Detective Conan began in Heisei 5, and continued into Reiwa. That's not unusual, really, and it is by no mean the longest running comic series, but by success, it is the most consistently successful one, artistically and commercially.
Let's get TLDR out of the way. If you wonder if you should start 1000 chapters of Mei Tantei Conan (MTC) now, don't. If you have read it in the past, and are pondering if you should catch up, don't. If you have caught up and wonder what everyone else's opinion on it, don't find out. There's nothing to see. Who is MTC for then? Well, it's for
...
people with too much time, but not free enough to read up a review on it.
Mei Tantei Conan, or Detective Conan, or Case Closed, is a comic written and illustrated by Aoyama Goushou, first published in 1994, or Heisei 5, 5 years after Hirohito passed away. As of writing, we are in Reiwa 3, 4 now as of uploading. The time scale seems exaggerated, but to fans of the long-running series, I think many share the sentiment that the series had dragged itself into the 2020s. With such a long running series, many things popped up that's worth bringing up over the course of the series, especially things that seem to be outside the scope of the story itself, and the review will be addressing them, because it is worth talking about.
But I digressed. Mei Tantei Conan is a story about a high school detective who miraculously survived a disposal attempt by a shadowy organisation through the consumption of a deadly poison. The series is essentially an episodic, monster of the week, murder mystery with an overarching spy plot and romance subtext. It seems like a winning formula, and it is, but it is also where the trouble starts. One series that comes to mind as I catch up with MTC after the last catching up a decade ago, is Sherlock. Steven Moffat and Goushou's approaches are eerily similar. They both started a mystery early on, and then have cases lining in between the overall arching plot and characters. Insert some romance and relationship in between and we have a formula. While Moffat had much less time and even went on to develop other series with the exact formula, in a similar way, Goushou had kept MTC going through almost 3 decades with the same formula. I won't say it was done badly, even if it's formulaic. The art style, the mystery, the plot had been quite consistent over the years. It doesn't feel like the author was losing interest in his work, and his passion remains, which is very impressive for something that had been running for so long. The amount of research and thinking that had been done as sets up is no small feat. These qualities are both overrated by its fans and underrated by its critics. For now, we will stay positive.
The overall plot being compared to Sherlock is quite impressive, though both works come from the same source of inspiration, so that much is a given. The story established primary villains identified very early on, as the archnemesis of the protagonist being very mysterious, equally capable and very resourceful. I would describe the "main plot" chapters as being a spy story, which Death Note reminded me of the first time I read that. It's thrilling and interesting, but also quite elementary, with sparks and fireworks rather than something thoughtful. The deeper you dig, the more problems you find. However, we are trying to stay positive, so I can safely say that if someone loves Sherlock and Moffat's plot, they will love MTC.
Then we have the monster of the week storyline. I recalled putting Kindaichi over MTC in this category. The problem with MTC isn't that it wasn't good, if anything, I think mystery fans have stuck with the story through thick and thin thanks to Goushou's dedication to please them with mysteries. Most cases in MTC wrap up in 3 to 6 chapters, around 100 pages. Reading them weekly, it can be exciting to go through the pages and collect the hints dropped by the author to figure out the mystery. While not all cases worked the same, some are clearly action packed breathers, and some are just regular puzzles, most can be solved with a bit of thought. There are instances where I found the solution to be a little too incredulous, which kind of defeats the point of the mystery genre entirely, but that negativity will be saved for later.
Last to be discussed are the characters. Here's another Moffat, Goushou connection that plays out well. They are both capable of creating fun, interesting connections between characters that they played around with along with the plot and the weekly case. Many fans have their favourites, including pairings or as they call it "ships", some even homosexuals or unusual, but that won't be discussed because I have little interest in them. The point is, Goushou had hit it out of the park with the characters, else such discussion wouldn't have taken place. The fun, energetic romantic comedy dynamics pleases the core Japanese audience, who are seemingly starved for romance. Though this would be discussed later, development would be something I advice readers not to seek.
Finally, of course, is the art. I think for the last 15 years, the art has not changed. Goushou's collection of works isn't impressive, but they have been pretty good over the years. From Yaiba to Conan around chapter 150, his art had been refined and to me, solidified. The quality consistency is very impressive. It is not easy to manage more than one series with consistent art with relatively regular outputs. Many other long running series have had trouble with output, consistency or both. The late Miura Kentarou's health's problem prevented regular output, while Hitoshi's Historie struggled with both output and quality. Hitoshi's situation is even more hilarious as he likes to go back to polish up his old works for the volume, Tankoubon release, which delayed and worsened the latest release situation. Goushou's consistency is admirable, and should be appreciated by his detractors more.
Yet, for all of its strength, there's a huge problem with MTC. I admit, I loved MTC as a teen, but I soon found out the hard way that it was not love, it was merely a crush. What's the difference between love and a crush? You forget about a crush. MTC's consistency and formula come with a trade-off, innovation. If the entire work had been wrapped up in 10 years, I think I would have had a better impression of it. But 2 decades is a long time, and things have changed. My perspective quickly shifted as I passed through puberty and outgrew MTC just as it gets into its gear, after the short returning to adulthood arc at the school play. I think I caught onto the formula and I no longer feel compelled to follow it anymore, until 6-7 years later when I decided to pick up the series again. The fact that nothing changed, the art, the characters, the overall plot, made me realise why some fans are begging the author to end it. The series is not irrelevant, but it is certainly stuck in the past. MTC might have been fun, exciting in the 90s, but for 2020, it is just not something amazing anymore. The Simpson also lost its quality after the first few seasons, but MTC problems had always been there since the beginning, and time did not cause a drop in quality, it merely exposed the flaws to the adult audience. Unlike its readers, MTC had not aged, Conan also had not. That can be good and bad at the same time. MTC might serve as an anchor to some, being something that despite the changing world, does not change. Yet, at the same time, its formula dictated that the Black Organization's goal cannot be revealed. This is the exact same problem that Sherlock and Moffat have, the mystery is the key to their stories' popularity, more revelation diminishes interests rather than raising it. People are also tired of being led by their nose for 20 years. Without revealing the overall plot, the villains and their elements can be added or removed at will, which exposes the plot's immaturity. The actions of the villains can be anything, because their goal is not revealed, so the conflict between the protagonists and the villains are boiled down to superhero stories. The bad guys want to do bad things, and the good guys want to do good things. That's cool for 10, even 15 years old, but for 20, and now more than 30 years old, it's frustrating. There's no symbolism, there's no journey, because there's no endpoint. People are angry about Shingeki no Kyojin's ending, but the fact that the story has foundation, has a theme, has an overarching plot and each of its arc is progressing towards an end and consistent with its theme makes it the best Shounen in the last decade. I can't say the same for MTC. I am well aware of MTC's place in the market, why it exists and why it has its fans, but I think its critics made very good points that got ignored. I do not call for an end to the series, I don't have an opinion on the matter, but there's a limit on how long the audience can be led from mystery to mystery with endless filters in between. By incorporating all the sellable elements, mystery, action, and romance, the series did not build on any of them. The romance subplot remains relatively static, even forgotten recently. The mystery as I have explained above, can never be more than bite size. The actions are confined by the nature of the plot. It cannot have too much tension, because tension needs some sacrifice. Without any of the major characters really at the risk of death, the actions are frivolous. By having a major character surviving one of the plot points, the series essentially lost all of its dramatic tension. The audience can be in comfort that these characters are probably going to live until the author decides to end the series with a bang. Can we be sure there will be a satisfactory bang? Or is it going to fizzle out like a fart?
MTC is still going strong despite the flow of time, but personally, I think time is precious, and MTC is really not worth anyone's time to catch up on more than 1000 chapters. The fact that I feel comfortable writing a review on an ongoing series, even a conclusion on it, is quite concerning. I think the series can end in about 5-6 years, but by then, where would it be? Where can it be? I can essentially write the same thing about One Piece, but that would make a bigger audience mad. At least One Piece lives in the frivolous world of action Shounen, and has no qualms about adding more problems, more villains to its story. MTC's overall plot contradicts its structure, and creates hostility with the crowd it is trying to please. I don't have much else to say, even if you have the time, I would recommend doing something else.
The illogical things I can think of: the main cast are murder and crime magnets. Even the worst of towns have less crime frequency than Japan if Conan is any indication. The sleeping detective farce got really old, really fast. The Black Organisation shifts from secretive to disposing people in public with guns and explosives at will. Are security cameras not a thing? Why is the FBI operating outside of the U.S. border? Shouldn't that be the CIA? The Japanese police would not be happy having the FBI inside their jurisdiction. Getting shot and blood loss against death seems to be random. One of the characters received multiple gunshots but walked away relatively fine while others died from a blow to the head, or some wounds, or ingesting a small amount of poison. Some victims demonstrated remarkable ability to form puzzles to indict the perpetrator as they are dying. Why do criminals like to form puzzles to give police clues so much? It's such an irregularity that in Batman, that's Riddler's entire character. Speaking of which, the main cast ability to solve puzzles can be enhanced and diminished at will. Characters can be clueless about romance at will too, being able to imagine far flung scenarios while being unable to catch the simplest of clues. The same goes for the media, which made characters go from super famous to having to be introduced. Some mystery solutions are also extremely creative, too creative that it almost makes no sense. Physical capabilities are also very exaggerated, yet used as reasoning sometimes. All of these exaggerations and inconsistencies that necessitate suspension of disbelief makes solving mysteries at home frustrating, because why would anyone buy into the rule of the universe if it has been shown to be inconsistent. All of those tricks seem ridiculous rather than creative.
|
No Picture
All (1)FriendsAlso Available atRSS Feeds |
May 3, 2022
Meitantei Conan
(Manga)
add
Mixed Feelings Preliminary
(1090/? chp)
Detective Conan began in Heisei 5, and continued into Reiwa. That's not unusual, really, and it is by no mean the longest running comic series, but by success, it is the most consistently successful one, artistically and commercially.
Let's get TLDR out of the way. If you wonder if you should start 1000 chapters of Mei Tantei Conan (MTC) now, don't. If you have read it in the past, and are pondering if you should catch up, don't. If you have caught up and wonder what everyone else's opinion on it, don't find out. There's nothing to see. Who is MTC for then? Well, it's for ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
 0
Love it
 0
Funny
 0
Confusing
 0
Informative
 0
Well-written
 0
Creative
 0Show all 
Feb 10, 2022
Bradherley no Basha
(Manga)
add
Recommended
Don't expect much, it's mostly shock value.
I don't think I have much to say about this, but many people have expressed their inability to understand the story. Someone had detailed the story in other review. Those are more helpful than this one. Now, I would only discuss some intention that the author tried to insert into it. It is really short, but I can't really recommend it. I would recommend Mikai no Hoshi. Women's suffering is one thing, the other major theme is in dream, desire, unchecked power, power structure, human's cruelty and even the spirit of endurance. In it, there's also some spite towards naivete, ... which isn't very feminist friendly, but nevertheless, it is fiction. The story is very simple, I will spoil it since I don't recommend it. The orphans are sent to a prison for reprieve, so they do not have them going out of control, under the guise of adoption by family that rules the land. It mixed in the theme of art and artist, in which art was mentioned multiple time, in this case opera, as the desire of every orphan girls. Those orphan girls who weren't chosen, might be sent to work as servants of different family, never managed to achieve the dream of the girls in the orphanage. Each chapter is a tale surrounding the prison, and then subsequently things get more revealing, as the passage of time marches on. The girls grew wiser and more aware of the deceit, despite many going into their own death unknowingly. Every time the carriage goes to the prison, it really felt like looking at lamb going to the slaughter. The author had mentioned that he intended the story to be an erotic one, but found himself losing interest as he goes on. It really shows as he doesn't really explore the concept, the setting, the theme very much. It really feels like a doujin than a proper short comic. Added to that is the episodic structure. This is why it felt disjointed, despite the entire plot being very coherent, the emotion very clear and understandable. I would say there's nothing subtle about it, but nothing honest either, as everyone is speaking, yet all of them avert their eyes to the truth. The story is neither deep nor memorable, but it is more shocking than anything else. Which is why Mikai no Hoshi, which has everything this does, but executed in even shorter amount of pages and to a crueller ending, had done this much better. I don't find the theme and story confused at all, particularly knowing that it was supposed to be an erotic doujin. This isn't the best read, there isn't much for everyone in here. Read if you feel curious. Still, the artist does Elizabethan England pretty well. I wished it didn't have this story attached to it and simply tell the story of "Downton Abbey". The story clearly has similar theme about old nobility, their apathy, vanity and backwardness that rendered them empty at the end of their days. He could have picked that path instead. I wonder if he and Hal has some sort of connection. This story feels very Hal-ish.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Feb 10, 2022
Hametsu no Oukoku
(Manga)
add
Mixed Feelings Preliminary
(20/? chp)
Review for an ongoing series? This is madness!
Yet, the only maddening thing to me, is how this series starts. Over the years, going through piles of crappy comics, especially web ones, I have found certain template that authors like to use to guide their story. I think this is one of those cases where the template was taken a look at and tossed aside. That's a little too far into the story part, so let's pull it back. Hametsu no Oukoku is a comic written and illustrated by Yoruhashi. I am pretty sure there's a web comic series made by him floating around online. That ... one was very webcomicky, quite rough yet extremely competently made. There's something that web comic artist struggle to do. Stringing frames together, especially action ones. Most do not have formal training at making comics. They are mostly illustrator turns comic artist. This person webcomic is in between. The frames are clearly very web comic, which means a lot of wide angle shot, more emphasise on the computer graphics, whether it's background or shining stars and such. People are not easy to draw, so the less people in frame, the better. It also creates a feeling of "grandeur", which can impress and intrigued young readers. This is why adventure games usually start with rich environment, to draw in the viewer's curiosity. In normal comics, it is much more like a movie, which usually is framed through a storyboard. Perhaps it is the opposite, movie makers start making movies according to comic artist layout. You have different shots to emphasise different element, depending on where the author wants the story to go. If a character is going through an emotional ride, it should start with close ups, emphasising their facial expression, then moving slowly out to their posture, body language, then to the person comforting them, then to a wide shot with all the characters around them to show that they are not alone. It is very simple, but often web comic don't really do this, or doing it subconsciously because they were imitating what they see rather than being educated on the experience that 50 to 100 years of comics have been through. In any case, this is to emphasise that the author is probably an unpolished gem, picked up by some editor, sent to work under someone tutelage and now able to publish their own work. The first thing to start should be the art, I want to avoid discussing the story for now, but I will try to segue into it as smoothly as possible. If I have to find a word to describe the art, it would be astoundingly competent. Normally, you would look through an artist body of work and observe them refine their style. The author seems to be a very competent illustrator that turns to comics, yet still be able to draw environment pretty well, and very detailed. I have to admit I was shocked all the way as the story rolls, with frames after frames of very well done art. It's almost unique as well, because it carried a ton of that rough web comic framing. Big, bold wide frames, continue to roll in. I was not used to seeing such detail, competent illustration on such an unprofessional and unpolished framing, especially the action scenes. The story might have influenced that, but I do think that the art deserves high praises, if nothing else, just for being very pretty. It's similar to Obata, but Obata shading is just unique and magnificent, while this is merely pretty. Yet, I do see signs of framing being used. The author do break, drawing characters across frames to show them and the scenery at the same time. Such techniques never show up in webcomics, and could have been taught during their training period. The feeling of webcomic never cease to hang around, probably due to the way shading, shadowing is done. I don't hate it, but the lingering unpolished webcomic-ness makes me confused, but that's much better than annoyed or repulse. Isekai trash adaption could learn from the author on how to adapt those works, rather than drawing many empty background frames, masked with speech bubbles so they don't have to draw anything else. That being said, I am pretty sure it took a lot of effort and time to finish, hopefully the author can learn how to use their time better by reducing details and works on parts that do not need so much work on. I do have to add that the main problem with modern comics and webcomic illustration to me had always been the lack of style and artistical expression. I don't know how to describe it until I attend a fine art class, but that gap in the art really pops, especially one as nicely drawn as this. Speaking of Isekai trash, I thought this was one of them initially. The story, described in a few word, is a speed run of the usual revenge is bad plotline from seinen. That is to say, it isn't very good. It is not original, intriguing, gripping nor exciting. It falls flat in everything it is doing, whether it's context, lore, character, dialogues or emotion, it does badly everywhere. To me, I think this might be the opposite of a webcomic issue. This might be the editor telling the author to condense the story or the "prologue", and get right into the action. I feel some sort of story template was consulted when the idea was pitched, but was quickly canned after a few rounds with the editor. Let's go into spoiler territory here, though this is the spoiler for the review that you would want to read, I don't recommend this comic. -S- The first major issue is with the core emotional drive of the story. It's not that it isn't clear nor not communicated properly, it was just that its delivery was weak. The author sets up the emotional core through mostly flashback, which is a terrible way to introduce the characters. I am not going to say the main characters weren't introduced properly, but their core emotional struggle is just done out of the blue, more than anything else. The usual template would be to start with the main character struggle to survive, then his mentor picked him up. He would initially be fearful and distant from his foreign mentor, but then eventually warm up to her as they journey together. That entire set up, which usually takes up the first 1-2 volume of a story, was done in a small series of flashback. This is a lot worse than that time when SAO TV series sets up the main character entire motivation and emotional drive by establishing those characters in 1 episode then killing them in that episode. I know some people say it's entirely possible, and that many have done it before. You need to remember that most series that did that had to push the main character to the wall first, before using the dead in this episode to pull them out, only for them to die, motivating the main character to fight on, or into despair. A good example would be Kaworu. Not only did Eva spend 5 previous episodes dragging Shinji through the mud, it blew everyone into depression before adding Kaworu, who seems to be the only one who knows everything yet still enjoy the situation and provided the main character with the intimacy and life line he had wished for the entire time, only to have it yanked away cruelly. That's how it should be done, not in the SAO TV series way of casually introducing the character, adding some fast forward, then killing them off. This is far worse, because when the main character gets angsty at everyone, I don't feel pain in my soul nor sympathy, because I feel nothing. There's not context to their relationship, nothing for the reader to latch onto. The thing that the author chose to anchor the story on, is the edge. That's right, this is the edgiest pile of garbage of a story since Akame ga Kill. That series death easily beats Hametsu no Oukoku's weak, uninteresting characters at every corner. The main connection that you have with the mentor in the beginning is basically how she's hot, yet was brutally executed in gory details. Gore can be fun, and I have found them to be fun in the past, but it needs to have context to be fun and interesting. Badly done, random gore in comics are often very uninteresting. I would only bring up one small gore example to demonstrate why gore works and why this doesn't. The gore in the famous bathroom gore that's probably originated in Japan suggested sexual, emotional abuse, self-harm or suicide. It is thought invoking, intriguing, and the imagery is deliberately vague yet exposed in very gory way. That works because it subtly provides the context and is photographed in interesting way. This is not, the character is just butchered, and then done, we move on to the next chapter. This is as if the author has zero interest in anyone other than the main characters, the chosen ones. This is beyond silly. Side characters, even villains, should represent an aspect of the main character, if the author decide to write a story revolving around protagonists rather than event. This is a revenge story, so obviously it will be about the characters. Yet, these side characters were introduced, a twist about them is revealed, they are eliminated and then the main characters move on. This was done about 3 times over the course of 20 chapters. It contradicts the revenge premise. Revenge is always about the value of life. It comes from an eye for an eye mentality, and standing opposite of that is the circle of violence argument. Yet, if the story keeps on chugging along, treating lives like trash, who's going to care about his grief, which is the main character's main driving force. There's more to the trashy story other than the basic premise and execution being complete nonsense. The plot itself is full of predictable twists, coming from a template, that fails to impress because the story seems uninterested in them, almost. I wonder what's the point of those twists, if they are just introduced, then twisted within the span of 10 pages? I am not sure why the author is speed running the "prologue", because they basically started the story a few times over. The first start they could have went with was the one I mentioned above. The second is how the story actually started, with the mentor being executed. The third would have been the secondary main character backstory with her friend who didn't want her to join the mission. Then, she could have been shown to think about her friend despite being stuck in jail. I also thought the fan of the terrorist could have been an entire storyline on its own as well. The last one would be when they reach their first town, after 20 chapters. Stories starting in the middle have worked multiple times before. Berserk's flashback took up a huge chunk of the story. This could have been done exactly like Berserk, which coincidentally is almost a revenge story as well, eventually becoming a story about redemption. I don't understand why the author went through so many story inception templates. It is almost for no apparent reason. Further adding to the mess is the various touch and go subplots. If the author wants these details added to add weight to the fight, they have to properly introduced them, letting the journey soak those characters into the reader's mind before introducing the twist and the end of the subplot. Those characters are just killed, mostly arbitrarily, which is a huge disappointment. Akame ga Kill had the courtesy to set up those characters shallowly before cutting off their heads. This is a big pile of mess. I also noticed some inconsistencies, such as the secondary main character being fearful of the protagonist despite her being sent in to get him out. There are more nonsense such as the teleportation tracking thing etc... Issues with the stories and characters are just endless. -s- Overall, the story is not good. It is not set up well, not well told, and have basically no payoff. All of the subplot beginning and end abruptly, like someone change the channel. It's not something worthy of emotional investment, precisely because it is lacking in that. Do I enjoy this professionally done webcomic. I would say, a little. I find it refreshing after slogging through piles of Isekai trash, but it really does belong with them. It is so badly conceived, I wonder how it got through editorial, or perhaps editorial is where it was butchered. In any case, decent art, shit story. I would recommend this to Isekai trash artists to shame them about webcomic artist being able to produce this level of work, and to webcomic artist to show them how they can use traditional comic techniques rather than the awful webcomic format. For comics fan who are curious about a middle ground between proper comics and webcomic, this is a good sample. I think that was the only thing that kept me going.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Nov 22, 2021
Koi wo Shiranai Bokutachi wa
(Manga)
add
Recommended
Shoujo, school, romance, drama are as cookie cutter as they get. These tags dominate the shoujo comic sphere. It has been done over and over again, with almost the same set up, plotline, only deviation is in the quality of the drama and the message of the comic. For Koi wo Shiranai Bokutachi wa, or We don't know love, it started really well.
I didn't quite emphasise how overdone the setup is, of all the shoujo comics on the top list, at least 60% of them have this premise. It can't be helped, it is the target audience, young girls. That being said, Koi wo Shiranai ... Bokutachi wa started out great by breaking off a little from other shoujo comics, but nothing new for the author, by framing the story from the boy perspective. I was pleasantly surprised by the premise and tone initially. It is a little slow and methodical, letting the audience into the melancholy and inner struggle of the character as he experiences his ups and downs. That was pretty well done and interesting. As for the cast, it's unfortunate but other than the 2 so-called main characters, the rest of the cast can be a little bland, even forgotten, or can be considered token. It is the fault of the story for shifting focus from character to character, yet did not provide enough screen time for them, nor elaborate on them enough. A little spoiling ahead. The childhood friend and the best friend are both nice people archetype. I have little to say about them, even if their narration isn't terrible. Their act was only interesting because of the main character, or characters emotional roller coaster and stake in their relationship. Then, there's the cheerful band guy with his crush. While he's not unlikable, he's also the very embodiment of cookie cutter. I neither hate nor love him, he's almost realistic in that sense. His crush is also the strict quiet inexperience girl archetype. Her dealing with her emotion was interesting, but that's also about it. I can sort of tell she's supposed to be more prominent than other "secondary protagonists", but I don't find her character to be different enough. The good thing about the cast, is that they are all likeable, but best of all was the 2 leads. I really adore how the main character is simultaneously doesn't seem to care about what he does, yet being depressed about things that happens to him. It's quite real, and relatable, not the part where 3 of the girls are interested in him at some point, of course. The shoujo comics don't usually depict male's insecurity very well, while female insecurity is dramatised a little excessively. I'm not saying women's struggle is overly emphasise. I am saying people's emotion is more subtle and is a process of accumulation. Depicting that might be a little boring, but I don't think the comic did a bad job. It relies on inner dialogues to communicate insecurities, which is apt for people of their age. The main character is such a down-to-earth yet emotionally depressed guy that you feel for him, but you can also see that it is merely a phase. He might feel terrible for his own circumstance, but he can overcome it, because it is merely youthful passion, which is abundant in shoujo comics, but often is quite "dream-like", which I would described as cheesy. That's some decent characterisation. Then there's the other main character. Her role initially seems like a villainous one, but then as the story progressed, we sort of realised she's exactly the same as the main character, someone tormented by their emotional fickleness. She was the hidden main character until the later half of the story. It keeps the drama under our toes, threatening to bubble up at any moment. That's the kind of fun drama and Korean dramas so expertly and exhaustively harness. By the end, I think a lot of the audience was on her side. We saw her insecurity and weakness, and then the hero came in to save her. But, her hero isn't some sort of popular, random chad out of her fantasy. It's the friendly neighbourhood guy who went through similar struggle, able to sympathise and care for her. That's why the relationship works, and the terrible, cheesy, drawn out ending is earned. Their journey was interesting and full of youthful impulse, which is what makes shoujo manga ticks. I do think I have to mention the weak and quite abrupt ending. I wonder if the author doesn't want to end there and was forced to, or did she ran out of patience and decided to kill it after pouring out the rest of her story ideas. You would get it if you read through the comic. It's not the worst of ending, but definitely for the ride that the audience went through, as well as the details she dished out in the last 3 chapters, it could have had a longer, more drama filled story, the likes of Seo Kouji stuffs and Korean Drama. Instead, it ended on a rather unsatisfying note. I envisioned the author thought about adding more drama such as the 2 main characters noticing the difficulty in connecting to each other and overcoming the girl's emotional burden. The childhood friends couple having some hot and cold episode. The main character developing some dangerous sympathy for the librarian etc... I do prefer to end things short and sweat, for the genre, it's almost counter-productive. The characters are relatively fun and likeable enough for me to want to see more. No more spoilers While I do think there's much left to be desired, I think Koi wo Shiranai Bokutachi wa is worthy of every shoujo comic fans time, boys and girls. It is a rare breed that done shoujo comic some justice rather than milking the genre dry by squeezing the low hanging fruits. It does make me miss high school, being hype by friends relationship and giving them comfort when they have problems. That's pretty high praise for a school comic.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Nov 4, 2021
Called Game
(Manga)
add
Recommended Preliminary
(15/? chp)
This series has yet to end, but I feel that at least on MAL, it seems to be underestimated.
Seldom, does Shoujo comics really give weight to its characters. It's fine and dandy to write a story about falling in love with a hunky king or prince, who has a "dark" side to them. It makes those characters mysterious and sexy, following the "bad guy" archetype. This is one of those few Shoujo comics that I think has that male appeal in it, and those rare specimens should be praised and promoted. Since it only has a dozen chapters so that is available translated, I ... shall not discuss the plot too heavily. The story took some inspiration from Henry VIII court. Some characters are blatantly dropped from it. The main character seems to come from Brittany, which really don't make much sense, but you shall have to see it to get what I mean. It focused on the theme of court intrigued, role of women, strength, duty, determination and self worth. It's quite a pleasant read if you like a fun story. I think the word that I would use to describe it would be "cool". A lot of things don't make sense, or contrived, or even ridiculous, but it never ceases to diverge from its tone and purpose, nor did it not remain "cool". The author cleverly leaves a lot of logic at the door, focus on the emotional side, but not such frivolous emotions from the spawns of "isekai" into Otome games as a women, which simultaneously provides an intriguing story to be followed, as well as drawing a fantasy of meeting and falling in love with a person of great status and wealth, who loves you back. However, while not extremely rare in the world of girl's comic, Cold Game has that edge that can be found in selected few works that don't treat female main character as self-insert, either of the author or the audience. No matter how much I love Higashimura's comics, her main characters usually do stray far away from being self-insert for low self-esteem ladies, and puts them in very fantastical scenarios. In Tokyo Tarareba Girls, I thought the male lead dropped some truth bombs into their world, but in the end it ended a little rosy, and the main character didn't change. It merely acknowledged the reality, but reality realisation did not make any changes in the characters, seemingly afraid of no longer being relatable. This is where Cold Game edged out Higashimura in term of character. The main character, acknowledged their own short coming, frustrated by the admission of weakness, actually changed and improved herself after having her pride hurts. She picked herself up and moves on, accepting the new reality. That's some heavy lesson that's almost completely absent from girl's comic, because it's uncomfortable and confrontational. I think it is note worthy for being one of the few girl's comic that dares to make their main female character grow, rather than being humiliated yet able to cling on some sort of mental victory. Though, it needed to be said, that the court intrigues are rather simplistic, predictable and many of the things that happens are convenient. However, I love that it puts the main character through some serious trial and tribulation, while maintaining that girl's comic fantasy. That's very cool. I also love the male comic elements with execution, kidnapping, murder, death and combat. Ladies comic usually avoids dramatise violence, while men's works enjoy violence a little too much. This is a good balance. Death and violence are there to heighten the stake, drama, put weights into the characters actions. That's why I find the lame death in time rewind / reincarnation copy paste to be so nauseating. Death of characters should be respected, because it adds finality to character's action. Without it, why should we care if a character's is lured into an ambush? About the art, I can see it being divisive. Personally, it looks good. The characters clothing and background in the castle are clearly researched. Though I do have qualms about historical accuracy, I can see that the author avoids that path, to allow for the element of "coolness" from history without being dragged through the court of history buffs. It's how GoT skirted around all the nonsense. This is more of a "I hope these works get more attention" sort of forum post rather than a review. I hope the comic will carry on its momentum. If it is ever finished and translated, I will update this. Good works deserve attention.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Sep 6, 2021
Mahou Sensei Negima!
(Manga)
add
Recommended
Negima confuses me.
Mahou Sensei Negima was started by Akamatsu as a ploy. He wanted to write an action manga, so he started with what's he's familiar with, romcom, before take turn away from romcom into something much more interesting. Before I go on, I have to admit, I was a fan of the series since the beginning, so my opinion will naturally be clouded by bias. To me, it is one of the finest shounen ever written. The accidental genius of Negima was Akamatsu's clever ploy. I really doubt he thought having romcom elements dropping all over action shounen would work so well. However, I have ... to give credit to his handling of the pace of the story. If I have to give an example of how well these 2 genres mashed with each other, XCOM would be the closest. In XCOM, the strategic, base building, equipment management, soldier gears and abilities are preparation for the field battle phase, which depends on how you play it, have massive strategic implication with soldiers being dead or wounded, how much materials are recovered, which can be used to create new equipment or put into research. This is the relationship the romcom and the action played out in Negima. The main character's growth as a fighter serves as great background for the romcom to play around, which is also serves as motivation or plot device for the action. A non-spoiler example would be a character taken a romantic interest in the main character, which led her to acquire power to help him, which contributed to her addition in the action. That makes for very intriguing and involving plot. This is what I want to see from other shounen works. Very often, the romantic comedy part is served as side dish, or occasional event. That's very disappointing. It's not merely about the romantic comedy as well, character's motivation, relationships are much better expressed through desire. Most shounen's character motivations are too static. A character is assigned to one, then they pursuit it throughout the story, without it being very relevant after their act. That's rather disappointing. A character should grow, especially after a few hundred chapters. Their circumstance, relationship, desire should shift according to the state of the plot. Having characters being too static is what led to the monster of the act escalation. The story just keeps getting bigger and bigger in scale, but nobody really changes. Good shounen, such as FMA or D-Gray man, avoid this pitfall by shifting the characters powers and relationship as the series goes on. That's the key to keep the series interesting. Another lesson shounen can learn from this, is how to handle acts and escalation. I don't think I have read a better action shounen than Negima since its release. The pace of the acts are just, terrific, particularly before the final battle nonsense. The time investment in each acts are done so incredibly well, it's astounding how a romcom writer can make much better shounen than the likes of Mashima Hiro. Each acts give plenty of time for character's training and growth, before throwing them into the action, then let them learn the lesson from the fight before in their training, and so on. It's so simple, you would think shounen authors would follow it strictly. Unfortunately, they like to let characters grow new power in the middle of the battle. That does not feel cathartic, that makes it seems like the protagonists win because they are the protagonists. We need training acts, because shounen without training acts is power fantasy. Shounen as a genre is about positive reinforcement. The more effort you put in, the better result you would get. Characters work hard to become stronger, not because they find power from somewhere then destroy their opponent with it. In Negima, whenever the main characters need something to win, they get it from before the fight, not during the fight. Most power ups were set up from before, with backstory mentioning why such and such possess what power before the fight takes place. It never breaks the spirit of overcoming through effort, spirit and of course, the power of nakama. That's not to say there isn't any flaw with Negima. In fact, I think the last act was such a let down, I didn't write a review for the series back when it finished. I put down the comic then forget about the entire thing because of how poorly the last act was written. This, unfortunately, was the prelude to the as the time of writing, ongoing shit storm that is UQ holder. Putting the fun story asides, the art of Negima puts everything else to shame. This is the kind of art that most shounen should have done. Shounen arts are generally very well drawn, taking a lot of effort, but generally not a lot of bang for the buck. An example would be Suzuki Nakaba's Nanatsu no Taizai. That comic, being rather bland asides, was very good looking, but not blowing my socks off good looking, for a 2012 series. This is because while digital is used, they are not used extensively the same way Akamatsu did with Negima. The rich details of the frames turned the series almost cinematics sometime. Even during expositions, my eyes were pleased with the beautiful buildings just looming in the background. That's what appropriate and patient use of technology can achieve. You can look at shitty adaptions of Isekai trash and tell how much shit the artist was giving. Most of the frames would be blank, with speech bubble taking more space to cover it up. Character faces would be drawn big, so you don't notice the empty, soulless background. Meanwhile, good adaptions turn every frame to almost be a painting. Negima was just insane for the time. Of course, the action scenes are pretty cool, but you probably can tell, the author wasn't the best at making actions more dramatic and clear. He usually abused the crap out of drawing lines and shading, making frames looking very cool, but the action less comprehensible. I don't find the actions to be very absorbing. It is made up by the pretty decent story telling of what's going on. I don't think there was a more underappreciated action shounen than Negima. Browsing Negima's fan comment, you often see fans are more concerns about their "ships" than the action. That's fair enough, but I think Negima is the rare combination of shounen, romcom and drama. It hits the right note on all of them. Shounen action comics should have learned from how Negima handled its acts. Every defeated villains should served as a stepping stone to the next one. All of them should be set up from the beginning. Filler chapters should further character's relationship, which affects the action of the next act, and the action of the next acts should affect the context for the next fillers. That's how tightly a story should be written. Most shounen managed to hit this with the first few acts, then it goes completely bonkers. Jump's business model kills this type of writing. Kimetsu no Yaiba actually did this not too badly. It's too bad that the details are done so shallowly that it kills the momentum. This is a good lesson for comics writers. It's a shame that its adaptions are complete garbage, an embarrassment to the animation industry. I would recommend Negima to a little older teens who won't be influenced much by the tone, and capable of being patient with the story. It is pretty fun and well told. Spoiler ahead I can't explain why Negima confuses me when I finished the series without giving some spoiler. The strength of Negima had been elaborated before. The series began with a very compelling premise, giving us the reason why the main character must grow stronger, hinting at future events, the nature of certain characters. This is all done extremely well. Every major obstacle along the way is overcome through strength, the main character beat the crap out of his or her opponent, while musing about the cause of the villains. The villains are also done extremely well. I think most people would agree that Fate in the first half and especially, Chao, was such a great villain that it elevates the series. That's not to say, the "wins" are not contrived. Villains are not really villains in this series, and events take place seemingly out of nowhere for happy ending. The Chao act sorts of avoided that by shadowing subsequent events, setting up for emotional conflict. That's a good, tight writing. All that said, unfortunately, the latter half of the series, the writings got sloppy. For example, Fate's back story got introduced too late in the story. He's supposed to be the main villain for the last act, before the final fight, which was also set up poorly. What should have happened is before they arrive at the old capital, Fate's backstory should have been elaborated, thus when he negotiated with Negi, we should have felt this world clashing ideology with each other. Instead, the other team motivation also got revealed in essentially the opening stage of the final act. That's too late to let the villain's motivation seeps in. I don't understand what changed in the writing. It was very tight and well done for so long, only to get very messy at the end. It's as if the author got bored of the series and was only from his initial draft when he still had his passion. Another interesting point about the story to me, is that it feels as if the author got some inspiration from derivative works. A few notable example is the combining the power of friendship, the long sleep section and Chisame. Chisame's chapter from the ending was probably inspired by the Negimaru doujin, which was pretty fun and well written, as expected of Re-Take's team. It is very likely that the author loves the doujin so much, he decided to add things from that to story in there. I can't say if the multi world, multi ending idea came from Negimaru as well, but it is possible. This should be mentioned because before that point, Chisame never mentions any stabbing, nor hinted at stabbing at any point in the story, except for the party and the very end chapter. I was very surprised when I reach that point, I don't know if it's a good idea to adapt someone else derivative work into your own work. While it seems great, I think if not done well, like with Chisame, it felt out of the blue, uncharacteristic of a chracter. The long sleep and waking friendship was in the crappy animated adaption, then appear in the story. The letting the princess serves as the pillar for the world for 100 years didn't exactly pop up at any point until the very end. I don't know if the chicken and egg thing, did the author told the animation studio how he intended the emotional ending to be, or did the studio ending inspired him to put that in. I'm not saying those aren't great addition. Having Asuna being sacrificed gave her a bit more of a role in the story, since she was essentially sidelined for most of the story, which I'll get to next. It also made the aftermath section less pointless, because for a romcom without a section dedicated to aftermath for harem members just don't feel right. Having all of that be preparation for her sacrifice is good. I just think the using her as a pillar should have been set up before, so the sacrifice aspect don't seem too arbitrary. Then there's also the issue of certain character's importance. Looking at the cast, the 2 first female characters got essentially overshadowed completely in the second half. Asuna and Konoka essentially got shafted from the story, so was Anna. Asuna, having a few acts dedicated to her, got imprisoned for most of the final act. All of her growth as a person, as a fighter, wasn't used by the story. It's pretty mindboggling how the author lost interest in her. She got replaced essentially by Chisame, which is both good and bad. At first, it seems to be fine, but if you really think about it, Asuna being an idiot angle got upgraded into her main trait. She was not an idiotic character initially, showing her own struggle, thoughts, concerns and strength. She wasn't "it will be fine just smash through it". Then, because of the second act, she became that, and got completely sideline. I am aware that Chisame and Asuna got split during development. That is not a bad idea. However, That's not to say the change halfway in the story was well done. I really wasn't buying the change. It seems artificial. Chisame makes a lot more sense, and got a clear growth treatment as a character, while Asuna seems to be reversing. I have this crazy idea in mind that perhaps, the author should have turned Chisame and Asuna being split into meta. Making them 2 halves of the same person, with Asuna being the positive side of the princess, while the negative, nihilistic side of the princess got split into Chisame. That complicates Chisame quite a bit, since her identity was being a normal person, who got caught up in the entire thing because he likes the main character. Most others are involved because they are already involved in the magical world, or are involved because they seek adventure. Chisame was the only one who constantly try to avoid craziness, serving as the sane men of the group. I really wonder if the author can play that into the "she wants to avoid abnormality because of previous trauma" if she's the other half of the princess. Asuna sane men role got overtaken by Chisame, is both sort of works, but also lacking to me. I think that angle can be explored more. Konoka was also relegated to a princess type character, being there to heal and to be Setsuna lust's focal point. She should have been given more attention as a healer, seeking out ways to mend others, controlling her magic, getting to know her real potential and her inner demons. Instead, she's just comic relief. For having so much power, she never got to play a larger part in the story. It's disappointing because the initial reveal of her power, summoning a large demon then healing Negi, was pretty cool. She should have gotten more involved in the fighting. Anna got shafted hard. She appeared in the beginning, then the middle, then at the end. Even her attraction to Negi never gets some sort of closure. I don't think she appeared in the ending montage. Why have her as one of the love interest if ultimately, she wasn't even served as a hostage to fate? I was so confused by her handling. MSN was great, but it was also marred by so many strange decisions. Personally, the second half drastic turn really caught me off guard and lost my interest. There was quite a bit of lessons to be learned by the series, but his sequel not only learns nothing, it makes even more mistakes. I think I should mention this, among the most confusing decision to me, is the ultimate end of Negima being revealed in UQ Holder. I can understand the MSN end. The author, of course, as with any other harem story, ended it with an open ended ending, to avoid things having to make a decision about his own work. But, even back then, I got frustrated, because he hinted at the true heroine, and made it quite obvious by favouring her so much in the story. Not only is she essentially team leader for most of the second half, she also sacrificed, stayed at his side, giving him a slap in the face and replaced his sister as his aide. If she wasn't giving some sort of closure, such as moving on, or consolidates her feeling for him in the aftermath, then it's clear that she's either the true heroine, or she got shafted. UQ stated the beginning of his attraction to her with the confession booth. This is a little concerning, not least that this part was in the sequel so fans of the original had to read the sequel to know, but also that during Chao's act, her role wasn't clearly defined yet. She wasn't giving him consistent advices if anything, I was thinking at that point, why wasn't he attracted to one of the two comedic love interest, or his sister replacement, or his master. It just don't make a lot sense. Her reveal in UQ Holder was cathartic, but thinking back, it was more of a relief that the logical thing took place rather than it beings a good closure. This is all arbitrary of course, the author sets up things and we are subjected to his reality. Turning Asuna into purely familial love is very disappointing, since he sets up so much in the first part. It all felt wasted. Ultimately, with how bad UQ Holder turned out, I think it's safe to say for those who have read MSN and are only here to see another fan's opinion of the series, I will spoil you MSN part in UQ. Essentially, Chisame won, as she should. Then, in the time line where Asuna get to use the turn back time watch to reunite with them, they managed to save Nagi and destroyed the mage of the beginning with her power. That's all you have to know. As for UQ Holder timeline, I advice you not to get to that can of worms. It's such a shame that as much as MSN was tightly written, UQ Holder is the completely opposite. Sloppy, arbitrary, convoluted. Just close your eyes and pretend a sequel didn't happen. Kumeta> Akamatsu.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Aug 18, 2021 Not Recommended Funny Preliminary
(400/? chp)
Why is Kingdom trash.
Click bait title. Before you Kingdom fans jump on me like the way Kingdom simplifies warfare and merely depicts waves of soldiers crashing onto each other, let's be patient and think about this question: why do Shin fight? He wanted to become the best general because... he wants to be not poor? He desires to be cool? He wants to stand on top of the world? What motivates him to kill, again and again, respectable people? Well, as the first act went on, it shifted to Shin following Sei's dream of uniting China and ends the chaos. That sounds good, right? Let ... me first tell you about the background to the story. I think many who read Kingdom is aware of the history behind it, but not to the extend that they think. Sei, or Zheng actually, is the first emperor of China. His rise to power, as in Kingdom, is full of intrigued. His father, the unexpected king of Qin, passed, and he's on the throne now. Yet the real power behind him, Lu Buwei, a famous historical figure, is rumoured to be Zheng real father, for he gave his concubine to Zheng's father. Lu Buwei's power helped Zheng secured his throne, and later Zheng executed his own brother and his family. I shall call Zheng, Qin Shi Huang or QSH, from now on. QSH, then, using an incident involving his mother, turned against Lu Buwei and removed their faction from his court, through blood. After uniting China, he executed his brutal repression of any other philosophy other than Legalism. He's famous for burning of Confucianist materials, as well as executing their scholars. He ruled China with an iron fist. That's not all the details about his life, of course. I didn't mention much of the warfare materials that created Kingdom. Kingdom followed QSH's life pretty well, by most standards, included many important events in QSH's life as well as Qin's rise to power. This is why I feel Kingdom was a very bad take on such an important part of history. QSH can be considered the turning point in Chinese history in many ways. The modern CCP's take on how to rule China, is influenced a lot by what happened 2200 years ago. Yet, Kingdom is the Akame ga Kill of Chinese history. Akame ga Kill is not the first, nor last, nor perhaps even the most famous example of adding violence and death to a shounen to make it more interesting. In the course of doing that, they do a inadvertently reduce the stake of the death occurred. If everyone can die, and it's all very tragic, why were they slashing through tons of people? Aren't those people too? Why is it that during those "chosen" characters death, the series turns into a sombre mood. Yet, outside of that, the death of thousands, hundreds of people are a mere background? Are we suppose to take this seriously or is this a light hearted get stronger fight next opponent kind of story? Kingdom did the exact same thing, only, it added the very important piece of history attached to it. I want to love Kingdom, I really do. I love historical comics, I love 3 Kingdoms, I love the Warring State, I love the Iliad. To boys, there were something just melancholically exciting about stories of men dying on the battlefield. Kingdom fails completely on that front, and if it was simply trying to bring that genre into a younger audience hands, I think it is completely unnecessary to dumb down the most important period of East Asia into, shounen battle comic. The battles, the fighting, seems well done. It depicts fighting between thousands of men, duals between generals, strategy, manoeuvres, trickeries are all here and it seems great. However, those are only skin deep. It is not the first nor last to discuss and depict warfare in detail, but it is perhaps the most famous right now. I think a comparison with something like Hawkwood is in order. Hawkwood depicts warfare but in much smaller scale. It is also depicting it more realistically. The soldiers are more important than burly generals riding out to fight on epic 1 on 1. However, because warfare is on a much smaller, realistic scales, effects are much easier to depict. A cavalry charge, flanking, archer, positioning, movement, formation, ambush, weapons, logistics, are all well drawn. This is all in Kingdoms, but it is often mentioned in passing, or sometime ignore completely. That's fine, because if Kingdom is that sort of work, akin to Iliad, then it invites something even worse. Iliad don't depict warfare realistically. In oral's tradition of the time, Iliad is mostly dramatized, event driven tale of the Trojan War. It seems to be similar to how Kingdom is, half the time. The generals, duking it out, man to man fighting on the front, to decide who's more favoured by the gods. This seems to be shounen-esque, yet, Iliad is taken seriously by everyone. The reason for that is very simple, Iliad is truly an epic with a message, a theme, the encompass the zeitgeist of ancient Greece. Glory, fury, pride, legacy and ultimately, fate are concepts in the Iliad that resonates throughout their world. Iliad depicted glorious generals, going into battle to leave a legacy, yet all fall victim to fate. All of those famous heroes, with passages about their deeds and fame before stepping it, fought valiantly against each other, only for one to kill another. All of that, all of the heroic deeds, all of the training, the fighting, the glory, the blood, the pride of warrior, all of that, so one men can slay another. Iliad, in the end is about the meaninglessness of warfare. The king of Troy, begging an enraged Achilles, to return his son corpse. Even as enemies, they can still respect each other as men in a world rules by fate. It tells the people of the time that, glory in battle might make your mark in history, but true fulfilment lies in forgiveness and peace, not killing on another, even in a world where fate, or the gods, dictate that great men must kill one another, to be great. Kingdom has none of these nuance. The battles between generals are, just that. It doesn't have a theme to encompass the entire warfare of ancient China. It fails to honour the generals that was slain on Shin's path to be the best, because it was written as a shounen, sprinkled with seinen. A math test with some realistic physics scenario added, all skin deep to avoid any realistic complicated consideration of the scenario. For maths, that's fine, because it is meaningless. For historical figures, this is a disrespect to the story and the people that died, leaving the legacy of today's world. If you are about to tell me that, there's the unexplored middle ground, and that Kingdom fulfils that, I say, go read 3 kingdoms. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, RoTK for short, is the dramatization of the Three Kingdoms period, which takes place at the end of the Han Dynasty. If you are familiar with RoTK, you can immediately spot the similarity between Kingdom and it. RoTK has it all, an epic retelling of events, great generals battling each other on the battlefield, political intrigues, warfare intrigues and manoeuvres, reality of the feudal system, suffering of common people, Confucianism against legalism, and best of all a theme to encompass the spirit of not just the period, but of modern Chinese thoughts in this case. If you are not familiar, well, 3 kingdoms essentially have a few storylines, but it focuses, of course, on fate of the three kingdoms, Wei, Shu, Wu, and their struggle to survive and dominates China. Most of the famous and familiar events took place in the early period, before the formation of the rivalry between the 3 kingdoms. The novel often mentions epic duel between famous warriors like Lubu, but also talking about the personality, the nobleness or wickedness in episodes to portray the characters. It also tells a lot of what happens during campaigns, manoeuvres, tricks or legends of these events. You can almost call it shounen-esque, but again, unlike Kingdom, it has a many message to tell, but the most encompassing one is the cyclical nature of rise and fall. Heroes rise, fall, rise again, just like their kingdoms. No matter how great you are, how much intrigues you performed, how extensive your list of deeds are, you are merely part of the wheel of history. The sacrifice, death, are celebrated, as well as evil deeds condemned. It is a little of a downer, perhaps. But the novel always mention glorifies actions of which are glorious, morally just rather than falling into the cynicism due to the chaos of the time. That's the nature of historical epic. You must never forget to be historical, because these are real lives, lives of those who lived it to the fullest. Reducing it to a shounen struggle to become famous, or to become just, is insulting to historical epics. So, a supposed historical epic, completely disrespect historical epic, where else are the values of it, other than in simple minded entertainment with history sprinkled on? Could it be, the art? Kingdom art is nice, it's fine. It doesn't look great, it does look stylistic and different, but not in a way that fascinates me. I don't care for its preservation, should aliens come to earth, conquer it and then ordain the burning of comics. That's the best I can say about it. It's really not a bad comic, after all of this. I can't fault it having bad story, bad characters, bad pacing, bad art. However, all everything it does is average. There's nothing particularly memorable or interesting about it for me, as a comic. For flavours, it added a lot of characters relationships, some personal struggles for the characters to overcome through the power of will, or friendship or just muscle. It positioned itself as a historical epic is the misstep, in my opinion. I would rather the author depicts some kind of fictional land, like Youjo Senki or Arslan, than a very interesting and rich historical period to embarrass itself. If you have no idea about the history of the period, it might captivate you. Just remember that none of the political intrigues and discussion about philosophy matters later on. Would I recommend Kingdom? I would simply say, no. There are better works out there deserving of attention and money. Vinland Saga, does epic historical journey to be something, far far better than Kingdom. Vagabond explores philosophy of life and the sword, far far better than Kingdom. The manga, Shiji, retells the story of this period and the lesson much better. Buddha, is not comparable because it was written by a true master, the pioneer of the medium. I even prefer things like Hawkwood, Woflmund, Koukoku no Shugosha, Gunka no Baltzar depiction of battles much more than Kingdom. If some simplistic warfare is your cup of tea, why not Youjo Senki? Epic journey to be conqueror, why not Arslan Senki, Historie? For a complete replacement, why not just The Ravages of Time? That one in my opinion suffers from the same disease as this. However, that one is actually cool, with fantastic art, completely epic. Ad Astra, also terrible, but has better art. Even Drifters have better fantasy element. It performs very well, far better than many of these actual good works. I think Kingdom is just in the middle of all of them, not too technical about combat, not too serious about the period, not too much details. It appeals to the mass just like how Naruto or AgK used to be.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Aug 16, 2021
Shin Evangelion Movie:||
(Anime)
add
Recommended
I can tell that most of everyone are on board with what I have in mind, I probably don't need to say much. For fans of the original and rebuild series, you wait for almost 20 years from 1.0, just get it over with, just as Anno did.
Anno, as you can tell if you have watch this, just want to get it over with. He admitted he don't miss making Evangelion, I agree. The rebuild must have sapped a lot of energy out of his creative pool. The lack of general direction is clear. The sets up for emotional payback is shallow, extremely so. ... You would probably only accept the payback if you have watched the original series and, perhaps, like me, have their view about the animation industry and entertainment in general shaped by Neon Genesis Evangelion. He signed off on the series with quite a nonsensical inside the mind montage, imitating what he did for EoE, with none of the emotional weight. Before that, let's all accept this fact that most of the Evangelion fans got trouble with. Most of Evangelion fans are in it for the wrong reason. Evangelion was never meant to be intriguing nor deep. It was meant to be cool as hell and an outlet for the director's angst at the time. The team and Anno did magnificent, exceptional work in 1995. I don't think there was quite something to level of Evangelion had came out since. It has everything, conspiracy, religious reference, action, character's drama and real, very heavy emotional weight and a mesmerising soundtrack. At the core of it all is the fantastical animation direction. Anno got rid of the stigma that TV series can only look so good. His genius direction turned mundane old TV into the future. They used a tons of trick to not having to animate so much, and pulled it off in spectacular fashion. For 3.0+1.0, they, uh, didn't do so well. The rebuild series has always been the playground for Anno than actual work. He tried all sorts of stuff out, and in the end added them all in. The motion capped fight segment was jarring, complete disgusting in contrast to the usual animation, including hand drawn. The gap between them is just so ridiculous, it's hard to not criticise. Part of why 3D animation in Japanese animation industry is still so average, is that they have yet to be able to go all in, foregoing 2D. I am also baffled by the 3D animation framerate. It being so inconsistent hurts my head when I was watching it. The previous entries don't have as much movements involving these 3D model, so it's not as jarring. One thing that's terrible about 3D, is that to animated impacts or bending of materials, it would require tons of work, much more than just drawing it in 2D. Try to animate object surface actually caving in, frame by frame, and you'll see how god damn insane it is. Khara simply do not have the tech nor the expertise to make it look amazing. They abuse camera tricks a lot, to avoid exposing the flaws in their animation. Unfortunately, I think Anno belongs in the 2D world. His 3D is simply not good. That said, the other parts looked great. I can see a lot of Shinkai-esque techniques being employed, imposing real image and texture and touching it up instead of completely drawing over. Shinkai wasn't the first, A1 used it extensively too, but boy did he abused the crap out of that. It makes for some beautiful frames of the peaceful village life. That's nothing special, at this point, unfortunately. 3.0+1.0 was 10 years too late to impress audience with that. I also like the assets they use for the interior of the ship, sick bays etc.. Those are pretty nice. Anno wanted to make Space Battleship Yamato, robot version with NGE, I think this is the closest he had gotten. Tons of flying combat, none very memorable. He didn't do very well here unfortunately. It looked great, but nothing memorable, nothing like entrails splashing on the street or blood covering half of Gendo's face. A few of the fun part in the other side battle and conversation was the throw back to some of Anno's trademark. Manga style segment, art shift, just animated outline, even breaking the fourth wall by adding in imageries of the work set they were making the film on. (the room with long hair Rei was where he filmed the shitty mocap fight). That's a nice goodbye to Evangelion in term of art. That being said, if he actually spend some time doing something like 3.33+1.11, he should seriously spend more time touching up the space ship fight, the fight inside the head, and the half impact. Those parts don't look great. Some even look amateurish. I don't think I enjoyed 3.0+1.0 music as much as I did the others. Most tracks I remember was a variation of a previous composition. It's not that they are not good, but I was spoiled by 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 fantastic new tracks that 3.0+1.0 felt disappointing. Then, we should move to the meat of why everyone hates the Rebuild. Recontextualise the characters relationship, and now giving them a send off is, very annoying: Good examples include someone like Gendo who remains the same throughout the series, but I also felt he was too villainy for his appearance this time around, yet not enough to really stab everyone deeply. His dealing with the Akagis demonstrated his cruelty in the original series, not just his ruthlessness in asking Shinji to kill his own friend, that is excusable in that they are in this for the sake of survival. In the remake, they made him into some sort of cartoon villain for a while before he enters the other side. Then, we move on to Asuka. I think a lot of people would be pissed that Asuka don't ended up with Shinji, since they are in the Asuka camp from the original series. I am in Asuka camp, but not for Shinji's affection. I think people should look back at the original series with a clearly perception shaped by age. Asuka wasn't interested in Shinji romantically in the way that people imagine. I think her lust for Kaji, for acceptance and reverence shifted from Kaji to Shinji because Kaji returned to Misato's side. They were licking each other wounds would be more accurate, but by licking I think I meant salting it. In the remake, 2.0, Anno decided to simplify the entire thing by making Asuka had a crush on Shinji, and also remove my favourite part about her, her struggle with her past being rejected by her mother. Her backstory is now just her losing her parents and work to be praised. Basically Asuka got relegated to just a friend who got a crush on Shinji. This is very frustrating, but understandable change. The movies have much less time to invest in these characters, so simplifying Asuka's act is wise. That said, he might as well kill Asuka for me, really. The strong, yet inside extremely fragile, lonely version of Shinji, was simply awesome. She's extremely interesting, very admirable, very sympathetic yet also very despicable. She's the other side of the depression part of the equation. Instead of learning from each other, Shinji and Asuka both pushed each other away to protect their own ego, despite Shinji lusting after her. Anno sending her off with a pathetic montage of her training, and feeling lonely is just disappointing. I thought he had the right approach to them initially. They were too caught up in their trouble to care for each other. If Shinji can understand Asuka's own loneliness, which is exactly the same as his, and sympathise with her instead of selfishly wants her to be nice to him, and vice versa, as what happened in 3.0+1.0, would be cool. However, stripped of the original relationship, this one seems pretty bland. I don't think this could have gone any other way, seeing as the intention of Anno mirrored his attitude towards the original series cast, not the Rebuild world that he created, so it turned to garbage. The part that I like the most about 3.0+1.0 Asuka is her relationship with Kensuke. I was actually a little disappointed that they took the angle of him being her mentor now, instead of lovers. Everything suggested that sort of relationship, staying together, being naked, being comfortable, he cares for her needs. Unfortunately, I think Anno recognised that if they are together, the shippers will lose their shit. I would have slapped the shippers and tell them to piss off. Kensuke being with Asuka is the most uncomfortable, difficult morally for everybody, but to me that's the relation that would have make the most sense. Since Anno slapped that thought out of his head a long time ago, by not setting up Kensuke and Asuka in 2.0, he chose the easier path. Kensuke and Asuka just make perfect sense, they are of the same mental age, he's a mature and capable man now, while she was always looking for a pillar to lean on, to acknowledge her. I really don't think I am wrong about this. In any case, Asuka remake made me lose all interest in her as a character. 3.0+1.0 added in very nice stuffs such as Kensuke, but other than that, it was disappointing. Then there's Rei. Rei was one of the better act in the movie, initially. Her gaining her human emotion is adorable, and then gotten rid of should have been a gut punch. Unfortunately, it really isn't. I know emotion stuffs are very very difficult to achieve as a movie maker. However, the true masters were always capable. I think her concept of finally getting to be human just to be killed is a little too foreign. Let's look at good examples. It took Pixar an entirety of 5 minutes to make me and others cry through the marriage life montage. Miyazaki made me cry at the oddest thing such as in Howl's, when Sofia struggle to climb the hill to find the castle. I don't think this suits Anno's strength. Rei disappearing don't feel much. I think it served as the stepping stone for Shinji to finally grow out of his shell. Good try, though that's just the beginning of the problem. New Rei was always, a little odd. Her role isn't as the magical device such as the original, so her personality as a person isn't so intriguing. In the original, her relationship to Gendo makes Shinji interested in her. As their relationship grew and Rei becoming more human, less of an artificial vessel, she was taken away, replaced with a doll. However, her understanding and willingness to be sacrificed was always intriguing, because of her backstory. I think Anno himself do not know how to bid her farewell, for he himself do not know what Rei 3? was supposed to be. For me, it looks like letting a cage bird be free. In the original and the remake, Anno referenced her as a caged bird a few times, unable to live outside of her cage. Thus, Anno giving the character the freedom to fly sorts of work, but not for me personally. I think the mess up concept of the original, mocking the Yamato nadeshiko modesty as being empty inside, and then their willingness to sacrifice for others as akin to suicidal, a result of them thinking they have no value as their own. This was again referenced in the remake, but that still doesn't make her character worth saying goodbye to. I don't see it as a farewell to the mockery of that archetype, she became her own in the remake, so it's a lot less fun for me. Next on the chopping block is my boy Kaworu. I think Kaworu is not as interesting as he was in the original. His role was similar, he's the maturity of Shinji. He was genuinely interested in Shinji when the entire cast was not able to be with him, which quickly endeared him even though he appeared for 1 episode. That's very impressive writing. I loved Kaworu in the original, but this Kaworu seems a little odd. I think his role is no different to the original, only added in that he carries part of the burden shouldered by Shinji. That's rather counter-intuitive when Shinji's journey in last half of the entire rebuild series had been to accept the burden he was given. Kaworu death was beautiful the last time, his farewell wasn't as fun. I do think Anno straight up telling us Kaworu was born to give Shinji happiness is pretty funny. That works. The other abstracts, not so much. Kaji is another person I have problems with. He both played a bigger role in the rebuild, as well as not since he appeared much less. His dream of preserving life, then saving humanity, then as Kaworu sidekick in keeping the entire world in balance, is speed run in 3.0+1.0. I don't know how well that can work. Kaji's death in the original series was the first death of any major characters. That death was much more impactful than his random walk into the abyss of 3.0+1.0. The problem with Kaji, which sort of encapsulates a lot things about the previous characters, is that 3.0 was too vague, and 3.0+1.0 was too explicit. A lot of 3.0+1.0 should have been in 3.0. 3.0 focusing on Shinji's journey sort of ruined it. Kaji played a part in Shinji's life, but he played a much bigger part in the secondary protagonist, Misato. I find it baffling that he was killed off so casually, and his death don't exactly make Misato better or worse. The fact that his son is just sort of inserted was regrettable as well. Misato is another victim. Her act got expanded quite a bit for 3.0 and 3.0+1.0. I still prefer the old Misato sacrifice, much less dramatic but much more sorrowful. Her new role as a mother and an atoner just don't mesh well in my head. That's not to say it doesn't make sense. Many people have mentioned that her being harsh to Shinji seems unreasonable when she's the one who encouraged him to go deep, triggering the impact. This Misato seems older, less naive and self-torturing like her original series self. But, I don't feel her as much as I feel the original. Her rant about her insecurity to Kaji was one of the most memorable talking moment in NGE for me. With this version of her, the emotion is somehow less complicated, even though she forsaken her son to save the world, just as her father forsaken her for, whatever he did. From his perspective, I feel as if she's doing the exact same thing her father did. That angle should have been expanded, but they only have 2.5 hours of run time, there's not enough time to cram that in. I don't have much to say about Ritsuko. They make no reference to Naoko relationship with Gendo, which relegates Ritsuko to a forgettable sidekick of Misato. It is very disappointing that such an icon was disrespected by her creator. Ritsuko was a force in the original. Her struggle with her feeling, and mother's, carved the tone for the later half of the series. Gendo wouldn't appear to be such a bad guy if it weren't for him keeping the Akagis under his thumb, revealing to us the depth of the man's desire and depravity. I don't think I was more devastated for any of the character than I did for Ritsuko when her mother's personality in Magi betrayed her and supported Gendo, just as she did for most of the series, constantly messing with the kids for his own end. Lastly, my least favourite addition to the series, Mari. To me, she symbolises the rebuild: arbitrary, unimportant, enigmatic and ultimately, confusing. She's hinted to be Shinji's parents college friends. Probably she was one of the first to feel the effect of not aging from being a pilot. She also has a real name that the professor mentioned. In any case, none of her backstory, profile or anything of that nature matters. She don't fit into anything, at all. Her addition was pure marketing, as far as I have heard. When they utter the word, fanservice, she is the walking fanservice. I don't see how much connection she has with Shinji to be his friend or partner or whatever by the end of the show. I don't see her often, or know her enough, for her words to Shinji be of much value. In 2.0, she encouraged Shinji to go back and board the Eva to save everyone. Then she saved Shinji at the end of 3.0, and in 3.0+1.0, she's sort of involved. That's about it. Why is she here? Anno don't seem to care. I think she's the answer to my frustration about the remake. She shows that Anno really don't give a crap about the rebuild nor the original story and character. They used to represent aspects of his depression and relationship back in the days. Now, with his head in a different place, he was unable to reconnect with the emotion he had back then. I have so much more gripes with the characters, such as Toji, Kensuke reduced role in the previous 3 movies, only for this one to try to compensate. Them adding a few new faces and juggle them around in 3.0, which gives them nowhere enough screen time for their drama to feel real, such as the younger Suzuhara, who had his brother's old sentimentality back when she was hurt, as well as that staff girl who secretly resents Misato. There's also a few more new characters from 3.0 with more lines to fresh them out, but damn was it lacking. Most of these should have been introduced in 3.0, not introduced and resolved within 3.0+1.0. Rebuild's story and characters are handled so poorly, it really hurts the hardcore fans. The rebuild series gap in the middle really calls for a TV series exploring the events right after, establish emotional connection with the rest of the crew, so the danger they face is more impactful I am glad that Anno had finally lifted the curse of Evangelion that he had been under for so long. He clearly ran out of ideas, or inspiration for the series, but his fame and money pulled him back into the project. While the entire experiment had been more disappointment than excitement, I think the tone of the story and series reflected something more positive. Anno is no longer able to torment his characters, because he's no longer tormenting himself. He had always wished for them to be happy and hopeful, but he can't let them be so, because he himself in that moment wasn't. Now that he had been happily married for 20 years, to a women who's also passionate about her own work like him, who understand, sympathise and accept his quirks, whom some described as resemble Asuka in her fiery attitude, he no longer cares that much about his characters or his self on screen. Seems like he just wants to show off cool techs on screen. As a fan of NGE, I resented that. However, as a person, I think, I am fine with that. Shinji no longer has to choke another person to keep her with him, he's with someone who's happy to be with him now. Goodbye Anno, Goodbye Gainax, Farewell, Evangelion. If he actually returns with a series filling in between 2 and 3, I will be pissed.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Aug 15, 2021
Evangelion Movie 3: Q
(Anime)
add
Mixed Feelings
3.0 caused Anno depression again. If I make 3.0, I would probably be too.
3.0 is the third entry into the Evangelion Rebuild series. By now, if you are a newcomer to the series, you are just pushing it. This is the 3rd in a series where character's contexts are written in the original 26 episodes + 1 movie. There's no point diving in here. I gave the Rebuild title some thoughts, and I think of all the movies in the 3, 3.0 was the most rebuild of the rebuild. Rebuild suggests reconstruction into the original form. For an Evangelion act, this is actually in line. ... Evangelion, first and foremost, was Anno's Space Battleship Yamato. This is as close to a space battleship he had ever come. The ship in the movie can fly! Joke aside, this falls into the 18/20-24 range of the original series, when Shinji, despite coming so far, have things around him falling apart, most of the time not entirely his fault, but some is. For example, Asuka's breakdown was caused by her fragile self, but compounded that was Shinji's role as the chosen by his father, which made him do things that's not plausible in the eyes of Asuka, accelerating her breakdown. His presence also caused Rei to self destruct. Shinji's role in 3.0 mirror that somewhat, as he started to lose those he holds dear, he went into isolation as he distanced himself from everything and everyone, only for an alien to jolt him and, only to reduce him back deeper into the hole. I preface that, because I am aware most fans of the original series, such as I, hates the rebuild, especially 3.0 I watched 3.0 in theatre, it was magnificent. I don't think many movies deserves to be in theatre, Shinkai's copy pasta is one, Koe no Katachi should really be watch at home in silence to appreciate the emotional heart of the movie. Evangelion definitely belongs in the theatre. It's bombastic, sometime mindlessly filled with action and visual flair. While I'm at it, I might as well elaborate a little on the strongest point of Evangelion as series, as well as the rebuild, the visual. I think 3.0 was much more striking than 2.0. The choice of colour, the models are much more bold yet blend into the 2D characters much better. I was very impressed with the destructive landscape, the strange way the Evas move, and the damn apocalypse. However, the selling point, the bombastic fight in the beginning with the flying ship, is a tard silly. That wasn't good action. Anno tried to be innovative with the camera following the swinging angel. I think that needed more rethinking. However, for aspire artists out there, that's the type of thing animation can do that traditional movies can't. Find more angles and shots like that and adapt them to your will. Excessive stills in animation ala Shinkai makes me want to put him out of his misery. In the art front, nothing much to complain about, and plenty to celebrate. Though, the meat of Eva is going to be tough this time around. Anno's ground breaking series was memorable because it really wasn't a straight forward action show. It's an action show with heart, but that heart is pain, mix in with some religious symbolism cum conspiracy nonsense. Every one has a little bit to contribute to the mess. The shift from more action oriented to more retrospective, explorative of human emotion was very well done. While the show runners bragged about how it was because they ran out of budget, I think it was always going in that direction. Ritsuko's character was building up to her climax since the beginning, so were Misato. Misato with a beer in her mouth, wondering if her friendly approach was a bit too on the nose, is a classic in setting up characters without being, well, too on the nose. I mention build up, because the Rebuild series sort of throw that trash out of the window. It feels more like Death, the recap of the original, than a proper series in itself. Fans are left confused, emotionally, about what the hell is going on. I think intellectually, most people who watched it a few times probably get what's going on. It is not difficult to figure the more mundane stuffs out. However, Anno was ping ponging in the emotional sector, which most Eva fans are in for, and they left, dissatisfied with everything. Let's discuss the plot, though this had been done to death already. 14 years after Shinji almost kills everybody, now everybody hates him for it. They tell him not to try to do anything stupid. He decided to because his new (old) gay bud assured him with his life, that it can be fixed just by doing some random task that his father intended him to. Apparently, it was all a trick, and his father was counting on the fact that his gay bud will perish and everything will be reset due to interference from his subordinates. Likely, he wanted to trigger the impact on his own term, not on Seele's term, whom he killed by shutting their life support? down just before the entire thing went down. Another win for daddy Ikari. Keikaku Douri. Of course, this angers fans. I think it is one thing to skip over what happened in the immediate aftermath, it is another to whiplash the viewers through his emotional act, done between 16 to 24, to in a span of around 1 hour. We all love Kaworu and his less than 15 minutes of screen time in the original series. His appearance was mysterious, yet he was emotionally frank to Shinji, and served as that character whom Shinji longs for all the while, until Shinji had to treat him like a lemon. That was masterful. I don't think there had been such a great 1 episode character. That was all thanks to the emotional train Shinji had to run on for 23 episodes before someone like Kaworu showed up. In this, Anno sort of tried to pull the same trick. Sure, the gey duet was fun, Kaworu is as charming as ever, but Shinji didn't have 24 episodes. We are watching the rebuild, not the series. While it indeed seems traumatic, Shinji finding out he was hated by everyone he used to be close with, the girl he saved didn't exactly get "saved", and later he found out all of that was entirely justified, it wasn't 24 episodes of many moments of Shinji mopping around, and being let down by his father. That was great. This Shinji feels more shallow, empty, easily pushed around and even more egoistical than the original. It's not even the more reflective sort of egoistical and the pain of being so alone, it feels unjustified by many. I think others have hammered the point, he just woke up and everyone don't explain anything, just hates him. That sort of pain doesn't feel good. That leaves viewers confused and angry, they wanted more, more discussion, more conversation, more details. Anno gave none of that. However, personally, I sort of get him. I think this is what he felt when fans were throwing shits at him for the remake, and the original series ending. He did retrospectively went in to clarifies that he gets our dissatisfaction. Him finding out he destroyed the world, is sort of that. But, that doesn't mean as a story, it was satisfying to watch. The soundtrack by Sagiru has a lot of new composition. They sort of cheekily tell us to try out new things during the piano part. I can't say I was unsatisfied with the soundtrack. Sure, the original series music gives me chill, but the new tracks still delivers. I like that the rebuild just build more new stuffs rather than falling back to the original, if I am honest. The piano is fun, the melancholic piano pieces were just magical sometime. Music remains the second strongest suit of Evangelion. To be honest with you, had Anno just remake the original series with better visual, almost like the Death recap but with more scenes, more backstory, more details. I probably would have been satisfied with it. But, I would not have loved it. This, as much as I dislike everything they did to the characters, I am fine, and excited for every new release. I bow to Anno for daring to be crazy, shit on the fans and then be confused why everyone hates it. I hope he can leave Eva behind, finally, and retire.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Aug 15, 2021 Recommended
As part of the 3.0+1.0 marathon, I decided to watch all of the series again, also a convenient excuse to write review for them.
End of Evangelion, or Rebirth completed version, was one of the most anticipated movie of 1997 in Japan. Episode 25 and 26 utterly baffled people and caused a lot of outrage, even death threats. This is pretty funny in the context of Anno and Gainax. Gainax was started by Anno and a bunch of mates who were hardcore Otaku, a relatively novel concept in Japan at the time, though not unheard of. The level of obsession they have for artistic entertainment were ... borderline unhealthy. The fact that they were geniuses didn't help, in fact, it drove them down a path of pain and suffering. Anno created Evangelion as a by-product of his struggle with Nadia. He wanted to do good work, but his way of working was too inefficient for effective production. He loves Space Battleship Yamato, and of course, Eva became his magnum opus, fulfilling his life long dream of making something inspired by his heroes. Evangelion was a surprise, massive success. While EoE was clearly planned ahead, but the project was marred with trouble since the very beginning, no thanks to Anno insane ego. He's very aware of that himself, and you can see it reflects in the stubbornness of his characters in Evangelion. Though, I should move onto to EoE before I got side track too far. EoE, how to (not) end a successful series. EoE is, as with the original series, an animation marvel. The fight scenes are nicely choreographed, the impacts from the swing, the explosion, people falling from impact, are just wonderfully presented. If I have trouble with modern action animation, it is that they completely lost the magic of the 90s when violence and dying people falls beautifully, while bleeding profusely in a cartoonish glow of blood. The colour of blood and liquid physics are superior now, but artistic direction is not. We don't exactly see extremely violent and gory show as much anymore, so I feel this is becoming a lost art. In any case, I think the level of brutality in EoE is clearly above the original series. It's almost as if the original series was planned to be much worse, but got toned down due to the network. I can give a spoiler example. In the story, the 4th pilot survives his ordeal. However, clearly, after the incident, he effectively vanished from the story. One wonders, did he survive or actually died, but network television kicked up such a fuzz about dead teenager at 6:30 PM, that they have to make him lives. He died in the comic, so it's quite possible that, that was the original plan. That example is there to demonstrate that the series could have gone very EoE if it weren't being shown at 6:30 PM. The other half of EoE not involving blood violence, the second half of rebirth, was just a series of strange imagery, meant to demonstrate the monstrous power that was unleashed because some guy lost his wife in the ordeal while in reality, his wife disappear on purpose to become some sort of icon, and to help her son get his head out of his ass. Those imageries were pretty striking, some even creative. I have to admit, I don't think they were exceptional. They were indeed very very strange, but they weren't strange in a way that it sticks in mind. If you have the pleasure of watching one of those cult, late night movie such as The Holy Mountain, you'll find equally strange, but even more memorable things than EoE. That is to say, EoE don't have the weirdness magic in term of visual. That's unfortunately, but to me, Anno excels at imitation of life much more than at fantastical sight. He's no Miyazaki. Speaking of the wife and some guy, I'll tackle the meat before skimming over the excellent music. EoE is mostly famous for the Fanta scene and the strangle ending. A lot of people seem to be confused by what transpired, and call it cryptic, some worship it, others suggest reading the comic instead. I'm in the comic camp. The magic about wall of text is if you structure it right, people can understand the content very quickly with great clarity due to being able to access all of the information at once. That forms the neural connection between pieces of information much quicker than a asynchronous process, feeding information one line at a time. However, I'm not in the movie is too cryptic camp, though I will never hesitate to say that I don't understand nor remember all of the details, I have my own interpretation. Essentially, Seele, the wall boys, want to merge humanity into one single being, a god. Apparently they just need to carry out their ritual. I am not sure how the ritual with Shinji guarantees that Lilith, the Rei who merges with it, will respond to him instead of Gendo. But, it seems that Seele is contend with Rei and Shinji controlled merging, as long as everyone merge. Meanwhile, Gendo just wants to merge with Lilith so he can meet his wife, residing in Unit 01's soul. On the other hand, Yui, Unit 01, purposefully merge with the core of the unit, so she can remain an icon? for humanity's existence? From what I understand in the flashback, she was aware that eventually, an impact will happen, one way or another. So she hoped that by merging with an Eva, she can live forever and becomes the symbol of human's existence, instead of being washed away by the Adam's spawn when they merge. That's pretty strange. Anyhow, the Fanta is caused by this Seele's plan. This is triggered due to the interaction between Shinji's fear in his mind. Shinji feared being left alone and abandoned by his acquaintances, so he decided to strangle them, represented by his version of Asuka, who told him no when he begged them to not leave him, so they can be together forever. This desire was fulfilled by Lilith Rei who merged everyone so Shinji can have his perfect world. However, after merging, Shinji came to the realisation, which took place in episode 25-26, that being alone don't make him hate himself less, for it is the other people that creates his self image, not just himself. In which case, his self hatred is created by his own perception of self, in order to protect his ego from being hurt. He realised that just make everybody disappear don't make him happier. So he asked Rei to let everyone go, while his mother drift into space as a symbol of humanity's existence. However, once him and Asuka washed up on the beach, Shinji still had not forgot about his fear of being alone, for he had not overcome it, merely accepting it. He attempted to strangle Asuka just like he did in his mind. Asuka, perhaps being aware of his train of thoughts after merging, said disgusting, in regard to his weakness. That's about it for the plot theory, since I think everyone gives one. I don't think mine is exceptional nor special, nor even accurate. Anno was deliberately being vague because for him, it was never about sending a message, it was all about being interesting. Having a "canon" interpretation to him is irrelevant to the experience. That's to say, watch it for the dialogue. Anno was talking to himself and his audience about his struggle with his own self hatred, depression, and ego. He knows he has a large ego, and tries to cope with it through his rant, delivered through the montage. The reason why it is so disjointed, was because Anno essentially cut out parts that he felt was too boring, too much of a rant during editing. Yet, it is still too long of a rant, shows how much ego the man has. I love Paarthurnax's quote: "What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort". Anno might have a giant ego, but he makes serious effort to suppress it, to make amend to those around him. He manages to find a wife after all of this mess, so I think we can call it mission accomplished. Though I would say Sagiru is Anno's first wife. His music is just fantastic. EoE's "tumbling down" reached meme status at one point. It's morbid, yet strangely cheerful and even hopeful, very well encapsulating the spirit of Evangelion. No matter how tragic things might be, keep your spirit up to continue walking. Now, for the criticism. I think the first half was fun, packed, exciting and well paced. However, the bizarre later part sort of worked against the script. For me, I suspect the reason why I wasn't as confused as many others, was that I was reading the subtitle the second time I watch it. The visual was too much to keep track of while listening to the information. If he wants to rant, he might have to make the visual more simplistic and have more information associated with the information being imparted. I know that the visual communicates the emotion well, but the script is way too long and obscure to be enjoyed without aids. I do appreciate a movie that has more information lurking the more times I watch it, but I don't think it's communicated well, at all. I think EoE confused watchers because of that. The story is nothing complicated, but the dialogues being too long for its own good, or too clever when it doesn't need to be, turns it cryptic. That's why, to me, I don't think EoE ended the series well. The talking part in the second half wasn't as engaging, especially on the first viewing. I need to be in absorbing mode and not following the event mode to appreciate it, which is a lot to ask from the movie audience. For Eva fans, this is a must watch to wrap up the series. For newcomers, watch the original series before judging if this is worth it. EoE didn't break much new ground, but it does leave an impression, though I don't know if it's positive or negative. p.s, poor Anno, this was supposed to be his vent project, it made so much money that he's stuck making this for the last 26 years.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all |