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Jan 24, 2022
copied from my review on another site titled ''A review from a meta mindset(, mostly written to get people to look at this episode (with a meta mindset)).''
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Cowboy Bebop was started/approved with the intention of selling toys/merchandise of the space-ships, Watanabe was given creative reign and produced something fairly controversial, the show wasn't promoting their spaceships/toys enough, it was too violent (especially with the school violence going on at the time), and it had the whole jazz/blues thing it had going on, the producer pulled out halfway through the show (though luckily enough the show was picked up by Bandai) and an "ending episode" had
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be made in place of episode 14.
Watanabe used this episode to critique quite a few things that went on behind the scenes, while also having this commentary be accurate to the lifestyle of the characters presenting it.
The episode is divided into 24 parts; the ones I found most interesting, or have the clearest view on, will be discussed.
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Part 16: Violence
Due to a rise in school violence Japan was highly aware of violence in media, much like the American "video-game cause violence craze", for this reason Cowboy Bebop and its fairly realistic depiction of violence was looked at with contempt.
In part 16 Watanabe has Spike not only say his famous "be like water" quote, but also quote Bruce Lee by saying "what I am teaching is not self-defence or how to defeat opponents or anything like that... But rather, how to express yourself through movements.", Spike himself comments "you can tell Bruce Lee wasn't just some movie star or some martial artist, can't you?".
It's pretty clear Watanabe intended this as commentary on the accusations that Bebop glorifies and incentivises violence, he says there's philosophical depth and artistic expression in violence, that incredibly thoughtful and respectable people exist around violence.
It also has a scene of Spike buying a weapon, and when Spike comments about seeing the weapon before in some movie the salesman behind the counter, who looks like a real thug, has an excited and cute reaction, showing that even by owning a weapon shop and looking like a thug you are not automatically a violent person, hyperbolically showing that watching something violent isn't determinate of your character.
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Part 1, 2, 7, 8, 10 & 24: Beauty of Art
Part 1 goes into detail about how changing even a small seemingly insignificant thing could change a person entirely, part 7 talks specifically about writing; stating that the original intent deserves special attention.
Both of these are quite obviously about Bebop itself, especially since it talks about writing so directly, Watanabe believes in his artistic vision, and part 2 talks about what he believes about those who would meddle around with it; there are those that would "cut away at the bonsai tree (Bebop) until it loses all its personality" while in part 8 Faye states that it is precisely those flaws and undesirable traits others might cut off that "are what truly make a woman stand out".
Part 10 contains Watanabe's opinion on a lot of other stuff out there, shows that capitulated and no longer contain a true artistic vision, shows truly made to sell toys; he describes it as "sugar candy that will rot your brain".
The ending song, part 24, is about his fear that there will no longer be great artistic shows, that sugar candy and studio meddling will become the norm and the great days of artistic integrity will have died out.
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Part 7, 9 & 14: Watanabe's Intentions
Watanabe says he wants to surprise the audience in part 7, and in part 9 he makes it clear that the worst response to what he creates would be apathy, he wants people to have an opinion on his work "I spoke: "I don't feel anything toward anyone" Bull spoke: "that is.... the greatest misfortune on this earth"".
In part 14 the greatest thing about bounty hunting is said to be the freedom; the lack of a clear rule book, and the downside is said to be how once you start doing what you want you're told that it's against the rules and people will get mad, an obvious way of saying that once you start making a show like Bebop the higher-ups are gonna start complaining despite originally giving you free reign.
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I hope you'll enjoy watching Mish mash Blues with a (possibly) new way of looking at it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jun 2, 2021
Have you ever just scoured through MAL to find really short shows that are easy to finish so you can get your "completed" list a bit bigger so it doesn't look like you're just a general anime hater that drops half of the shows he watches?
No? Just me?
Well that's how I stumbled upon this show and let me tell you what it is. It's 7 mary sue characters ready to give you some serious manservice with a song to back it up.
All of them are intentionally beautiful and skilled and don't do anything wrong in the video, even intentionally only doing things girls would
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want out of a man/idol to gain addoration/fans which is why I'd call them "perfect husbando material men"
What kind of song? Basically a generic japanese boyband song, and I've never really listened to japanese music, but wierdly enough the genericness reached such a high level even I noticed it.
Now what will these perfect husbando material men do? They'll start off by showing you they're famous and well liked by letting you see them all singing on stage with a happy female crowd admiring them, it implies that since they are beloved you should love them too, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Next you'll see them sitting or standing on musical notes or symbols, some of which I don't even recognise; specifically the red haired guy's (red) wierd "X" he does a walk in place on (with of course a red background, cause his personality is "red", nothing seperates one character from the other except their color,).
This by the way is one of very few times you'll see only one of them on screen, because this band is all about the guys having a fun and comradish relationship with each other and the easiest way to show this is by having several of them on screen at the same time.
It wants to show their friendship and closeness but does so in the most simple and uninteresting way you could imagine.
Talking about ships, this is where they go next, and on this ship all of them will show you they all like the exact same things (fishing, sunbathing, being unable to hold on to paper and watching it blow away).
By showing off their wealth they'll make you love them even more since they'll be able to take care of you and your material desires, they can treat you like a princess...
These morons will even all cook for you cause not only are they famous musicians, they're also all masterchefs; specifically at deserts, cause who doesn't like those. Making anything less appealing than desserts might just not create enough desire towards them.
Overall it had pretty good CGI so I'll give it that, although the teeth bothered me a bit, but for someone like myself, who isn't into this band, this will not have any value, and do an incredibly poor job promoting the band.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Apr 5, 2021
Ten Count (copied from my review on a different site)
Spoilers for the entire manga Ten Count, reading time approximately 7 minutes.
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Basic Story Setting (and topics that are gonna be discussed)
Ten Count is a boys love manga about Tadaomi Shirotani, a 31 year old mysophobe (AKA germophobia, bacteriophobia), and Riku Kurose, a 26 year old psychiatrist meeting and developing a relationship.
Riku takes on the dominant role (or sadistic seme, as I've seen other reviewers describe it) while Tadaomi has the submissive one, allowing Riku to touch him despite his fear of germs, or better put fear of being dirty or "contaminated".
During these scenes you will often
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see Tadaomi protesting against being touched, yet "enjoying" it, a topic where reviewers seem to differ on; some call it (borderline) rape and hate the series for it, while others describe it as Riku reading Tadaomi's desires and helping him overcome his mysophobia.
The pacing of the story is excellent, slowly escalating from simply touching hands, to an indirect kiss, to groping and kissing, to eventually having sex as Riku's and Tadaomi's relationship develops and Tadaomi grows more accustomed and comfortable with facing his mysophobia.
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Arousal
Being a boys love manga arousal (or "blush factor", for those who want to sound more civilized) is an important part of the story, the actions of the characters don't just need to be justified, they also need to be arousing, the sexual scenes with Tadaomi resisting may be justified from a character writing view-point but that does not mean they are arousing for people who are not into this specific kink, it is a kink I am into but those that do not enjoy it will not get the same arousal out of these scenes, at best they will see it as a well drawn sex scene with good character writing.
Ten count can still be read by those not into this type of kink but it will be a lesser experience at best, and an upsetting reading about rape and Stockholm syndrome at worst.
A common trope within love stories is sacrificing for the one you love, in some stories that will be a character's family, they disapprove of the relationship the character is in but despite that the character will stay with the one they love, creating inner conflict between choosing family and the romantic interest which results in the romantic notion of choosing you lover over everything else because that's how strong your bond is.
Another trope with similar functionality is incest, choosing to love your sibling despite what society might think of it, a relationship and love so strong the lovers are willing to let society hate them and look down on them.
However the common occurrence Ten Count's version of this is probably the more similar to is the "Christian Woman" (a song by Type O Negative) phenomenon, where men are very aroused by the idea of having a very "Christian" and pure woman sacrifice that purity because they are so in love and infatuated by the man, giving up their own inner values in order to be with them out of wedlock.
Ten Count employs this trope very well without the insidious undertones the "Christian Woman" phenomenon has, Tadaomi is constantly giving up small parts of his mysophobia to be with Riku, to let Riku touch him at all is already a conflict in which love wins out over Tadaomi's fear (the fact that this is a homosexual relationship is barely used as a source of inner conflict, while Jackass!, a similar boys love manga, uses this as the main source of unwillingness/sacrifice), and because Tadaomi's mysophobia is so realistically portrayed this willing sacrifice seems greater and more romantic (and therefore more arousing), however, where the "Christian Woman" phenomenon is simply to fuel the man's ego, which is certainly also a part of Ten Count, Riku also takes care to have everything be a healthy development for Tadaomi's psyche (to the best of his ability).
The way this sacrifice is portrayed is in the (oh so controversial) willing victim scenario; Tadaomi protests against being touched, kissed, and fucked while in the moment, simultaneously desiring Riku to proceed, this is something that happens in real life too, some people like being coerced or dominated BY THE RIGHT PERSON, the important thing here is for that person to test the waters before committing to anything that might cross a line, if you are making out with someone and they react positively to having their arms pushed next to their head; being pinned against a wall or bed, that might be a sign they want to be dominated.
This whole thing is fairly hard to talk about since it could be the difference between rape and playing into your partner's kink, but Ten Count played it fairly safe, Riku being a great psychologist is a good indicator and story mechanic to let the readers know that he knows how people think, this made it clear they both wanted this and consented for (what I believe) is the majority of the audience early on, even giving a few lines to explain Tadaomi was glad for Riku having done the sexual things that he did in one of the later volumes, so I would argue objections from a moral point of view stem from bias against or a lack of understanding about this kink rather than an analysis of the situation.
Arousal factor 9/10, it's got a target audience that it effectively pleases
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Character Writing
Tadaomi: He's the more easily understandable character of the two, the manga is often putting his inner monologue into thought bubbles and his motivations and character defining moments are presented as having a determinable cause and effect that are presented very clearly to the reader, the main issue, which is probably caused by the writer becoming sick and finishing the story faster than intended, comes from the underdevelopment of the more nuanced parts of both character's personalities and the playing up of the more overt parts to the extend where they seem to overshadow the intricate parts of their inner motivations.
While Tadaomi was fairly young his father was dating a university student he was teaching, far younger than himself, she introduced herself (as Ueda) to Tadaomi with the intention of becoming his step-mother, yet he thought the whole idea was silly because his dad had him and all they needed was each other, Ueda reacted by creating a scenario in which Tadaomi could see his father and her having sex, to which he masturbated, creating the idea that he was disgusting and had to clean himself, that he could never be clean (enough), and that other people are disgusting, his dad being the person he trusted most betraying him, touching him with the hands he used to make love to someone else.
This is a fantastic piece of writing that is very underutilized, but used very effectively the few times it does come up, unfortunately only small parts of the potential effects of this scenario are ever used in the story, which is simultaneously great and disappointing, certain effects have faded over time while others remain, but not seeing those effects makes the whole thing more simplistic and very "cause and effect", instead of a more developed situation where a single cause might escalate into many other causes and effects, or an occurrence of events rather than a singular one.
Still, it is completely functional and makes for an interesting character, albeit one with some wasted potential, I would have liked to have seen more trust issues stemming from his trauma, or have seen some interactions between his father and him, several flashbacks into how he developed into who he is instead of the single one we get (another reason why it feels so "cause and effect").
Riku: He's the character way more open to interpretation, he has a desire to dominate and coerce, likely stemming from his upbringing; his parents were very uncaring, they showed little to no emotional response to anything he did, bad grades received no punishment and good grades were not praised, when he ruined his mother's favourite dress she simply ordered a new one without even acknowledging or questioning why Riku did so, he received no sense of parental love or social connection from them, instead having a short-lasting relationship with a neighbour, Nishikagi, who suffered from mysophobia, though when Riku started touching him and made a sexual advance on him (Riku being a minor at the time) he refused and left town soon after.
The bond he has with Nishikage is played up far more, Riku wanting to prove he's bettered himself and can now do better in the same scenario, have a positive influence instead of one that scares someone away, in Tadaomi he saw Nishikage and fell in love, though he admits there are many differences, all of which make him love Tadaomi even more, unfortunately his neglective and apathetic parents' role on his psyche is not explored, they were most likely an influence on why he wants someone to prove their love, to sacrifice for him, to show they care so much about him they are willing to put their own interests aside in order to do something for him, like his parents never did, this barely comes up however and is only slightly implied.
The angle of Nishikage being the motivation to chase after Tadaomi is awfully simplistic and far less relatable in comparison, much like how a certain other anime character seemed to be motivated to uphold the law by some internal idealism or sense of justice only for it to turn it he made a pinky promise to his grandfather upkeep the law, there also seems to even be an admittance of this whole thing being very "corrupted" by having Riku very clearly state that he has grown to love Tadaomi as more than a mere replacement for Nishikage (though not much more than a sentence was said on the subject), it's sad to see this part of his character so strongly developed and focused on, though not developed enough to explore what a "replacement love" is like for a person (like Scum's Wish does), while a far more interesting motivation was barely used.
The writer sets up character motivation perfectly, yet uses the more simplistic interpretation to progress the story and leaves the interesting character development barely touched, only there for speculation of the audience, which is great in the sense that one can draw conclusions about the characters, but is unfortunate since the driving force is inferior to the parts of the characters that get pushed to the background, likely due to the manga ending early due to the sickness of the creator.
(I got the information of the author's sickness from a review on MAL https://myanimelist.net/reviews.php?id=293918 and am taking it at face value)
Character Writing 8/10, fantastic but full of wasted potential
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But Snufkin, why is this only a 7/10 on your list
I prefer women....
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 27, 2017
This is purely in response to "certain people" claiming this anime doesn't exist; this anime DOES exists, just look for it using one of it's Synonyms
It's pretty crappy tho, and it's not gotten english subs yet (to my knowledge) so I couldn't follow what was happening at all, the art was pretty crappy and they didn't make up for it with at least animating the shitty art smootly, it just looked awful.
There was a kaiju tho, and it does a thing, so if you're one of those guys that likes those you should, like, skip through the show till you see it and then close
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your tab in disappointment and mark this as dropped, 0 eps watched, and give it somewhere between 1-5/10 depending on how how you like to rate stuff.
I came to this show expecting some good lesbian ecchi, but the pg13 rating should have told me everything I needed to know; the ecchi is barely there and it's not that good.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Jan 29, 2017
1989, by the pillows (who of course did the soundtrack for fooly cooly), is an absolutely stunning autobiographical song about the early days of the pillows, and how not reaching an audience feels like to an artist.
It is complimented by a video perfectly suited to it, and although the video does change the meaning of what’s being said at some points quite extremely (making the video itself non-autobiographical) I believe together they are a perfect combination, and the absolute best music anime I’ve seen.
Although, Before getting to the part where I shower this show with praise, some brutal honesty, the art is decent (at best)
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and the animation is pretty terrible, it looks like there’s a frame rate of right and around 6 at some points so it barely even registers as movement.
This show should be watched for the amazing song by the pillows and its fantastic message, which I shall now explore.
The video shows an alien landing near a village and trying to get people to listen to his songs, but they absolutely ignore him, going as far as to make a cut which makes it seem as if they’re walking through him like he’s not even there, not just ignoring him but not even noticing him, his skill or his effort, a struggle many artists go through.
But soon after this it’s shown that people are busy with other things in their life (the death of a friend and circle of life are both depicted masterfully in just a few seconds), he realises they can’t make him their priority, he believes this means he will never have an impact, all he’s done is meaningless and will always be meaningless, he reflects on his actions sitting alone looking out over the village and dies.
But when people are in despair they do listen to the songs he left behind, and they do help them through the tough time they are having, showing that one should not just make art because of the need to be praised, but because you want to create, and leave behind, something meaningful, and beautiful.
This gives a totally different meaning to the 1989 song, it redefines it and makes it something entirely seperate from the original, to get this out of the song is only possible because of the video shown with it.
It is the perfect music anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Aug 24, 2016
This anime is about two little cute sea-creatures just walking around, maybe they actually have a destination but it doesn't really matter, what matters is the journey.
The lyrics, tone of the music and story of this video go together perfectly. when the music is calming you might see the two characters walking past some gorgeously animated plantlife gently waving in the wind, and when the song gets to a slightly more dramatic part, the story already made you expect that this was going to happen by building up some sort of incoming threat or shifting from brighly lit to a slightly darker environment.
I expected not
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to care too much about the characters, since in five minutes you can't really expect much characterisation, but the great design of the characters made me actually care about them the second I saw them.
They really reminded me of the cuddle toys I had as a kid, or the books your mom used to read to you about these little creatures doing something fun, which is actually exactly what the story felt like; a short book for children about the small adventure two friends have.
Both the music and the story felt very safe and nostalgic, and I hope everyone who watches this has that same warm, trusted feeling.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 13, 2016
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
The visuals of this show tell a fantastic story, and the music is also very good, unfortunately they don't really go together all that well.
The lyrics and tone of the music suggest some high action exciting visuals in a battle between good and evil, and while the show does have a few of those moments, it is certainly not the main theme of the story.
My other real critisism of the show is it's animation. Not a lot of movements of the characters were animated, a lot of it was just freeze-frames or a few frames of animation repeated over and over, usually
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I don't mind this kind of thing but here it was used almost exclusively and it became slightly annoying. However the art itself was certainly not bad and at some points even fairly impressive.
The story is about a man who's fed up with his 9 to 5 job and just wants to escape this boring life and do something exciting.
He imagines several thrilling scenarios, with slightly different looking versions of himself going on bizarre adventures.
Now this story is a bit of a cliche, but I think it was told well, the only real problem with the story is it's pacing; It seems to drag on in the middle, showing several scenes with the exact same impact and meaning behind them, it feels like this was purely done to fit the full song into the video.
BIG SPOILERS SECTION
But the real reason this show is pretty good in my eyes is because of it's last few seconds in which we see the main character; now with bright red hair instead of brown!
..... still getting on the same train to work.
This scene, however, is almost ruined by the fact that there's still epic battle music playing in the background. If they had just waited for a few seconds and shown these 5 seconds in which the "big reveal" happens in silence this scene would have been amazing and lifted this show from a six to a seven.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 13, 2016
This show starts with showing a girl in a glass elevator going upwards and seeing another girl, on another elevator, opposite of her. Only this girl, from her point of view, is standing upside down, it was like something out of an Escher painting.
This scene already shows off what this music video's visuals will be; whatever looks entertaining. There will not be any deep story telling or meaning behind the visuals, and if you do find them, you're clearly making them up and it was not intentionally put in there.
So that leaves the question; does it entertain me?
My answer is "meh, not really". Sometimes
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it certainly looked good, but the drawn animation style the show started out on is sometimes replaced with either a very different drawing style, which was less good-looking but still alright, or very obvious CGI, which honestly felt like an eye-sore.
The girls go through various situations, ranging from a virtual reality shooter to singing on a stage. Most of these were fine, but when they end up in some surrealistic setting in which exclusively make-up and jewelry surrounded them it made these girls feel very superficial.
The song had a decent enough beat to it but the vocals ruined it for me. The voices were done by vocaloid, a program that generates a singing voice, which made some lines seem very unnatural; like saying you're ecstatic in the exact voice you were singing earlier. It lacks the personality given to a song by an artist, I might not have even noticed this if the lyrics weren't in english, but because they (mostly) were it was a big annoyance while listening.
The lyrics, which is about only needing yourself to be happy, seemed very cliche and didn't resonate with me at all.
If you're into vocaloids just for how it sounds this show is for you, otherwise it's not something I'd recommend.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Aug 12, 2016
"We continue the journey
Little Dal seems a have squid
So whether acoustic love the sound of love"
After this terrible translation by google and my lack of knowledge of the japanese language, the only thing that I can use to make sense of the story and meaning behind this music anime is it's visuals, and boy did they give me a lot of stuff to work with.
One of the things that's very different from music anime and just anime is that a normal anime needs to be understood to some extent on the first viewing, while music anime is, in my opinion, made to be watched several
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times.
It's only a song long and not understanding what's going on doesn't hurt the experience too much because the music is a very important part of it. Just enjoying the music, which I certainly did, is more than enough motivation to watch it again. All the while understanding the story told with the visuals better on each viewing.
And those extra viewings were certainly necessary to discover the meaning behind Ainone.
So, what's it about? Or a more accurate question, what did I believe it to be about?
The answer can already be seen by the first look we get at the main character. She's sitting on a tree, looking at a seed (of presumably the same type of tree). This is about changing over time, and about how people value you for what you are to them now, and not for what you could be.
Now I'd love to go scene by scene and say what they all meant to me, but I believe this is a process that needs to be experienced, since discovering the meaning behind the story and the scenes is what makes this show so enjoyable to watch.
Although there is barely any real character development, mostly due to the fact the facial expressions are very hard to read with this unique artstyle and animation, this doesn't really have any negative effects on the show.
In the end (of my 20ish consecutive viewings) I (still) enjoyed listening to the song, and although I couldn't disagree with some who claimed the story was incompetently told, I quite liked it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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