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- BirthdayAug 16, 1996
- LocationU.S.
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Sep 29, 2020
(Note: I didn't watch any Index and I skipped fillers in the first 2 seasons of Railgun)
Quick Thoughts:
Suprisingly enjoyable. I think the character development this season fixed a lot of their weaker points (Kuroko especially) and I liked most of the new additions as well.
Story:
This season can be split into 2 arcs: The Daihasei Festival and Indian Poker. It's mostly told from Misaka's perspective, but there are a few episodes where she takes a backseat to other characters like Kuroko or Saten. This works well in that allows dedicated development for important side characters while also given different perspectives on the main story. The pacing
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is good as well, I think first arc ended a bit abruptly but that's it. The ending was pretty typical; sort of SoL in feel and made sure to give every relevant character some screentime.
Art:
The animation quality seems about the same as previous seasons. There a few moments of awkward looking cgi, but it's solid overall. It looked like a lot of effort was put into the more climatic action scenes.
Character:
Many characters were introduced this season, and I think they did a good focusing on the more important/story-relevant ones. Misaka gets a good amount of development. We see her tone down her stubbornness a bit through some of the relationships she forms, comes to terms with her issues with the dark side a academy city, and the final arc helps display growth in maturity by drawing parallels with previous arcs. Side characters see some improvement as well. Kuroko for example is much less of nuisance/horndog (though that change isn't entirely her doing).
I think the characters I had the most issues with were some of the antagonists and Touma, to a lesser extent. Many antagonists had reasonable motives, but there were a few, like Gensei Kihara, who were too stereotypically villain, maniacal, and evil. For Touma, it may just be a lack context since I skipped Index, but he seems like a deus ex machina incarnate. I found his interactions with the rest of the cast were repetitive as well.
Enjoyment:
I found season 3 really enjoyable overall. It may be something I return to if and when I watch the Index series, just to see if I actually missed anything. If you liked the last 2 seasons I'd imagine you would enjoy this as well: less filler and more focused while still maintaining a good balance of action and comedy.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 27, 2020
Quick Thought:
Very enjoyable movie; it was nice to get a look at the full trio in action.
Story:
This movie covers the group's stay with Bondrewd as they prepare for the next layer of the abyss. This means more insight into Nanachi's past, as well a new character Prushka (Bondrewd's daughter). The content is what you'd expect out of MiA: new areas and creatures, more secret's revealed about the abyss, and more of Bondrewd's gut-wrenching experiments. The few comedic moments were awkward as usual, but everything else was executed pretty well. Ending was good; it concludes this arc nicely while also building hype for the next season.
Character:
I
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liked Bondrewd's development overall. Some of it (physically) seemed a bit sudden/forced, but it was cool see more context behind his twisted mind. Prushka kind of got the short end of the stick though. Her backstory was heart-wrenching, interactions with the trio were sweet, but it sucks that she's basically just a plot device.
Enjoyment:
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and I think anyone else who has liked MiA up to this point will enjoy it as well.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 27, 2020
Quick Thoughts:
Season 2 felt like a downgrade in just about every area outside of production quality.
Story:
It continues some time after Tekkadan successfully escorting Kudelia and co. to the election. They've gained a ton of clout, and Orga decides its not enough; He wants complete dominance over Mars and wants to get there through the "shortest route possible" (foreshadowing that is recalled multiple times in this season). Multiple loosely-related subplots are introduced as well, but they're so half-baked that the end result is a clustered, unfocused story. The pacing was fine until the last several episodes, where they decided it was time to start killing-off
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as many characters as possible. They also decided to just give certain antagonists an unreasonable amount of plot armor. It made the last half of the season pretty frustrating to sit through. The romance is more awkward, and more frequent than the first season, with the Mika-Atra-Kudelia triangle being the main issue. The ending was fitting in a way, but really emphasized just how ridiculous it was for everyone to follow Orga with no second thought or doubts.
Characters:
Development among the main cast is still mostly non-existent. Even with the side characters, any development that happens is more like a sudden switch-flip than development. McGillis was one of the characters I had high hopes for coming into this season, but his motives stagnated and he ended up just as bad as Orga. Many of the antagonists introduced were poor as well. Iok was notably bad; he's not particurly interstesting, underserving of his status in Gjallarhorn, and seemed to exist just mess up the plans of both Tekkadan and his own allies. He's also a beneficiary of the unreasonable plot armor I mentioned before.
Enjoyment:
For the first season, I could at least say this show was enjoyable from an action standpoint. This season however, the other aspects are so poor and prominent that it was hard to find any of it enjoyable.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 27, 2020
Quick Thought:
It's a fairly enjoyable action anime.
Story:
The story is mainly about Tekkadan and their escort mission. There's some political subplots as well, but they weren't developed enough to be interesting. It's a pretty simple story overall, which is fine considering the action is the main draw. Pacing is steady from start to finish, not much filler slowing it down. There are other minor issues though, one being it's liberal use of death flags which made an already basic story more predictable. Romance was an awkward point as well, but these moments are minimal thankfully. The ending was fine; it concluded the main plot well
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enough.
Art:
I think the art was decent overall. Character designs were a bit inconsistent; there's a weird mix of realistic looking characters and more stylized characters. It did at least make the characters easy to recognize. Most of the ships and gundams looked fine. There was one scenet I can recall where the framerate dropped pretty heavily, but the CGI was serviceable otherwise.
Sound:
The voice acting itself was good, but I thought a few voices didn't fit their characters very well. It made some characters like Atra seem way younger than they actually were. I don't remember much background music, but the music that was there fit well enough.
Characters:
There are a ton of characters in this show, and as a result, they generally feel one-dimensional. Not much in the way of development either; I think Kudelia saw reasonable growth but the rest of the main cast remained the same for the whole season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 24, 2020
Quick Thoughts:
Expectedly disappointing
Story:
It's a direct continuation from the previous season, both in timeline and thematically. There remains a heavy focus on the relationship between the main trio, and it's addressed alongside the subplot of prom-planning. Outside of the ending and another scene that's also towards then end, I feel like just about everything story-wise was handled poorly. There was way too much of what seemed like filler in a season that was already strapped for time. There's too much time spent on purely prom related issues as well. It seemed as if the staff realized late in the season that time was mismanaged, and then
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attempted to cram any remaining key points in the last couple episodes. Needless to say, I found the plot uninteresting and the pacing poor.
Character:
I think they botched most of the characters as well. Hachiman is still same overanalytical protagonist, but I think Yui regressed heavily, and Yukino lacked the screentime for us to see her development. I found the influence of many side characters annoying as well. They're a large part of the reason why what should've been basic love triangle and a basic prom planning got stretched into a season long ordeal. I was fine with the overthinking and overcomplication in previous seasons because it mostly Hachiman's doing and related to his development, but it felt like nearly ever character was doing it this season.
Enjoyment:
I think what kept me interested in this season was my enjoyment of previous seasons and my desire to see the ending. I kind of enjoyed the ending; I thought it was fitting, but one episode wasn't enough to make up for the all of the melodrama leading up to it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 24, 2020
Quick Thoughts:
A decent anime overall. I think the story peaked early and steadily declined afterwards, but visuals alone will make Great Pretender very memorable.
Story:
The story follows a group of con-artists as they conduct various heists for tons of money. This season covers 4 heists: 3 in the first 14 episodes and 1 in the last 9 episodes. I think this anime peaked hard in this first arc. The plans were at least somewhat believable, and the plot twists were reasonable as well. However, the arcs afterwards were either boring/underwhelming, or distractingly ridiculous. At times, they dealing with some of biggest figures and groups of the
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black market, and yet their nothing more than playthings for our protagonists. It takes away any possible suspense.
Art/Sound:
The production value is what caught my attention. The color palette was vibrant and varied, and their unique shading technique brought backgrounds to life. I enjoyed the smooth, jazzy ost as well. Character designs were solid as well.
Character:
The characters themselves were a weaker point of the anime. They were fine in the sense that fit the roles they were given, but outside of Edamura, they weren't interesting enough to make their background stories compelling. It might've been fine had these backgrounds taken up a few episodes, but they're a large a factor in two of the arcs. As for the antagonists, I found most them to be generic bad guys who are unreasonably gullible.
Enjoyment:
Despite its flaws, I did find Great Pretender enjoyable overall. I'd imagine it's more enjoyable if you're the type of viewer who can sit back, enjoy the visuals, and doesn't mind op protagonists much.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 24, 2020
Quick Thoughts:
I think it's an average movie overall. The animation quality is solid as expected, but there's not much that stands out other than that.
Story:
A girl (Shizuku), who enjoys reading, notices the same name in the checkout slips of all the books she checks out. She eventually meets him, admires his talents, and then aspires to be someone who's abilities can match up. I thought it was cool see an example of a mutually beneficial relationship where people inspire growth in one another. The ending was predictable (and cheesy), but It works fine for this story. I think my main issues with the story
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that it took to long to get going, and that the setting was generic and forgettable..
Character:
I think Shizuku was too basic considering how much of the movie is focused on her. She's very much just an average high school with a strong interest reading/writing. Seiji could be considered the other main character, but he lacked presence due to story-related issues. Attempts were made to create some development and drama among Shizuku's friend group, but the characters involved had so little screentime that those scenes ended up feeling unnecessary.
Enjoyment:
I got some enjoyment out of the movie's easiness to follow, and its animation quality. Like many other Ghibli films, there's a focus on coming-of-age themes, so I'd imagine you'll like if you're a Ghibli fan.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 24, 2020
Quick Thoughts:
Very forgettable and boring.
Story:
A man finds girl inside of some bamboo, some gold shortly after, and uses that money to move into the capital and groom the girl into a princess. The story be split into 4 parts; Kaguya's childhood before the move, her grooming into a princess, the attempts of multiple people to court her, and then the ending. It's apparently based off an old Japanese folktale, and it shows. None of themes addressed were presented in a unique way, and I found most of the characters annoying if not forgettable. There also seemed to be an attempt at an emotional/sad ending, but
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it's hard feel bad considering how parents treated her throughout the movie.
Art/Character:
The artstyle looked nice as a still image, but it's not something enjoyed watching animated for 2 hours.
As mentioned before, I found most the characters annoying. Part of it is by design I believe; I think the dad and most of the princes were supposed seem consumed by greed/lust. That excuse doesn't work for other characters though, like the mom who idly watched Kaguya get pushed into an unwanted lifestyle, or the childhood friend who perfectly fine just abandoning his wife and kid for Kaguya on a whim. This leaves just Kaguya as the character to empathize with, who I found to be a generic protagonist.
Enjoyment:
I didn't enjoy this movie very much, but I also haven't been a huge Ghibli movies in the past. If you enjoy the Ghilbli catalogue, this is probably still worth a watch.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 22, 2020
Quick Thoughts:
I strongly dislike the type of storytelling that's reliant on some plot twist or info-dump at the end for the story to make sense, and Little Busters!: Refrain was no exception.
Story:
The pacing was incredibly off this season. The first few episodes were fine; the typical 3 or so episodes were spent developing Kurugaya, which is about the same amount as the other characters. However, the next 3 episodes blaze through what I thought was a pretty important arc, with one notably climatic moment being condensed into just a four minute outro. Then there's the ending, which I felt gave many more questions than answers.
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It also makes a lot of what happened throughout the series seem pointless and unnecessary. The motives behind the key characters of this season were questionable at best. There's one bit of foreshadowing that I thought was pretty neat, but that doesn't make up for how unsatisfying this ending was.
Characters:
In the moment, I kind of liked seeing the main cast develop, and their motives become clearer as Riki slowly figures out the "secret of the world", but as mentioned before, I felt the ending invalidated a lot of this. Rin is probably the best example this, but it applies to most of the cast. Several main characters get much less screentime, and the reasoning for this seemed arbitrary at best.
Enjoyment:
I'll say it again and again, the ending really did suck a lot of enjoyment out not just this season, but the series as a whole. Some non-story related elements were enjoyable though; The art/animation maintained its quality, and soundtrack hard-carried the emotional tone of the season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Sep 22, 2020
Quick Thoughts:
Little Busters! was an occasionally funny SoL comedy with some confusing melodrama stitched in.
Story:
The majority of the story is about the main character, Riki, going around the school recruiting members for the baseball team he and his friends formed, the Little Busters. A lot of these recruits are misfits/outcasts at school; oftentimes Riki helps them with the issues and/or traumas afflicting them. I found a couple of these kind of compelling, which dealt with issues like loss or overwhelming expectations. However, I felt the other backstories ranged from overdramatic to ridiculous. This is in large part due to the supernatural aspects of this show,
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which seemed to pop up at random. The pacing was pretty solid though. The characters were introduced and developed at fairly steady pace.
Art/Sound:
There's a bit of same-face syndrome with several characters, but I found the character designs appealing overall. The animation was fine; some movement could've been more dynamic but it nothing too distracting. Voice acting was hit-or-miss. There were some characters (ex: Komari) whose voices I found grating after a while. The OST didn't really stand out, and I ended skipping the OPs and EDs.
Characters:
I think there was an issue with the large amount of characters. There's 10+ that play a prominent role, and with only 26 episodes, there's no way to give develop them with spending the whole season on development. The majority ended up feeling one-dimensional as a result. This also made it harder to empathize with their issues.
Enjoyment:
I got some enjoyment out its SoL elements, but the emotionally heavy, melodramatic parts were pretty annoying to go through. It's seemed like much needed context from the source material was missing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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