Reviews

A show so well written and so masterfully crafted, that unholy bobduh gave it 10/10, but also a show that didn't really articulate my media preferences. I could appreciate a lot of it's mastery of the craft through reading bobduh's reviews as I went, and it definitely mattered, and enabled me to further study the craft on this level. I'm not saying I didn't like it. By understanding most of what's great about it, I kinda had to like it. And by having such great writing, direction and production, show itself feels great to watch, even if it's not something that suits your tastes. What I'm saying is that personally a magical realism as a genre and slight lack of spotlighting at places, as well as thematic, made this not as enjoyable as titles I rated 9 or 10.

Down in spoiler section, I'll address what exactly annoyed me. Though note that I'm not saying anything of that is bad or show's fault. It's a further breakdown of why exactly this genre and/or type and setting didn't suit my tastes and annoyed me. Though I did my best not to let myself be too annoyed, and enjoy and understand what the show was really about. What I especially loved about it was the way all plot threads came together in the end to provide a great ending arc and resolution. Really great example of great writing. I also enjoyed the beautiful artistic environments and the way they were presented, OP (especially lyrics), as well as characterisations of protagonist and the grandpa, who were really amazing characters. To see why this show is technically a 10/10, see bobduh's review at wrongeverytime.com. Note that by giving it an 8/10, I'm not disagreeing with him. My score is merely a measure of how much I personally enjoyed something.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

Things that annoyed me personally were things like someone deciding to be a frog in the well for the rest of his life, trapping shapeshifters in barred cages (and the lame excuse that was offered to justify it), a lack of clear definition of how humans view the whole thing with tanukis and tengu existing (it becomes clear much too late, and up until that point feels confusing and annoying), the idea that their father would go to death willingly like that, his philosophy with doing that and lack of clarity if he really willingly died or not willingly. Lack of gender-shifting later on. It was such a unique thing at the beginning, yet was a plot thread rarely used again, and didn't have significance later. Pretty much everything about Benten, I just didn't like her much, as she seemed to have the power to resolve anything at any time but decided to not really do anything at all, other then interfere when she feels like it. Dunno it just felt dickish to me, the way she behaved for most of the time. And the fact their mother fears thunder, I just found that to be too unbelievable.