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Apr 8, 2024
In/Spectre wasn't what I was expecting and was largely a disappointment. While I could certainly finger-point to forgettable characters, multiple filler episodes in a twelve episode anime and an inorganic romance that barely hangs on by a shoe string, for me the most egregious flaw of the program is that it's insanely dialogue heavy and most episodes boil down to two characters sitting near each other and having a seemingly never-ending conversation. There is little to no action, only one actual mystery to solve throughout the entire show and nothing to break up the monotony and repetition of talking, talking and more talking.
Having come out
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in 2020, it looks and sounds fine. My wife liked the intro/outro music, which is fine and well, but that doesn't make the actual show any better. I am certain I won't remember the name of a single character in this program two weeks from today. One of them is missing an eye and a leg and one of them isn't fully human, so I guess on paper they have vaguely interesting characteristics that make them memorable, but for me they just aren't. None of the main cast felt remotely developed or fleshed out. This anime does not bother to take the time or effort to have character-building interpersonal moments. Instead, the overwhelming majority of the program is just a giant monologue from the female lead over-explaining every possible angle of the one and only mystery in the show.
This wasn't the worst anime I've ever seen, and it didn't actively repulse me to watch, but I cannot find any reason whatsoever to recommend this. It's just so mediocre and skippable. If you like any of the genres this advertises itself to be- mystery, romance, paranormal- there are countless higher quality options available. There's simply no reason to choose THIS over the other options. At the end of the day, In/Spectre is my mother-in-law- lots and lots of talking, lots and lots of saying the same thing multiple times, never says anything important and by and large pretty darn boring. :)
OBJECTIVE RATING- 6-7
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 6-6.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 10, 2024
This review is for the entirety of what is currently available on blu ray in North America as of the time of this review (March 2024), which is all of seasons 1 and 2, through episode 48. In mentioning the blu ray, I'd like to start this review by quoting, word for word, the back of the blu ray case for the very beginning of the series- "Ordinary 37-year-old Satoru Mikami dies and is reincarnated as the most unremarkable creature imaginable- a slime. Initially things are pretty grim. He's blind, deaf and weak". There's a bit more, but it's these opening remarks I'd like to
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discuss. In short, they're very misleading.
Perhaps they use the word "initially" very, very loosely, but what ACTUALLY happens is our main character is completely, utterly, laughably overpowered within just the first episode or two and only gets more ludicrously powerful from there. This show is falsely advertised as starting out weak and from the bottom and slowly, with great struggle and sacrifice, beginning to gain power. In reality, Rimuru Tempest is Kirito levels of overpowered from very early on and the entire show revolves around everyone around him bowing down to his untouchable strength and swearing fealty without much of a fight. It's another generic isekai where the main character is conveniently among the most powerful beings in the entire world and the fate of races, countries and perhaps the entire world around him rests on his shoulders.
As a whole, while I wouldn't cite it as my FAVORITE genre, isekai has consistently been the SAFEST genre of anime for my wife and I in that we almost always enjoy them, even the unremarkable ones, and it's very rare for us to find one we legitimately dislike. We've seen a ton of them, as you can see by checking out my list, and I mention all of this as a prelude to my opinion that there isn't anything about this anime in particular, highly regarded as it is, that stands out as being special or memorable amongst an ever-crowded field of genre contemporaries. It cannot measure up to the gorgeous visuals of Grimgar, the world-building of Log Horizon, the combat or emotional punch of Sword Art Online, the comedic moments of Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon or the darker more mature tone of Goblin Slayer. You're left with a program that, while not a blatant failure at anything, simply isn't amazing at anything either and fails to distinguish itself.
Something I personally didn't care for, and perhaps it's just a classic viewer versus target audience mismatch, is what felt to me like a blatantly more juvenile tone as a whole, and definitely far too much "Bro, what?" and "Bestie for restie" and similar clearly aimed at teenagers ways of speaking throughout the entire program. The target audience for this is clearly younger than I am, and that's fine, but in that same breath I'd tell you this is perhaps not the correct isekai for the mature adult viewer. The second season does have a somewhat darker tone than the first, which I appreciated, but at no point is this truly a dark anime, nor does the obnoxious "cool if you're 15 or younger" manner of speaking ever let up.
While unwaveringly portrayed as the protagonist who we're supposed to be rooting for, I'm not all that convinced that Rimuru Tempest is all that great of a person. In the second season he commits cold-blooded, merciless genocide and this is not questioned or pushed back on by any of his numerous underlings. He had a reason for doing it, and he told us it's right and it's okay, and therefore it is and we support him. Since his humor and manner of speaking fell really flat for me, combining that with what came off to me as very self-righteous, power-hungry decisions throughout the entirety of the show, I found this main character difficult to connect with or be enchanted by. He never seems to think twice about his right or his worthiness to command so many and to hold the fate of so many in his hands. He simply moves forward, growing stronger all the time, and is always 100% self-assured in everything he does. He never truly feels threatened by any enemy and there's never a fight he's not absolutely certain he will win, which simply harkens back to my point about him being overpowered- he is and he knows it, and he exploits it to the max throughout the show and never hits so much as a speed bump. The show also grants him countless ridiculously convenient benefits, such as introducing an underling out of nowhere, himself super overpowered, who immediately swears his loyalty to Rimuru Tempest and does his bidding without second thought.
This review probably made it sound like I really disliked this show, and that isn't the case. Judging by its score here on MAL it's definitely overrated, but that's not the same as me disliking it. It does have most of the bread and butter of what makes isekai so appealing in the first place- an enormous cast of characters, many different races, skills/leveling/progression, fantasy elements, etc- but for me there simply wasn't anything about this program that pushed it over the top of the numerous others that I've watched and enjoyed, and as a whole I found it just a bit too immature and aimed at too young of an audience for my personal taste. I thought it was OKAY, and I'll watch the third season whenever it's available to me, but if a friend asked me to give them a list of five isekai I think they should consider watching, this definitely wouldn't be on it. Meh...
OBJECTIVE RATING- 7~
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7 and not a fraction of a point more
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 3, 2024
I'd like to start by saying that this anime gave me an existential crisis. Demonstrating my unparalleled creativity, my username here on MAL, RyanSpring, is literally just my real life first and last name. So, going into this completely blind, in a world where every female character in anime is Mai, Sakura or Mikasa, I really had a moment when it was revealed that the lead in this anime is named Aries Spring. Do I... have a daughter somewhere? Is this a sign from the anime deities above that I SHOULD have a daughter and that I should name her Aries? Is Aries Spring in
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fact my MOTHER or grandmother and I've been lied to all my life? These questions will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life, so thanks Astra Lost in Space, and with that strange tangent out of the way let's get to the actual review.
I really wasn't expecting to like Astra Lost in Space anywhere near as much as I did. I thought it'd be just another anime in my very large collection that I'd watch, think is fine and move along from without ever giving it much thought after the fact. I'd never seen anyone talk about or hype up this anime, nor have I seen it appear on "best of" lists that everyone seems to love making, so while I immediately concede I may have simply liked this more than most members of the community do, I really was taken aback by how into this I was.
First of all, it's beautiful. This anime is only about five years old, and almost every remotely modern anime looks nice, but in this case the color palette really pops off the screen with how bright and vibrant it is. The characters have all sorts of different hair and eye colors, none look remotely alike unless they're supposed to, and the various planets our main cast visit as they attempt to make their way home are equally gorgeous. The fauna, oceans and landscapes found on these fictional planets in many cases make the characters feel like they're on a paradise vacation rather than lost and in a very dire situation, and it's easy to see why. Many of these locations are places I'd love to visit if they were real, and none of them felt too similar to each other, each beautiful both cosmetically and mechanically in their own way. There is a true sense of adventure and wonder in this anime and that really, really elevated it for me. I haven't seen the evocation of that sense of adventure done this well since watching the first season of Made in Abyss a solid four or five years ago.
The pacing here is solid, as it's only 12 episodes and it needs to cram a whole lot of adventure in there, and we're more or less off to the races from the word go. Many episodes, particularly early on, end on cliffhangers which absolutely pushed me even further into losing sleep that night and wanting to watch just one more episode. At first, the plot is straightforward enough, but admittedly in the latter stages of the anime it goes pretty far off the rails. I concede that a certain level of suspension of disbelief is required to enjoy this anime, but this is FAR from the most egregious offender I've encountered in that regard, and while I found many plot points perhaps convenient or implausible, none of them ever crossed the line for me into ridiculous, offensively stupid, this could absolutely never happen territory.
I really liked that they opted to make the 12th and final episode significantly longer than the others. If for whatever reason 16 or 24 episodes were not greenlit, but they didn't want to rush the ending or leave loose ends, this is absolutely the correct solution and I wish more anime would do this. I'm glad they took their time, addressed the fate of each character from the main cast, of which there are many, and didn't fall victim to the constraints of the short episode count they were working with.
My only other nitpicky criticism would be that the anime felt a little preachy at times. There was perhaps just a bit too much of "the power of friendship", "the power of positivity", "we can do anything if we work together", blah blah for my liking, but I was enjoying the show as a whole so much to where I was able to overcome this annoyance.
Existential crisis aside, I really liked Astra Lost in Space and think of it very highly. The plot was fine, even if not revolutionary, but the exceptional sense of adventure, strong pacing and gorgeous visuals really came together for me and delivered an experience I'll absolutely remember and continue to recommend for years to come. If you're even vaguely a fan of adventure or space anime, don't miss this one.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 8-9
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 9
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 12, 2024
Overall, while never truly original in any of its components, I found that the many solid pieces of Heavenly Delusion largely came together to form a well-paced, engaging, cohesive whole despite ending on what is clearly a stopping point rather than a proper conclusion. Elements of mystery, adventure, horror, drama and even light comedy are thrown into the blender here and in this case the chef followed the recipe correctly and wound up with a product that works.
Bits and pieces from other shows I've already seen- This paradise isn't as it seems and has something sinister behind it (From the New World), we're on a
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journey across a ruined, post-apocalyptic land (Girls Last Tour, School-Live), roaming bodyguards/mercenaries for hire (Vinland Saga, Black Lagoon, Berserk)- are all here, and nothing feels genuinely new or unique, but at no point does this program ever feel like a ripoff of anything else. It takes unoriginal pieces and throws them together to create at least a mildly different end product.
The two leads are likeable and have a charm to them. They're not always on the same page, don't necessarily feel the same way about each other, comrades always but growing into the role of something more dynamic feels believable and interesting to watch as it develops, especially given that the characters are each battling with their own individual demons at the same time. This isn't a story of two flawless heroes or two personifications of honor and virtue, but rather two ordinary, flawed humans simply trying to survive in a harsh world.
This harshness is clearly demonstrated in a number of episodes that dive a bit deeper into the horror genre, including some quite gruesome, bloody action scenes and death scenes. This anime is correctly rated MA (mature) here in the United States and is almost certainly not suitable for younger audiences. These deaths, however, aren't just there to be there the way they seem to be in other, more shallow programs. Rather, there is purpose and nuance to almost all of them and these moments, realistically, genuinely affect the characters who witness or participate in them. Episode 8 in particular I felt packed quite an emotional punch.
Being only 13 episodes this program is well-paced, has no filler and is very good at making none of the episodes feel overly similar but always keeping the story moving. I was engaged from start to finish.
So then, with all this praise, what prevented me from ultimately awarding a 9 or a 10? This show doesn't have any glaring flaws, but getting into some nitpicks I'd say the soundtrack largely lets down the rest of the show. Other than the standard-for-modern-anime intro and outro songs, I feel like I didn't even notice it. It was completely forgettable and resigned to the background and nothing came close to hooking me or staying glued in my mind. My other biggest gripe is that this is simply incomplete. Plot points are left dangling in the breeze and there is no true resolution here. Now, granted, this PROBABLY means there is intended to be a second season, which I will absolutely watch should that come to be, but as of the time of this writing, January 2024, there is no official announcement or confirmation that any additional seasons are even in development, never mind an actual release date. Hypothetically, if this series were to end exactly where it stands right now, I'd have no choice but to subtract from its score for being incomplete and leaving too many things unresolved. Finally, for as many satisfying and enjoyable moments as I had, I never had that one WOW moment that absolutely blew me away and left my jaw on the floor or left me in tears or any of that, Those are needed for the big boy scores in my mind.
Ultimately, I'd absolutely recommend Heavenly Delusion for fans of the genre and I hope an additional season, which I'd be excited to watch, becomes a reality.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 8
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 8
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 19, 2023
Summertime Render is almost a tale of two different anime. For the first third or so of the show, maybe even the first half, I was largely glued to my seat. It had the right blend of mystery, action, genuine creepiness and plot twists that were still within the realm of normal human comprehension. The latter half, however, goes completely off the rails and continuously tries to one-up itself over and over again until the plot is so bloated, convoluted, over the top and hard to follow that it just feels like a mess. It absolutely tries to do way too much rather than simply
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sticking with what was already working.
The anime is modern, having only come out in 2022, and therefore looks nice. It's not THE prettiest anime I've ever seen, but it's far from ugly, and the action scenes in particular are very fluid and have a lot of moving pieces. The sound however, and perhaps this is just a Hulu problem, seemed very poorly mixed during my viewing with music and effects being much, much louder than the spoken voices of characters, requiring me to repeatedly turn the program significantly up or down with each viewing.
In this anime I disliked the randomly sprinkled in fan service. To be clear, I have no issues with fan service as a general concept whatsoever, but if you're going to do it, really do it. Go all in, be unapologetic, make sure there are half a dozen fan service moments in every episode. Here, however, it happens so infrequently and seemingly randomly that it simply feels forced and out of place. It's as if someone at the studio was afraid to do it too much, or perhaps didn't want to do it at all, but someone above them told them they WILL include these moments, so find a way to make it happen.
Throughout the entire show, the abilities and powers of the characters in this show are increasingly over the top and increasingly convenient. I also found the ending of this anime extremely unsatisfying. It's neat and clean and it removes any and all stakes from the show and makes all deaths and sacrifices that came before it more or less irrelevant. It felt lame and forced and clearly designed to appease that audience who can't handle anything other than a happy ending.
At the end of the day I don't regret seeing Summertime Render through to the end, but I'm confident my final score would have been considerably higher had I simply put it down around the halfway mark. It was doing things the right way up until that point but then it fails to adhere to "If it ain't broke don't fix it" and opts instead to go more and more and more over the top until it's just a giant mess with way too much going on and much less believability. Nevertheless, it's probably still good enough to recommend watching for fans of the genre.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 7-8
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 10, 2023
My wife and I saw this in theaters last night. Other than watching the trailer for the film the day before, we went in completely blind. My abridged thoughts are more or less unless you're a really hardcore Ghibli fan who likes anything and everything they put out just because it's Ghibli, you'll probably be some amount of underwhelmed with this.
The Boy and the Heron very much LOOKS like a Ghibli movie. It has the classic Ghibli art style with a 2023 coat of paint. It's not the prettiest anime I've ever seen but it definitely looks nice and it brings a very vibrant and
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colorful palette to the table, but unless something absolutely blows me away with how good it looks, or unless it's hideous, I'm not too caught up on the aesthetics these days as the general statement "This looks some degree of good/pretty" is applicable to almost every modern anime. There isn't anything memorable or distinct about the way the characters in this movie look, and that problem- it being largely forgettable and lacking that X factor that really pulls you in and sticks in your mind- plagues the entire film. I won't remember the name of a single character in this movie one month from today and beyond the basic premise and progression of the film I won't be able to recall any specific scenes or memorable moments either.
The pacing is on the slower side, and I don't think this movie needed to be over two hours long as it does not feel like it truly has the substance to support such a run time, but slower pacing can be forgiven if it builds up to really hard-hitting moments, be it a fantastic action scene, an emotional drama scene, etc. Spoilers- it doesn't. There isn't a proper "climax" to this movie, there isn't that one WOW moment that you'll remember weeks later, there isn't much in the way of character development whatsoever... There really isn't much of anything on offer at all other than enjoying a pretty, mildly creative journey for what it is, but there's little to no depth whatsoever to any aspect of this movie.
The plot also feels underdeveloped at times and lacking cohesion. It shows various elements of this and of that with the potential to go somewhere promising, but it never follows up on any of them or shows you how we got from Point A to Point B and it feels half-baked. My wife left the theater for no more than five minutes in the first third or so of the movie, and nothing remotely interesting or meaningful happened in the five minutes she was gone, but afterwards she asked me repeatedly what the hell she missed and assumed it must have been really important because otherwise the rest of what's being shown doesn't really come together.
I may simply be the wrong person and wrong demographic for who Ghibli is trying to target, and I know this is an unpopular opinion among the anime community at large, especially older members of the community, but as a whole I've been underwhelmed with Ghibli films and have found the ones that I've seen to be overrated. I think if I were seeing them for the first time as a child, especially if the movies had just come out, perhaps I'd feel differently, but seeing them now as a proper adult in my 30s for the first time they consistently feel very shallow to me and probably aimed at children or casual anime watchers rather than myself. I deeply RESPECT and APPRECIATE Ghibli, as what they've done for the industry as a whole and the countless creators they've influenced is undeniable, but I'm just not all that damn blown away by their movies. All of this is to say, I'd perhaps recommend going to see this movie if you have younger children who may find it enchanting or if you're a huge Ghibli fan who adores their other movies- honestly, they're mostly pretty similar and have a ton of repeated elements and themes- but otherwise this is pretty skippable. I don't regret going to see it once, but I couldn't care less if I never see this again and I won't think about or remember this down the road.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 6-7.5
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 6-6.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Nov 12, 2023
We've fallen on dark, desperate times when I somehow find myself watching and subsequently writing a review for a 41 minute, quarter-century old anime movie that no one else has heard of and there are FOUR reviews for prior to my own. That's about one every five years!
Puppet Princess isn't the worst of the worst, but talking plainly it came out in 2000, looks like it came out in the mid 90s at best or even the late 80s, is short, doesn't have time to develop characters or plot points or provide any emotional depth whatsoever and might as well not have a soundtrack at
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all. Aside from being able to say "I've seen that" or being the hardest of the hardcore old school anime or martial arts anime fan, there's simply no reason to go back and watch this now.
It is, in every way, somewhere under the umbrella of mediocre. Some things it might do the tiniest smidge above mediocre. Many other things it may do a smidge below mediocre. But putting it all together, and now considering how far removed it now is as we approach 2024, it's just an utterly middling, mediocre, forgettable, skippable movie from a bygone era. I don't feel like I've completely wasted my time watching this, as it's short enough to not care even if I had, but there's no reason for me to ever watch this again and there's probably no reason for you to watch it at all. Of course, since no one has heard of this, my wife and I will probably be the only people to read this review anyway.
OBJECTIVE RATING- I don't know. Very difficult to do two plus decades after the fact. Mediocre.
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 5-5.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Oct 17, 2023
Frankly, I disliked the first season of Demon Slayer, and if you go back and read my review that'll be quite evident. I didn't quite dislike the Mugen Train Arc, but I didn't overly like it either. I was probably somewhere in the realm of indifferent. So, going into this, my expectations were pretty modest. I'm happy to say this wildly exceeded what I thought it could be and this is genuinely very, very good.
The visuals here are insane. It could easily be a really high-end anime movie that one goes to see in theaters. I don't know of any series that looks better than
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this does right now.
The pacing dramatically improves here, the action is fervent and the villains are super badass and threatening, both before and during the climactic fight, which spans many, many episodes.
In many ways- primarily how good it looks, how hard they nailed the atmosphere and how intense and unrelenting the action is- this really is peak Shounen. This falls just short of a 10 for me because the secondary characters are still loud and obnoxious (though admittedly a LITTLE bit less so here than in previous seasons) and because of the wild, borderline offensively stupid conveniences offered up as explanations in a handful of instances. One that really offended me was a character who was gravely wounded casually stating they can simply "rearrange my internal organs", and therefore they're fine. Likewise, a different character managed to "stop my own heart" (and of course, keep fighting with a stopped heart...) to cure the poison they'd been afflicted with. Those moments made me roll my eyes because they're cheap and stupid, but if you're able to overlook that kind of thing there's a lot to like here.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 9-10
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 9.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Oct 17, 2023
It's better than the first season in that the visuals notably improve and the pacing is superior, as the entire movie is only about two hours, but many of the issues from season one- loud obnoxious side characters, main characters plot armor, lack of meaningful character development, failed humor- are all still present here. The emotional impact it goes for falls flat. You have to DEVELOP a character and let the viewer get attached to them in order for their death to be impactful.
I disliked season one and I was largely indifferent to this, but if you made it this far stick it out, as
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the next arc, Entertainment District Arc, is very good!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 17, 2023
I'd like to start this review with a quick pop quiz! I'll describe the first episode of an anime and then you name the anime!
Ordinary boy main character, voiced in English by Bryce Papenbrook, lives a simple and uneventful life with his family, except for his father who died prior to the start of the anime. There are monsters on the outside who eat humans. He's never actually seen one, but they exist and they're to be feared. One day while away from home, his home and family gets attacked by said monsters from the outside, resulting in the death of a family member, and
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from here main character swears vengeance and thus begins his anger and revenge fueled journey to train and become more powerful in order to eliminate ALL of the aforementioned monsters.
Name the anime!
If you guessed Attack on Titan, you're right! ......Anddddddd you'd also be correct if you guessed Demon Slayer.
The fact that Demon Slayer really, really wants to be Attack on Titan is thinly veiled. In addition to the above, the organization our main character joins, which could have been called anything- The Demon Slayers, The Demon Slayer Guild, The Slayers, etc- is called the Demon Slayer Corps, not so subtly echoing Attack on Titan's Survey Corps. That said, every good anti-monster Corps needs a leader... Someone who is arguably the most powerful and wisest of all... Who does Demon Slayer opt to bring in to fill this role? None other than Matt Mercer of course, who super coincidentally also voices Levi in Attack on Titan.
The fact that this anime constantly reminds you of Attack on Titan may work to its benefit with younger audiences who simply like both and do not analyze these things on a deeper level, but for me as an older, pickier viewer the comparison is almost universally unfavorable to Demon Slayer. Demon Slayer MAY look better, and in this first season I'm not even fully convinced that is the case, but in every other category- story, characters, character development, depth, intelligence in writing- Demon Slayer is vastly inferior. In every single writing-related category, Demon Slayer can not hold a candle to Attack on Titan. Characters here are much less memorable, much flatter and frankly I find the two secondary characters our main character picks up along the way to be insufferable.
There is way, way, way too much yelling and overreacting to anything and everything- a style of "humor" often found in children's television programs where it doesn't actually matter what you're saying or doing as long as you're being as loud and over the top about it as possible- and I found this absolutely awful to sit through. It's never funny, it's always obnoxious and I don't see how any proper adult could feel any other way.
Every Shounen trope you can think of is present here as well. Every attack any character launches having a super special mega awesome fifth form ultimate deathblow god thunder attack sounding name? Yep. Characters stopping mid-fight to have a conversation? Always. Characters narrating for the viewing audience what's going on during the fights, just so you're sure? Yep, that too. Every cheap convenience you can imagine as to how a character somehow survived, when they clearly should not have, is here as well. The main character has plot armor, as do the two secondary characters, and this program doesn't have the balls to ever kill off anyone remotely meaningful (not that it bothers to properly develop ANYONE). Also ultra-conveniently, our main character's sister- who this journey largely revolves around- can sleep for six months or in one case TWO YEARS at a time. What a neat, simple way to not have to worry about feeding her, what she's doing or anything else; she can just sleep for TWO YEARS STRAIGHT while our main character focuses on his training arc.
The voice acting here is also really cringe-inducing in many cases. As I mentioned, both secondary characters are INSUFFERABLE, but as a whole the vast majority of villains have a serious case of "bad guy voice" and it sounds super fake and like someone is trying way too hard to be evil and creepy.
Finally the pacing in this first season is mediocre, with several multiple-episodes long stretches of minimal or zero action, which were frankly boring to sit through, especially when the "humor" was not landing for me at all.
If you've made it this far it's probably not all that difficult to tell that I did not overly enjoy the first season of Demon Slayer. It is, frankly, VERY overrated. Allllllllllllllllllll that said, I stuck it out because I'm the type who doesn't quit on anime unless I absolutely hate hate hate it, which has happened perhaps half a dozen total times across decades of watching, and Demon Slayer DOES get significantly better in later seasons if you can make it through this juvenile garbage.
If I could sum up the first season of Demon Slayer in a single sentence it would be as follows- A wannabe Attack on Titan that is very, very clearly aimed at a younger audience. Young teenage boys are the target demographic here and that's clear as day. To that end, this succeeds, because I have no doubt that demographic thinks this show is amazing, but as a man in my 30s I do not share that opinion.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 6-7
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 6-6.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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