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- BirthdayAug 15, 1997
- LocationLos Angeles
- JoinedOct 10, 2014
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Sep 17, 2023
I never liked battle academies. But, ever since the isekai infestation, where even conventional fantasy shows have been morphed into the same soulless formulaic isekai template shows, I've longed for a return to simpler times where at least what your MC did had meaning. Unfortunately in my search for a good comfort food battle academy, I stumbled upon Liar Liar, with its dazzling opening and interesting premise and first episode. I strapped in, and as the weeks went on, I understood why the genre died out.
Liar Liar commits the biggest sin in any visual medium. It's boring. Really boring. No one is going to care
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or pay attention to endless exposition for a confusing or poorly explained game where the MC is going to cheat in the most asinine way. There are ways to do this well, hell, No Game No Life made this shit entertaining a decade ago. But here, there is no chemistry between characters, no real stakes for the protagonist, no real goal even. Just them playing some bad games and moving on to the next one. Every episode feels like it's sapping your energy, and as the weeks went on and the games get more complicated, I just failed to pay attention anymore. The animation quality took a huge nosedive, and the dialogue spouted by the characters feel like it's taken wholesale from an AI recreation trained on battle academies from years prior. I've seen these things a hundred times before, but Liar Liar lacks that comfort warmth or nostalgia I get when watching even old battle academies from years prior. It is a soulless product with only a passing resemblance to shows from the past.
Why didn't I drop this? Well, sunk cost fallacy for one. That and I was watching this show with a bunch of friends, and usually even for the worst shows we'd still have a good laughing mocking the show for whatever deficiencies it had. This show was the first show my friends and I stayed silent throughout most episodes. It was so bad you couldn't MST3K your way through the episodes.
Oh and remember that main objective of MC-kun where he wanted to find his lost childhood friend or whatever? What happened to that?
2/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Jul 5, 2023
Let me get this out of the way. The animation sucks. It's especially sad to see how far 3Hz has fallen considering Flip Flappers was the show that made me continue this hobby to begin with. The direction and cinematography is uninspiring and there is a general air of mediocrity surrounding this. It's not difficult to say that this is Cygame's weakest original and nowhere close to the brilliance that is Zombieland Saga or Akiba Maid Sensou.
And yet, the show is still pretty fun regardless. Like their other originals, TMS is a pastiche of some bygone genre, in this case 70s-90s Hollywood action movies, wrapped
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up in Cygames' own bespoke package. The show can get overly self-referential at times, and some references do overstay their welcome, but it's still a fun romp regardless. The show's premise is profoundly stupid, and it never takes itself too seriously, so I'm not as harsh with it as I am with other shows. Even its attempts at an Aesop relating to immigration is handled so poorly and so haphazardly it loops back to being unusually charming, unlike a certain other show that has the subtlety of a bull in a china shop *COUGHGUNDAMCOUGH*. If anything, had this show gotten some more polish, preferably with a different creative team and studio, I'd have been more fond of it.
The characters are pretty fun to follow, but Zeno did get pretty annoying for me and his motivations, while clearly a homage/parody/reference of many action heroes from the era, still didn't do me any favors to win me over. He does get some funny moments, being the straight man to a lot of the weirdness in this, but I still didn't like him. The villains are pretty forgettable, but I laugh every time the Tengu shows up with his fanboyism for Rubber Suit's CDs.
Overall, if you have the tolerance for some really lousy animation, then TMS is a fun, soulful experience that has a lot of the creativity going for it when it comes to a Cygames Original show. It won't blow your mind, but there are plenty of great moments here that will surprise you and make you smile.
6/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 2, 2023
I was never into Gundam, but once I heard Okouchi, the madman behind such masterpieces such as Code Geass and Valvrave was on head writing duty, I took a plunge into the series. And, now with the final episode over, I am absolutely and positively disappointed in the entire show.
If there's one word I would use to describe the whole show, it would be "superficial". The show brings up a lot of topics, some of them quite heavy and hard hitting, but never actually bothers exploring or diving into those topics any meaningfully beyond "gee the oppression of masses due to hypercapitalism sure is
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bad huh", "human experiments sure are bad huh", "war is bad huh". We don't see any ramifications or any depth to the conversations the show desperately wants to bring up to seem more mature, it's all just background fluff as far as the show is concerned. This theme of superficiality permeates through the characters as well. Mio and Suletta's romance never really goes anywhere nor is it developed any meaningfully. Mio just seems to be into Suletta back in the first season and Suletta very slowly reciprocates but even then Suletta seems to be doing it out of duty more so than genuine romance. Even with the faux breakup in the middle of season 2, their eventual reunion is nowhere as cathartic as the OP or ED make it seem. It's as if they've never broken up in the first place.
And, there is the finale, where all the plot elements teased in S1 and S2 come together , corporate politics going crazy with betrayals and uneasy alliances here and there, alongside with an out-of-nowhere superweapon threatening our heroes in one desperate finale. How could they ever resolve any of this satisfactorily in just one episode? The real yet depressing answer to this is that they didn't. Everything just ends up hunky dory in the end, everyone's happy, you're a millionaire and everyone's a winner! Hurray you did it! Suletta? Mio? Even the jailbirds are free outside of Saddick. And everyone's a forc- permet ghost so no one's ever really gone. Like, I don't hate happy endings, but you gotta earn it. And none of our heroes, Mio, Suletta, or even Guel, really earned this ending for themselves.
G-Witch is as shallow as they come, and it's especially disappointing considering the pedigree of Okouchi, known for his mad twists and crazy moments, or for Gundam itself which is fairly cynical and dark to begin with. And above all else, you can cram in as much symbolism as you want, as much robot fights as you want, but ultimately if you are gonna cop out with an easy exit to all the problems and dilemmas you've raised for your characters, you just don't got a good show on your hands.
4/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jul 1, 2023
Oshi no Ko is the only show that has made me struggle to think if I actually liked it or not. The main reason for this is its schizophrenic tone. Let me explain, and yes, this is yet another essay on its infamous suicide episode.
For the most part, the show is a lighthearted comedy with some mystery elements, but occasionally it delves into some darker aspects of the entertainment industry. This is not a problem, plenty of shows do similar things well and so does OnK. Then you have that suicide episode. It's played completely straight and is deeply miserable. As someone who's been in
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a similar position to Akane, that episode deeply resonated and dug up some really terrible memories for me. And for a moment, the direction and cinematography was unmatched. There was no way the show was going to top that moment.
And it never did. Just one episode later everything is back to being a light hearted comedy mystery and everyone is hunky dory. The way everything resolved so instantly and how Akane's character changed completely was uncomfortable at best and insulting at worst. Everything about that episode was just swept under the rug and never brought up ever again. No one mentions the event, and Akane herself became a completely different person almost unrecognizable, and just being some bimbo after Aqua.
The is the saying that something is more than the sum of its parts, and OnK is proof that the opposite exists. That one episode is so good that everything else just pales in comparison, and its existence in the series just poisons the rest of the series as a whole. I just cannot continue to enjoy the show after that episode. The tone issues continue after that point on of course, but none so large in magnitude as that episode.
I'm left truly mixed. On one hand I enjoy the show's comedy a lot, Doga Kobo is really good with these stuff, and on another I do enjoy that one suicide episode. But as a whole these two do not and should not mix. Forcing them to be in the same show is just some baffling choice on the part of the original work and the whole show just ends up being cheap and edgy in the end as opposed to some truly meaningful retrospective.
It's like the great Mr Plinkett once said :
If they waver on the tone you don’t know what it is, and your brain starts to hurt. [...] Take “Ghostbusters”: You establish your characters. They’re witty and funny, and the audience gets that this movie’s gonna be some kinda light-hearted comedy thing with ghosts in it. There isn’t a violent rape on a pinball machine in the first ten minutes of “Ghostbusters”. Nor is there a pie-in-the-face gag in the opening of “Citizen Kane”
7/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 28, 2023
Idolmaster is a goddamned masterpiece and you can see it right from the very start. As someone who up to this point has been completely oblivious to the franchise and gotten into it on a whim, I can tell you that this show converted me into a fan. As episode 1 opens, the sheer creativity of the framing and cinematic angles shows the team behind this are clearly passionate on their craft. I did not expect a Slice of Life to wow me visually, but U149 exceeds my expectations episode after episode, making each week an event I truly look forward to.
Indeed, even without any
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prior knowledge on the series, U149's strength is that it ironically doesn't focus on the idol aspect too much. Each episode is dedicated to a character spotlight that thoroughly (surprisingly, given the short runtime) explores each character and what makes them tick. My personal favorite has got to be Risa's spotlight. You wouldn't think a papacon like her could get anything resembling a serious arc, but the show goes to great lengths in depicting her anxiety, her self-doubt, her inner thoughts. And how the impeccable direction takes you from scene to scene, putting you right into Risa's shoes, all without disorienting you. It's fantastic stuff. With the conclusion to the episode being YonaiP's reassurance and support being this triumphant cap off to an amazing episode. The other character spotlights are no slouch too, running the gamut from introspective character journey to heartwarmingly adorable slice of life. Variety is a key strength to U149, and every episode offering something new each week means the show is never predictable.
There is a genuine innocence to the show that many other shows just simply couldn't capture. That in-between period when you're a kid and just before you want to be an adult is so hard to capture, yet U149 does it demonstrably well. Episodes like Kaoru's struggle with bell peppers, or Momoka wanting to show the real side of herself, all have a real heart to them, and yet watching this show as an adult just makes me nostalgic for the times long gone.
YonaiP makes for a great foil for each of the characters and their spotlight. The key is not having him interfere with each character's arc too much, but having him help in a way only adults can makes him a great support to the girls. I especially love the part in episode 11 where him and Arisu just ponder on what it means to truly be an adult, or whether there even is a distinction on being a kid or not.
The visuals are spectacular. As expected of Cygames I suppose, but there is a real flair to how the show presents itself that doesn't overload the viewer's senses. Key moments are given the attention it deserves and when everything aligns just right, you can really feel the gravitas of the scene in question. Again, the climax of episode 11 showcases this magnificently, Ironically for a show focused on music I actually don't like the vocal themes that much. They're fine at best, but not exactly the stuff you'd listen to on a whim.
That aside, Idolmaster U149 is the best show I've seen this season, possibly year. For someone who was previously apathetic to the franchise, it has made me a new fan and I admit I have downloaded the mobage and started rolling for my favorite characters. It has changed me and made me a fan of this franchise, and I can't wait to go back to the beginning and see how this franchise has evolved starting from its very first anime adaptation.
10/10 M@sterpiece (now...that cliffhanger of a final episode though...)
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jun 25, 2023
I gotta stop watching these. Mixed Media Project Slice of Life shows with too many girls based around some niche hobby/industry always end up the same way. Be it Cue, Extreme Hearts, PuraOre, and now this. The fundamental issue is that, even with a main character at hand, it always ends up pretty mediocre around the middle and my interest in the project just completely fades less than halfway through.
World Dai Star has some interesting things going for it initially at least. You got Takahiro, you got a schizophrenic hallucination that is a product of the main character. The problem is that they never really
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do anything interesting with it. The MC's tulpa manifests physically, then she disappears, then reappears at the end again. Not much is done to explore this, or how inexplicably every theatre actress has superpowers (and I mean real superpowers, not chuuni delusions) that only come to life on stage. Revue Starlight this ain't, nor is this even close to the madness that was Gekidol. Instead, World Dai Star is just pretty boring for the most part with overused character archetypes playing off of each other to some nice animation and music. Though it is nice to see the otherwise super-typecasted Iwami Manaka play a character with a completely different voice than she normally does.
And I really do adore the OST too. The insert songs are fun and the melancholic piano really deserve to be in a more exciting show than this. But otherwise World Dai Star is mainly background noise, albeit pleasant background noise, to be played while doing something more fun. Like filing taxes or ironing.
5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 23, 2023
Before we begin, I must mention the fact that this website categorized this show as a "comedy". Seeing this was the only thing that made me laugh throughout my entire experience with this series outside the manga. And so, let us begin.
Watayuri is a melodrama. Everyone is uniquely terrible and unlikeable in their own way and watching it can make for a miserable experience at times, but in a "watching a train slowly derail" kind of way. Hime has self-esteem issues and cannot be truthful to herself or to others, Yano is insistently stubborn and cannot read into social situations, Sumika is a cuck, and
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Tamao is Tamao. A romance blooming in the middle of a workplace as volatile as this can only really lead to misunderstandings, anger, sadness, and frustration, many times on the part of the audience, but yet there is something that just keeps drawing you in to see how low it can really go. You're only in it for the madness, not for any happy resolution, and so Watayuri does satisfy in that regard, or at least prepare a primer for the actual suffering in the manga chapters after the anime's end.
This show ain't for everyone, but if you grew up on telenovas or soap operas as a kid like I did, you'll feel oddly right at home with this.
6/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jun 19, 2023
Every so often a special type of show airs. It's full of soul, heart, and questionable production values and an off-kilter setting, but it always earns a place in my heart. It often stars an incompetent all girl cast and always features a dark setting that is brushed under the rug. Previously this show was called "Estab Life", "Arsnotoria", and "Hanabi-chan". This season, that show is called "Alice Gear Aegis".
I don't play mobages so I have no idea about this coming in, but it doesn't matter, the majority of the show is damedame slice of life with a bunch of idiots that make for some
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surprisingly good watching sessions. Strange weird subversive humor is abound all the time, which keeps jokes from getting stale. I like that the show keeps you guessing at what kind of punchline it'll throw at you. I do wish other characters get more of a focus, it's usually just the Narukozaka crew most of the time with occasional guest spots from other characters from the game. Some additional spotlight episodes would have been nice.
The final two episodes do spoil the show somewhat. I don't get the deal with evil Chihaya at all, and it feels like it was written by someone else for a totally different iteration of the show what with the 180-change in characterization or how it just begins and ends abruptly with no fanfare. Do yourself a favor and pretend episode 10 is the finale.
Still, Alice Gear Aegis manages to be a fun romp for most of its runtime. Cute girls doing weird things is always a great genre to fall back on, and the show certainly knows how to have fun.
7/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 18, 2023
Who knew the secret to making an enjoyable 1-to-1 romance anime is to have the MC be likeable and not a bland no-personality self insert? After watching so many, and I mean many, awful 1-to-1 romances, which have been cropping up like weeds lately. BokuYaba is the only one I tune into each week with enthusiasm. It's not repetitive, it's not frustrating, and the two mains actually have a developing chemistry with each other too! Why can't other shows pick up on this with their own couples!?
In many ways, BokuYaba is more of a callback to romance animes from years past, if all the drama
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has been removed. As in, you're watching two characters with personalities and character rather than watching a self-insert be taken in by some impossibly beautiful woman (or abusive male when it comes to shoujos). Ichikawa has an interesting personality, and his inner monologues and behavior changing as the series goes on is truly a sight to behold as he becomes more honest with himself and his own relationship with Yamada. And funnily enough the show does feel like a shotacon's self insert when it comes to Yamada, with how her subtle actions like patting the teddy bear's head in that one episode come across.
Presentation-wise the show is just gorgeous. I do think they really amped up the romance aspects from the original manga, with its accompanying OST just accentuating the developing relationship between Ichikawa and Yamada. Of course, this does reduce the comedy aspects of it by some margin, but it's all in service of better highlighting their relationship as the core focus of the series. What's left in terms of comedy is still pretty funny, but it's presentation does clash with the overall feel of the show.
Overall BokuYaba is a pretty good show, and, while not the best romance ever made or anything, it's a good benchmark to compare other shows to.
7/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 29, 2023
Tonari Tenshi is the most miserable experience I've had watching a one-to-one romcom in a while.
I don't know why, but recently shows have a propensity to cast bland no-personality doormats as the MC and have unbelievably hot girls be attracted to no one but him. Fujimiya is a dense motherfucker and bland as all hell, and his obliviousness/stubbornness is frustrating and annoying more than a charm point. That's strike one. Now his love interest (oh I'm sorry, the other person who happens to occupy the same amount of screentime as him, I don't wanna get the wrong idea), Mahiru, is a strange character
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who might as well be a figment of Fujimiya's hallucinations, since she apparently only has eyes for this bland doormat and no one else around her. Strike two.
I'm generally forgiving for shows with bland characters if they can compensate on other fronts, such as plot or world building. But let's not kid ourselves here, this is a romcom with no com and no rom. It's a series of events bordering on voyeurism with someone blatantly meant to be a self insert and a strange girl who can't seem to think for herself beyond being the MC's mom-wife. There is no story, and you're only gonna be watching this shit for its non-existent characters. Strike thrree.
Look, I'm obviously not gonna be self inserting as Fujimiya, or Mahiru for that matter. Romcoms/dramas/whatever you wanna call em are about watching two characters or more get together, so it is imperative that the girls, AND GUYS, be interesting and have some semblance of character. If I ever wanted to self insert, I'd play an eroge. There is no justification or meaning for the existence of shows like these. I hate 1-1 romcoms in general, but at least Uzaki was funny at times. This, and, don't get the wrong idea on this, is an exercise in frustration whenever it isn't boring you. Where the author has a warped and strange idea on how romance works and just comes across as uncomfortable to me in the end.
3/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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