- Last OnlineJul 12, 2017 9:53 PM
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- BirthdayJul 19, 1999
- LocationMelbourne, Australia
- JoinedSep 18, 2016
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Sep 21, 2016
Shoujo anime and manga are often considered to be a laughingstock in the otaku world. It is often criticised to be overly romantic, too idealistic or grimdark, sexist due to the useless heroine, and/or just being prime fujoshi bait.
Ouran High School Host Club takes some of these concepts and turns them on their head, while keeping the viewers interested by a good story and characters all the way through.
The story is a kind of like a cross between that of Hana Yori Dango and Hana-Kimi. A commoner girl earns a scholarship to a prestigeous academy. She stumbles upon the school's Host Club, which consists of
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a group of handsome bishounen who entertain their female guests. When she accidentally knocks over an incredibly expensive vase, she is forced to join the club until she can pay for the damage... as a guy. Hilarity ensues.
The art and animation are actually quite nice. Both the OP and ED are catchy as hell, and the voice acting in both Japanese and English are superb. The characters are all believable, fun and enjoyable, and we do grow to learn a lot more about them as the series goes on. I like Haruhi especially - rather than be dense, helpless and delusioned, as many shoujo heroines tend to be, she snarks at pretty much everything around her, from the wealthy lifestyle to her wacky club members.
I did mention that this anime deconstructs a lot of particular shoujo anime conventions, didn't I? That's where a good chunk of the humour comes from - this anime is a parody of typical shoujo anime and manga. There is even a hilarious character who is an affectionate parody of female otaku/fujoshi.
All in all, this anime is incredibly enjoyable, and I highly recommend it if you're looking for a good comedy anime to lift your spirits.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 21, 2016
Please note that this review also covers season 2 of this anime, which is called Vampire Knight Guilty.
So I first watched this anime when I was about 13 years old. Having stumbled across it while watching television, I decided to give it a go.
I actually enjoyed it quite a lot, but then again at age 13 I enjoyed pretty much anything that caught my interest. Now that I'm 17, I've been exposed to a lot of anime that I enjoy a lot more.
So Vampire Knight is, in a nutshell, what you get when you turn Twilight into an anime, get rid of a lot of
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the sparkles and werewolves and give it some more interesting characters. The story is simple: we have a boarding school that is inhabited by both vampires and humans. The vampires all take the Night Class, because hey, guess what, they're actually nocturnal! Well, except one - Zero Kiryuu, a vampire-turned-human who resides in the Day Class with his best friend Yuki Cross.
Now, the main characters - Yuki, Zero and Kaname - can all be described as Bella, Jacob and Edward respectively, in layman's terms. Of course, mere comparisons will only bring forth confusion, so let me go through each of them real quick.
Yuki is a cheerful but ditzy girl who really just wants everyone to get along with each other. Basically the typical cardboard cutout shoujo protagonist, really. There's nothing much more I can say about her, but she does become a little more badas after a particular turning point in the second season.
Zero would probably be the end result of a fusion between Sasuke Uchiha and Jacob Black. He was the son of a couple of vampire hunters; however, he was bitten by a pureblood vampire for... some reason that I can't remember. But lemme just say that as a character, he's edgier than the Shadow the Hedgehog game, and that's saying something.
And finally, we have Kaname, the gorgeous but mysterious pureblood vampire dude. Nothing much I can say about him, either, aside from some major spoilers - I honestly don't know whether it's because I haven't watched this anime in ages or he and the other characters are just that flat and poorly-developed. Because ironically enough, from what I remember Yuki was the one who got the most character development.
So anyway, the art and animation in this anime is... okay. Nothing to write home about. The music's okay. The OPs and EDs aren't really my cup of tea, personally. I can't say much about the sub since I haven't watched it, but I'm not a very huge fan of the dub. I will give brownie points to Vic Mignogna pulling off a dark and edgy character's voice surprisingly well, but the rest of the characters' voices aren't really that great to listen to, especially Kaname's. He just sounds... so passive-aggressive all the time.
Overall, if you happen to be 13 or younger, or you're just entertained easily, then you might actually enjoy watching this. But if not, well, I can assure you that there are better shoujo anime out there.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 19, 2016
Anime with a large focus on gaming is steadily becoming a lot more popular. Be it cute moeblobs creating their own video games or ordinary humans finding themselves in a fantasy RPG, there's certainly anime out there that gamers are sure to enjoy.
No Game No Life is a rather curious specimen of its kind.
The intriguing thing about it is that it focuses on traditional games - board games, card games, even Rock Paper Scissors. The fantastical world it takes place in isn't even a video game. This world, called Disboard, runs on a system where everything - from minor disagreements to international conflict - is
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resolved via games, where each participant wager for a prize and penalty for the winners and losers. Sounds neat, right? Not when the human race are majorly disadvantaged compared to the other 15 races. So our heroes of the story - the super-talented stepsiblings Sora and Shiro - help humanity to show the other races how powerful it really is.
That, right there, is an incredibly interesting premise... right? But there is one thing that utterly ruins it.
Note that I described these siblings as "super-talented". By that, I mean "they have never lost a single game and they never will".
That... is actually a major problem, at least with the way this is handled. I mean, in shonen anime we always get super-strong and super-talented heroes, but more often than not they start out unremarkable but grow stronger with each passing episode. Because of that, they undergo a lot of challenges and perhaps even lose a few battles. But Sora and Shiro are already the most powerful characters from the get-go, and the series makes no attempts to hide it. The first warning sign is in the first episode, where they defeat the God of Disboard - who, mind you, is supposed to be the best gamer of all - in a game of chess. And even though they play games against weaker characters throughout the series in order to fulfill their goals, these games only get more ridiculous from there. They do not run on logic, they do not make the viewers sit on the edge of their seats in anticipation. They are merely there to advance the plot and to showcase how intelligent the siblings are.
Oh and by the way, this heavy focus on the siblings only makes the other characters look stupid in comparison. The fact that they act stupid as well, particularly after they each lose their respective games with the siblings, only makes matters worse. The worst offender here is Stephanie Dola, the granddaughter of the previous King of humanity, although I can't really blame her. On top of never actually doing anything badass on her own - with one exception, but even then it was part of the siblings' plan - she only exists to be objectified and humilliated by the siblings in almost every second of her screentime. In most of the time she spends on-screen, she is barely wearing anything, and she's not even very happy about it at all. I see this as a major sign of sexism in anime, and seeing it in No Game No Life hugely disappoints me.
Speaking of fanservice, oh, there's tons of it here. Pretty much every female character will be naked save for cloud censors around her at some point in the show - yes, even the eleven-year-old Shiro. I'd just brush that off as the Japanese invoking a sense of innocence on her, but since there are MULTIPLE INSTANCES of nudity and panty shots from her, I doubt it. Lots of fanservice is one thing, and if the female characters are interesting enough I wouldn't mind it. Lots of fanservice applied to some of the most unlikable female characters I have ever met, including a loli, is a whole 'nother story.
All in all, don't be fooled by the tempting premise and beautiful art. By watching No Game No Life, all you'll be getting out of it is stupidity, fanservice and boring action scenes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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