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Dec 22, 2021
Komi-san Can't Communicate tries to present itself as a wholesome story of a girl who with anxiety disorder slowly making friends. While this main plot is present in each episode and has potential to be strong, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The characters are one dimensional and make the same repetitive gags each episode, it demonstrates the exact opposite of "show, not tell" by constantly explaining what is happening, and it constantly objectifies Komi in almost every scene and subjects her to the “Male Gaze™”.
The structure of this anime is basically every episode a new “character” who is obsessed with Komi gets
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introduced and “hilarity” ensues. I say “character” because most of these are literally just some character archetype that was pulled out of a hat. There’s a Chunnibyou one, an energetic one, a sadistic one, etc. Since there are so many of these side characters (at least one or two added per episode) we never get the chance to see them properly developed, and by the end of the series they continue to just be the same characters as when they were introduced. Additionally, I say “hilarity” because each character has their own joke that just gets repeated over and over and over, and usually it's not even funny the first time.
Also, these characters are just pretty bad. In one of the first episodes it was claimed that each character at the school had some special ability for why they were at this high school, but they seem to have forgotten about that for every character but Najimi. Most of these characters are insanely obsessed with Komi to the point of kidnapping the MC or pretending to be Komi’s dog. But good thing these characters are female so fans will think they’re cute and not super weird!
Additionally, this anime has a really bad habit of telling and not showing. This is lazy writing and shows the writer doesn’t trust the audience to understand what’s going without being constantly told. We can look at Tadano’s introduction in the first episode to see an example of this. Also, see if you can count how many separate times they repeat that Tadano just wants to have a normal high school life and fit in.
1:10-1:50: Tadano and the narrator talk about how dull he is and how he just wants to fit in. Then “joke” is displayed on screen as a barrage of text for us, that he just wants to fit in because he used to be edgy in middle school. What is the problem with doing it this way? It is that this joke was communicated to us with the actual animation being irrelevant. We could have just been given a black screen with the audio/subtitles and some text bubbles for the same effect.
2:05: Tadano sees Komi and is excited because she’s so hot. In this scene Tadano both is yelling she is gorgeous, but for some reason there is another text bubble that has to point at Tadano and reaffirm to us that he is excited. Could we not have figured it out without that text bubble? These text bubbles are there in almost every scene in this anime, and don’t really allow the audience to think for themselves to engage with it in any way.
3:02: Tadano tells the audience he is an average guy
3:48: The narrator tells us Tadano is sticking out instead of blending in
5:06: Tadano tells the class that he is good at reading the room. Then his classmate tells the audience that he actually isn’t good at reading the room. Then the narrator tells us how Tadano’s high school life is over. This scene was pretty irritating. Could we not have figured out Tadano any of these three things in some other way than the anime explicitly telling us? What if instead of his classmate TELLING us that Tadano isn’t good at reading the room, there was a five second awkward silence to show us this. Basically, this scene ends up being an example of many scenes in this anime where the audience is just told what to feel rather than having to engage with the show.
6:41: Tadano says his goal is to have an uneventful school life
For those keeping count with me, it was five separate times in the first seven minutes they repeated how Tadano simply wants to have a normal high school life and fit in. Thanks Komi-san, I definitely wouldn’t have gotten it after the fourth time! It makes the show feel juvenile that we are told exactly what to think and shows a lack of creativity in storytelling by the writer.
Finally, we have this weird obsession by every single character in the show of Komi, only because she is just that beautiful. In almost every scene with her, there is a reference to how beautiful she is. What does her beauty add to this show? Honestly I have no idea. It makes a lot of the relationships she creates throughout the show seem superficial, as a lot of her friends (ex: girl who wants to be her dog) like her due to her looks alone.
Luckily, Tadano is not a crazy person who only wants Komi to step on him, and seems to be one of Komi’s real relationships created in the show. This brings us to the Male Gaze™/main character stand in aspect of the show. Tadano seems to be living out a male fantasy where a beautiful, popular, quiet, subservient girl who has no opinions of her own needs his help. Luckily for him every other character in the show is completely insane and doesn’t realize she has problems speaking, making him the only person who can possibly understand her. This is quite a nice fantasy for male viewers watching the anime. It just weirds me out that the ideal girl this show is pushing for is mostly revered for her beauty, while also being helpless and dollike.
Overall, Komi-san Can’t Communicate has a lot of glaring problems that keep it in bad high school romcom tier and nothing more. The animation and music are quite good, and the timing of a lot of scenes shows a lot of effort by the studio. However, it's held back by the writing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Mar 22, 2021
The high popularity of Mushoku Tensei shows that anime fans have no separation between what is presented to them and what they want to believe/what source readers are telling them. I bet in the future when Rudy is being a pedo to some 12 year old for the 100th time without any consequences, I'm sure the Mushoku Tensei fans will still be waiting for his "redemption" to be coming soon!
I'm not sure what convoluted train of thought you are supposed to have to be thinking that some redemption is coming. If you look at any scene where Rudy does something gross, he never learns anything
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and nothing ever changes. Additionally, the overall tone and animation style of these scenes doesn't lead the viewer to believe that anything wrong is happening.
We can actually compare scenes from within Jobless Reincarnation to see this. In episode 11 when someone dies, the anime actually gives off a tone of seriousness with the darker animation and character's facial expressions. However, in other scenes like where he gets down with Eris or when he keeps stealing Roxy's panties or whatever, the tone of these scenes is mostly still light and comedic. There is no indication that what Rudy is doing is wrong by the anime itself, but somehow the viewers are supposed to figure out that Rudy is very wrong while a very fanservicey scene featuring 12 year old Eris occurs.
Additionally, if there is some sort of line about how he thinks of himself as "disgusting", it never even goes anywhere. I believe in this scene with Eris I mentioned he does call himself disgusting, but at the end of episode 11 we see him secretly watching Eris change for laughs, so I guess that didn't really go anywhere.
Other than this scene with Eris, there are many other scenes where this same concept of something that could be considered "redeemable" basically played for laughs. It's pretty strange that his supposed love interest Sylphie is about 10 while our main character is more than 40. However, their relationship is portrayed as completely normal by the anime, with no implication by the anime that this is literal grooming. There are plenty more scenes like this, but hopefully I've made my point.
I'm not sure how people can be be ok with scenes like this and call people who don't like this anime butthurt or sensitive. If not liking anime that glorifies grooming and pedophilia makes me a cringe SJW I'll take that L any day. It really shows how far gone the anime community is if not liking this is considered "controversial".
Maybe without all these terrible scenes this could have been an average isekai story with above average animation. However, its clear from this first season that this is just another pandering isekai harem.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Dec 6, 2020
Shirobako is so good that multiple times while watching I shed a tear, not because anything sad was happening, but just because of how awesome some of the scenes this anime are.
The characters are all great since they are a change from the tropey high school/isekai characters we always see. The main female characters are never used for fanservice, and characters are a mix of young and old, married and single, overweight and skinny, and more. They are also super realistic and face relatable problems, which makes you care about them even more.
The plot basically shows the process of creating anime. While it can feel
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like a lot of exposition at times, the content is interesting and when it's told by characters you are attached it does a good job in engaging you. If you've watched a lot of anime there are tons of references which I found fun (like Sadoka Mazoka, Two Piece, and Neon Generation Avangaldon). Additionally, most of the arcs revolve around some sort of anime production concept. For instance, I thought the episodes about use of CGI vs key animation were really interesting. I really liked Land of the Lustrous (which is entirely CGI) and have watched other animes that use CGI in them, but never thought about the choices the staff make behind the scenes in choosing CGI or hand drawn. Learning about concepts like this make me appreciate these anime even more.
It is definitely not perfect though. I felt there were some parts that were a little slow such as around episodes 6-7 that featured Ema's arc and Aoi's sister, which didn't hit me as hard as other arcs. While there are a couple parts like this, I felt Shirobako's strong points more than made up for it.
I think Shirobako is an anime for fans of anime as a medium. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who has not watched much anime, since in that case they might find the plot boring since it is basically just the characters creating anime. However if you consider yourself a fan of anime as a whole, this anime definitely will give you a better appreciation for the medium and any future animes you will watch.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Sep 21, 2020
Demon Slayer obviously has great visuals, art style, and sound design. The production value of the anime is consistently movie level quality. Its characters all have great and unique character designs that tell you a lot about the characters, like Tanjiro's beautiful traditional clothing and the 10 hashiras at the end. Unfortunately, this is where the praise for Demon Slayer stops.
-Plot. There really isn't much plot to speak of. Tanjiro becomes a Demon Slayer and most of the plot is him being sent around by a bird to fight random demons. Not having an extremely structured plot is fine, but I think that other aspects
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of the show such as the characters would have to make up for it in that case, but this doesn't happen in Demon Slayer.
-Characters. The characters in this show are static, except for Inosuke who does receive some development. The characters are likeable enough (except for Zenitsu), so what is the problem with them? It's that since Tanjiro and Nezuko's worldviews are so righteous, they will always act in extremely obvious ways, ex: protecting each other, saving strangers, jumping into danger, and respecting even the demons they kill. They basically act the same way every episode of the series, and at some point it just becomes repetitive. The bond between them is never tested. There is no lesson learned for them from the demons they kill. Tanjiro and Nezuko are just perfect people here to cure the world from demons and achieve their goal.
It might be that their unrelenting convictions is something people like about this show, but personally I like it if my characters' ideals change a little bit from episode 1. If they don't change, then the world should change around them in a way that conflicts with their ideals, but nothing like this happens in Demon Slayer.
-Zenitsu. I watched this in sub like most, but Zenitsu made me wish I had watched it on mute. I'm not sure how people can deal with this guy. It's fine if he has a cowardly personality, but they beat it over our head episode after episode with his annoying yelling. Every time he speaks I just want to stop watching. He's just episode after episode of whining Tanjiro and Nezuko's names in order to generate some sort of "comedy", but completely fails doing this. He has to be one of the worst comic relief characters I have ever seen and the definition of beating a dead horse. Just like most of the cast, he doesn't change or receive development over the course of the season. At least he stops his yelling a little bit by the end of the season, so the last arc is a little more bearable to watch.
Demon Slayer's art style, animation, and sound almost completely carry it for its 26 episode runtime. However, it's not enough to carry its plot and characters.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 21, 2020
Contains spoilers for both parts
ReLife starts with a really good premise and a strong first few episodes where we get to meet the cast of characters. These episodes are pretty funny and the main character makes some friends in a pretty natural and humorous way. The main couple are both likeable and its pretty enjoyable when they interact. However, those were basically the only enjoyable parts of the anime for me.
-Kairu. Kairu got basically 2.5 arcs in the course of the 13 episode season. This would be fine if these arcs developed her character significantly, but they do not. The first arc where she grows
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jealous and hostile to Chizuru was interesting and worked well, I believe if she was left there it would be fine. Unfortunately the exact same thing happens a few episode later when she grows jealous and hostile to her volleyball friend, completely negating her previous character growth by literally making the exact same mistake again. Because of this I found it impossible to invest myself in this arc at all, it just felt like a rehash of the first few episodes. After both these arcs, she finally ends up as just a tsundere side character in the last arc with the cultural festival, so what was the point of all those episodes centered around her?
-ReLife gets in the way of the story. Like I said before, the premise of having someone older relive high school days is pretty interesting and worked well. However, the entire plot of the main 2 eventually going to forget each other only served as an artificial block for the romance. It's pretty frustrating to watch them continue to complain about how they can't tell each other they like each other at the end of this anime and the four episode sequel over and over just because of this plot contrivance. There is not really much of a point or message to blocking their relationship either. They just complain and cry about how they will forget each other until the very end, not ever accepting the fact (as seen with Chizuru writing on her hand at the end). Maybe this could have been a bittersweet ending, but then they end up meeting each other again at the end of the last episode anyway, which I felt negated the point of what we just watched.
I wish they had just chosen whether to have them be able to have their romance in high school without the plot stopping them or have their romance be cut short. The former would have been a better romance and what we really wanted from this show, and the latter would give us a more powerful message on the preciousness of the present moment. Instead we got this wishy washy relationship where they couldn't really communicate their feelings for most of the show, and ended up not mattering because they met each other after anyway.
ReLife is has a great premise and has an enjoyable and funny first few episodes. However, as it goes on it unfortunately doesn't work as either a drama or romance.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 21, 2020
Shield Hero tries to convince its audience that it is definitely not going to be your standard isekai while simultaneously being one of the most generic isekais. It does this by truly being surprising and good for exactly the first four episodes before descending into a overall bad isekai fantasy adventure.
The first four episodes are good. Having an isekai protaganist who is not able to attack and is betrayed by his party member are pretty novel concepts for an isekai. I thought the scene where he went to the slave market was very good, since it was both shocking and perfectly natural that he would
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turn to a slave as someone who wouldn't betray him. Having him use creative ways to deal damage to enemies in the wave (setting the tower on fire) and against Montoyasu during the duel was also interesting.
Unfortunately after this the anime completely goes off the deep end for various reasons.
-Raphtalia. Within the timespan of one week Raphtalia's entire appearance and personality change. They explain her appearance change as demihumans "aging as they level", until they look around 18. It is extremely obvious this entire rule was created solely so Raphtalia can start off as a loli and then transition into a waifu love interest, and is destroys so much immersion in the world because of how stupid it is that a core aspect of an entire race was created so that Raphtalia could be a waifu. Her personality change is entirely glossed over, how did someone who has been living as a slave for so long suddenly change that much in one week? Also, their relationship is definitely father-daughter, please don't be his love interest. And I'm not sure what the author reasoning was for having Raphtalia become a slave again after she is freed by Montayasu. Raphtalia explains it as she wants to show her devotion by being a slave, but my theory is the author has a thing for having a party of slave girls who love him and can't disobey him.
Raphtalia also promisingly starts out as Naofumi's "sword". It is interesting and works really well for the first few episodes, until the show completely breaks the rules set it up in the first few episodes where the shield cant attack. Because of this, Naofumi completely takes over in every single battle in both offense and defense since he can now shoot dogs, gas, another abilities out of his shield to attack, relegating Raphtalia to uselessness. This is probably my biggest problem with this anime. It set itself up well, but it feels like it just couldn't help but deteriorate into a bad isekai.
-Overpowered Isekai MC. Like explained above, the anime completely breaks it's own rules of having the shield hero not able to attack pretty early on, turning Naofumi from someone interesting to another OP MC. Having an OP isekai MC isn't a bad thing in itself, but it doesn't work in this show because of how hard it constantly tries to convince us the Naofumi isn't actually the most overpowered character in the entire series when he is. From as early as episode 5, where he wins the race with Filo for no other explanation other than he is the main character. In battle he's carrying a weapon that allows him to take no damage and also attack, so I'm not sure who is being convinced that he is not OP.
-Boring world. This fantasy world is as generic as it gets, and the places they visit are as well. They go to generic village one and heal their sick, then to generic village 2, etc. They don't really solve the problems in any noteworthy or interesting way either. They are trying to show the shield hero is the hero of the people, but these episodes feel like filler and are full of forgettable characters. The show tries to make a point the Naofumi picks up after the other heroes' mistakes, but the manner he does so is too uninteresting to have any merit. I think in one of them he just pours acid on a plant to save the day.
-Characters. Outside of the main party, the other heroes behaves in such unbelievably stupid ways that they might as well be rocks. For most of the show they believe circular reasoning like the shield hero is using his brainwashing shield to try to make you trust him. I think it's unbelievable that these guys were also summoned to this world like Naofumi, but just blindly trust people they met only a few days ago without question just because they are this world's royalty. They are set up well in the first few scenes of the anime where they actually question those who had summoned them into the world, but for some reason by episode 3 they randomly turn into complete morons who believe everything they're told. I believe the author did this so that when the only intelligent character, the queen, is able to return to she show from the plot contrivance she had been sent to do, it is supposed to be satisfying when they believe Naofumi. It does work in a way, but is also a cheap trick that forces us to suffer about 20 episodes of completely illogical and terrible character writing.
-Misc. Nothing in this anime shows any care for the world or characters. For instance, at one point Naofumi doesn't want Malty and the King to be executed (because killing is wrong!), even though in the last episode he killed the pope using the most gruesome method imaginable.
There is a sign outside the tavern they always go to that says "No Demihumans Allowed". But Raphtalia eats there for basically her entire life with no consequence. I guess they forgot about it? In fact, there are only 3 characters in the entire show who even participate in the supposed discrimination against demihumans. There is Malty who is shown to be the worst person imaginable, the lord who literally enslaves demihumans and keeps them in a basement, and some drunk soldier at the end that everyone thinks something off about. Basically, for saying demihumans are discriminated against, the show does a terrible job to convince us of that. Maybe it would have been interesting if in any of the generic villages they went to someone discriminated against demihumans, but this isn't the case because the world lacks any consistency.
I will stop here since this is getting long. The more you look into this show and its characters the more inconsistent and nonsense they turn out to be. I'm not sure why its rated so high, maybe this show convinced people from the first four episodes, but I'm not sure how they can explain everything that comes after.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Sep 21, 2020
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
Tower of God is pretty enjoyable overall, but this might just since I always seem to be partial to the tournament arc/death game sort of format. This show executes those points well enough and has pretty solid action, but fails to execute much of the deeper story, character, and world elements that it was trying to build up to for future seasons. A few of the reasons for this are below. Also I have never read the manga, so this is purely off the anime.
-Exposition. There is an overreliance on explanation everywhere. The first episode features a pretty uninteresting explanation about the
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world and tower. If this was the only time it would be fine, but explanations for the rules of tag and whatever the last game was feel more like something you're being forced to memorize than anything remotely interesting. All 5 parts of the hunter exam from HxH feels like it might be easier to explain and understand than the last two games in this show.
The author also attempts to force a certain narrative rather than allowing them to come naturally in other scenes as well. For instance, the ep 2 blue wall challenge the characters had to walk through might as well have been the author going through each character and telling us what their power level was DBZ style. It removes any mystery of which character could be powerful or not (I was hoping Shibisu would secretly be super strong, but this test makes it clear he is not).
After this, in the doors test we see Khun struggling to come to a solution, which is fine. The problem is after this the test administrator randomly starts telling him (and us, the audience) Khun's entire life story for no reason, and literally has to point out to us the Khun has problems trusting people. It's as if the show thinks we are too dumb to figure stuff like how strong each character is, why Khun can't make a decision, etc. by ourselves, so it has to shove these things in our face.
-Uninteresting main character. From episode one Bam is given everything with no effort. This is acknowledged by the arcs with Rachel and Hoh. However, their jealousy of the Bam OPness is portrayed in a pretty negative way. Its like the author wants us to believe that despite Rachel and Hoh trying harder and having a greater reason than Bam to climb the tower, because they were not born with isekai protagonist godlike power their actions of self preservation were unjustified.
-Inconsistent characters. This show wants to to get invested in the various character's backstories, but these characters actions are so inconsistent that it makes this difficult. When Anaak declares her goal is to kill all the Jahads it's a pretty cool moment. This is undercut when about 2 minutes later when she and Endorsi Jahad fall in the pit, she decides that she should reveal her life story to her sworn enemy, and this is played off as some sort of bonding moment. A few episodes later the show tries to make her and Endorsi have some sort of friendly rivalry thing, so I guess they both forgot Anaak's goal to kill all Jahads.
We are also told multiple times that Khun has a very tragic backstory where he got betrayed and because of that he has some sort of trust issues. The only time this is even relevant is when it is introduced in the door challenge. From when he is introduced Khun has trusted Bam for no real reason and as a wave controller he trusts his team to do what he says, so I'm not sure what's going on with his trust issues backstory. Additionally, his backstory shows he comes from some medieval castle place, so why does he have a suit and briefcase? I think that a character's design should tell you a lot about what the character is like. His suit adds to the cocky, smart parts of his character, but also makes him look like he's taking time off from his job at a bank or something to join in on climbing the tower rather than being from a medieval land. I think it was these reasons that didn't let me care for Khun as a character.
-Poor worldbuilding. I don't really mind how people fight with swords, fists, magic beams, and sniper rifles in this world. While it's kind of silly its pretty funny and kind of unique. However, the world as presented in the anime is pretty boring, and basically feels like it is just created as the plot needs it. The entire story takes place inside the tower, but I don't understand what the tower is at all. The entire anime takes place on floor 2, so I guess it must literally be as least as wide as a small city rather than a normal tower as I thought. The last "secret administrator test" has the characters interact with some sort of ecosystem where some goblin are fishing. Do all these creatures also just live inside the tower? Until this point I thought that the tower was some sort of testing chamber, but this breaks that completely.
There are so many other worldbuilding problems too. Why is Bam and Rachel's world literally just a dark cave? How wide/tall is the tower? What does the tower look like? What's going on in the outer tower, is it also literally a tower or just the outside world? Why are people teaching the characters in the tower, is the tower also a school now? Why are characters like Yuri Jahad, Khun's brother, and the marshmallow looking dude allowed to pop into the last exam for no reason? Why don't the test administrators stop them? These questions aren't questions that generate interest in the world, but detract from its immersiveness. There are some interesting questions, like what's at the top of the tower, who is the guy who is bringing people to the tower, but they are bogged down by everything else.
An example of poor worldbuilding is how contrived the last test was. The author seemed to want to split the characters into different groups to accomplish different plot points. What results is a test that feels super unnatural. Rachel has to betray Bam, so lets put them in some isolated place underwater where nobody can see and it's super easy for Rachel to just push him. The game doesn't really make any sense, and basically exists so certain plot points would happen.
Overall fans of similar Shonen tournament arc/game formats like from HxH, My Hero Academica, and Naruto chunin exams will probably enjoy ToG for its fun cast and various exams like I did. Unfortunately, it doesn't succeed in much further than that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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