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Ah yes, another Manichean story that is taking advantage of- Wait, good characters? An interesting universe? No lines of expository and long-winded dialogues? An great production? What is it?

How can I set Ousama Ranking? Imagine if Yoshiro Kimura and Akihiro Hino in a bar, talks to create a story in collaboration, while Kimura would be in charge of creating characters and Hino a fantastic universe.

That's the only feeling I can get when watching a new episode of this show.

In the beginning the story that Ousama Ranking wants to tell is not original and I'm sure this will turn someone away, I felt that feeling ... at first of having a "medieval naruto" at first, but after seeing all the other episodes, I was happy to see the story following different steps than I would imagine. Of course, even though the story goes in different directions, still has clichés and although I was aware about it, the clichés are executed decently enough that the projection of the story isn't a demerit at all. I would say that this anime doesn't have a concrete "worldbuilding" but an "expansion" and I have to say that I felt immersed in the universe that Ousama Ranking demonstrated in a few episodes, it's a bit ironic that compared to the fantasy animes of the year, this is the universe that comes closest to a common PS1 decade JRPG than the most frustrating attempts of Light Novels, although it lacks a bigger construction, the passion the author has in exploring it through the perspective of Bojji, creating a conflict between a boy's innocence and a world ruled by adults turns interesting.

Ousama Ranking have two types of narrative regarding this universe, "show, don't tell" which was used very well in the first two episodes and "don't show, don't tell" during episodes 3 and 4, a lower quality than the first episodes, the main flaw of the anime, I assume that this is not the author's fault but rather the hasty adaptation of its events, events that are important and end up losing their impact and their moment breather to build individually.

Even with these flaws as an adaptation for few episodes, Ousama Ranking shows good qualities and I would say that a good part of them are the characters and how they drive the main plot, I would like to highlight the most interesting character of this show as Domas (yes, feel free to throw stones here) and the conflict is evident between empathy and loyalty in your actions, even though are a character that people hate, the writing is quite acceptable to develop your motivations for your actions and do so get into a conflict, the story working on a depth character like this fascining me, many of his characters do not have a derisory morality like "evil guy" and "good guy", breaking the chains of Manicheism, obviously Domas is not the only character but still is one of the biggest points of how this story is committed to building characters as it progresses with the plot.

Of course, the story has major flaws such as Bojji's deafness being quite incoherent which ends up facilitating the narrative rather than creating a challenge and the structure of flashbacks as a way of telling stories, the idea itself is not bad, but it becomes little repetitive on the structure of narrative, although the anime writer is struggling to make it "less repetitive", but in general I say that Ousama Ranking has more qualities that end up generating successes than defects.

Last week i told how Platinum End was manichean who made his whole beginning a complete trash and I didn't expect a shounen from the same season to break these patterns in an interesting way, some people might call this as something "predictable" but this doesn't impact the story in general, after all these are the points that provide layers to the characters and their qualities are evident in the trajectory, characters like Hilling and even Daida are getting construction and I value how the story establishes time for entire structure, Hilling as a character who promised to be an "evil generic stepmother" has become a human character given his connection to Bojji, although justifying the characters actions by flashback is such a common trope, I value the characters overall and how their actions objectively reflect the perspective of the world.

About the dramas, it becomes difficult for me to analyze, a lot of reasons from me being a rock for things like that and being aware of how authors exaggerate the concept, although personal reasons and even factors that include me not getting emotional, I always I try to look beyond this drama to focus on the characters. One of the reasons why Vivy turned out to be such a disappointing story for me is because the authors were more focused on creating a drama without a solid foundation of their characters (I've spelled that in my Vivy review, in case you want to read), finishing them all as superficials characters and without screen time. Here the opposite happens and I'm relieved about it, even if the drama is exaggerated it is possible to attribute value to what it provides to the characters, although part of Ousama Ranking does this (by an emotional protagonist) it is undeniable how much of it builds the characters and define a new stage for them to act, for example: characters like Hokuro, even though he is the least interesting character in the story, he gains his prominence based on backstory dramas, but his whole idea of ​​being a counterpoint to Domas is convincing, his actions and emotions are understandable thanks to what the drama provided, thus building part of your character for the climax event, obviously this is not something innovative but it is very conscious to be pleasant, after all it is a story that is willing to add layers to its characters.

The production is easily the most ambitious of Wit Studio in years and I'm glad everyone on the staff has enough passion to carry this show, the amazing backgrounds by the talented Yuji Kaneko and the simple designs by Atsuko Nozaki make an interesting combination, I talked little about Bojji and Kage, although they are protagonists with a solid story, much of what makes their stories convincing to the public is in the commitment to great animation, the smallest details are filled in thanks to a strong production team, details these like the person who cheated on Kage when he was younger crying after being killed, it can be quite "melodramatic" but it adds humanity without having to force a backstory or stuff like that, a very conscious writing by an author along with people who love animation doing scenes like these impactful.

***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***

Manichean, in summary an extreme form of dualistic gnosticism. It is gnostic because it promises salvation through the attainment of special knowledge of spiritual truths. It is dualistic because it argues that the foundation of the universe is the opposition of two principles, good and evil, each equal in relative power.

Its commom several script resources that abuse this theme to build a character drama, in most cases being an dishonest and dirty writing, coming from just to separate good and evil, the idea of these two sides should never remain true, especially if you read a story about human affairs or a ... adult drama, an degree exists to which this can take, for example: in a story about war and politics, with the commitment to portraying the violence of battlefield, both sides show how rotten they can be regardless of their assigned moralities, being the true balance of the idea that doesn't distinguish evil and good superficially, unfortunately there are few authors who knows this philosophical idea should never be right and that's one of the reasons why so many stories end up being mediocre.

Don't worry I won't talk spoilers about the ending here, but I'll just express how much I hate this story and then talking about the problems initials. In fact I've read the manga before and if I could be honest with you: It's not the ending that makes this story shit, this story has always been bad from the beginning and the anime was just a reminder of how the writer has a 13-year-old mentality that can't maintain a convincing line of dialogue with the characters, but that's not the worst part for me, it's the irresponsible message that Ohba wants to transcribe to the readers and viewers, it's not something I don't like because "it's not my kind of story", I despise the message thematic with all my strength, sometimes I wish this manga never existed.

Within several supernatural approaches to everyday affairs, Platinum End emerged as the return of the manga duo who brought huge success to shounen jump during the 2000s, Death Note and Bakuman, the synopsis is nothing special and even cliche if you're familiar with several battle royale stories that introduce protagonists losers in the real life. But even with in my mind, I believe that judging what a story has to offer based on these aspects becomes a bit difficult and superficial, after all, from cliche ideas that can provide a good story, right? Unfortunately this is not the case here.

I won't quote Death Note or Bakuman in my review going forward, for reasons I want to focus only on what Platinum End represents.

If someone told me that this story was written by a 13yo emo in the 2008s with misanthropic thoughts, I would probably believe it, but I want to remind you, who are reading this review, that the mangaka of this crap is over 18 years old of work and experience as a writer, two decades is a considerable time from which writing can evolve abd decay and I say that Tsugumi Ohba hasn't learned anything over time, not even from his old editors (this guy urgently needs one) and the first few seconds of this story proves how poor his narrative is:

"Everyone is born with the goal of attaining happiness, and everyone lives with the aim of attaining even greater happiness"

First, summarizing the theme for audience initially demonstrates how poorly is executed for the obvious path, bringing less nuance to the characters and overall plot, the very definition of freedom they establish is something so weak that becomes the writer screaming in the viewer's face, because at all times the author needs to symbolize how important wings are for happiness and besides, they replicate the obvious one for the text, in the 2000s it was common for excerpts like this to be replicated, as readers needed to compass to where the story would lead. However it's been 10 years of that time and using this kind of hook is just showing how insecure Ohba wants to deal with sensitive topics.

For contextualization, the story introduce the MC who suffered at the hands of the universe, approaching his suicide in the most banal way possible to be able to enter a battle royale plot, when dealing with sensitive topics like this, an author must have knowledge for the theme, but Ohba ignore any attempt to do something constructive and profound about his character and lets the waifu angel summarize his entire story in an expository dialogue. I want to remember how "human" this show tries to be but fails, leaving the whole situation artificial, just look at what the characters are talking after the MC gets the power to fly:

"That was pretty good for your first time! You weren't scared at all!"

"Well, I did jump off a building even though I couldn't fly"

It's funny the story's try to empathize with the protagonist at all times, it's not enough for the character to find a flag in a convenient way who remember how good his childhood was, the story don't dedicates time to explore the tragic story, what it makes everything even worse in the execution, I can say that the whole focus on his family has no depth at all, it was just made to generate a dramatic factor of the protagonist in episode 1 and then be forgotten, showing the work will not focus again on feelings of the characters, just to create a shitty action plot, there is no most dishonesty an author can offer than that and turns worse.

Now comes the worst part this story brings, the attempt to be deep but overall it's just empty:

"And besides, devils don't exist, If they're anywhere to be found, then it's inside the heart of people."
"If that is the case, wouldn't that mean there are devils inside your uncle and aunt they killed people for their own ends?"

They need to include a demon-human-related dialogue because it's the poorest parallel that fiction has squeezed to nothing, the story doesn't know how to show cruelty without drawing these parallels of devils against humans, the moment its execution becomes artificial. By the way, what is the problem with this story that cannot decide to be "show, don't tell" or "tell, don't show" at all times, creating a contradiction in the formula to describe motivations of the characters. It's as the author is calling the viewer an idiot, as he underestimates his audience to understand something that even an elementary school kid would understand.

Now, remember the Manichean I quoted at the beginning? Just watch how the anime applies it to fulfill the formula of "the world is evil, he suffered so much", as if it wasn't enough to make their characters become villains, all them don't have a plausible reason to act cruelly with the protagonist, dammit the writer of this trash haven't even tried the slightest to provide something plausible in the universe, it's just bad for being bad, want an example? Look at the protagonist's aunt, what is the reason for her to be rude and asshole to him? There's no reason for someone who wasn't attached to their family relationship to treat him cruelty, the same I say to their kids who bully for no reason, seriously dude what the fuck is the reason your kids are indoctrinated to this? Even the way these characters are portrayed as ignorant pigs who poke fun at the weak while holding a life of luxury on their hands, another rubbish scripting device Ohba wriggled out of to make an teen drama "compelling." Obviously their appearances will be the most caricatured possible, an ugly bastard who will be the evil villain, exemplifying "the evil of society" and his wife who is a pretty whore who only knows how to smoke and laugh at others, again this is proof that Ohba didn't even try the slightest, in the end they're all empty characters to the script forces empathy for Mirai.

There is something about this episode that causes me even more contempt, which is the irrational message that Ohba wants to convey to his viewer: an apology that the end justifies the means. Especially when it comes to familiar, in fact you could tell me the anime would be showing the horror of the theme, but actually they had for 42 seconds and then they contradict that horror with the most stupid drama of the season, beautifying the entire scene to focus on the Mirai's sadness in wanting to be happy, but using the justification of the murder on top of that. I ask you, where is the happiness that the anime wants to portray? At what point will this make someone's life happy? Why the hell does this fit the topic? These are intriguing topics that could be treated in an interesting way, but the author, in addition to delivering the theme, ruined with a shitty execution, so we have the accompaniment of long and empty dialogues.

About the dialogues, they are so fucking poorly written, besides the irresponsible and contradictory themes, their dialogues become the worst part, I'll give you two examples of how this crap looks more like an amateur script written by a 14 year old in a fanfic site than a famous and respected author:

"She She's Dead, People Die So... So Easily"
"My parents, they're all dead"
"She's Dead. This is real."
"It's not a dream, It's not faked"
"It's happening here and now."
"It's all real!"
"I'm here in the real world and I'm still alive"
"I'm alive! I'm alive!"

Holy shit, in the first place why the hell the story put so much emphasis on something that could be summed in 1 dialogue? I understand the fact that the story shows a "real" reaction but all this emphasis makes the text wordy and the scene redundant, becoming tiresome as the character needs to scream at the viewer.

And it's not like the anime was making these dialogues to show how danger the protagonist is, these dialogues are just there to lead a drama of empathy for his family, again this shows how contradictory and irresponsible Ohba is being in justifying these murders just because "he suffered", the soundtrack and the scene are created to be beautiful and the biggest proof that Ohba is just ignoring it is how history doesn't provide consequences for his actions, tell me what you can call this show of "human" the moment the author fails in the essentials to build a character.
I could quote another bad writing moments in the series but this review would get bigger than should, so I'll just leave the last example of amateurism here:

* flashbacks *

"Look my drawn, mom!"
"We're all smilling. We look so happy"
"Mirai, everyone is born with the goal of achieving happiness, and everyone lives with the aim of attaining even greater happiness!
"That's what I believe. So I want you to have a happy life, too."
returns to actuality
*retards screams"
"I'm alive!"
"We live so we can find happiness"
"Once we're dead, happiness is out of reach"
"But I tried to kill myself... I'm sorry, Mom, Dad, Akira... I'm sorry, Mom, Dad, Akira...
Nasse: That's right! Anyone can find happiness, regardless of their past. After all, I came here to make you happy
Mirai: I... I want to be happy

I want to remind the author has 18 years of work in the fucking manga industry and writes like a child, goddamn it, I don't know how to start talking about this sequence, the way this dialogue is written poorly made to be convenient at the moment that the plot needs, the definition of happiness being empty and redundant that even a psychologist would disapprove, Mirai remembers the definition in a inappropriate moment, the whole long-winded narrative to reaffirm the MC actions, the direction making this moment beautiful even after your protagonist has murdered a person and has not dealt with a greater consequence, the angel who is only there to reaffirm the theme of the story and be the shounen cliche to guide the protagonist. Everything in this fucking scene is wrong in the worst possible way, the worst thing is that both the "happiness" dialogue doesn't make any sense in that situation, it was made just because the author wants and not because the story should progress the way organic, fuck this dumbshit story.

An example of how the story is contradictory and how Ohba only made this story to justify his shitty morality, in the definition of happiness, Mirai says he can't be happy for having stolen money to stay, he says if he kept stealing for happiness, that would make him a bad person, but no point does he question having killed a person or feel the burden that was caused, so what's the point of arguing about happiness and talking about the reality of the situation if the protagonist is just a empty shell that doesn't even recognize what it's done? Many may say that Ohba doesn't have a misanthropic point of view and even if it wasn't, it just shows how irresponsible Ohba is treating the issues, trivializing the death, every author always has something to talk about with his work, either by subtlety or openly and I doubt that some of the protagonist's thoughts aren't pure frustration Ohba had in his shitty childhood.

After a couple of retards dialogues about happiness by 10th time, the story decides to focus on the characters, but having another contradiction in the anime, the concept of the red arrow, first they say is a arrow that can make one person fall in love with other for 33 days, then the history says that to make a real person fall in love forever with the other person, needs have to make them fall in love in these 33 days...? What the fuck is the logic? The person will be under the influence of the arrow's passion and yet it is necessary to make that person in love really fall in love, seriously WHAT THE FUCKING LOGIC? This concept just doesn't make any sense for the story.

So we have the episode 4, an attempt to build the characters but they all lack deepless to be believable and impactful, I mean, the story features two random characters and all their short background is just how sad they were not being approved in a exam.... Just that and most of their characterizations don't add anything to them as a character, just to the "smart" situation of the plot, can you see the problem with that? Just the idea of ​​transposing two random characters that aren't interesting, spending screen time with a lazy backstory that doesn't exploit them as a character so they die at the end, turned to show how much Metropoliman is "smart" and nothing else. I recognize the plot attempt here but it's so tacky and bad that half the episode is useless. And the metropoliman himself wasen't a good and intelligent character, as many called, the point is that the plot made the characters dumb in a matter of character logic just to make the metropoliman "smart", not even any effort to make things interesting , in the same way that all these characters are candidates and didn't notice the change of the true metropoliman in that place, if the character had the speed of light I would understand but in the end it's just a bad scripted episode.

Another attempt by the story to try build the message of happiness is lost, holy shit, of all the words why does this author use just the worst to describe what this feeling means? As if these flashbacks weren not enough (which are largely redundant) the story ignores the consequences made in the first episode to try to convey a message of (false) morality, false because the idea doesn't hold up with the examples, the relativism from Ohba and all his speech to "don't hate or resent people" make me sick, I want to point out that it's the author himself saying this since the protagonist's father has no characterization and this is one of the points of why his backstory doesn't work.

About the characters, after the episode 1, we finally have other characters for the story, one of them is Saki who has as much personality as a wall, a character that was created just for the protagonist to have moments of romance, obviously Ohba wrote in a trash way his "special romance", where the first moment of the characters together comes down to obsession than a convincing feeling of love, although it's the concept of the red arrow, what makes this scene worse is that the plot is forcing moments like this to humanize Saki's character when in fact it's so weak that doesn't work, seriously the reasons for this character to start having a romantic feeling doesn't make any sense, the characters have no idea what love is and the story trying to show beautiful moments just makes all this perception stupid, the whole scene in heaven it made me want to vomit, for reasons that the characters reactions are so empty that can hardly call this moment "beautiful".

Nasse is a doll that's only in the anime to explain the plot because the story can't be organic and that's why he uses all of his character with empty words, even the explanation of why all this battle royale is happening in Japan is terribly bad, all the reasons, the main factor for this event to happen in Japan is because "people are dying", even the character cannot reply convincingly, given Ohba's bad writing, but in the end she's most "okay" character on the show.

Then we have Metropoliman, made by a dreamcast cgi, an interesting idea but executed by caricature and superficial moments of being a counterpoint to the (failed) ideological character of Mirai, I wanted to like him but he is nothing more than a Ryo Asuka bootleg with weak ideologies to support the debate that the story wants to provide and the next episode doesn't do much for him to become a decent character. The episode 5 offers an attempt to characterize metropoliman but the information is superficial, they just say the motivation but they don't build, you'll understand he wants to save his imouto but where is all the construction on top of that? Many of you could say that the story is being a mystery and I would like it to be, but it's just Ohba making no effort as an author, even if it's introduced it will still be lazy, the whole backstory of Mirai and Mukaido are superficial, even though they're the protagonists, so why the story behind Kanade will be deepened? Maybe if this show really cared about trying to create interesting characters could be more watchable.

Finally we have Mukaido, it's true that he's less "pathetic" character out of all here, but there are still issues with his introduction, plus a superficial backstory that was created just to justify the plot moving rather than deepening the character, again Ohba contradicts his morals with a trash MC, remember episode 1 where the story showed Mirai's refusal to steal money even to keep herself, still screaming that doing the act of steal was wrong, okay it's okay, now see how he accepts that Mukaido steal for the good of his family, the problem in this scene is not the act of stealing but that Mirai is a protagonist who makes no sense, he is not built in a good way, the plot doesn't even try to build internal conflicts about him. and it doesn't even put your morality into play, I'm repeating that because with every damn flashback scene this anime introduces to try and build a morality discussion, in the end it's useless and these empty speeches don't serve to feed the empty head of the MC because he doesn't learn anything from the story going.

"But I once read in an ancient take, that those who have their lives taken from them and have accepted death can become even stronger than those who have lost all hope to live"

I don't even want to talk about this dialogue, I'll just put here like any other, the problem with this story is not "trying to be smart but failing" but trying to be deep but failing in all aspects.

In all concepts Ohba contradicts the story, before for people to become candidates for gods it was because in Japan the suicide rate increased, but then any motivation started to become their reason for being candidates, I really need to talk about the little girl (died in episode 4) having explained to himself that he was bullied and with that he joined this game, man wtf. Also, while the convenience that Mukaido found Mirai is justifiable, what's the point of sending multiple investigators given that normal people affected by the red arrow won't see the angels or even their candidates? There's no point in this shit and even if were for the characters to be scared, everyone in that damn stadium was scared, can you see? It justifies a convenience but at the same time brings another even worse to the story, again is there any effort by the author in this story?

The direction is fragile and doesn't seem to put any effort into future episodes, just look at the first few minutes of the 3rd episode and you'll get a percentage of how flawed that direction is in many ways: crappy sound effects, crap art that barely expresses with conviction the characters, shitty scene cuts, poor effects to intensify how the girl the protagonist likes is pretty and finally a bad zoom to emphasize Mirai's dialogue, I feel the director sometimes tries to lean on Araki's work but fails miserably to capture the full atmosphere and consistency of it, overall I consider Kazuchika Kise a great animator, but I feel his direction can't find a strong identity for the show to be watchable.

The art is garbage, one of the reasons I didn't give the manga an score 1 was because of Obata art, I may hate a story but if her art is good I can forgive some aspects, in Platinum End, Obata improve the draw so much as the previous works, getting more details and a much more remarkable shading, creating interesting panels who impact and although I'm not a fan of the way he places text balloons, I value the artist's effort, now we're back to the anime that removes all traces and details of Obata (all which makes his work unique) with a shitty coloring and contrast, using poor effects and lighting without any identity, it is difficult to value something when there is no effort, Turns out that I no longer have enough reasons to see an quality in the show.

Platinum End overall is a work that I don't see any quality in anything, it's not a work that I consider bad for the execution, it's a work that I wonder why it exists, and I don't think this story brings any discussion who makes relevant beyond of speaking the obvious to the viewer, although I held back not to say spoilers this story is everything I hate the most, I despise every message Ohba wants to emphasize here and say it's one of the most dangerous and irresponsible things he's ever written, if you take into a sensitive audience, it becomes more irresponsible with a bad execution, a trash protagonist, poorly written dialogues and a weak production. It is hard to see any something positive in the story and the beginning just show the tip of a bigger iceberg, Ohba made Death Note's dialogues verbose, so when creating Bakuman he turned everything verbose into an expository text that messed up the layout of an manga and his latest work Platinum End shows he just write shitties dialogues, Besides the author bragging many times about what he writes, he thinks he is intelligent when in fact he is not, he just does the basics in a bad way that even a monkey would write better. If you want a story that tackles misanthropic themes but being consciously with the viewer and itself, watch Boogiepop Phantom or read the LNs, you'll find better dialogues in this series and more interesting characters, overall I'm sick of Platinum End and sometimes I wish this had never existed.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

What can we do to save humanity?
-just sing a trash song in every episode and cry


Vivy is one of stories where only the idea is actually interesting while the execution is bad as a trash OVA from the 80s. Faced with a season of interesting shows, I decided to watch the new "popular anime" to have some fun and in return I got a bad written story, empty characters, purposeless action scenes, artificial dramas and dialogues that don't contribute to any concept or discussion that could be interesting in the story. Before I start the review I want to told you I ... will be using some animes as examples of comparison, mainly To You Eternity, Ghost in The Shell Stand Alone Complex, Eve no Jikan, Megalo Box Nomad and Pluto (manga). As you can see, I will be putting a lot of negative connotation here but there will be no major spoilers about these animes mentioned that will spoil your experience, they will just be quotes.

Let me start with the story, it is remarkable that many animefans are interested in time travel stories, after all they are plots that have the characterization of persons facing an important event and see their attempts and failures during their journey is what makes it interesting, but when the Vivy script presents consequences or failures? What kind of external or internal consequence resulted in the world? Nothing of this is explored, the anime just skip what should be essential in a story of time travel and summarize to audience in the dumbest way: only a new AI update appeared, I'm persisting in this part because this anime insists on presenting politics about an advanced world, but every line of text ends up being useless, after all that matters in the anime is only what people will do with Vivy, this on the other hand makes the worldbuilding of the story awful, the episodic narrative choices between years only bring distance between characters and their building.

Vivy's whole script is dumb, her first mission was to save a minister that would cause a law for AIs, but at the end of the episode, we find out that the death and life of this character don't cause anything and that the law was made by someone else, so what is the purpose of the whole plot? Does the episode by any chance humanize him? No, the only thing we have is this character quoting the most cliché text of a children's story (all the characters in Vivy have names and functions in the story, because if we remove these two aspects they don't stand up because they lack personality) as if it were a theme of the episode when in fact the episode itself doesn't address any of this, making its characterization artificial and we still find plot holes as: if the solution is to make people avoid a war against AIs, shouldn't we just make Vivy kill the minister? Because doing this the news would go public, everyone would be afraid of what an AI could do having the human rights being, besides creating a scenario where the same minister dying for what he defended, proving this whole idea would cause this kind of effect in society and show its flaws, doing this the people would rethink this perspective, This I'm don't understand, Vivy points a simple problem but doesn't decide to solve it in the simplest way, besides another plot hole, with the death of the minister in the real story, half of the country was makes a homage in public, but a plane crash that killed about +400 passengers, nobody says anything, in fact there is no consequence in the story.

I will be honest, Vivy's cast is garbage, not because of mediocre characterizations (maybe a little) but they are moved for the plot instead of being themselves and many times they have no screen time to be built up, I will give you an example: remember Estella? A character who exactly has 2 episodes to her arc and in general we have 6 minutes about herself putting all the episodes together, now you may ask me: the remaining time is filled with other characters interactions right? No, just empty action scenes, excessive information about AIs, mission prototype... And nothing about this character, her screen time is also so short because Vivy's plot doesn't know how to build two perspectives of the story and makes the building of her drama one of the biggest dogshit I have ever seen. I ask myself, are there any characters in this show? For a drama to be effective it needs: introduction, building, core and development, we can attribute that several characters arise through this structure, it is common that even animes of this season present this, as To Your Eternity brings long arcs for their characters, now what Vivy shows: introduction and ending, the trash way to build a drama, in fact no matter how beautiful is the final, if the plot hasen't execution or considerable screen time, the script collaborates only for Vivy to get spotlight because she is the heroine of the show, making any backstory without impact and without construction.

When I finished watching this arc I felt idiot, an idiot for investing time in something that fails even the common narrative, to make matters worse even animes of this season has done this better: look at Gugu from To Your Eternity, having a introduction, where the protagonist of the story doesn't need to overshadow all the screen time, an introduction lasts about half the episode and even when the protagonist appears we have a new perspective throughout the episode, as part of his character building and about his desires for the future, episodes later we see the first conflict between characters where the character building extends until we have an solid character, the end of episode 8 together with episode 9 form the core that was needed for the story, a solid character and in future episodes we will have his finalization as a character, having new desires and maturing as a person and finally building his final drama, now tell me, between Vivy and To Your Eternity, which one of them managed to follow the line of narrative structure that a drama story needs? I don't even think I need to answer that.

The story doesn't understand what is necessary to build characters so little to build a good drama, some may say to me: "TYE is a predictable drama", yes it indeed is but at least it tries to build characters, giving screen time for things to be effective and building an organic story, Vivy does not provide that and some say Vivy is not predictable, when we even know what kind of characters we will encounter as obstacles and those who will have dramatic focus during the episode, Vivy is a bad show with a failed episodic structure and as bad story overall. I have to say how bad this anime is at addressing transhumanism, if the first arc has the theme, the anime dind't touch the theme, don't show examples and context, there isn't even discussion between the laws of robotics which are the basic theme that an sci-fi story focused on transhumanism would be able to worldbuilding, the screen time the story spends with an annoying bear spitting missions information, they could at least try to contextualize this theme with other events, for a story that was inspired by Eve no Jikan, they couldn't learn anything in the end, even an ONE EPISODE of Stand Alone Complex can introduce the theme in a decent way, a single episode does than an arc, it's a shame how bad Vivy story is, I wonder what kind of entertainment i can see in a story that besides being flawed it manages to be empty, I'm wondering why this anime is top100 and even "top5" of the season.

Even the future arcs aren't that good, I feel like the anime got even worse after episode 4, all of Vivy's action scenes only exist to please the viewer, instead of being cohesive to the story, it's like a generic action movie who makes your parents watch when there's nothing to do, where everything could be solved in dialogue, but the plot needs to action scenes all the time to be an fanservice, the moment you can notice action without context, you will notice how poor the script is that needs this kind of trope to continue the story, instead of following a mature way where the action scene will be needed when needed, things that even Megalo Box Nomad this season does excellently, showing how much the writer has matured in his ideas and decided to give prominence to other types of conflicts.

Now talking about the third arc that can't decide in being a drama about the robots or the "forbidden" couple of the episode, I need to reiterate how garbage this arc is, a man is chased for terrorists that want to kill him, Vivy ends up with all of them and the first reaction that this kind of character makes is accept them in his car, without at least questioning the purpose of them being there, this is not only bad but shows that all the characters follow a fucking script instead of having their own reactions in the story, remember what I said about the characters acting only for the plot and not for themselves? It is exactly this example here that makes every interaction of Vivy artificial, it's hard build human characters in this universe? Not even short episodes is an justification, we can see Odd Taxi from the same season, having 13 episodes and yet it has organic interactions between other characters, this is just example that Vivy story is bad written. The fact that the "villain" is a retard also makes a retard script, every time he did any mission Vivy was there to stop him, now if he knows she is just an obstacle why the hell doesn't decide to go after her himself to finally complete his goals? This not only makes the script dumb but also the story ignoring the butterfly effect for the third time or ignoring something more interesting to the story than the same prototype missions, the plot twist of the arc is dogshit, no make sense that scientist have love feelings to his beloved AI in the first place, they had little contact together and yet they are in love? Crap plot again, It makes no sense that this AI knows what love is when she never had an affective relationship this way, the AI of Vivy makes no sense when you think about it, the AI only acts because the script wants, if the reason is Grace taken care of him since he was child it would also not be convincing because the anime has made it offscreen, seriously I wish to understood why this anime ignores character building.

the fourth story arc wants to give focus to a mediocre AI melodrama that it only decides to focus on that in the last episode, making 80% of the beginning of the arc focusing on Vivy, destroying a new character oh boy, the new plot doesn't lead anywhere, seriously, 16 minutes just telling this new life of Vivy, that doesn't attribute any quality to the story, while the new character of the arc is left aside, remember how To You Eternity shows an entire episode just to introduce new characters, Vivy is the most flawed melodrama I have seen in years and again her action scenes are an excuse to avoid an episode of construction.

But the problem of the arc doesn't stop here, the problem is the story fails to humanize AIs, remember that the all past of Ophelia in 1 minute of duration and it doesn't demonstrate her relationship with Antonio in a convincing way, to make matters worse, the plot twist of the arc (Antonio) is stupid, Antonio wants to prevent the suicide making the scenario even worse causing a double suicide but the anime doesn't give time to breathe and introduces the most retarded plot twist: that Ophelia who used to be Antonio is now Kakitani, for god's sake if you are going to make a revelation just FUCKING build it, it's just a information coming out of nowhere because the writer thought this would be "big brain", nothing in Vivy is organic, again: if Kakitani has so much power to hacking and predict what Vivy and Matsumoto will do in future events why didn't he decide to end this shit before those events happen, that would be a surprise for Matsumoto as a challenge and would bring an intelligent character, but nah just build a shitting villain overall, the plot fails to mature through arcs even though we know this is a fucking time travel story, the fight animation in episode 9 is pretty, I admit but all that fighting would have no reason to happen, again the excuse to put displaced action in the episode, the story could spend all this time developing the character through dialogues, if the solution to stop this AI was just Matsumoto infiltrating him, he could have avoided this kind of thing since they met, there is no character exploration in 4 arcs of the anime, occupying 9 episodes in total, we are approaching the end and this anime still didn't do the basics for a melodrama story.

After the fight of episode the anime focuses on a superficial drama, without any execution to impact, giving only 10 seconds of flashback for the characters, now I ask everyone who watched this anime: is there any good character in this arc? I'm really searching until now but I only find AIs that have the same cute wife characteristics without any nuance. And that's another problem, Vivy's characters don't bring anything new, even after finishing an arc, I know we will have a character that will be similar to the previous one, with Kakitani being the villain this time and only few moments of interactions between the characters, do you know Pluto? It is a story about how androids and humans can coexist in the world with a mystery in the background, in only 1 volume, Pluto provided several characters that are androids but have different personalities and character building that is divided over several chapters, only 1 volume that could be summarized in 2-3 episodes managed the feat of characterizing and humanizing androids, again: is it too hard to build characters in the show?

Every arc needs to end in a song just to a weak thrill about "the power of music" to hook the viewer because the story doesn't offer interesting resources for this, the fact that the episode dedicates 5 minutes for Vivy's presentation as a farewell hasen't impact because we met a "new Vivy" recently and now we are moving to another stage quickly, besides another plot hole: How is an AI could create a second personality? The new Vivy (who was not the real Vivy from the first arcs) in the context of the arc is called Diva, created another personality because she was traumatized to learn about her old missions, Diva herself created a personality, what is the point of that? It doesn't exist because this is not a planned script, the anime ignores the important details and prefers to let the story take its course with just "a song" like a parody anime.

Now the final arc begins, the first episode was ok, I think is the best episode of the anime so far because it actually knew how to create a core-dramatic and show interesting interactions, unfortunately this episode is there to remind you that this whole story could be better, episode 11 doesn't answer anything new presented so far besides the way Osamu inserted the data in Vivy, no interesting character interaction even the story presented several ways for this, which is no longer something new because this anime is a wasted potential and another plot hole: if all these people including Osamu are researching so much of how to stop this war, how the hell did they not think of the tower, it's the most obvious possible scenario for the power source but only now it has relevance, it amazes me how pathetic your characters are that they can create ways to transmit knowledge and time travel but to deduce something simple, they don't think of anything, information only comes up for conflict convenience.

in episode 12 we have the revelation of the main villain of the story projecting himself as an AI that rebelled against humans and wants to exterminate the race only to become a new race, a generic cliché of supremacist AI where part of his plan would summary in "help humanity to evolve" as the typical empty text to justify the final plot and also comes another mistake in the timeline: if the AIs can marry and "love" in this story, what prevents all the others not to have a similar feeling? I'm mentioning this because this story wants to convince me that Vivy was the only IA to want something of herself, but one decent thing the episode brought is the justification for the "lack of consequences", I could even understand but even with the explanation another problem arises in the universe: The convenient fact that Matsumoto sleeps for years without at least analyzing how the universe progresses, breaking any challenge of time travel, every action needs to have a consequence, but did he even think of this while talking during all the episodes? What is the point of being an AI that thinks beyond ordinary AIs that knows all the risks and cannot deduce that the universe was not changing, the worldbuilding is garbage.

Even though the story tries to correct the anime, it gets dumber the longer you think about it, for example: all situations could be ended in other ways (we are talking about a advanced universe in technology) but it is not built in a natural way because the script is based on convenience, those same conveniences that make the characters and universe dumb: why does Vivy have to sing to stop the robots? Why doesn't Matsumoto become an evil AI like everyone else? We are talking about a queen AI that is smarter than him. Why didn't they notice on the cameras that there was a countdown to power up again? Why doesn't Osamu just send Vivy a date from many years ago instead of just at the beginning of the massacre? Besides it being extremely convenient that he is the only one to survive all that, there were 300+ satellites (another stupid thing for the final arc) that fell to earth and he is the only human to survive just to bring a happy ending to the story, I wouldn't be pushing Vivy so hard if this show didn't more than the basics in being an ordinary melodrama, much less having been written by two famous authors and managing to have the feat of presenting a completely retarded plot, there are already stories that manage to make all the points he tries much better, whether from this season or before, all the bad points could be avoided but Vivy chose the worst way to follow.

If the AI villain's mission was to kill all humans, why didn't the AI destroy Vivy in the first place? Vivy was the key to the whole scenario, it would be the only way for the plan to be effective, but just for convenience the script needs an intelligent antagonist to be dumb enough to give the empty excuse that "show me your lifestyle", why didn't they send all the data to Vivy in the first place? If this story were a movie, I think it would be tolerable, yet the time travel still doesn't make sense, it simply doesn't respect the rules of singularity points that make time travel possible, its method has few details, every final sequence made me want to vomit while the anime showed scenes from its previous arcs, Matsumoto arriving in time to stop a satellite by sheer convenience of the script is also one of the things that irritated me in these last minutes, it is so stupid and badly written that only one satellite (of all) decided to fall in the place where Vivy was singing, why the hell the AI villain try to stop Vivy, knowing that her music could give an answer to the most important question, it was this AI that told Vivy directly that singing could avoid disasters, the AI of this show makes absolutely no sense. At the end of the storyline several questions that should have been answered in previous arcs were ignored, after all what were the circumstances of the AI factory being destroyed or even Ophelia's suicide, summary all in "I'm the AI king and I controlled the events" is too stupid for an explanation.


Production: Vivy has good sakugas during climactic episodes and decent background art, the cgi is awful that often gets in the way of the visuals, but of all things I have to say how dead their character design is, all the characters have forgettable designs with trash color contrast, I know there are several detailed shots but they don't summarize all the episodes, they are such vague shots that have no significance it is just pure beauty without context to actually have, maybe I'm exaggerating but by WIT's standards this is by far the worst design they brought, every time I see the characters I just think of those trash idols anime that try to be popular every year but fail for don't show an interesting design or even a poorly hentai, being a popular anime of the season, now follow my example: BNA, ID:Invaded, Appare-Ranman! , Great Pretender, Deca-Dence, Akudama Drive, Wonder Egg Priority, SK∞... Now look at Vivy, did you notice how forgettable and dead her look is? All the anime mentioned here was popular of their own seasons anime and overall they had interesting characters designs, looks how each the mc was a character from that show, an character design is something that matters as it can tell us about what makes a cast memorable, look at Dorohedoro as an example or Zombieland Saga, an anime about idols has unique designs, You can argue with me that because it's a story about the discovery of human feelings coming from an artificial being the design was thought out like that, but then we just have to look at Violet Evergarden and all this argument hasen't credibility.

I decided don't comment about the eighth attempt at wanting to make the viewer emotional about irrelevant character dying, so I'll just give my final quotes, still it's hard to sympathize with Vivy's AIs when in the end they are made up to be killing machines who have "suffered", a lazy way of building an character. Anyway, the text got longer than I thought, it's over right? Yes, it's over, I could mention other criticisms but I think I've already said why this show is bad written, flawed in drama, have bad characters and a awful universe, if you want a interesting anime about time travel, watch Link Click, if you want a mature story divided into character arcs watch Megalo Box Nomad, an action sci-fi but with an interesting universe: Stand Alone Complex, human dramas divided into arcs: To You Eternity, a humanization between android and humans: Pluto (manga), a short anime but with good characters being build in every episode: Odd Taxi and finally about transhumanism in practice: Eve no Jikan, you have several choices here that can please you in different ways and that know how to make use of the essentials to tell a good story.

Watch Odd Taxi, is the hidden gem of the season.

*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Sometimes receiving various influences to create a story becomes something very good and advisable, as a way to further expand your creativity, even though you have learned a lot about some more well-known titles. Usually imagination and reality become a step of coming together to cover what we call fantasy, being a simple fantasy or a dark fantasy, and in this environment of dark fantasies, it common to always have those that stand out, but even with a dangerous and violent universe, like Berserk for a more famous example, stands out for leaving a message for the reader to absorb, or at ... least questions that can generate discussion.

In a way, these discussions can be present in our daily lives, and we would have a very timeless work, in fact we have several ancient mangas that plunge into the dark fantasy in search of a critical message to human beings, it was something that during times of Cold War has become very present and solid, we can have Devilman (1972) as an example of this, a manga that in turn is famous for carrying these same criticisms, but it is understandable, although some of them are no longer useful in the context of our world, it becomes something that we can fear in the future, and this impact generated in mixture with the gore makes for a unique experience. Although Devilman's manga is not as solid in writing, and often borders on a tremendous exaggeration from a cartoonist point of view, and sometimes with so many problems, he manages to stand, and his criticism, however exaggerated, was quite subtle. Subtlety is the important step to make a general analysis of human nature that could be exposed in fiction, subtlety can also generate a bit parallels within the work and within real life, so that when the viewer could finish reading something, it reflected a lot , and this becomes a rich consumption of reading dark fantasies, and what they can tell us, even with flaws, we always need to look at old mangas of this type as examples, of what was for their time and also as a study of things that they must be done nowadays, to leave a comfortable reading and very flexible to what a manga proves audacious.

And the reason why I'm talking about it? Because I have never seen in my life that there could be a manga that fails both in the genre and in the message itself, and that manga is called The Promised Neverland. I agree that he has a popular fan base and as soon as he got through his arcs many called him one of the best shounen of all time, it was a fame that I could understand at the beginning, but that after so many chapters I started to distance myself more and more from this story. First of all I have a little consideration for the first arcs, despite several problems I see that are fun to read, but from the time-skip the whole story fell apart, or better, since Norman came alive this manga got even worse.

The narrative structure carries several influences from Western children's books better known as Alice in Wonderland and Watership Down, as much as they were childlike in their way, carried a dense atmosphere and talked to the reader through more obscure figures, things that from time at times, many try to adapt but end up failing in their purposes. Bearing in mind what kind of work we are talking about here, The Promised Neverland nurtures inspiration but doesn't carry anything it needs, the dark fantasy aspect could easily be attributed here, since we find a dangerous world and we see children trying to survive, we can say that is a survival right? I would like to believe, but there is nothing here, since you are witnessing Goldy Pond, any conflict with demons doesn’t present any danger, there is no realism or consequence on the part of the children against it, you only see a bunch of worthy actions of a low quality Sony Pictures blockbuster movie, all tension is forgotten, no need to be suspicious all the time, but the manga forgets that there are demons even stronger than the children themselves and decides to exaggerate all of them by being super heroes in the end of the day. Can you see the situation? He managed to fail even in the genre of survival and there is no conflict about it, you just feel that the biggest enemy would be humans, and then history decides to return that the biggest enemy is a demon, and then repeat everything again...

Honestly he doesn't decide what a threat represents, some may say that both would be a bigger threat, but how can we have an idea of something bigger if the manga doesn't show interesting conflicts for the same to happen? I am repeating: you will find only generic and simplistic action scenes, even in the last arc where we see the villain hiring armed and trained men to face the children and they are just dumb as a stone, they are fucking trained guards and not pieces of paper, none of them dare to shoot because the children will always be stronger without having 5% of their training, it is stupid to raise protagonists so simple when they do not show cohesion in the face of a dangerous world.

The characters are in general: bad and stupid, Ray is one of the worst and most disappointing characters I have ever met, the one who carried a strong personality, had functions in the plot during the first two arcs, maintaining a good construction, only to become any person with no role in the story, can you notice that he would easily be replaced by another character there, a good part of your dialogues don't even become as important or shocking as they should, do you remember the construction in your first arc? Forget it, it doesn't matter anymore when a character didn't show purpose or function in any context during 150 FUCKING CHAPTERS, seeing one of the fans most loved characters being treated like a piece of trash was something that hurt me, because I was interested in his future , if someone skips all the dialogue that he decides to say he will not miss much that makes the experience worse, it is so simple and expository that you pretend it doesn’t exist, when you notice that even the character can be removable and be replaced it’s because you did a terrible job characterization on top of it.

Norman is another disappointing character that I had to see collapsed, from a time I can be fair that he is at a certain point, much more tolerable than Ray, his construction and purpose has a role in the story behind the threat of demons , but a good part are cliché executions, that centralist and idealistic character that needs to be the counterpart of the main character’s ideas just because: the script wanted to get to this point, this kind of thing is not at all original, but being well executed, it can be something very usable... If Emma were not a character that convinced all convictions and ideals, making everything a sea of roses, although at this point I cannot say that it is a criticism of mine but a dissatisfaction, because seeing idealistic characters can bring wealth to a work, we see them as solid characters and this becomes remarkable, but to see it succumb and fall into the same conversation as Emma is to waste even more the idea of opposite minds, something that you notice that it was inserted only in an arc and would stay there, but I say that he is the least evil of the characters here, but still his voice is lost to emphasize Emma again.

I have to admit that Emma is a good character, I would say that she is quite solid to build her morals and motivations, since she was a child, someone who cares about everyone, and who is open to understanding things, it is something I respect, and being worked on up to a limit it was something very cool, it is the character that most representative human parts, no matter how exaggerated I say this, having said that I don't have much to complain about the way it is done, but look to the entire script conspires so that the whole her adventure is always the lucky charm, makes me dislike even more, the conflicts are cheap and few inspiring to care about any danger, she will always be fine in everything that the manga provides, and the author cannot even disguise ''why'' from that, you notice that everything is about to go right, when it should least, it's a taking a trip without any pleasure wherever you want to see it as a dark fantasy.

As for the other characters: pathetic and forgettable. Gillian, Ayshe, Oliver, Adam or any other character in the Norman group are also forgettable, with terrible characterization and emptiness, a potential wasted on plotting based on various interesting points of view, construction, impact function, not that be a difficult task, but the lack of them here makes the whole narrative weak. Ayshe is the most disappointing character I ever met, because she had a good construction, she proved to be more of a human being worked on and then to be discarded like a piece of garbage, there is no disagreement about her since the story presents does not give her focus , but to alleviate part of this pain we have: Don, Yuugo, Gilda and Musica, which are the most recognizable, but they are memorable because you have been with them from an important momment, and because of their natural proximity makes you become attached. The role of Yuugo and Musica are the best as they showed progress in Emma, and I value that, but it does not support the ocean of weak characters that the work has, but instead of building and developing them in each arc, they prefer to focus in the construction of only our protagonists and villains... The worst kind of narrative that can be provided by living up to the focus between black and white, without any nuance that you can remove from the arc.

The message that TPN brings is lazy, stupid and totally contradictory. Sometimes I have seen futile messages, inconclusive messages, but I have never seen the combination of the two, which is an impressive factor for me, it is nothing original to make a parallel in which you have already witnessed a manga that 50 years ago brought another perspective, but we are always able to find new positions, and this manga has none. TPN at its climax to discuss the message that "humans are worse than demons", but you don't see any victimization behind the demons, you only see demons that in parts are more dangerous there, but never a presence that could make writing tangible and show that sentimental side that they are more '' human '', all the time the manga shows you more danger than humanization, even if there are characters like Musica is not enough to demonstrate that they are the victims, a character does not carry all the victims and good people that they could be. And in the final of the series, when she is discussing it, we never see images of demons being killed or injured by humans, the only thing we see is a lazy parallel to our reality, in which humans hurt other humans, and what kind of conclusion and impact can we have on this? That there is no victimization about them, and that everything the manga shows you in words is a lie that only the author uses as an excuse for a bad message, is totally contradictory, even more so that we could have images of Norman torturing a demon or even someone else, but instead of victimizing one side, he prefers to victimize those who were examples of awful humans.

Remember what I said about the subtlety that needs to be done in the criticism/message? The manga went well, we even have a big panel worthy of an imbecile journalist cartoon made by someone who thinks the world will change due to a drawing that "matches" reality, but neither is done naturally, all this flashpoint was totally played without any backbone, because as much as fiction shows us criticisms and parallel realities that discuss current themes, it would be risky to draw the same parallel of our world, both in date and in context, few know how to do it in a way good. There is no subtlety about this criticism, it is as if the author was calling the reader himself a dumb for not understanding simple reflexes of moral discussions and needs to appeal to this ridiculous flashpoint, try to imagine another fantasy manga going on in a period troubled by medieval wars and suddenly, they decide to bring an image of our daily lives just to give impetus to their criticism, the way it is done is lazy and totally insulting to the readers, when you hand over the characters talking about the “reflection of humanity in the demons” '', which was one of the most artificial dialogues I have ever seen in fiction, your criticism becomes invalid, because you demonstrate your intentions by talking more than a character could speak, there was no reason for them to say something like that, but everything is pushed because the author wants to and not because history should naturally progress to that.

I feel that the author reads one of those cheap newspapers every day and decides to choose what kind of image he should put in his manga in the greatest desperation so that his criticism is solid but it is not. It is not necessary to justify everything that the characters do, again, to do this work is to offend those who follow their work, if their decisions are already convincing enough, there is no need for dialogue exposure to reach an agreement, and I will enter in this aspect.

The narrative text of TPN is totally worldy and expository. Some may not care about this, because reading a manga with an even more open mind and caring more about the situations of the characters, this can be overshadowed, but I will have to be sincere, as I mentioned, I will continue, whenever a new information is introduced, still in a terrible way without a structure, it is always placed so that the reader himself does not feel convinced of this idea, you will see an excess of words repeating themselves transcribing stupid emotions and not so close to the situation than in a way whatever the ideal, it is tiring to have to read several pages of something that you do not know, but there is no interest in grammatical text providing artificiality and explanations that are not direct, but that jump from lines to more lines, and this makes part of the dialogues problematic when interventions are needed, it is the youthful style of writing, so to speak.

I need to mention a serious problem that this manga commits, which always relies on an artifice used in a terrible and exaggerated way: Cliffhanger, every time it needs one for the narrative to progress, and when we have the continuation, we see that it is useless and the situation was not impactful or tense, I know that a manga chapter needs to reach its momentum, but the way the author abuses it is terrible and offensive, it got to the point where I got tired of seeing it all the time, cliffhangers poorly constructed in contexts that do not need to be provided, execution is completely blatant.

You notice that when Emma is about to invade Grace Field again, we could have a plan being discussed there, but the author again abused a hasty reading, just to justify the characters acts by flashbacks... How low would it need to be to transpose the laziness of going directly with the chapter, ''show, don't tell'', because that is what the whole series ignores, what is important is treated in the most trivial way possible, and that makes a distance in writing and for me to care about a plan, without nuances, without argumentative oppositions, the fact of ignoring this, is because not even the author took the situation seriously, or we see the demon God '' lying '' only in the next chapter to reveal his promise, it’s fucking a superior life being, not a clown of riddles.

The forced victimization of TPN villains: Addressing a topic I already wanted to discuss about characters above, I want to first start that I liked Isabella being built in the first arc, but her return only made her character even worse, she is one of the worst characters I’ve seen, just notice Isabella pointing the gun at Emma when she just surrounded Peter, but in the next chapter, she turns out to be a “good” person (again a stupid and poorly driven cliffhanger) and all her actions are justified by flashbacks expository, not even natural in things, are ideas without execution just to make a "redemption", a terrible redemption that didn't even show the structure to be convincing, even the way she died was stupid, precisely the author created his eighth Deus Ex Machina to kill her, with a demon emerging from nowhere, only to immerse an artificial and forced danger, resulting in a silly and poorly characterized death, is so stupid that even the author doesn't it seriously, with the characters overcoming all that pain in minutes, without any form of shock, the author does not care about the characters, nor does he care about the work.

Remember Lewis? It was a good villain right? Quite solid to his purposes, until the last arc destroyed his character, a character who was previously totally cold and had his own morals about humans got a 360 and quickly changed his mind about humans and so did his personality, and the shape how does the story explain this? It couldn't be less than an idiotic and lazy flashback that he became a cuckold for '' losing '' the battle and living like a lone wolf, WITHOUT EXECUTION, just because the mangaka wants the story to go his way and not that it follows a natural course that understands its own ideas, changes over decisions must be made carefully, providing a cohesive pacing becomes something common to make it part of the world, and here it shows us that an idea is nothing without its execution, this artificial construction is so damaging that it managed to destroy the impact that Goldy Pond had as an independent and solid arc, every threat made is transformed into the most stupid being existing in this manga. Peter could be a good villain, but deep down he is just a character from Sword Art Online, I could accept this whole psychopathy, but the author decides to victimize him... A complete nonsense shit, there was not enough reason to to try to do that, it is simply a coward to introduce someone so '' purely evil '' and then victimize him, which only demonstrates that the author wants us to feel sorry for him, and this self-pity does not convince me, in addition to further contradicting the ideas of '' demons are reflections of humanity '', after all only humans suffer, and demons none at all... The search for humanization of character tries to prove important, but every line of reasoning about them follows the same module: artificial speech of villain > reaction after the first conflict > after being cornered he shows himself to be more sentimental, then he will call it "humanization".

As for the non-victimized villains, despite being to some extent solid, they suffer from an outcome like Deus Ex Machina and exaggerations, like Andrew survive a gas explosion, and his glasses get 80% destroyed, yet he can get up to kill the characters, and even when he is about to kill, a demon appears out of nowhere just to be the "savior of the exact moment when he needed it", or we have the Queen of demons, who after losing all his sanity, stay on the edge of madness, seeing all his people die, about to destroy everything, and decides to stop to listen to Emma and die with it... That's exactly the level, but I guarantee that even if justified is ridiculous, the manga demonstrated that these types of demons do not agree with the feelings of humans, now imagine a 100% berserker demon, a solution being made in an imbecile way.

The lack of action and consequence makes me loathe all narrative progress, as much as there are holes in the script here and there, nothing would irritate me more than a story that ignores its own consequences or at least does not decide to do it. Because doing this is not taking on the responsibilities, just because you want to, resulting in bad writing. You don't have to be a genius to notice this with several cases where they face stronger demons, where Emma makes all the decisions of the group and there is no consequence of any of their actions, each dialogue must be taken seriously as the author wants it to be. that is, but not even working on divergences and questions is done with respect to the reader and history, if there is an idea to be followed no matter how moral it may be, someone needs to think otherwise, because this way you balance human relationships, even if the character doesn’t change because of that, it’s always credible to be done, but here it’s not a series that tried to do that, which makes each arc fall in its own way for me.

Normally I would say that the experiences are worth much more than last impressions, but when it is a story loaded with a lot of context and message, with a totally bad conclusion that disrespects the themes themselves, I don't see why I should believe that an experience could speak more loudly, I would have to lie to myself, but I can't hide what I spent reading this, I don't see any quality in the TPN script, even though there are few interesting and solid characters, they are not enough to carry the manga approach. I like Posuka's art, she is really a good artist, and deserves recognition for that, as much as her art is inconsistent in several chapters, I believe she has her own tom, and the whole production of her drawing is very good, if she were in a monthly magazine, maybe we would see her art coming out in a more natural and grandiose way, because working in monthly chapters requires less worrying than weekly workload, I I wish her every success, I will be more anxious for her own stories and what she thinks, is someone I support a lot and has a lot of potential.

The ending is the sort of convenient bittersweet ending you'll find, and even an ending it still surprises me with mestupidity, Ray having heard Conny to find Emma is one of the most senseless and stupid crap, at least it gave me some laughs, overall, I would never imagine that a mediocre character would serve not only as a tool in the first chapter but also in the last, this parallel is not pretty, it is just a lazy and meaningless resource, the fact that Emma meets everyone, in search of fanservice, without the weight that the promise should, if Emma had everyone's memory, even if the others are forgetting her, would be decent, there is no point in forgetting them, and they still being able to find it, but even though it this ending, it does not make this manga less bad than it already is.

This ends my review of The Promised Neverland, an extremely flawed manga in its ideas and messages, a poorly conducted story that ignores the progress of actions and consequences, poorly constructed villains, weak text narrative, bad characters, abuse of script archetypes , lack of subtlety, lazy script development and something that managed to destroy its own genre. I honestly don't recommend this series to anyone who is interested in something '' different '' from Shounen Jump, honestly go read Chainsaw Man, it's more fun, or if you prefer a story outside of the manga, read Watership Down, or even Devilman, because TPN gave me one of the worst readings I had.

Have you ever watched Naruto? So I introduce to you, Naruto but Italian, if I can call this "Italian".

Historical manga/anime always catch my attetion, sometimes because I want to read about a especific age in comic books, or because I want to experience the memorable colors and landscapes that talented artists are willing to make in animation. And for general information, every year ends up being highlighted about some historical anime, we also have the probability of it being worthwhile, which can be difficult lor issues that many directors are not well prepared to dedicate themselves to a work like this, is also very rare ... for some of them to receive sequences and being an anime season highlight, as a door to discover a world that seemed to be interesting through several literary phrases that we consume in books.

As soon as I was watching the Arte ad, I was prepared for a story that would be realistic, sensitive and feminist due to the manga's praise, and could get so close to ancient Italy, but I was innocent to believe it. Starting with all the background, I'll be honest with you, the background art is poor and completely forgettable, it's the kind of generic background art that you could find in some generic fantasy of the season, they are all lightened by a pale color that spoils the whole identity of the scene, it seems like the same color tone for each place, it makes me disgusted, besides being boring shots, they are not as inspiring as their age should be, come on I'm talking about the age of renaissance! This should be a alive art, for a story that shows the love of "art", I think that even Kakushigoto of this season that talks about manga and comics, has a more appropriate and visually beautiful scenario, it is rare to have a type of scene in that I can enjoy the art scene, the streets look the same, the saturated color doesn’t help, it’s as if I’m seeing Venice increasingly empty.

I need to mention this but how hard this anime tries to be a historic but it fails in the main part which is to make characters and people befitting the scenario, fuck shit, every character acts like a Japanese, they bow, close their eyes when they feel embarrassed, act like a typical high school teenager, and I don't even want to mention so many "anime" lines that this work provides, just hearing Angelo's sisters say the word "onii-chan" made me sick, honestly this is the representation of an Italian person born and raised in the Renaissance era? Obviously not, and it hurts a lot for me to be able to get closer to the world, it is not so difficult for them to adhere to a more formal language of their time, as you can see Emma as a great example of historical anime centered in France but that keeps the characteristics of French people, what Arte does is offensive, and I doubt that anyone who is Italian would not be bothered by this, put these characters in a Japanese setting and they will not change easily.

This anime is basically a shounen but with a female protagonist, so many clichés are always being used over time, you don't have a minute's break to contemplate the beauty of the scenery, because besides being so poor, the anime totally ignores actions and consequences, want an example? See our protagonist overcoming her carpentry challenge in one episode, or the fact that she carries heavy bags without her arms shaking or exhausted, everything is done in an easy way, you think a new challenge will be put in place to intrigue, but he it is easily overcome, it is always like that, in every episode, they all end up having no depth or impact in that way, and if Arte doesn’t win the challenge, she just has a flashback from her family and she will win, like a generic protagonist would do, and being that type of protagonist, it is obvious that she will scream out there that she will be a great painter for her exaggerated determination, all these reasons make me distance myself more and more from the character, I don't see this anime being something unique, if not just in portraying a scenario, because the rest is awful with repetitives ideas.

The dramas are garbage, dramas that can be kept as a reality and a challenge of the time, many people faced the rejection that the noblest families had about women who would follow dreams that are not to serve for a beautiful boy of the nobility, here was all nucleus, but it is clearly forgotten over time, and should be the most important point of the work to be debated, but instead we have this small simulation:

"I want to draw!"
"You're women!!"
"I want to..."
"You're women!!"
"I..."
"WOMEN!!"

I am absolutely sure that artists from ancient Italy would not act like that, and even if it is related, they could listen her to it until the end, but the anime must constantly show the viewer that the society of men is bad, just it. From a moment that they do all just to serve as a convenient development, which should even be 70% of the focus in each episode that comes up, she is not a pagan sinner, but the anime exaggerates in moments to generate this kind of repercussion, a forced drama that only serves as unnecessary conflicts, which could be improved if they had subtleties in presenting, is totally repetitive and without control of what it should.

The characters are poorly, as I already mentioned Arte being a generic protagonist of shounen, I can quote Leo who appears to be a well-explored character, but in the end he is just a handsome guy with no difference for identity, the relationship with Arte is very poorly explored, in three episodes and they are already advancing to higher levels, and the author is trying to put a ridiculous romance on top of that, and we have Angelo, a typical innocent teenager who emerged from some Kyoani anime that besides serving as a convenient support to help the protagonist, also has him mini moments of romance, for an anime that says men are bad, romanticizing the most beautiful ones is always the right choice to classify them as "they are good men", it is a terrible fujobait and total waste of characterization, I should be watching the fight of a determined girl but I see her fall in love with her master because he is hot.

I don’t know why this anime/manga has the "seinen" demography because it has nothing to compose a real seinen, and not that it is difficult, Emma as I mentioned is a great seinen, but it doesn’t use these bad clichés in narrative, Emma manages to be unique in his own way, everything here is based on shounen and broadly generic examples, ignoring any fight compatible with the scenario, I wonder if I am the only one who feels frustrated when seeing potential wasted on topics so weaks to approach, I don't understand this attempt to replicate dramas and arcs of battle-shounen in series with different themes and setting, this is without any inspiration. The visuals of the characters and animation are also weak, the animation hasen't life to represent this necessary environment that could generate empathy for the audience, there is without use of scenery, the colors of the characters are bad, totally pale and do not matching and neither contrast with their own, it is saturated being able to look at that "Carnival" in the previous episode, perhaps the good points I could mention are the artistic information that we can see being examples and even the soundtrack that combines very well with the theme, but as for the other topics... Arte doesn't have a solid story.

***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***

In years that I entered the animation industry to enjoy more works with a mature tone, I always wondered how they adapt this type of story, and when adapting, what kind of impression do they want to pass on the text and style of production? Something that when you watch, you will remember that face that left a mark on animation companies, and as I dedicate people in this medium that has experiences and show fantastic talent, Hiroshi Hamasaki is one of those people that I admire for his experimental direction and consistent text, even though we had bad anime after Steins ... Gate's success, I always see when a work matches the director, like Masaaki Yuasa and Eizouken recently, but I must say here that Blade of the immortal would be the ideal role for Hiroshi, capable of producing the violent feeling and the meaningful text of Samura's manga, but it turns out he got tired of this project, just like me.

I love ronin/samurai stories, so much so that you can see Lone Wolf & Cub in my favorites, and I make it clear that I like the stories of Koike Kazuo in a duo with Kojima goseki, it is fascinating to see how this type of story enriches the viewer's knowledge of the world, why am I saying this? Because I want to start here that Blade universe doesn't enrich or demonstrate anything to the reader, just the obvious that women suffered and killers were constant, I think that easily summarizes Blade concepts for his time. In fact you can tell me that the function of the story isn't to detail us about it, but I believe that if you read a story that provides an episodic storytelling about the period, it certainly wants to add knowledge, because episodic functions often don't communicate through characters but around the world.

The background art are bad, disgusting, totally hollow and lifeless art, some may say it's the charm of anime, as if it were a pessimistic view of the work that even the world is lifeless, but I say they are wrong, nothing justifies a bad coloring in terms of production, NOTHING, as if these colors weren't enough, the anime doesn't feel like it is in an important period of ancient Japan, because there is no landscape that marks this connection between the universe and the viewer, damn, even mediocre shows like Dororo manage to do a better job of transmitting their world, it is always important to have a contribution from the art director to bring this empathy that we see for the environment, the scenery in winter is the worst thing I I’ve seen, if a artist could see it, he would probably vomit, I like it like in old movies about ronins, the snow scenes were so atmospheric and battles fought on him would make cont track with the violence left in the color of snow, in Blade you have a white background totally saturated with amateur blood marks worthy of someone who tried to use a Paint tool as a way to fill the scene, watch the last episodes and see for yourself , and in case you doubt me, just look a snow of this show and a snow scene in the Vinland Saga, then tell me which one conveys the environment well, it is a huge difference.

The storyline is very poorly written, instead of choosing to detail things that are important, and that serve the purpose of construction and solid basis for architecting the characters, the anime chooses to cut several dialogues and suggest short and banal words, you can you tell me that it is a way of dynamism and being a more enjoyable entertainment practice, but in the same way that it incites a super fast rhythm, the words cannot be controlled and doesn't make connection with each other, this is not dynamism, is amateurism script, Hiroshi's productions always focused a lot on adapting a good background text to a gray landscape, but here it is just the opposite, it is the definitive proof that even he is not caring about this story, an anime is for a quality very low in production, it must support itself with the text it has, even if it is acceptable or average, like Onihei series, Blade decides to show a free sexual abuse scene but allows to cut texts when you have to give substance and nuance to the characters, and in the end you have a super badly conducted story, where things just happen without the slightest backbone to interconnect it, characters acting differently than usual from one episode to another, without a trace of what motivated them to doing that, seriously, just watch episode 12, and you will see that it is a shounen episode, where all the characters meet conveniently and fight enemies this time, WITHOUT ANY CONSTRUCTION.

The characters are bad, maybe Rin is the decent character in this story, for having a development that can buy the viewer, Manji is just a walking killing machine that the anime tries to sell you as a great character all the time, but that gets killed ( again) for the lazy plot of the series, which goes around in circles until it has a momentum in the story, at least its relationship with Rin is good and brings out a little chemistry. Now I will talk about everything that is bad, let's start with a character THAT EXISTS ONLY IN AN EPISODE, AND RESOLVES TO APPEAR IN THE FINAL ARCH, without construction for this to be plausible, Hyakurin is a wasted potential, as soon as I saw his backstory, I was able to like and be convinced of her story, but in the end she is just useless and only serves to be abused, so what is her purpose to fulfill in this story if you waste them that way? I'm talking about a main member, not just someone who served to be built in the first moment that appears. Anotsu at first was the character I liked the most, until I saw that they destroyed his entire arc and made his motivations shallow, he doesn't have a subtext to be supported, his decisions in favor of his revenge are not convincing, and his relationship with Rin is poorly constructed during the second part of the story. Maybe Makie is the secondary character I liked, and she remains a weak character, where again her relationship with Anotsu is barely deepened, Magatsu only exists to fight Shinra and this is his whole story, I mean, why make Shinra survive? He has no role in this story except to become the evil generic villain who wants to provoke the protagonist, his outcome as well as his character is completely disposable, again with no purpose whatsoever to have been the focus on the last arc.

Blade's direction is extremely inconsistent and often disgusting to follow, damn, I love Hiroshi's experimental style, the first cour had usable episodes in which I could feel the director's soul inside the anime, the second cour, the direction is nonexistent, damn this anime has one of the most disgusting and despicable storyboards that I’ve been able to watch in years, you see several horrible camera angles, scenes that should give weight and are focused on a landscape on the edge of a terribly badly positioned zoom, to disguise the low production that this show has, STOP GLORIFYING A BAD PRODUCTION, before the hurried storyboards were used for battle scenes, then they started appearing in scenes of common dialogue, and it all became a dizziness to watch, it made me wanting to vomit every time it was used, this has no difference with one punch man 2, which used bad and amateur storyboards, episode 22 has the worst introduction to introducts the viewer, how do they let this crap? Aren't there enough storyboarders and editors to do something? To put it in context, they do a character killing entirely in PowerPoint, without any type of editing that can do justice, it is terrible, often the direction moved in banal focuses of scenes instead of being creative as before, there are many cuts of scenes that they are basically half the head of a character, in sequence of another in the same position, THAT CLEARLY IS A FAIL WAY TO REPLIC THE MANGA PANELS, there are no scenes that are individual working as far as they can be, everything depends on the manga's quadrinization, and something totally amateur, I don’t understand the reason for this decision, since most of the episode directors did a good job in the first cour.

The text itself is poorly constructed, in the first cour Blade's philosophies were good, some were completely unfinished to compromise the main character to answer them, it was helpful, but I didn't come here to criticize this but how badly written this story can be, they totally abuse one of the biggest mistakes in fictional entertainment which is '' just talk, don't show'', but for the most part there is nothing that holds the idea of ​​the characters who argue about their past and your plan for revenge, how can this be credible to the viewer if you don't even bother to complete those words? Things just happen without an execution, see Rin managing to break into a prison in 20 seconds, a plan that should have been discussed, in a prison where there are experienced guards, Blade got tired of showing a story and just preferred to '' tell '', it's like watching an amv of your favorite manga with just a few lines of effect that you liked, and it comes down to a mess of arguments and ideas, often this anime is completely expository, no matter how much you absorb the ideas that he argues, the anime will never connect them, if I ask someone to defend this text without the support of the manga and make all the connections make sense, they would admit right away that it is bad writing.

You can try to convince me that because it is an adaptation I should see it as a final product far from its material, to absorb the ideas of the anime itself, but it turns out that it doesn’t collide, they stuck the fucking 30 volumes in 24 episodes, this is not an adaptation, it is a failed attempt to apply the manga, or the best moments whose director thinks they are, I will give an example that Houshin Engi is an attempt to apply the manga, already Children of the Sea a individual adaptation material in it serves as an example, Children of the Sea uses as base his first volume and his last ones to locate a single source of message, proving to be something unique, and that if it depends only on the manga for the reader to know the characters and their functions, Blade is the reverse of this whole idea and still manages to do worse.

This show only serves a single purpose: to show violence, because it is the only source that he can provide, remember the first sequence that the show allows us to show, only Manji cutting random people, now what kind of weight does this provide to the character? None, some may say that I am stating something without foundation, I read the first volume of the manga to check out the premiere, and I know that this killing has meaning within the manga because it was a tale to build the main character and connect it with Rin, but here it is totally played without context, and in the end the anime wants to return to this scene, since it is useless, do you understand the situation? Blade features a weak cast, a totally flawed script, bad art, bad animation, inconsistent direction, terrible storyboards, a poorly presented universe, maybe if this series ended in the first cour, I could accept it, but everything collapsed later, this anime is a terrible example of why Seinen's decay in a possible adaptations in the anime industry and totally a waste of direction , if you want to watch a series located in ancient japan, with ronins and samurai, and under the direction of Hiroshi Hamasaki, watch Shigurui, it is a more consistent series.

I forgot to comment: the Opening is shit and completely generic.

The Seven Deadly Sins is the worst battle-shounen of all time.

In fact, the shounen community usually has several types of mangoes that can be good and bad, the quality goes from taste to taste, this becomes more common when it is a popular series, and someone can see clear problems, and with that a discussion is generated within a work. I am the type of person who, after all, likes to enjoy a shounen as a hobby, being sincere with the reader, even if it is bad, I probably had fun seeing some fights and flashy characters that I probably would not find anytime soon ... in another manga type, I believe that some can develop unique designs.

But what happens when you follow a series since 2014, and it is propagated to be more shit than before? I will tell you that this is the reason why I did this review, I will be straight with you, Nanatsu no Taizai is an objectively bad shounen. I will not deny in this review that I had fun with the series in the past, when it still had its first arcs, you can say that X or Y is the worst shounen you have ever read, but I want to tell you that this is the worst battle shounen that has ever existed.

The world of this manga was something I liked, I've read a lot of bad shounens but they had incredible universes, and I hoped that this series could explore it a little more, it's a mixture of fantasy medievalism, like those children's stories what you read when child, I was ready to love and defend the universe... Until the end of Hendrickson's arc, where the Nanatsu universe decides not to explore anything, not to show traces of mythology, some exotic creature, new places and prefers to building a lot of nothing, worthy of one of those empty open world games. I ask everyone, what kind of memorable place has this series given us? What was the most striking place that when we look at it, we feel that comfortable feeling? None, the nanatsu scenarios are an empty nature. The types of creatures are few, the story tries to buy you that is a fantasy medievalist story, but then they insert more demons than dragons and orcs that originally should be treated here, I can't believe that this guy read all the fantasy stories and managed to make mistakes in all of them transporting a boring universe to the reader, it's funny how the author repeats the same demon design all the time, nothing of variation, it's always the same shit, and they all don't give a sense of danger, the Nanatsu no Taizai universe tries to demonstrate danger but fails completely.

Meliodas is the worst protagonist of a battle shounen I have ever seen, he has no characteristics that define him well, he is more like a self insert of the pervert mangaka that has super strength, just that, his charisma is practically nonexistent when he only has one type of reaction for any occasion, he has no development around 300 FUCKING CHAPTERS, he doesn’t learn anything new, no matter how much someone tells him, this type of information doesn’t make the character mature or prove to be a more interesting person. The author tries to play me that he is interesting because he has a sad backstory, but it is just an act of lazy cowardice because he don't know how to define the character well in the current stage, you cannot convince someone with just a backstory, unless this backstory define why the character continues to have those attitudes, but here it is not the case, and both these backstorys are completely forgotten, you should not carry them all the time, because it is only the author trying to push an idea that he didn't know how to build.

The characters are garbage, all of them except Escanor, I praise Escanor because at least he is a character who bought the public for his charisma and his characteristics as a character, who at the end of the journey (dying in vain because just because the author wanted to) demonstrated a coherent story as a farewell to your character. Ban was an interesting character but he sold himself as a sad person in flashback influenced by secondary characters who only appear coveniently, I had become interested in his bow, but then I realize that he was useless, the character has no obstacle of his own and being a support equal to everyone. Merlin is just a character that the author decided to build only in the last seconds of a basketball championship, his construction is totally forced as his conflict with Meliodas, if he wanted to develop it why didn't he do it before? It was only necessary to create new arcs before leaving for the great final arch. Diane is just a character that exists, and like Ban, her entire backstory is forgotten and she becomes a forgettable character. Gowther was an interesting character, he had subplots that became consequences, in addition to a backstory that matches the character, maybe he is the only one that I forgave for the backstory, because the author gave him a vestige of mystery that was convincing, the King it's just a garbage support character that desenvelop overnight.

Now let's look at the secondary characters, all of them suck, one worse than the other, the dumb author besides not knowing how to make a backbone for storytelling, he doesn't even know how to create secondary ones. Do you remember Gilthunder? Jericho? Howzer? Guila? Helbram? Even Hendrikson? I'm sorry to say but they are empty crap, which after the first big arc ends, has no function in the story or even for the main characters, they are character types that only fill a scenario, and have no development, imagine that you read this series by the characters, in addition to being captivated by the main characters, want to see a secondary, what option do you have? None, the author doesn't respect his characters, is not surprising that all discussions of the manga are focused only on the 7 protagonists, all are uninteresting.

Art is perhaps the positive point that this manga has, the mangaka has the potential to make very well planned and dynamic action scenes, in addition to its detail in more open panels, which can be a merit since he does everything himself, his sequels panels is also great, facilitating a dynamic battle and without so many dialogues and shit monologues like a Shounen Jump series. The scenario, despite being empty, are well designed, maybe you can remember a little of Akira Toryama at the beginning, since the author has total influence over him.

The story of The Seven Deadly Sins is a huge waste of time, as well as unsatisfactory, we can say that we have about 4 short arcs, a medium arc and then we have a giant final arc lasting approximately 200 chapters, and after that final arc we have an epilogue false to later turn into a second final arc, and then we go directly to another epilogue, for the author to show us ANOTHER FINAL ARC, dude fuck this shit, this is no way to structure a story, holy shit even Fairy Tail which is a bad manga, has a better structure in arches and how to tell a story. Now how about I talk a little about this story? It starts as an adventure of reunion between the protagonists, to fight an oppressive kingdom, and then it becomes a fight of demons that lasts for 500 hours, since there is no time interval in the universe, and as always, the author is blatantly abusing unnecessary flashbacks during conflicts, I cannot understand this anxiety that Nakaba Suzuki has, it seems that he thinks of himself than of the reader, but as if that were not enough he creates fake endings to DECEIVE all readers, in some cases of mangas it's even fun, but it has become completely offensive and unnecessary, you who are a reader of Nanatsu no Taizai, i'm telling to you that Nakaba is calling you an idiot and stealing all your time while you could do something better.

Still talking about the story, it's the same kind of fight story you expect to see, the only interesting part was when Meliodas and Ban fought side by side against the demon king, that was fun, The Seven Deadly Sins is a lot of support and protagonists ready to fight in any background, it is that manga you can only think of throwing up after so much repetitive situation. You will see the protagonists facing Zeldris, then they will face an Evil Meliodas, after that they will face Zeldris again, then they will face the demon king, and now they are facing a stupid dog... It impresses me how they are not fighting against a talking cake and a chair with a life of its own, I summarize that everything is a boss rush, anything can be a final boss here, so there is no way you can take anything seriously that the author conveys.

The ending is completely generic and awful, the kind of story that needs to end in a SHIT happy ending, with the characters being couples and having children, endings worthy of a fanfic of someone arrested at 13 years of age, just to give that a possible story can continue to follow, like a new cycle, is stupid and cowardly. The only times I forgave the same happy ending manga was when the job showed no signs of continuing, as it conveyed a happy ending, but a closed loop forever and acceptable. Their children's design looks like something that came entirely from Deviantart, not even the hair collides with the character, it's the kind of ending that buys emotional people, but I'm sorry, I won't accept this attempt by the mangaka.

This manga should have ended long ago.

In the end, nanatsu is a totally bad and empty story, uninteresting, without a captivating world, empty characters and meaningless behind the concepts themselves, a trash protagonist who has developed nothing over 40 volumes, besides being a story who does not know where to going and prefers to be dishonest with the reader, tricked all its readers into stupid fake endings, just to lengthen the story where it shouldn't, if you think about reading this manga because it is a fantasy medievalism, I ask you not to read it, the author does not know anything about the time he is bringing to the manga, and neither cares about it, a waste of concept that could be original, as well as a disservice to battle shounen, many may name several bad or worse shounens, but I can tell you that they should all have some possible backbone for the story , which is something that this manga doesn’t have, I don’t recommend this manga even to the person I hate the most, I heard that the author plans a sequence, but please, I telling to you, don’t read, it may seem extremist but it’s not worth reading the sequel, don’t give visibility to this guy, you’re a person just like all of us, have love for yourself, don’t finance something for this guy, he has proved that he is extremely selfish and will not change.

If you want a series that shows you the '7 deadly sins' in a coherent way, read Fullmetal Alchemist, if you want a series that can introduce you to a fantasy universe combined with children's tales, read Magi, if you want to see fun characters fighting at all exaggeratedly, read Baki or Kengan Ashura, that's all I can tell you, don't waste your time here.

2011: I want to be a magical girl to help others!

2020: I want to be a magical girl to save my dear sister who basically doesn't provide empathy for the viewer to care.

In fact I recognize all the merit that Madoka has for his original production, ideas and characters, even though some are plot devices, but he was still daring and ventured in his narrative to surprise, it is something that few shows that want to work on a dark theme of a genre can do it. I admit I don't like Urobuchi's writing, but I still recognized his potential in Madoka's first anime in ... 2011, he really influenced a lot in this culture of the dark mahou shoujo genre that he often has, a genre that I personally consider disposable as a dark isekai.

Now I ask everyone, what is the reason for this anime to exist? Maybe you will answer that it may be a new beginning for Shaft in its new phase, but I say that this is not relevant, because they could easily start another series of Monogatari that the profit would be greater, or start adapting Zaregoto again, which is quite popular, the question remains without a definitive answer. If this is an intention to bring more people to this gacha, I say with all the strength that this anime has failed miserably, and manages to insult the entire universe already completed in a franchise.

Magia Record wants to tell a story about someone who lost her sister, and then she wants to tell a story about two lesbians fighting among themselves, then she wants to return to her theme of losing loved ones and now she wants to tell a story about a random character and your conflict with witches, can you see how messed up this story is with so many characters introduced? It seems that every time they want to advance to a new arc but there is no backbone that interconnects things, there are a lot of characters who are honestly a lot of nothing, and will probably be forgotten because their functions are so shallow in the work that they do not benefit at all a completely predictable story.

Why should I care about Tamaki's sister? There isn’t enough construction to make all this drama believable, it’s exactly that kind of drama that wants you to care about characters that don’t even exist, let me clear your mind with: Bunny girl the movie, Osomatsu the movie, Haruhi and Ano Hana, I don't know how they haven't created a genre called '' please care about nothing'', which lives up to this kind of lazy and dishonest story with a viewer. Then we have a shit drama of two friends who fight all the time and stop being friends, and again, why should I care? The anime introduces them in an episode and already wants to make a conflict on top of that, that's not how characters are built and much less make the viewer care.

Is it an act of cowardice to appeal to dramas you don't even know, I admit it's one of the things I hate the most in fiction, and guess what this drama was for? Nothing at all, you already understand that they fight every moment and then return to friendship, it's a cycle. But this is not the worst part, it is when he introduces a story / element in the same episode to justify this drama, yes, I am talking about the stairs, elements completely played when it suits, the only character that showed interest to me was Nanami for that at least, she has an introduction and then it takes time to build it, which at least I value here.

While the other characters are only placed because they want them to be there to cover a minor conflict, I think that only one character has become relevant to introduce a plot consequence that still this character is totally poorly constructed, I'm talking about Kaede here, we will only have a cycle of meeting characters and then bringing them into a great arc and then discarding them as if they were nothing. Not even the narrative collaborates to guarantee a good experience, I can't believe that a story we experience, that before defied a whole genre to end up being something absolutely generic, there is no clear difference in this series for a low quality manga that calls itself '' dark mahou shoujo. ''

This anime manages to be anything but Madoka magica, it does not risk anything, it does not show a certain danger in the world, or in intentions that could show the purpose of this story to exist in order to take the viewer along, it seems that something totally without the soul of its original. I don’t know why they need to hold on so much and limit this material, there’s even a scene where it could result in sacrifice caused by Tamaki’s weakness, but again the anime ignores what could be important and still be a bridge to build between selfish desires. Not even the fights are good, they have a horrible choreography, the storyboard is even more messy, just take a look between episodes 4 and 5 to be able to see them, even if the story was flawed and totally predictable, I wanted to take advantage of the fights, but they fucked it up, I think that only the art and soundtrack is really pleasant, the direction kept going at the beginning, and then it lost its identity, it seems like an attempt to imitate Shinbou's steps, but it totally fails in that, everything that he tried to give meaning ends up being.

I would not recommend this series to a madoka fan who is looking for something interesting in the franchise, this is just a bait to get money for a gacha and put bad fanservices in the series, like Mami becoming a Deus X machina for the second time, no it's not even rewarding to see a remarkable character becoming a cheap script artifice, if you want to see something that resembles Madoka, just watch Granbelm, although you may hate the recommendation, I tell you it's better to be a bad original story than a story that only serves to get more milk from a cow that is already dead, and that dead cow is called Madoka Magica.

[REUPLOAD]

EVERY SHIT TIME

There are two ways to build stories within a sport, or they are stories about the sport, serving as an introduction and basis of study, bringing a plot that interconnects them and establishes characters, called '' sports '', or they treat sport as something secondary they focus on building the characters, causing atmosphere and exploring any kind of conflict, we can usually call it '' escape sports '' if it's not quite clear, I'll give you examples: Hajime no ippo is a sports anime, while Ashita no joe is a sports anime escape, Slam dunk is a sports manga, Real is a sports ... escape, well ... You got the idea, and it's up to them all to fulfill their duties, in Hoshiai no sora, nothing is fulfilled.

We are embarking on a journey with dramas, which is a subject that should be a fair approach to the theme, starting with introductions, building and finally ending, even a drama without ending it can still be considered fair enough, because it had its introduction and its exploration, is a way of balancing delicate subjects that in fiction, an introduction drama and an ending can be unsatisfactory for some, but it has a way of balancing, but take all the things I've introduced so far, throw them in the pan and wait for the damn script to be done, because that's what this anime does.

Hoshiai no sora is a story of forced drama and completely irresponsible for what it introduces, it begins as a stage preparation to then present its characters and its damn drama, I defend to some extent as a first episode that has the right to be impactful and show what will be dealt with, but the rest after that is the same sensation of throwing a bucket of cold water every 5 minutes, because this anime has no consistency what it wants to address, just pushes scenes that only serve as cheap shock value in every episode, and sustains it as a way of feeding the viewer, God ... That's no way to make a drama. Dramas are meant to be impactful to the characters and the viewer, and they need considerable screen time for the viewer to absorb the situation, think about it and conclude their perspective, but before episode 2, without any hesitation we are already introduced to a conflict in the first seconds, completely forced and without any context of the character and situation, there is no usual construction of the character for us we care enough about him, the director delivers and says you need empathy, otherwise the anime introduced stupid dramas like Mitsue's being bullied (wow ... Two bully in the same episode just to recreate a scenario of both characters alone ... Not a little forced, is it?).

I wish this was the last complaint if the crap in the next episode didn't introduce me A THIRD BULLY, which only served to irritate the soft tennis todoroki and show how sad its past is, and all done with 0 harmony, just inserting at the last second, and after yet another episode shock value we are presented with a horrible development, living proof of how victimistic this anime is in a supposed "fight" situation that should result in both sides, it completely ignores Itsuki's side, just to emphasize a hasty development of the person he is ... Completely ignoring any act of consequence that should have here. The next episode of continuity in the training plot and characters, introducing some and ending an episode with the same cliffhanger crap, can't this anime make an episode solid? It seems that everything needs to end in horrible things or injustices, which most of the time are not explored, and this is used over and over again in several episodes in a row, usually cliffhangers being the outcome of several episodes would be understandable if this series were mystery or some police plot, but it is not, she uses a script trick several times and this is all lazy and predictable.

Not even the soft tennis aspect is addressed here, this story doesn't decide whether to be a sports anime or escape sports, introduces basic things about soft tennis and then focuses on dramatic episodes or screen times that contain it, it's an inconsistency that disrespects any objective means directed at a sports media product, it develops nothing, much less its message, primarily to whom is that message? What kind of dad will watch this anime and change its behavior? None because they don't have to stay up late watching a flawed soft tennis drama looking for a job.

The protagonist of this anime is just Gary stu's tenth definition of the sports we're already used to, we might call him soft tennis Superman, it's stupid to see that he always has an answer to everything, making a character collision inconsistent Often, as always, it saves the team from decay, any sort of problem it solves, and its narrative function is that, while Toma is meant to be another child suffering from an incomplete drama. All the characters here are artificial and have an introduction of dramas and lousy characters, you are nothing at all here, there is no harmony, they introduce me to a fucking pair of soft tennis twins that we later found out to be the typical shounen opponents, and of course all of them are a blockade for the protagonists being tall, all the characters sink deeper into the narrative, it seems the script begs you to always care about them, I can't see any passion between the creator for his own project here, he just throws a lot of random problems at his characters and does nothing to make it happen, and when he has an outcome they are forced, only to watch Nao genuinely happy after ignoring his mother, dealt with in a way. simplistic way that the whole drama journey was useless and unconvincing. useless presentation of secondary characters who take too much screen time, all that class president building is minimally unnecessary and useless, I don't care about this character, so why should I see more of her without her having about 5/5 time in 5 episodes? We could explore some drama here ... But no, let's work on this girl that we can only sum up in aristocrat.

This anime's matches are disgusting to watch, man this is one of the worst camera jobs I've ever seen, not only that as lighting, it seems like I'm in the same fucking day when I see a match and the camera in return for it makes you want to throw up every time they get the ball, Hanebado could be bad but the camera movement was good, here it looks like a guy stuck the camera to a soft tennis ball and decided that they should act that way. But returning to the expected drama in one episode we have a consequence being completely ignored from the previous episode, a drama being inserted, AGAIN BY ABUSIVE PARENTS, this shit is getting me tired, it seems like every week they want to introduce me to a new one and all of them being artificial, and what does anime do to exploit it or solve it? Nothing, the director is unaware of the word "family dialogue" that if possible could already progress the plot in such a way that you could observe an overview of the situation.


Still about the episode he introduces me to a conflict between Mitsue, a characterization of Touma's friend, a characterization of Mitsue herself and ends the episode making a cliffhanger... I don't know how anyone looks at this script and says that he is solid, so many things being introduced and pacing does not contribute to any of this, this anime does not need so much stupid drama, I think even the worst romance this year did not have such a ridiculous pacing like this.

I want to make room for this paragraph to talk about how bad episode 9 of this anime is, introduced Shingo's sister who conveniently gets lost because the characters are dumb and instead of making Mitsue follow the girl, they give the excuse for most useless character having to do the work and bear the consequence, if Mitsue feared the child would go to the roof, why the hell did she run to warn everyone? Consistency of character, you know, and with the unfolding Nao that was totally shaken by his mother ends up finding Shingo's sister, and here this anime managed to introduce one of the most forced and ridiculous scenes of the year, out of nowhere Nao begins to see the Shingo's sister as a problem blocking everything and lock the room ... Lazy and completely idiot, what kind of reaction is that? If it were to become a shaken character why at the announcement of the game he was not before? Shingo's sister was still sleeping right in the ward ... Lazy again, with the end of this part, Maki with his superhero ability realizes that Nao was to blame and saves Shingo's sister, Nao begins to blame himself and cry, while everyone around you is laughing ... What kind of reaction is that? No one noticed his suffering? Character reaction and consequence ... Then we have a super robotic dialogue between the protagonists about Nao's parents and parents themselves, over time the episode introduces us to Tsubasa who also has an abusive father ... Creativity, and in that same Tsubasa and his father quarrel, Tsubasa hurts his wrist and just runs away from home ... Which already makes it a lazy narrative convenience just to give DRAMA, and right now Shingo is leaving home to train, he sees Tsubasa, Tsubasa try to run away and Shingo decides to HOLD HIM ON HIS FUCKING HIS FUCKING BITCH that sucked at the forced convenience of the club, this is an involuntary comedy show every epic episode, tell me what Shingo's sister's conflict was for other than giving more details of Nao's family? For practically shit, it was so pointless that even the consequence of Nao being a liar was made.

Why does this anime, instead of further antagonizing family figures, not show a second perspective or a really sad and shaken parent? In 11 episodes, not even the most important aspect between problem perspectives worked, and when it comes to everyday problems it's always good to see a more humane side of the situation, even if we don't agree with the actions, at least one perspective is there to support it. every basis and idea of ​​discussing a daily problem as a theme, but this anime once again does none of it, just tries to push like every adult (except the teacher) here is a bad person with characteristics of a psychopath. To give you an idea of ​​what I'm saying, the familiar and minor problems this anime has introduced but haven't solved so far, and we're nearing the final episode:

Maki's Dad (unresolved)
-Touma's mother (unresolved)
-Mitsue and something about drawings (solved?)
-Rentarou (unresolved)
-No and his mom / dad (unresolved)
-Don't be a pathological liar (unresolved)
-Tsubasa and the abusive father (unresolved)
-Shingo and his non-biological mother (unresolved)
-The chubby girl and her family (unresolved)
-The very concept of soft tennis (unresolved)
-Yuu regarding your mother (unresolved)
-Touma and that mini jealousy inserted by Maki have enough prominence (was made in the previous ep and unresolved)

Even if you tell me it can be completed in a second season, then why put a cliffhanger on an end of episode if the anime doesn't resolve to give at least 1/5 of Yuu's situation? Even if he has a season 2, then why insert 1000 dramas and not split them by season? Because it would be a more advisable and much fairer construction of script, it can complete several in a second season, but it has set a loaded plot in a bad way.

About the final episode:

This final stretch was disgusting, for skies that lousy production, they recycled the same shit about 10 times in the final match, it hurt my eyes because I felt in a loop that didn't go anywhere, there's no strategy in this anime, everything just depends on last minute momentum, please if you watch this for production value take any screenshot of the last episode and notice the whole background changing places at every point, character twisting in static images, errors of exchange of faces in the characters, seriously it's horrible how much even our main characters suffered from it, I've never seen a storyboard get so messed up, you don't feel any harmony with the soft tennis match, the episode still tries to generate a repulsive drama from twins, but what impact on narrative do they have to have this conflict? Why should I care? The anime fails completely in character humanization, and so much so that this is forcibly inserted, we have 15 seconds just focused on those twins that make no difference, and the end of this anime is completely giant shit, didn't complete any plot that was established, introduced drama over Touma without any conclusion, Why the hell did Toma's mom start laughing like a shounen villain on the phone? I've always said that the parents of this anime are portrayed as villains of Sword Art Online, but damn it makes it even funnier, and then turned Maki into a character from School Days, that final sequence was hilarious and so ridiculous, completely thrown and forced, I don't know how anyone looks at this script and pronounces the word "solid". because it is not, everything here is forced and artificial, even if you planned this series for 24 episodes, you don't treat your characters like trash and make a despicable ending, there are good kinds of "bad ending" in fiction, some of it built in a way, that has a strong base and that indicates it, making it unique, but here there is none of it, as I said, this series is a story that only if It focuses on pure shock value rather than continuing the narrative.

About the production

The direction of this anime is poor, frankly it doesn't have a shred of identity being shaped throughout the episodes, at least different camera angles that aren't merit either and a particularly very lively scene, but you have scenes like 3 FUCKING MINUTES OF FLASHBACKS OF TIME, and we've watched them all and know how it got there, all unnecessarily to take up screen time in a futile way. This anime has one of the ugliest arts I've ever seen, take any frame episode 8 and especially episode 11 that clearly should have been neat, compare all the scenes, not only in art but the animation of this anime is poor, at first they were good sakugas but it all boiled down to recycled scenes, recycled angles, the same recycled models... And all of this making the characters off model, I can make a folder in Imgur of how many times the anime has had it, it's no pleasure watching this type and the soundtrack here is nonexistent, there is only one piano track and one insert song THAT IS THE SAME SHIT OF OPENING MUSIC, for every moment the anime tries to introduce it I feel like throwing up, even moments that do not live up to the situation, are received by this song.

this story feel me sick and has many inconsistencies and plot problems, dramas inserted in an indecisive way, the director does not know how to work on any theme that has been put in, let alone his characters, purely "bad" parents who repeat themselves in the script, would be important put a fresh perspective on them and show that some are even human for their child's concern, but the director chooses to make them villains of Sword Art Online, it's not an educational dialogue about a representative community that will make this anime something well, this story is completely dishonest with the viewer, the same applies when we are 3 episodes without a trace of Yuu and his mother's problems... They don't even work out the consequence, this anime can even disrespect the viewer himself, Jesus... He owes several explanations and solves nothing.

Historical fiction is a famous way of telling a journey behind different decades, at the same time it corresponds to names and real events of ancient times, they show us a different perspective of situations, as even putting elements that are only incorporated into books / series / animations they also fulfill a part of making concepts true to history, historical fiction presents viewers with a story that takes place during a remarkable period in history and generally during a significant event during that period, as the name says " historical fiction "is linked to the medium of entertainment that is not close ... to reality, also bearing the fact that many mangaka's are free to use frantic action to hook readers and tell their own story, if you have read Kingdom, Historie, Altaïr already must note this, so there is no discrimination behind this subject unless there is some kind of person who is unaware and has started consuming stories in 201X, not to know the difference of this medium and to say the bigbrain in any historical fact.

Since many Seinen's adaptations have often failed to capture strong anime entertainment for years and still living with traumas like Berserk (2016), there is a rallying cry in 2019, and he comes from Denmark with a rich worldbuilding, Vinland Saga. tells a story about humans, yes, it's a story about humans. In fact, humanizing characters without leaving the model is a difficult game that few authors can play, but here is solid and with more convincing motivations, note the passion of an author to build their established characters in a risky situation, but I will address more of this soon.

You may already be tired of the same protagonist wanting revenge and training for years in a place that only serves to bring together the strongest heroes and thus accompany his journey, but I ask you to forgive this attribute used here, even if it is a cliche In fiction, the important thing between stories is knowing how to use this cliché, it all depends on its use. Thorfinn is not the typical protagonist who will train for years, he is a child who lived growing up in battles and that was shaping his personality, the environment in which he lives turning an innocent child into a cold killer, but what's different about that? Thorfinn has not joined the heroes, he is accompanying his own enemy on this journey and coexists with himself without a mere sense of empathy, just wanting revenge on a fair duel, which was something his father did not have, he fights for an honor Blind, I have never seen a protagonist going through this same situation, at least in the first line I recite his journey, and of course Thorfinn is not an intelligent person who will manipulate everyone around for revenge, he is an empty man in search of a futile goal, while defending that honor, he's a hypocrite, and that's great, but all I mean is Vinland Saga is not a story of revenge.

Usually a focused plot where only the protagonist needs to carry the whole plot (when you don't have a solo focus) becomes a failed plot and often full of labels, but there's none of it here, Thorfinn doesn't have to carry everything around it. , that's why there is a deuteragonist, the one who suffers the actions of the plot, Askeladd, but I wouldn't say that only he carries the plot as much as Thorkell and Canute did, further expanding the situation from a survival journey to a political plot. completely closed. The way the script goes on, wasting no time on futile things is impressive, usually 2nd cour of ordinary anime would decay the plot, but here it all enriches it, bringing study of characters and themes that become tangible as it is being done.

In directions to the themes of pacifism, love, slavery, and war by character building, Vinland works, Askeladd as the one who leads the subject of slavery, in a more isolated episode and at the same time how understandable it can become. to the characters, just as Askeladd criticizes a person using his slavery analogy this becomes referring to Thorfinn himself who is a slave to his revenge, and this follows him to the end, as Thorkell is a battle slave, Canute a slave to comfort, Sweyn a slave to the crown, and even Askeladd himself to be a slave to his past, making every action taken be by the dearest person in his life: his mother. Love in vinland is divided into several stages, making it a broad theme, we have all its introduction in episode 12, in a speech with the Danes themselves, until we follow a solid construction and where all believed love is destroyed in the perspective of Willibald episode 14, yes) and this resumes the character criticizing his own faith for lack of love, until it comes to Canute who after an act of loss questions himself about what it is to love, and every form of love is led to love for all living things, but what can this interconnect with the other theme? It is linked to pacifism, said as a form of someone who seeks not to discriminate or kill others, it relates in a way that is not pretentious but natural, because every action has its consequence, and Vinland brings these consequences, every theme of pacifism. it can be contained in a single arc as shown in the Thors-focused prologue to history, as a consequence of a person who has chosen a middle way of living suffering for the politics and culture of an age, as if the past itself haunts him to the point of your peaceful life crumble.

Vinland's approach to and criticism of the war is very well designed, relying on the contexts and substances he himself put in the path, we follow Thorfinn's self-destructive journey in the beginning to see how this war has a physical and mental consequence. to the protagonist, I admit that glorification of war is a difficult subject to address in fiction, but Vinland makes it possible and cohesive, a presentation to all human carnage and victims' perspectives on war (episode 14, yes, again), even if he makes some war points more "epic" attention he deconstructs every archetype when characters like Canute and Willibald are inserted, we have a more advanced and mature worldview on the subject, just as Thors fled the field thinking of his family and seeking to live peacefully stunned from the pain of battle, Canute thinks of all the people of the world, yet living in battle, tries to reconstruct the meaning of pacifism and move on against this war, the way no one loves anyone, and how men fight for something so futile, given all the experience Canute has had in his life and in the countryside. the whole direction of episode 18 overshadowing the battle between Thorfinn and Thorkell is a directional aid and shows how the director understood the manga theme, all that battle is futile, the characters criticize it, so it wouldn't be fair to split these two Focusing on parts, this is why in sparking the battle Canute's criticism becomes concrete, why do we yearn so much for something the author wants to criticize? This is a question that needs no answer, just think, it is rare for anime to do this in a sensitive way and there is substance here to describe it, the way they humanize the Vikings and at the same time critique them, the same Vikings. who call themselves warriors but when cornered surrender and do not touch their own swords, destroying any archetype of honorable Nordic warrior, the fact that they criticize Ragnar for being a coward but being the only one not to abandon his sword even at the last minute, a warrior which can sometimes be one who never forsakes his sword as well as one who fights for a cause other than the war itself, this is in contrast several times, as the definition of barbarians is used and exemplified by Askeladd, this context makes the criticism is balanced and made so that you think both ways, with the help of perspectives, those criticisms become solid.

Regarding the characters, we need to keep in mind one thing: it is not because a character follows an ideology or if he is annoying, that automatically he is a bad character, there is a study about them and of course, need to take end to end to get to In conclusion, this is a series that divides your ties, and of course if you're not an ignorant redpiller who doesn't accept a character humanization in the middle of a violent era, nothing will help you understand that. As the work elaborates contrasts, since doing subjects on leadership, both Thorkell by which people follow by its force and Askeladd by its intelligence, in how the universe evolves, less Thorfinn, whereas the reactions if Canute and Thorfinn are opposite before the death of their beloved father figures, of how revenge is done differently by Askeladd and Thorfinn, how pacifism comes together with hatred.

All the characters follow their own model, since Thors a man who has his own ideology of life, has a convincing motivation to support his idea and still have an outcome that makes him a beautiful character, his construction even without so many flashbacks is the ideal that a character must have.

Thorfinn: Being an innocent child who goes through a storm of hatred, breaking the sense of being a warrior that was his childhood dream, being molded little by little, in an approach where one works man's emptiness and blind revenge, in which he needs no complement, only what was shaped by him, he is a hypocrite and a donkey, since he is blinded by Askeladd, it is totally understandable to analyze all the coherence that the character has, and of course he was built enough to shape what it is now since its loss of humanity in episode 6.

Canute: It's an interesting character, since his first appearance as someone spoiled by Ragnar but not breaking free, Askeladd always saw potential in Canute when he saw him, some criticize a lot of his passing time was fast, but it's all based on trauma, the trauma of losing someone he loved, his mourning and all his faith and fading, traumas are not organic, they are sudden, that's why they are worked like this, because even in fiction and reality there are not so many differences, the same applies when Canute has just returned to his own nature, just as his father, Canute has always been shrewd, charismatic and to some extent straight away, takes away everything he had, gives rise to all his nature, is a conflict between nutrition and nature, just as if you feed a snake for domestic food and after time throw it in a forest, the snake will hunt a rodent or some other animal because its nature has overcome nutrition. In most cases nature will always win, so all we know here is just the real Canute, all of your usual construction is now being done.

Ylva: a character with little screen time, but being a strong and charismatic girl who, losing the dear people of her life, she is still strong and fearless to face anything, but when she realizes, she is crying for what happened, a perfect representation. of a woman who does not need to incorporate into a label of sensitivity, that as much as Thorfinn has his fight for blind honor in episode 5, Ylva presents a struggle for the loss she has had and tries to follow life, is an interesting parallel between the characters. .

Thorkell: Even for a character who has an intent to represent a viking who begs for war, and is always defending his cause, he has a bit of humanization, the regret of not following Thors to find out what a warrior could be, the which can make this character even more interesting, at a time when he saw something far from his ideology, making the character conflict with himself, even if he doesn't have a massive flashback, Thorkell is a good character for his own purpose, An interesting thing is how much of the cast conflicts with itself.

Bjorn: Although not a character of pure construction, it is an example of humanization in the last time, always placed as Askeladd's right arm and questioning his decisions on the journey and ultimately establishing an outcome that makes him a human character, someone who had a objective or that he was concrete before he died, the definition of a warrior who while believing in Valhalla he did not set this as his main objective, he had something else in mind, he just wanted to be friend of Askeladd or that he would consider it.


Askeladd: Since his childhood, all he has done has been for his mother and his homeland, all his revenge, and journey for the sake of the person he loved most, and when she dies, he lived as a simple Viking, refusing to live. on a farm or any other means of work, Askeladd chose to run away from everything he hates most as a way of sustaining his miserable life for years, and when the chance of a new direction finally occurs, without hesitation, the character chooses his own. way, having a heavy backstory, a human personality, notable errors, different reactions, each dialogue on Askeladd has weight in the narrative and interconnects with his motivations in the majority, the fact that his hatred arises from Danes, bearing the name of artorius, choosing Canute to be the king, seeking to destroy the entire Danish empire and go against the conduct of a barbarian king, all seeking to save Wales and his mother, by far the most interesting character of this year.

I could also name other good characters like Leif in conflict with the weight of losing thorfinn, causing a huge regret, Willibald who goes from a simple priest to the point of questioning his own faith, Ragnar who questions all Askeladd's actions and in conflict about Canute, even characters like Atli and Thorgrinn that were once being made as random screen-time characters gain some relevance in the story, they all have a reaction to the plot and the character choices, this enriches the universe and doesn't treat as dumb extras, yet another proof of how the author knows how to deal with all of them even not being featured as the main characters.

The form of the narrative may seem tiresome to follow weekly, but I suggest that marathoning will make it easier to digest, a story totally focused on whatever you want, even when setting a screen time, it uses to build your characters and enrich the plot. Openly speaking, there is something in visual media that is called atmosphere, the use of this feature makes the viewer is immersed in the universe of the work and all scene editing, is something that preserves the ambience and script, and offers greater respect for characters may seem boring to some people but it is the ideal way to look at this work even in a time that is a slow build, it offers a script that escapes the use of convenience and is solid the way it needs to be; Atmosphere has been lacking in anime these days, I remember the last one who tried to do that was made in abyss, and all slow construction helps in impacting scenes when needed, as Thorfinn understands conflicts with its futile goals, one must understand the production perspective and how they deal with timing.

About the production:

Wit is a poorly managed studio, because of its president and all its tight schedule, even though it shows its most limited episodes like episode 6, episode 16 and 17 (which had its most limited animation for something important) Vinland tries to balance good photography and a good use of lighting for the scenery and characters, all the shading was very well designed, you don't feel uncomfortable being pngs in a setting because here it feels alive with the universe, and that collides well, the negative part of art is how they try to detail a few scenes, even making detailed pictures just wiggling mouths like JoJo's bizarre adventures, it sometimes sounds pretty funny and uncomfortable, but it's not always clear in every episode, which is admirable, every direction of art is great, as its look, I analyzed all the episodes in raw to see their biggest sins, but luckily, I found more limitations in those mentioned, some had is a despite its downfalls, but not alarmingly, the series has a good amount of sakugas for the proposed, and all of them are by different and recognizable animators, even without Arifumi Imai, with Vinland Saga we can see new studio talent. So far I have not understood the criticism of the soundtrack, or people watched this anime at a low volume or with 5 seconds of time do not seek an ost withdrawal of the episode to hear it, jokes aside, the soundtrack is great and the ideal for a story like this, sensitive and timely, something that makes you feel immersed in the middle ages, I would say her only weak point is putting a guitar solo into action scenes, because that doesn't quite suit , but overall she's consistent, I can feel her, as for CGI, he's amateur, quite amateur but WIT has been sinning in CGI since attack on titan, which was terrible, there's a plus and minus here, plus anime knows how to disguise the background CGI through visual art, which wouldn't be all that often enough to see it as a total Berserk in action scenes, and the problem is when the CGI is completely static, which makes us see how rotten are the models and this used on screen is a bad sign, it becomes uncomfortable to see, it's not like they don't have enough designers to draw all the models by hand, right? It is an outrage about it.

There is a study behind photography, lighting, montage, atmosphere, shading, scenery, climate change, ost and even camera about Vinland Saga, it is a very respectful work for bringing these aspects to life, even if it does not show total consistency, It's already a huge achievement by Wit studio.

Vinland Saga's direction is good, not wonderful (except episode 14) but not bad either, direction sometimes is not about playing random figures on the screen and thinking you have a full hand of Shaft, Vinland uses from a cinematic and atmospheric direction that clashes very well with the work. In any medium of fiction you have to have a collision between direction and work, you can't expect nanatsu no taizai to be directed by Ikuhara, you need a direction that is solid, with great framing and angle of scenes of scenery, camera games that can make use of this immersion and this is right here... Well, in some episodes, but calm down, I'm not saying it's bad, but that it does it in moderation, and that's great because it doesn't becomes tiresome to enjoy, episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 12,14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23 are a good demonstration of this, even though other episodes like 8 are good at what they do, I don't consider anything of the highest quality as those cited, which were the pinnacle, the way the camera works in the scenes, from making the arrows go to Thors dipping into his death, how the camera focuses on thorfinn going with Askeladd's pack, as the lighting generates cont crawl between scenes, episode 5 clips, montage scenes from the fight of Thorkell and Thorfinn, every angle of scenery from episode 10 being made, the use of the soundtrack making effect on scenes from episode 12, where each storyboard was very well done conducted, episode 14 being the pinnacle of everything, art direction, storyboard, soundtrack, lighting, scenery, driving... Could talk a lot about each part of the direction, but it would take longer than usual in this review, Yabuta knows a lot well use your episode directors.

Some original episode scenes were even good, such as demonstrating all of Thors and Thorfinn's construction in the beginning, all of the construction for Askeladd's promise and character's self-destruction, to stabilize every stage of the season, to utilize the show, don so well "show, don't talk" in situating events that are summarized, all character scenes and interactions with the universe only led them to their own character model and main event, it is rare to have scenes that live up to the characters and it was done very carefully here, seeking to be more fair and faithful, building secondary characters on these original plans... There are good supplies, but not everything is flowers, some scenes end up misunderstanding the passage of the story, how to make every sequence of Thorfinn child become make it something "epic" that goes against the proposed self-destructive journey and show us how the child is surrounded by a dirty universe, and also the latest scene from prison with Leif where they put unnecessary dialogues about Leif and the whole idea of ​​Vinland in this prologue that goes against the original approach of the story and the character, as Thorfinn doesn't need a motivation at this stage of the story as she focuses on building the mind man empty, I feel that if I need to review this, I need to carefully observe each point.

I would say the errors this anime has are all due to Japanese issues, like making Thorfinn run just like a ninja pretty much... I really wonder if they have any kind of study material between running animations, and that often the Japanese dub nationalizes things too much, even though we would already hear a nordic saying "moshi moshi", some things are sad to see, but it doesn't affect the sketch much, it could only be better

Vinland Saga deconstructs any label of "good warrior" cultural between Vikings, also out of control the revenge cliché being used in the same model as several protagonists and all its impact on an unpredictable plot, a story that escapes convenience, is completely straightforward. and carrying great non-model characters, a very well structured thematic approach, a mature story set in a rich universe, definitely this is my AOTY here, a true seinen tailored the way it should, it takes its time to get where it needs to be.