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Feb 20, 2023
Carnby Kim is easily one of the most famous psychological Korean manhwa authors, if not the most famous (granted, it’s not exactly a sizable community). About ten chapters into this work, I already wanted to drop it. The writing was so incredibly cliche it felt like something a child would conjure up. However, I plugged on and actually found myself quite enjoying the story following the introduction of more information about the characters. As the plot became more convoluted, I was honestly invested in what was going to happen. It was a fun read. However, near the end of the story, it felt like the
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author was attempting to hit every spot on a bingo board of basic “psychological” reveals. Twist after twist kept happening, each with just barely enough basis and hints throughout the story for me to not completely give up on reading it.
Additionally, what must be discussed is the representation of mental health. Without offering spoilers, the way the author portrayed mental health and the way it can affect others surrounding afflicted individuals I was actually surprised about. It did not victimize characters and excuse all their behavior because of a condition, but also did not turn them into villains simply because they are different, which is often the case in other media. This, however, is what I consider to be the most redeeming quality about the work. And in just about the last chapter, there was a piece of symbolism so on the nose I was narrating to myself about the stupidity of it. Again, at this point the writing felt a bit like a middle schoolers.
What truly needs to be discussed here is the ending, which is what drove such a dive in my scoring of this manhwa. If anyone has seen the Japanese live action Alice in Borderland, you know the scene near the end of the second season where Mira is “explaining” the world and you think “shut up, that can’t actually be it, right? No author who put a minute amount of work into this would actually make that the ending, right?” That’s the ending of Pigpen. So incredibly disappointing, but apparently Kim thought it was what would really get him that bingo on the board of surprising reveals. So much so that there are numerous chapters and hints throughout the manhwa explaining a needlessly convoluted ending that is just plain stupid.
Though I have mixed feelings about this work, which do lean towards the negative side, I will continue on with reading Kim’s other manhwa. Hopefully the other pieces can offer a more concise story, I definitely hope so considering their relatively astounding popularity. I certainly cannot say I have high hopes.
If you want a simple, fun read, I would recommend trying Pigpen. However, if you would like depth comparable to what I usually see from Korean psychological media, and would not like to sigh every other chapter out of disappointment that a plot reveal was seriously what just happened, I say maybe look elsewhere.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 5, 2021
I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable about sports anime; I have seen a good number of them. And I can say with good conscience that Skate Leading Stars has to be one of the worst, if not the worst, sports anime out there. This was such a horrid ice sports anime it left me with more appreciation for Yuri!!! on Ice.
This show was absolutely terrible. Everything about it was horrible and screamed lazy. Something that honestly left me dumbfounded was the fact that, a majority of the time, the skating scenes were not even animated. Yes, an anime which focuses on the premise
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of a stunning team skating competition did not even take the time to animate skating scenes. The characters would go out on the ice, the music would start, the screen would fade to black, and then the show picks back up after they have finished their performance. Seriously, that is just the worst possible production choice I could ever imagine, who allowed that? The sole good aspect about this is the fact that I did not have to see horrendous CGI skating. I respect them for choosing the lesser evil, and not showing anything at all.
Basically the only episodes with any actual skating in them are the first and the last episodes. What happened the rest of the time? Well, I couldn’t tell you. Not a single scene has any significance to the overarching plot or character development. Nearly half the dialogue felt like it was rambling on about their training and practices, which we never even get to see. Skate Leading Stars legitimately has some of the worst script writing I have ever seen, anime or otherwise. This show had a pretty strong lineup of voice actors, but completely ignored that and had the characters talk about absolutely nothing for twelve episodes.
The script may have been horrible, but even if it had been exceptional that cannot change the fact that there was a very evident lack of character development, or even character personalities whatsoever. These characters offer absolutely nothing. They have no backstory, no motivations, and no personality outside of watered down classic anime tropes. The character aspects the creators did choose to focus on had no relevance to the core plot. There was time spent discussing side characters and teams, but not in a quality manner such as in Haikyuu!!, but in a way in which screen time was wasted on characters that obviously would not even matter in the final competition.
I keep referring back to some sort of main or core plot, but even I have trouble labeling anything as a “core plot”, as nothing in this show mattered. You know in elementary school when teachers would draw a mountain to represent the tension rising and falling in a story? Now imagine a straight line. That’s Skate Leading Stars. Writing this review, I cannot stress enough how little happened during this show. I invested time into watching twelve episodes that I could have better spent staring at a wall. In my reviews, I try to at least say one thing that I appreciated or enjoyed about the show, but in this case, I cannot. As a sports anime fan, Skate Leading Stars is locked in the deepest, darkest portion of my mind in an attempt to forget about this atrocity.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Sep 27, 2021
When researching indie or obscure anime, Gankutsuou can often be found. As such, I was excited to watch the show; a sci-fi adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo sounded intriguing enough, but the style of the anime was also eye-catching. Upon watching the show, however, I was met with some of the worst animation and character writing I have seen to date. To add a disclaimer: I have not read The Count of Monte Cristo. This review is based purely on my experience watching the anime.
To start us off on this train wreck of a show, let’s touch upon the subject which gets
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many people intrigued about the show in the first place: the animation. The animation which is used in Gankutsuou is called “unmoving plaid” (or, to be specific “perspective incorrect texturing”). This style is essentially when patterns act as the coloring for characters, clothing, and surroundings instead of actual colors, as seen in shows like Chowder. At first, I enjoyed this artistic choice. It was fresh and added a new dimension to the show I had never seen in anime before. About a quarter of the way through the show, I realized that the use of unmoving plaid was likely not an “artistic choice” but an act of laziness. With everything in the show being animated as a pattern, the style lost any effect it had. Seeing a vase with an outline of flowers and a picture of roses simply pasted into it, I lost all faith I had in the animators. Unmoving plaid is simply a way to get out of fully animating something, and making that the basis for your entire show highlights an obvious lack of care. Had only the clothing of the characters been unmoving plaid, an effect of wealthy, textureful cloth could have been given to the characters, accentuating their luxurious lifestyles and adding to the ambiance. Additionally, anything that was not unmoving plaid was horribly done CGI. All trees, buildings, statues, and literally any moving object was animated to be CGI. The poorly done CGI on top of an already overly saturated unmoving plaid screen created an effect that was honestly horrendous.
The other prominent issue with Gankutsuou is the character writing. Nearly all the characters show a lack of motivation, and well they do it is poorly thought out or changes at the drop of a hat. The dynamic between the Count and Albert was intriguing, but was hardly flushed out and therefore made their interactions ambiguous, and not in a way where the ambiguity was planned. Albert and his love interest Eugenie are supposed to enter an arranged marriage but neither wanted it. Until about halfway through the show, that is, when they suddenly decide that they are madly in love and need to be together. Of course, there were some aspects of the writing and characters that were conceptually well done. Over the course of the show, Albert realizes that the abstract values which he held to be vitally important were untrue, and that everyone around him was deceiving him. I found it especially intriguing how the level of betrayal slowly seeped down, from the general universe, to his planet, to his country, to his close community, to his own family. Additionally, being tricked by the Count, someone he looked up to an unhealthy amount, was essentially damaging. I really did enjoy that part of the plot. That aspect, unfortunately, was so underdeveloped it did not get nearly as much focus as it deserved, and the entire show suffered because of it.
My final issue with this show is the amount of sci-fi forced down the throats of the viewers. Throughout the show, the amount of sci-fi content continues to increase, until it feels so forced and disconnected from the main plot of the show. This should have been a concern on the creators’ minds from the very beginning, as recreating a novel from 1844 with a sci-fi spin is not something that can not easily be done. After all, plots about space prisons and alien sicknesses don’t exactly fit with themes of familiar betrayal.
Overall, this show is very frustrating to me. Not only because it actually has some good concepts that are completely wasted, but because so many people deem this to be an “underrated gem”. As Gankutsuou was utterly disappointing from the point of view of it only being an anime, if I was a fan of Alexandre Dumas’s original story, I would likely be disgusted by this retelling.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Sep 9, 2021
As someone who loves psychological anime, this show was an utter disappointment. Everyone talks about it as though it is a groundbreaking piece of work, but Oddtaxi is nothing close to that; it barely deserves to be referred to as a Durarara!! knockoff.
The main source of praise for this show is due to the plot and characters (specifically the way they interact to move the story along). Despite the amount of reviews stating that Oddtaxi was a slow burn masterpiece, it is nothing of the sort. I am all for a large cast with overlaying stories under one plot umbrella, but that is only
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if it is done well. The amount of characters and their individual plots is too big for any of them to be well developed over the course of thirteen episodes. In an attempt to fit in the numerous characters, motivations, and plots, they all become shallow and bland. We’ve got good-cop bad-cop brothers, a few gangsters, an idol group, a lovesick middle aged man, and a number of other characters. That’s it. There is nothing more to the characters and they experience little growth over the course of the series. Even the characters who show growth amount to nothing. We see a teen fall into the role of an internet personality, and eventually realize his behavior is harmful. What does this have to do with the case of a missing girl? Again, I am completely for aligning multiple plots, but that’s only if they actually align. The only purpose of internet obsessed Kabasawa is to throw another character into the mix. Anyone can write one level, quirky characters and have them interact once to say that their paths have crossed. Had the cast been halved, we could have seen a deeper look into the psyches of the necessary characters, the plot would have been streamlined, and the overall watching experience would have increased exponentially.
Other praises I have seen for Oddtaxi include its “slow burn, but high tension” format. Oddtaxi was not slow burn, but subject to bad pacing. Slow burn insinuates there is a buildup of intensity over the course of the show. Oddtaxi, however, remained stagnant for pretty much the entire series. Every turn was predictable, and it felt as though the writers were not even trying to create twists. At the end of the first episode, I got my hopes up thinking there was going to be an aspect of unreliable narrator, or even anti-hero characterization. This assumption was unfortunately incorrect. Odokawa’s suspicious behavior (referring to his constant watch over someone behind his wall) which genuinely intrigued me was summed up in something which felt closer to a comedic relief scene than a long awaited reveal.
Speaking of reveals, the focus on the case of the missing girl, which was essentially only prevalent in the very beginning and ending of the show, was thrust onto the audience so abruptly and horribly I couldn’t believe it. After focusing on unrelated side characters for a majority of the show, the plot finally circles back to the idol girl group, and delves into the lives of one of the members for an unnecessarily long amount of time. And, just as suddenly as it began, the missing girl plot again vanishes. Also mixed into the final episodes is the big reveal of why everyone is an animal. This big reveal can be figured out in the first episode with close to little thinking.
Overall, Oddtaxi simply does not deserve the unfounded praise it is receiving. If someone who adores this show would like to argue with me, please do so, as I legitimately do not understand what has everyone up for a standing ovation.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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