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Jun 16, 2016
SPOILER REVIEW
Characters are more important than stories. However, if a story is very good, and the characters inside serve their purpose well enough, then it can still scrape by. Knight of Sidonia manages to make me care about the outcome of the character's struggles even though I don't really give a crap about anyone in particular. That's a rare thing, and should be commended.
STORY: There's something primal in this show that forces me to care. Desperation. Their struggles with an eldritch force that threatens to wipe them out at every turn is survival at its core, and that's something everybody can relate to. They don't
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need to build up some dramatic struggle between morality and beliefs to make you care, you care because you can relate so well to what they're going through.
The battles really are the highlight of this show. They are masters when it comes to conveying desperation. At the beginning of every battle, everybody's focused, morale is high, and they have a plan ready to go. Then, they start taking casualties. The plan falls apart at the seams. People start panicking, some act out of turn because their friends are dying, and all their professionalism melts away in the face of terror. The people of Sidonia can do nothing but sit and listen as their defense force suffers more and more casualties, and pray for their survival.
The Gauna never stop being a threat in this show. They inflict major casualties on every single squad that's deployed to attack them. Every single time, the survivors just limp back home, traumatized. This is a nice change of pace, considering how many other anime sort of ditch the supernatural creatures being a threat partway through.
I was startled to realize during the climax that I actually cared about a character who seemingly was about to die. Not because I liked her, mind you. I couldn't even remember her name. But she was the one giving orders around there. If she died, then the whole mission would fall apart, and everybody on the squad would die. Very few anime nowadays have made me genuinely scared for somebody.
CHARACTER: Not special. In any way. I can't remember anybody's names, BUT they do their job well. For instance, I felt genuine sympathy for one of the side characters in episode 2, where she reflects on how her family and friends all pinned their hopes on her as she's about to be consumed. I felt angry when a character got someone killed out of pure jealously.
One of my favorite episodes in this show was when the MC is stranded in the middle of space with another character. They built a relationship up not through talking or ecchi moments, but by relying on each other for comfort in a very trying time. The relationship was so believable and well developed that I felt genuinely sad when the character was killed off next episode, and I sympathized with the main character's emotional state afterwards.
The characters all work by being relatable. They have no other distinguishable character traits other than being human, and that's a sadly rare trait in anime. Unfortunately, there aren't many other traits, so I can't give character that good a score.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 9, 2016
TLDR; In it's eagerness to explore psychological themes and present it's world, it forgot to do the most important thing: Making you give a shit. If you like this movie (all the more power to you), what you liked was the psychological aspect. Unfortunately, what you like is a case study, not a movie.
Simply exploring psychological themes can't carry a movie. Whatever psychological theme you're trying to explore, it's been done before. To be a movie, you need a story with three acts and a solid cast of characters. This fails in both regards.
CHARACTERS AND STORY:
There is only one scene in the entire movie that
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utterly captivated me. It shows, through their point of view, one person being controlled to kill himself. It was so cool to watch him try to stop himself from hanging himself, only to be forced to follow through in the end. You know why it was such a good scene? Because it showed us how terrible this incident was instead of telling us about it. This is the only scene in the movie that followed that golden rule.
This show falls into the exact same issue that plagues most of its kin: talking about things instead of showing and forgetting to actually present characters in the process. They're too scared that you don't understand, so they insult our intelligence by filling every scene with dialogue to explain everything, not letting us work things out ourselves.
You know a movie's fucked up when you're 40 minutes in and you suddenly realize that you can't remember what the main character's name is. She's not a character. She's a plot device. An excuse the writers use to keep other characters dropping exposition.
She travels around the world, meeting multiple characters who fill their screentime with history and psychological lessons, often with quotes from real psychological textbooks, with very little relevant information to the plot. This is the entire middle act. And since almost all of their dialogue is pointless, the middle act is effectively missing in terms of plot progression.
A majority of Tuan's dialogue (that's the main character's name, by the way) are questions that serve as excuses for more speeches. The only time she has anything resembling emotions is during her final confrontation with Miach, but unfortunately, this climactic moment didn't affect me at all because I had zero commitment to any of them. Forget character development, this movie failed to establish basic traits. That is the only thing worse than cliches.
Her driving force is to find out what's causing the suicides, but the biggest joke here is that most of the information she gathers from the people she interview have absolutely nothing related to her investigation. The plot is nothing more than an excuse for more world building and psychological 'debates'.
Miach is the only remotely interesting character due to her views, but how are her views expressed? Through multiple flashbacks and speeches detailing exactly what her views are in excruciating detail, while she's doing some random shit in the background, of course. Look! She's on a swing! Now she's playing a piano! Now she's lighting and putting out a match! Now she's twirling around!
She doesn't stop with the random shit or speeches when she pops up in the present, either. Why is she just doing random shit? I guess because they figured that sitting still would make the scene boring, but they couldn't figure out what the hell would makes sense in context. I'm sure someone out there will tell me it has meaning, and I want to tell them here, bollocks to that.
Here's the kicker. Miach's psychological condition is rather easily explained. Trauma from her childhood led her to develop a hatred towards anything she deems is trying to control her. That's it. And since she's the driving force behind the entire plot, every single psychological talk about other conditions the characters have is utterly pointless to the story. 60% of this movie could have been cut out.
The most baffling thing about thing about this movie is that it dedicates flashbacks exclusively to exposition, yet it decides to forego flashbacks for anything that actually seems interesting. People talk a lot about the Maelstrom, a terrible thing that happened 50 years ago that apparently led to the society today, but we don't get to actually see exactly what it was. We just get told that "Yes, it was pretty bad. Take us on our word."
Spouting psychology does not make a character. A character makes a character. I dare you to remember any personality traits of anybody other than Miach after you're done with this movie. You won't.
I didn't give a crap when the plot 'picked up' either. There was nothing to care about. A running theme in this movie.
ART AND SOUND:
These are the only undeniably good things about this movie. 'nuff said. However, there are way too many pretentious scenes that are useless, but solely exist to make the movie seem deeper than it actually is. I didn't know whether to dock points from story or art for that, so naturally, I deducted from both. Seems fair.
I don't mind CGI. I grew up on CGI. When it's done well, it's on par with drawn animation, and sometimes surpasses it in some areas, like having fluid, choreographed fights while drawn animation is stuck with spamming big impact attacks. This is done alright.
Why on Earth is every city unicolor, though? Is there a reason? A "symbol" of something? A distracting way to conserve budget? I think it's the third one.
ENJOYMENT: The most entertaining thing about this movie is how hard the camera tries to make every scene interesting. Seriously, it's doing everything it can. It uses wide angle rotating shots, perspective changes to spice things up, and numerous dramatic zoom-ins during tense moments. Camera is the real MVP.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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May 30, 2016
In the future, if I ever need to point out an example of characters being more important than story, I'm going to point at this show.
STORY (spoilers):
The story itself is nothing special, really, but it sets everything up wonderfully and has a few hilarious twists. A dude gets teleported to a fantasy world, where he finds instead of being a hero, he's forced to be a laborer and live the minimum wage fantasy life. Every time he saves the day, he still gets screwed over by the consequences of what he does.
That's my favorite part of the story. Real consequences. He saves his
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two female party members from the insides of a frog, but they come out all slimy and the town mistakes him for a pervert, which leads to a perverted crusader seeking him out. The characters save the town by flooding the villain with a torrent of water, but they end up in debt because they destroyed the city wall. They save the day yet again, but the main character is arrested because he teleported the detonating power core right onto the governor's mansion. Nothing ever goes his way and I love it.
CHARACTERS:
This is the sole reason you should watch this show. The characters are f*cking fantastic. Kazuma and gang are a beautiful subversion of every single harem anime out there.
Kazuma is the best main character in a long time. I haven't liked someone this much since Hachiman. He's deadpan, he's cynical, he's pragmatic, he insults the crap out of everybody, he's an amazing straight man in all the antics he's involved in, and he's basically just the subversion of all the infuriatingly bland MCs out there.
One of my favorite character moments for him is when he meets someone who's basically the MC of every other fantasy transportation anime out there. The other guy is annoyingly selfless to the point where people consider him narcissistic, and keeps trying to act how he believes is right. The other person challenges Kazuma to a duel due to a misunderstanding.
Just as the other guy is finished with the challenge, Kazuma quickly says "All right, I'm in." and charges right at him, catching the guy off guard. As soon as the other person tries to defend himself, he steals his magic sword and knocks him out with it. Then he goes to pawn it off to make a boatload of cash.
Kazuma isn't interested in morality or chivalry, he acts in the most pragmatic and logical ways possible. He isn't afraid to take advantage of other people's idiotic tendencies and use it against them.
There are tons of other character quirks I love. The way he says "Yeah, I'm Kazuma" or "Hi, this is Kazuma" when other people call is name out is a fantastic way of making fun of other animes where characters constantly call out the MCs name. He insults and berates his teammates to push their limits and get them to step up instead of some corny inspirational speech. He fully acknowledges his perverted thought, and eagerly cuts the bullshit to embrace opportunities with the other sex when he gets the chance (like a lot of normal high schoolers).
Imagine any other MC walking what amounts to a prostitution bar filled with skimpy succubi. They would probably get all flustered, apologize profusely for no fucking reason, and sprint out, right? Kazuma instead asks about possible legal ramifications for some requests that he's about to make to see how far he can push it. A girl barges into the bathroom as he's taking a bath, and his response is a leisurely "yo" with the best shit eating grin you'll ever see. This guy is great.
His chemistry and relationships with the other party members he has are also amazing. He sees himself as their caretaker, but he's pissed off at them for their horrible combat abilities and personality. He spends most episodes insulting the crap out of them, but it's still evident they all care for each other regardless because of how he keeps paying their tabs off.
They're basically like your college roommates. One's lazy and retarded, one 's weird, and the last one is into some really weird sh*t, but you all still hang out due to proximity. Eventually, you're all forced to like each other. That's the character dynamic we're talking about here.
Their relationships are never blatant either, which is f*cking incredible in the world of anime. There are no relationship scenes where they talk about their feelings/backstories and then blush a bunch (by the way, screw these scenes and their cringy dialogue), but their relationships still evolve before your eyes.
You get the feeling that Kazuma is kind of awkwardly sexually attracted to his party members, but there aren't zoom ins on his blushing face to REALLY MAKE SURE YOU GET THAT HE MAY HAVE A THING FOR THIS ONE. You get the feeling that the other girl might like him back, but there aren't any MEANINGFUL dialogue lines with a SHORT, BUT PROFOUND PAUSE FOLLOWED BY A GASP BY THE MAIN CHARACTER AS HIS DENSE MIND IS FINALLY PROCESSING WHAT SHE MIGHT BE IMPLYING.
Sorry, this is turning into a rant about how much I'm getting sick of all the stock harem anime out there. Which I am, by the way.This anime is a breath of fresh air.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Dec 22, 2015
REUPLOADED:
You really have to watch the whole show to pass judgement on it. OP Man is an anime that goes from simply parodying Shounen to analyzing society and what it means to be a hero. This anime is not simply joke after joke, and those who are worth their anime mettle must check this show out.
Story/Character:
These two are tied together, so I'm going to just throw my entire analysis here.
**There will be spoilers, but only to pertinent things.**
The first thing we're gonna look at is the character of Saitama himself. He is basically the end-game of every Shounen protagonist, and a deconstruction of
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Shounen in general. He's become so powerful that he's bored with life. Nobody challenges him anymore. He's become apathetic with life. He's literally lost most of his ability to feel emotions.
He lets the villains rant and go to full power (typical shounen fashion) to see if they give him a challenge, and then ends it with one punch. He lets the villains rant on and on about how amazing their powers are (again, shounen) before telling them to shut it.
His character evolves through the series, and only becomes more and more likable. He goes from a jokingly overpowered to...well, he doesn't change there.
His initial motivation for registering as a hero is to gain recognition for what he's done for everybody. But as the series goes on, we see that he's happy to throw his popularity under the rug in favor of doing the right thing. He loudly disregards the crowd's opinion of him, finding it idiotic that they have all this time to hate him. He acts like a jerk to give credit to the other heroes who actively risked their lives to try and stop a monster.
He is one of few genuine heroes in this whole series, despite there being a whole organization of them.
But he doesn't get a happy ending. In the finale, he easily defeats an alien emperor named Boros who had conquered the universe until he was bored of it. Essentially, Boros is a weaker, evil mirror of Saitama himself. He had moved throughout galaxies to get to Saitama, just looking for a good fight.
During their fight, there are numerous parallels between Boros and Saitama in his dream back in episode 1. In both situations, the person had finally found someone who they can go all out against. Boros is insanely happy at finally being able to do so, and you can hear his joy in his voice as he unloads all he has. Unfortunately, Saitama is bored and ends the fight with a punch that has some weight behind it.
As Boros lies on the ground dying, he lets Saitama know that he could tell that he still wasn't going all out. Boros never stood a chance, it wasn't even a battle. His parting words to Saitama were essentially "you're too strong for your own good". Saitama doesn't respond and just walks away. He'll probably never find an opponent strong enough to challenge him. He's never going to find the battle thrill that Boros managed to find at the end of his life. It was an incredibly powerful scene that highlights just how lonely Saitama really is at the top.
The next character we'll look at is Genos. He's basically the typical Shounen protagonist. He has a dark past that traumatizes him, and he vows revenge and wants more strength to exact said revenge. His design is also incredibly cool.
His character isn't only there as a foil to Saitama. It's also there as a commentary on public perception. When he and Saitama first register with the Hero Organization, he gets a ton of fan mail even though he literally hadn't done anything yet. Why?
Because he's an S-rank hero and he looks cool. Thus, the public assume he's an amazing hero regardless of accomplishments.
His character also evolves as the series goes on, going from being fixated on revenge to becoming more of a hero, thanks to him constantly witnessing Saitama's heroics. In the final episode, he sees a ruthless hero murdering a bunch of enemies who had surrendered already, and notes that he could have turned into that person if he hadn't met Saitama.
The third character we have to look at is Licenseless Rider. He's the embodiment of a real hero, and resembles Saitama pre-training personality wise. Saitama recognizes him as a real hero, because they're so damn similar. One key difference, however, is that Licenseless Rider actually gets recognition for his work, and has a decent fanbase despite being basically a dude on a bike, through sheer force of personality and will.
His role in the serious arc is a deconstruction of a typical anime trope: the one where the hero, through sheer determination and the "strength of the people who believe in him" can bridge a power gap and somehow beat the villain. It looks like it would happen here too somehow. He gives a speech that shows his pure heroic personality, and brings the people on his side. They start cheering for him, putting all their faith in him...and then he gets taken out of the fight instantly. Reality ensued.
The other heroes all get their moments as well. Every hero in the show is portrayed in a very human way. One shits his pants, literally, when he meets an opponent he can't win. Another hero tries to help, but realizes he's basically useless compared to another hero. A group of heroes refuse to fall back and find another strategy because they know their strengths, and they have nothing but brute force to rely on. Even the most hateable hero has a point that you can agree on despite him going about it in the most dickish way.
Now we take a look at the themes. There are three I want to touch on.
The first theme is society's tendency to build people up to knock them down. This is true in real life as well. We make celebrities immensely famous, but still delight in secret gossip and scandalous happenings until eventually, the celebrity can't take the pressure of having his/her every move being watched and just fades away. We expect famous people to be perfect, and delight in proving that they aren't.
The same thing happens in One Punch Man. Slightly exaggerated like most animes, but still. The straightest example of this is when an S-rank Hero fails to stop a monster (the top rank), the media immediately denounces him as a failure the next day. You can see it affecting him immensely.
Another example would be after Saitama destroys a world threatening meteor, but the public instead blames him for property damage from the debris. However, Saitama challenges these views and calls them out for the BS selfish asses they are.
A third example would be that one asshat in episode 9. Words cannot properly describe how angry I am with that sack of baboon shit. Watch for yourself.
The second major theme is a question: what is a hero? The vast majority of the heroes in this show are selfish. They became a hero to become popular and possibly hit it big. The higher rank a hero is, the more popular they become.
There are heroes in this show who will actively try to discredit another hero for publicity, heroes that don't care about other heroes unless they're a certain rank, heroes who even sneer at being heroic unless it suits them properly.
Yet, during the first serious arc of the show, we see just what being a hero means. There's a hero who tries to build his fanbase by giving his rank and name before going in for a fight, but gets demolished. There are other heroes who are high rank and try to fight the monsters off, but end up getting annihilated.
At the end of the day, though, it's the people who stand up and fight no matter what who are the heroes. As the amazing Licenseless Rider says, "If the Heroes run and hide, who will fight?".
A third theme is public perception. The main reason Saitama isn't immensely popular and known for his deeds is because of his appearance. He's basically always slouched over with an 'idgaf' face on, and his lame costume certainly doesn't help. When he displays his power, people can't quite believe that he did it, and accuse him of being a cheat. He simply doesn't have the charisma or appearance to garner much respect from anyone.
Yet, when Genos became a hero, he instantly develops a fanbase. Lamewads like "Tank Top Tiger" end up being much better known just because he looks more the part. The public practically always sides against Saitama just because of his appearance.
Doesn't this mirror our society in a way? The more attractive looking people get a warmer reception, while the uglier/plainer ones have to work harder. Say what you want, but this is basically a proven fact.
Tying into the public perception theme is how popularity affects said perception. The most successful heroes are the most popular ones. Nobody quite acknowledges the lower ranked ones as much, and they eventually fade into obscurity. It kind of mirrors the manga/comic industry. Only the popular ones will continue getting printed and milked to death, while the less popular ones will get cancelled no matter how quality they are.
I doubt I've even managed to cover everything, and I don't think I even properly conveyed the things I did go over in the damn essay I just wrote. This show references so many things that it makes the head swim.
Art:
I have not had the fight scenes of an anime impress me this much since Kill la Kill. The other notable part of this show is the famous 'idgaf' Saitama face. It's hilariously poorly drawn compared to the rest of the show, and depicts his attitude towards life extremely well. His posture also noticeably changes along with the art style when he's pumped up/serious. The art will warp stylistically in the middle of a battle. And the way they depict Saitama's one-punches. Dear lord, they're amazing. Overall, just pretty damn amazing overall.
Sound:
The music ramps up at the appropriate times, and the voice actors are pretty damn good. Genos's battle theme in particular is memorable. That's all I have on this.
Enjoyment:
Even if you don't dive into the crazy amount of themes in this show, you will find enjoyment on the very surface. This show has tons of heart and personality, enough to keep you engaged throughout the whole thing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Oct 1, 2015
UPDATED BECAUSE MAL REMOVED MY LAST ONE
So much plot everywhere. Just...so much.
For real, though. This is one of my favorite series in a long time, and I have little idea why. The food orgasms are just so ball bustingly funny for some reason that I just giggle like a 12 year old whenever they happen.
The story is typical...very typical. A boy wants to become more skilled at cooking and has to overcome challenges that are seemingly suicidal. The way it's conveyed, though, is just fantastic. It pokes fun at other shonen tropes constantly.
Some examples: Instead of the main character being forced to leave home
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for some contrived reason, it's his father literally just popping up and sending him away all of the sudden. When the rival tries to act like he's in a typical shonen manga, he ends up looking like a fool. It's great.
It even subverts a common shonen trope at the end of the 24 episode long series. It's extremely rare of any anime to do so and deserves recognition for it. It is sure to become an integral part of the main character's development in the second season.
The underdog story told by Shokugeki is also a lot more effective, as Soma makes an enemy out of everybody the instant he enters the school. The odds are stacked against him a lot more than in other anime, because he starts off with zero allies.
The characters are all insanely likable. Even the alpha bitch, the archetype that I usually hate, is likable because she has a legitimate reason to dislike the MC. He goes against everything her character is, so she tries to reject him but fails over and over again. It's an integral part of her character, and that saves her from just being annoying.
Most of the characters have a twist, and the ones that don't are saved through their comedic interactions with each other. I don't hate any of the characters in this show, and that's saying something.
The music is great. The opening is great, the ending stayed in my head far longer than it should have (the chorus is so warm and happy I can't help but love it), and the pump up music during the cooking sequences were awesome too.
Art is clean. Environments can't get too stunning, seeing as how the series takes place mostly indoors, but some of the outdoor shots are stunning. The character designs are fantastic. The boys are all distinct, and the girls all have lots of plot.
There's plenty of emotion to be found other than hilarity, though. Some of the character backstories will legitimately grab onto tear ducts and squeeze them dry. The most unlikable characters always have sad backstories to explain why they are who they are.
Overall, this is a fun and hilarious series that everyone should check out. Just don't watch it in public.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 27, 2015
MINOR SPOILERS:
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The plot is wasted potential. So much wasted potential. I'll list the reasons why it's just so crap later on. First, let's get the good stuff out of the way:
THE GOOD: ART + SOUND
The opening song was so good it was stuck in my head. Trust me when I say it's rare nowadays. The voice actors are good and give life to the characters, particularly one character who had a split personality of sorts. The voice actress really made the two personalities feel distinct.
The art is beautiful, with plenty of beautiful environments. The last stretch of the anime had the main character roaming the
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world, and the art team really showed their talent there.
Now let's move on to the crappy part.
THE BAD: STORY + CHARACTERS
They were fantastic in the first 8 episodes. The main character started out as a power hungry jackass, but you could see him mellow throughout the first half. There were lots of feels as well, with episode 2 and episode 7 being the standouts. The characters were interesting, and you could feel them becoming closer throughout those episodes as they worked together over and over. Even though they were just archetypes, they were still likable because of their interactions together.
Then episode 9 hit. Jesus christ. You could tell the writing team panicked at this point and threw any sort of good pacing and storytelling out the window to fit the grand scheme of the story in properly.
Three characters were introduced, but all they did was introduce their abilities then were regulated in the background. They never use their ability onscreen after they show what it is.
Through a convenient deus ex machina, they gave the protagonist the ability to completely undo a key part of his character development, and erased two episode's worth for every other character. A villain was introduced then immediately dropped IN THE SAME EPISODE (what the f*ck?).
Another character dies, forcing an emotional response from his closest friend (which has one scene's worth of development). Two of the main cast from the first eight episodes were all but ignored. One of them was given a proper ending to her arc...but since they barely developed the arc, they tried to develop and end it within a four minute scene.
The romantic arc came to a close so fast that it was a slap in the face. There was practically no payoff for any shippers around the world. At this point, you might as well not put in a resolution and let the fans speculate.
The journey around the world happened in ONE EPISODE. A single episode. Timeskip after timeskip after timeskip. There was so much potential to be had here, but they just condensed him literally travelling to every country in the world to a mere twenty minutes. There was so much missed here it hurt.
The last four episodes completely ruin the story of the anime. Just thinking about it is disappointing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 10, 2015
First, something I want to get out of the way. Go take a look at the english dub. This is the only anime I would ever recommend the english dub for. Why?
They say YOLO in it.
Moving on to the actual review, this is my second favorite anime of all times. The setup is fantastic, the characters are all thoroughly likable (even the side characters) and the music and art are both great. The only thing that this anime could have improved on is the weak 2nd half, but character interaction and humor makes it very bearable.
Story: The story has a fantastic first episode, setting
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it up for various comedic moments throughout the series. The demon overlord and his general are transported to the human world, where they have to fit in. It's funny, but the demon world is a source of some serious story development. The serious overtones aren't out of place, though, and culminates in a fantastic first half. Really, the only weak point is that after the first half, the story drags...hard. The serious storyline involving the demon world doesn't really move forward except for the introduction of a new character. So the reason I'm giving story such a low mark is because of this second half.
Art: The art is clean. Every character has a distinct design. The animation is very smooth. Really, I'm no good at judging art. It's either "good" or "crap" to me.
Sound: The voice actors in the japanese dub did their job juust fine, but the english voice actors felt like they were really into their role...Is it because they're speaking english? Because it felt like they put way more emotion, tone, and perfect deadpan snark at the perfect time than the japanese voice actors. Perhaps it's because I've become so used to the japanese VAs.
Oh, and the music's good, but not too memorable.
Characters: You can't have a good story without good characters (looking at you, Expelled from Paradise). This anime is completely carried by character interaction, and I'm 100% alright with that. The two demonic main characters adapt to the human world so quickly it's played for laughs.
Everything mundane in our world is treated with utter seriousness. They treat money with such seriousness that they would completely ignore a threatening villain in favor of arguing over allowances. The demon overlord would seriously consider using what's little left of his magic to fix the potato frying machine.
Then the hero enters the picture, and she notices that the two demons are completely innocent and following the human world's laws. This is both a fantastic setup for humorand makes for great character development by both her and the demon overlord. She has to constantly struggle for a reason to continue fighting him when he's doing basically nothing wrong.
Those are just some of the characters. I'm not going to go through what makes each of them so great, I'll leave that up to you guys.
Enjoyment: Likable characters allowed me to overlook a mediocre story. That's rare. Kudos, Hataraku.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jun 11, 2015
Disclaimer: I don't watch many anime movies. Therefore, I have to compare this with other things.
This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I didn't like this movie too much. There are definitely positives, though. Everything in the world has positives and negatives.
First, the positives. The art was fantastic. Seriously. The environments were beautiful, colorful, and chock-full of atmosphere. The space station designs were amazing, the virtual space where the main character reports to her superiors are appropriately awe-inspiring.
The soundtrack and voice acting were great as well. The actors played their parts to the tee, giving their characters life they never would have had
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otherwise. The song during the credit sequence was beautiful, and the action sequences were accompanied by appropriate pump-up music.
Now on to the bad: The story and characters. And this is where I felt the movie was severely flawed.
The story was alright, if a bit predictable. Why was it predictable? Well...you can tell what sort of anime this from the beginning. It was obviously a sort of psychological, grey morality sort of anime, and that means it will have a couple of twists which I could guess ahead of time.
The way the story was conveyed is the biggest problem I had with the movie. The opening was extremely confusing, thrusting you into the world and throwing you technical terms and imagery with VERY little explanation. The entire middle act of the movie is filled with nothing BUT explanation. Quite literally 70% of the scenes in the middle act starts with Angela asking Dingo a question, and he - I shit you not - either lectures her about humanity , gives her a damn history lesson, or explains to her what the f*ck he's doing right now and what their next step is.
This method of storytelling puts the audience to sleep by telling, not showing, as well as sacrificing character development. That's another massive problem with this movie. The characters barely develop. All we do the whole movie is learn about them - and that's not development. By the end of the movie, we have a good idea who the characters are, and how they react to moral quandaries and other things, but how do they actually develop? Angela learns to accept Earth - and that's it. Her other character traits don't change, and Dingo especially barely changes from his first appearance, due to him being Mr. Exposition. Another problem is I didn't feel any type of emotion towards any of these characters at all. There are anime that give me more attachment towards characters in a 20 minute episode. All in all, the characters are severely lacking.
The pacing is all over the place too. Near the start of the movie, there are three fight scenes. THREE fight scenes, two of which are extremely short, and only one of which is jaw-droppingly awesome (Seriously, it was amazing). Having three fight scenes in the first half of the movie gives the audience an expectation about the rest of the movie, but they ruin the pacing by filling the entire middle act with exposition. This reinforces the audience's losing interest, as they're expecting fights but not getting it until the climax of the movie.
Final verdict? Great art direction and sound, but they're dragged down by a confusing opening act and a very tedious middle act, as well as extremely weak characters.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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