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Apr 12, 2024
I don't understand how the premise of this story would sound interesting to anyone: OP lvl999 guy gets SAO'd into a new land and then decides to role-play as a rookie adventurer, during which time he beats up weaklings for marginal benefit when there are thousands of better decisions he could make to reach his goals. This whole anime is like watching an NBA player play semi-seriously against kindergartners. There are no interesting characters, the plot is slow and pointless, the storytelling is all over the place, the art design of characters is ugly and ridiculous, it's chock full of terrible CGI and bad animation,
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an endless stream of stupid attack names that seem like they were chosen by letting a 3rd grader pick out "cool" words from a hat. All of his followers are flat cult follower boot-lickers who treat his middling IQ plans as genius. The action consists solely of face-slapping character we don't know with no emotional or plot build-up to make it enjoyable. This is not how to write an OP protagonist story. The only good part of this is that him becoming skeleton guy robs him of an appetite for ecchi, even if there are pointless sexual asides from his follower harem anyway.
Imagine all the worst qualities of isekai and OP protagonist stories and this one has them all.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Apr 9, 2024
I binged this anime from the first season the last few days and, like many of the other mixed reviewers, found it to be acceptable but a bit shallow. It has all these philosophical quotes about human nature and behavior, but never really goes beyond the MC feeling apathy and acting in a mildly manipulative way over a set of episodes unfolding at a very slow place. I don't think this show is bad at all, but I'd be hard-pressed to recommend it. This show has no hype moments whatsoever. Everything is understated and there are no masterful genius displays by our MC, or anything
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like that. As far as just the psychological drama genius aspect of this goes, I think you'd be better served watching something like Kakegurui. Even though I'd say this series is better on the whole, I think that one is more enjoyable as something psychological. This anime, I think, is ultimately a slice of life with a pretty meager side of psychological drama. It's not bad and keeps your attention, but it's more made up of the illusion that something smart will happen than anything that actually does.
Overall: Going into this show, I expected something different. Each subsequent season seems to stray further and further from the coherent social experiment-style psychological premise established in the first season. There isn't much big-picture plot development at all, with the only concrete changes since the start being in the maturity of the minor and supporting characters in MC's class. MC's backstory, rather than aiding the psychological side of the story, actually gets in the way of the interesting parts of the story, namely the internal competition of the classes and the strategizing. The secret genius grown in a lab MC is okay, but a bit underwhelming given the potential of someone with his apparent skills. All in all, I don't think this will be an anime I return to or really think about ever again after I finish documenting my opinion here. Worth it for passing a few hours, but I think this is the kind of show that has a high floor and a low ceiling when it comes to enjoyability. Nothing to knock your socks off, but nothing egregiously terrible or offensive to make you drop it.
Main Character: MC frequently makes comments that he'd betray anyone at any time if it benefited his interests, but he largely acts like a neutral good in the show and doesn't seem to have an overarching goal besides "living a normal life," which is completely boring as a life motivation in anything but quirky comedy. What's worse, the good things that he does basically work to create a harem, even if it's not presented exactly that way. The show builds him up like some kind of genius emotionless mastermind, but his strategies are things like switcheroos and beating someone up with random fighting skills that don't seem to match his studying and playing chess all the time backstory. I don't think the writing quality is strong enough to convincingly portray a clever character as clever. This show creates a vibe that some kid of psychological angle to going to be explored, but it's really just air with little actual substance in its plot. The main character, though he's presented as smart, does not have any strong goals or motivations. The result is that everything feels a bit pointless, or lacking in palpable stakes for him. He builds a network of connections and hides his influence to not stand out, but he doesn't have any legitimate internal goal that gives those actions personal meaning for him. He's like an emotional-less "genius" running on auto-pilot who simply responds to the stimuli around him. I think your overall thoughts on this show will be determined by how into the MC you are. I've seen too many characters just like him to get that excited, but some might like his backstory and think "living a normal life" is a compelling motivation for him.
Plot: Another big issue with this anime is that it feels like it should feel like it's building to something, but there aren't really any highs during the entire run. The pacing is too much like a high school drama as opposed to a psychological thriller. For instance, the stated goal of the anime, if not the MC, is for class D to reach class A. Guess where the class ends up after year one (3 seasons)? It's got the slice of life dynamic whereby just about any time the MC or his class could actually win, they lose; or, if they do win, it's a two steps forward one step back kind of win. The only time they advanced at all was because of MC's physical violence. Any victory they attain is a shallow, short-term one. The economy of the school with points was interesting in the first season, but slowly becomes a non-issue and loses a lot of focus. Then, the traitor classmate who was the biggest obstacle for much of the show's run becomes a total non-factor. And now, there's some annoying and unnecessary plot-line about the politics and management of the school that seems to contradict the public, government-funded structure established early on. The plot just doesn't seem focused and consistent in the way it should. The individual tests are fine, for the most part, and it's interesting to see how the MC navigates the plotting and backstabbing of other classes, but this is most interesting in the first season, with the tests getting less and less interesting with each passing season.
World-building/Cast: The best part of this show is the network of relationships it includes, which makes you consider the number of factors involved in every test. Teamwork, alliances, and leadership are all well-conveyed in this story, and so you get a sense of traits and approaches that will work well within the school. The varying personalities are well-depicted and you get a sense of the class dynamics. I didn't really have much of a problem with this aspect of the anime, but several characters had pretty ridiculous secret histories, and sometimes female characters approach and flock to MC like any run-of-the-mill harem protagonist, which is obviously a negative when it comes to organic characterization. Several characters do grow and change in a "growing up as a highschooler" type of way, which is an overall positive, but again, supports my claim that this story is ultimately a slice of life rather than psychological story.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 12, 2023
A little bit of a series retrospective here. I haven't seen Durarara since it came out and would never rewatch it. In my mind, it is one of the original massively overrated series of my childhood, with baffling storytelling and focus problems that ruin everything good about it.
Let me start with an analogy: imagine JK Rowling creates the world of Harry Potter, filled with wizards, magic, lore, history, a haunted castle, centaurs, giant spiders, elves, soul-stealing dark phantoms, dragons, etc. But as she's writing it she decides, "no Harry Potter is too much a chosen one type and involved with interesting people, secrets, and
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high stakes drama. Instead, lets make Dudley the protagonist because he can learn about all the interesting stuff as a three-times-removed bystander who never acts to move the story forward, but simply observes interesting things other people do." That's what Durarara is. Craft a world where a waiter has superhero strength, a headless horseman rides a motorcycle around the city, gangs fight one another, a Machiavellian psycho who's waiter's mortal enemy creates chaos across town. Which of these interesting characters is the MC do you ask? How about some stupid, aggressively bland and boring high school nobodies who do nothing but occasionally witness some of the cool stuff that happens.
You watch this show and see interesting characters, setting, and plot lines but then have to constantly return to the most uninteresting nothing characters. Sorry, not enough time for Celty to solve the mystery of her head's location, but yeah, enough time for us to see emotional high school boy do nothing for several episodes. Make the interesting character the protagonist. Place the center of the story where the interesting stuff happens. Why would anyone want to watch Harry Potter but through Dudley's POV? A total catastrophe of storytelling.
tldr; It should be titled Dunonono!! since that would accurately how it feels to experience all the stupid narrative zagging from interesting and exciting characters back to the story of high schoolers doing nothing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Dec 11, 2023
6.5/10. Let me say first, I absolutely love the original season of Violet Evergarden, but I really didn't like the end of this or the "the Major might be alive" plot line. In my view, Violet's suffering, recovery from brutal loss, self-hatred, PTSD, and discovery of the meanings of love are the core of this anime. No matter how much she loves the Major, he represents the brutal past and her previous life, thus making the happily ever after in this- them getting together- very retrogressive. In other words, the personal development and acceptance she struggles through gets the rug pulled out from under it
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because the Major is alive.
I think him being alive changes the genre of the first season from being a serious look at suffering to suffering porn; the storytelling of the first season exposes us to a broken woman who desperately wants one thing and has to come to terms with the impossibility of getting it, while here she gets what she wanted the whole time as a seeming reward for becoming a better person. She goes on an emotional arc of accepting death but that all gets thrown out the window when the past returns. It turns out that all her realizations about love aren't preparing her to live as an individual in the post-war world, but to prepare her for her reunion and romance with the Major. Because what happens to her letter-writing career when she finds him? She's done--romance is the end of her life and the end of her story. Her happily ever after isn't accepting and loving herself, it's essentially necrophilia.
I like romance, I like Violet as a character, but not every story or character needs romance. The story is 1000x more poignant and meaningful with the Major dead. The people who made this are too cowardly to stand by the tragedy of the original which is the emotional heart of VE. Romeo and Juliet is timeless because the fake death at the end is experienced as real death, leading to real suicides. The story would be infinitely worse if both lovers came into full knowledge and there was a happily ever after. It is THE romance because Shakespeare wasn't a coward and didn't feel the need to wrap up every romance with a forced happily ever after. It's more romantic if they die because death gives the story stakes and weight. The Montague-Capulet beef killed them, thus working as an indictment of that political reality. Shakespeare didn't think, oh Romeo/Juliet is so nice, they deserve happiness so I can't let them go through with it. However, that's the logic in this movie. This is a story about WWI-era brutality; season 1 is true to that setting, while this movie Disneyfies that world and betrays its other themes for a totally unnecessary romance that works as pure fan-service plotting.
In addition, Violet being in love with the Major makes sense and has a charm because he's the only one who showed her affection and care in her terrible life. Him being dead eliminates all the weird age-inappropriate stuff of a real relationship while giving her an idea to live by. Him being alive and someone she can be in a relationship with makes you reckon with the fact that they met when she was a child and he benefited from using her as a human weapon (no matter his kindness). The Major is better as an idea (i.e. a personal idealization) and not a living person. Honestly, him being romantically attracted to her is extremely creepy and wrong. It turns a tragic story of a platonic, basically paternal/filial love into something that falls into anime trope cliche territory. Rather than a heartbreaking and then heartwarming acceptance of death and herself, the story becomes human weapon marries pedophile/groomer after an asspull to bring a man back from the dead. I think while the usual beautiful cinematography, music, animation exists in this, it would be better off not existing because it cancels out the core themes of the original. As it is, this movie feels like it rewards us and Violet for suffering while repudiating everything else about the original series. The Major alive plot line and subsequent romance cheapens the whole thing, even if the reunion with the Major is a definite emotional gutpunch.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Nov 20, 2023
Indistinguishable from mediocre edgelord garbage. Harem for no reason? Yes. Shadow darkness morally gray chunibyo one-liners and goofy poses? Yes. OP MC playing around and removing all stakes from everything? Yes. Generic magic swordplay high school? Flashing light action with mid animation? Pretending to be weak? Yes to it all. It's a series of bad cliches with no substance.
This show isn't parody (as there is no distance from what it would be parodying), but is a comedy genre-wise, as well as a gory action isekai. However, I wouldn't say it was particularly funny or had good action. I think the target demo for this is
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10-15 year olds who think they're smart and that Code Geass is the peak of anime. The main character is discount Lelouch in an isekai world with vaguer powers and no plot to support his silly 8th grade syndrome antics. I'd say it's an average seasonal anime, with nothing to distinguish it from all the other C tier isekai action with an edgelord MC.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 20, 2023
As far as a synopsis goes, it's a pretty cliche SAO-type VR game anime with no life or death stakes. However, the anime accepts its cliche starting point and is actually good at the execution level. It's not reinventing the wheel or offering a crazy novel story that'll shred your underwear, but it's likeable and interesting as an open-ended adventure.
I usually dislike VR anime because of the game/everyday life split, as the out-of-game stuff feels twice as boring and trivial compared to the action and adventure of the game world. That I like this anime is proof that such is not the case here. In
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the first eight episodes, it seems like the anime is committed to giving minimal attention to the out-of-game stuff. The action animation is the main draw here and is exciting. 90% of this anime is MC figuring out the world, battling above his weight class, and discovering interesting lore and features within the game. I would say this anime is like an interesting blind walkthrough of a VR game.
The story provides solid dramatic beats and an insert-MC who doesn't have any annoying habits or try-hard humor gimmicks, while the cliched characters are far less annoying than you'd expect them to be. For instance, school acquaintance with a crush and rabbit girl NPC both seem like shitty fanservice distractions from the MC, but here they are completely complementary and involve no fanservice at all (so far). The show's focus is thoroughly on the MC and the secrets of the game, which I think is a definitive positive direction. We've seen this premise fail again and again because the show is either harem garbage, edgelord power fantasy, or doesn't actually care about the world--SLF avoid all the major pitfalls while being excellently animated, entertaining, and including an interesting world for us to follow MC through.
tl;dr: The lack of the negatives usually associated with this premise and enjoyable action execution make this the standout adventure anime of this season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Nov 13, 2023
Steins;Gate is a a good barometer for understanding what makes an anime good.
Does the anime have something unique that you've never seen before in the medium? Steins;Gate has a time-machine microwave and world lines.
Does the anime have a memorable main character? HOUOUIN KYOUMA. SUNOVABITCH
Does the main character have humor and humanity in equal measure? Does your MC suffer in a countless number of parallel worlds to save his friends from a danger spawned from his own hubris and curiosity while screaming nonsense at the top of his lungs?
Does the anime have a badass plot? CERN kills main characters again and again in a time
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loop because of butterfly effects from the MC's careless decisions. And every character is caught up in a crazy web of secret organizations and tragedy.
The only knock on this anime is that it has stupid dating sim harem bullshit that carries over from the visual novel in the middle of the season. But the sheer novelty of this anime's premise should be the baseline for judging what makes anime good. Too much recycled nonsense coming out each season instead of original thought and a unique plot in a legit genre like sci-fi.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Nov 13, 2023
Okay, let's start with the obvious: bullying is wrong and should not be justified in any way. Here, I'm critiquing characters and tropes and don't in any way sanction bullying.
Naoto, the main character, absolutely sucks. He essentially plays an ecchi straight man insert character. He's the usual kind of character for this type of anime: a loser virgin bullied loner who just wants to avoid social interaction, read Vampire Boobies 3: Rise of the Areola and play video games all day, and has never met or talked to a girl in his life. Unlike most pathetic nothing insert characters in ecchi, Naoto has a skill:
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he's good at drawing/painting. Still, 90% (no exaggeration) of this anime, he's stuttering, blushing, and averting his gaze--not every MC needs to be an OP chad or whatever, but I'm so tired of the pants-shitting losers who cannot do basically anything well. Naoto can't run, talk, ski, put in contact lenses on his own, or do anything that an average person could do at least at a passable level. Honestly, I'm surprised he has the motor skills to walk to class and hold a pencil and the mental fortitude to even open his mouth in the first place. Nagatoro is the best and only thing that has ever happened in his life. Most of the show is set in the art room where he draws still lifes and occasionally Nagatoro.
Nagotoro is a mean girl with other mean girl friends who almost instantly likes him for no reason at all. Is she attracted to his useless passivity and pliability as a person? I have no idea. Anyway, she's like a 10 year old who's mean to the boy she likes so he'll notice her. Nobody can tease him but her, even if her friends try just to get on her nerves. Her bullying slowly makes him more confident in himself by revealing how timid and passive he is with literally everything in his life. That's the dynamic of this show: she teases him and slowly, a more serious relationship develops between them and he comes out of his shell (kind of). He tries to figure her out, while she puts him in ecchi situations, calls him a pervert, and tries to make him like her that way. Obviously, I just don't like his type of character at all, though he gets marginally better as it goes on. Even though she's mean and a bully, at least she's active and wants romance and character progress. She is definitely the best part of this show.
Their relationship is fine and the ecchi side of this anime at least hints at romantic development (unlike those chaste romances where just calling her by her first name is like climbing Everest), so if you're in a similar spot starving for legit romance in anime, I'd kind of recommend it. The horny scale is like a 5/10 for ecchi, so it's not overpoweringly that way, but basically every situation has some innuendo. The chance of romance developing seems promising at least.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Nov 11, 2023
This is the ultimate casual comfort show. MC is hilarious and the vibe of the whole thing is light, funny, silly, and entertaining. It's slice-of-life comedy about falling asleep. The setting is a demon castle where she finds a bunch of wacky things to help her do so, while inadvertently terrorizing the demon community. She goes from princess to boogeyman over the course of the season. She is like a virus that the poor demons foolishly accepted and now have to live with and cater to. A great anime to watch casually or fall asleep to (the dub is solid for this purpose). Kind of
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a niche enjoyment for me with its silly fantasy setting and largely middling art style, but I think its vibe would make it appealing to most people.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Nov 11, 2023
I have a few must-haves when I consider good slice of life comedy romance: romantic progress, a humorous vibe if not straight-up laugh out loud comedy, a supporting cast that works for the romance and comedy.
1. Romantic progress: How many slice of life romances involve an infinity of hesitation, self-questioning, bullshit reasoning for why they aren't together, and lack of any progress over the course of multiple seasons? (screw you Uzaki-chan) This anime has real progress that doesn't get walked back or extended forever because of greed or bad writing. The leads are amusing and compatible as complete weirdos, they act like they're dating most
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of the story, and the show doesn't blueball the audience with wishy-washy emotional drama that just prolongs the courtship stage.
2. Humor: the main two are bona fide weirdos and the ML is well-written for magnifying the humor with his delusional scenarios and explanations for Aharen's oddball behavior and reticence. They go on dates, compete at silly games and sports, while ML hypes Aharen up and supports her for who she is. She is drawn to his open-minded kindness and treats him well. Just what I want to watch.
3. Supporting cast: not as strong as the other two, but we get straight man characters who amplify how strange the leads come across and support their burgeoning romance. Aharen's childhood friend isn't the most engaging or interesting character, but she works for showing Aharen's personality and a third person view of what's going on. There are a couple of other who try to match-make or determine if they're dating, which again succeeds in providing an outside view of their romance. Aharen's siblings also show up and offer a bit by way of side character flavor. For a show so centrally focused on its main two characters, I think the supporting characters work to make the most of what matters: romance and comedy. While not perfect, at least there aren't any pointless or distracting characters that steal episodes and screen time from the main couple (ahem Horimiya).
I think it's hard to find shows like this that deliver in the ways they should (1 and 2). I consistently enjoyed their goofing around antics and thought they worked really well as a romantic pairing. I hope there's another season, because this show knows how to deliver with what's actually good about this genre, rather than focusing extremely hard on giving the illusion of progress while actually forcing nothing at all to happen the entire time (the goal of a lot of slice of life romances--again, screw you Uzaki-chan).
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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