- Last OnlineApr 29, 1:20 AM
- GenderFemale
- BirthdayMay 26, 1989
- LocationOregon
- JoinedMay 3, 2012
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Jan 24, 2021
30 of 30 chapters read
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0
people found this review helpful
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| Overall |
5 |
| Story |
6 |
| Art |
8 |
| Character |
6 |
| Enjoyment |
7 |
I am a bit surprised that R.O.D. isn’t talked about that much at all. While it is a bit of an older series, I believe it actually holds up. Before I read the manga, I had watched part of the R.O.D OVA as a movie on Tunami so I was very confused when I started up reading it. I wondered if I had picked up a second season rather then the start of the series. Turns out that the OVA do not have anything to do with the manga except for following Yomiko and the basic elements.
Yomiko Readman is our main character and I fell
in love with her. Her personality is mostly ditsy and sheltered but her good heart shows through everything she does. They drew her to a point where I could feel her love of the books she fights to protect as well as the hope to protect the people who are around her. The only thing I kind of had a problem with was that for most of the book series, she really didn’t seem to grow as a character or have any sort of change. We did see a little of her background and why she works so hard to do what she does but other then that, most of her growth is much later on. Still, I am very very glad that I kept reading as it was worth going through that slow curve.
The only other character they really dove into much was a famous author named Nenene Sumiregawa… Yes, that really was her name. It makes me understand why her pen name was just Paul S. Anyway, she is a interesting supporting character though doesn’t feel like she had any reason being there after the first book. I hear she had a lot more in the spin off sequel Read or Dream but I feel like she was lacking here.
So I come to a little bit of a problem here, the question on if the OVA was better then the Manga seeing as the stories are so different. I liked what I saw of the OVA so that was why I bought the Manga series and yet, I felt let down when I read the first book and found how so different it was. I feel like I like them both for different reasons but consider it two different universes. There are the OVA, and then there is the Manga. It’s so hard to explain without spoiling either one sadly to explain just how much it’s different.
The artwork is very good with a lot of detail. There are times that things are created with thousands of sheets of paper so I am amazed with the creativity that they set up to actually look textured. Most of the characters were very recognizable and stood out well against the other characters except for Nenene who I kept getting confused with another girl in the second part of the series. They just looked so similar that it kept getting me confused especially since they seemed to have the same tone of hair.
Overall, I think R.O.D. is a pretty decent manga series. It holds up on its own without the OVA or TV series. In fact, I would say you should probably read this before the OVA and TV series or just forget about them for a moment as you read this. It will only confuse you more if you don’t.
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Jan 12, 2021
1 of ? chapters read
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1
people found this review helpful
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| Overall |
3 |
| Story |
1 |
| Art |
6 |
| Character |
1 |
| Enjoyment |
1 |
Soooooo... why is this a thing? No really, why is this a thing? Now to give you some context, I HATE Highschool Musical: Live Action. I was in the demographic that Disney was trying to cater too when it first came out but I was so oversaturated with it from friends and peers that I couldn’t even watch the first part of the show. I still hate it even now and all the milking Disney has done for this series. That said, I heard that it was only 10 pages long so I figured I was going to check it out and see if it
was any better and how they made an hour and a half long live action into 10 pages… they didn’t.
The story is basically a gutted version of the actual live action, with only an introduction to the characters which feels extremely forced and bland. It follows token boy jock (I refuse to even put energy looking up their names) who just won his basketball game with his token friend and are celebrating. He sits with his token girlfriend (were they even boyfriend and girlfriend in the beginning of the show?) talking about collages. I am not going to lie, there is no musical and there is no theatre, so why the hell is this even called a High School Musical? They left out the Musical part and just gave us a very bland story of high school that went nowhere.
I do have to give the anime props to some extent; the artwork is actually very good. It’s definitely Shoujo style with a lot of bloom lighting, pretty boys and girls, a lot of details, and nice screen tones. The artist really pushed themselves to make it look really good even if the characters didn’t look like the live action versions. I understand some liberties had to be taken because it’s not colored, but the only dark skinned guy looked as white as everyone else. I feel like there could have been a screen tone or something that could have helped with the ONE image of him in the manga.
To be fair, the only reason why this is getting any sort of rating from me is because of the artwork as the story is bland, doesn’t have any of the basic points to the show, and just feels like a waste of time. That was like 5 minutes I will not get back. Even putting my opinion of the source material aside, I don’t think fans of the show would even like this manga.
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Nov 24, 2020
1 of 1 episodes seen
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1
people found this review helpful
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| Overall |
5 |
| Story |
1 |
| Animation |
4 |
| Sound |
4 |
| Character |
1 |
| Enjoyment |
4 |
Throughout my time looking at Anime movies or any type of animation, once in a while I find something that actually makes me think a little too hard then it probably should. Muchibei is one of those shows. I think one of the reasons why this movie (that’s about 57 seconds long) is rated so poorly on many different anime sites is because people are looking at this as a movie and not as a art piece. So I’m going to take a page out of writing an artist critic instead of an actual movie review. Just a warning, what I’m going to touch base
on here may be a bit of a trigger to people who deal with mental disorders or are easily bothered when talking about feelings.
There is no story, not really any characters to go through, and not even a background as to what we are watching. The only thing that I had to go on was that they have the Genre listed as ‘Dementia’ (on Myanimelist) which is a genre full of shows that you have to really think on in order to get their message. Shows like FLCL, Tenshi no Tamago (Angel’s Egg), and Revolutionary Girl Utena. It’s a psychological style which means there is some meaning behind it that has to deal with mental disorders, madness, insanity, or even loss of memory. I think what is great about this show is that it seems to be something different to anyone who watches it. Akidearest (an influencer on YouTube) talked about it being a representation of fighting on line with someone, wanting to reach out and strangle that person. It is understandable because her life is online. I on the other hand had a strange feeling like it was pointing out the thoughts and feelings I had whenever I start to have a panic attack or massive depression point. Calling myself a bastard for my mistakes, useless because I can’t do anything right… while pretty much banging my head into the wall just to try and feel something else other then the pain I felt inside… ya, sorry. It gets a bit dark talking about this stuff.
It being dark can also have a lot to do with the artwork that is used in the show. The black background might be a representation of the mind and how empty it could be while having said panic or depression except for the one rather ugly face staring way to close into your soul and yelling at you. The warped perspective that is the mind as it keeps hitting you until you pass out or find some way to deal with it.
There are many other ways you can take this for, Abuse both verbally or physically, dementia itself where you feel useless that you can’t remember something that is right in front of yourself, and slipping into a mad-like state where you just go completely crazy. What is awesome about this movie is that it’s so short and so open that it can speak to your own personal experiences. It doesn’t need a whole 3 hour long animated masterpiece to make you feel something; it just does it even if its just making you feel uncomfortable.
When trying to rate this, that’s the bigger trouble here. I feel like I just have to rate it a middle ground because it’s definitely not for everyone. Some people will find some sort of meaning behind it while others just would want to watch something messed up and not think to hard on it. I also would not go out of my way to go see it again but it was a interesting one time watch.
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Feb 27, 2020
1 of 1 episodes seen
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3
people found this review helpful
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| Overall |
7 |
| Story |
4 |
| Animation |
5 |
| Sound |
5 |
| Character |
6 |
| Enjoyment |
6 |
As a person who grew up with the original came out, I really don’t see the reason for them to make a 3D version of the same movie. It has been a long time since I have seen the original myself but I do remember quite a bit of it.
From what I could tell, the personalities were basically on point to the original characters. Ash is always the headstrong and determined one always wanting to be the best, Misty is the token girl, Brock is the womanizer and caretaker.
In the original I don’t remember us diving deep into the mind of Mewtwo as
much as this version does, and I guess in that case it does make this movie a little more intact then the version I had grown up with. We see all of the ways Geovani used him more and can understand a little more in why Mewtwo doesn’t like humans much.
For a 3D Pokemon movie, they did pretty well in designing the Poke’mon and the backgrounds, but the humans feel a little lack luster. Their original designs were not really meant to be 3D in this high of a quality. Their textures feel like they are just the plastic toys instead. Mouth movements don’t fully match half of the time, especially when its side characters like the guy Ash fights in the beginning of the movie. The background is really high detailed and almost real feeling in how you can see each grass blade or tree leaf but it would have been a bit nicer if the humans looked a little… more textured at the very least. I know they can’t go full on realistic as then we would have a really bad uncanny valley look, but at least make them fit with the design of the background. And also to stop making them that shinny, that would also help with that plastic look.
Sadly, I do feel the 3D version of the Poke’mon (while pretty good in texture and design) also have a small problem holding onto their cuteness a bit. Mew isn’t nearly as cute as its 2D version with its childish personality. The personality is still there, but the cute factor sadly feels like its a little lacking. (Ok… Vulpix is cute no matter what it seems… but she is one of my favorites so I have biases on that.) Near the end, the characters and Poke’mon did fit a lot better I think because they had added more texture and broke up the colors more in their designs.
The English voices are pretty ok. I do like Mewtwo’s voice though I feel like he punctuates his words more then he should. It’s like a pause between every single word and it just gets tedious at times. I really hated Misty’s new voice. Michele Knotz just felt like she was trying to hit an overly high pitched version and keep her really high energy which did not fit at all with what I was used to. If you’re going to do a reboot, I would have thought that they would have tried to match the voices better seeing as Sarah Natochenny and Bill Rogers (the voices of Ash and Brock) tried hard to match the older voices. Michele does a good job with Jessie’s voice, but Jessie’s voice and Misty’s voice were always different levels anyway. Can I mention that Michele does at least 4 voices, maybe more in this too? Ya… normally you do that when the person isn’t a staring role…
So what do I think of this movie? Well… it’s basically the exact same movie as the original. While it has been a while since I have seen the original, what I could remember was this exact same movie only in a 3D version. I think I would have to lean on the original more because of how the 3D looked in the beginning of the show and also the odd voice casting for a couple of the characters. I still don’t really understand why they did a redo on the movie without really changing anything (except medium) but I think I will stick with my original.
Small Edit: This movie came out about 21 years after the original. Now you can feel as old as I do when I was looking up some of my facts for this review… You’re welcome.
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Feb 21, 2020
13 of 13 episodes seen
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2
people found this review helpful
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| Overall |
7 |
| Story |
6 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Character |
5 |
| Enjoyment |
7 |
I never heard of this series before I found the Animation on Netflix just a little bit ago. Because of this, I may not know the whole story or if there is anything before it.
First we should talk about the characters. This is not that hard to talk about seeing that all the characters are pretty much stereotypes for video games. We have the wide eyed hero in Gran, the high ranking warrior in Katalina, the mysterious powerful damsel in distress in Lyria, and even our cute little mascot character in Vyrn. The other characters we meet kind of run in that sort of
suit as well. It’s not a bad way of starting out your stories but it also feels like it didn’t have much extra for it to stand out.
The world and story feel like its out of a Final Fantasy game more then its own stand alone story. Many of the different races and creatures are seen in both of the series. (Even the logo for the original game looks like its straight for a final fantasy title.) I did find out that the game was notable for reuniting Nobuo Uematsu and Hideo Minaba who both worked on Final Fantasy titles in the late 90s and early 2000s though since they were Music and art directors, I did not think that the storyline would also be rather close to a Final Fantasy style as well.
There was a point in the story that I was VERY confused about. In one of the battles (not going to say which or when it happens) right in the middle of the action we had characters seemingly coming out of the woodwork. We had never met them before, never were introduced, they just showed up. It wasn’t like any of these characters were boring too. These were characters that got me super interested in who they were but I just was never told what was going on. Because I have not touched the game, it made me wonder deeply on if these were characters we ‘could’ of made friends with? Would we be able to be friends with them later on in the anime or are they one shot characters that our dialog branch(if we were in a real game) will never come into contact with? I seriously want to know about at least a couple of them but sadly we really did not get a chance to know them.
I had to put Episode 13 in as a extra little review within this one because it was just completely odd to me. Spoilers in this paragraph I guess though I don’t think it spoils much. With certain games out there, you can choose both a male version or a female version of the character. For most of the show, we follow Gran’s adventure with everyone. Episode 13 is called Extra for a reason and it’s because Djeeta, the girl version of Gran, is our main character instead. I’m not going to lie, this episode felt more like a ‘Omake’ or special video feature on what could happen if people had picked the female lead. I use the term lightly in this case because it also felt like they just changed the main character for fan service like when you have a episode set aside in a bathhouse or Onsen (hot spring). I did not care much for that sort of change and felt like it was out of place. And here we had another problem of characters coming out of the woodwork. While some of them were characters from the first time they did this, we again had no introduction so I feel it added to my feeling of confusion.
The animation is pretty good, though it is easy to notice when they are using 3D renderings instead of 2D. It’s a little jarring when they do that although there are many other shows that do it far worse. I did like the how the 2D aspect had a bit of a sketchy sort of line art to it. A very nice change that gives the show its own style from other Fantasy based Anime around that time. As per my normal mindset though, I have to sigh ever so slightly at the fact that a big normal in Fantasy based games is that all the woman seem to be big breasted well fit women (or Lolita style in the case of one white mage and the race of little people) While the men are pretty boys or older muscular men. A little more diverse of a body type would be nice although it was not a hindrance to the story or the actual art, its more just aesthetics for me.
The script definitely sounds like it’s definitely from a video game, especially in the beginning of the show. I did watch this in the English Dub (Shocker, I know) and I have to say that some of the voice actors did bother me slightly. Vyrn (voiced by Sandy Fox) just felt like a scratchy and like it was trying to hit a much lower pitch then what Sandy could do. Lyria (voiced by Kira Buckland) sounded a little air headed and dreamy like she wasn’t fully there. Not sure if she was like that in the games but it feels a bit off. I am not blaming any of these voice actors as they have done a really amazing job in most of the things that they have been in. The music is amazing, Nobuo Uematsu is a very well respected musical director and his work really shows.
Overall, I did fall in love with the story as well as the characters very similar to when I play games like this. Sure main part of the story is sort of told over and over again in different forms, but the overall aspect of the journey was pretty good. The only problem I see is when they start adding things that I don’t think anyone would of known outside of the game. Certain people showing up out of the blue with no introduction, Episode 13 and its strange change, and the different races they seem to gloss over like we should already know what they were. There is a season 2 out there that I am going to try and find as well as a OVA (or ONA, I have seen it listed both ways) that I hope I can see but I am a little worried seeing as a new Studio and Director as well as writer did them, but I have my hopes. Take a glance at it if your interested in Fantasy and RPGs but I would consider episode 13 to be one you can miss out on if you really want to (for now).
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Feb 20, 2020
13 of 13 episodes seen
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2
people found this review helpful
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| Overall |
8 |
| Story |
8 |
| Animation |
9 |
| Sound |
7 |
| Character |
7 |
| Enjoyment |
9 |
First off, wow that is a really long title for an anime/manga. I have noticed this seems to of become a normal thing to make a whole sentence be your title for certain shows lately.
Let’s talk about the characters first, like how most of my reviews go. The first character I would like to address is Bell Cranel, our main character. He is a rather naïve, childlike boy who became an adventure after he lost his Grandfather. He dreams of becoming a hero and to impress the ‘Sword Princess’ who saved him on one of his first few dungeon expeditions. Now, even after watching
the show, I am not fully sure how their leveling system works but they do make a very big deal about how fast he seems to level up. This show feels a lot like a video game in that way when they talk about leveling. I have to say, he felt very much like a ‘Mary Sue’ style character as he really did not have very many flaws or weaknesses that I could tell. Every time he met a girl they would fall for him, every time he did an action it would normally come out for him in the end, so on. But there was this charm about him that kept me watching. He actually did grow as a character which I think breaks him of the types of Mary Sue’s that people don’t like. Maybe even broke him of that character class all together later on in the series even if he started out as one.
The next person I would like to bring up is the goddess Hestia. Hestia is the Virgin Goddess of the hearth, the family, and the state within Greek mythology… oh wait… That’s her real life counterpart. In this show, the Gods and Goddesses came down to earth in order to live among the humans and have groups of people who worship them. In turn, the people that worship them become adventures who can fight monsters. These worship groups are called Familia. I am explaining this now because Bell is the only person in Hestia’s Familia… and she is overly thirsty for him. She becomes jealous if Bell even looks at other women, seems to obsess about him, and tends to whine when she isn’t able to get him alone or when he shies away from her advances. She may be a very popular character, but to me, I think Bell is a bit stronger of a character then her. I do agree that without her, we wouldn’t get half of the heartfelt moments as we do and she really does show how much she cares about him… but I don’t think I like her much as a stand alone character.
As a lover of mythology, I truly loved how they added the different gods and goddesses within the world. They have gods of all different religions: Greek, Japanese, Norse, Mesopotamian, and so on. And each of these gods and goddesses has their own Familia’s based on what the god’s specialty was. For example, Hephaestus’ group are the largest arms and armor producers in the city while Soma’s group is a large producer of a very expensive wine which seems close to a ritualistic drink in India and Hinduism (Soma is another name for the moon god Chandra if people are checking on this). Now while most of the Gods and Goddesses have similar things to their original mythos counterparts, there are a couple things I frowned on. Namely changing some of their genders like making Hephaestus and Loki woman for example. Still not fully sure why they had to make them female but ok?
The animation is very beautiful and the fighting scenes have a lot of energy to them. There are a couple times when Bell is moving that his body seems to be deforming or losing its form but I think they were just trying to show how much faster he was going during the fight. If you are looking for something that doesn’t have the same look as every other anime that has come out in this time frame though, I don’t think this will help. We still have the normal curvy girls bodies and large eyes for the innocent characters. While the fighting scenes are good, they are similar to many other anime that have fighting scenes that again have come out around the 2015s and later. It’s basically typical J.C. Staff Studio normal at this point (which does not mean it’s a bad thing though).
I watched the English voice acting for this one, and I think it was fairly good. From what I could tell, some of the voice actors were little known names or newer voices in the industry. Bryson Baugus who did the voice of Bell has only been voice acting in anime since 2016 and it was 2017 when this anime got dubbed. It seems like it was only his 11th anime according to wikipedia (I know, sometimes you can’t trust it). There are names you know and love, and are pretty easy to pick out, like Luci Christian or Shelley Calene-Black but they could of easily of used even more large names then they did and I am happy they let some new people shine.
Dispite the name that it has, I had a rather fun time watching it. At first I thought it would be a very perverted type of show with the main character actually trying to pick up girls but it turned out that the show had much more heart to it. We still had a lot of perverted things happen but that’s what you get in comedy anime so eh. You got to pick and choose your battles on that one. I think its one worth trying out.
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Feb 16, 2020
12 of 12 episodes seen
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2
people found this review helpful
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| Overall |
3 |
| Story |
2 |
| Animation |
3 |
| Sound |
3 |
| Character |
1 |
| Enjoyment |
1 |
Pardon what I’m about to say… but what the hell did I just watch? No, seriously, what the hell did I just watch? It started out like a typical anime romantic comedy and then suddenly went into these strange chibi style mini segments with the school girls voiced by men. That was about 5 minutes of the first episode so what am I getting myself into?
The premise of this show (from what I gathered) was that it was going to try and parry as many shows as they could fit in a 12 minute episode as possible. They don’t really hold any punches. The original
story was a For panel surreal comedy webcomic created by Bkub Okawa and I sort of feel like I am really missing the comedy part of the anime. This might be because of the gap between my culture and the culture of Japan. It just felt like it was absurd more then it was comical. Not all people are going to like the same exact comedy as another person as well. The only thing I could place with them was that the two characters had a base line for their personalities. The purple haired girl was more straight forward with her comedy while the yellow haired was a little more energetic. I didn’t care enough to learn there names. (After looking them up, the yellow haired girl is Popuko and the Purple haired is Pipimi. Seriously didn’t care while watching the show as there was no point.) I just found that I wanted the ending preview anime more then this odd mix of scenes as it just seemed more interesting.
With all the problems I had with this anime’s comedy, I do have to give it some props. The show is very innovative from the use of different styles to the change in the ending song and sequences once in a while. It dared to break some of the boundaries that were normally seen within the genre… at least the normal things I do see. Just because a show is not for everyone does not mean that it’s a really bad show.
The art style is… well its odd. There seems to be a main base and then what I could probably think of as guest animations in some of the portions. Again, hard to explain here. The main design seems to be a little chibi yellow haired girl and a … tall high school girl with purple hair. This is not a style I typically see in animation and I give them props for doing this very different form but it is really not a style I like. I’m fine with getting out of the normal Chibi style or Cute wide eyed High school girls, but it has to be an interesting story to help me get over some of those designs and this did not have that for me. We have segments that look good in a very clean artistic way and segments that look like a little kid drew them, even some rather creative segments that go into the 3D aspects. I give them props on being innovated like I said before.
The voices were really inconsistent. Sometimes they had male voices, sometimes female, sometimes non gender voices and it just felt strange. The opening song was pretty catchy and nice to listen to while the ending song was a typical ending song you would get for a slice of life. Neither of them felt like they fit the craziness that was this series. To be fair, I only watched the Japanese version of this so what might have been throwing me off was that even the Japanese actors were being changed around so much and there was no consistency although I don’t know if the English dub would of made it even better. I would of probably understood some of the stuff better if it was at least in my native language.
So here is the big question, is this worth the watch? Well, it really depends on what your type of anime sits well with you. While I do normally like some surreal comedy shows, most of them have an overall plot or characters that have a deep charm to them. I didn’t find anything like that with this series. This may be because I have never seen the manga before or because of the very random art styles that show up in this. Heck, it could even be because they kept changing the characters voice actors throughout the whole show. The show just didn’t have anything to help me get into the show. It just felt too random for my tastes though I will say that I’m sure it will find its small group of fans. I’m just not one of them.
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Jan 17, 2020
12 of 12 episodes seen
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2
people found this review helpful
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| Overall |
7 |
| Story |
7 |
| Animation |
6 |
| Sound |
7 |
| Character |
6 |
| Enjoyment |
6 |
So, anyone that knows me knows that I am really not normally into military heavy shows. I’ll watch them but they never were really my cup of tea. But, I do like history and learning so when I found a anime about girls in tanks… I thought that it was probably just going to be catering to the people who like girls and tanks to be really fair. I didn’t pick it up for the longest time because I just thought it wouldn’t be interesting at all to me and I would drop it within the first few episodes. Guess who is sort of eating
those words now that they have decided to take a look at it. This is really one of those ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ sorts of anime.
I really want to talk about Miho Nishizumi who I instantly fell in love with. While on the outside, she seems like the typical dunce main character, it’s when we dive into her background and mind that she really stands out. She has a bit of a PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) yet her friends help her get over it. While this did not stay for very long and we barely see it after the first two episodes, the show had gotten my attention with it. I do wish they could of dove a little more into that aspect for her but I guess when your show is only 12 episodes long, there isn’t much time to do that sadly.
So as I said before, I do love history and knowing about different aspects to things. I am just strange like that. So when they start explaining what each tank did in a war or what side had them, I actually get very interested. The school life is just a background aspect but I sort of found myself rooting for the girls who actually tried their best against experienced Tank operators. The problem that I felt though was there was not enough of that. With a show dedicated on talking about tanks, they really only talked about their own tanks after finding them, and not to enough depth that I would think is necessary to understand the weaknesses and strengths. They do give hints throughout the show, but again, I don’t think enough is given easily and almost nothing is explained on the opponents Tanks. I think it would have been great if we had a little blurb in the corner of the screen when we see the tank like they do in “Cells at Work” and other educational shows.
The animation is pretty good, at least when it comes to the normal anime portion. What I don’t really like much is how they couldn’t really blend in the military tanks and the girls. When they are out moving about, it feels a bit disjointed whenever you see our drawn characters against the 3D renderings of the tanks. I understand, Tanks are very detailed and it would be really hard to draw them for every single shot when you’re trying to be accurate as possible, it just feels a little out of place in some spots.
The sound is rather good I think. They have a normal sort of soft pop song for both the beginning and ending of the show and have at times used silence to give a small sense of tension instead of drowning us out with some loud annoying sound. I did end up watching the Sub which I normally have trouble with seeing as I’m a slow reader. This is why I normally lean to the dub. (Don’t hate me; I have my reasons why I like dubs more then subs normally.) I do think that this anime would be a little better for me in Dub format as when they came to technical strategies, I found myself actually having to go back and rewatch/reread what the heck they were talking about. They sometimes went to fast for someone who really has a first grade (if any grade) understanding to Japanese. The only thing I think I can really say for the Japanese Sub is that none of the characters really made my ears bleed with how high pitched some characters could have been. I am fine saying I am not a expert when it comes to the Japanese language or the Subbed versions of Anime.
So this paragraph is a bit of an edit as I did find the English version of this Anime on Netflix close to when I was finishing up the series and my review. While the English dub makes it so much easier to understand the technical terms and when the characters talked rather fast, but the voices felt like they did not fit the characters. Miho’s design had more of a anime airhead character and her Japanese tone of voice felt like it was a great match. Meg McDonald (the English Voice Actor) didn’t feel like she had the same energy for her. It’s similar for many of the other girls as well. The energy and tone of the voices just didn’t feel like it worked for the designs. To be fair, it was slightly disappointing as while it helped me understand better, the voices through me off.
So what do I feel about this anime? Well, any anime that gets me to watch the whole series in the subbed version I think is a good anime in my book. For those who need a little more then that, while there are some hiccups with the animation and how they sort of decided to cut certain things (I know its because they were only given 12 episodes), I do believe the story is actually rather interesting. It got me a little bit more interested in specifics about tanks and what their impact was in combat. I also did learn a little more about Japanese culture that I didn’t know before (partly because it got me so curious I had to look it up to make sure it was a thing). If you’re tired of slice of life or competition anime, this was a nice way to add something a little new into the mix. If you are like me and wasn’t so sure about the anime, I do think you should at least give it a shot. It might actually be more then you thought.
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Aug 2, 2019
13 of 13 episodes seen
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5
people found this review helpful
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| Overall |
6 |
| Story |
5 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Character |
3 |
| Enjoyment |
5 |
Well, If it’s not school when your alive, its school when your dead. This show is like ‘School Rumble’ meets ‘High School of the Dead’ with a little bit of ‘When They Cry’ mixed in, it’s just all over the place. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be able to make up its mind on what it actually wants to be. It starts out acting like a video game, sometimes a school life drama, and sometimes a military fighting show. I don’t really know if it actually had very much structure to it but well… let’s get on with the review and you can see what
I mean.
There are a lot of characters in here so it’s kind of hard to talk about all of them. Most of them don’t get enough screen time in my eyes to even be worth it. Should I start with our Protagonist? Otonashi is a bit bland, nothing specifically stands out with him except that he is our gate way to this new strange world and its rules. He has amnesia, which is just another way to make him as bland as ever. That’s it… ya, most characters are going to end up being like this I think. Yuri is kind of an interesting secondary character with her backstory and why she fights against Angel. I actually would of liked her more as our main character rather then our bland protagonist and just learned her story though maybe flash backs or something. In fact, the characters we actually did get to see backgrounds of have interesting stories themselves but I feel like we don’t get enough of them because we are just following a rather bland character in the beginning. The first time I watched this, I actually stopped watching it after 5 episodes because of how bland Otonashi. Sure he got better… but the first time I watched this, it just was too late for me to care.
The show sadly feels like was way to scatterbrained in the beginning, a shooting battlefield, a slice of life, and then a very depressing story line. Then there are the deaths… which really mean nothing in a world that is void of death. It’e really hard to take the characters seriously when they are falling right and left only to be fine a little while later. It just got boring seeing them die over and over without consequences.
The artwork is pretty basic but good, reminding me of a lot of other school based Shojo style anime out there which is kind of strange seeing what the story is about. I mean, we are talking about some kind of purgatory here so bright and sunny are not what I would have expected. The backgrounds are well detailed and everything is clean while the characters seem a bit simple in some ways. I do question some of the characters designs in the background though like the bearded mechanic in the guild. Also, what sadist wanted to slow down almost every impact when the characters die and put a tiny clip of a song over it? It made me laugh the first time but then it just seemed to get old the more they did it.
It’s interesting that they have a couple different openings to this show and brought a new song in just in the 4th episode. The music is really good, especially the extra songs they added in the first few shows. The English voice actors are actually not bad, pretty standard for most of the characters with none of them actually turning out rather annoying. Even the character I thought would be super annoying, Yui, didn’t actually end up annoying me all that much. We have some pretty big names like Greg Ayres and Malissa Davis but then we do have a lot of little known voice actors too. I was really surprised that Yui was voiced by Hilary Haag and not Monica Rial. She sounded very close to her.
So ya, I am a bit glad that I gave this thing a second chance, though I still can’t say its one I really want to go through again.It was a rather slow and bland beginning and some of the stories were rather depressing. I guess I would give this a at least watch it once… then go find something happy to watch after.
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Jan 3, 2019
12 of 12 episodes seen
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6
people found this review helpful
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| Overall |
6 |
| Story |
8 |
| Animation |
5 |
| Sound |
6 |
| Character |
5 |
| Enjoyment |
7 |
What happens when you mix retro games with anime school children? Well, in some ways, you show someone’s ideal childhood back when they were kids. Just kidding, this show isn’t really very ideal (not sure if anyone would really want to be in our main characters shoes most of the time), but it’s interesting to have that little nostalgia while also seeing a bit of a romance bloom. Now for those who don’t know, I have a passion for video games but not really a strong one in playing them. I’m a very casual gamer. The love I have for them is their graphics and
story rather then play. Old games awe me in their pixel art, newer games awe me in their high detailed designs, and indie games always seem to have a place in my heart with how deep their stories go and how they break the mold of what everyone on the outside thinks about video games. This show has that and a little more added for your normal anime style trope.
Let’s start with the main characters, and just like a character select screen, I’ll let you pick who’s first… (Just kidding, I seriously wish that could actually work though.) Our main character is Haruo Yaguchi. This show follows his life through elementary school through high school so it’s hard to pin point his exact personality. As people grow so to does their personality and the way they react to different things. There are some constants though, he loves video games, he is good at them, and he likes a good challenge in video games. Normally I wouldn’t like a character like him much, but there is a very strange amount of charm that seems to come from him that I like. It’s his passion I think that draws me in. It’s the same for anyone really, the spark that shows up when someone has fallen in love with something else, I am always interested in that spark.
At the same time that I like Haruo, I kind of don’t fully like Akira Ono who is our second character. She is a very rich and popular girl who all the boys seem to fall for even when they were elementary school students when boys would normally be trying to space themselves from girls. She gets good grades, attends after school studies at home including flower arranging, piano, and all the other lessons a typical rich kid in Japan is supposed to learn, but her greatest passion seems to be sneaking away from all that just to play video games at an arcade. She feels a lot like a typical Tsundere character as she always seems to beat up on poor Haruo except for one thing, she is mute throughout the whole show. When I say I don’t fully like her, it’s the Tsundere part of her that I’m not to big on as I see that time and time again in anime, but what I find fascinating with this show is the fact they did leave her mute. You only know what she is thinking from her gestures and facial expressions (and sometimes her feelings show through her game play) so a lot of time your left guessing what she is thinking.
The next person I would like to talk about is Koharu Hidaka. She becomes a classmate of Haruo’s in his junior year… basically in the 4th episode so it’s not spoilers really. From the first moment that she came on screen, I knew she was going to become a ‘option 2’ for our main characters affections just from how she sort of starts to interact with him. She’s a lot like me in a way where I would call her a beginner or casual player. Someone who likes to watch others play instead of playing themselves for the most part. While she does get a small interest in games near the end of the 4th episode, she seems to only get into it because of Haruo. I like her but at the same time don’t like her which is a very odd thing to say. I think that because she feels so much like me in a way, I feel like she doesn’t really fit in with the story line that they were trying to get to. It’s like they put her in just to say ‘here is your love triangle everybody, will the new girl get the guy or will it be the childhood friend?’ If they had integrated her more into the story line somehow, I think there would be more of a reason to have her there but with the 12 episode limit, they didn’t have enough time to flesh her out or show how close she could get to Haruo to give her a fighting chance really.
I love the fact that they start the show with them in elementary school and work their way up. The different little breaks of years gone by is filled in with a very basic low down of the advancement of video games within Japan and just how advanced they got though the years that we are missing in the jumps. It also shows just how dedicated the characters are to their love of the games. What got me really excited was that Haruo’s first console he talked about was the Turbographic-16 which was part of some of my earliest gaming memories. My family and I would sit around and play Dungeon Explorer together when I was in elementary school so the show really brought back some fond memories. I think that was the biggest reason why I actually got interested in where this show was going.
The English voice acting is interesting, especially since Ono doesn’t actually talk. Christine Cabanos is the ‘sound’ actor for Ono and she does an ok job for her but sadly it doesn’t show her talent. Haruo’s voice actor kind of made me a bit annoyed at first but then started to grow on me a bit as he got older. I think it was because Johnny Yong Bosch was his voice actor and throughout the whole time I watched the show up until I looked it up on wiki, I had no clue it was him. There have been a couple new voice actors that sound similar to him that the familiarity of his voice had me racking my head trying to figure it out. Also, when Johnny plays a kid, his voice can get a bit annoying it seems… (Sorry Johnny, still love most of your voice acting.)
The animation is a little odd in my opinion, reminding me a little like the Korean style of art I have seen before. It’s not a style I’m normally drawn to but it does have its own charms. I do like some of the consistency’s they did with how children grow up as its sometimes hard to make a character look older without losing what they looked like when they were younger. They had to do that for at least three separate time frames and in all of them, the children do still have the same air about them as when they were younger in their design. The odd thing about the art style is that they do sometimes randomly have this strange shading on the characters that shows they were 3D models which sort of breaks the show for me. I’m detail oriented so if it first looks hand drawn and then that strange 3D thing, I end up losing my immersion.
Overall, I do love the nostalgia the show brought to me and the interesting story that came with it. It’s not high on my list but it is one I probably will end up watching again. Just one warning, I would watch the first 5 episodes before you say you don’t want to watch anymore. The show kind of changes around then which will make you know if you like this show or not.
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