Who the hell do I think I am to write a review?
How could I tell you how the character's fighting spirit bursts from the screen? How could I show you the moments of pure adrenaline with shining color and life filling your eyes? How could I make you feel the power and pure rush from all the sheer badassery? How could I convey how this show drills right through the heavens?!! Who the hell do I think I am?! I'm a god damned spiral you bastard!
No matter how I try, I can't tell you how it feels to watch as the soul of this
...
All (8)FriendsRSS Feeds |
Feb 4, 2018 Not Recommended
SAO Ordinal Scale is one of the best comedies ever made, especially when you put on the chicken dance for the fight scenes. Its story is god awful and takes itself wayyy too seriously when it is both laughable and embarrassing. The dialogue ranges from ridiculously mundane info dumps to skin-crawlingly humiliating lines to self-important monologues and discussions to my favorite: downright stupid, over the top, and fucking hilarious matters that are supposed to cause tension. SAO has never had good dialogue, and the dialogue here is only a step up from shit. Everything
...
is too hamfisted to be interesting and if you pay enough attention, you'll know what's going to happen before the movie's over. The villans are caricatures that swapped places with Kirito in the original SAO and have edgy overly-dramatic lines. There's no tension because the main gimmick of this movie, AR, is too poorly implemented for anything to be enthralling.
It's really nice to look at even if the animation sometimes cuts corners and is kind of jarring; then again, it serves no greater purpose, so I wish I was smoking something while watching this; light shows and pretty colors going boom. Would've made the experience better. But the fight choreography is still only passable to sometimes good, which is a letdown. This is only a slight step up for me above SAO If you like SAO, you're going to love this If you think SAO is mediocre, you'll think this is fine. and, If you think SAO sucks, you'll think that it's a slight improvement... Maybe. That's just the impression I got from watching this. It's not good, but if you like SAO, I highly recommend it. And if you hate SAO, I highly recommend watching the fight scenes while listening to the chicken dance song; it's hilarious. There isn't really much to say about SAO ordinal scale. It suffers from the exact same problems that its predecessors did and it only is marginally better than them. So then, have a nice day and I wish you the best in your SAO endeavors; I know I'm learning a lot about the don'ts of writing. From, yours, SAOHater9001
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
What did you think of this review?
Nice
 0
Love it
 0
Funny
 0
Confusing
 0
Informative
 0
Well-written
 0
Creative
 0Show all 
Jan 20, 2018
Koe no Katachi
(Manga)
add
Recommended
I’m trying to parse through what I just read. This story, A silent voice, was nothing like I expected. I thought it would be a story of redemption and reconciliation between the bully and the bullied of the past; it’s not. This is a story about self-hatred and ignorance. Or, at least that’s what I’ve seen. The main heroine was disabled, and I thought that it was going to be used as a point of contention for the bullying. For me, that would’ve hurt the show. Instead, it becomes more like the fact that she’s deaf opens new avenues to view the world. Since she’s
...
deaf, she starts to see herself as a strain on the lives of others. Since she’s deaf, an act of thoughtfulness is to learn sign language. Using her deafness like this instead of a way to conjure up sympathy is a part of what forms a strong basis for the show. She’s not even the one you empathize with the most throughout the show. For me, I grew fonder of the main character, the bully in the beginning of the show. I don’t think that words on a piece of paper could even begin to capture the poignancy of the show, but I’m willing to try.
There is a stark realization that the main character of the show, Shouya, is going to be a bad guy when he chalks up all his aspirations to escaping boredom. All his life, he wants to escape boredom and have a good time. He isn’t particularly worried about his future or the consequences of his actions. Getting in a fight or jumping off a bridge into a river for an act of courage is all to stave away boredom. It is visible in the harsh aesthetic of the drawings. The way it’s presented is grimy. It gives this muddy feeling like you’ve gone in the woods when you weren’t supposed to, got so dirty that there’s no hiding it, and when you leave this dark forest, there’s something waiting for you on the other side. Something ominous… That ominous thing is the main heroine, Nishimiya-san, a deaf girl who is unabatedly nice. For him, she is just but an object of his constant run from boredom. His harassment of her is just for fun, but he takes it too far and it all comes back at him. Once he’s caught, Karma has got him in its claws. He begins to get bullied and his mom pays for the hearing aids that her son had destroyed. Nishimiya transfers out from the school and all the bullying starts to get directed straight at him. It’s his ignorance that became his own fall. Like a fool, nay, a child, he did something because he derived amusement from it, yet he never knew what lied beyond the hill: consequences. It makes you empathize with him in a painful way. It’s easy to write off someone as scum for their actions without realizing they’re a human too; the man who hurts is also hurt himself. When you look past their humanity, it can be detrimental. From this event, Shouya begins to become warped as a person. He is shut out by others and shuts others out; he has a stain on his life which he punishes himself for constantly; he is hated by others and in turn, hates himself. From here, he turns from a foolish child into a more docile, self-hating, empathetic human by having it beat into him. Yet, there is no redemption for those labeled as bullies. It hurts to see how the past actions of this boy have screwed him over so badly. He tries to repay all the money he owes to his mother, working a part-time job and selling all his belongings before he kills himself. Can you really blame his ignorance? Even if he learned from his mistakes? Right before he kills himself, he decides to apologize to the one he bullied. He had learned sign language and he goes up to Nishimiya to apologize which in turn keeps him from killing himself. The rest of the show serves as Shouya acceptance of himself and the world around him. He thinks he needs to repent and to make it up for Nishimiya without understanding the world around him. Nishimiya is more similar to Shouya than he thinks. To him, she’s just a victim of a monster like him who would’ve lived a happy life if he hadn’t done what he did. That misses the point. Nishimiya sees herself as a bog on the lives of those she comes in contact with, so she constantly apologizes, puts on a fake smile, and takes whatever she must while she secretly hates herself and what she thinks she’s done by existing. She doesn’t see Shouya as the monster he sees in himself. Their relationship starts to make the both of them come to terms with their lives, how they’ve affected the lives of others, and what they can do to be both better themselves and fix the mistakes they’ve made. Shouya tries to give Nishimiya the good childhood memories she missed out on, repent, and show sympathy for his actions and Nishimiya tries to be more open with herself and become closer with her new friends, no matter how hard it is. By seeing multiple perspectives, we see that everyone has their vices and virtues and that their ignorance and mistakes shouldn’t leave them to be eternally condemned. Both Shouya’s bullying, Nishimiya’s being a burden and the rest of the side cast who have to face themselves truthfully, along with their past, and learn to grow from it and become better as a person instead of letting it consume them and define who they are foolishly. This story doesn’t serve to condemn everyone or accept everyone. It serves to display that everyone has their misgivings and humanity and it does no good to write them off because in the end, we're all just ignorant fools who need the time and the nudge to learn from our mistakes. Once the characters start to become accepting of reality, only then can they start to reconcile. Not with themselves, but with their own pasts. Shouya and Nishimiya’s bond served as a catalyst for all this to take place. Two people who were more alike than they ever thought who come together for each other and in turn pull those around them into a spring of change where the rotting petals can fall off and new ones can take their place.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Dec 29, 2017
Boku no Hero Academia
(Anime)
add
Recommended
If I were to explain what makes this show great to someone who's never seen anime, I think I would use the following analogy: Think of the simple task of cooking an egg; something that anyone can do. You would have the same expectation for the egg every time. But, if you bring in a buffoon to cook it, he’ll screw it up. Yet, if you bring a professional to cook it, they’ll take every step and do it in such a way as to maximize the quality of the same very simple dish. That is what Boku no Hero is. A very simple dish
...
that is cooked in such a satisfying way. Nothing new, just the same old taste by someone who knows how to cook.
The first three episodes follow the development of our main protagonist from some guy who has no superpowers and is a total wimp to someone who learns to grow and give it his all and at least tries to be more confident. You know, the story is nothing great. Pretty simple. A guy is weak and stands out in a bad way compared to everyone else and he gains great power through his passion and grows as a person. But, my god, the execution, and writing just carry’s this meh story into a Woaah story. Midoriya, the main protagonist, has this obsession with wanting to be a hero, and when he is denied that, he shatters into a million pieces. In this world, getting a special personalized power means a lot to people; these powers called quirks. Something you can empathizing with as mortifying to Midoriya. Yet, he doesn’t give up even though the world has told him it's basically impossible. In fact, he doubles down. He keeps these notebooks where he extensively and obsessively logs the quirks that he witnesses that others have. All this to try his absolute hardest to bridge the seemingly unbridgeable gap with knowledge. And this contrast between his diligence and passion with his cowardice and lacking ability serves to create an interesting character with flaws that I want to root for. A character introduced earlier on was All Might. He is the all-American, from the ground up, pure physical strength, trademark superman of the world: the symbol of all that is good. Midoriya in this passionate way holds him up like a deity and a role model like how back in the day I would deify Goku from Dragon Ball and the pharaoh from yu-gi-oh as these badasses that I wanted to be. It’s really great, he’s even holding the action figure and has this pure look of childish joy on his face. This truly sells to me the amount of admiration Midoriya has for All-Might. This makes the meeting that Midoriya has with All Might even more interesting. When Midoriya meets All-Might for the first time, he’s in the middle of saving the day like he always does. Midoriya expectedly follows his role-model obsessively because he wants to meet him. Long story short, they end up on top of a secluded building and one of the most unexpected things happens. All-Might loses his super buff, superhuman form and turns into this dinky, skinny, suspicious looking character. The expression that Midoriya has on his face perfectly sums up the situation and mirrors the look on the audiences faces, “Huh?”. It turns out that All-Might is a flawed human being that isn’t the best at dealing with people and doesn’t have perfect judgement of reasoning skills. I think this is perfect. It points out an underlying theme in the show that is constantly explored in depth: there are no true saints no matter how brightly they shine. Even all might, the strongest superhero in the world with unparalleled fame and high status as the symbol of peace is still at the end of the day this deeply flawed man underneath, and no amount of muscle and suits can cover that up. In a world full of superheroes and supervillains, there flaws, and raw human emotion lend them a sense of legitimacy. Midoriya asks All-Might if even though he doesn’t have a quirk if he could become a hero and All-Might flat out tells him no, that he needs to be realistic and realize that the world can’t work that way. A pretty painful thing to hear, but Midoriya still hasn’t given on up the inside. He may be on the verge of giving up consciously, but not subconsciously. We come to find a little bit later than the Baddie that All-Might was chasing escaped and is wreaking havoc. Unfortunately, All-Might can’t help because he’s all out of power. So, in an unlikely turn of events, Midoriya ends up at that place too. He sees the exact same situation as all might does, as well as all the other heroes around him, yet he does something that none of them do, he just blindly jumps in and rushes at the baddie who’s holding someone hostage and tries to save the guy, even if he is so powerless. This in turn inspires All-Might, who has realized why he’s a hero, to gather what little strength he has left and save the day. Not only is this scene great in that Midoriya, this quirkless guy, inspires his role-model, All-Might the superman of the world, it is also great in that Midoriya embodies what it means to be a true hero. There are hero schools, hero organizations, and regulations on heroes that were laid down by the government: an elaborate system for being a hero. Yet, all this is superfluous. Getting caught up in all of it misses the point of being a hero. You shouldn’t have to always watch your every step, follow the protocol to a tee, and do what your told. You’re a hero! And there is one thing a hero does, save the day no matter what. This may be idealistic, but it’s also an ideal which makes you smile and feel that rush of excitement and warmth. Midoriya just jumps in because there is someone who needs his help and he needs to save them, the hallmark of what a hero is. He reignited that same feeling in All-Might and showed him where his roots lie. Sure, its illogical that Midoriya jumped in so foolishly, but that misses the point entirely. This is a scene that shows two types of heroes, the classic whole-hearted hero and the modern, regulated one, before posing the question: what makes a true hero? Midoriya inspiring All-Might leads to him feeling that he has found someone worthy of inheriting his quirk (A unique quirk that is inherited through generations and has to do with legacy power). All-Might offers his quirk to Midoriya and Midoriya just breaks down in tears because after so long, after feeling that he’d never realize it, his dream had come true. All that pain and sorrow from people telling him he couldn’t, being bullied for not having a quirk and having to slog through the swamp of despair and move forward with trying to be a hero. It all comes to a head and comes bursting forth from Midoriya. The weight has been lifted off his back. He begins his training under All-Might in order to inherit the quirk and we are treated to this satisfying montage of Midoriya, cleaning the beach that is basically a dump. He trains by carrying all of these heavy objects across the beach in certain ways to train his muscles as well as eating a heavy diet and getting enough rest. Still, Midoriya diligence shines through and he goes overboard with it. At the end of his training, which lasted about a year, we see him standing on a collected pile of trash, ripped, clenching his fists with his head pointed toward the sky, screaming a victory cry at the top of his lungs. It’s only been three episodes, but seeing him at the end of this long journey of finally becoming able to fulfill his dream transfers all that emotion from Midoriya to the audience. The reason I went into such extensive detail about the first three episodes is that I believe they serve as both a solid foundation for the show and give a feeling for both the potential and place where the show is heading. A mini-arc that I absolutely adore and beautifully sets up the show by pulling me in deep. Something that characterized the first three episodes along with the entire series is character. All the cast like Midoriya and All-Might, are simple characters with simple motivations. Yet, by design, the more exposure you have to them, the more endearing they become. You learn about their strengths and weaknesses. You see them in the moment, and not just in the past. Every second tells you a little something new about their growth or who they are. That’s just a little piece of what some great writing can do. Take Bakugo. Doesn’t start out very nice. In fact, he’s the biggest asshole in the world by the mere fact that he is the biggest, most avid bully towards Midoriya and constantly hammers home how much more inferior he is just to boost his own ego. But then he is humiliated and has to be saved by Midoriya. We learn that being praised so much and everyone following him and saying how great he was got to his head to the point where he could only see Midoriya as a quirkless freak. He wholeheartedly believes he is superior because of the people around him and that starts to wear down when he is saved by that same quirkless freak. It finally cracks when he is bested by Midoriya, a humiliation which gets to the core of his being and makes us see him as more than just an aggressive asshole; he really values his pride and wants to make sure he lives up to giftedness others saw in him for himself. The characters may be simple, but these little moments and nuggets of information just add on and give these characters life. Not to mention design. Bakugo has these sharp features and spiky hair to emphasized how sharp-edged he is. The hero costumes are great. They have this extra level of detail put into them to make the world more vivid, like how Bakugo’s forearm sleeves look like grenades. Another thing I want to point out is the character dynamics between Midoriya and the cast. When Midoriya deeply engages with another character in the cast, like Bakugo or All-Might, he instills at least a little of that classic hero passion into them. In turn, he learns about those around him and how people have their own problems even as superheroes. These pieces of information allow him to grow. But this only works because Midoriya is who he is: a passionate, diligent man who constantly is working to learn from his mistakes and be a better person. When he comes with his idealistic hero philosophy and has to confront other people’s philosophies, others who might be more cynical or unmoving, it shows the flaws in himself and how he thinks. Yet, every encounter allows him to build on his understanding of being a hero and the world around him. With this, Midoriya can release that true and tried raw emotion of his, to get his point across to those around him. A lot of this show is predicated on discovering what it means to be a hero. They take villains who are not mere caricatures, but hold their own ideals, and juxtaposes it against the heroes. Not just villains against heroes, but heroes pitted against each other too. What does it mean to be a hero? What should a hero do and not do? Are their limits to what a hero should be? Is it passion or power that drives a hero? Questions like these are constantly asked, but none of them in a heavy-handed way. It is all through the actions of the characters that we come to these questions. All of this through the lens of the infinitely lovable character of Midoriya who now must deal with the new challenges of what it means to be a hero and how will he learn to deal with his new power. While Midoriya is not a character that strays from the norm, I find it quite fitting that we see this story through his eyes. What undercuts all this is raw emotion. Something that I’ve been talking about a lot here. When you see Midoriya cry after finally getting his quirk and scream when he finishes his training; when you see All-Might jump into battle after being inspired by Midoriya; when Bakugo walks off, all torn up in tears from realizing that his whole perception of life was misinformed. That is raw emotion. Pushing through despair; reflecting on your roots; having to humble yourself and reconcile with the truth. All this is the catalyst through which growth can be realized. The growth of building your confidence for becoming a hero; the growth of passing down your power and having to mentor others; the growth of accepting the truth and working towards what you thought you were. When you reach the moment of the growth of a character reaching its mark, you are left with an emotion and an idea. An idea and emotion that exists in that world and comes to a head back in reality. So, go out, go out and watch this show; be a hero through their scope. It may not be perfect, but it’s truly great.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Dec 25, 2017 Not Recommended
Is it dread; is it disappointment? No, it's even worse. It’s welcome to the classroom of the elite’s opening line: “If I may, I’d like to pose this question: Are human beings truly equal?” In a single moment, the writer has already shown that he is a talentless hack and has exemplified in a neat sentence why this show is awful. He began with this line thinking that it would make him look intelligent, but all it did was make him look edgy and stupid. Starting a story out with an obvious, rhetorical question shows that you
...
want to show off how cool and smart you are touching on “deeper” theme like you ever even knew what that meant. And the way the show precedes every episode with a title card displaying a quote of a famous philosopher makes me want to take the author with me to the grave from how disappointing it is to see the names of people whose intelligence not just dwarfs, but annihilates the “intelligence” of this clueless writer of this light novel on his piece of shit that he cobbled together. Another thing this awful opening line tells me is that the author is not discrete at all - not one bit -, and he has to constantly shove everything down the audiences’ throats because not only is he not good enough to show instead of telling, he has to make sure that they don’t miss of spoonful of shit going down their throat. The final thing this line tells me is that this show will take itself to seriously and be even worse for it because the writer probably can’t write well enough to make serious scenes that are both well crafted, smart, and engaging.
Let’s talk about how this man knows nothing about writing characters. It’s obvious that if you took a picture of the cast of My youth romantic comedy SNAFU and pit it against this shlock, you’d see the blatant “influences” (borderline theft) that come from that other, better show. He thought that he was fit enough to also write a smart, cool show. Little did he know that not knowing what makes a story work when trying to incorporate elements of it (or the whole thing) into your own show, doesn’t turn out very well. While the main cast of My youth romantic comedy SNAFU has some level of depth to them. Like Hachiman, the main character of the show, being both lazy, when it comes to what he wants to do in life, straight-forward, cutting to the chase when most people would fluff things up, and a loner, not working well with others and preferring to do things his own way and not really meshing well in groups. This show has none of that. All the characters can be boiled down to one thing. The main guy is “mysterious”; The main girl is “uptight”/“straight-forward”; the secondary girl is “cutesy”/”friendly”. The author seems to look over the fact that people are more complex than this. How many times do you find someone that when you get to know them really, that all they have for personality is one trait and one trait only. None. When every character only has one-character trait, they become boring and predictable because they only react one way to everything, they resemble a computer more than a human, and they’re not layered enough to be relatable and engaging to watch. Even the main character, who we follow around the whole time and are in his head constantly, has nothing more too him than a guy who doesn’t talk much whose “mysterious”. The author tries to write him as badass, intuitive, and analytical, but he’s none of those things. Even if there are a few scenes of him being kind of aggressive, he’s too passive most of the time for it to matter. He’s not intuitive because what the author passes off as smart is average or below average ideas. I’ll leave the last point for later. Another thing that gets on my nerves is how serious the tone tries to be. Every character takes things way and I mean wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too seriously. They’re all in high school, they act stupid, and they’re all boring and edgy as fuck and the author expects that I take this seriously and be engaged? Hell no. They act so serious and so gangster to the point where it’s not only fake but childishly fake. They might as well all be playing pretend. Actually. If they were all playing pretend, I’d be more engaged. At least then I’d know the characters weren’t taking this seriously which would lift off some of the disappointment. The characters may act like rocks, but the crap that leaves their mouths… It’s all a big mesh of boring blah. I don’t know how else to describe it. Most of the show is boring, pseudo-intellectual dialogue that makes my brain go blank from all the stupid. Dumping piles and piles of information with no interesting visuals, scenes, facial expressions, body language, or anything of the sorts. Just really, really bad dialogue that is supposed to be deep, philosophical, and important. Too bad he can’t write anything resembling that if his life depended on it. About how I was talking about how the main character was “analytical” earlier, well I feel that it’s only fitting here. When we are treated to dialogue by our lord and savior, the great Ayame, our main character, it is… awful. Our author decided that stating the obvious passed for analytical. I don’t even think he understands what it means to analyze something because all that happens is the audience sees something and our main character states exactly what just happened because we're all mentally deficient… Whoops, I spelled the author wrong. The other thing our main character does beside stating the obvious is spouting vague crap about friendship, equality, innocence, life, and other topics as if they were valuable words of advice. HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA. Yeah right, try again next time when you can actually write worth a damn. A little interjection here. I want to say how most to none of the logic adds up in the show when you think about it for more than a second. He doesn’t know how to write and he also has no grasp on the concept of logic. I think it would only be fitting to close with the structure. The one that this show lacks. Scenes in this show just don’t mesh together. Not once scene. For instance, in the beginning of the show, there’s a bus scene, and it’s completely pointless. The scene is already stupid on its own, but it serves no purpose other than to show the authors point about people not being equal, I guess? I don’t know, but this goes for a lot of what happens in the show. It’s usually pointless and not only that but boring. Scenes are just hobbled together like nothing and were expected to just go along with it? Another thing is the pacing of this show. It’s horribly slow. Scenes go on for way too long. They get their point across, like in the first scene, but then they overstay their welcome. Once the audience gets the point, there’s no more reason to keep on going. Does he want the ideas to stir? Does he think after he gets his point across he can try and instill some emotion in the audience? I don’t know, but I think people are smart enough to get the point once it’s presented, yet I don’t think you're good enough to instill any other emotion than contempt, disappointment, boredom, and unintentional laughter. So that concludes my taking a dump on this offensive, wasteful piece of media that should be burned in the flames of hell as to never come back. If you want to watch this, at least ditch it for My youth romantic comedy SNAFU. I may have problems with it, but it's still a trillion times better than whatever this writer shat out of his miniscule mind. So have an awful day and welcome to the classroom of the brain-dead.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all |