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Jun 21, 2023
This wretched excuse for an animation budget pisses me off. What a waste of resources. This show is your typical bottom-barrel, garbage-tier "overreaction" anime. Everything has to be fucking overreacted to. These characters can't just have a normal fucking conversation for once in their life. Do people actually enjoy characters like these? To me it's Sturgeon's law in action. You get nothing but unrealistic "UWAAAA!", so the characters aren't even conceivable in this multiverse. It's a show I get it: doesn't need to be 100% realistic that's not what I'm about. It's perfectly understandable to exaggerate emotions internally, but not externally through a character's behavior
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when the situation doesn't warrant it. It's so incredibly exhausting I want to climb into a coffin and wait until nonsense is wiped from history because humanity evolved past it. We should delete this before we meet the aliens because this is embarrassing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Apr 11, 2020
BNA is your typical coming-of-age + race/class separation + taming the shadow story represented by anthropomorphic animals. It has an upbeat tone given by its music and interactions that give off the same vibe as Little Witch Academia.
In essence there's no real tension at all in this show. It all feels empty due to its atmosphere. There's very little blood, or death, which tends to indicate that there's no real stakes besides meaningless slapstick violence even though this anime tries to be a serious detective show.
The protagonist barely does anything, only the sidekick protects her and that's about it, add in some flirtatious elements and
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you've got this romantic element which I don't find interesting.
In addition, the protagonist feels too childish and light-hearted. There's nothing but instinctive-reaction emotions instead of any semblance of internal dialogue or contemplative states. She gets dragged into various plotholes, and gets confronted by characters I wonder why I should care about at all.
The first episode was promising, but now I'm bored. The writing got incredibly bad. This is far from being as good as Beastars, not even comparable.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Mar 28, 2020
My Roommate is a Cat is a show about a guy and his new cat. Each episode is roughly split in two parts, beginning with the guy's perspective followed by the second half with the cat's perspective having its own internal monologue.
This show had so much potential but blew it on a character that is a delirious anemic. Moments of the show are heartfelt and nice but then the "comedy" messes it up. I had hoped for something akin to Usagi Drop instead of this, and if comedy is desired then the author should not have relied on the most basic of slapstick for comedy.
Who
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on earth falls over on their back when seeing a cat in a box? Who faints after walking two steps? These "gags" are mostly annoying, but might be enjoyable for some who enjoy caricatures. The socially anxious aspect of this character is also portrayed in a slapstick fashion, making the character just not feel real. There's very no introspection that could redeem the character.
The side-characters are not very interesting. Nana would come closest since she appears to be the most normal, but I had to look up her name for this.
The cat on the other hand is written quite well. It's a cat, it's not supposed to be a very complex character, and the writer gets this quite right. The cat functions mostly according to its instincts and that makes the interaction between the guy and his cat cute. They show desirable qualities like caring for each other while they both miscommunicate, giving a comedic/romantic undertone that aids in the central theme of trauma resolution.
The art is mediocre, some of the cat's animations look like someone just moved a sprite linearly.
As for music, it's a bit emotional - of the "music box" variety, but nothing memorable.
I enjoyed only parts of this show, again, the main human character ruins it with his sickly physical stature.
Overall I'd give the show a mediocre 5, but it was good enough for me to finish it. I just hoped it to be better.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 30, 2019
Holy moly. This has got to be one of the best shounens I've seen in a loooong time.
What's good about it? Characters. Characters, and more characters.
Yes, I'm tired of the cliche 1-dimensional characters. Tired of the girls screaming "EEEEEEHH" as the camera pans to the sky. Tired of the overreactions to everything in an attempt to be comedic. Tired of characters that do not learn or show any emotional depth - the full spectrum of human emotions. This anime has it and it's refreshing. It's wonderful.
This anime does not appear to have annoying cliches (to me at least)! Yes! Finally! An anime that doesn't have
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these dumb anime character cliches. Was it that hard to NOT make teens fall into a girls' boobs or look up her skirt? Was it that hard to NOT have characters laughing HYSTERICALLY at the author's joke which isn't even funny instead of just smiling a bit like a normal person? Apparently it was easy for this anime. It doesn't have this stuff I'm so tired of seeing. I want more of this - so I watched the second season too. It's even better.
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Story: 9 - We're put in a post-apocalyptic world where humans are all dead and vampires rule the world. The story really seems to draw on the Jungian idea of integrating the shadow, it's overall just well-written, complex, but not hard to follow. Very invested in the story because it draws heavily on religious references and psychological concepts. It shows us how archetypes walk the line between becoming the shadow, integrating the shadow, and failing to do so. It's a very interesting story that needs deeper analysis (For that see the last part of this review).
Art: 7 - It's very satisfactory. The character art is distinctive which is very important. No character looks like a cut-out color swap.
Sound: 9 - A quite generic "epic" score to go with some scenes but it just works well. May be biased due to my enjoyment.
Character: 10 - YES. This is the anime I've been looking for for a while. Finally GOOD characters.
Enjoyment: 9 - Just overall enjoyable.
Overall: 9 - Just a fantastic anime.
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# Analysis *SPOILERS IN THIS SECTION* #
Note that this analysis may be flawed due to my own biases and reference point as I'm more familiar with the western themes of psychology and religion than the eastern ones, and wish to analyze under these conditions.
# Basic Overview #
Okay so let's analyze this anime. Firstly what happens is we see a young boy - Yu, a teenager - escape a tyrannical institution (the vampires) with his friends. In the process all but one friend is killed - Mika - who is turned into a vampire.
Yu is subsequently captured by the Demon Army (humans) which uses him for experiments in creating the Seraph of the end - a demon that can destroy the vampires.
The vampire nation and the Demon Army fight against each other and in the midst of the last battle, Yu and Mika are both betrayed by their factions and try to save each other.
# Observations #
Alright listen so let me just set up some important observations - this is really important later on:
* Vampires in the anime MUST drink blood or they become a demon.
* A human becomes a vampire by drinking "progenitor" vampire blood.
* A new vampire becomes a "mature" vampire by drinking human blood.
* For the Demon Army: A demon enters the consciousness when wielding a weapon.
* A demon lusts for power, feeds on desire, and can yield great strength to its host.
* A demon can overtake its host if desires are too strong.
The whole demon thing is just the concept of "integrating the shadow" in Jungian psychology, which means to incorporate the dark aspect of your consciousness into your personality to wield its powers while not letting this aspect ruin your life.
We are all capable of enormous destruction and malice if the shadow (demon) takes over, but to incorporate it makes one powerful.
It's basically the idea of being savage in the flesh, civilized in the mind.
Now what's interesting in this story is how the vampires become demons if they do not drink blood and it's obvious why: their desire for blood becomes so intense, so insane, that their shadow wins.
But what does the human/vampire difference mean? What does it mean REALLY? I think it symbolizes a different personality class or social group.
Really ask yourself this, what the hell is a vampire? It's a parasitic agent that requires blood to not become a demon and lusts after it. It has fangs like a predator. What does that mean to us symbolically?
It's an inevitable predator - no matter what we do - it will lust for our blood and it will be to our detriment, but how can humans be turned into vampires?
By drinking vampire blood. What does it mean? To drink vampire blood is to have consumed a predator, and makes a human a predator too.
I think this symbolizes the ability for people to have uncontrollable urges that end up being upgraded (as a vampire matures) to being applied to other people. To drink the blood of the vampire may make you a vampire, indicating also that there is an environmental or biological component to the urge or behavior. What I mean by this is that the blood drinking symbolizes either or both bloodlines or upbringings causing people to get said uncontrollable urges.
As the story shows - one needs to find a way to quell the urge using inter-personal relationships instead of farming people for satisfaction of the urge.
For instance Mika refused to drink any human blood, feeding only on vampire blood. Near the end he drinks the blood of Yu, which Yu voluntarily offers to him as an act of love. Mika reluctantly agrees to do so.
It can be interpreted to mean to find a way to quell urges by voluntary actors being a fulfillment tool in one's life.
Stop farming people and exploiting people! - it tells me.
# The First Divine Incident #
Okay - Now that that's out of the way, what's with the angels and heavenly references?
In one episode Yu observes his 4 friends being bitten and defeated by vampires as Yu is being transported away from the battle by Mika.
Yu totally loses it and calls upon God to be his messenger, angels enter his psyche and the 7 trumpets of the apocalypse are sounded, causing Yu to go into a divine uncontrolled rage which frightens all vampires - including the upper echelons of the vampire army.
What this means is that the ones farming/oppressing people - the vampires - will be punished by the fabric of reality (God) for doing so.
This is a story that has been retold countless times in religious texts.
For instance, in Exodus, the enslaved Jews of Egypt causes God to rain down divine punishment upon the Pharaoh time and time again without fail.
This little part of the story symbolizes this core aspect of the fabric of reality: the unjustly oppressed will get a retribution against their oppressors.
Why "unjustly oppressed"? Because one must be in accordance with God (the fabric of reality) to be able to upend the oppressors.
If one acts in ones' own detriment then how can one win over ones' oppressors?
# The Second Divine Incident #
In the end Yu performs the ultimate sacrifice. To protect those he loves, he stabs himself in the heart in order to summon divine powers.
In his psyche he - against the wishes of his shadow - blows the trumpet.
This symbolizes the value of sacrifice.
When we sacrifice ourselves for others we can be extremely powerful, holding our own even against a fully formed demonic force.
# Conclusion #
What can I say? What does it tell holistically?
To me - right now, and I might be wrong - the story is about the exploitative powers of bad "lawful" actors (Demon Army) and "unlawful" parasites (Vampires), and how to maneuver one out of these.
Perhaps we can tie the vampires to the predatory lenders or corporate minions as they have the insatiable urge for money - greed.
And perhaps we can tie the Demon Army to the corrupt power-struggles of a government that has a tendency to become tyrannical.
The Seraph of the end being an entity which destroys both humans and vampires even though it is wielded as a weapon of the humans tells me that a great tyrannical, moralistic government rises to power
only to fail at the eradication of undesirable vampires (flawed people with uncontrollable urges in society) which ends up destroying that society instead due to the ignorance of the humans, causing
revolution and misery.
Perhaps that is an interesting perspective to think about.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Apr 7, 2019
I'm honestly baffled by how good this anime is. Let me first say though that this show is getting mixed reviews and so it might be a case of you love it or hate it, but oh man do I love it!
I've only seen 13 episodes (binged the entire day, no more eps are out as of writing), and compared to other isekais this one takes the cake. Why? Because its characters are realistic and enjoyable.
So many isekais have this ridiculous harem overhyped ADHD 1D girl stereotype with some dumbass guy protagonist that just acts dumb and it makes me just drop those shows within
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10 seconds. This one? No, it's more nuanced.
The main character evolves over the course of the show, without spoiling: he learns from his experience.
The same goes for the other main characters. I really like that.
Don't get me started about the pacing and narrative voice. I love the narrative voice, it works great in moderation and allows us to skip irrelevant details quickly. This anime uses it to quickly move the plot forward. Watching this show always feels fresh.
Really hoping it doesn't turn bad in the second half.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Sep 2, 2018
tl;dr: you liked Nichijou-like humor and you've seen a lot of anime? Watch this it's brilliant.
Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan is one of my favorite anime. It's a gag anime that deconstructs many other genres in anime as well as manga, and does so brilliantly. There have been episodes where I was laughing out loud for a solid 10 seconds, which is something that happens extremely rarely for me when watching anime.
The type of humor it takes to enjoy this anime is similar to Nichijou or Asobi Asobase. If you liked those, you'll definitely like Saiki, but there's one problem...
Saiki (the show) is very much reference-based,
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and so it's probably best to not watch it until you've watched many different anime of many different genres. At least watch the major shounen, some romance, and some seinen.
The way Saiki deconstructs these other shows is brilliant, it sets up their premise and breaks them using Saiki's cynical disinterest. Really makes you think "yeah,.. maybe those shows are a waste of time and effort". Saiki also frames their premises in such a way to perfectly predict their outcomes.
To add in to this criticism and humor we have a wonderful cast of characters that are all memorable and in general very fun, except Mera, but hell I even remembered her name without looking it up. Just goes to show how strong the characters are in this show. The main cast is very much archetypal of different shows, for instance, Nendou is a bumbling but hilarious idiot who is super strong, much like some shounen protagonists, whereas Hairo is your typical "give 120%" character. Saiki basically criticizes these characters' ridiculousness and thereby transitively criticizes other anime and manga.
Absolutely a fantastic show - and - while the story/art/sound are all meh (really, there isn't a big story, it's very much SoL), the characters and enjoyment make up for it, easily.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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May 2, 2018
TL;DR: Watch Kaiji instead.
Oh boy this anime... A friend of mine suggested it and I thought "aight let's give it a shot". And man am I disappointed at this anime...
It just falls flat on its face. The characters are exaggerations and lack depth. We basically get "haha this girl is obsessed with gambling, look!". No, not just once, but EVERY... - I REPEAT: EVERY EPISODE.
Gambling anime are about cheating and finding novel and interesting ways to solve problems, however,
The techniques and strategies that the gamblers use in Kakegurui lack imagination and just feel STALE. Bending the edge of a card to mark it -
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Seriously? This is ancient knowledge everyone is aware of. There are numerous others but they are just too simple, stuff like signalling during teamplay when communication is not allowed. Ugh. Kaiji does it better. The tension, the atmosphere, the psychological horror of it... it's all "404 Not Found" in Kakegurui.
I was utterly bored at the main character for lacking any form of humanity. She just likes to gamble and there's nothing more to her. I don't know her, her feelings (besides the obsession with gambling), and her motivations. Boring! Couldn't care less about her or any of the other characters. The sexual undertone that describes the character's affection to gambling doesn't do it for me either. Utterly boring.
If this is your first gambling anime and you decided "gambling anime aren't for me", then go watch Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor which does gambling RIGHT. Instead of gambling for fun like they do in Kakegurui, Kaiji gambles to actually survive because he's just in a bad position in life.
Overall: 3
What a waste of time. Should've dropped it but was always hoping for a change of pace/style. Art was alright though.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Apr 24, 2018
TL;DR: Good art but lacking characters. Story only becomes good near the end. The saddest part of the anime is its length.
As it's almost time for me to go to work, I'm sitting here with a touchy feeling wanting to skip work and wallow in sadness for a while. Unfortunately, that feeling mostly came about from the last two episodes.
Problems with anime like this is that - while it's easy to write sad stories - it's not so easy to write endearing characters. Really, they weren't that interesting and didn't feel very unique.
And while this anime is beautiful in some sense, it's also painfully slow
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and would've been better as a movie. Indeed, the anime even points out its own plot hole that would allow it to skip the first 5+ episodes but then handwaves it away.
Overall, I quite enjoyed it for the emotions it conveyed and it's definitely a tearjerker, but that was after I had to watch painfully boring and irrelevant character segments that were ill-written.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Apr 23, 2018
Since you're here you probably watched Overlord 1. I enjoyed Overlord 1, but this fell short. The anime spends multiple _episodes_ building up stories around characters that are then confronted by Ains and subsequently discarded, without going back to them.
This is very, very, annoying. When the show spends 30 seconds to introduce characters only for them to be slain instantly. It's not a good way to build up suspense.
The pacing is also atrocious at times, spending the majority of an episode just talking and explaining unnecessary details.
The art is alright, not a fan of the CGI, sound is meh, characters are unique and fun but
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feel lacking.
But, I did enjoy it. The power fantasy is quite fun, seeing how Ains has to balance his power, image, and prepare for external threats. If you liked Overlord 1, you may spend some time watching this just to get some more lore, but I do suggest perhaps speeding up playing speed during the entire-episode-talks. Very boring stuff.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Apr 22, 2018
WHY have I not watched this show since now? WOW! What an amazing ride this was. Finally a show that could keep my attention compared to the oh-so-many bad shows out there (and I'm not the type with a short attention span). But let me tell you WHY this show is awesome. Soul Eater has it all: comedy, hints of romance, drama, fighting, worldbuilding, intellectual themes, darkness, and uplifting moments, and it executes all these elements gracefully, being careful not to overdo any of them.
Story: 10 - It's a boatload of fun. Soul Eater doesn't take itself too seriously but still comes across as
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serious.
Art: 10 - The art is reminiscent of FLCL with the upturned noses. Really gives off a unique sense of style. Really enjoy how there's no overuse of eye glimmer.
Sound: 9 - Absolutely loved the intro/outro songs, especially "paper moon". Soundtrack isn't that impressive, but 9 overall because of the OP/ED songs. Oh and Maka's voice actor is awesome. She just has a super cute, semi-nasal voice and it fits very well.
Character: 10 - Great characters. Every design and personality feels unique and not in a cliché way. There's Black Star which is basically Naruto, Kid, Maka, and Soul Eater. I've come to really like all of them, for their flaws and little quirks. The villains are also unique looking. Even minor characters like Law are just fun to see. If I could I would give the characters 20/10 that's how good they are.
Enjoyment: 10 - Binged it all in a couple of days. That's increasingly rare for me. There's a LOT of fighting in this anime and it may feel overwhelming, but the drama ensures that we also get some excellent character development.
Overall: 10 - What can I say, I thorougly enjoyed this anime. If you like Naruto/DBZ/One Piece then you may like this too. If you hate battle shounens then stay away from this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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