Back to xdvr's Profile xdvr's Profile

Thought I'd got through the other Science Adventures, thank god I didn't start with this one or might have done the lot.
Did Stein;Gate years ago when it was all the rage, and it was great having that weekly release.
Have since done Robotics and Occultics - neither on the same level but watchable.

This on the other hand... you hear there's a lot wrong with it and they aren't wrong.
Animation and Voice Acting is great (except the extra squeeky voiced one - get in the bin with this crap continued dubbing).
But it's the story - it's just not engaging and really badly paced.
First episode is great and ... then off the cliff it goes and pretty much flatlines. Even when you get revelations they just don't land.

Oh OP and ED music is unmemorable generic anime.

I always like to have a dig around the reviews to see what others have said and especially in the opposite opinion to see what they think, and then go see what they rate. Normally I find that they like all the utter trash childish anime and have obviously missed the point entirely. Interesting there's a few people in this one that don't fit this and I'm genuinely surprised.

I blitzed this in a day - which is rare, but it was good enough to keep watching.
It's not Bebop, Monster, or Pluto good - but then again what is?
It's also not Iseku trash, which instantly ... means it's better than 95% of anything in the last 10 years.

But why is 91 Days is good?
It is very well written - people act like real people (although driven by plot people do , and there's a good understanding of what people do.
Angelo is broken - and you've got to love a broken protagonist you can actually relate to instead of a boring OP one.
He's got the dead tone of a PTSD burnout and acts like a PTSD burnout.
His friendship wish Corteo feels real.
The reviewers don't like episode 7 - it's called love, and if you don't understand this you've never lost someone you love. Imagine if you'd lost someone they turn up and then you have it within your power to save them? Wouldn't you? A genuine beautiful piece.

It's 12 episodes - I don't need 200 episodes to tell me a 12 episode story. Thank you!
It's well voice acted.
It's well animated and the movement looks great/realistic (except the bonus episode which looks really cheap and doesn't add anything).

So... if you want a grown up action anime this is up there.

There's a lot right with this, but it can't escape the gravity of poor/generic writing that is currently infecting a lot of manga/anime.

For the majority this is probably an anime they will enjoy.
For old discerning gits who've been watching Anime since the 70s... it's all been done before, commits the same problems a lot of the current crop do. Don't expect anything new, expect okish writing, expect OP protagonists that don't have any character arcs or any fear of issues, and reminisce back to the 80s/90s when we had some truly great anime that surpassed it's source (ahem... GITS).

Going to start at the ... big thing it gets right: the world building.
Loads of interesting things to get behind at the beginning and it's dipping into 1800 European etc allows you to make some leaps without having to spell it all out.

The art style works really well - backing up the whole 1800 European, slightly Steampunk thing that's going on.

But, as said the problem is the core: the writing... which is largely Over Powered wish fulfilment rubbish for children or those weak of adulting.

The characters, although all very likeable are all instantly overpowered at the beginning, so you only get fleeting bits of any real danger, and after 5 episodes you realise that it's all good - nobody's gonna die but the bad guy and it's just plain ol' plain old in a new set of clothes.

Ok... Wasted enough time on this already.

After the Lodoss War OVA this is an utter multi-train crash where all the trains contained trash.
I've been trying to get through this for the last 24+ years since it's initial release. Back in the day before the internet made finding this easy it was all dodgy VCDs from some random model shops... and this was always a struggle to find... and then you did and you understood why: it's offensively bad.

I'm struggling to find a nice thing to say about this... except the OP Music: it's surprisingly great - and you'll find yourself humming it around the ... house.

But I know what you're really here for - some more chibi bashing... and my god does it need bashing so this crap goes away and never ever comes back into this type of anime. It's utterly charmless and hugely annoying rubbish that takes up sometimes over half the run time of an episode... for what? I want to cause harm to whichever idiot decided this needed to be there.
I don't have the words to reach the depths to describe quite how backed up a sewerage system this is.
I know much like Fate there's a whole "Chibi Cooking thing" for the painfully short of adult as well... but that's a whole separate series that can be very ignored by anyone who's not a child.

As others mentioned, there is a lot of overlap with the OVA (due to how the OVA is a mix of stories from the LNs/Manga).
So what to do if someone has already covered the same material? You make it better right... right??? right???????
Nooooo, lower quality everything: animation, voice acting (both Japanese and English dub), and somehow make the story bad - upping all the poor aspects.

Unlike the OVA which is the closest thing I've still seen to a proper enacted RPG session (even better than the recent US ones), this ditches that entire feel for a very poor run of the mill 90s fantasy anime.

Someone needs to save everyone a lot of time by removing every ms of Chibi crap from this and reducing the runtime to about 1.5hours. Or just go watch the OVA again, as everything is done better... 8 years earlier.

Half way through 2nd season, and this is a lot better than 1st season.
It's still a pretty standard anime, clearly nothing new, but it does it well.

Why? The big thing less childish humour.
Not sure if this was choice by the writer or the adapter - either way, great choice.
Feels far more grown up, less jarring "rubbish humour time just after you've seen someone turned to mush!"
This was already noticeable in the 0 Movie, where they allowed the emotional impact to land.

What else did it get right?
The normal overpowered lead that saves the day all the time isn't quite as overpowered.
That ... god awful Lost in Paradise is getting further into the mists of time - Directors/Producers: MUSIC MATTERS.

There's a lot to recommend here... But... we'll swing back on that.

Good voice acting both Japanese and Dubs. The voices suit... well except the normal dub rubbish of Squeaky Karina. (Please stop casting whoever that is doing that voice... find someone who sounds like the original Karina. No it doesn't portray a younger person it just sounds rubbish.

The themes are fantastic - especially in this world where the right appear to be growing. If you're watching and think the 86s are the Right Wing you're an idiot... go back to your stupidity.

So why do I think it's not as good as it could ... be?

1. Takes too long to get to the meat. 6 episodes. This goes past the normal 3 episode rule and the only reason I stuck with it is other old school MSG Fans represent.

2. My ever present gripe on modern Anime: Infantilisation through the continued crap anime trope of "awful humour". 86 offends hard on this trope - punctuating the fantastic bits of human gravity and breaking/devaluing their moments.
They'll be remarks that these are "light relief" but no it's exceptionally tone deaf to this anime's topics, and in doing so devalues it massively.

At some point others will catch up on this point... but if you're not there yet, don't worry... give it a few years and you're start seeing the problem with this YA rubbish. More on this below.

3. THAT song - no... just no: Fight Scene - chuck in the chugging song, other moment, chuck in the rubbish song. The actual OST is great.

BE WARNED MINOR RANT ABOUT THIS ISSUE FOLLOWS AND INCLUDES LIGHT SPOILERS FOR OTHER SERIES.

This is another series accursed with the current trend/trope of childish nonsense in manga/anime that needs to go in the bin if it wants to continue being considered an adult medium. 86 is not an adult anime due to this nonsense, it's tween/Very YA. If someone cut 86 and removed all the unrequired jarring humour scenes - this would elevate it considerably.

This is however not the first, a brief think threw up these:
MSG 79, MSG Zeta - Humour is in the right places.
MSG ZZ - Highly regarded as the worst MSG by a long shot, and just generally crap and why is that? CHILDISH HUMOUR!
Cowboy Bebop - knows when to pull the humour out.
Ghost in the Shell manga - Childish Humour
Ghost in the Shell 1 and SAC anime - No Childish Humour and all the better for it.
Berserk? Humour was balanced through Golden Age, afterwards really descends.
Jujutsu Kaisen feeling disconnected for you? You're not alone, that'll be that childish Humour mixed in every 5 minutes - Oh no, someone's been turned into something resembling The Thing, quick throw some humour on it. Does the whole thing a massive disservice. Should have concentrated more on why the 80s anime was better - less crap humour.,
Made in Abyss - knows when to pull the humour. Ie. Best friend turned into mush in a can... doesn't then go "Have some humour! Ha ha I'm so funny...", in a natural place where it won't break the mood - fine. We won't mention the manga... why can't people just be normal?
Monster - No stupid humour.
Pluto - No stupid humour.
One Piece, Food Wars, etc, etc, why's the humour great here? Cause it's a comedy series, and also they get timing. Serious moments are allowed to be serious moments without the author thinking they're funny.

Part of my "Rewatch all the Manga Entertainment UK we used to have on VHS", watching them in chronological order.



Art - Beautiful high quality 80s anime. You can see the budget on screen. This type of stuff is why so many people complain about CGI. The characters are distinct enough to easily recognise who is who. The various space vessels are beautifully designed - think Ulysses 31.

Story - SUBS NOT DUBS
Yeah, 100% with this one... this is early days, when the dubs were generally low quality translations and low to ok quality performances. Have you got the right version? Is it 2h+, then yes.

The ... Manga Entertainment release is massively cut by nearly half the film!
I watched them back to back, Subs first and then Dub just to see what I watched as a kid.

This really shows - for instance - why's their a 4 sailed barque in space? Watch the sub, it explains this.
It then goes onto explain those big red lines a lot better, with a genuinely gorgeous opening.

Is it a masterpiece? No. It's probably a similar level to Dominion Tank Police or Bubblegum Crisis.

Music - Classic 80s anime > orchestral or RAWWWWWWWWWWWWWK! Hell's yeah. It's not quite Bubblegum Crisis RAWK tho.

Immediately off the back of watching Monster, Pluto landed.

So what's good about this? EVERYTHING, AGAIN.
Following a similar approach to Monster - it's clever. Naoki Urasawa has put the effort in to ensure the respect to one of his childhood heroes.

The Director Toshio Kawaguchi follows suit from the Monster adaptation by not messing with the story and cleanly adapting it. Bravo! If only stupid US writers could understand this. (Well... One Piece adaptation was pretty good so there's hope!)

Art - Good CGI! Again lifted straight from the manga.
The clever adaptation from the original Astro Boy models to the more life like approach of ... Naoki Urasawa is great.

Story - Another genuine wow: Naoki Urasawa IS possibly the best mangaka - he's consistently great, consistently well thought out character driven, consistently consistent. Again, he has done his research on psychology and especially into trauma/PTSD. Showing the human condition through the Androids of the series > each a unique consistent personality, each someone you care about. Fantastic.

Music - It's ok - it's not as memorable as you would hope, but it never feels incongruous.

Why has it taken me so long to get to this?
Seventy Four episodes.
After Naruto, Bleach, and attempting One Piece and getting about 70 episodes in and having had about 1 hour worth of actual content, anything else this long was looking ropey. But then I watched MSG 79 and Zeta, 100 episodes worth with very little filler, restoring faith in the longer form series.

So what's good about this? EVERYTHING.
Imagine if Broadchurch or early GoT quality of writing, but even better .
This is my new standard for ALL media - it can be done...

Respect must be paid to Masayuki Kojima, the director. ... Instead of "adapting" or rather "screwing it all up by inserting their ego that they're better than the original writers that made the thing in the first place" (anything the current crop of exceptionally low quality US writers get involved in > Netflix's exceptionally bad Cowboy Bebop), he's done a direct adaption and it's all the better for it. Similar to what he more recently did with Made in Abyss.

Art - No CGI! Yes, it's getting there with things like Demon Slayer. The art has been adapted directly from the manga, and all the better for it.

Story - Genuine wow: Naoki Urasawa IS clever. He has done his research on psychology and on Europe. The amount of effort he put in pays off for all of us. Everything hinges together > it's both character driven and story driven > and is perfect. Going back to my opening, 74 episodes whiz by because every episode counts, unravelling the masterfully setup mysteries one by one, all paying off satisfactory as they're not abysmal Damon Lindelhof "mystery box with no actual answer".

Music - Another highlight - from opening and general OST by Kuniaki Haishima to the ED by David Sylvian... perfect.

Anything wrong? That second EP music - really doesn't fit.
So bad, the community took it on itself to run through all of it and put the David Sylvian ED on ALL the episodes.
Whomever did this deserves a medal.

Why are others hating on it? They've missed the point or don't have the experience or learning to understand this.
They don't understand trauma and it's reactions, grief, upbringing - they all hate on the same things "It's slow there's so many other extra characters, Oh I hate the ex-fiance she's such a shrew". Guess what these people exist in real life and they're are all examples of sympathetic monsters. My favourite complaints are "why didn't Tenma shoot him, I'd have shot him, I'm a big man" cause the low IQ will always think they're big men.

Part of my "Rewatch all the Manga Entertainment UK we used to have on VHS", watching them in chronological order.
This has been one of the weaker entries so far.

Art - it's a weird mix of lifelike and Lupin/Harlock comical - very 80s.

Story - the base idea is "Evil Wizard just wants to take over the city" - No real reason given, he's just evil.
The rest of it is shallow just carrier. It's got a large amount of "Edgelord" about it - not quite Goblin Slayer or Urotsukidoji, but it does it in a much lighter way. There's some nice set pieces in amongst it ... all, Episode 3 was the stand out.

Dubbing - Mixed. Some of it is really well done, other you can tell the performer didn't care.

As others have said - some people are going to love this, but if you're looking for something with a bit more depth... you're not going to find it here.