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Mar 29, 2023
Man what a letdown. It was a pretty decent original fantasy show; and I give a smidge more leeway to original projects since they are taking a bigger risk too.
Premise was suitably interesting to keep me going through the show. Cast was likeable enough and had some decent story beats in it. Could have focused a little more than it did but that would have been a nitpick had it not been for that last episode. I was thinking as the episode was wrapping up; it's okay, I've seen worse, then they piss me off in the last 30 seconds to make the mildly
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disappointing ending really disappointing. It's so unfortunate really, that the ending kills the show for me.
There's not much to talk about in terms of production value. It's pretty average across the board so I don't have much to say about it other than the opening song is kind of catchy and the CG was okay most of the time.
This is such a disappointing ending. I can't really recommend it to anyone barring a guarantee of a sequel season of which I am not confident in that happening.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Mar 26, 2023
This is a truly excellent reimagining of of Trigun. The narrative does a valiant job of reimagining and streamlining the narrative story beats, particularly ones from the manga to keep things a bit more to the point. This is a reimagining in collaboration with Trigun's creator to create a new Trigun that fans new and old can experience something new; this is not intended to be 1 to 1 or anything close to that, just set expectations fairly. I personally do appreciate the narrative being streamlined and refined, it allows for similar but different variations of storylines I've seen before. Our main antagonist is far
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more menacing than they were in the '98 anime; this isn't the fault of the '98 adaptation, they had basically nothing to work with. The tone is more consistent as well, trying to be more consistently serious with some silliness mixed in where appropriate.
Of course the animation is top notch as expected from the undisputed top studio in 3D animation. I will defend this point vigorously as the everything is designed animated and composited to an exceptional degree. This is a far cry from Berserk 2019 in terms of 3D animation. Few studios reach this quality of action choreography even in 2D and it looks fantastic. They use the 3D well to create some really ambitious animation cuts, especially in the finale.
Soundtrack is fantastic, it's more inspired by western film soundtracks in terms of theming and that is a valid direction to go in. It fits the tone it's trying to without overstaying its welcome. The voice cast sub and dub are great; the dub also takes enough leeway to keep the banter where it exists, snappy without losing tone or meaning. Only Johnny Yong Bosch is back from the original cast and it's mildly disappointing, but nothing to be done for it. The other major cast members from '98 haven't really done anything anime voice acting since Trigun.
Trigun Stampede is ultimately it's own thing and what is now pretty much a Trigun tradition, no iteration is quite the same as the other. It does what it does narratively and technically very well. Whether the promised continuation delivers pr not, this will be a personal favorite for years. It's what 3D if capable of with the right direction and talent. I would call it worth a watch just for the production value alone personally.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Oct 29, 2021
This is definitely not a series for everyone. The concept is great and can be very funny at times, at other times the humor can be downright bizarre and probably more kind of pervy than some folks would prefer. I enjoy the show when it is not doing the latter. The best humor is the dynamic between Draluc, Ronaldo, and John in my opinion. Other thing of note is that the opening sequence is fantastic, even if the show isn't your thing check out the opening sequence, it is very good. It is kind of trashy at times but it is still pretty well produced
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for that's worth. Watch with caution if you are generally leery of comedy anime titles.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 31, 2021
This probably the smartest anime for 2021 in terms of high concept. This series is a prime example of taking a complex and difficult topic and writing in a way that it is digestible without minimizing the complexities. Racism is difficult to portray in fiction, more so systemic pervasive racism without going too far into the realm of just being unpleasant or oversimplifying the problem. The worldbuilding is fantastic to put it shortly.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this was an A-1 Pictures title with this level of CG integration; their relatively new compositing team is really helping. The show looks good, they don't
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really cheat in moments without the mechs from what I could see. The mechs look great for CG models and are integrated well; didn't break immersion or anything.
Sound was good, I must shame myself for not paying attention to the Sawano soundtrack first time through, it is definitely one of his listening to the tracks by themselves. The ending songs are great too since he composed those too. The voice cast is great in Japanese, the dub is more than acceptable to watch; Crunchyroll is definitely upping it's dub game, at least in English, I can't say for other language options.
Character writing is definitely a high point for the series. The characters are complex and have their own feelings and motivations for the choices they make. It hurts when characters get killed off because you want them to make it and be okay. Even our idealistic lead has the resolve actually try to do things to fight for her ideals.
I very much enjoyed season 1 as a whole. It is rare that a series grabs me so much that I binge the whole season in one day. The worldbuilding and character writing are phenomenal. I tip my hat to Asato Asato and her debut series being as strong a showing as it is. A-1 Pictures also made a strong showing with this project; certainly helps when the source material is currently well written. If this series piques your interest in any way, I strongly recommend it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Aug 9, 2021
The series is a catastrophic collapse under its own hype. The writing had been on the wall post time skip for me and it didn't get better. It got increasingly determined to make this ending as "gritty" and "symbolic" as possible while having the depth of a puddle.
The art has always been appropriate for the content to passable, it was never hideously unreadable, but it has never really been overly impressive either. It heavily benefitted from an anime adaptation with better art and a very talented director.
The character writing generally has been a weak point throughout, and it really didn't improve enough for me
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to derive enjoyment from the end of the series. Very few characters of note get killed off throughout the series, and a number of them who did get killed off pointlessly to make the audience feel sad. This is basically fridging for all intents and purposes and not good writing as a rule. Mikasa, the bad ass female lead from the Trost arc goes bland almost immediately after, and repeatedly fixates on Eren to an alarming degree for the rest of the series. Almost everyone else is bland, cookie cutter characters, some of them written in contradictory fashion in the final arc. Very few got actual character arcs and fewer still got anything to do once said character arcs were more or less completed, just sort of stuffed in the corner to gather dust or killed off because they serve no further purpose.
The ending is an incoherent, convoluted mess pretending to have meaning and depth and honestly it is a bad knock-off of a better iconic ending. The ending also insults the reader's intelligence multiple times throughout with "exposition" lines that are basically an equivalent to "I dunno". This is on top of shoehorned in plot points and commentary that for the most part came out of left field and does not help on the "I dunno" front. The ending also undermines not only the beginning of the narrative but a great many "emotional" plot points along the way with a poorly explained or fleshed out plot macguffin. Some of those themes aren't bad ideas per se, but Isayama should have actually spent time on them if he wanted to use them so badly, not just thrown in as an afterthought in the last chapter.
I really cannot in good conscience recommend AoT to people. The payoff simply is not there and I refuse to tell someone to waste their time on a series that they will likely be unhappy with at the end. It's pop culture status cannot be denied, but it did benefit from a great deal of luck getting a good anime season right at the beginning of the streaming boom. If someone really wants to see how bad it is, that is their business, but I don't recommend it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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