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Nov 20, 2018
In the never-ending stream of anime about high school, there are those which are melodramatic (see Your Lie in April) and those which are slice of life (see Lucky Star). It is very easy to write one without doing the other. Kokoro Connect is a show which attempts to be both melodramatic and also comedic in nature, while also attempting to incorporate an element of surrealism to explore both. Overall, this is fairly well executed, just not without some major kinks along the way.
In the end, this is a story about a group of friends. A show like this relies heavily on the ability
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of the audience to connect with at least one of these characters, and thus benefits from having multiple characters to connect to. I happened to like the three females in the show (Nagase, Inaba, and Yui), and these characters are well developed almost immediately in the show. Thankfully, this development is not of the "here's my problem, now let's let the main character fix it in five minutes" variety. You learn more about the female characters as they learn more about themselves, and they grow throughout the show.
In particular, I would applaud the writing for creatively incorporating the surreal elements of the show into the development of the female characters. The show stands out in my mind for that feat alone, as many times the shtick of a plot ends up not having anything to do with how the characters develop. These characters have believable breakdowns and come back together in a way which makes sense.
I was careful to only talk about the female characters here: that's because the two male leads are particularly unmemorable. Taichi, the arguable main protagonist, seems to simply be a conduit for the female characters' love interest through most of the show by having a "helper" personality. It's not a harem show, but at points it seems unnervingly like it. Taichi is in a long list of male protagonists like this, but that doesn't excuse this show from having this kind of character.
In general, the show's plot and characters was often gutsy. The show would sometimes take unexpected and unnatural turns in a completely different direction than the expectation. These moments were pretty well sold as well, and weren't just one-offs. This is appreciated in a genre traversed by so many other anime. This doesn't mean that the plot was perfect (far from it), and sometimes the writing suffered from both lazy writing and the fact that it is a light novel series being adapted to TV.
The character designs were, in general, fairly standard fare. However, I did feel as though this show's detail work on that end were well realized. The character animations were pretty crisp for the time that the show was made, so that was also positive. The backgrounds were slightly jarring though; often they really contrasted to the characters' crisp designs. I often did not really feel like the characters were living in the world at large. In general this is just nitpicking; this type of thing, again, is fairly standard in a genre focused on characters and not setting.
Overall, this show was fun to watch: Its comedy was hilarious and fairly lewd, and its melodrama was often permeated by real issues with real consequences. It does its best to run the middle line between these two modes, and did a good job without wowing me. If you're looking for a quick laugh or a good cry, this show will do just that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 7, 2018
Do you have tons of time on your hands? Do you enjoy female fanservice? If you didn't answer yes to both of these questions, then don't watch this show.
This anime is basically everything that your friend, parent, or significant other say that anime is in a demeaning way: overblown, oversexualized, and totally ridiculous. Usually, I could have a defense for all of those things, but for this show, there is no defense.
Cross Ange seems very self-aware in the strangest and most demeaning way possible. Essentially, the show's premise is that a marginalized group of non-magic (Mana) wielding humans (all female) called Norma are
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forced to fight gruesome(?) battles against DRAGONs who appear from holes in the sky in mechs. It has plot twists, crossing dimensions, crossing time, and overall something out of the mind of a 12 year old boy. That coming along with a narrative filled with plot holes and narrative choices which don't make much sense or are consistent. Every kind of ass-pull, anime trope, and cheap emotional effect are used. Sometimes these are used well. Sometimes, these can even be forgiven. But when they happens in practically every episode, then the story becomes a montage of weird.
The only reason I watched this monstrosity through is the character writing. This show certainly is character driven, beginning with the main character. Initially a pampered princess, Ange transforms into a cold, distant person. Her personality is used as emotional armor against what is presented as a potentially deadly scenario for her as a Norma "para-mail" pilot. This change is actually dealt with fairly well, and that's only within 3 episodes. What's great about her character is that she consistently subverts the expectation that protagonist mecha pilots have to show mercy, compassion, or the like. The rest of the show gradually works her towards a more balanced direction. This made sense and seemed to be the central element of the show, and the show was at its best when developing her character.
Most of the supporting characters get minimal backstory treatment, and many actions seem unmotivated at worst. Some of this is a matter of presentation and execution, but there's really no points for effort here. However, a couple of side characters have nice narrative moments and relatively sensible arcs: Tusk, Hilda, and Momoka among them. Furthermore, I sort of liked the cool psychological evil of Embryo as a villain, though he is the epitome of a lack of power ceiling.
Now onto the most troubling part of this anime: the sex. The show, for the first few episodes, is obsessed with women using sex as a means of control against other women. It's kind of disgustingly presented as fanservice at most parts, and is slightly sickening. This kind of makes sense with the situation presented though, being an all-women's prison/military base. Fine, but then don't try and re-present these characters as morally just characters later in the series! Furthermore, later in the show, having male-female sex seems to be some point of "purity/impurity"...which even more undermines the position the show originally takes. For a show supposedly presenting a vision of women as powerful figures, this show certainly has shotty decisions leading up to this point in that respect.
The OP was originally fine, but then they decided when they were going to do a new OP that reusing animations from the first OP would go unnoticed...it didn't. Furthermore, the soundtrack was medicore at best. I didn't really think that the main "song" of the anime was particularly good or even used correctly. There are these laughable moments when the VA goes to sing this song and the recorded track, with no transition and full background music, plays as the character sings along. The idea was good, implementation was not.
There's not much to say about the art. I thought it served the purpose fairly well without adding to or getting in the way of what was mainly a horrible story. There wasn't much about the animation which necessarily stood out, except for the bodies of questionably aged girls.
Overall, this anime should not be watched by anyone who takes themselves seriously. I can't tell whether this was a serious project or a money grab for studio Sunrise. It seems as though there were some subtle nods here and there to the latter in the anime, but it's no roast. It's not even bad enough to be funny at most parts. If you want to watch blonde Lara Croft fight dragons in a Gundam and you absolutely don't care about anything else, this is your show. If not, stay away.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 2, 2018
Writing comedy is weird. Breaking the key points of storytelling work as models for humor. Lack of character development, lack of character empathy, plots with major holes, etc all work as phenomenal jokes. Konosuba might be the first anime comedy I've seen that does comedy right in the way that it intentionally breaks storytelling tropes for the sake of a laugh.
Let's begin with the characters, or I should say "party". The main cast includes Kazuma, Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness. Kazuma, the protagonist, has died and been placed into a fantasy RPG world as reincarnation. He is selfish, spiteful, and materialistic. Aqua, the secondary protagonist,
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is a goddess which Kazuma brings with him after dying. She is also selfish, a crybaby, and has tons of hubris to boot. Megumin is a wizard who only knows "explosion" magic, and she can only use it once a day, though she brags about being the greatest arch magician in the world. This is perhaps the only thing which she cares about in the world. Darkness is a paladin who is a sexual masochist in every sense of the word. Through the anime we learn Darkness might be the only person who cares about people other than herself...though it seems that this is truly in spite of her well being.
It's clear these cast of characters are not typical of anime in any sense of the word. They lack the honor to do purposefully good things for other people on a normal basis. They're really all kind of assholes, which ended up reminding me of Seinfeld more than anything. But this provides a phenomenal basis for comedy: we are okay when these characters are hurt, battered, and bruised. This is what makes the Darkness joke last so long without it feeling bland.
This leads into another important part of what makes Konosuba so funny: it uses old jokes to ground new jokes and finds ways to implement them in a new and creative way each time. This doesn't just include the various mishappenings on some kind of stereotypical quest. The bases for many of the plot events in the show are the driven primarily by the flaws of the characters. This seems to be the intent of the showrunners.
It's worth talking about the art style here as well. There's a lot of "janky" animation in the show, and this isn't the prettiest anime in any way, but I don't think the show would have worked as well if it was. Take for instance the fanservice through the show. Certainly the animators are capable of drawing the typically sexy girl, but choose much more realistic and odd shapes for the girls in the show. This added to the various layers of irony which plague the sexual innuendos throughout the show, especially in the case of Darkness's character.
The OP for this show certainly is original, well put-together, fun, and conveys the show's mood. The music wasn't absolutely phenomenal or memorable, but maybe this puts the expectation a bit high for a show with limited budget.
Overall, all of these aspects to Konosuba create an absolutely hilarious and self-aware show. It lacks, in my opinion, the kind of perfection of craft that deserves a perfect rating, but still is phenomenal in its own right. The show's end credits are a sort of homey-feeling montage of the town which the show is set. This somehow works, and I think this is because of the flawed characters. Everyone has unfixable character quirks which plague and shape our everyday lives, and Konosuba's portrayal of characters with this kind of real quality makes it feel kind of homey.
This kind of complexity is what makes Konosuba a great show.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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