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Sword Art Online. Infamous for a myriad of reasons, but omnipresent as the anime community's designated punching bag. The Big Bad of animanga.

It is undeniable that SAO has its issues, really. I’m well aware. And yet, it has this allure. This captivating magic. I will never, ever forget watching the Aincrad arc and all it had to offer, despite its issues.

Sword Art Online: Progressive - Aria of a Starless Night fixes many of them. In an attempt to remain spoiler-free, I will remain as ambiguous as possible in the coming wording.

The Progressive movie is told through the lens of Asuna’s experience on the ... first floor. Thus, how the movie begins is with a focus on her. Her family life, her grades, her school life… her friends. The first twenty minutes of the movie add more depth to her character than all of Aincrad and Fairy Dance could ever dream of. And it is so much better for it.

Thus, when we enter the world of the Nervegear, this time with knowledge of what tragedies will befall Asuna, there is a sense of connection and of foreboding. It is visceral.

And this is a common theme throughout the movie. As a cascading effect. Because of the solid setup at the start of the movie, grounding Asuna and Asuna’s relationships–especially to Mito, the deuteragonist of the film–served to amplify each character interaction that followed, then contributing to the next scene.

Which makes the twist all the more painful and shocking. Call it a subversion of every trope that usually permeates anime and characters *in* anime.

What follows is truly a sight to behold. From the ashes of what was called a series with terrible characters rises a phoenix born of the best of SAO… and then some.

However, with this added narrative, changes are necessitated. While, to begin, the movie does not diverge much from the established plot in Season 1, by the halfway mark, a rift begins to emerge between that of the main series and the events that are unfolding. And as the credits roll, it is as clear as day – Progressive canon will not be the SAO that you know and love (or hate, but who are you kidding? You love it.)

As usual on its SAO projects, A-1 has delivered on the production quality. Hail sakuga and hail LiSA, for they have made their presences known. I cannot wait for it to hit streaming–there are some amazing shots in the fight scenes that would make for incredible wallpapers. A-1 has also done away with that dreadful style that afflicted War of Underworld, which is a significant plus.

To summate, SAO:P is a project that puts on full display what Kawahara can really do. It is not perfect, but for what it’s done in its 97 minutes and the promise it holds for the next 97, it is well deserving of a 9.

Kadokawa is a Japanese media conglomerate founded in 1945.

And it is the bane of my existence.

Imagine this: in the leadup to your anime, you have to promote your show. Someone comes up with a brilliant idea: “let’s confuse them so much, they’ll HAVE to watch the show!” And what’s more, this idea actually fits with the themes of the story! And so, all the PR staff put their heads together and come up with an intriguing, faithful, and popular marketing campaign that garners eyes from all over.

People are constantly speculating, discussing, and spreading the word about your adaptation! Bloody brilliant! The PR team’s ... done its job, and a spectacular one at that. All you have to do now is execute even a HALF-decent adaptation and you’ll get a respectable number of BD/merch sales, possibly even enough to cover production costs. NOTHING can possibly go wrong.

Oh, wait.

There are a number of issues with your show. Subpar direction. Atrocious animation -- apart from one sakuga sequence in episode 1 by Hashimoto Ryuuki. Barely functional backgrounds. A disjointed story. How?

Well, your answer lies with 株式会社KADOKAWA - not Studio ENGI, as I, and many others, may be inclined to believe. Shall we begin?

Earlier this year, during KADOKAWA’s FY2020 report, the company outlined plans to ramp up anime production to 40 per year. 40. Per. Year. From. One. Company. It’s an obviously unsustainable plan - the industry in its CURRENT state is chock-full of production bottlenecks, overwork, and thin profit margins (if any at all). It didn’t bode well for anime as a medium. And Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru. (Tanmoshi) is case in point.

Tanmoshi entered production in LATE 2020. FOR A JULY 2021 PREMIERE. To illustrate how absolutely absurd that is, in an absolute time crunch, a studio may be able to produce a fully-animated episode of an anime in five weeks. (That’s an incredibly unrealistic pace for even just one good episode, let alone an entire cour, but we’ll let it slide.) Tanmoshi has approximately 13 episodes worth of animation material (the first episode premiered with 50 minutes - which in itself was a terrible decision that I’ll get to later).

So, doing some very simple mathematics with some very unrealistic benefit of the doubt, 13*5 comes out to 65 weeks for Tanmoshi to be a fully finished product with regard to animation. Assuming a July 1 production start date - again, being very generous here - that’s STILL ONLY 52 WEEKS AND SOME CHANGE. Oh and, of course not accounting for national holidays like Obon in September of 2020. So - that’s a whole 13 WEEKS shaved off the schedule. Which, again, for those of us who have forgotten our times tables, is TWENTY. GODDAMN. PERCENT. With this, inevitably, comes outsourcing. And said outsourcing did not perform well. Which is not out of the norm. So, uh, no surprise that the anime really struggles on the production value side of things.

You may be wondering, what does Kadokawa have to do with this? Well - as the owners of the rights to Tanmoshi, it’s Kadokawa who both choose a time to approach a studio AND who largely dictate when an anime will premiere. THEY foisted this timeline upon ENGI. Logically, the next question would be “why didn’t ENGI simply reject the project?”

Well… they couldn’t. Kadokawa is the majority stakeholder of ENGI. ENGI is beholden to Kadokawa. It’s likely that no other studio could handle such a fantastical contract, and so it was dumped upon the youngling ENGI - who, by the way, don’t have the greatest track record when it comes to their anime.

All this begs the question, “how is this remotely beneficial for Kadokawa?” Easy: as a publishing company first and foremost, Kadokawa couldn't care less about studios, anime as medium, or adaptations. Their first and predominant priority is the promotion of source sales - the light novels, in this case. Anything else is a bonus. Which means, the adaptation did its job. The light novel has skyrocketed in Oricon sales rankings, with all five volumes out currently in the top 20. (The light novels are GOOD.)

Thus, most of this train wreck of anime can be wholly attributed to Kadokawa -- ENGI really just needed more time.

I say most, because while I addressed the categories of Art and Sound (all of the production value related stuff), I have yet to consider the merits of the story. As a diehard fan of the source, I have my prejudices here - but they probably won’t matter. This is an objectively trash adaptation story-wise, too.

Remember that 50-minute premiere episode I said I was going to get to? We’ve just gotten to it. A terrible decision to start the cour off. What the anime did was take a coherent story - and rearrange events in the timeline to the point where the intrigue, the charm, the suspense - all vanished. It took a well-developed but mysterious Siesta and inappropriately (in the context of the story) contrasted it to the seemingly 2D, bland Natsunagi. The characters didn’t work with the flow of the story. In essence, it made episode 1 work better than it should have had it kept a normal length and stuck to the story - but in relation to the rest of the show, IT DIDN’T MAKE SENSE.

The story jumped from setting to setting, seemingly with no distinction to the development of any character, and left plotlines hanging unresolved until a later point with a dissatisfactory conclusion supported by a lack of exposition and storytelling.

There were hints of the source’s brilliance and of passion/competency on the part of the staff throughout Tanmoshi. Episodes 1 and 4, episodes 8 and 10, they were tolerable, acceptable, even, in many aspects. But that isn’t enough to salvage a show. It simply isn’t. If you’re considering getting into this show, may I suggest the light novel? Because otherwise, the show isn’t worth your time.

2/10.

Thanks, Kadokawa.

Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru (also known as The Detective is Already Dead, or its shorthand, Tanmoshi) is one of those experiences that you just cannot describe. It's a shame that this absolute gem of a light novel has flown under the radar for so long, but no longer! An official localization recently released and anime adaptation to air in a couple of days are present as well.

(As of writing, this is a summative review based on my experience of reading all five volumes currently available in all languages.)

Story - 9/10

Looking at the plot or the synopsis, one may come into this LN expecting some ... kind of mystery novel. But it's not -- far from it, in fact. You can't really talk about the story much without ruining the entire experience of reading it, but what I will say is this: the way Nigoju connects each and every thread across a breadth of volumes is a joy to see come together before your eyes. The twists and turns all make sense, and the storyline is original yet still pulls in elements of other works and real life. The way the tale is told adds to this incredible experience -- it manages to deftly weave humor and heavy moments alike with perspective changes and flashbacks. Also, IT'S NOT A HAREM. However, having sung its praises, I still must penalize it for having one-too-many convenient resolutions, dei ex machina, if you will. While they don’t detract too much from the overall fantastic novel, it’s still something slightly frustrating.

Art - 7/10

The art isn't always the best in Tanmoshi, which is why I'm docking it. The color spreads at the start are consistently amazing but the black-and-white sketches at some points almost look unfinished. Thankfully, this issue solves itself by Volume 3. Other than that issue, Umibozu’s art is almost magical, really adding and punctuating the most important moments of the world Nigoju creates, allowing for a tandem that works just like their novel counterparts, Siesta and Kimizuka.

Characters - 8/10

Every character has motivations that are explained well by their slowly-unfolding backstories, with actions that fall in line with these pasts and clear connections between where they were and how they got here. It begins with the tale of our protagonist, Kimihiko Kimizuka, and as the world and the people in it expand, so do the variety of characters and their additions to the story. The author manages to avoid falling into cliches and tropes while also not being too outlandish.

Enjoyment - 10/10

As I've said before, reading Tanmoshi is an experience that... you just can't explain without ruining it for others. I promise you, it is worth going in blind and getting absolutely hooked on this series. It is a level of enjoyment that very few other pieces of art have *ever* provided for me.

In summation, Tanmoshi is a franchise that has its faults, as does any piece of media. But its faults pale in comparison to its splendid plot, natural characters, breathtaking art, and incomparably excellent reading experience.
OVERALL: 9/10.

Is the animation iffy? Yes. Does that detract from the overall experience? Yes. But by God is the hate train on this anime excessive.

Look, I'll give you this: the art itself could have been improved upon. But the manga-style adaptation is not altogether terrible. It was executed in a subpar manner, but that does not make other aspects of the visuals less appealing -- the close-up shots of Tatsu were high-quality, as were the colors. Unfortunately, by using stills to this extent, the visuals demanded top-notch quality for background elements as well as the focuses; Gokushufudo fell short here.

The story is as funny as ... you'd think. Nothing gut-busting, but it got a few chuckles out of me. It's an interesting and original premise that flowed well. Each 17-minute episode has six mini-episodes in it, self-contained for the most part. It flowed well together and was an enjoyable binge.

Sound-wise, the voice acting was STELLAR. Tsuda-san exceeded all expectations as Tatsu and the rest of the cast was also impressive. The OST, while nothing to write home about, does its job (though I must say, I really liked the theme they played whenever something sinister was insinuated). The sound effects were a bit overblown, and I think it was an overcompensation for the lack of movement visuals-wise. That's a negative.

The characters are there, I guess. This isn't a story where that's the focus, but they weren't poorly-written or anything.

It was a pretty enjoyable experience overall. While the visuals don't make the anime as great as it could have been, and the sound effects were excessive, the comedy and story worked well and were still a staple of the anime. If you're anxious about the visuals, give it a try. It hooked me regardless.