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Aug 15, 2023
After passing it over at least half a dozen times while deciding which anime to watch, my wife and I finally gave The Perfect Insider a go and if nothing else it was certainly unique and didn't feel overly like any other anime we've seen. At just 11 episodes it's a fast, approachable program, though it somehow manages to feel like it doesn't truly even have enough content to fill that very short run time, and it certainly loses steam towards the end as well, leaving us with an overall mixed bag that I'll now discuss with a bit more detail.
From the very beginning the
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program treads the fine line of delving into philosophical territory and staying focused on the matter at hand. It repeatedly asks questions along the lines of "What is the meaning of true freedom?" and "What does it mean to be alive?", which isn't my cup of tea to begin with, but for most of the show it sprinkles this in just enough to where it isn't obnoxious. Towards the end, however, it starts laying it on a little thicker. Between the push towards the philosophical and the "multiple personalities" plot point, I suppose the anime this reminds me the most of, though they're still largely different entities, is The Garden of Sinners.
The core of the show, and the part that will keep the viewer engaged, is the murder mystery we're trying to solve. How satisfying a mystery program is really lives and dies by how good or not good its resolution is and in this case I'd say it's mediocre. This plot in its entirety relies on the all too common and all too convenient anime trope in which there is a character who is not only a genius, but in fact so, so, so much smarter than everyone else that they're able to meticulously plan things out years in advance, make zero mistakes in doing so, execute them perfectly and have no one around them catch on to any of it. The events of the show are technically possible, but they really, really stretch plausibility to the max.
While the viewer MAY be able to solve the "Who is the culprit?" part of the mystery, it's basically impossible to solve the code presented early on in the show. No one watching this is going to figure out what "Everything becomes F" means without looking it up. It gets into hexadecimals and is super esoteric and thus feels cheap in that we're presented with a mystery that we cannot realistically solve. I found the answer to this to be more of an eye roll than anything else because there was no chance in hell, even if I were given five years to do nothing but sit there and think about it, I'd be able to come up with the correct answer and I feel quite safe in assuming the same would be true for damn near every single other viewer.
Presentation wise, they nailed it. The anime looks good, sounds good and while this was never dubbed, the subtitles I watched on the blu ray release were seemingly perfect. I didn't notice a single mistake! My wife really liked both the opening and ending songs as well.
The overall pacing is fine. It's only 11 episodes so it's not going to have long stretches of nothingness, but we do still see a few flashback scenes repeatedly and they start to get old and the last episode in particular is a total snoozefest. The "real ending" is in episode 10. The 11th and final episode almost feels unnecessary, but it certainly isn't exciting at all one way or another. I am confident they could have cut this down to 10 episodes with a few small edits, really reinforcing that there isn't a whole lot of meat on the bone, even if what is there is reasonably good.
Overall I enjoyed The Perfect Insider enough to not regret watching it, though I definitely liked the first half more than the second, and there's little reason to ever watch this a second time once you know the resolution. At just 11 episodes it's a short enough ride to easily be binged in a day or two, so it wouldn't be a huge waste of anyone's time if you were to give it a go and ultimately didn't like it. Worth one watch? Maybe. Something you'd be "missing out" on if you passed over it? Nope. Do with what as you please.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 7-7.5
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7-7.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 26, 2023
It is with tremendous shame I confess to one of my darkest secrets- despite owning 500+ physical anime blu rays, including the entire Ghibli steelbook collection, and despite being an older, longtime anime fan, as of last night I had never seen My Neighbor Totoro. Better very, very late than never, so last night I finally remedied this unacceptable situation! As with any other time I review old anime- VERY old, nearly 35 years in this case- the standard disclaimer of "the only fair way to evaluate anything is in its own time and my perspective, watching it now for the first time, is not
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the same" is very much applicable.
The first thing that stood out to me, shockingly, was how well this film holds up graphically today. It's amazing that something 35 years old still looks reasonably good today, and it must have looked INCREDIBLE at the time, and certainly Studio Ghibli deserves every word of praise that they've received as far as the presentation is concerned.
If I'm being honest, the opening song made me a little nervous. It very much gave me the "this movie is made for young children" vibe and before the film even really began I was concerned it was going to be a long hour and a half. Ultimately the movie probably IS aimed at children/younger audiences, or at very least it's completely appropriate for them, but I think it's reasonable to assume it can be enjoyed by adults/the whole family as well. Of course, had you watched this for the first time around the time it came out as a child of a certain age I'd imagine it would be a magical experience, albeit one I unfortunately cannot duplicate for myself in 2023.
As with other Ghibli films that I've seen, the plot and character development here are actually relatively minimal. The goal of their films certainly seems to be to take viewers on an enchanting, very pretty magical journey and let audiences experience the wonder of the spirit world- a staple of Japanese culture- as relates to everyday people and situations. Deliberately, they choose to keep things simple. This would certainly miss the mark for the kind of viewer who needs deep, complex messaging in their anime.
Is the plot realistic? Of course not! Are there multiple elements that are never explained and couldn't ever happen in the real world? Of course! There isn't any explanation for anything and Totoro's motives, powers, why he exists, how long he has existed, etc are all never discussed whatsoever, so you're either able to accept "It's magic!" as an explanation or you'll be sorely disappointed. Given the tone of the film and it never taking itself overly seriously or trying to be something that it isn't, I was able to roll with that punch, but certainly the film being highly simplistic and lacking anything remotely close to an explanation as to how any of its magical elements work is a criticism I can appreciate as well. In this world, the existence of magic and spirits and supernatural happenings is something that's simply known and accepted and it's no more weird than the fact that humans need to eat and drink in order to survive.
While the film did do enough to keep me engaged, I'd certainly say it lacks any sort of climax or any major standout moment that triggers an emotional response or gets burned into the viewer's memory. As a whole it lacks impactful plot points, harkening back to their approach of simply providing a journey and an experience above all else and keeping it simple and on a smaller scale. The ending wasn't overly impactful or memorable either.
At the end of the day I can appreciate this film for what it is as an adult in my 30s, but it's simply not possible for me to know what I would have thought had I experienced this as a child all those years ago. It's simple, arguably overly so, it's very pretty (unbelievably so for its time) and it's inoffensive and family friendly. Where does that leave us? With a classic, one worthy of its praise and longstanding adoration, but not one that is going to blow away a proper adult who does not have nostalgia goggles for the film, like myself, 35 years later. It's still worth a watch though! Now on to Howl's Moving Castle, which I somehow also haven't seen...
2023 RATING- 8
1988 RATING- Impossible today, but if it were a 9 or a 10 at the time, that wouldn't surprise or offend me whatsoever.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jun 18, 2023
I have reviewed and consecutively watched all three previous seasons so in this review I'm operating that you've also seen them and have read those previous reviews, otherwise this isn't going to make a ton of sense.
The first immediate standout change this time around is the new studio and new animation style. It doesn't look wildly different, but you can tell it isn't the same. Changing studios, especially after many years, is simply an inevitability in this industry and ultimately you just have to ask yourself 1. Does it look SIMILAR, even if not identical? and 2. Does it look GOOD, even if I like
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the other way better? and in this case the answer is yes to both. In fact, I may even prefer the new look to the previous! It doesn't hurt that all the ladies are even bustier than before this season...
As seasons have rolled on I feel this anime has moved a bit away from comedy and goofy, over the top gags and more towards focusing on battles and super ultra mega abilities, which is a change I personally don't care for, and certainly this particular season felt story light and battle heavy as a whole, including the final three episodes being almost nothing other than combat. I will never get tired of seeing attractive ladies with big boobs, but towards the end this show started to feel like simply a battle anime with boobies rather than something charming or something with any depth. Perhaps it's simply a consequence of watching all four seasons consecutively, but it did finally start to feel a bit repetitive and like it was wearing out its welcome. It felt like they ran out of places to go with the plot and their solution was simply more enemies, more powers, more combat. As a whole, character development and plot advancement were quite weak and minimal in this fourth season.
My understanding is that there will be a FIFTH season in the coming years. If so, I'll watch it. Nevertheless, my favorite season of this show was the first one and I wish they'd kept it on a smaller scale as it was back then rather than adding more and more characters, more and more bad guys, etc. Overall I enjoyed the series and am glad I watched it, and it should please fans of the genre, but it won't go down as an all time favorite for me.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 7-8
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7-7.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 14, 2023
If you're here you know what you're in for. This isn't a series where you should pick it up midway through, so this review assumes you've watched the previous seasons and have a reasonable understanding of what kind of show it is and what has happened up to this point.
MOST of the same things you've enjoyed about the show up until now return, but I have a few nitpicks. As I said in my season two review, I personally enjoyed this show more on a smaller scale when things felt a little more interpersonal and less battle shounen esque, and it definitely has gone hard
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in the direction of the latter. The cast is enormous, there's a bazillion deities from unrelated mythologies and it feels like there's very much a case of "there's always an even stronger bad guy" syndrome. The fight scenes look nice enough, and they don't blatantly stop to converse every 30 seconds the way so many of these types of shows do, so that's fine and well, but ultimately the fights and the getting powerful were never what appealed to me about the show as those kind of programs are a dime a dozen.
It stands out immediately that the voice actor for the main character, Issei, changed in the English dub. If you know the circumstances of that change it is obviously indubitable that Scott Freeman HAD to be replaced, and it should go without saying that his conduct is deplorable, but STRICTLY IN THE CONTEXT OF VOICING THIS CHARACTER I think he does a better job and is more fitting to the part than his replacement, Josh Grelle, who I would say still does a good to very good job rather than the exceptional one that Freeman was doing. Akeno's voice actress changed as well for much less dark reasons, but that change is neither as noticeable or as important.
I also got the vibe that they were trying a smidge too hard to go more more more, epic epic epic and really trying to ramp everything up to 11 to try to make the viewer forget about the changes. There isn't anything wrong with this approach, but I think some of the humor, wittiness and more intimate moments found in previous seasons get a bit lost along the way when you're trying to make everything epic. I sometimes found myself wishing they'd just slow it down, pump the brakes and let us just enjoy the characters and the setup for what they are rather than having some ultra mega bad guy that urgently needs to be defeated.
Ultimately, season three is FAR more similar to previous seasons than it is different and there aren't enough meaningful differences here to make someone who enjoyed the previous seasons not enjoy the show anymore or to make someone who isn't into this kind of thing suddenly come around. Whatever camp you were in before you'll stay in. I liked it before, I like it now and I'm off to watch season four!
OBJECTIVE RATING- 7-8
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7-7.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 5, 2023
I watched this immediately after completing season one, and most of what I said in my season one review is still applicable here, but I do feel this season takes a baby step backwards. The tone seemingly shifts a bit away from light-hearted and comedic (it keeps this, but it feels less so than it did before) and more towards being a battle anime/traditional shounen, which is a change I personally dislike, but that doesn't make it objectively bad.
The cast and scope of the plot is getting quite large, almost like an isekai, and as such some characters that were important and got their share
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of screen time in season one, such as Koneko, really got pushed to the side this time around. Likewise I find a newly introduced character, Gasper, to be utterly obnoxious and whiny and not appealing in any way.
I found this anime to be its most entertaining when it was on a smaller scale and kept the humor and interpersonal interactions at a forefront. This wasn't discarded outright, but it's certainly lessened, and I hope this doesn't continue in future seasons or my overall enjoyment of the show will continue to decline. Right now it's still pretty good, but I want it to be great!
OBJECTIVE RATING- 7-8
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7-7.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 31, 2023
I wish MAL had it set up to simply select whether or not I personally liked something as opposed to whether or not I'd recommend it to others because with this genre in particular, noting in this case that there are uncensored breasts in literally every single episode and unapologetic, unrelenting sexual references, lewd scenarios, and perverted humor this is OBVIOUSLY not for everyone and you should use your own discretion as to whether or not this might be your cup of tea. Personally, I quite like this genre and have had a really good track record with it.
If you can accept and enjoy the
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base premise and tone- and frankly, you simply shouldn't watch this if you can't, because it's inescapable- there's lots to like here. High School DxD is over a decade old in 2023 and it still looks fantastic, easily passing for something that could come out today. As noted on its dedicated MAL page, this anime also sports an award-winning English dub and as far as I'm concerned that's completely warranted. Scott Freeman and Jamie Marchi as the male and female leads respectively are perfectly cast and very tonally convincing, taking the obviously ridiculous and over the top script seriously and making their characters believable. The writing and translation folks should also be credited as the localization, references, terminology and variety of terms- even though they're more or less talking about the same thing over and over again- really hits the mark.
Uncensored boobies multiple times in every single episode, rather than just occasionally throughout the show, is a thumbs up from me. The program fully embraces what it is, what its audience is and the tone it's trying to uphold. If you're into this kind of thing, this is a lot of fun to watch. Something that separates the good ecchi from the great, however, is the presence of an actual story that you can get engaged in, specifically a story that isn't just a platform for sexual innuendo and shenanigans. High School of the Dead comes to mind immediately as an example of a similar show that excels in this area, and while the story and world building in this case isn't quite THAT strong- at least not yet, as this is only the first of four seasons- there's still a pretty respectable plot here and it's well-paced and has a lot of action sequences to keep things engaging. Admittedly there are a few tropes and predictable plot elements, but at no point does this anime take itself too seriously or try to be something it's not, so this is inoffensive to me.
One of my only concerns going forward is whether or not there will truly be enough meat on the bone to warrant what is ultimately nearly 50 episodes over the course of four seasons. Does the plot have enough substance to justify that hefty runtime? Will the novelty and repetition of boob gags eventually wear out their welcome, especially if there isn't a plot worth caring about in the background? I'm yet to watch the other seasons as of the time of this writing (working on it!) but if I'm judging the first season as a standalone product on its own merits, the fact that I popped the second season in the moment I completed the first should tell you all you need to know.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 8-8.5
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 8-8.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 29, 2023
I'm going to start with immediately telling you the number one thing I wish I'd known before watching this- Gleipnir is clearly unfinished. This is the first part of what is clearly intended to be a show with multiple seasons and it ends on a stopping point rather than anything close to a proper conclusion. However, three years after its release and despite its popularity, a second season has not been announced and may still be a ways off, if it ends up happening at all, so keep that in mind if you decide to give this a go.
An issue I had throughout the entirety
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of Gleipnir is a feeling of it trying too hard, and not at all subtly, to be "edgy" and "sexy". This is particularly evident in both the character design and the writing and it's shamelessly targeting a specific audience, obviously teenage boy in this case, which is an audience I'm pretty far removed from so this element of the show never landed with me. A lot of the attempts at humor and edginess, such as repeatedly referring to a completely non-sexual position in which our female protagonist, stripped down to her underwear or less of course, enters the inside of the zip-up animal suit from the back as "doggy style" simply made me roll my eyes.
The appearances, themes and special abilities of the characters are absolutely all over the place and don't feel like they all belong in the same anime, which is an issue I had with Tower of God as well, but at least in this case you can loosely justify it because there is a story-related explanation as to why this would be plausible, even if it still felt weird and lacking cohesion for me. Largely it felt like there weren't rules or restrictions whatsoever and characters could do or be whatever they want.
The animation of this show gets praised a lot. It looks nice, sure, but I wasn't blown away. It simply looks like something modern and not low budget, but that could be said about dozens or hundreds of things. The soundtrack stood out to me in a good way a handful of times. It's not an all time banger, but it's got a few good tracks that command your attention for sure.
One thing I did like about Gleipnir is the development and progression of the two leads, who start out in pretty opposite corners of the personality spectrum and then both make pretty hard pivots back the other way, perhaps even too much so or too quickly. I'd assume in the manga off of which this is based these changes are a bit more gradual, but regardless I appreciate that the characters grow and change rather than remaining flat throughout.
I struggle to articulate why I'm merely lukewarm on Gleipnir, and I feel like I'm supposed to like it more and rate it higher than I'm ultimately going to. It's hard to put a finger on one specific thing it does poorly that really kills it for me because it isn't actually awful at anything and it's a pretty decent show. I think for me the fact that it never escapes its juvenile undertone and that the "ending", which as I mentioned is just a stopping point rather than a proper ending, isn't satisfying at all and leaves us with far more questions than answers, is the one-two punch that resigns this, until a theoretical second season anyway, to merely "good-ish" for me rather than something better.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 7.5~
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 6.75-7
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 18, 2023
My wife and I saw this in theaters last night. The fact that she and I were among just nine total people there for that movie on the second night it's available for viewing really speaks to how far anime movies, and anime as a whole, still has to go here in the United States, but that's a discussion for another day.
If you take a peek at my profile, specifically the favorites section, you'll find a Shinkai movie among my all time favorites, several others rated highly on my list and Shinkai himself listed among my favorite anime-associated characters and people. Plainly, I'm a genuine
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fan, and I've had nothing but positive experiences with his movies up to this point. This was, while certainly not a crappy movie by any objective measure, far from his best work.
Shinkai has been, and continues to be, the absolute gold standard for visual presentation. He's simply the best in the business at what he does. It would be very difficult for this movie to look or sound better. The presentation is simply exceptional, the best of the best, the gold standard. Sky high production values, extreme attention to detail and extreme care put into every single shot summarizes the entirety of this film. Reserving the tiniest of nitpicks for the use of CGI, which some people will hate no matter how well it's done, the presentation here is as close to perfect as perfect can get with the technology available in 2023.
When you get beyond how stunningly good the film looks and sounds, however, the rest of what you're left with is average and forgettable in almost every way. This film is fully, utterly, entirely carried by its presentation. The plot and characters have a lot of problems. The plot itself is formulaic, predictable and not unlike other works we've seen before. ALL characters, very much including the leads, are underdeveloped, with the male lead in particular having few lines, little depth and little backstory and the romance between the leads does not feel organic whatsoever. They've known each other for all of a week when our female lead has fallen unquestioningly, unwaveringly in love with the male lead and she will stop at nothing to save him! The relationship between these two characters fell very flat for me.
This film somehow manages to feel simultaneously very much like and very much unlike previous Shinkai works, and unfortunately it's in a bad way in both cases. On one hand this feels unoriginal in that it looks and feels like a lot of what we've seen before from this creator with recurring themes such as time travel and some form of magic/supernatural ability to prevent natural disaster (this is the THIRD FILM IN A ROW this is applicable to and it's frankly a bit stale at this point), romantic relationships with significant age gaps and a forced message of hope, appreciation and moving forward regardless of what has happened to you. Also, female lead Suzume and Your Name's female lead Mitsuha look very visually similar to me and probably could have swapped movies without me noticing. On the other hand, where Shinkai's strengths in the past in films such as The Garden of Words and 5 Centimeters Per Second have been believable, realistic interpersonal relationships on a smaller scale- relationships with no magical element that could actually happen in the real world- Shinkai makes the puzzling choice this time around to stray significantly further away from intimate and interpersonal and lean far more heavily into fantasy and spectacle, a decision that cuts off his greatest strength as a writer and did him absolutely no favors in this film, perhaps exposing a weakness of his as a writer.
I feel strongly that this film, if you were to strip away the production values and make it look like any other average anime in 2023, would land as a 6 at very best. It's a generic fantasy romp with forced plot elements, underdeveloped and forgettable characters and a pretty neat and convenient ending, and that's to say nothing of how convenient it is that seemingly no one in the world witnessing the various events of the film, such as a cat literally talking to them, seems to think very much of it and is able to brush it off without further questioning. I don't know about you, but if I came home from work one of these days and my cat walked up to me and said "Hey man, how was your day?" my reaction probably wouldn't be mildly surprised for a few moments, don't ask or think about it any further and carry on from there as I would on any other night.
At the end of the day I can understand why the scores for this film are as high as they are. It's shiny and new, there's a lot of Shinkai fans out there (absolutely including myself) and if you saw this in theaters it's very easy to get swept up in the immersive, cinematic experience this is very clearly intended to be. However, bells and whistles removed, this is a disappointing effort, and too similar to his two most recent works, from a creator frequently mentioned in the greatest of all time discussion. My sincere hope is Shinkai avoids natural disasters being prevented through the power of love and time travel in his next outing and gives us something fresher and less samey. Keep up how good it looks, but put more effort into character development and writing. If this didn't look so damn good, I'd be utterly disappointed as opposed to where I am now, which is somewhere in the vicinity of lukewarm.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 7-8
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 4, 2023
I quite like Log Horizon and my overall feelings about the series as a whole really haven't changed much since I watched the very first season all those years ago. The series does a number of things particularly well. It is well animated and features a vibrant, colorful, expansive world. It has a consistently standout soundtrack and some pretty banging intro/outros that really get the juices flowing. It has a HUGE cast of characters and deliberately moves at a slow pace in order to develop those characters, develop the world itself and expand on the various systems both politically and in terms of gameplay going
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on behind the scenes. This final point is both its biggest strength and its biggest weakness and it's where I'd like to start out our discussion about the third season.
The first season of Log Horizon was a meaty, thorough 25 episodes, but since then seasons have been a mere 12 episodes each. When the cast is this enormous and the pace is deliberately this slow, greatly exasperated in this case by the half decade long wait in between seasons 2 and 3, I can't help but be left feeling unfulfilled and wanting more. We waited six years to introduce all of two plot points essentially and the entire first half of this season is devoid of combat or dungeon exploring whatsoever. Normally, with a higher episode count, this isn't an issue at all and these arcs are a nice change of pace and a great opportunity to enhance the deep lore of the series and develop characters, but with just 12 episodes it feels like there is no choice but to cut corners, rush things and pick and choose who you want to feature. There simply isn't enough time to give all the meaningful characters meaningful screen time or to continue with all the previously established plot points. Many characters and subplots are forced to take a back seat for the time being.
It's hard to know how much of that I should hold against the anime itself. I'm a bit of an apologist as I know there are various issues out of the control of the creators of the anime such as a lack of source material, with the original Log Horizon web comic not being updated since 2018 and with no announcement regarding if or when it will continue, the author running into some fairly serious legal trouble and, of course, simply budget restraints from studios in what is, ultimately, a for-profit business. I think the people creating this anime have done the very best they can with what they were given to work with. Nevertheless, pacing issues, some characters and plot points being left behind, feeling there are too few episodes/not enough meat on the bone to justify a six year wait and a distinct lack of combat in the first half of the show are all valid criticisms one could direct at this season.
My fear for this series as a whole is that it almost inevitably will not end in a satisfactory manner, and that's if it ends properly at all, as it's possible it may simply stop one day. In the worst case scenario, maybe that day is today. I also fear that I'll be old or dead by the time this concludes. If they're pumping out a mere 12 episodes every half decade or so, it's going to take a very long time to conclude all of this. My sincere hope, though I live in the real world and know this is very unlikely at this point, is that they'll drop at least one if not two full fledged 24 episode final seasons, conclude things the right way and let this lore rich, deep, ripe with potential series walk into the sunset the way it deserves to. For now, this twelve episode third season felt like just a little taste of something far bigger and better, but it sucks to have to wait who knows how long just to take another small bite...
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7-8
OBJECTIVE RATING- 7-7.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 29, 2023
The Light of a Firefly Forest is a very simple anime, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in all circumstances, but in my opinion it does this anime a disservice. It's very bare bones from top to bottom. There are very few characters, very little development of said characters, very few plot points and very little to take away from it after your viewing is over. Perhaps comparing against Shinkai- a man genuinely in the conversation of the best to ever do it- is not the fairest of comparisons, but when I look at movies of a similar length, such as The Garden of Words,
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or even of significantly shorter length such as Voices of a Distant Star, and then I compare the amount of plot and emotional impact between those and this it makes it quite clear there really is no comparison.
The one core rule of the film- our main human character must never ever touch our main spirit character or he will disappear forever- is clearly established and repeatedly reinforced quite early on in the film, so it was very irksome to me that the characters took no precautionary measures whatsoever to prevent accidents and regularly walked extremely closely to one another and were one bad step away from accidental contact. It felt like neither character was particularly concerned about the enormous, irreversible consequences of a single accident.
The ending of this film felt predictable, anticlimactic and abrupt. I can't imagine most viewers would be wowed or find it overly satisfying, nor can I imagine a viewer fighting off tears or feeling truly emotionally impacted in any lasting or meaningful way.
For being over a decade old this movie is pretty, but anime that look good to various extents are more and more commonplace these days and it's nowhere near enough, as with every other part of this, to make it remotely memorable long term.
Ultimately I don't actively recommend AGAINST watching it- it's short, simple and inoffensive and you haven't "wasted" a great chunk of your time if you choose to give this a go- but it's super super skippable and forgettable if you choose not to watch it, and for that reason I find it very difficult to recommend.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 6 to GENEROUS 7 for the right viewer
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 6-6.5
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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