- Last Online6 hours ago
- GenderMale
- BirthdayJul 17, 1993
- LocationChicago Heights
- JoinedNov 15, 2013
Also Available at
RSS Feeds
|
![]()
Dec 29, 2014
In an age where a single idea can be copied, transmuted, inverted, and manipulated in millions of possible ways, the phrase "That's just a rip-off of ______" has become increasingly more common. For example, I've heard many arguments that Nagi no Asukara is just a rip-off of From the New World, and while there certainly are similarities between the two, it's quiet a stretch to say that a romance drama is just a rip-off of a dystopian horror series. However, there are times where the degree to which something is copied is so severe that
...
"rip-off" really is the only way to describe it. So, when a title gets to that point, is there still enough enjoyment to be gleamed from this newer series to justify its existence?
I supposed it'd be best to address the elephant in the room first: this is a magical girl series with an incredibly blatant attempt to cash in on the "little girls suffering" idea that Madoka Magica had popularized back in 2011 and is continuously called upon again and again within the anime industry because it continues to print money. While in the past I may have suggested that Selector Infected WIXOSS was also riding the Madoka Suffering Train, at least it also had a plethora of new ideas to bring to the table. Yūki Yūna is an absolutely shameless clone of Madoka, from the suffering girls to the horrifying world backdrop.
There's also the matter of someone getting the bright idea to insert multiple episodes of slice of life-style comedy that served more to pad out the run time than to get us acquainted with the characters, and by the time we had our third slice of life episode in a row, the pacing had slowed to such an unbelievable crawl that I had considered dropping the series and not even doing this review. Additionally, the tonal shift between cutesy fun and heavy action leaning towards horror creates an incredibly unstable and schizophrenic tone for the series overall. With Madoka, the tamer and more relaxed episodes were confined to the first few episodes, but once the rug was pulled out from under us, the pacing grew more and more intense until it threatened to swallow up everything by the end of the series. With Yūki Yūna, the pacing shifts far too much in the first two thirds of the series for us to get a grasp of the true stakes.
However, despite all that, the payoff that occurs when we hit the final third of the series was really solid; predictable, but solid. It also does take a very slight variance away from Madoka, mostly to avoid plagiarism, and ends up gaining its own level of disturbing horror in terms of the "little girls suffering" motif. There is also a very definite exploding point that happens, and once it does, the series really does pick up the pace from there and sprints towards the conclusion. It's just unfortunate that this doesn't happen until the show is almost 70% finished, and at least 40% of that is an annoying slice of life borefest. For that, I'm sure that we can once again thank our head of series composition, Makoto Uezu (Akame ga Kill!, School Days). There were also quite a few gag-worthy moments in the script that were so unbearably cutesy and friendship-loving that I almost wanted to take a break after each episode and switch to Black Lagoon for a few minutes. As for the ending, I won't spoil it, but it certainly didn't deserve the ending that it received, and you can take that for either good or bad.
The characters aren't really anything new either, yet it's still pretty satisfying to watch their world start to crumble around them. Yūki is our standard heart of gold "I can do no wrong as long as I believe in the power of friendship" lead character, aka Madoka Kaname without the indecision, and I was actually surprised by how little screen time she got compared to the others. Mimori is Yūki's best friend who is bound to a wheelchair due to an accident that cost her part of her memory, and her friendship with Yūki ends up being a rather interesting point of development for her. Fū is the slightly older, mentor character of the group who has to deal with the fact that she got everyone involved in this situation in the first place, while Itsuki is Fū's little sister who honestly just seems to be there to further Fū's development. Finally, we have Karin, who could not be more like Kyoko Sakura if she tried; an outsider who is initially put off by how well the group functions together but gradually grows to like them. On a more general note, aside from Fū and Mimori, it was rather disappointing to see that everyone else's character development was done in a rather direct and low effort way, whereas Fū and Mimori are the only ones that really seem to experience any true sense of psychological terror.
The animation was produced by Studio Gokumi (Kiniro Mosaic), and let's not beat about the bush on this one: the animation for this series was incredibly mediocre. While the idea of making the girls cute did get executed well, it was executed almost too well, and some of the girls' expression were so full of sunshine and rainbows that it make me rather uneasy. I do have to praise them for the other emotions that filled the character's faces though, as you really can feel the absolute terror pouring out of them during the final third of this series, especially with Fū. Aside from that, most of the animation was pretty bad. The Vertexes were rendered in almost eye-bleeding 3D, the fights scenes weren't that spectacular and the girls were often replaced with 3D models for said fight scenes, and while the set designs in the parallel world were very ominous and intricate, the backgrounds in the real world felt incredibly generic. On a quick side note, I really would like to know why the wheelchair chick got so much of the gratuitous fan service. It seemed horrifically out of place and started giving me Katawa Shoujo flashbacks.
There is currently no dub for this series yet, and I wouldn't imagine one coming out in the near future.
The soundtrack was composed by the group MONACA, and the soundtrack as a whole ends up being one part Yuki Kajiura imitation and one part generic slice of life background music. However, it's in those imitation Kajiura tracks that we find some really solid and meaty chunks that drove home the intensity of some of the more exhilarating scenes. The opening theme "Hoshi to Hana" was performed by the main voice cast and plays us in with a rather subdued pop track, while both ending themes "Aurora Days" and "Inori no Uta" were also performed by them and end each episode with a soft ballad.
Overall, in regards to a recommendation on Yūki Yūna is a Hero, I'm left asking myself a single question to determine my decision: is there something that this anime brings to the table other than what Madoka Magica has already done and done better? To be honest: no, it really doesn't. Any enjoyment that can be gleamed from this show can just as easily be achieved by rewatching a much better magical girl deconstruction.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
What did you think of this review?
Nice
 0
Love it
 0
Funny
 0
Confusing
 0
Well-written
 0
Creative
 0Show all
![]()
Dec 28, 2014
Sequels can be a tricky business, especially when the original series has such a huge following and is so distinctive in style and theme. There are many different reasons for sequels existing, ranging from additional stories that demand being told to easy fan base cash-ins, and the execution of these sequels also has just as many outcomes. One of the classic examples of what makes a bad sequel is creating one without the writing of the original creator, an occurrence with a notable example being Dragon Ball GT. So, how did the latest sequel lacking
...
its original creator's image fare as its own product?
Before getting into my problems with the series, I do want to say that in terms of being a thrilling and compelling detective series, Psycho-Pass 2 definitely delivers, with a huge cloud of mystery and complex clues to be deciphered. This was also aided by the fact that the returning characters from last season are just as solid as they were before, with Akane coming back even better than before and undergoing a huge amount of development in this portion of the series.
With that said, this series falls immensely short of its predecessor, with dozens of cop-outs and plot holes that made this a rather frustrating experience. One of the biggest problems with the series is the writing. Regardless of your personal opinions on Urobuchi's more disturbing and unsettling style of writing, the man definitely knows how to craft an incredible story. However, when someone else attempts to copy his style of writing, they tend to forget that and focus more on the disturbing portion of it. This led to an absolutely horrendous moment in episode 4 where, without spoiling anything, the MWPSB does something so outlandish and out of character that it might as well have been replaced with a neon sign reading "insert 'Urobutcher'-style shocking moment here." There is an incredible depth and complexity to the way Urobuchi crafts his darker style of writing, and to try and copy that in gore alone shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the original story.
Another, let obvious point where the second season falters is its level of intelligence and sophistication. While I did note in my review of the first season that the quoting of famous philosophers was just barely bordering on being pretentious, I certainly didn't want them to take this aspect away from the series entirely, but that's pretty much exactly what happened. Instead, the dabbling into the elements of the human soul has been replaced by conspiracy theory pseudo-intellect that grew more pretentious and annoying by the minute. While they do introduce one new philosophical concept towards the end that was rather interesting, it's effectively drowned out by the huge cluster of random conspiracy jargon being thrown out all over the place.
The new characters are also one of the bigger weak points of this new season. Starting first with our new antagonist, Kamui, it becomes apparent very quickly that he is infinitely less complex and interesting than Makishima was last season, and his motivations for wanting to bring down Sibyl are not nearly as noble, though some of his more minor traits still end up being somewhat interesting. Another poorly executed character was Shimotsuki, who I can only describe in terms that would not comply with the Terms and Conditions of this website. She constantly questions Akane's method of doing things even though Akan's methods always end up producing better results. We've already set up the idea that Akane knows much more about the Sibyl System than everyone else, and yet the story constantly focuses on characters who don't know this about her, and it makes trying to sympathize with them incredibly difficult, especially with Shimotsuki, whose arrogance is only proceeded by her inability to get the job done. As for other new characters, there is one in particular, whom I can't name due to spoilers, which started off promising but ended up being rather pathetic by the end.
The animation was produced as a joint project between Production I.G. and Tatsunoko Production, and this is one of the few areas that's actually improved since the first season. The cityscape is incredibly well-crafted, the CG blends nicely with the traditional 2D animation, and the character designs, Akane's specifically, are much more refined and appealing. I will say that there was a significantly higher amount of gore in this season though, but this is more due to the nature of the mediocre writing than anything else.
The dub is actually a rather unique case, as this, along with Laughing under the Clouds, are the flagship titles for FUNimation's new Broadcast Dub system, where episodes are dubbed a few weeks after they come out, cutting the time gap between initial air date and dub release by a gigantic margin and taking a huge step forward in an industry where dubs are starting to lose their relevance. While I wasn't able to watch the dub completely before writing this review, I was able to see seven of the eleven episodes with the broadcast dub, and I'm happy to say that's it's just as good as the dub for season one. Kate Oxley and Josh Grelle return as Akane and Ginoza, while Cherami Leigh and Clifford Chapin bring strong new voices to Shimotsuki and Kamui.
Yugo Kanno also returns for the soundtrack composition and brings us one of the best soundtracks from this season. Rather than stick to one general style, he brings whatever accompaniment is necessary to fit the scene, from quick-paced electronic tunes to bombastic operatic orchestrations, though I will say the latter bordered on being pretentiously ironic at certain points. As for opening and ending themes, we are met with even more familiar faces. "Enigmatic Feeling" by Ling Tosite Sigure plays us in with a fast-paced rock/electronic track, while "Fallen" by EGOIST covers the outro with another heavy electronic track laced with hard rock. Additionally, "Fallen" is currently available for purchase on iTunes, and I highly recommend checking it out.
Overall, while Psycho-Pass 2 isn't necessarily bad, it falls incredibly short of its previous iteration. However, I do still believe it is necessary to watch this series, especially with the upcoming Psycho-Pass movie on the horizon for next year, written by Urobuchi this time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Dec 27, 2014
The slice of life genre and I have never really had what one might call a stable relationship. It's a genre that often consists of nothing but charming visuals and comedy that does very little for me. So, to counteract this, the slice of life anime that end up in my cue usually have at least one extra theme or genre added, the most common being a romantic plot line. So, was my latest bundle of romantic cuteness enough to stave off the nothingness of a typical slice of life series?
...
I will say that as someone who is generally very uninterested in slice of life, this series had my attention for most of its run time, and there were certainly less moments than usual where I felt like the series was dragging or the pacing was too slow. As is the case with many other slice of life series, the humor is crazy and wild, but is still grounded in stereotypical anime style that never really reached a gut-busting level of hilarity. This is definitely a series that you can just sort of throw on if you've got nothing else to do.
That being said, a lot of the humor still relies on the characters who execute it, and that ended up fluctuating quite a bit throughout the series. Kobeni herself is very plain in personality and often serves as the straight man to the comedic bits of the other characters, but she's also still very endearing in how much she thinks of the others and how to keep them happy. Conversely, we have Benio and Mashiro, who were meant to serve as the comedic core of this series, putting me in the awkward position of not really getting too engaged in them, thus causing a lot of the jokes to illicit no more than a slight chuckle from me. Benio is the "perfect schoolgirl" who ends up having a much more spastic personality at home, while Mashiro is the token loli with a childlike personality that one would use to market this series, and I felt myself constantly shifting back-and-forth between finding her enjoyable and absolutely annoying. Much like with Kawai Complex, there were a lot of moments where these two were actually ruining some of the romantic tension between our two leads.
As for the romance, it's probably the most solid point for this anime. Throughout the entire series, you really do get the sense that Kobeni is struggling with how she feels about being engaged to someone she has no memory of, and the progression from not feeling anything towards him to possibly liking him is gradual and very smooth. It's just unfortunate that Hakuya is basically a pseudo-kuudere and rarely ever displays his emotions overtly. While it is often very obvious what he is feeling, we never really get a sense of his personality, his likes and dislikes, or anything else really other than his engagement to Kobeni.
As one last note on the story, there is a slight supernatural element, and while I wouldn't say that it was poorly executed, the story definitely didn't need it to work.
The animation was produced by Dogakobo (Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, YuruYuri), and this is a studio that I consider second only to KyoAni when it comes to cute girls doing cute things. The character designs are incredibly adorable, and the movement animation is either very smooth and fluid for attractiveness or spastic and frantic for comedic effect, though there are also point where slower movements take larger than necessary arcs that almost make me feel like they really wanted to draw attention to how the movements are done.
There is currently no dub for this series, and as a slice of life anime, I think it would be perfectly fine without one.
The music was composed by Jun Ichikawa and remained relatively unremarkable for most of the series. Some moments highlighted emotional climaxes rather nicely, but never really drove them home completely. Both the opening theme "Tomadoi→Recipe" and ending theme "Masshiro World" were performed by Mikakuning!, the three main voice actresses for the series, and both tracks provided an upbeat and catchy J-pop track that fit incredibly well with the tone of the series.
Overall, Engaged to the Unidentified is watchable, but not very remarkable, though it should definitely go high up on your list if you're a more enthusiastic slice of life fan.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Dec 25, 2014
I've made it a habit this year to watch at least one TV short series each season, and I definitely plan on keeping this pattern going because you never know what exactly you're going to get out of a short series other than time well spent. From the creative nonsense of Tonari no Seki-kun to the bone-chilling terror of Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories, there is a surprising amount of variety to be found in the TV shorts category of your anime listings. So, how did my TV short pick for this season turn out?
...
Our story is fairly simple: a woman named Kaoru fell in love with and married an otaku named Hajime, and the series focuses on some of the quirkier moments of their life together, sort of like a better written Insufficient Direction. Within these four-minute episodes are two general types of comedy: otaku-themed humor and general married life humor, both of which are executed surprisingly well. I extracted quite a bit of enjoyment out of an extremely unsubtle Evangelion reference, but also found the home life confusions of a newlywed couple to be both charming and sometimes even a bit heartwarming. Both Kaoru and Hajime are solid characters as far as TV shorts go, and the only real annoyance I found was with one of Hajime's siblings, whose introduction was...stereotypical in anime style for this character's personality.
The animation was produced by Studio Seven (Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san), and is played off as very cutesy and basic without ever seeming like the budget was being stretched. I also noticed that there seemed to be a bit of a glow to each frame that made it feel almost welcoming like the doorway to a new home. The soundtrack was composed by G-angle and...it was there I guess. Nothing spectacular, but it filled in the silence well. There was no opening theme, but the ending theme "Iikagen ni shite, Anata," as sung by the two lead VAs, was excessively cute and catchy.
Overall, this is definitely one of the better short series I've seen this year, and I can't wait for the second season to come out next spring.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Dec 25, 2014
As the end of the year draws closer, I've found myself in a position where I want to get caught up on the year's more popular titles as soon as possible. Unfortunately, that also means watching shows of very similar genres back-to-back. It's not that I end up getting sick of the genre, but moreso that the faults with each series become more glaring than they normally would if I hadn't watched something from that genre in the while, and the most frequent genre suffering from this is the romantic comedy. So, did my most
...
recent viewing manage to make itself stand out from the crowd that's begging to make it into my lineup?
Once again, I find myself in the position of having to judge a show primarily on its comedy, a process that's rarely ever less than 100% opinionated. As for Kawai Complex, I did end up laughing quite a bit throughout the series. From rampant sensual fantasies to hard-hitting slapstick, this series employs a wide variety of humor. Unfortunately, it ended up settling into a comfort zone about halfway throughout, and I actually ended up being able to predict what was going to happen. Here's the bit where Shiro wants to be abused. Here's the bit where Mayumi blows her top. Here's the bit where Sayaka acts like a horrible person. Predictability is the number one killer of comedies, and I found myself laughing less and less as the series progressed.
Fortunately, the series isn't entirely a comedy, and there's a lot of character-motivated story lines that get fleshed out quite a bit. While Usa does turn out to be a fairly typical "I have a crush on the main love interest but I'm nervous about trying to get close to her" character, he still ends up being really smart about it, and it's hard to not end up really liking him when his mistakes are those that we have to deal with in the real world all the time. Am I forcing myself on the girl I like? Am I being too nice to this group of people? How can I improve my relationship with this person? He definitely felt like he was close to transcending "character" and turning into someone that felt very real.
Ritsu also felt like much more than a standard character type, and she was easily the most interesting character in the series. Her standout feature was that she loves to read and gets intensely engrossed in whatever book she's reading, so much so that she won't even notice when someone else is talking to her. While loving books feels like an acceptable excuse for this character to exist, she ends up going well beyond that, and we slowly get to see the extremely fleshed-out introverted nature of someone who gets exhausted from trying to keep pace in social situations. As for a blossoming romance with Usa, the progression is rather slow, but the signs of it are definitely there, and following this progression make marathoning this series infinitely more enjoyable, though I will say that there were a few points where the writing really felt like it was trying to force this relationship to happen when it didn't need to do so. The slow build was there, but there were definitely points where it felt like it was rushing to get somewhere that it didn't need to get to any time soon.
As for other characters, they ended up not getting as much fleshing out as I would have liked. Shiro is a masochist who's a lot nicer than he seems, Mayumi is a slightly older woman struggling with love, Sayaka is the mean-spirited two-face, and all of them only get one episode each all to themselves. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of their comedic cards end up getting played far too often, sometimes to the point where I didn't even want them on-screen because I knew they would ruin any romantic tension that was building between Usa and Ritsu.
The animation was produced by Brain's Base (D-Frag!, My Little Monster), and this series definitely lives up to the reputation that this studio has been building over the years. Set designs were always a touch more elaborate than average to bring each environment to life, character designs were significantly more refined than the standard fair but still maintained some level of moe-ness, and Ritsu is seriously one of the cutest-looking characters I've seen this year in practically everything she does, a quality I found extremely important when showing a scene from Usa's perspective. There were also a ton of different oddities in the animation used for comedic or cinematic effect, from shrinking an entire frame into the center of the screen to bizarre lighting effects and character design morphs. Additionally, while I normally don't draw attention to this, I do want to point out that the opening animation is actually a bit awe-inspiring, as it seems to provide a glimpse into Ritsu's world of literature and her immersion in it.
There is currently no dub for this series, but if one were to be produced, it would most likely be done by Seraphim Digital. However, on the subject of original Japanese casts, both this series and Nagi no Asukara have convinced me that I need to start keeping track of how many times Kana Hanazawa (Ritsu) shows up in something that I'm watching. I believe Kawai Complex brings me up to 25 roles that I've heard her play now, and I'm certainly not getting sick of her any time soon.
The soundtrack was composed by Akito Matsuda (Baka and Test; Love, Chuunibyou, & Other Delusions), and he ends up doing what he normally does: wacky and crazy tracks for comedic moments and softer piano melodies for the more emotional scenes, though nothing in particular really stood out. The opening theme "Itsuka no, Ikutsuka no Kimi to no Sekai" was performed by fhána and opens with an upbeat pop track, while the ending theme "My Sweet Shelter" was performed by the lead female voice cast and play us out with a bouncing pop tune guaranteed to get stuck in your head.
Ultimately, while Kawai Complex certainly was one of the better comedies I've seen this year and the romance felt very natural for the most part, a comedy that ends up being incredibly predictable by the time it reaches the second half isn't something I can recommend actually purchasing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Dec 23, 2014
In my short time of reviewing anime, I've covered quite a few different types of harems. I've done dramatic harems, reverse harems, and even harems that didn't start out as harems. However, I realized recently that I've never done a review for just a regular old comedic harem, so I decided to pick one up for this season. Upon finishing the series, I realized that everything I want to say about it could pretty much apply to every other comedic harem I've seen. So, aside from the specific anime I'm covering today, consider this as
...
an appropriate substitute review for any other generic comedic harem you can think of (Rosario + Vampire, Highschool DxD, Infinite Stratos, Maken-ki!, etc.), as I rattle off the list of traits that this genre keeps using over and over and over again to make itself as bland and marketable as possible.
1. Fantasy setting or heavy fantasy elements, usually involving magic
While more traditional and realistic settings may have worked back in the heyday of harems like Love Hina, the incorporation of fantasy elements serves as a replacement for actually making the viewer believe that this type of romantic setup could occur in the first place. Additionally, the use of magic creates a plethora of possibilities for getting the female characters into situations of a lewd and nearly-naked nature, with very minimal effort on the part of the writer. For Trinity Seven, we end up with one of Arata's main powers being the ability to make people's clothes disappear, providing plenty of fan service fun.
2. Story still manages to take place in a high school of some kind
I'm not sure what the exact percentage is of anime that take place in high school, but I'm going to assume it's a relatively high number, and within the harem genre the reason for that is very simple: it attracts viewers who are currently in high school. Additionally, with Trinity Seven, we get bonus points added for the high school being an all-girls school (while it's never explicitly stated that this is the case, no other male students seem to appear in this school). This further allows for Arata to be given free reign over whatever love interest the series decides to throw in for our enjoyment.
3. Actual story and magic lore is incredibly convoluted and pointless
For obvious reasons, writers can't just get away with writing absolutely nothing but fan service moments, so of course there has to be some kind of story. However, writing an actual story would make it too difficult for the viewers to focus on those wonderfully-animated breasts you just shoved into frame [heavy-handed sarcasm], so the plot needs to be flimsy, shallow, and easily tradable with any other generic plot. Every magic term in Trinity Seven is practically thrown in your face one after another with little more than a one-sentence description of what it actually does. That didn't really matter though, because I couldn't even count the times where I just flat-out looked away from the screen for a minute or so and then turned back to realize that absolutely nothing has happened other than some more flashy magic terminology and a panty shot.
4. Random climactic battle at the end of the series
...yeah that's just kind of a thing I guess. I suppose they have to at least pretend that they're putting some kind of effort into their writing at the end of the series.
5. Always, ALWAYS leave room for a second season
The harem genre is surprisingly easy to market and sell to viewers, so it's important to keep the money train going until no one shows any interest in your specific series anymore.
6. Main character has some kind of power that no one else has
To be fair, this is a trait that's common even outside the harem genre, but within harems it adds something entirely different. With an action series, being the only one with a certain power or ability makes you humanity's last hope for survival. In a harem, it makes you an object of desire. Of course all the ladies want to jump your bones; you're the only person here who has this super awesome power. In the case of Trinity Seven, Arata is the "Demon Lord Candidate" who has the potential to turn into the Demon Lord, one of the most powerful beings in the world. Another important note is that the power in question is incredibly generic and normally just equates to "I'm stronger than everyone else because reasons."
7. Main character is either overtly perverted or a shy nice guy (who's still incredibly perverted on the inside), but is also incredibly noble
Again, to be fair to Trinity Seven, Arata certainly falls into the former category, and he becomes so blatant with his perversity that it's almost hard to not like him for it (almost being the important word there). As for the nobility aspects, it plays into why the girls fall for him in the first place. I mean sure he's super perverted but he's just this super nice guy that I can rely on underneath all of that [more heavy-handed sarcasm]. Everything about a harem is designed to make the main male character look awesome, and Trinity Seven certainly doesn't miss its mark.
8. Female characters have no depth other than their assigned archetypes
When you have this many female love interests on your cast, it's nearly impossible to give them enough characterization to make them feel fleshed-out while still finding time for fan service moments, so the best course of action is to flood your series with as many archetypes as you can: the childhood friend (Hijiri), the plain Jane (Lilith), the loli (Grimoire), the tsundere (Mira), the kooky one (Levi), the childish one (Yui), the tomboy (Akio), ad nauseam.
9. Primary love interest is as bland as a piece of notebook paper
If the love interest that the main character is eventually going to end up with actually has a personality, the writers run the risk of the viewers not enjoying that specific archetype, so it's always best to choose the one with the least amount of personality possible (and also the biggest cup size). Of course, the two characters in question will never actually reach the point where they could be considered to be in a relationship. I mean lord forbid that you actually do something romantically interesting with your characters.
10. All animation budget goes towards character designs and boob physics
The fan service is the main selling point of a harem, so it's absolutely vital that this is achieved, often at the cost of the rest of the animation looking terrible. Studio Seven Arcs knows this very well and gave us exactly that. While the action in Trinity Seven wasn't completely awful, the particle and light effects certainly weren't anything worthy of praise, and backgrounds and moving objects were often rendered in the most eye-jarring 3D I've seen in a long time.
11. Fan service out the wazoo
This one doesn't really need much explanation. You're certainly not watching this because the romance is so unbelievably captivating.
12. Soundtrack occupies the background for the majority of the anime's run time
I honestly can't even think of a single note from this soundtrack off the top of my head right now, and I just finished the last episode about an hour ago. In this case, the soundtrack was composed by Technoboys Pulcraft Green-Fund (Witch Craft Works), and I wouldn't necessarily blame them for the blandness of the soundtrack because this is a harem after all, and there isn't exactly a long list of standout harem soundtracks.
Overall, I do think that anime viewers should experience a simple comedic harem at least once, but Trinity Seven certainly isn't the one I would recommend as an introduction to the genre.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Dec 23, 2014
In terms of the western market, the anime industry has been accelerating at a rapid rate since the reintroduction of Toonami to the television lineup in 2012. On the TV front, we had the first instance of a dub premiering at the same time as its original subbed version with Space Dandy at the beginning of this year, and even more progress has been made with the introduction of FUNimation's Broadcast Dubs this Fall, allowing fans access to the top dubbed series months before they would normally premiere. Even those outside the industry are beginning
...
to invest in it. For the first time, Netflix has acquired the exclusive license to stream a certain anime title in the West, and it has already displayed plans to continue this trend in the future. So, how did the very first "Netflix Original" anime fare?
In terms of what type of science fiction this series goes for, it takes on the mantle of very straight and fact-based sci-fi, and the laws of physics and nature come into play very often. Ideas like propulsion and acceleration become key concepts when determining how battles sway and how life prospers on board the "Sidonia," and this ends up making battles a lot more thrilling and exciting because the lack of fantastical plot armor creates some extremely tense situations and often results in extremely high death tolls during battles. This turned what would have otherwise been an extremely generic plot into a captivating experience.
That being said, the truly generic nature of the plot itself is nearly unbearable at some points, and I found myself making a gagging motion whenever the standard dialogue clichés started popping up. There were also a lot of points where things just didn't make any sense. Without spoiling anything, there comes a point where Nagate messes up during a mission and it causes a big problem. Then, after the mission, one of the other soldiers actually beams him in the head with a rock. Now only was this infuriating on the level of "this crap probably wouldn't fly in an actual military," but also on the level of "here's that clichéd plot point where everyone hates the main character after he messes up, but then he does really well in the next mission so they're ok with him again." And, I kid you not, there is actually a montage scene where they flash between different moments on Nagate's rise up in power and respect within the military. This is just a sample of the unbelievably terrible writing that takes places between the epic thrills of each battle.
Characters really don't do much to differentiate themselves from their standard tropes either. Nagate is probably the most fleshed-out of the cast, but even his background of living in the underground alleys of "Sidonia" felt a bit generic. From there on out, between token love interests with no personality other than "love interest," and a quite literal bully character with very few redeeming qualities, the characters really don't do much to make themselves stand out. Character interactions also feel a bit forced at times, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the fact that there are enough main characters fawning over Nagate to fill a small harem for any other anime. By the time they had added a fourth love interest, my eyes were about to swivel back into my head so hard that they'd fall out of their sockets.
And then, there's the bear. There is literally a talking bear with a robotic arm that actually gets to be a main character...just let that sink it for a minute. I don't know if this was their attempt to insert some kind of comic relief despite the fact that the bear never does anything comical, but if it was, then it worked just about as well as every single forced comedic relief scene in this series.
The animation was produced by Polygon Pictures, and to my knowledge, this is the first television anime series to be animated completely in 3D rendered models. This ended up creating an incredibly stark contrast in animation quality. On the plus side, the action sequences were some of the best I've seen from this year, with every single movement choreographed and animated to near perfection. The heavy attention to explosions and particles effects also added a great deal to every fight, though some felt less realistic than others. On the reverse side of this category, any animation that wasn't a fight sequence ranged from incredibly mediocre to unbelievably awful. The characters have an extremely limited range of facial features, blushing and crying looking extremely jagged and unnatural, and any sort of body movement looks severely robotic and completely destroys any attempt at immersing you in this story.
On the dub front, I actually couldn't tell you who exactly dubbed this series, but I can tell you that we have definitely found a fundamental flaw in Netflix's business plan for original anime series. I do have to give credit to Johnny Yong Bosch and Todd Haberkorn (credited as Todd Stone) though, but saying that those two were good in a dub is practically unnecessary since they've been voice acting legends for at least the past decade. Unfortunately, aside from a minor role by Spike Spencer (Shinji of Neon Genesis Evangelion), I did not recognize a single name on this dub cast. Upon further research, I discovered that a good portion of them had never even done any anime voice acting before they were cast for this series, and the effects of this were plain to seen. I personally was able to slosh through the dub because it's a heavy action series and Bosch can in fact carry an entire cast by himself, but I would not blame you in the slightest if you switched to subbed while watching this. Hopefully Netflix will learn from their mistakes before they begin their work on The Seven Deadly Sins.
The music was composed by Noriyuki Asakura of Rurouni Kenshin fame, and his mastery of soundtrack composition has certainly evolved since the late 90s. Battle sequences were always accompanied by grand and epic orchestrations mixed with heavy guitar work and electronics, while more intense non-battle scenes often carried creepy electronic elements; I will say that I felt somewhat unmoved by some of the softer tracks though. The opening theme "Sidonia" was performed by angela and plays us in with a heavy techno beat back by a march-inspired feel, while the ending theme "show" by Eri Kitamura plays us out with a heavy rock track. Additionally, both of these tracks are available for purchase on iTunes, and I would definitely recommend checking them out.
Overall, I'm once again left in a quandary over whether or not to recommend Knights of Sidonia. There are a ton of really, really awful moments in this series, yet I was still able to watch the next episode without any pause for a break. Ultimately, I'm feeling a bit generous towards it since it's the first anime exclusively licensed by a streaming company outside the direct anime industry, and any attempt to promote and expand anime in the western market should always be given a chance.
If you like heavy action anime, then definitely give this one a shot, but otherwise stay clear of it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Dec 22, 2014
The chuunibyou has become quite a popular archetype in recent years. While there are several different types of this "disorder," the most common among anime characters is the Evil Eye chuunibyou, where one believes that they have special powers or special connections to the supernatural world. While this type of character has been around for a while, their popularity has exploded over the last few years, especially with the premiere of Kyoto Animation's Love, Chuunibyou, & Other Delusions, and the possibilities for this character archetype are multiplying rapidly. For example, what would happen if the
...
chuunibyou in question, as well as some of his friends, ended up getting actual superpowers?
Taking place in the standard Japanese high school setting, our story focuses on Jurai Andou and his friends in the Literature Club. On a seemingly ordinary day, Andou and the others are suddenly granted strange and fantastic superpowers. Normally this would be an automatic setup for some kind of superhero story line about saving the world, but Andou and his friends don't seem to be interested in that at all, as they'd much rather use their powers in secret to have fun amongst themselves. From there, the story unfolds with the everyday lives of these students as they interact with each other and learn more about their powers.
The fact that they don't end up taking your standard superhero route ends up being a huge strength of the series. It almost reminds me of a more lighthearted version of the movie Chronicle. Not every kid is gonna want to immediately go out and be a superhero. Some of them might just want to mess around a bit, and that's what a good portion of the series is about. Unfortunately, the slower parts of the series were the ones where they introduced an overarching story line. There are a ton of other characters with superpowers in the background, and there's some kind of war going on, and it all gets really generic and convoluted. It's really weird how this series made five kids sitting in a club room more interesting than a looming war of supernatural powers.
That being said, the moments where it is just the main characters messing around are really enjoyable to watch. It's a big ball of fluffy, lighthearted fun with tons of laughs to be had. The humor of this series is spot on for the majority of its run time, with a lot of chuunibyou-related jokes thrown in everywhere. There are also quite a few serious moments in the show as well, and their lead-ins never feel forced or unnatural because they blend so well with the comedy, though sometimes the series is purposely jarring in tone for added effect. This brings us to episode 7, which might be one of my favorite episodes from any anime I've watched this season because it just completely shreds all of the fantastical elements surrounding the chuunibyou archetype and slams it headfirst into a wall of realism, showing us what it's like for people on the outside to try and interact with this character on an emotional level.
However, this isn't just a comedy series, as there is a very prominent "romance" label attached to this anime that soon evolves into a full-on "harem" label. While the harem elements are very light and nontraditional until the last few episodes, I would still call it a traditional harem despite the fact that there's actually very little fan service in this series. I should note as well that it's very rare for something other than a visual novel adaptation to have truly effective dramatic elements as part of its harem, and Supernatural Battles pulls off these moments surprisingly well. Unfortunately, much like other traditional harems, there is no conclusive ending yet, so I can't really give it any true praise until Andou actually makes a choice, so hopefully some additional seasons are on the horizon.
The characters initially seem very generic and standard at first. Andou is the full-on chuuni, Tomoyo is the tsundere, Hatoko is the childhood friend, Sayumi is the club president, and Chifuyu is the loli. However, as the story progresses, each of these characters has their own individual quirks and secrets that make them stand out from their usual stereotypes and turn them into much more interesting characters, with Tomoyo and Hatoko getting a rather excessive amount of focus. Unfortunately, we end up not getting as much information about how they feel about their own powers as I would have liked, so we don't really get to see how this might have changed them in some way.
The animation was produced by Studio Trigger of Kill la Kill fame, which is really odd considering that Trigger is known for purposefully breaking the mold of typical anime. The character designs are fairly generic, but still manage to be very appealing, while backdrops don't seem to do anything other than just exist. As for movement animation, Trigger's style of being purposefully low-budget can be seen practically everywhere, and I'm still not sure if this is a good thing or not. Purposefully making animation look sloppy still makes it sloppy, but they end up doing it in ways that actually works well with some of the comedic timing. As for the action and superpower scenes, they're relatively solid, but certainly nothing impressive.
There is no dub for this series yet, and I imagine it will probably stay that way, as the series is currently unlicensed. I feel that this one works better without a dub anyway, especially considering how much chuunibyou language is used throughout it.
The soundtrack was composed by Elements Garden, and I'm not gonna lie: this is probably one of the most annoying soundtracks I've heard in a while. It's not so much the fact that everything is super generic, which it is, but some of the musical cues felt very jarring and out of place. There was one particularly intense track that was unbelievably over-dramatic and kept getting worse and worse in its execution as the series went on. The opening theme "OVERLAPPERS" was performed by the four lead voice actresses of the series, while the ending theme "You Gotta Love Me!" was performed by Kato*Fuku, and both tracks provide incredible catchy J-pop tunes that are certainly worth a few listens.
Overall, while it did have quite a few elements that made it stands out from its genre peers, When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace still suffers from a few misplaced ideas and the lack of a proper soundtrack.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Dec 19, 2014
"Love is like the sea."
Love stories have existed for practically the entire existence of storytelling. They've been told countless times, in countless ways, with countless settings and characters. From the grand and epic quests to silly school rom-coms, the love story is the most enduring story of fiction, and even non-fiction in some cases. With that in mind, one would think that original ideas, or even ideas that haven't grown stale, are quite lacking in this genre. So, how does today's anime stand in the
...
rankings of the great love stories?
Before we get into the romance aspects of this anime, I want to briefly recognize the intense amount of world building that went into this anime. Every ounce of exposition was weaved seamlessly into either dialogues or inner monologues and provided an inside look into just how this world functions. Watching the people of the sea interact with both each other and with the people of the surface was always an interesting matter despite not being the main focus of the story. By the way, on the matter of the sea village, I hope you're not a big stickler about the laws of physics when you're watching a fantasy series, because they really don't give a crap what you're laws says about buoyancy and gravity. However, I will say that they break physics in a way that still feels believable somehow, and it's a very minor quibble.
On to the main matter of this story, this is definitely one of the better love stories I've seen in a very long time, and I honestly didn't expect that considering how it's set up. This is one of those almost convoluted love stories where everybody is in love with someone, but then someone else is in love with them, and the chains of love keep piling on from there. It actually reminded me a lot of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the play that has practically become the template for modern romance stories. Normally I would find this kind of setup almost gag worthy because it's basically nothing but angst and teenage drama, but Nagi no Asukara seems to be fundamentally aware that this is an unavoidable problem with this kind of story setup. In the midst of wallowing in the constant trade-offs of drama, it also takes time to give us deep and drawn-out introspectives into what each character thinks about both themselves and their love interest.
One of the central themes of this anime is the concept of change and how each of the characters deals with the matter. Coupled with the fact that our main characters are just beginning to enter into the age of puberty, we get to watch as each character struggles with their own opinions on change and, of course, their resistance to it, and the mechanics of the story really help to drive this idea home. Without spoiling anything, something really big happens about halfway through the series, and it causes the entire romantic landscape of character relationships to change drastically, and both the change and lack thereof in their world forces these characters to mature in ways that are sudden and uncomfortable, but also cathartic and relieving. I do have one little complaint though, in that after that romantic formula has its drastic change, things start to shift back towards how they were before, and why I was initially slightly disappointed by this, the way everything came back together with its conclusion refused to leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Even aside from the romance aspects, the story touches on all sorts of themes relating to growing up and maturing, and the struggle of the children to both grow up and not grow up is palpable throughout the entire series.
As for the specific characters, there are some that I can't discuss due to spoilers, so we'll just focus on the main five for now. Hikari is the group’s leader and takes the bold and brash personality to the max, but his inner monologue still manages to make him feel sympathetic when he does things that I would normally hate any other character for. Manaka is the clumsy and childish one that Hikari is in love with, while Chisaki is the more mature girl that's in love with Hikari, but begins to loathe herself because of her strong friendship with Manaka. Kaname is the cool and aloof friend that seems to sit in the background a lot, and we actually get an insight into what that's like for him, and Tsugumu is a boy from the surface with an insatiable love for the sea. The chemistry for all of these characters is phenomenal not in how well they get along, but in how they don't, especially when confessions of love come out into the open, and this was probably my favorite part of the entire series.
The animation was produced by P.A. Works, and this is possibly their best looking anime since Angel Beats! in 2010. The incredibly detailed environments combined with the high-gloss and super-moe character designs are unbelievably pleasing to the eye, and this is definitely one of the best-looking anime this year. Even the CG looked incredible most of the time, though this is almost negated by the fact that this anime is filled to the brim with CG objects, from boats and cars to fish and waves. I understand though that even with such a high budget anime you have to make cuts somewhere (I couldn't possibly imagine having to draws hundreds of individual fish in a single frame), and this is definitely a step towards making me feel more accepting towards CG. HOWEVER, I will still stand by the idea that animating a walking background character in CG sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of someone's forehead, and is practically a mortal sin of animation.
There is no dub for this series yet, though I wouldn't mind a dub being produced. If it were to happen, it would most likely be a Bang Zoom! dub, and while I'm normally not super-excited by their work, I have a feeling they would be able to pull this one off well.
The soundtrack was composed by Yoshiaki Dewa, one half of the J-pop group Jyukai, whose only prior soundtrack work has been for Amnesia, yet his mastery of setting the right mood for every scene is nothing to trifle with. Most of the tracks consist of acoustic guitar melodies, a sound that I feel needs to be much more prevalent in soundtracks, though the occasional string swells and somber piano tunes add a nice contrast. Both opening themes "lull ~Soshite Bokura wa~" and "ebb and flow" were performed by Ray, and bring a relaxed singer/songwriter feel blended slightly with electronic ambiance, while both ending themes "Aqua Terrarium" and "Mitsuba no Musubime" were performed by Nagi Yanagi and play us out with some rolling ballads to heighten the emotional impact of each episode.
Overall, Nagi no Asukara is an excellent example of how there is a great deal of innovation and heart to be found in the romance genre, and it's certainly one of the hidden gems of 2014.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Dec 19, 2014
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and in the case of WIXOSS that may very well be the case. As I mentioned in my review of the first half of the series, WIXOSS takes a lot of cues from a certain magical girl anime called Madoka Magica, from the dirty secrets behind their world's setup to the hopes and aspirations of their main characters. While transmuting someone else's story to fit a new context is certainly appropriate, WIXOSS still ended up leaning a bit too hard on the fence and ended up flat out copying certain ideas and motifs from Madoka
...
rather than repurposing them. So, now that they've used up all of the Madoka storyline that they could, how has WIXOSS been faring since then?
Much like the first season, Selector Spread WIXOSS really shines during its darker moments, and they don't even wait til the end of the second episode to really start laying in on thick. From the psychotically nasty to the horrifyingly sensual, WIXOSS certainly hasn't lost its darker edge that subverted its cutesy-moe look and gave it the edge that it had back in the Spring season earlier this year. As for departing from its Madoka base, the story shapes up pretty well during its first two thirds as the tension builds around what actually caused WIXOSS to be created in the first place. Unfortunately, I found the ultimate revelation to be a little bit underwhelming, though this may be more due to it feeling a bit rushed and poorly explained. In the end, I suppose I was sort of able to believe what happened, but it still felt very fuzzy on a lot of the details. I will say that the final episode was very solid, though certainly nothing we haven't seen before.
Strangely enough, the character development for this season actually seemed to flip-flop a bit. While Yuzuki and Hitoe were the big stars of last season, Spread now focuses on Iona, Akira, and a new fangirl character named Chiyori. While I wouldn't say that Chiyori's character was poorly developed, I will say that she was exceedingly annoying in many parts, though this may just be because she is a WIXOSS fangirl, and fangirls are annoying by nature. Iona and Akira, however, actually present a rather interesting contrast in development, with Iona apparently being influenced by Ruko's kindness and purity, while Akira is driven to madness over her obsession with Ulith, who now inhabits Iona's body. However, I do have to admit that our lead antagonist, Mayu, turned out to be fairly weak as far as antagonists go, and while the final revelation with her character was fairly solid, she felt very basic and unplanned when compared to other antagonists within similar genres.
Much like last season, the animation was done by J.C. Staff, and their hyper-moe style blended with unique color palettes certainly brings this anime to live once again. I was a little bit disappointed that there wasn't as much of the horrifying imagery that we had in the first season though. I should also give props to the final episode for some particularly interesting and well-animated environment breakdowns.
As of yet, there has still not been a dub announcement for this series, though if FUNimation were to announce it, I would imagine that it would be very well-acted and well-scripted.
The music is still composed by Maiko Iuchi, and her eerie ambiance style is still very present during the tenser moments. However, I've started to dislike some of the more dubstep-influenced moments of the soundtrack, as they don't seem to fit well with the creepy nature of this series. The opening theme "world's end, girl's rondo" by Kanon Wakeshima gives us an upbeat and eclectic blend of string, piano, and drum set to play us in, while the ending theme "Undo: Ashita e no Kioku" by Cyua gives us a heart thumping outro with parallel octave harmonies in its chorus to send a bit of a chill down your spine.
Overall, Selector Spread WIXOSS is just as solid as the first season of WIXOSS, but doesn't do much to move beyond that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
|
