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Sep 16, 2023
Before I start let me clarify that I don’t care about slice of life shows. I find them to be the second most simplistic and passable genre, with moeblobs topping them by a few miles for going overboard. In this particular case I sat down to watch it simply because the anime became top ten in almost every site in just a few weeks. I wondered “hey how is this possible; it is just another everyday show”.
I read the description of the story and it doesn’t seem like much. Some guy finds out his grandfather had a kid in an old age and decides to
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raise it after he passed away. Ok, so why is this so great to bother? Some said it was because of the really weird thing that happens in the end of the manga (which I will not reveal since it is a spoiler) and others because it is very good at what is supposed to be about (meaning that you watch it mostly for the feelings it transmits to you). The story is otherwise very basic, the characters are very basic, the ending is not really there, so I am already not seeing this as a perfect show, all in a very objective and undeniable manner.
Other than that I do admit that as far as presentation goes it does a fine job. It really feels like everyday life. More than the usual too. For example, there was an anime I watched some years ago with a rather similar story. It was called Chocotto Sister and unlike Usagi Drop it had a lot of silliness in it, from lolicon, to harem, to ecchi, to female Santa Claus gifting naked girls to teenagers. Its slice of life feeling was fine too but quickly became stupid and the rather low production values made it passable and even forgettable.
Usagi Drop on the other hand does things a lot more subtly and artistic. The visuals are made at times to look like cute pastel-drawn pictures, the characters have lively motions that make them look interesting to pay attention to, the voice acting is appropriate and never overdone. The characters are also behaving in a much understood reason; you won’t find energetic, angsty-filled teenager cop-outs here. The protagonist is an adult working, and the girl needs psychological support. All these everyday aspects of a normal life are very rare in anime and it is quite interesting to see them being given such attention. Most shows would skip all that, give the characters magic money, their hardest problem would be their scores at school and everybody would accidentally bump on one another while undressed. And do I even need to remind you how mature parenthood was portrayed in Astarotte no Omocha?
Usagi Drop avoids all that and focuses solely on portraying realistically what it means to have an actual working life, while having to take care of a melancholic child. It shows all the things you need to sacrifice after you have kids to take care of and it’s not holding back to be sad about it. This unfortunately makes it a show which is hard to be appreciated by anyone who doesn’t like realism in his shows, and by that I mean around 99.98% of any anime, cartoon, dorama, or Hollywood movie out there. Heck, I myself am no fan of too much realism. At the same time the show is far more mature and down to earth that anything else I have watched regarding parenthood. I know for example many who consider the second season of Clannad to be realistic, but the ending alone yells it was just an escapism fairy tale and nothing more. There is another one called Kurenai, which felt realistic in how a young boy needs to take care of a little depressed girl. It also had a fair amount of action, dementia, and even incest. Was it better than Usagi Drop for having action and dementia? No, because the protagonist was a super powerful fighter who was beating crooks every day and yet acted in school like he was a meek wimp and nobody ever questioned his injuries. It became too far fetched after awhile.
Now before you start thinking I am praising the series too much for it realism, I must still clarify that it also has its minor issues in terms of storytelling. For example, the way Daikichi took Rin under his wing happened very easily. He just took her home and that’s it! She was also accepted to the kindergarten without any paperwork to clarify who, what, where, when. The whole adoption thing happened really easily.
But it is not the story or the development that matter but the feelings it transmits to you. And sure, any stupid fan catering/poser/moe show out there can do the same but none of them manage to succeed by being normal. They are just exaggerated, throwing in lots of sex, violence, death, immorality, and then call themselves “mature” when in reality they are just over the top and eventually poke your disbelief too much. The characters are also good for being basic, without any unnecessary extra, such as being defined by quirks, hairstyles or dress fetishes. They are good at their role and in no need of extra spices. This is what I appreciate in this show; it manages to be simple and quite realistic without being dull right away even if you are not a fan of the genre. And this comes from someone who tried colossi like Aria, Wandering Son, and Yokohama Shopping Diary and found them unbearably BOOORING.
So is it a good show? Well it definitely is an uncommon one, and I say this in a positive way. It is getting really hard to see something out of the ordinary in most recent anime and Usagi Drop succeeds by being about REAL life and not some wannabe “mature” story. At the same time, I doubt it would be so famous if it weren’t for “that event” in the end of the manga (which was deliberately left out in the anime version).
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 15, 2023
This anime used to be huge back when it first aired by encompassing all the best elements of 80s cyberpunk. It was almost a flagship title at a time when anime were still fairly niche in America and everyone was watching tame sitcom cartoons. It was in a way the Neon Genesis or Ghost in the Shell of the 1980s, or the Psycho Pass of the 2010s. Historical importance aside, nowadays it is closer to a skeleton of a good story, since it had lots of good ideas but didn’t do much with them.
In terms of production values it holds up pretty well. Made at
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a time when everything was hand-drawn with multiple layers of shading, it doesn’t become instantly aged as the CGI monstrocities of today. The world is also your standard sci-fi dystopia, the claustrophobic high-tech megacity almost all sci-fi stories depict so it’s easy to dig it if you are used to that sort of setting. The heroines have the “80’s anime look” (huge eyes, Barbie-like hairstyles), which can seem weird compared to the far more down to earth sceneries. The battles don’t have much choreography and body movements tend to be choppy. Animation is average at best. Also there is a rather high amount of fan service, as 80% of the cast is pretty girls undressing or moving around in underwear several times per episode/OVA.
Voice acting is decent but not great. The music themes have some powerful pieces and in fact this series has the honor of being the first title to use voice actors both for voicing characters and singing the songs (Priss).
The plot is rather typical. There is crime, corruption and crazed androids running around in a futuristic city. Laugh all you want at their name being Boomers that can’t adjust in a high-tech society. The normal police have their hands full, until a group of vigilante super chicks, called the Knight Sabers, storm in and save the day. Their identities are hidden, their motives are unknown. So far, the story is like watching Batman. But under the surface, every girl has its reasons for being in the team and there are several secrets behind the origin of the berserked robots. I make it sound much more interesting than it actually is, since both the plots and the revelations are fairly basic stuff. The animation studio had budget issues and couldn’t finish all the episodes it intended, thus it kept the plot almost episodic and open-ended. A later version did a better job at wrapping things up, but even then the finale was more silly than sad, with the girls being butt-naked as they fall down from space and resolving the conflict like it’s a naughty fairy-tale.
Nowadays, there is nothing fresh or exciting about it. It’s more of a nostalgic rule of cool type of title you watch for getting that 80s vibe that is completely absent today. The story is half-serious, the plot is loose or slow, the ending is open or silly. The main idea of the series is used in better ways elsewhere. Fan service wasn’t that great. Action scenes weren’t that great. I can’t recommend it as a must-watch classic.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 14, 2023
Here comes yet another show about some waste of life who does nothing but playing videogames all day, and is all of a sudden thrown in a life or death situation, where we are supposed to cheer for him, despite being a total jerk. It’s about a videogame that is something between Counterstrike and Bomberman, getting real after the protagonist is sent to fight other players. Then it becomes Battle Royale in a Predators setting, meaning, a bunch of people that need to kill each other, sent via parachute to a remote tropical island. And yes it sounds interesting at first, until you see how
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silly it plays out.
You obviously need some suspension of disbelief when watching a fictional work, but this anime is constantly begging you to point your finger at it and yell THAT CAN’T HAPPEN. The laws of physics make absolutely no sense. When a bomb explodes right next to you, you will be hurt from the noise, the shrapnel, and the shock wave no matter how many times you flip in the air. Also, an explosion has a radius of several meters and is definitely way more than just a few square centimetres around it. So imagine how silly it looks when a dozen bombs explode all around the protagonist and he remains perfectly fine, even when he is a sitting duck. Of course this weird phenomenon occurs only for the protagonist, while everybody else dies in one hit.
It is impossible to be immersed in the series, and it’s not because lots of improbable things keep happening. One of my favourite anime is Hokuto no Ken where people explode like balloons and the script is full of nonsense. The thing that makes all the difference between that and BTOOOM is that it never tries to make a distinction between reality and fiction. They never say “That is a videogame and is fake, while this is a death game and is real. When you make separations like these, it’s like you are demanding from the viewer to think about it, thus making it far easier to spot the improbabilities and realize the so called "real" death games, are as fake as playing a videogame.
- When someone gets blown up to pieces, you can take his remaining bombs that miraculously don’t blow up along with him. Sweet, extra ammo from enemy drops, this videogame is nice... Oh wait, this is not a videogame but a realistic death game… Supposed.
- When you throw a videogame controller at a wall, it is the plastic controller that breaks and not the brick wall.
- Each player has a sonar device on his hand that allows him to know where the others are. The sonar is cancelled if someone else is using it at the exact same time. The chances of that happening are one in a thousand since the margin of error is less than a second and yet the protagonist pulls it off ten times in a row, while running.
- His opponent doesn’t need the sonar in order to find the protagonist, since he is running around him while making noise as he passes through thick foliage. He may not see him but he can clearly hear him. The show wants you to believe he is deaf.
- Most of the bombs are using fringe science and thus costs a fortune. Adding to the expenses the costs of sending messages to those that want people abducted and transferred to the island, while keeping the whole thing completely secret from public, means that they waste the annual budgets of a dozen major countries, just for the entertainment of a few rich people.
- Continuity errors such as people disappearing for no given reason, or teleporting instantly to impossible places.
- Giant man eating lizards appear out of nowhere. Because WHY NOT?
- Constant flashbacks from just a few episodes ago, to waste time and further remind us of all the stupid things in this show.
- And add to all that, the story is left incomplete, so nothing is really resolved.
Since the script is so bad, the characters suffer from it as well. It would be interesting to see how each of them would react in a life or death situation, but because of the videogame logic the show uses, it makes them act stupid and the drama surrounding them doesn’t work one bit. The protagonist for example is being rewritten every 5 minutes. It’s impossible to tell what his personality is, since he acts completely different in every scene. And no, it’s not because he adjusts to the situation he is in; he LITERALLY becomes a different person depending on how the plot wants him to behave.
- Throwing bombs at defenseless players who don’t even try to fight back does not prove how great of a player the protagonist is.
- In one scene he knows how to use bombs, in another he doesn’t. He realized how a timer bomb works only five times after he tried it, even though he was playing the game for years.
- In one scene he is anti-social and angry, in the other he is very social and polite.
- In one scene he acts as a leader figure, in the other like a dork who can’t even walk without tripping.
- In one scene he is cunning and sets traps to his opponents, in the other he gets surprised when he witnesses the exact same trap being used on someone else.
- A NEET like him can’t possibly be so athletic. He was doing nothing but sitting in his house for years and yet can outrun or counterattack instantly people with far greater stamina and skills than him. It may have worked in a videogame by pressing buttons really fast, but in reality he wouldn’t be able to run for 5 seconds without getting exhausted.
In a similar way, every other character has two lines of a personality, and even those are presented in an extreme way. They are all way too evil, or way too stupid, to the point they are indeed like videogame caricatures and not real people taking part in a real death game.
- The deuteragonist for example is a sexy blonde school girl, which makes all people around her to wanna rape her on first sight. She is also accidentally the one the protagonist is married to in the game, something which is so easy to happen in REAL life. She is the main source of fan service and the animators never miss the chance to zoom on her privates. As for her personality, it is also rewritten based on the demands on the script. She is supposed to be afraid of men, unless the plot says she needs to trust them right away, so they can betray her. Then she will not trust men thereafter, until the plot needs her to trust them immediately once more.
- The protagonist’s mother was the one who wanted her son to be sent to the death game because he was mean to her. Because that is what parents do when their kids are impolite; they send them to be killed in some sadistic game instead of seeking help from any one of the thousands of humanitarian organizations out there.
- The blond chick on the other hand was chosen by her best friends. There was an incident where they got raped, but she escaped, called the police, caught the rapists, and saved their lives. As thanks, they believed she should have stayed and gotten the same treatment like the best friend she was supposed to be, instead of the UNFORGIVABLE act of not letting them die by doing nothing. That makes sense.
I almost feel sorry of all the money studio Madhouse wasted on making this thing. I can place it next to Death Note in terms of atmosphere and cinematics. Many secondary characters have some really ridiculous pitches to their voice, that made them sound very retarded, but other than that it looks great and makes you wish that was the only thing which was bad in this show. It is just another stupid anime ala Deadman Wonderland or Future Diary. Just nonsense and edgy violence for low tier pop corn entertainment. And it fails even at that because it keeps telling you it is not a videogame but a REAL death game.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Sep 14, 2023
Brigadoon combines childish naivety with dark and depressing stories, and it’s easy to misunderstand what it’s going for because of its cartoonish bright colored artstyle. Almost everyone will assume it’s kidstuff and will not bother with it. The few who will try it out will be confused with what it’s trying to be, since it is full of nudity, mass destruction, and tragedy, while also playing out like a cheesy shojo romance. It’s a great blender of ideas that did not found a way to mesh properly. It constantly jumps genres, and does not have a certain age group, meaning it’s not trying to be
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mainstream and has constant mood whiplashes. The complete lack of mention by retro fans and the mediocre average score are only adding to its obscurity.
Despite its many issues, it’s worth a shot just to witness its creativity. It’s unconventional in many ways, having a wide scope, and likable main characters, and enemies with various types of powers, and a mystery in the background, while mentally torturing everyone. It keeps the stakes high, it is brimming with cool ideas, and it never stays the same for too long. It was made for people who got fed up with typical anime and are about to give up on them. At the same time, it can make people drop anime because of how offending it is with its constant lolicon and yuri overtones, cringy comedy, and crazy amounts of plot armor for the main characters who never die no matter the ridiculous amounts of damage they receive. Yes, it is that eccentric.
It still tries a lot harder to be more than just loli torture porn ala Elfen Lied, and it’s not random bullshit strategies ala Code Geass. There are robots, and explosions, mass destruction, most of which need tactics instead of raw power. It never feels pretentious in its themes, or begs of you to take it seriously. The cartoony artstyle is giving an extra punch to the jokes, assuming you dig their style, and at the same time nobody is just repeating the exact same joke without offering something more to the plot. There are even many scenes of calm everyday life, with many locations and events being based on actual places and actual historical events. It feels holistic, since as a whole it is not neglecting something in favor of something else.
It’s the transitions from one genre to another that can be hard to swallow, or the animation not always being on point, and the creepy fan service could have easily been toned down without damaging the narrative. You need a very specific mindset to get into it, which is something most viewers cannot do. It is not generic nonsense with predictable outcomes and it can get very confusing to get what it’s going for. And I am not trying to sell the show like some sort of underrated avant garde piece of fine art. It’s no Fooli Cooli or Tatami Galaxy. It has lots of issues, yet as a whole it doesn’t feel forgettable as most other series, or that offending as most light novels which are full of deviance yet try to sound serious and deep.
It’s a jewel in the rough, which I will always adore for how different it was, for its mesmerizing opening song, and the broad scope of themes and characters. It’s unpolished, but it’s no train wreck. It’s partially sleazy, but it’s also packed with a lot of creativity. Its characters look cartoony and there is a lot of slapstick comedy, but they are not one dimensional and there is more than throwaway jokes. It’s very hard to recommend it to anyone, and it has way too many highs and lows to be considered a great series, but for those who seek something special, this is a fine choice.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 14, 2023
The premise is about a war amongst nations for the control of natural resources. It is also about several personal dramas around pilots and aristocrats and their interactions during these times. In theory this could have been a great epic of strife, ambition and tragedy around the needs of nations forced down the path of violence and destruction. In practice though it is hardly as interesting.
The most obvious reason is the action. The whole thing looks like a dull Gundam rip-off, where the pilots keep monologing and explaining everything to the viewer instead of just letting us get it, minus the big explosions and the
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poser mechas. It focuses too much on skirmishes and duels with simplistic field tactics that doesn’t make you feel you are watching a continent-wide war. What you mostly see is big robots punching or firing at each other with invisible fragment bullets, the gunshots of which are almost as if they use a silencer and the damage they inflict is a simple dent. Even hand-to-hand battles are simplistic to the point you don’t even feel you are watching mecha action but some b-grade armored dudes brawling. Heck, the mechas themselves are made of crystals and not metal and you feel they are big chunks of rock. They are in fact called golems that mostly act as armors. It’s dull to look at.
The only time the action becomes interesting is when the elites of the war are having showdowns. All of a sudden the top pilots can use weird superpowers and a bit more strategy which makes everything look better. The rest of the time is as a whole boring action-wise and I never understood why they even need entire armies when it’s just the elites doing all the work and deciding the outcome of the war. Couldn’t they just have a tournament or something? It would spare them the thousands of deaths as well as the waste of resources.
So the action is mostly a miss but what about the sociopolitical angle? Nation A invades nation B and must win before nation C decides to aid B against A. And that is all the politics you get in this show. In fact, nation C doesn’t even matter since everything was decided by the duels of a handful of pilots; so we might as well screw the tens of thousands of troops that were sent to die in this so-called war. Don’t go expecting any complicating mind games and unexpected plot twists because you won’t find any; the whole story is straightforward and simple enough even for elementary kids to follow. There are several scenes where generals and kings chat about their next move and it ends up being dead time as all you hear them say is how cool their few elite pilots are and how they alone can win the war. I believe this was done deliberately so the kids would be amazed and buy the plamo kits easier.
Let’s proceed to the drama part; maybe that will be good… Nope; it is again weak. One guy is worried about becoming a heartless killer, another girl gets captured and has duty clashing with morality and… um, that’s all of it actually. What, you expected more? Sure, there are about two dozen different characters in this anime that affect the plot in some way, yet besides the generic shonen lead blondie, the rest have a very weak presence in the story. They all talk and they act and nothing seems important to remember because they are all typical shonen archetypes that solve their differences with good old fashion SMACK THEM DOWN. And since the action is mostly boring not even that works in the show’s favor. I hardly understand their motives, like why the blonde queen is sleeping with the big busted loli who tried to kill her, or why is there a woman that looks like a kid, or why did the megane dude surrendered and allowed to be killed in battle when he owned everyone during the fights. And who the heck is the opposing elite general? I don’t know anything about him other than he is an ass with good fighting skills. What is going on here and why should I care? This is all paper thin.
The production values are far better than your average anime, but the mechas move rather crudely and fight simplistically, while half the backgrounds are barren wastelands with rocks. There isn’t much variety in locations or uniforms either. The only thing I visually remember is that blond queen who gets naked every 15 minutes, just so the viewer can stay awake through the uneventful scenes.
As a whole it is a wasted world of multiple nations at war and of supposed political games that even my 10 year old nephew can understand. There is very little to see or expect in this series, and frankly I don’t understand praise it got for its supposed amazing story and wonderful animation. An average Gundam series has ten times more exiting action, an average shonen series has far more interesting characters, and the story can be described in three lines of text. Character interactions are basic and in effects throw in the bin the whole setting.
If you have watched any actual good war epics, I don’t recommend it. If you have seen shows with good mecha action, I don’t recommend it. Heck, the average viewer would find it hard to stay awake through the dull plot or the simple fact it is a mecha show. Don’t believe a single person who claims this is some sort of masterpiece when it fails to be good even among its contemporaries.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 13, 2023
Brave 10 is based on a manga which is loosely based on the Sengoku period. One of the various fables of that era was the Sanada Ten, a team of powerful warriors who were formed by Sanada Yukimura in his efforts to rule supreme. The premise is the formation of the team and is shown primarily through the eyes of Saizo.
I can’t say the setting and the premise are that interesting. They are in fact quite basic and there have been several other stories based on the same period and people. The most famous example is Naruto but the relations don’t go beyond names as
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well as both shows being equally gay. Samurai Deeper Kyo (SDK) is another case, this one even centered on the exact same events and characters. The anime adaptation sucked ass but the manga was amazingly GAR for the most part.
You see the fail just from the intro song, which is nothing but a cameo parade of all the characters and their special abilities. Seriously, where is the interest in watching the show if you already know what they all do? And come on, is this show so shallow that they had nothing else to show other than a character selection screen?
Maybe the intro is bad and the plot is deeper (no relation to Kyo) than that. And nope, in just three minutes the story barely begins and WHAM we are already shown how the protagonist is uber powerful and the lead female is useless and in constant need of his help (it wasn’t like that with Kyo). So he comes here, he goes there, and he meets lots of weird guys he has to fight. Expected. Ok, maybe the action parts will be good. And boy, could they be any worse in battle choreography? The transition from one scene to another is completely random and anything could happen just because the scriptwriter said so and not because it followed some sort of actual strategy. They can be fighting for half an hour just to protect or kidnap Miss Pacifism (her name is not important because she is female in a male-oriented show, so I will be using nicknames) without any luck, and then a simple guy can just waltz in, grab her under their very noses, and move calmly away while they are spacing out. You also barely see the fighters move; they use the typical frozen images with a few simple visual effects to make you think they move. Adding to that the background music which is usually a random tune playing regardless of what is going on in the plot, and the directing which is completely lazy. Stuff blow up and people get killed and you feel absolutely nothing compared to, let’s say, Rurouni Kenshin. Meaning, the aesthetics are completely basic to the point of not caring to look at the screen.
Let’s move to the characters. For starters they all feel like filler characters from Naruto, which is bad because Naruto is gay, fillers suck, and a cast should feel special and not a rehash of a now decadent shounen. So what do we have here? Ah yes, Saizo, the protagonist who is repulsive right away for being constantly bored with his life. I mean, seriously, the only thing he is doing when not fighting is sleeping or running away scared from girls. How is he supposed to be macho if he can’t stand a few boobs? He must be gay (thus this really is like Naruto). And is this a manly samurai action series or a shitty harem? It sure doesn’t feel like the former if it has such a wuss main hero. If it was, he should have been constantly horny, molesting and raping anything that catches his eye (that is, everything), just like all normal men did in the good old chauvinistic feudal times. Kyo from SDK was one of them. But then again this is not really a manly show about gar super samurai from the actual Sengoku era but a lukewarm show with poser idiots who loosely plagiarize historical events, and who are hardly as cool as Kyo or the original historical Sanada. If the animators didn’t want to show rape or something that immoral, they could just make him not care in the least, like in the case of Katanagatari. The chemistry between Shichika and Togame was very unorthodox and thus memorable, but here it is totally boooring because it feels like yet another show aimed at boys whose balls haven’t dropped yet. I mean he is already bored out of his mind, so why is not being bored of girls that hard to think of? Because it wouldn’t be funny? IT WOULD BE FIFTY TIMES FUNNIER; HAREM LEADS ARE THE ONES WHO ARE NOT FUNNY!
Furthermore, are all these warrior dudes supposed to be manly, talking big in the middle of the fight while doing all sorts of acrobats and magician tricks? Well if they are so powerful then why are they owned whenever Miss Useless just gets fed up and intervenes? She is all “Stop fighting, hurting people is bad hurr durr” attitude and I just want to slash her in half just for that. This is an action show you stupid bitch, take your pacifism elsewhere. But then again she can do anything she likes because she is Miss Sunshine and the rest are a bunch of idiots who can’t just say “Shut up you broad, you only exist so you’ll be kidnapped every half an hour and we are the ones busting out butts trying to save you every time. We are the strong ones here so close that trap of yours and let us do what we know best.”
But they never do that and instead constantly try to protect Miss Kidnap Target Practice. So you never consider them to be that strong, or dedicated to their cause, or even good at what they are doing. Seriously, they are pathetic in their job since they always get ambushed in the most simple and obvious way possible. What kind of elite ninjas get ambushed twice a day? Even a baby can fool these idiots. And it’s not like they do a smart comeback to win every time they fall for it. No sir, it always gets resulted with some random super attack they had in store but never use from the very start even if it has no set back. Hell, even Miss Molest-Me-Now has her own superpower, which works anytime the scriptwriter feels like it and not every time she or Saizo are in danger.
You can’t even like the characters for their looks, since they all look like whores and gigolos. Seriously, they are all supposed to be sexy and with cool clothes, and then a baby appears and lures them to a trap without even trying. So much for character appeal. Especially for Miss Braindead, who gets completely fascinated with Saizo, although he constantly ignores her and runs away. HOW STUPID IS SHE?
The directing is terrible even in non-action scenes. The way everything works in this show is making your I.Q. drop to that of a lizard. Everybody is constantly unable to see someone standing exactly next to him, just because he was out of screen or wasn’t talking. But when the scriptwriter feels like it, he can jump in-screen to do or say something and everybody is acting all surprised. WOW, WHERE DID HE COME FROM? He was standing right next to you, you idiots. And then it’s the whole lousy way they try to make things more exciting. There is this scene where that stupid bimbo is completely scared of snakes and points at the place the snake is. So for reasons unexplained she also comes along with that wuss Saizo to find the snake. WHY IS SHE DOING THAT IF SHE IS TERRIFIED? And then they find the snake and guess what. She faints from fear. OF COURSE SHE WOULD; SHE IS TERRIFIED OF SNAKES! And wait a second, if many were ordered to find the snake, why didn’t they come along as backup? WHY DID THEY GO ALONE? And then guess what, the snake blows up in their faces, causing a small nuclear explosion. They are just fine for some impossible to imagine reason and nobody else in the valley heard of such a big bang. This is just a small example of how ridiculous the whole thing is.
So, after all this mess, why is the anime even called Brave 10? You mostly see what Saizo does and it’s not divided to ten side stories. The show could have easily be called Brave 1. Plus, why is he even called brave if he gets scared of a few boobs? The show should be called Wuss 1. Plus, he is a bored moron, so it should be called Bored Moron Wuss 1. And there is an even greater fail in all this mess. Despite all that I said so far about the show and the numerous comparisons to Naruto, this anime is not tagged as shounen (for boys) but seinen (for adults). HOW THE DEVIL IS THIS GAY SHOW SEINEN? Where’s the sex and the gorish splatter? Why is this placed on the same level as Berserk and above the far more violent, erotic, and GAR SDK? It doesn’t even have moeblobs in a high school, which is also what counts as seinen these days.
This show is a total fail! It is clearly more oriented towards little kids, chicks who like pretty gays, and people with really low expectations. Basic story, boring battles, lousy directing, gay characters, and lame resolutions.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Sep 13, 2023
Man, was this one a drag! It gives you the impression that it will be an interesting and weird series but in reality it is totally boring and simple. This is one of the worst titles Tomino (the Gundam dude) ever made and studio Sunrise was out of its mind when it allowed for this thing to be made.
The intro was full of naked chicks and weird imagery. And the song was catchy too. It really managed to make me interested in the series. And then the series begins… And it’s nothing much to look or listen to. Where is the nude? Where are the
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weird / spiritual backgrounds?
-The general artwork is just your average looking mechas, military bases and rural countrysides.
-The character figures look very generic.
-Animation was kept at minimum.
-Colors and details are done simply, without multiple layers of shading.
-The visual effects are very crude. Just laser beams and energy barriers for a few minutes per episode. Even the funky disks that were creating meckas got old fairly fast.
-On the flip side, voice acting was decent. And the context of the dialogues was full of science, metaphysics, teen angst and more. Too bad even that was ruined by repeating words. Terms like ORPHEN, BRAIN and BIO-ENERGY were mentioned at least 20 times per episode, making the dialogues quite repetitive and tiresome.
The story? Alien powers threaten the balance of the world and a team of teens piloting mechas tries to salvage bio-energy disks and prevent the destruction. At the same time a secret organization plans to release an alien ship that will devastate the world, save for its chosen few believers that follow its cause. It’s not a typical “one-eyed monstrous aliens vs kind-hearted humans” story. It’s selfish people vs selfish people, so it is quite dramatic at times. The alien part is a plot device rather than the main story. The main theme is not really “saving the world”. It’s more like “mommy doesn’t love me” and “my family is obsessed and lost its way” kind of story. The several flavoring elements concerning science, philosophy and mystic powers help to create good foundations for an interesting story… But what was built atop was without the supervision of an architect.
-The characters are cardboards. Stereotypes that you can find in most mecha series. Undeveloped to the point of not caring about them. With generic looks and movements. There is no reason to remember any of them.
-The story is so slow-paced that could easily be summed up in 6 episodes. It didn’t deserve 26 boring episodes.
-The battles are awfully simple and short. I skipped them without missing a thing.
-The conclusion was sudden and rushed. The producers must have intended to create a movie sequel to wrap things up, but eventually didn’t; leaving us with a completely vague and dry ending.
TL;DR: I find no value in this series. Characters aren’t there, story is an illusion, ending sucks! It is boring, slow and anti-climactic. The only thing I really enjoyed was the one and a half minute opening song.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Sep 13, 2023
The anime begins by mentioning the vastness of space and time, endless stars, the meaning of life, it hypes you up for something that rivals Legend of the Galactic Heroes in scope, and then… it becomes a generic romantic school comedy where nothing ever happens. Thanks for nothing, you piece of shit.
Whatever the show pretends to have as a plot is no more than done to death hentai premises where a bunch of teenage boys are objectifying women, before conveniently bumping onto said women who immediately get interested in them, and silly adventures begin.
And by adventures I mean endless cock teasing where you are constantly
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made to wonder do they like each other, will they kiss, will she hit him for being a peeping tom? To its defense, everybody eventually kisses some girl for a couple of times.
To its offense, the plot is basically episodic so no matter what progress seems to be achieved in one episode is immediately rendered meaningless by the next one, and the boys keep jumping from one girl to another, essentially sleeping around without ever showing us anything besides kissing. Their love is so meaningful.
And I have to question the intelligence of these girls. They seem to be oblivious to everything that is going on around them. Half the time they have derpy faces and they are spacing out as if their brains stop working. No wonder they don’t even see how they are being sexually manipulated.
The show as a whole was promoted as a well-made romance when it first came out, which is why it was recommended to me. Which is a lie, since just like any other romance in anime, it’s only about sexual frustration and awkwardness to speak with members of the opposite sex, before ending when an actual relationship is about to begin.
In reality, this anime is not about meaningful romance. It’s aimed at virgin teenagers who want to escape reality and be in a simulation where women are stupid and love you for no particular reason. Proof of which is the promotional art, which only shows the girls and never the boys, since you are supposed to self insert instead of considering men as actual characters.
The lamest part is that the anime in general is very low budget, so it’s not even doing a good job as escapism fantasy. The characters are often off-model, have derpy faces, and the animators went as far as using live action footage in the opening and during the intermissions, in a cheap attempt to save budget and enhance realism. Yeah man, show an actual half naked woman in suggestive poses; this will totally enhance the illusion of you watching a plausible animated romance.
It is far from the first time anime try to save money with live action footage, but this does not excuse the lazy way it is used. Kare Kano used it in a way that was more about artistic expression and psychology. It was enhancing the romance and the characterization, instead of simply covering up animation weaknesses and objectifying the female body.
Boys Be is a throwaway show, made for virgin teenagers with very low expectations who have no idea what romance is and who for some reason cannot watch any other harem anime. I do not recommended it, it’s bad.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Sep 13, 2023
Boruto the first movie, is a sequel to Naruto the Last movie, where the milking of the franchise keeps going by simply repeating the same crap all over again. Although Kishimoto was given the chance to start fresh with new characters and new storylines, all he did was making the children have the exact same personalities as their parents, and the plot being a repeat of everything that happened thus far. Despite trying to make it seem things are different, Boruto is still going through the exact same events Naruto did.
The saddest part is that despite the rehash, the movie still has a much more
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likable get up. Boruto is not a typical shonen protagonist, in the sense he is not an orphan hated by everyone, has super amazing hidden powers inside him, while also being the chosen one. Despite going through the exact same events as his father, he is a much more normal character, living in a much less emo world that is not constantly victimizing children. Unless you had a really messed up childhood, this was making everything much easier to relate with.
Remember when Naruto stole the secret scroll in the first episode and never got punished for such a major crime? Well, Boruto does something similar; he cheats in the Chuunin exam by using technology instead of his own powers. He is exposed in front of everyone by his own father. He is not a victimized orphan driven over the edge, so he can’t use that excuse. This right here could have been the point where we get a good story about the protagonist dealing with the consequences of his mistakes. The last part of the movie could have been about him facing rejection and disappointment from everyone, which would have taught him a lot of important life lessons.
But instead of that, we get the obligatory villain of the movie attacking and everything goes back to the same old done to death fighting shonen bullshit we’ve been getting for the past 15 years. Boruto doesn’t need to face consequences because the villain is conveniently someone who also became strong by using other peoples’ power instead of his own. Meaning, the conflict is no longer psychological because it got externalized and can simply be solved by punching the crap out of it.
I know this is a movie for children so it makes sense that it would never try to handle its conflicts in a mature manner. But the get-up was so good and the villain attacked the moment the hero was about to be blamed, thus it’s essentially Kishimoto showing the viewer his middle finger. Kishi, you don’t present me with a juicy steak and then you take it away; you had us expecting a juicy steak and not the same old horseshit. You ruined the conflict by having a one dimensional villain who wants to kill everyone and take over the world.
The last third of the movie is just a retarded battle shonen with powers working in any way the plot demands for them to work. Boruto instantly switches from a pariah whose father is disappointed of him, to the hero who saves the day and even gets to rescue his father with the power of plot convenience. I mean, holy crap, why did the four kage, the most powerful people in the world, accept to take Boruto, of all people, on the rescue mission? Without cheating he can barely do basic attacks. Why don’t they take Sakura or Hinata with them, who are a hundred times more powerful? Oh, I know why, because if you are a female character in a shonen story, the moment you are married is the moment you become a worthless housewife.
Jesus Christ, it’s like everything that happens in these movies is a lazy excuse for children to feel privileged even when they don’t deserve it. And even then, it’s still bullshit in this one because for the most part it is Naruto and Sasuke doing all the work as they always did. The movie is called Boruto, and the only thing he contributed was to hit the villain in the face with an obligatory rasengan he got from Naruto. Are you freaking kidding me?
Kishimoto clearly can’t write anything new anymore and this awful movie is proof of that. It exists only as a cashgrab that rehashes the exact same events and makes them worse than they already were. Let it die already.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 12, 2023
Once upon a time there was this cool anime called Space Pirate Captain Harlock, and was about this serious manly rebel who gets fed up with the way Earth turned into a fruitless life of working and consuming (being overrun by hostile aliens every year had something to do with). So he decides to board this super cool scull-themed spaceship and roam the universe, free to go anywhere he pleases, a place without joyless capitalists, merciless bureaucrats, and military jerks. Occasionally, he returns to save his homeland from all sorts of cosmic threats that want to take over his old joint. He was such a
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cool guy.
Fast-forward three decades and everything is different. Serious manly protagonists no longer sell and apparently the majority of the (actual) buyers prefer spineless boys and dumb cute girls. As a result we get Bodacious Space Pirates, (BSP) a show about your average cute schoolgirl, who one day learns that she inherited by her father a pirate crew. Hm, doesn’t the premise remind you of something? Ah but yes, it is the same as Hitman Reborn but instead of mafia and dumb boys this is about pirates and dumb girls. And they are both equally silly since they both have absolutely nothing to do with actual mafia or piracy; it is just a random shallow excuse to get the show going.
Although the atmosphere and plot of Harlock were slow, grim and depressing, you could still appreciate the social criticism of the modern way of life and Harlock himself was never fooling around. It was naive and was oozing idealism but at least it had an identity and was trying to have a message. In a similar manner, One Piece is also about this funny pirate crew roaming around the world, looking for adventure while occasionally fighting all sorts of tyrants. It also had an identity and a message. BSP on the other hand doesn’t try to do anything more than making a parody of the whole piracy thing; the “bodacious” word in the title is just a troll. To put it bluntly NOTHING HAPPENS IN THIS SHOW. It is storyless space moe and the only reason I mentioned the other anime is only because there is nothing to fill this review with regarding the Moecious Space Lolis.
I have no problems with the production values, they just look nice for the time they were made and the sci-fi touches offer something interesting to pay attention to. They are otherwise not amazing and the lolis wear miniskirts despite trying to come off as pirates. There isn’t any in-your-face fan service but trying to establish characters through fetishes is still fan service and it’s still trashing characterization and character respect.
There were many who got be mesmerized by the show’s attention to sci-fi details. It tried a lot to portrait a futuristic society where technology of that time is put to use and its presentation appears to be far more technical than in a usual space show. Meaning, they show how they steer a ship with more ways than just pressing a few buttons. Other than that though the whole thing is still far from realistic and this whole fascination to sci-fi portrayal is just useless fluff. You can easily find lots of things that make no sense such as the female spacesuits being skin-tight and have boobs hanging out too much (Boobacious Space Pirates, lol) while male suits are bulky and don’t reveal any body features. Plus you see no method to keep them floating in vacuum or security for not drifting away while outside the spaceship. They also seem to prefer spending a whole minute in pressing buttons and making a holographic arrow to appear on an empty seat for you to sit on, instead of just pointing you to where you can sit. And let’s not disregard how they all wear miniskirts in space; that male trainer of theirs must constantly have a boner with so much pantsu flash. Not that the girls seem to care in the least though; the show is also called Miniskirt Pirates after all. Don’t think it’s weird when the heroine appears dressed as a pirate while still wearing a tiny skirt… In fact, don’t think at all.
Our heroine Marika is a heroine with potential that was unfortunately thrown in a most dull setting. He charm is simply impossible to shine because everything goes too rosy for her. She never chose her role or goal in life; it was FORCED on her. And she is not learning anything on her own either; everything is spoon-fed to her through space school lessons. She also works in a maid café, so she ends up being memorable only as a combo of schoolgirl/maid/pirate fetish.
Besides her there is also a bunch of pirates who … are just there. And then some other cute girls used as background decoration and pervert-bait. And that’s all I have to say about the characters. Seriously, that’s it, what did you expect me to write about? People who don’t do anything? There are so many of them, none of which managed to be anything more than eccentrically dressed actors. The pirates don’t even look a bit vicious; when Marika is in her pirate uniform you almost expect her to yell “trick or treat”.
The only ones besides her I can say a few things about are the two lesbians. They are a bit memorable because… um… they are lesbians; the end. And that gives them ten times more characterization than everybody else, so you get the idea of how dull the cast is. Because this is a show about pirates who aren’t really pirates but a freaking theatre troupe. Seriously, they are called pirates only in name since they are not living a free and lawless life (like normal pirates do). They are working for and paid by governments to do all sorts of illegal activities but this does not make them privateers either. They are not ordered by one government to loot and plunder areas on another government because THERE ARE NO OTHER GOVERNMENTS; everything is just one big happy world order. So how can pirates exist if the government pays them to do robberies? Well, it’s not in order to kill, rape, and destroy enemy installations (it would be a fun show if they were) but instead all they do is take up staged missions, ordered by the VICTIMS, who see the whole show as entertainment and who even get a refund for whatever they lose. Thus it is done just to keep the masses happy with cheap thrills and in practice nobody is actually hurt. For that reason, there is practically no conflict in the whole show besides simple dull missions where nothing of importance ever happens. In one word BOOORING!
So wait a second, what is this show about if not about its main attraction (you know, pirates)? Well, basically, it’s about the same thing all moe slice of life schoolgirls are about for decades now. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! There are a few grains of a plot scattered somewhere in there but the pace is so slow and the missions so dull you wouldn’t care even if they weren’t there at all. Supposed it’s about Marika finding the courage to command her own pirate crew and supposed she first learns how to steer a yacht in space and supposed she takes up important missions and supposed she is looking for her father or something. And all this time you are just wondering WHERE THE HELL IS THE PIRATE ACTION? Nowhere; there isn’t enough suspense to fill an ant’s belly. Just imagine that after each mission we get the girls working as maids and eating cake. Instead of, I don’t know, trying to heal their wounds, split the loot or mourn for their casualties; now that would be somewhat interesting.
Towards the end it gets a bit more action-based, as there is this shit that destroys pirate ships for real, and Marika’s long lost dad appears but nobody recognises him because he wears a mask. Yeah, I guess his voice and behaviour don’t matter at all to the people who knew him for decades. But once again the whole thing plays out as dull as possible and doesn’t miss the chance to show the lolis smiling while eating cake five minutes after they were almost killed.
The lack of excitement and actual piracy is bound to alienate most viewers, but there are still those who will stick around for the possible comedy or dark and violent turnaround later on. Well let me spare you the pain; you won’t get any of that. In its initial episodes the show seemed to be building up towards something amazing and had a huge positive image by most in the fandom. Some loved the miniskirt girls, some were amazed with the sci-fi touches, some expected pirate action, and some expected a mysterious and complicating social commentary regarding the future uses of piracy through cyber terrorism. After 7 episodes though, the interest died out almost entirely since the miniskirts can’t keep you interested for more than a couple of hours, the sci-fi touches became more scarce and weren’t that elaborate anymore, there was no pirate action and there was no social commentary after all. It was just a dull show where nothing happens. Of course you can still watch it for the cute girls if you belong to those who don’t care about story or themes and just watch for the lulz, which is the prime reason moe sells so much in Japan, the country where working is the same as hard labor for life at some penal colony.
That aside, it is nothing but a silly light comedy with dumb cute girls in mini skirts pretending to be vicious pirates and doing silly simplistic adventures with zero action or excitement. Which is not funny at all. It is a desolate wasteland of a toned down in fanservice adventure that doesn’t excel at anything. The girls aren’t particularly hot or interesting; they are defined by generic traits and have zero backdrop stories or personalities. The design work brings nothing eye-catchy to the table. Genericness, ho! The ultimate mainstream show, you could say. Easy going for everyone to watch after a hard day, but eventually no more than background noise that gets forgotten as soon as the next moe show pops up.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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