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Story: In an artificial and isolated island in the middle of Tokyo lies the ’24th ward’. The people who govern this island for better or worse have a desire to officially join the city of Tokyo as an official district. But are required to pass a certain threshold of ‘safety’ in order to do so. As such, the system known as the ‘Kanae System’ monitors the threat potential of its citizens in order to take out any potential outliers that threaten the safety of society. It’s here where we meet our three protagonists, affectionally called the ‘RGB boys’, who’ve drifted as a result of an incident several years back. Now in their young adult years, the city’s threat system contacts the three boys and offers them a trolley problem under the guise of a familiar name/figure in order to solve the ward’s problems. Giving them the chance to change the future with…mixed results thanks to conflicting motivations. On paper, Tokyo 24th Ward is a series that really should’ve worked. It’s in the same vein as psycho-pass and similar shows like that where the narrative is wrapped around proposing a question. In this case, we ask whether or not the order of a computer that governs society and restricts privacy is better than one without. Sacrificing privacy for safety and safety for potential social unrest. A fair question to ask in our current day society. One that I’m sure could’ve worked if it was an idea that was well-implemented. But for this show…that’s debatable at best. Trolley problems are kind of the main thing this show tries to do. Every few episodes bringing forth a new issue that the RGB boys must deal with that tests their ideals for the future as well as their cooperation. Not only that, but we’ve got backstory. A lot of backstory. Ones that deal with not only how the RGB boys drifted apart, but also why the security system is the way it is. As well as character backstory for a myriad of side characters who all have a stake in the narrative as a whole. Oh, and did I forget the one episode where one of the boys just…grabs his chest for a whole day? Or the one time there was a cooking competition? Tokyo 24th Ward is a classic example of a show that bites off more than it can chew. The show only spans around 12 episodes. But with about 8-9 plot threads throughout the whole thing, the show feels a lot less like a cohesive narrative and more like spaghetti being thrown on the walls. As such, nothing in this show really sticks for longer than maybe a few minutes. Whatever’s shown either in the last episode or several minutes prior is typically cast aside and replaced with something else that’s about as equally important. By that I mean it should be important to the story, but the show really doesn’t make a strong case for letting stuff last longer for more than a few minutes. Hell the whole graffiti war happened all of a sudden and just kind of ended for no reason? Honestly I still don’t understand that whole thing, and I doubt the series does either. Pacing suffers immensely because of this, and I can’t really make a strong argument for the narrative threads the show tries to make because the end result that culminates in the last two episodes just feels hollow and empty. Admittedly, I did have some hopes for the series. Thinking it was going to be at least an entertaining piece of media that wasn’t typically anime fare- But I see now that my hopes of getting another dark horse of the season correct was swiftly snuffed. Admittedly, the story conceptually isn’t bad. It’s just that with the insane amount of fluff padding out the runtime, the numerous plot threads, and the poor pacing not executing on the theme/ideas very well just kinda made the show fall unceremoniously without any real takeaways to be had. Like sure, the trolley stuff is cool and all, but maybe a little bit more time on the cutting room floor to make sure the narrative…made sense as a whole would’ve been nice. Characters: The RGB boys consist of a graffiti rebel, a wannabe hero, and the dude with glasses who thinks he’s got a better sense of morals because his daddy is the mayor of the entire ward. Very different characters. And at no time do they ever agree on anything. While I think the dynamics make for some fantastic character contrasts that could result in some fantastic character interaction…the truth is often more disappointing than you think. The three characters constantly fight throughout the series, never really being on the same page on anything after the first episode. Made even more egregious because they kind of go off on their own separate things but are mostly just…bystanders to the plot? It’s a really weird viewing experience having the protagonists just watch things happen as the 24th ward erupts in flames. And they don’t really do much aside from interact with their immediate circles and make some indirect impact on the plot. Suffice to say, the RGB boys aren’t really that compelling of a group, and even less so as individual characters since the poor pacing and scattered focus really hemorrhaged their ability to be actual characters in their own story. Which is a shame cause the few times they actually get together are really cool. It just doesn’t have many lasting impacts because it happens so few times that it’s more of a spectacle than a natural narrative point. Side characters aren’t really much better off since any and all screentime they get is devoted towards building up the world. Or showing off why the place is such a shithole. Backstories are almost entirely shown to give significance to why characters should matter instead of who they are. Without their connection to whatever’s happening in the moment, I’m almost certain that the side characters wouldn’t have anything meaningful to them. Even the ‘antagonist’ of the show isn’t really worth mentioning because the actual role they play is again, geared towards building the world. Like everyone’s just following a torn up script and doing their best to follow along with what’s happening on the screen. Truly one of the most underwhelming casts I’ve seen in recent history. And it’s a little sad given again, the potential of this series. Aesthetics: I’ve said before that Cloverworks is a coin toss in quality. And truthfully, if 24th ward has anything going for it, it’d definitely be its look. On the surface the show isn’t really that interesting to look at. And…it isn’t. But, there’re a few aspects I do like about this show, chiefly in the background art and the designs of the RGB boys. On the note of background art, Ran’s portfolio (or the R in RGB) and all of the other tagging that goes on in the series is genuinely impressive to look at. Props to the artists that made those cause all of the tagging that goes on in the show’s Shantytown looks really good and I would really like to see all of the background cels that show all of the different pieces of art that was shown in the series. On the note of character design, I personally really like how the RGB boys look, as everything from their clothing to their hairstyle is reflective of the kind of people they are as well as their goals. (I.E. Ran has more of a wild hair to emphasize his loose/anarchic way of life whereas Kouki is more put together and well-dressed to show off his organized and higher income bracket lifestyle.) That and the boys are literally colored Red, Blue, and Green with their eyes swapping colors in order to give them an extra bit of connection with each other. It’s cheesy, but it’s a touch I appreciate. Survive Said the Prophet’s “Paper Sky” should by no means be as good as it is. It’s a weirdly inspirational rock song that sounds like something you’d here at a concert. It’s a really enjoyable listen for me that was undoubtedly one of my highlights when watching this show. Maybe it’s a little generic for what it is, but considering what this show is, I’m more than willing to give this song a pass because it at least stands out for me. “255,255,255” (They were proud of the RGB puns they put in this show weren’t they?) sung by the RGB boys’ seiyuus is a song that I’d say is as good as its OP sister. It’s a lower energy and comfortable song that stands out to me because it’s just a chill beat that, while maybe a little generic, has an energy to it that I really like. Final Thoughts: The word of the day is disappointment. And I’m sticking by that. There’s not a lot about the 24th ward that I think is worth mentioning aside from the fact that the showrunners bit off more than they could chew. The potential for a good series that maybe would become a sleeper hit was there. The first episode was honestly a pretty good first episode that set the standard for what I thought the series would become. Didn’t think that would be the peak. Yeesh. In spite of that, I still think the showrunners tried to do something good here. Within the show I could tell that there were good nuggets of ideas that they really wanted to show/portray. The struggle between a life of safety vs. a life of privacy did have some genuine merit here. And the issues in the ward definitely weren’t just haphazardly thrown in there as the very idea of the Shantytown full of poor, starving people being restricted even more certainly strikes an uncomfortable note. But they just weren’t able to bring these ideas to fruition in a way that truly made sense. And for that, I lament Tokyo 24th Ward just kind of falling to the wayside, never to be spoken about ever again once the season’s been finished. Even so, I still wouldn’t recommend the show. There’re far too many narrative problems for it to be even worth someone’s time. If they had maybe been given more time or thinned down the plot threads to be more streamlined, I’m sure we could’ve ended up with something good. As it is…yeah, not really feeling this one. If you’re giving me a full cour of content and it’s unclear on how we got from Point A to Point B then I think the story needs another pass on the drawing board. Like seriously, what was the whole point of the graffiti war if was hardly there for an episode… read more
Story: As the conflict to bring the two brothers together comes to limelight, the war on Paradis Island rages on. Yaegerists, who radically nationalized their small island seek to destroy the world that vilified them. Marley, the aggressors that seek to stop this dangerous island from threatening the world with their titans. And in the middle, the small survey corps, sitting amidst the warring factions as they watch Eren and Zeke get ever so closer together to enact their plan on the world. But something comes, a rumbling that itself may choose the direction the world will take once this war is over. Now, I’m not really a fan of seasons chopped up in half. And picking up directly after ‘The Final Season Part 1′ is certainly not a good look for the story. That aside, the most I can say about this particular season is just the atmosphere. There’re two major points I’d like to bring up, namely the remaining lore bits and the series’ full reflection as it works towards the end. As well as the accompanying tone that the show takes in order to make it clear where the author’s intentions lie. Previous reviews I’ve made on the series have talked about just how unambiguously dark everything is. The mountains of bodies, the heavy dialogue as people quite literally fight to exist, and the sheer anger everyone feels towards one another. This season is as expected, no different from that, and does so without an ounce of remorse as the characters we’ve grown to know and understand commit tons and tons of murder, constantly fighting both themselves and others to achieve what they think is right. There’s not really much else to say for this tone and the brutality of it all. Nobody in the show cracks even a single smile, and the answer to every problem is guns and steel so they can keep drawing breath. Leaving behind rotting corpses and broken families in order to move forward. Lore-wise, the show pretty much wraps up all of the important backstory events that the audience needs to know about. The great founder ‘Ymir’ is given a heavy spotlight in the early parts of the season as we get to fully understand what the great vow was and how the world came to vilify the Eldians for sins committed millenia ago. A few other loose ends regarding Eren are also patched up too. All done in a way that feels organic to the series and helps give a clearer picture of who is at fault here, whether or not we can actually point fingers to a single person or not. Regarding the lore though, I don’t really have any complaints. The titan stuff had already been soundly wrapped up a season or two after we had reached the basement, so what we got here was just the icing on the cake towards the morphology of stuff that led us to this point. In spite of my praises though I do think that this part is a little weaker to what we got in Final Season Pt 1 mostly because this section was more of a lull working towards what’s going to be the final confrontation of the series. The tone had already been set in Part 1, so this season just kind of continued that. And we needed to finalize who was going to be at the end and who wasn’t, so we needed to do that here so we had an idea of who exactly was going to be present when we finally went up against ‘The World’. A very necessary part, and still undoubtedly a very good section as it sets up the endgame. But one that has a little bit less oomph cause it’s mostly transitional and is made to stack up the stakes and motivations that the ‘Conclusion’ will most certainly knock down when we come to it. Characters: Characters continue to remain as caricatures of their previous selves as the context of who they are and what they’ve achieved drastically change them for better for worse. Mikasa and Armin for example still hold onto the hope that Eren is going to come back to them, mistakenly believing that Eren is in any way the same person he was before. (Or rather don’t want to believe he isn’t somehow.) The entire cast that we’ve known since Season 1 is basically like this. And it’s great that the show has this lull period in order to let everything stew and bubble over. They’re not kids anymore. And they’ve all killed a lot of people intentionally or otherwise. To me, one of the best episodes was the time when everyone just sat around a fire and ate a meal. Reflecting on all of the shit that’s happened up until that point. It’s uncomfortable. It’s gut-punching for some of the cast members. And it really shows how far everyone has come to get to this point. This is the height of characterization for me, as it really puts a lot of perspective into the things that’ve happened to this point as past incidents get brought up as a way to either gut punch or remind others of the sins they’ve committed. Eren I feel like isn’t as impactful this time around as he is more of an ever present threat now. We knew in the season prior that this protagonist was a ‘good guy’ no longer. This season just sort of solidifies that fact while also pushing a very interesting narrative direction. See, no one person in this show is entirely wrong. Misguided in most instances, but never ‘wrong’. And this is very true for Eren. The ideology of trying to protect Eldia remains as a focal point of his character, as he’s changed from killing all titans to protect people, to killing everyone else to protect his people. Same concept different flavor. So he’s no longer just a character in the series but more of an ideology that in the latter half is just kinda…there in the background. Figuratively and literally speaking. I certainly wish he took more of an active character role than just being the fucking huge plot point moving around in the background, but I think given how threatened everyone is of him now, I think I can kind of give it a pass. Background characters take on an…interesting flavor this season being entirely entities that again, reflect back on the stuff that’s happened up until this point. They’re almost throwbacks in a way, as a few notable characters from Season 1 of all things show up and have very notable appearances that impact the plot in a meaningful fashion. It’s the kind of fanservice that I like for long term fans. Since it gives these seemingly long forgotten characters a moment in the limelight, as well as gives them a way to voice their opinion on these changing times. Again, reflecting on how far the series has gotten up until this point since a lot has happened since…2013 when this show first aired. Admittedly I wish their contributions didn’t just amount to…what happened to them. But the fact that we even got this in the first place is commendable considering a lot of shows that do stuff like this don’t really use their characters in a meaningful way. Aesthetics: I mean the CGI titans look a little better at least. There’s not really a lot that I can really say about this season in terms of the art because it’s still a far cry from the scenes that Wit Studio were able to animate. There’re certainly a few cool shots here and there, but I think the overall look of the show is more or less the same. This certainly isn’t helped by the fact that there aren’t really that many intense imagery shots (we’re never gonna top Erwin sitting on a mountain of bodies), but with what we do have, I’m satisfied. All of that being said, I think this season is the best in terms of faces. Memes aside, you can really see the pain, suffering, and anger in the characters’ faces as they fight both each other and themselves. It adds to the visceral nature of the show. And really showcases how bleak everything is as the shine in everyone’s eyes are basically gone and is replaced by crosshatching lines that emphasize the dread everyone feels. Is it a replacement for the cool animation? No, and it never will be. But this standout quality I feel is still worth mentioning because never has a season of AoT had this amount of facial quality before. And the internet definitely showed us that that was the case. Aptly named “The Rumbling”, SiM’s opening is uh…not my cup of tea. Now, I don’t really like metal or metal screams in general, so I already have my biases. That being said, the song itself is at least memorable since metal openings in anime aren’t really that common. It has grown on me as I’ve listened to it more as the season’s gone on, but I still think we have better openings. (My War and Sasageyo come to mind.) Akuma no ko by Ai Higuchi by comparison hits those high emotional beats that I expect out of the endings of this series. I really like it, especially since it’s accompanied by bird and cage imagery as well as Eren just solitarily standing out in the distance as if he’s searching for his freedom. The song while nice to listen to I think does better because of the symbolism being portrayed, and for that reason it stands as one of my more favorite endings of the series. Final Thoughts: Ok, now the next one has GOT to be the last season, right? Like come on, there really isn’t that much story left now that the Rumbling has started and we’ve got everyone on a boat. I don’t think I have much to say for Attack on Titan that I haven’t already said before. There’s something so captivating and visually depressing about watching a series that’s so anti-war and portrays the conflict of interests of opposing factions of humanity as everyone being in the wrong somehow. The window into how war affects everyone and how everyone is participating in the fight is not hidden whatsoever. And it was nice to have these character moments present to really show how far we came from being a gratuitous gorefest of naked people that was a laughinstock for the anime community for a time. I just hope that the anime does stick the landing akin to the manga because I for one actually like the manga ending (well most of it), and being able to cap a series off at the story’s true, final end is an honor that most shows won’t ever get to have in its lifetime. And I for one am happy that I will be able to witness it through to the end. read more
Story: As the story continues for our unlikely duo of Noe and Vanitas, new characters come out from the fray and end up as folded parts of the narrative. With a call for the elimination of the Beast of Gevaudan, the story that unfolds digs up some unsightly memories for our main cast as ugly or long forgotten truths start to resurface and corrupt the fragile relationships that have been built so far. My last look into the story of Vanitas no Carte had me perplexed at where the story was going to go, but hopeful that I was going to get the answers I wanted. While I don’t necessarily think I got everything answered, I got pretty damn close. Compared to its first cour, this second ‘season’ really likes to poke at and dig into the stuff that I wanted to see before. Knowledge of the enigmatic Vanitas as well as a further looksee into the pasts of Dominique and Jeanne become prominent story beats in the narrative as the weight of their characters becomes ever more present in the narrative. Which I think does well to flesh out their characters (and traumas more). Again, character study is the theme this time around, as entire episodes are dedicated to explaining the pasts and other various aspects of the show’s characters. And why their emotional attachments lie where they are. It again touches on the topic of how the negative aspects of our lives affect how we live. The chilling grasp of our regrets and traumas chaining us to events and memories that we want to forget. Drowning ourselves in a false hope of moving forward when all this selfish desire is doing is forcing us to run away from our problems. Dramatic and quite raw in its presentation, I feel like this season just elevated this part of the story so much more as the visceral imagery and topics shown in the characters’ backstories paint really grim pictures at how their twisted motivations became what they are. It really doesn’t let up, and this being one of the series’ boons (as well as Mochizuki Jun’s signature at this point) is why I think Vanitas no Carte is so captivating to watch. That being said, the story quality in terms of pacing is where I think this presentation starts to break apart. Particularly in the section regarding the Beast of Gevaudan. Vanitas no Carte is by no means a simple series to digest. There’re so many moving parts, character motivations, and raw human emotion that’s being portrayed here. On top of an entire world populated by a variety of vampire, human, and magic laws that build up the background. And we have…12 episodes to talk about it. Suffice to say, the show is very dense, and at times I felt like either something was missing or I had to stop and rewind a bit just to fully understand why and how everything was being done. At the end of the day though, I don’t think I still got it. Now this may just be a part of me not understanding everything, but I’m willing to bet that the showrunners struggled in some way to make everything fit and stuff had to be cut. Especially since they apparently progressed the series up to the point of where the manga currently is, so…that’s pretty fast all things considering. Because of this, I think the pacing in Vanitas no Carte is quite wonky and breaks apart at times. Not at all helped by the fact that rushing something like character breakdowns, a notoriously important story element that cannot be rushed, can make certain scenes or moments feel cheap or less impactful. In spite of that though, I don’t really have many qualms about the story. Sure there’re confusing aspects of the story…as well as a lot of ‘NOPE’ that triggers my fight or flight response, but I still thoroughly enjoyed my time with this show. I would hope that there will be a sequel season sometime in the future. Because there’s something awful to be said about shows that end just when they’re about to get good. And I really don’t want Vanitas no Carte to be one of those shows. Characters: Vanitas at last getting a backstory episode was uh…not as impactful as I wanted. The enigmatic part of his character is still present since I’m pretty sure we’re still missing a chunk of his backstory, but I will take the nice helping of information I got anyway. My opinion on Vanitas has not changed since the first season since he still kind of carries the same role of annoyingly cryptic bastard that’s occasionally helpful, but doesn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart. My expectations going into this was really if we were going to get a revelation to his backstory or if he was going to change in any significant way that would put a positive spin on his character…and we kinda got half of that. In spite of that though, my verdict really is to just call him a good character. He certainly carries a lot of narrative weight, but does so in tandem with the rest of the cast instead of being the sole provider. Something that’s helped by the fact that he definitely has a standout personality that makes him memorable. With the backstory we did end up getting at least putting in perspective some of his character traits and why he acts the way he does. Does it answer everything though? Absolutely not and I still don’t know what the deal with his terrible personality is. We might get the answer to that in time, but for now, not having it just kind of makes him an irritating puzzle to figure out. Noe by comparison kind of gets the short end of the stick with most of his attention being put more towards trying to push his character beyond his traumas instead of sullying on them. It’s certainly refreshing in a cast that relies so heavily on what hurt them in the past. But even if it is a standout trait, Noe himself…doesn’t really get that much attention. Because the narrative this time is so centered on what affected people in the past, he kind of just takes a backseat or is put in front of the audience’s view to deal with someone who clearly has a lot going on. A helpful role for sure, but not one that has so much narrative weight that it drastically affects anyone he’s fighting or himself. His little bit of introspection is nice though, so I’ll give him that as an upside. Chloe and Misha are our two standout characters by virtue of being new faces in the narrative that each take up half a season each. (Maybe Misha less so, but he definitely shook things up quite a bit.) Each is slapped with a rather hefty backstory that almost immediately puts their motivations and character in perspective. Personally…I’m not really that much of a fan? It doesn’t break up the narrative as much as I thought it would, but it certainly breaks up pacing since important action or story beats stop in their tracks to give a lot of story context before we can progress forward. For me, story writing like this feels a bit forced since it’s made solely to get the audience to care about the immediate character we’re talking about instead of folding the backstory in a more natural way even if the backstory is good and adds really helpful context. Especially since this kind of stuff eats up a lot of runtime and adds more to the overall density of the story’s presentation. Astolfo also falls into this category, but less so since he kind of just shows up as a part of the narrative in the moment but isn’t as heavily focused as the characters listed above. Much of the recurring cast like Dominique and Jeanne, as well as other lesser known characters get somewhat thrown to wayside, but less so than I initially expected. They mostly take a backseat to what’s going on, but for the girls in particular, participate in the plot ever so slightly in their own way through you guessed it, more backstory. (Admittedly I may be making the story and characterization sound worse than it actually is. I swear, the characterization is really good. It’s just entirely told through backstory.) The most I can say about the rest of the characters is that the show up in snippets that matter to their character and form relationships with other relevant characters, but do little else beyond that. The girls certainly get some character development, but something about the way their characters were approached in the story feels a little cheap to me. Maybe it’s just because they didn’t get as much time devoted to them, but they lacked the oomph that I expected them to get in the story even if the nuggets of info that we ended up getting about them were actually pretty good. Aesthetics: With Bones once again taking the reins of the series, Vanitas no Carte is no less spectacular than it was in its first season…and might actually be more harrowing to watch. Indeed, Mochizuki Jun’s visceral imagery and pained emotions are audibly painted on the screen. But something about this season feels harder to watch. Maybe it’s because the sexual imagery/forceful contact is painted as even more of a bad thing than the previous season. Or the fact that the characters this time often look even more dead inside with more disheveled or mentally exhausted appearances for the characters taking center stage as the traumas of past events resurface for this cast of broken individuals. It’s all very…uncomfortable to watch. And I felt really queasy at times watching this because the atmosphere in Vanitas generally feels really heavy what with the sense of dread and a desire to end one’s life taking over the psyche of multiple characters in this series. That being said, the show still does have its lighthearted moments and often come at the cost of some hilariously drastic whiplash that I don’t think I can recover from. The deformed chibis with how Vanitas physically abuses and yells at people complimented by ludicrously simple frames for comedic purposes are just…fantastic. It’s such a nice (and dramatic) contrast to what’s normally on-screen that for a second I forget the show that I’m watching and I can just have a laugh. Plus this shit just comes outta nowhere, so you can’t really anticipate it until it happens. Little Green Monster’s “Your Name” is a good song. But it is not as good as the first op, I’m sorry. It’s more of a yearning ballad that focuses more on its vocals rather that its choice of instrument. While it has that nice mysterious beat to it at the beginning I really don’t think it’s that standout of a track when the first opening last season just absolutely killed it in the memorability factor for me. Similarly, Mononkvl’s “salvation” just isn’t that interesting for me. It’s a similar ballad-style song that just doesn’t do it for me. Like it sounds nice and all, but nothing about it really makes me search it out to listen to it again. I’d say that OP wins out this time, but neither songs stand out that much to me unfortunately. Final Thoughts: Between the first season of Vanitas and now, I’ve read the entirety of Mochizuki Jun’s previous work, Pandora Hearts, in its entirety. So coming back to Vanitas with fresh eyes on understanding the kind of story this woman is capable of…well I can certainly see the similarities. The raw emotion of how negatively the human psyche reacts to trauma and how desperately it will cling onto the things that it perceives as pillars of safety is a fascinating topic that flows effortlessly into the narrative of this series. While real life certainly isn’t going to devolve to the point of people being so broken that they’ll only become dangerously suicidal, it does bring up an interesting narrative point at how toxic and twisted the bonds and memories we have can become if we chain ourselves to them. (Which chains seem to be something Mochizuki Jun is fond of I’ve learned.) Presentation aside, the narrative beat that the story revolves around is so well done that I can’t really say anything bad on a narrative level about this series. Technically though, I’ve definitely got my issues. But the core is good enough that I’m willing to forgive a few blemishes here and there because I’m sure there’re some things behind the scenes that caused those issues to appear. Either that or because she’s so annoyingly cryptic about making a domino effect that she’s just waiting for the narrative to reach a tipping point before letting everything fall apart and for all to be revealed. I certainly hope that this series gets another season some time in the future because there is so much potential for good stuff here and I don’t want it to end. Read the manga endings were annoying ten years ago, and they’re still annoying now. So if you have any mercy on me, Bones, you’ll at least say “Hey we’re gonna do another cour” later in a year or so. That’s all I need. And because I held my judgments until I knew a bit more to the story, I can definitely say that Vanitas no Carte is good…for the right audience. While the show is very good, I will say it has a lot of sections in it that would have issues doing well for a broad audience. Quite frankly, if you’re not interested in the complex interpersonal relationships of people, male and female, interacting each other in ways that are a wide spectrum of gray, then I don’t think this show will be for you. There is a lot to take in with Vanitas no Carte, all of it not very PG with even less of it being happy in most contexts. But if you’re willing to break past those relatively uncomfortable topics, you’ll be rewarded with a series that isn’t afraid to tackle the issues of its characters and how ugly and hard it is to climb over those traumatic mountains. read more
Story: From a young age, Wakana Gojo has loved his family’s business of making Hina dolls: traditional Japanese dolls used for decoration in homes. However, because of an unknown girl’s opinion (seriously I don’t know who she is), Gojo has lived his life ashamed of the hobby that brings him joy. Isolated because he’s got unusual interests, he hides away one day in the sewing club, awkwardly talking to the Hina doll head that he owns whilst making clothes for it. Then a gyaru pops through the door and sees everything he’s doing. This girl’s name is Marin Kitagawa, and after finding out that Gojo is exceptional at making clothes, asks him if he could help fulfill her dream: become a cosplayer with custom made/fitted outfits since her efforts so far have been…lacking. To say the least. So, we’ve got a typical romance set up where an unlikely duo of downtrodden boy meets the super popular/beautiful girl through some circumstance. A question. Does this show have any merit to it that makes it remotely interesting compared to dozens of other shows like it out there? For my money…yes. Two standout qualities of the show are: its presentation on the logistics of cosplay, as well as the slice and life aspect of its two main characters. Both of which are aspects that contribute to the overall identity of Dress up Darling. On the cosplay side of things, Dress up Darling spends a lot of time focusing on the logistical aspects of what goes into both a cosplay and the subsequent shoot for a picture album. Everything from fabric choices to the nitty gritty aspects of makeup and application of various tools like cosplay tape are commonly woven into the narrative as both of our main characters get more and more familiar with this hobby of turning into different characters. They also learn just how expensive everything can be, which due to things like good cameras, renting venues, and actually making the damn outfit, often create a lot more comedic situations than I expected. All of this to say that one of Dress up Darling’s boons is how informative it is about this topic with me personally going into this with a lot more intrigue about it than I thought originally. The other half of this is of course the slice of life aspect of the series where the main duo just live their lives in relative ease. A common thread for this half of the show is how often the theme boils down to getting Gojo out of his comfort zone, as his partner drags him around place to place to experience life and touch grass. Something he’s not entirely familiar with because he’s spent his life inside around hina dolls. It’s a lot more quaint than I expected, with a lot of quiet moments and casual conversation taking over as the show’s focus. More than that, it feels…genuine. Something about it that feels almost not…anime-like? Cause it’s just two kids interacting and living their lives with as much freedom as they can, and I quite like that. Since these parts of the show go mostly undisturbed and are allowed to reach their little conclusions without worry. That being said, Dress up Darling’s fanservice admittedly hurts more than helps. While Marin is a bit of a loose cannon character-wise, the fact that the show flaunts her so often in such a blatant and unapologetic fashion is a bit of a red flag for me…considering what that means for the overall quality of the story in terms of Gojo. Cause it leads to scenes where we see the protagonist fluster and struggle to deal with the situation for long periods of time because the girl he spends time with is in front of him basically naked for certain parts of the show. Not only that, but the show constantly trying to make certain scenes sexy for…reasons isn’t really that compelling for me, and I really think we could’ve done away with those. Since trying to inject sexy into a scene tends to change the entire mood of what’s on-screen entirely, and I’d rather not deal with such drastic mood shifts in something I’m trying to be invested in. All in all though, I think Dress up Darling has its story merits as an entry in the romance genre with a few unfortunate things bogging down its story. The pacing towards the end could’ve also been better cause stuff just kind of…happens without a rhyme or reason why, and I think the showrunners were just kind of running out of things to put in in order to wrap the season up in a bow. At least the cosplay information was really fun to learn about. Which is not what I think the intention of the show was supposed to be. Characters: Gojo I feel is more of a character defined by his shift more so than anything else than he started with during episode 1. Because Dress up Darling is more or less a story about how he’s coming out of his shell, a large portion of his screentime is devoted towards learning new things (such as making cosplay outfits) and exploring more of the world outside of his workshop surrounded by hina dolls. The shift is a positive trait, but I’d be remised if I didn’t talk about his more negative aspects. Particularly his constant flustering and- look, having a guy freak out over a girl being slightly indecent just isn’t fun, ok? Like we’re seen this so many times, and I’m sick of it. Objectively one of the worst aspects of the show, and it eats up so much more screentime than it needs to. On the plus side, at least he’s not just generically…nice. His passion for his hobbies and craft is rather nice to watch, especially when it ties into the broader narrative and the more informative aspects of cosplay that I talked about before. I don’t think Gojo is a bad character per say, I just think that there were a lot better things you could do with him that didn’t just default to conventional romance tropes. Especially since his little thing with making clothes (and doing stuff like playing eroges for actual research) are charming aspects that stand out to me. As is tradition with romance shows, Marin Kitagawa is the marketable waifu with enough personality to drive the entire show by herself. Which is definitely not an understatement considering how much emphasis the show and marketing alone has put on her. She’s written as a popular girl that opens up to the people who share in her nerdy hobbies, always wearing a smile on her face no matter the situation. Which does beg the question a bit…is she too perfect? Which from my perspective, I’d say yes, but only because this isn’t really the kind of show that needs characters with major flaws in them. She is by all accounts the catalyst that brings Gojo out from his little self-deprecating cycle and opens him up to a new world of possibilities. All the while forming a bond with him that during many parts of the show feel more comfortable than outwardly romantic. Does this mean she needs something to counterbalance that outside of little flaws like bad cooking that only add to the charm? Possibly, but I don’t think it’d change much considering this show isn’t meant to have major drama in the first place. My one point of contention though is her eventual crush on Gojo, which feels just a bit too sudden and weirdly infantilizes her in a way that I’m…not comfortable with. It’s the one bad blemish on her character that’s there probably for moe points, but misses the mark for me because having her go ‘I wuv you’ in any serious context feels like an insult to a girl that has, in the same show, expressed her affections for the boy she likes through more indirect and realistic means that make their bond more compelling to watch. While there aren’t that many side characters to go through, I’d say most of them past the halfway point in the show don’t really matter as much as they could. Because the show focuses so heavily around the relationship between Gojo and Marin, there really isn’t very much wiggle room left for anyone else to interject. The most we get is the Inui sisters, who show up halfway and give some additional perspective on the cosplay world while also contributing to the plot with some of their own personal grievances. After that though, they don’t really have much of an impact, and we go right back to the establishment of the status quo where Gojo and Marin continue with whatever they were doing before. Aesthetics: I feel like Cloverworks was banking on this show to pop off because they put in a lot of effort to make this show look as good as it did. While Dress up Darling’s visuals are mostly muted with lighter pastel colors, the quality and detail of the various close-up shots of both the cosplay and Marin herself are a lot more detailed than they have any right to be. Again, leading into the idea that the show’s marketing and focus is so heavily centered around her. Animation in this regard is also a big contributor to this, as most if not all of Marin’s scenes and movements are handled with so much care and attention that I wouldn’t be surprised if members of the team were dedicated solely just to drawing her hair and body movement. Seriously, this girl moves around with so much fluidity she’s got about an entire show’s worth of animation put into that fashionable body of hers. It’s actually kind of unfair how good she looks because almost no other characters gets the same level of care put into them (not like they show up for as long as she does anyway). Gojo certainly gets his bit in the spotlight, having a good chunk of fun smear frames and snappy movements when he’s in a tight spot with Marin, but comparing the attention that the two have against each other is almost laughable at how much of a one-sided victory it is. Factoring in the fanservice though…at this point I think the only difference between ‘anime’ and ‘hentai’ now is whether or not we can see the characters’ privates or not. Dress up Darling gets away with way more shit than it has any right to, and I am decidedly not very comfortable when watching portions like the second halves of episode 2 and episode 11. The show puts in a lot of detail for these parts: closeups, animated breath, shots of the characters’ mouths and eyes…like there is so much to this that I almost feel bad for criticizing it because it does genuinely look good from an art perspective. And yet it adds absolutely nothing to the story because it both eats up screentime and shifts the mood in such a way that just end up tuning out while it’s happening. Arguably the worst aspect of the show and while I understand that Marin likes sexy cosplay…animating her cupping her breasts for about eight seconds of continuous runtime feels excessive, no? Personally I’m not that big a fan of either the OP or ED this time around. They’re cute poppy sings that don’t really have much in the way of memorability for me, so I’d say that these picks are skippable more than anything. I maybe prefer the ED more than the OP, but they’re still not very compelling for me. Final Thoughts: Dress up Darling feels like a show that’s meant to give you that small boost of serotonin because of the cute girl being a perfect little waifu for the season before quickly being put away to the side in time for the next waifu of the season to show up. Which I think kinda sucks because I do genuinely like the show’s education on how the industry of cosplay works as well as its overall presentation due to its mix of high energy and laid back moments. It’s nice. And that’s…about all I can say about it? For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to just like a show for being a nice experience, but it definitely doesn’t stand out beyond that. Personally I think the last few episodes of the season could’ve been a lot better than just the duo a bunch of random stuff, and the fanservice could’ve been dialed back by a lot, but I think these parts are balanced out by the sections of the show I did enjoy. Did the romance really go anywhere? Not at all, but that’s just expected of romance shows that only last a cour. Plus the manga isn’t even done yet so like hell we’re gonna get a conclusion any time soon. If you’re a romance fan or you’re just looking for something cute, then I’d say this is worth the time. It hits that sweet spot for me as a romance fan that has me enjoy the show and what it has to offer, but not really anything else beyond that. I would like to see a second season though because I feel like at the going rate, the sugary-ness of the show is sorely untapped. And I kinda want more Marin cause she’s a fun character and the dumb shit she does is honestly a lot more enjoyable than it has any right to be. In spite of whether she was designed to be marketable or not. read more
Story: A tale of adventure, hardship, broken promises, and misguided bonds and affections, Ousama Ranking is a surprisingly complicated story that showcases a surprising amount of facets of humanity that change the statuses of its many characters in ways that after first impressions, seem almost alien by the end of the show. For the most part, the story follows Bojji and his growth as he ventures beyond the walls of his kingdom to seek out ways to get stronger. Before ultimately becoming a part of something bigger as an evil witch seeks to destroy everything around him. A simple fairytale setup that accompanies its similar storybook style, but beyond that surface level detail lies a huge cast of characters that are vastly different in both personality and tone, all harking back to one thing: the desire to do what they think is right. Personally, I regard Ousama Ranking as a story that speaks more about its characters and the things that they’ve had to endure rather than the actual plot of the witch taking over the castle. Each episode brings new life to one or several of its cast members, chipping away at their cookie cutter, over the top character roles in order to grant the audience a new perspective and shed them in a new light. Seeing things like the noble hero not at all being a good person deep down due to selfish or cowardly reasons is entirely possible in the narrative of Ousama ranking, and this character study is truly what I think makes the story something worth experiencing. Not only that, but the constant recounting of past events where we see how certain characters became the people they are truly does ask the question of whether or not their past justifies their actions, as constant, horrible atrocities or traumatizing, character defining events are regularly brought up in the story in such a visceral way that it sometimes makes the show hard to watch because of how direct the presentation is. This show is undeniably dark in much of what is shown, and the act of even thinking that anyone isn’t guilty of one thing or another is a testament to the complexity of its cast and how no one, despite whatever noble impression they give, is ever entirely blameless of the things they’ve done or the actions they’ve taken. I will say though, some of the middle and especially the ending portions of the show feel a bit muddy. I feel as though the show ended up biting a lot more than it could chew in its ending arc and kind of toppled over itself in terms of pacing and relevant details/worldbuilding in an attempt to make sure that everything resolved itself in the end. Which leads me to one of the worst aspects of the show…the ending. Much like its storybook presentation, the story ironically really doesn’t fit with that kind of narrative no matter how much it tried to give a happy ending to everything. I feel like the show was trying its best to be a dark bastardization of a fairytale story without fully committing to the part. Which is especially disappointing because the multiple nuggets of tension, confrontation, and the mystery of the show’s resolution were set up in a way that if it stuck the landing, the show would’ve effectively gotten full marks on story for that reason alone. As it stands though…I’m not fully convinced everything wrapped up the way it should’ve. Something that’s made even worse because I feel like half of the characters at the end really shouldn’t have had a reason to trust each other, but for the sake of a common goal, I can kind of understand why bygones would be bygones for a brief moment. Still, a bad ending isn’t the complete end all be all to a story’s quality, and I think that in spite of it, Ousama Ranking manages to capture a lot of raw emotion in regards to the human mind and conscious, showing us that not all heroes are good, and not all heroes need to strong in the traditional sense. Going into it, the show definitely earns its spot as a dark horse that deserves a watch with fantastic presentation and storytelling moments. Coming out of it though…I feel less inclined to give it the positive ranking that I so heavily thought I was going to give it during the first few episodes. Characters: Let’s start with Bojji, the small deaf prince that truly deserves the world. For a character that doesn’t actually speak, Bojji is a character that speaks louder than any other character, and embodies what it means to give back what you take. While not physically strong like his father, Bojji is without a doubt a character that possesses the mental fortitude in order to keep moving forward in spite of any adversity, doing so with a smile on his face while he bottles up the things that’ve hurt him so that he can try and be the hero the people deserve. An admirable character that surprisingly doesn’t really get used as much as you’d think he does. Due to the complexity of the entire cast, Bojji only takes up a small chunk of the show’s focus, mostly being shown at the beginning before slowly being petered off towards the end and showing his resultant character to the other cast members who’re going through their own character arcs. To me, it’s a bit of a strange narrative choice. And I think it was a decision that helped make the ending a lot less good than it could’ve been. I think this is mostly due to the fact that Bojji for the latter half of the series is pretty much relegated to just being called ‘a lot stronger’ as he faces against foes that seem to outmatch him since by that point, his ‘character arc’ for the show has already been finished and resolved. I’m not sure if giving him more agency or screentime would’ve helped him more due to being a more prominent character in the latter half, but I’m willing to be that had his training arc not finished halfway through the series, he could’ve been a lot more compelling than what he is already. Kage is the next character and serves primarily as Bojji’s mouthpiece (since Kage can actually speak and relay Bojji’s words), as well as his cheerleader/moral support. Which was something that had so much narrative weight at the beginning of the series that without it, I’m almost certain Kage wouldn’t really have as significant of a role as he does. Now, I like Kage. He’s a bit of a snarky dickhead with a heart of gold and really good housekeeping skills on account of some really unfortunate backstory. It’s good, don’t get me wrong. But beyond his connection to Bojji and most of the early stuff he does, Kage contributes so little to the overall plot that I’m honestly a little disappointed that he’s as underutilized as he is. He kind of just gets relegated to either a cheerleader or a convenient exposition giver, which neither roles give him the agency or emotional weight that he had at the beginning. There really was a lot you could do with him, especially since he’s literally a black blob with two eyes that can apparently morph into things, so having that interesting character design be almost unused is disappointing to say the least. The last character spot I want to give to our fair witch Miranjo on account of how little I care for the ending she got. Miranjo I think contributes to both the best and worst parts of the show’s character building, providing a lot of complexity towards her actions with a very mixed empathetic reaction from me that I believe is the intended way her character was supposed to be reacted to. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the more sympathetic beats that she’s supposed to have (like every character seems to get in this show) doesn’t feel earned. There should’ve been a different ending for her because her basically getting a slap on the wrist after everything that we’ve dealt with for about twenty three or so episodes feels like a major cop out in order to keep in line with the ‘spirit’ of the show. Noble in its pursuit, but ultimately flawed considering the implications of pardoning everything even if she’s supposed to ‘atone’ for it later. As mentioned before, the sidecast is chock full of individuals who’re complex in their own right thanks to shifting motivations or priorities, as well as their own bouts of trauma or desires that cause them to act either irrationally or occasionally ask themselves why they’re doing the things they do. Noble characters like the Big Four and even Bojji’s father can be characters that aren’t deserving of sympathy while egotistical dickheads like the Prince Despa could have more noble or honest motivations beyond their initial showing may reveal. No one is ever who they are on the surface, and while some of the more important characters seem to be lacking, this colorful cast of terrible individuals more than make up what is lacking by being the parts that help carry the show to the end. Aesthetics: So…instead of Attack on Titan, Wit studio took up this project, huh? As mentioned before, Ousama Ranking looks more like a children’s storybook than a conventional anime set in a fantasy world. (Either that or my perception of what a fantasy world should look like is HEAVILY skewed.) Everything from character designs to the architecture and look of the series is more child-like and simple, never going off course from the pastel colors or bulky, round armor that clearly define both the characters’ body shapes and the trope that they’re supposed to represent. A nice contrast to the complexity of the characters’ personalities and roles, but ironically serves to impact the weight of the characters’ titles negatively. See, when you tell me that some big dude in round, yellow armor is the fearsome leader of the strongest army in the world, to an extent, I feel like you’re pulling my leg because he really doesn’t look as threatening or powerful as he’s made out to be. This is a weird constant that the show has given how almost every ‘powerful’ character really doesn’t look that strong, even in context to the show’s fights and bouts since the presentation is almost too simple. Which again, is probably because Isekai/fantasy genres kind of powercrept what it means to look/seem powerful, but the fact that the strongest characters don’t really look all that strong is a bit of an unfortunate takeaway due to the series’s artstyle. On the note of presentation though, the show does not pull any punches…most of the time. Disturbing imagery, raw moments of children getting beat up, and dramatic framing of both betrayal and trauma are surprisingly commonplace, and I adore it. Scenes like these really sell the emotion that the show is trying to convey, and does so with the kind of visual storytelling that adds up in so many layers about an individual character’s motivations and regrets. And because Wit Studio took care of the overall look of the show, the animation and fluidity of the fights are spectacles, featuring nothing but simple sword slashes and fast paced movement in order to convey the bouts. The simple characters and lack of anything over the top really help with making the fights both easier to follow and easier to animate, so I’m glad they only had to sacrifice some animators to make the fights look good instead of most of them. For the first time in…I think ever, both OPs are standout tracks that I can’t really decide which one is better. King Gnu’s “Boy” is a memorable ballad that’s upbeat with higher, cheerful vocals while its brother, “Hadaka no Yusha” is a more dramatic song that hits more on the show’s emotional beats and dramatic moments that fill up the latter half of the show. So, to take the easy path, I’m just gonna say that both songs are worth the listen because I think they add so much more than a generic seiyuu song or something similar. Similarly, both EDs are just as good as their OP counterparts, as bot “Oz.” by yama and “Flare” by milet hit the emotional chords of the show. Oz is the more somber of the two while Flare is a bit more hopeful and energetic by comparison. Like the OPs, both songs I feel are worth a listen to because they connect so well to Bojji’s story and journey that I think on that fact alone, they deserve the credit they deserve. Final Thoughts: When the chips are all down, when you’re down on your last leg thinking that there’s nothing and no one left for you, as long as someone out there thinks you’re worth something and wants to be in your corner, then life is worth living. And you get back up to make the most of who you are. For what it’s worth…I don’t think you can get anything more perfect than the first two episodes of Ousama Ranking. The visual storytelling coupled with the visceral imagery of the two boys getting beaten by the world around them only to come together in a symbiotic friendship is one of the purest things I’ve ever seen and remains as one of the strongest starts to a show I’ve ever seen. While I certainly have my reservations about the ending of this show, I think the overall theme of asking whether the ends justify the means and how people in spite of their mistakes are able to change for the better if they’re shown even just a little kindness and guidance towards the right path is a unique and deserved takeaway that should be respected and honored even if it gets a little muddy in the end. No character in this story is perfect, and the very real lens of what life is like for people harboring physical and mental scars is shown so eloquently in a story about fantasy kingdoms that it almost feels wrong to criticize the show for being so unabashedly genuine and upfront about the stuff it’s trying to show the audience. Not only that, but the little things that we see throughout the show like the characters using sign language to talk to Bojji (until Kage just told everyone what Bojji was saying), as well as all of the animation detail that they went into the main pair to make them so expressive and full of life are just so nice to see for a show that’s about the character and a leading boy who can’t speak a single word, but says so much with his actions and body language. Is the ending still kind of lackluster? Yeah. But I think the journey makes the ending a lot less damning than I think it should be. Even if I feel like there’re way too many loose ends at the end that just…don’t get fixed. I certainly would’ve liked there to not have a neat little bow at the end, and for there to be lasting consequences that mattered to the future of the story rather than just the past impacting what is happening now, but I suppose the show runners just didn’t have very much time in the end to resolve everything as neatly as they wanted, so some corners had to be cut. Regardless, Ousama Ranking is a fantastic show that unironically speaks volumes about how complicated, impulsive, stupid, and noble people can be, and for a show that I expected to be an exceptional dark horse of the season, this one certainly did not disappoint. read more
Story: During the height of the Taisho era of the 1920’s, a man of 17 named Tamahiko Shima becomes a victim of a car crash with his mother passing away because of the incident. Tamahiko himself loses the use of his right hand as a result of the incident, and is thusly deemed by his family as useless and is sent away in order to prevent any further embarrassment for the family. There, he becomes bitter, resentful, and depressed as a result of his isolation. On one wintery night, he hears a knock on the door, where a young girl by the name of Yuzuki comes in and introduces herself as his future wife, having been bought from her family by Tamahiko’s father for a sum of ten thousand yen in order to repay her family’s debt. Here, the two foster a new life together and grow ever closer in spite of the rather troubling circumstances that brought them together. Now, is buying a 14 year old girl to become an unknown person’s wife extremely suspicious and morally incorrect? Definitely. But in context to the story with the time period being a time where women married and bore children very young with their main purpose being the household caretaker, I’d say it’s a lot more bearable for this reason alone, though still incredibly shady. In spite of this, Taishou Otome is a sugary romance doused with the ideas and events of the time with the main focus of the story being on Tamahiko as he slowly opens himself up to the world around him. Every few episodes is centered around a new character that steps into Tamahiko’s home, whether or not that be his family or random people that show up on his doorstep. Wherein thanks to some gentle pushing from his wife and a lot of pushing from other parties, slowly has Tamahiko blossom out of his enclosed shell in order to become his own person instead of the abandoned son with a disability that no one is willing to give a second chance. In addition to that, a good chunk of the story is dedicated to solitary moments with his betrothed, turning a what would otherwise be a monetary transaction into a love story that has the two people involve make you forget at times that Yuzuki was bought to repay a substantial debt. Logistics aside, the romance is a lot better than I expected to be. There’s a lot less ‘I love you’ and generic ‘love’ words said, as the show focuses more on the actions and gestures that Tamahiko and Yuzuki have with one another to show the kind of care and affection that comes with a well-mannered couple. I do wish that the show didn’t just skip through several years of the Taisho era in order to relay its story so things could settle, but it’s not really that much of an issue because it does end up making the relationship between the two easier to digest with a few years together being shared between them. Something I personally wasn’t a fan of though with this show was just how much the show likes the beat the audience over the head with the various talking points of Tamahiko and Yuzuki as if the audience doesn’t already know them. Time and time again, the series really likes to remind Tamahiko that he has a lame right arm and the fact that his soon to be wife is a bought commodity. Truths in name, but feel incredibly cumbersome to listen to again and again on account of how little that stuff matters later on due to the characters trying their best to grow out of those initial starting points. As if the show is really trying to hammer in the fact that there’re some fucked up situations even though we already know that things were never 100% peachy to begin with. Personally though, I think the story of Taishou Otome is one that uses its romance tag well without overbearing the audience too much with sugar and sweetness that a lot of examples in the genre like to use. The story of Tamahiko’s growth is one that definitely feels earned and the relationship that he has with his wife feels surprisingly genuine in spite of some gripes I do have with Yuzuki’s character. And as someone who really likes historical stories, seeing the culture just ooze throughout the whole series from its customs to its way of dress and societal concepts just made watching this show a lot more fun than I had initially expected. Characters: While I have talked about Tamahiko in length already, I want to first start out with his wife, Yuzuki. As I think there’s a bit of an unfortunate dichotomy with the show that I’m not particularly the biggest fan of. Yuzuki, being the wife and homemaker of this little family, is entirely a character that’s both devoted to her future husband and wishes well on his prospects and future. Her undying support and eventual love for him is one of her biggest character traits, alongside her unwavering ability to be strong for him in the face of any adversity that they may face together alongside actual durability because the woman is somehow just a tank. In other words, the ‘perfect wife’ and maiden with no real ambition of her own. Yuzuki is effectively tied to her husband by the hip, and is ironically the anchor point/motivation that keeps Tamahiko going. It’s a very sexist dynamic, but again, historical context. Personally though in spite of the history of ‘traditional Japanese values’, I wish there was something more that Yuzuki was working towards. Having an ambition that wasn’t just being the homemaker for the family I think would’ve done wonders for her character and give her a sense of individuality. As it stands now, Yuzuki, while not a terrible character, is also not a very compelling one aside from being the ‘ideal wife’ that keeps the story going. She is cute, but cuteness can only really go so far. Tamahiko on the other hand gets the majority of the character development as he becomes a more open (and happier) person instead of the self-proclaimed pessimist that he starts out as no doubt thanks to the unwavering support that he gets from Yuzuki. A lover of books and a loner at heart, it was honestly a joy seeing the depressed, vulnerable, and aimless boy become someone who wanted to work towards something brighter and happier, and gradually cherish the person that became his pillar of support in order to make sure that he becomes someone worthy of her in the long run. Which is why I feel comfortable with calling their dynamic a lot more satisfying than the series really likes to call it contextually speaking. There’re a few bumps, but ultimately the series showed that they had honesty and care for one another, making sure that the other is ok and that in spite of the cultural/societal roles that they may have, their relationship has equal ground that works best when there’s communication and attention towards one another. The other girls that pop up in the series: Tamako, Ryo, and Kotori all vary on the spectrum of characters by either starting out bad to becoming good or starting out really bad to only becoming mildly tolerable. Personally though, I think Tamako has the best arc of the three, but all of them feel somewhat rushed oddly enough and that if given enough time, could’ve become more compelling characters arcs in the long run. Ryo is definitely the worst of the lot given her contribution was just to be an obstacle for the series, but I think in spite of any downsides to the series that ended up happening as a result of their involvement, the relationship between Tamahiko and Yuzuki ends up being strengthened in the end in some way as a result. Which I guess is a boon, but I can’t help but think that there was another way that could’ve been achieved without having most of that be wrenches into their relationship. Other characters in the side cast aren’t really that prominent, but do have their places. The kids in the village that the couple live in as well as some members of Tamahiko’s family are more notable background characters, but there’s not really that many people to speak of cause they’re more setting placers instead of notable side characters that matter to the major plot. Aesthetics: I’ve never heard of SynergySP prior to this show, but man they really nailed that slightly old-timey aesthetic of this show. While yes the character designs are kind of generically cute no thanks in part of Yuzuki being a shortstack with big eyes, the overall aesthetic of the show just has this comfortable charm about it that makes it an enjoyable piece of media to look at. The backgrounds are done with this slight texture like it’s paper, and the everything has this kind of paintly style to it that make it all the more unique to look at. More than that, the architecture and style of everything from the clothes to the buildings really nail the time period. And the details just hits that right note of being complex but not too complex so everything keeps that gentle storybook feel. The OST is not entirely what I thought it would be because I didn’t expect Garnidelia to be the person who did the OP for this show. It seems a bit out of her style, but surprisingly enough it’s a fun song if not a little ill-fitting considering the big band feel of the song not…really lining up with the more gentle emotions in the show. Still, “Otmoe no Kokoroe” is a lot better than I thought we were gonna get for an opening song, so I’m satisfied. “Makagoro ni Kanade” by Shunichi Toki is by comparison a lot less energetic than its OP sister and is more of a palette cleanser to end the episode off than anything else. It’s a lot less memorable by comparison but serves to fulfill that comfortable ballad that helps along the comfy image of the couple resting on each other on a cold night. And what else would a historical series have but more traditional music to go along with it? I think the real kicker to this OST is having the entire series be flooded by a set of songs sung with strings and bells to give that gentle and daily slice of life vibe that I had expected coming into this series. Thanks to Kotori being an idol singer of sorts for the series, we get a lot of these showing up over the course of the show’s runtime, and I for one really liked having the show take the time to just not say anything and sing so that the OST shine as brightly as it needed to. Final Thoughts: In spite of rocky circumstances, Taishou Otome Otogibanashi is a sweet, historical piece that echoes a time nearly a hundred years ago during the height of the Japanese industrial age where tradition and modernity were meshing with each other. True, a lot of the values and customs that were present at the time are incredibly frowned upon and even illegal today, but in respect to the time period, what we ended up getting in spite of that is a period accurate couple trying their best to care for and love each other in the best ways that they could. Tamahiko’s story is one of growing confidence and losing that initial cold-hearted pessimistic attitude he once had so he can cherish those around him. And while Yuzuki didn’t nearly get as much development as her soon to be husband and is arguably worse off because she’s just kind of the ‘perfect girl’, I think what she represents for Tamahiko and the values she keeps for herself to do her best for him is a fitting compliment. Would I prefer that she had some kind of ambition of her own instead of just hoping to have a lot of kids and continue her housewife role? Absolutely. But oddly enough, I would file that under lost potential for the series instead of something that actively hurts the series in the long run. As for me, I just really like sweet romance stories. It’s been a while since I’ve seen one, and the historical factor is just an added cherry on the top. Yes there’re a few bumps that I’m not particularly a fan of, but the whole is a lot more enjoyable to me than any minor infractions that the series had. Especially since the history means that tragedy is 100% going to happen, and the characters will have to work around that fact no matter how perfect their lives are. And given that this show only adapted about half of the main story for the Taishou Otome Otogibanashi manga, I really hope we get a second season to close off the story. Because I need more sugar for my cold, dead heart damnit to keep it going. If you’re a romance lover like me, I would highly recommend this show in spite of any period accurate flaws or any faulty character writing it may have. Yes the unfortunate sexism of the 1920’s is a major contributing factor why I think Yuzuki isn’t as developed as I would like her to be, but it oddly enough doesn’t detract from the show as much as I think it does, and Tamako certainly does make up some of that by being a more independent woman with her own goals in mind by comparison. Hopefully we do get a proper ending for the story in animated form because man, I just know there’s much more crazy shit for Tamahiko and Yuzuki to deal with with the 1930’s coming up. read more
Story: In the underground world of the labyrinth exists different colonies that’re interconnected by the various tunnels that allow the people of the colonies to export goods and mingle with one another. In the colony of Pinyin lives a father and daughter named Gagamber and Memempu who help excavate the mines as a means to both make ends meet and contribute to the colony. But Memempu wants something more. After discovering a secret stone that might lead to a tower that she’s repeatedly seen in her dreams, Memempu tries to get her father to let her go on this journey to find this place somewhere in the labyrinth. When mysterious beasts named Kaijuu (because that’s real creative) attack the colony, Gagamber finally, after much whining from his daughter, finally lets her with him in tow go on the journey that she so desperately wants. Marketed as a daddy/daughter journey through the underground, Sakugan feels more like a melting pot of genre ideas that in spite of the what the showrunners probably thought, really does not go together all that well. Every episode within the show’s 12 episode runtime focuses on a completely different subplot from anything that came previous to it. What this leads to is a plot that’s incredibly disjointed, and a narrative that either just bandages everything before it as a means to move on from that situation, or just forget it altogether in favor of doing this cool new thing that’s most definitely relevant to the plot. So what do we get from this? Well, we get stories like toppling the local government, to parodies of castaway, to wanton terrorism, and the mako factory in Final Fantasy VII where we have a casual teatime because I honestly couldn’t imagine a better thing to do when you’re trying to spread the idea of environmentalism. Because of this, nothing really matters in Sakugan. Practically everything happens without much substance, and the narrative trying so hard to squeeze in little stories that have some form of relevancy ends up doing more harm than good. Complete character motivations just disappear in the blink of an eye, consequences really have no meaning at the end of the day since the characters just run from everything, and the plot to find this mysterious tower in a hidden part of the labyrinth has no narrative weight because 80% of the show completely forgets that that was the entire point of the show to begin with. It almost feels more like a starting gun to jumpstart the plot in the right way instead of anything that mattered narratively to the plot. To the show’s credit though, I will give it the fact that it has style. Sakugan at least at face value, has a lot of rampant screaming, dumb moments, and bouts of character via constant arguing that’s oddly charming to watch. Yes the bickering can get annoying, but considering it’s the one part of the show I genuinely enjoyed because it’s a bunch of idiots travelling in this underground world, I can get behind that. Of course we could’ve had that AND a half-decent story, but I guess that’s asking for too much, huh? So, while the amount of character bickering does make up for some of the show’s shortcomings, ultimately the story is largely disappointing because it both fails to provide a decent narrative and just has too much shit clogging its gears to keep everything running smoothly. If this was advertised as more of a colony hopping journey, I think it might’ve turned out better. But as it stands now, especially with the ending giving a non-answer to the entire conflict as a whole unless a second season happens, the story is laughably bad and at best a confusing mess of mini-plots that feel like putting a round peg in a square hole. Characters: I’ll get started with our titular ‘daughter’ here because god there is just so much to say about her. Memempu is a 9 year old college graduate and is regarded as a child genius. A fact that the show will routinely tell you is part of her character on account of how little everyone wants to shut up about the fact that she graduated college at a young age. Memempu is both the best and worst parts of the show, as her character borders the very fine line of being a good and competent child character while also being a terribly written character because the show always seems to want to make it seem like she’s right. I would like to believe that the initial idea that the showrunners had was to take Memempu on this journey in order to give her more of a perspective on the lives of other people in order to learn, grow, and expand her horizons in order to mature into a well-rounded person. Sakugan is not about that. Instead, the show uses Memempu to bully her shallow-minded ideals into the lives of other people, especially her father, only to prove that her way of thinking was correct all along, and Gagamber is just an old geezer who can’t understand that we have to stick it to the man, or get people to think freely. As if her privilege can be easily spread amongst everyone she encounters. It’s irritating to watch since her character consistently does this, up until the last few episodes where the show rushes her development to the point of making it feel fake and contrived. It’s not all bad though. In relation to her father’s bad habits I do find her to be the better character in that regard, but the amount of scolding and outright toxic behavior she has towards the man who’s just trying to keep her safe and learn that things aren’t always so black and white is tiring and genuinely unfun to watch simply because of how little she learns from her experiences even after being in several life or death situations and getting kidnapped like twice or thrice. Gagamber by contrast is a much better character, but is specifically thrown out of the spotlight in favor of his daughter in spite of his drastically better character traits that should’ve been utilized more. As a previous Marker, Gagamber has past experience with travelling the labyrinth and has a history of life experiences that give him a more mature and veteran mindset in contrast to his daughter’s more closed-minded thought process. He’s cautious, always thinking about her safety, and makes sure she that learns the same lessons that he did before tragedies happen. He has some bad habits like gambling and women, but for the most part he tries to be the father figure that she needs. And what does the show do? Say to his face that he’s wrong and that Memempu’s reckless behavior is the way of the future because nothing’s going to happen unless you go at it guns blazing. Which is just an awful way to write your daddy/daughter combo, especially in regards to just how much time is dedicated to making Gagamber save his daughter and clean up after her mistakes, which is like the most obvious way of showing “I told you so” to the audience. Like for fucks sakes, use that supposedly smart brain you have for once, kid. The other two members of their party, Zack and Yuri, are not very interesting characters because their character development/setup are for the most part about one episode each. Zack is a bounty hunter/criminal and Yuri is a hacker who wants to stick it to the man. They don’t offer that much to the show as a whole because of their lackluster traits, and really only come along for the ride in order to fill up the team and add in some specialties, whatever that may be. In truth, I think the show could’ve really done without them, and nothing of value would’ve been gained or lost. Similarly, the sidecast is full of a bunch of one-off characters that lose relevancy rather quickly. Meroro, who’s the show’s designated bureaucrat, is probably the only notable member of the cast because he seems to show up everywhere and makes the main cast do his environmentalist work for him. And then there’s Shibito, the antagonist terrorist organization that have motives so vague that 144p makes clearer pictures than they do. Shibito hardly shows up over the course of the series, doesn’t really do anything aside from spout some random propaganda about a ‘dead world’, and just says things that have apparently have relevance in spite of the fact that none of what they’re saying has any prior connotation whatsoever. In short, a very badly written evil team that feels like they were thrown in last minute as a way to try and give the show an ultimate antagonist without doing any of the work needed in order to make them read like a proper, genuine threat. Aesthetics: Satelight’s work with Sakugan is honestly something I really like from a setting and creativity perspective. The underground caverns while kind of generic with the whole ‘secret world underground aesthetic’ does still look good and pleasing to the eye in spite of the show’s confusing plot. There’re a surprising amount of different setpieces in this show, ranging from the mako factory I mentioned earlier, to the various nature backgrounds in the tunnels, as well as the different colonies idolizing certain ideals in order to make up the appearance of the architecture and culture of each place that the characters visit. Character design is also something I’m a fan of here, more for the daddy/daughter combo since we have Gagamber dressed in a mining work uniform with his daughter by comparison looking more like a scrappy mechanic that gets her hands dirty no matter the situation. It’s a nice little dynamic they have there with orderly vs. disorderly, and it works for their characters quite well. What isn’t so nice though is the CGI that she show uses. The mechs in particular I think can be excused on account of the actions that they take flying through the air and zipping around, but the kaijuus… Man, the kaijuus do not look good. They look cheap as hell and move way clunkier than the mechs do. Which I think is a testament to how little they cared about the kaijuus seeing as they basically didn’t show up or were even a conceivable threat for a majority of the show. Which again, why is that? Did they just forget that the kaijuus were a thing? Masaaki Endoh’s “Koukotsu Layrinth” should not slap as hard as it does. The energetic rock and style of this OP makes it one of my favorites of the shows I’ve watched this season, and for some reason hits that right tones for me for a daddy/daughter adventure. It’s a memorable piece for the me that sticks hard in my mind as something that you’d put on when driving in the car. MindaRyn’s “Shine” on the other hand hits too many generic notes for my taste, and is made worse by the fact that this song usually comes up after the show just kind of throws shit at the wall, as if we’re supposed to be happy after the absolute fuckfest of an episode finishes. By itself though, it’s ok. Not fantastic, but not bad or jarring either. Final Thoughts: When I started this show, I thought it was just going to be a fun mecha romp with a daddy/daughter combo. And the first episode kind of promised that with story potential that could’ve been at least a fun show to watch. What we got instead was a show that promised absolutely none of that and instead went on a rollercoaster adventure of ideas that were flung at a wall without any care or thought with how any of it all matched with one another. Stick it to the man? Sure, let’s do that. Beach episode? Sure, let’s do that. Gang violence? Sure, let’s do that. Wanton terrorism with a group that up until that point had a grand total of 3 minutes of screentime to show that they were any kind of conceivable threat? Sure, why not? Let’s do that. Can you tell I didn’t enjoy this one? I’m a firm believer or sticking to pretty much only one cool thing in your stories because in doing so, you get the opportunity to turn that one cool thing into an overarching narrative that can engage your audience. Trying to squeeze in a cool thing every episode only makes the whole very messy, especially if you have a starting gun of an idea that just almost never shows up or has relevancy past the first episode or two. The kaijuus, any corrupt government in past colonies, any small mysteries that the characters discover, almost none of that matters because the show decided that it had already done/shown it, so there’s no reason to go back or explore it more. Because of this, the whiplash I got from watching Sakugan made me care less and less about the show and made me want to hope that it was going to end faster. And in the end, it stumbled its way into an ending that I’m sure even the showrunners don’t know if it’s the ending or not because of the cheeky shit that they pull off there. I think if they had cut away all of the fat, focus itself back into one thing like using Shibito as the looming threat and not just arbitrarily shoehorn in stuff like the “Rainbow Children” at the very end like the revelation had any real weight, then it could’ve been a decent narrative with character, style, and motives instead of using Memempu’s desire to find the tower in her dream as an arbitrary reason to go to the next colony and fuck up things over there. Seriously. Like the millions of dollars in property damage that’s caused really doesn’t seem to matter in the long run given how often entire civilizations are destroyed in the process of Memempu and Gagamber just moseying on through town. My resulting recommendation for this show really is to just not to consider this one as a list contender. Sakugan has far too many narrative issues that I’m willing to let slide, made even worse by the fact that Memempu’s infuriating character traits make her a less than stellar protagonist that the show infuriatingly tries to make seem indomitable in her ideals and can do no wrong. Which if I have to deal with that, as well as a revolving narrative that never stays on one idea for more than 10 minutes, then it’s not worth a watch to me. read more
Story: A second season I thought would never really (and didn’t need to) happen, the Western Restaurant Nekoya continues its rampant teleporting journey in bringing people from all walks of life in this alternate fantasy realm to try out the various cuisines offered in a typical family restaurant that you see in Japan. Now with more faces and development, the show is more or less exactly the same as you remember it if you watched the first season. Just with a little bit more seasoning to spice things up. Episodic in nature without really that much plot variety, the structure of Isekai Shokudou, much like the orders the customers in the show make, vary exceedingly little from visit to visit. A new character is introduced, we’re given a little flavor text to detail their situation and/or character, they enter the restaurant, adore the one food of choice that they make, and then leave, satisfied of what they partook in. So, is there anything of value still beyond repeating the same thing that the first season did? Oddly enough, yes. Though it’s not very obvious till about halfway through. While I personally don’t like how generic the fantasy world is from the various perspectives and naming schemes that the show has for its locations, the fantasy world does continue to expand from episode to episode as different characters from even more different walks of life enter through the door to sit down and have a meal. Characters from different races, professions, and statuses continue to build up the massive sidecast that stands as one of the show’s most prominent points, resulting in what I believe is the show’s best points: its tone. There’s something comfortable about watching a bunch of characters just talk and eat. While the show spends a lot of time showing off new characters and dishes, the real meat and potatoes of the series comes when the customers are talking to one another and sharing perspectives on their lives, experiences, or how they came across the mysterious door that took them to this restaurant. Relationships form between these sidecast members, as members of royalty, adventuring classes, or different races with relatively little contact with other people mingle together in one place and share their love of food. My only complaint though is again, how little time is devoted to the Master and how the Isekai Shokudou ended up happening. True, the last episode does give us a backstory to the whole thing, but considering that the Master is basically a non-character in this entire series, I really wish that he got a bigger role instead of just being the guy behind the counter making all of the food that everyone loves with an infodump on the side. It’s a bit odd, and while it doesn’t intrude on the series that much, it is kind of weird that he almost doesn’t exist in his own series/restaurant. Characters: The main staff are arguably the least interesting characters that the show has, which is a shame because considering Kuro was introduced rather late at the end of S1, I expected her to have more of a prominent role this time around or have some meaningful character interactions. The Master, Aletta, and Kuro for all intents and purposes are just there to keep the show going. True, they all have some kind of small spotlight that moves the perspective over to their point of view, but it’s so miniscule that it ends up not registering that much considering 95% of the show is centered around the stories and lives of the sidecast. The most these three get are character moments, where we have either shots of the Master cooking, Aletta getting flustered and offering hospitality, and Kuro being the silent final boss who does her job well and quells any potential ill-will that may disturb the peace in the restaurant. Entertaining characters yes, but none that have a major impact in the plot aside from being the cogs that move the show behind the scenes. Comparatively, the sidecast feels a lot more meaningful than they actually are, which is something that isn’t necessarily bad on account of the fact that their interactions with one another are what make the show fun to watch. You have generic adventurers, generic elves, the old regulars from the first season of generic samurai, generic wizard, generic lion man, and generic lizardman, and generic royalty that are either medieval inspired or Arabian inspired. Most of these characters really just tick various boxes before being fitted into the narrative, which in my opinion, I think there was a chance to make something really cool still with them aside from just saying that these people were from “The Kingdom” or “The Empire”. (Not really creative with those names now are you?) In spite of that however, their interactions are really fun, and it’s this that gives me a reason to keep watching this show because their arbitrary and petty reasons for eating a certain thing as well as the conversations they have over meeting new people feel refreshing and comfortable. Especially because relationships develop over the course of these one time a week meetings so there’s growth and progression with how these things turn out. Aesthetics: My apprehension with the studio change from Silver Link to OLM was something I wasn’t really a fan of at the beginning because I was scared that neither the food nor the quality of animation was going to meet up with what we saw with Season 1. And the promotional poster for Season 2 did not help whatsoever. Thankfully my suspicions were false and the show looks about as good as Season 1 with little drastic noticeable change. There’s not really much to say here aside from the show looking really nice and the food looking even nicer on account of the generic fantasy setting and designs of the generic fantasy characters being counteracted by the up close money shots of the food when they’re presented to the customers. The OST personally isn’t something that I would note as being memorable mostly on account of the fact that the OST is pretty much all tone-setting comfortable music that sets in the mood for the series. The OP and ED are also notable parts to this because both Kiyono Yasuno’s “Onnaji Kimochi” and Toyama Nao’s “Samenai Mahou” are cheerful, pleasant songs that similarly give the show its happy atmosphere. None of them are bad songs, but the memorability factor for them isn’t that high in my opinion. Final Thoughts: Truthfully, I don’t have any complaints with this second season, but I’m definitely not wowed. I never thought that Season 1 really needed a sequel, but I never minded the fact if it did. Isekai Shokudou is one of those comfort shows that you can pop in an episode of in order to set a tone, and its amazing food visuals and cheerful atmosphere on account of the numerous interactions the sidecast have with each other make it worth watching if only for that reason. On the downside, the world, while expanding, is only really surface-level interesting on account of the boring naming schemes and typical fantasy politics that this world seems to have. And while I do appreciate a better understanding of how everything functions, only at the very end of the series does the whole ‘other world’ feel interconnected with itself instead of as a myriad of small places that just so happen to exist in one place. The final few episodes does feel like the payoff that the show was ultimately working towards, and for that, I’m happy, since everyone we’ve seen in the show thus far is standing on rather equal ground and are friendly towards one another. As such, this show still holds a recommendation for me, but one with the mention that this is a show that’s best enjoyed if you want to have a good and comfortable time rather than if you’re looking for a deep narrative with much if any substance. As a final note too, Kuro really should’ve had actual character to her, and it’s a shame that through all of her potential, she contributed the absolute bare minimum she could’ve done. Because obviously a black dragon who purposely trapped herself in solitary confinement on a half destroyed moon wasn’t interesting enough to go deeper into. read more
Story: Miko was a relatively normal girl. With her best friend Hana, she led a relatively normal school life until the moment she gained the ability to see all of the dead spirits that haunt society. Without knowing how or why she’s able to see them, she quickly learns that there’s something that she absolutely must not do: acknowledge the fact that she can see. Because surely something bad will happen if she does. So, what happens when the ghosts do know that she can see them? Well the show doesn’t explain that, but it does a helluva good job at suspense and walking that fine line of fear that makes you think that something bad is going to happen to Miko. Mieruko-chan is a show that’s built entirely on its gimmick. That gimmick being a variety of slice-of-life school situations that quickly devolve into horror scenarios in which Miko desperately tries to avoid or ignore the vengeful dead. Which is something that’s easier said than done given the fact that Miko’s fight or flight response triggers in almost every second of the anime on account of the horrifying things that she encounters in her day to day life. Now, is that all for Mieruko-chan? Surprisingly no, as a lot of these seemingly repetitive episodic stories are bolstered by smaller character arcs or stories that pertain to the supernatural dead. The lore of the vengeful dead is an interesting concept that the show touches on in a variety of different ways. Ranging from how the dead interact to one another, how they react to things or objects meant to interact with them, or how their character in life impacts them when they’re dead. These parts of the show I think is where the meat of the show lies. As while the random horror portions hold the lion’s share of screentime, the more meaningful and intimate parts of the story where characters have connections to the dead stuck by me more as memorable story bites that stood out in the show. In all though, the story of Mieruko-chan, while repetitive, holds my praise for being surprisingly varied in its execution and storytelling. The only criticism I’d give is the lack of answers as to what would happen if the ghosts did know that she could see them, as well as a lackluster ending that didn’t really add very much beyond a ‘read the manga’ ending as its lack of answers and cliffhanger ending didn’t really leave me feeling too satisfied with it. But it doesn’t bog the experience down enough for me to give this show a thumbs down. Characters: Miko as our titular Mieruko-chan is a ball of nerves with a good heart. There’s surprisingly little characterization with Miko as a person, given how most of the show is just her screaming internally from the fear that she’s accrued from seeing the dead. But with what little that we do know of her, we get a character who tries to do right by both the living and dead, using her abilities to try and avoid all potential dangers that might threaten her or her friends. All whilst trying really hard to make sure that the ghosts don’t know that she can see them. Which for the story is great, but for her character, does very little. Then there’s Hana and Yulia, her two friends who largely act as the secondary characters in a ghost situation that Miko wants to protect them from. Hana in particular gets the bulk of this ‘protection’, as her gluttonous nature and uncanny ability to attract the ghosts brings more trouble than it scares off. Yulia plays largely the same role, but swaps a gluttonous nature for having similar (but substantially weaker) abilities to Miko, as well knowledge and an interest for the occult. The show doesn’t really go into too much detail into who they are beyond these traits, as most of who they are is done in relation to Miko given how her interactions with these two make up a large portion of the show due to every outside activity they do ending up as a ghost situation. Then there’s the ghost themselves. Truely, a terrifying group of individuals of all shapes, sizes, and priorities. The ghosts themselves are characters within their own right on account of how much worldbuilding they do to move the show along. The worldbuilding is surprisingly dense in a series that’s otherwise just a slice of life show, as interactions with the living and how the dead interact with each other create some really wild and crazy scenarios that bolster the show into becoming something that’s surprisingly unique. True, a lot of the lore isn’t that well explained and relies a lot on inference, but I’m sure down the line when they decide to do a season 2, they’ll explain everything about how these dead people work in great detail. Right? Right. Aside from a few notable exceptions, side characters are mostly made or presented in relation to the dead beings that surround them with the Godmother and Zen being the most notable ones of the bunch as their lives have been directly impacted by the vengeful deceased. They have about as much character total as our three main girls too, but that’s necessarily a bad thing given how this show prioritizes tone and presentation/interaction a lot more than the depth of the characters that it presents. Aesthetics: Passione after Interspecies Reviewers kind of did a 180 with Mieruko as they went from lewd to terrifying in pretty much a blink of an eye. For the most part, the visuals are generally crisp and the characters look on-point to their manga counterparts, with Miko herself looking properly tired given all of the shit she has to see on a daily basis. But more than that, I have to give a hand to the folks who did the scene framing of the first episode and handled the design and animation work for all of the dead people that litters this show. From an art perspective, Mieruko-chan is a show that does NOT hold back on what it wants to present. At times, the show is a lot scarier than it has any right to be, and the dead folk from the oil drum ghost to the shrine creature create airs of terror that’s just unsettling to look at. All made better because the animation focuses so much attention on how these things move, function, and just…scream to the outside world. Past episode one, it’s mostly just unsettling, but the fact that the show manages to pull off that uneasiness consistently is a thing to behold. What isn’t great however is the show’s surprising amount of fanservice. Hana, being amply gifted, is the subject of a lot of…choice shots that I’m not really a fan of cause it doesn’t really add anything of value. Thankfully the fanservice lessens as time goes on, but for the frames that they do show up in, I’m not really a fan of it unless it shows moments of vulnerability like a ghost just showing up in the bath creepily. Normally I don’t really like seiyuu songs because it feels more like a marketing ploy instead of a genuinely good song that I would want to listen to outside of the show’s watch. Amamiya Sora’s “Mienaikara ne?!” is an exception if only because Amamiya Sora’s singing is genuinely good, and her portrayal as Miko within the song really speaks to the overall tone of the show, as she’s just a girl trying to live her life, but is bogged down by the terror of seeing what’s around her. By contrast, “Mita na? Mitayo ne?? Miteruyo ne???” (god that’s a lot of question marks) feels skippable. I know I just said that Amamiya Sora’s singing is good, but in this case, I don’t really care for the ED because it’s kind of a generic poppy song with random screaming in the middle of it. So it kind of throws me off and gives a really awkward and inconsistent air to it that I’m not that much of a fan of. Final Thoughts: I hope at some point this show gets greenlit for a second season because it really deserves it given how it at least commits to its gimmick instead of just having it in the background. The suspense that Mieruko-chan manages to show off is something that I didn’t think was even possible for this show to achieve, but I’ll be damned; they did it. In spite of that though, I really wish more time was put into trying to figure out how these ghosts worked. I know the whole point was to make Miko not acknowledge that she could see them, but the amount of unanswered questions that this show left behind are substantial enough for me to want to know what’s going to happen. Because you just can’t end the show on THAT as its last frame without giving me some kind of answer. That’s just mean, honestly. Aside from that, I don’t really have much else to say about Mieruko-chan. It’s a show that goes somewhat beyond what was initially showed on the tin, but doesn’t provide much else aside from an enjoyable watch experience. It’s suspenseful without being outright horror, but is somehow scarier than a lot of the horror shows that we get these days. It’s not winning any awards, but it does deserve a spot in your list if you’re trying to find something to watch that is worth your time. I just hope that they do do a second season because I was sick of read the manga endings years ago, and that opinion has not changed one bit. read more
Story: Wavering in the prospects in her idol career, Fuuka Miyazawa runs away from home to the island of Okinawa as a way to get away from everything and just take a breather not knowing what else to do. Here, she wanders aimlessly to the point of even sleeping on the beach on her first night before encountering the small, run-down aquarium known as ‘Gama Gama Aquarium’. Here, she meets the feisty and hard-headed girl named Misakino Kukuru, who swears that she’ll save this family aquarium of hers that’s on the verge of bankruptcy. In an outburst, Fuuka asks if she could work at the aquarium, getting a job there as an attendant as the two forge ahead on a journey to repair their dreams and/or find their paths in life. At least that’s what the show wants you to think. I believe the intent that P.A. Works had when they were making Aquatope was to tell a story about a pair of lost girls that were trying to find their path through life with the use of fish and aquariums as its setting. From a broad perspective I think the show does give off that impression, but a lot of the smaller kinks when parsing through episode to episode really makes that idea fall apart. This becomes more evident with the two halves of the show. As with all 2 cour shows that P.A. Works produces, there’s a significant difference in storytelling between part A and part B that Aquatope really does not stick the landing for. Starting with roughly the first 13 episodes, Part A is what I regard as the better half as it’s got a more centralized focus that starts with Kukuru’s determination to save her family’s aquarium in spite of its aging equipment and building structure with Fuuka going along for the ride. In this part, every episode is basically a new scheme where the workers at Gama Gama attempt to raise the visitor count before the foreclosure, coupled with some character moments here and there that help build up the cast in a meaningful way whether or not it’d be requiring a skill that one of the side members have or just focusing on them because they previously hadn’t gotten much time devoted to them. Part B on the other hand feels like a significantly messier show that doesn’t have an end goal and just kind of has the characters meander back and forth between different topics and significantly smaller subplots that may or may not have anything to do with the two girls that we’re following. It also has an indeterminate timeskip which really doesn’t tell us the passage of time all that well considering it seems like nothing about anyone has actually changed in a significant way. Does it finish with a meaningful end? I’d argue so, but the payoff doesn’t feel as genuine as it could’ve been on account of the sheer number of ham-fisted endings that are supposed to be resolutions to character arcs but come off as shallow time-skip futures that just kind of gives only good endings. Notice how in spite of the show having enough content to fill up two cours of material, I never once touch up on the girls’ significance in the stories beyond just occasionally appearing every now and then or being the starting gun for a lot of things. That’s because Aquatope really isn’t what the showrunners intended for the series to be. A lot of the show’s runtime is devoted to filling up the miscellaneous character stories for the coworkers that these two girls are surrounded by, a trait that continues all the way to the end of the show where they’re still throwing out some character backstories because these girls and the audience just NEED to know what drives everyone to work. The issue with that is, none of that really matters. Despite being the title characters, both Kukuru and Fuuka have such staggeringly little character time to themselves that their arcs feel incomplete and unsatisfactory. Especially in the second half, there never seems to be a clear goal that the girls are working towards, and even less time towards the girls taking a step back and doubting what they’re doing as a way to ask themselves “What am I doing with my life?” Which is something that they as young adults really should be doing if they were trying to portray a story about two girls meeting in a shattered dream, only to rebuild themselves in ways that would make them happy and give them something to work towards. I’m aware this character arc actually does happen for a bit, but it’s so minor that it acts as more of a footnote in the series than a serious thematic plot point that encompasses the whole show. And it’s because of this aimless storytelling that the pacing and story execution ultimately suffers as well. The workplace politics/environment that the show is adamant at revealing is riddled with sudden and inconvenient plot threads that cause drama and tension for the sake of drama and tension, thus making a lot of episodes feel really poor to watch given how terrible characters’ attitudes can be, only for it to be ‘forgiven’ later because they have some kind of tragedy that makes them more sympathetic. Which to me just makes the writing look lazy because it’s retroactively creating a bandaged solution just to gain sympathy points. Overall, Aquatope is a show that intends to send a message about the hardships of young adult life and trying to find a suitable path that one can work towards, but is ultimately bogged down by all of the rubbish that the showrunners tried to also put in in an attempt to ‘help’ that point along. Truth be told, the show just needed to cut down the fat and really focus on telling the stories of these girls instead of arbitrarily make more side character stories so the drama and revelations actually made sense. As it stands, there’s more side story than main story, and too many cooks in the kitchen ended up ruining the soup. Characters: I’ll start with Kukuru since she’s the character that the show really likes to focus on. Kukuru is a hot-headed girl with a passion for fish and ocean conservation with little to no tolerance for those that disrespect oceans or her generally stubborn nature that focuses solely on the health and safety of the animals above all else. Kukuru as a character pretty shallowly and stubbornly clings onto the past and holds onto the things that she’s passionate about even if they’re no longer around or get in the way of what she’s doing. She’s definitely a frustrating character, but I think what makes her bad is almost certainly how the show just simply has no idea what to do with her. What they should’ve done is make her go through an arc longer than 2 episodes to resolve the aimless feeling of loss that she had instead of making her butt heads with the supporting cast because she has a different opinion of how things should go. At no point in the show does it feel rewarding to watch her go through trials and tribulations because she never goes out the other side being a changed character. I can forgive a bratty character for being close-minded and awful in the beginning if it means that they come out better on the other side. Which is usually what happens when teenagers become young adults and become functional members of society. But because Kukuru didn’t get any of that, I can’t in good conscience sympathize with her plight or character traits because it just started to become annoying with how much her code of ethics becomes the antagonist in an aquarium where making money is also a major priority. Then we have Fuuka, a character who really got the short end of the stick in the show for a multitude of reasons that include the ones that has made Kukuru less than stellar. Fuuka for the most part is almost entirely defined by her relationship with Kukuru, as she was the one that brought Fuuka into the space of taking care of marine life and ‘reignited’ her passion by giving her a purpose as an aquarium attendant instead of an idol like she previously was. Which is something the show really hates to touch up on cause it almost never brings up the fact that she was an idol in the scenes she’s in. Taking that away, Fuuka has almost zero screentime to herself, save for one episode which apparently solved the apparent back and forth she had to returning to idol life. It’s for these reasons that I find Fuuka to be more of an empty void that Kukuru vents her problems to instead of an important part of the main cast. I really wish that the show put more effort into giving Fuuka a voice to project out on account of how insignificant her issues seem to be in spite of the fact that she spent the first few episodes aimlessly not knowing what to do with herself and I feel like that should’ve had a way bigger impact on her personality and goals than it really did. Especially since she’s a lot more soft-spoken than her counterpart, and there was a lot of potential to make a compelling character that found a moment of solace and appreciated the stability around her. Which they did, but her lack of screentime prior kind of made it appear out of nowhere. Then we get to the sidecast. A group of quirky characters that all have some kind of backstory that drives them to keep working or continue with their goals. Otherwise known as story filler. The show really likes to push these stories on the audience, to the point that only their relatively shallow stories kind of stick because they’re simply just too many characters to keep track of, and the show just likes to do one-off episodes to give everybody a chance in the spotlight. The underlying problem with all of this however is quite frankly how little it all matters in the end because these one-off stories barely add anything, or impact the main two girls in that many meaningful ways. Sure, Haebaru has a kid and works hard to support him as a single mother. Yes, Akari doesn’t exactly have a passion in fish and sees this job as mostly a thing to get an income from. And yes, Kai is the dedicated unrequited love character that chased the girl he likes only to get nothing out of it in the end. Does any of this really matter though? Absolutely not. The second half is absolutely infested with these smaller plots, even more so than the first half, to the point that the show is more this kind of plot instead of anything else. Truthfully, I wish we could just not have any of this or at least naturally fold them into the narrative instead of awkwardly devoting an entire episode to this because the audience doesn’t know about X person, so we should talk about them next. As if the showrunners were spinning some demented wheel that a needle could land on in order to determine which side character should be talked about next. Also there’s like a God character that kind of runs around in the background and adds no value to the show whatsoever. Which I question why they exist considering they have almost no voice lines, impact only select parts of the first half, and do absolutely nothing beyond that. Which I feel like the show would be worse off IF they had an important part, but if they were just gonna be an easter egg to begin with, why try and make them seem somewhat important by featuring them in the both openings? Aesthetics: P.A. Works really does do good art. True, it’s kind of the classic P.A. Works style, but given how well they were able to make water look in NagiAsu, the quality that comes with this show looks very nice. All of the characters shimmer softly, which gives the show a gentle look that’s never harsh or hard on the eyes. Something that’s even better when put next to the water graphics that give off some rather stunning shots. The background shots and certain cuts in the show are just great examples of visual storytelling and somehow just have an air to them that I don’t think I’ve seen any other company consistently pull off in everything that they do. The only downside I could really give Aquatope in the art department is their CGI fish in the aquariums. Which undoubtedly is the one thing I will give them a pass on because hand drawing that many creatures on the screen is far too much effort, and the models don’t look too glaringly obvious that it’s worth pulling teeth over. The OST is in a similar boat to the show’s art quality being that it encompasses the ocean and seaside themes that the show evokes with its setting. Of the two OPs, I think I prefer ARCANA PROJECT’s “Tayutae, Nanairo” more simply because of its drop and its more melodic ballad tones which I think fit the show more with how bouncy and upbeat the song is. True, “Tomedonai Shiosai ni Bokutachi wa Nani wo Utaudarou ka” is in the same boat, but I find the more energetic beats of its part A sister to be more superior. Despite that though, the differences between the two are quite minor due to the same group performing both songs and the energy between the two being equally similar in spite of the setting and tonal differences. Both EDs have a very somber tone by comparison to their OP counterparts, with Mia REGINA’s “Tsukiumi no Yurikago” being more of a slow ballad with yearning tones whereas Risa Aizawa’s “Shigektsu no da Carpo” having something of a more resolution sounding tone to it. I prefer the latter personally, but both songs do bring something to the table in spite of any similarities that they have with each other. Altogether, I think the songs that Aquatope came equipped with were great and deserving of a listen to. Which is something I’m glad with because P.A. Works’s consistency in the art and aesthetics department remains top tier and in spite of any reservations, I’m glad they always have this to fall back on and are things I can gush about with no remorse since this company undoubtedly knows how to make a pretty show. Final Thoughts: This…should not have been as poorly written as it was. While my usual reservations with P.A. Works were assuredly present given the fact that this was yet again another P.A. Works show that was set in a setting that was near the water, I was confident in saying that considering that this show didn’t have anything to do with romance, it would at least be a decent show without any really glaring issues. Of course, P.A. Works always has to prove that my hope is misguided and really should be put somewhere else, but let it be known that in spite of anything that I have said up until this point, I truly did believe that this show had the potential to be one of their best works yet. The lack of focus is what really saddens me with Aquatope. It really feels like the showrunners decided that their best course of action was to cram as much as they could in this show, polluting it with random character stories and sideplots without focusing on the real stars of the show: Fuuka and Kukuru. Fuuka was an idol who left her position due to her insecurities and competitive fear in the idol marketplace, and Kukuru is a girl who in spite of everything she did, was hit with the reality that some dreams just weren’t meant to be. These girls had their dreams crushed, broken, and they were aimless in what to do. So what could they do next? Find something else? Find something new? Try again? Or just give up? The potential to do a beautiful coming of age story between two characters was there. The groundwork was present and the potential that the show had at the beginning was something that I was really excited to see when the show first came to light. I desperately wanted this to be something that I could rave about. I wanted to clap my hands and shout “This is why I adore P.A. Works” and see the girls form a genuine connection with each other, support each other in their pathways through life, and grow beyond what they were at their starting point. But that moment just never came. Instead, in spite of the show having stunning visuals with visions of the past, and an OST that set the mood for the emotions and personal journeys that these girls would go on, Aquatope just didn’t deliver. In place of that was a slice of life show with enough character stories to weigh the show down and eat up a majority of its runtime, and shoddy character growth for our main duo that came up unsatisfying and unworthy of the time it took to get to that point because the ending makes everything seem all great and amazing, but that payoff is ruined by the arduous journey and slog that got us to that point. I’m not just gonna throw this one on the pile of ‘bad’ P.A. Works shows because it did a number of things right; romantic subplots, cheap pull rug out moments, and crippling melodrama were all absent here. But the things Aquatope did wrong were big enough and noticeable enough to make the show more of a creative tragedy than I think it really should’ve been. It’s to this end that I lament Aquatope more than I curse Glasslip or Kuromukuro because it could’ve been so, so much better with the right direction. It’s reasons like these that make Aquatope a show that I wouldn’t really recommend to people. It’s so unfocused that episode to episode feels clunky at times, and the A and B parts really don’t mesh together that well. And honestly, Fuuka deserved way more screentime and attention than the show bothered to give her. She doesn’t have a story of her own, much less a compelling one that’s got much meat to it. And if you’re trying to sell the fact that it’s TWO girls that met in the ruins of a damaged dream, you should at least make them equal partners in the relationship instead of just one of them using the other as a place to vent their problems to whilst the other one just listens despite being her own person with issues, concerns, and aspirations of their own. read more |
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You know when you watch something because you think the concept is cool? But it ends up flopping because it’s trying too hard/too much? Yeah.
Story: In an artificial and isolated island in the middle of Tokyo lies the ’24th ward’. The people who govern this island for better or worse have a desire to officially join the city of Tokyo as an official district. But are required to pass a certain threshold of ‘safety’ in order to do so. As such, the system known as the ‘Kanae System’ monitors the threat potential of its citizens in order to take out any potential outliers that threaten the read more
There are no good men or women in this show anymore. Only survivors. Survivors that carry the sins of their past and the ones before them as they look on towards the future. Hoping that one day the killing will end with their freedom intact.
Story: As the conflict to bring the two brothers together comes to limelight, the war on Paradis Island rages on. Yaegerists, who radically nationalized their small island seek to destroy the world that vilified them. Marley, the aggressors that seek to stop this dangerous island from threatening the world with their titans. And in the middle, the small survey corps, sitting amidst read more
There’s something to be said when a series makes you uncomfortable…in the good way. Or make it possible to laugh so heartily in one scene before triggering your flight or fight response in the very next scene. Maybe it’s just me, but that about sums up my experience with watching this show.
Story: As the story continues for our unlikely duo of Noe and Vanitas, new characters come out from the fray and end up as folded parts of the narrative. With a call for the elimination of the Beast of Gevaudan, the story that unfolds digs up some unsightly memories for our main cast as ugly read more
Would I say that this one deserves all of the hype it’s been getting this season? Not particularly. Would I say that it has some merit to it that makes it worth watching? I’d say so. Is Marin cute? I mean…is there really any other major selling point that the show has at face value? Girl’s all over the marketing.
Story: From a young age, Wakana Gojo has loved his family’s business of making Hina dolls: traditional Japanese dolls used for decoration in homes. However, because of an unknown girl’s opinion (seriously I don’t know who she is), Gojo has lived his life ashamed of the hobby read more
There was once a boy named Bojji, who walked the streets with no clothes. Despite his appearance, Bojji was a prince, and aspired to fulfill the duty of his people and become a worthy king following in the literal giant footsteps of his father. But the world wasn’t kind to Bojji, for he was deaf and knew little of the world beyond his reach. But if he was, for a moment, showed even a little bit of kindness, then he would surely return that noble deed tenfold and defend those that needed help, no matter who they were.
Story: A tale of adventure, hardship, broken promises, and read more
I want to preface this by saying that this is a HISTORICAL piece of fiction. Meaning that the customs, cultures, and events of the story are both integral to the plot and very outdated for the modern era. Because this is a point that I’m going to be talking about at length and for the most part, does affect my feelings towards the show.
Story: During the height of the Taisho era of the 1920’s, a man of 17 named Tamahiko Shima becomes a victim of a car crash with his mother passing away because of the incident. Tamahiko himself loses the use of his right hand read more
I’d like to imagine that the boardroom meeting when deciding how to write this show went something along the lines of “But what if we did THIS thing too?” and the other members just shouted “Write that down! Write that down!” because it sounded like a good idea at the time.
Story: In the underground world of the labyrinth exists different colonies that’re interconnected by the various tunnels that allow the people of the colonies to export goods and mingle with one another. In the colony of Pinyin lives a father and daughter named Gagamber and Memempu who help excavate the mines as a means to both read more
I call false advertising here. Usually whenever the people I know gather around to share a meal, it ends in arguments and crying children. Food’s still good though, so that’s a plus. Guess things really are different in another world.
Story: A second season I thought would never really (and didn’t need to) happen, the Western Restaurant Nekoya continues its rampant teleporting journey in bringing people from all walks of life in this alternate fantasy realm to try out the various cuisines offered in a typical family restaurant that you see in Japan. Now with more faces and development, the show is more or less exactly the read more
First, a pun. Mieru or “見える” means to appear or be in sight. Our protagonist’s name is Miko. Therefore, the name of the show ‘Mieruko-chan’ is in reference to the fact that Miko can see the terrifying things that appear before her. Fun, right? Ok now to the scary stuff.
Story: Miko was a relatively normal girl. With her best friend Hana, she led a relatively normal school life until the moment she gained the ability to see all of the dead spirits that haunt society. Without knowing how or why she’s able to see them, she quickly learns that there’s something that she absolutely must not read more
Oh boy. It’s another P.A. Works show set in a town that’s next to the ocean. Because NagiAsu, Kuromukuro, Irozuku, and Glasslip all turned out to be bangers. So I’m sure this one went off without a hitch whatsoever. For the record, yes, I have seen this pattern a lot.
Story: Wavering in the prospects in her idol career, Fuuka Miyazawa runs away from home to the island of Okinawa as a way to get away from everything and just take a breather not knowing what else to do. Here, she wanders aimlessly to the point of even sleeping on the beach on her first night before read more |
