genuine character interaction as I hinted at in the very first sentence in this review. Ivy's entire backstory is how she got backstabbed by her family and village, and the first few episodes indicate her complete lack of trust towards other humans, to the point where she can only trust her slime that she tamed. On the same note, after episode 3 she starts becoming a good Samaritan, helping others without expecting reward. Or the fact that she'll give increasingly sensitive details of her life to complete strangers when lightly probed. Isn't she supposed to be extremely anxious about her bounty? It just doesn't seem like a real character at this point. The side characters go from a 0 to 100 when it comes to closeness to the main character. Then comes the two-bit villains that try to harm Ivy that are so awfully and predictably tropey that it's painful to watch. Then comes the knight in shining armor helping Ivy out. I would have expected Ivy to be using her wits that she displayed earlier in the past few episodes to get past any problems, but the fact is that she becomes an object to be protected by random side characters that pop up in the story instead. Yet, these side characters have absolutely no reason to help Ivy other than the fact that she's a kid. It's just lazy writing, forcing characters to interact with Ivy, both harmfully and favorably.
Finally is just the awful worldbuilding. If you think for more than five seconds about how things get dumped out and perfectly fine glass containers and "outdated" potions get thrown out like trash. And even if these perfectly good things actually get dumped into the trash, it would be with other junk and be a junkyard, yet the anime depicts the trash sites as very clean and only containing good things. Finally, even if such a fantastical thing happened where junkyards had only usable things in it, why isn't there scavengers going through the goods and instead, Ivy just gets to take what she wants for free? It kind of seems pretty stupid for low rank adventurers to be going out in the wilderness hunting things or scavenging plants rather than just scavenging high value items from a harmless junkyard, all for free. Then there's magic bags. If you can recursively put magic bags into another and even stack featherweight effects, then what's stopping people from caravanning vast amounts of material, all through a single leather pouch? I don't mind suspending my disbelief, but this is just so awfully thought out that it's ridiculous.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 28, 2024
The main issue with this show is the lack of character development or meaningful interaction with the characters. Rather than say that the characters in this show have any sort of personality, they are more like mere plot points in order to progress with the story; a convenient way to pivot the focus of the main character.
If the cast of side characters on both the side of the heroes and on the evil faction were more developed and had more screen time, then this show would actually be pretty good. The problem is that it's mainly Warumono carrying the show with rarely any meaningful interaction
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with the rest of the cast, and the fairly simple, boring, and predictable setups for a lot of these scenes don't carry the show enough for it to be this simple.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 17, 2024
Let me get straight to the point that the animation of this show is lovely. It's just cute and nothing much to it, but the wide range of expressions that the princess makes when she melts into bliss in some mundane pleasures that she gets "tortured" into never quite gets repetitive due to the care and quality of the comedic timing and pacing that the animation studio puts into. I think that the anime takes care to retain the comedic quality that the original manga creates, and even elevates it through the good storyboarding and voice acting
That being said, are the gags funny? No. The
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show is a bit formulaic in which it takes the severe punishment of torture and flips it on the head by subverting the idea in which the Princess is subject to good things, and in order to continue experience said good thing, she will confess. Obviously just a comedic embellishment of something that originally inflict pain, but it's a fine premise. It's similar to Maoujou de Oyasumi, but in the case of this show, it never really breaks out of the shell. It sticks to the painfully same formula every time, and as result, if you don't find the princesses and her sword's reaction to be funny, then you might as well drop the show.
I really like these types of shows, which is why I keep watching them, but this show unfortunately doesn't deliver when it comes to fun characters, interesting premises, and actually funny manzai interactions.
If I wanted to watch food reaction shows, I'd watch Shokugeki no Soma or Yakitate Japan. If I wanted to watch a princess being "tortured" in a jail cell and the comedic slice of life that ensues in such an environment, Maoujou de Oyasumi is a better choice. Overall, the gag quality isn't as high as other shows and it gets repetitive fast. The other characters around the Princess don't nearly get enough screen time or interact in a way that enables them to be established characters so that also hurts the show a lot.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 17, 2024
Personally speaking, the concept of having magical powers through touch seems more of a rom-com or just pure comedic concept than something that's purely focused on romance. After all, injecting a powers straight from a fantasy just as a crutch to write romance because you're unable to organically get two people to get together just seems like lazy writing to me.
And it kind of gets proven. The touch is really just a way for the dense MC, Adachi to get to know the feelings of Kurosawa. I think this is where the typical start of how relationships gets completely removed with these magical powers.
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Rather than simple but powerful interactions that can start off a relationship, I'm here stuck listening to the embarrassing monologue of Kurosawa, kind of completely missing the point of a romance to begin with in my opinion.
Even when Adachi slowly warms up to the idea that he's not that against the idea with being with Kurosawa, it's literally been a single episode, and a single day since he learned that Kurosawa likes him. It's just painfully artificial. The anime just does a lot of telling and and not a lot of showing that Adachi is emotionally and romantically getting attached to Kurosawa.
It begs the question that if you hate romance anime that just have a knight in shining armor carry a female MC that's completely dull and mediocre but the male lead still is madly in love with her for no apparent reason, then the same can be applied to this show when it comes to Adachi and Kurosawa.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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