I was somewhat shocked when I started to turn this in and saw the netflix logo - I disliked many of their original productions. Luckily, this wasn't one of them (plus just the licensing got bought it seems)!
Anyway, this is an anime about scammers doing genius jobs, and the anime is divided into multi-episodes cases, that are mostly disconnected with each other. You can think Detective Conan/Case Closed or Black Lagoon.
I think it gets quite a lot of things right: The animation of scenes or talks aren't too long nor too short, the cases in themselves are pretty exciting, just like the animes above, and you really wonder how they are going to pull it off - especially when things don't go their way!
While it is M-rated, it is not really bloody much, but does feature adult themes like drug trafficking.
Fun fact: Given some comments of him, it seems that Laurent is sexually playful or indeed bisexual.
Be like: Catch me if you can (Live-action), Dr. Stone (planning in advance of actions), Ocean's insert-number (live-action, not watched, but I should have gotten the idea about it), Detective Conan/Case Closed (from the opposing side, so maybe
Rating: 10/10
I can't believe there is an anime that is sicker and more grotesque freakshow than the year 2020.
It starts with a 2-on-2 one-sided fight, where team A is wearing masks and getting beaten hard and Team B is a girl...AND A CROCODILE-MAN. He takes a guy from Team masks...AND PUTS HIM RIGHT INTO HIS MOUTH - Where he is greeted by another man at the end of the mouth which speaks to that poor victim.
The outro of each episodes goes likes this: And in this episode we learned...and what will happen in the next episode is engulfed in the mist of chaos!
And this is pretty fitting: The whole series is just a chaotic mess. It is CONSTANTLY topping itself into more and more of the extreme. Half the time you will thing "For real? Did this really just happen!?" and the other half "HOLY SHIT! OH FIRETRUCK"
Make no mistake. This anime is absolutely brutal, and introduced background characters barely make it past the one minute mark. On the contrary, you think some of the characters in the early are making the impression of quickly getting replaced or being unimportant, when surprisingly the anime is also spinning around them much throughout.
It is actually hard to say which side is even the protagonists. And it seems to be more important that things are happening than actually figuring out who the strongest guy is or how other parties getting defeated. It is even hard to say which group are the good guys, if there are even any in this anime.
And despite all this chaos which is spiraling out of control more and more each time, the anime is surprisingly consistent, reasoned, has a streamlined story line and creating tension and excitement to bingewatch all of it like I did.
Genre rating horror-thriller-gore: 10/10
I refuse to give a general rating for this, if you can't take gore or horror, this anime isn't for you. If you can take it but aren't too into it, I urge you to give this a try.
Be like: Blood Blockade Battlefront (maybe, didn't want past the first episode), Hellsing (Hellsing being more serious), Soul Eater (with SE being less bloody and likely even less random. Yes, Soul Eater is less random than Dorohedoro), One Punch Man (randomness, but surprisingly Dorohedoro is more serious and brutal), I think in terms of the kind of humor some Scandinavian live action movies might be fitting like Seven Psychopaths, in Bruges or Adam's Apples, this anime goes might be like some crazy DC supervillains such as Harley Quinn.
Fun fact: Dorohedoro means "mud-sludge".
Info: Season 2 announced roughly in May 2021. I can't wait for this!
Great moments of the anime and reactions of mine below (spoiler)
So, did you watch it? Let me know your thoughts on this anime!
I can't believe there is an anime boss that might beat Saitama.
En. He turns enemies into mushrooms.
When I opened my eyes for the first time, I was surrounded by mushrooms. I have turned my parents into mushrooms.
I had to defeat him, he is my nemesis. Everything was covered in mushrooms. The whole city was turned into mushrooms. This is the truth behind the Day of the Mushroom of Doom.
From the moment he was born, En was surrounded by mushrooms. He believes he transformed his parents into mushrooms, and survived by eating them
The very first ~6-7 episodes are way more different than the rest, as these start with well, you will see pretty early anyways and as a mystery world adventure. It will quickly turn into a superhero Shonen though, including Dragonball vibes.
There is even a Vegeta in this anime (Hien).
This is from the same Mangaka as the later Hunter x Hunter. You can see many templates and ideas in here already, such as Botan's catface that will be later related to Killua, the concepts of auras in different forms, albeit way less streamlined and explained. A basically (short-lived) Hisoka, and maybe one could compare Kuwabara with Leorio or Kurama as Kurapika.
I think this anime is cheap at times, pulling out random new super powers.
The start of the series felt like it wasn't sure where to head yet thematically
What did I like the most?
- Skill territories, especially with these three playing games against the groups
- Demon world
- The pretty chaotic group, of which it is not clear all the time for how long the bond will hold or how strong it will be in the end, with individuals having their own special motivations - especially Hien.
What did I dislike?
- The start. It felt pretty boring, and was absolutely off-theme from the rest of the series. I mean, it also let's one wonder: Why should anyone care to die if they can come to live theoretically again anyways? Why even bother?
- The mega tournament arc. Just took 60 episodes and was way too long. There have been quite some twists in there at least.
- The birb. I think it was nice it was eventually re-used after the start, but I think it fell short in it's usage after all.
Final Arc:
I was really surprised by the developments during it. The tournament ended way differently than expected, and Yoki made - similar to the Ant King of HxH - mayor character development. I think all three Kings had their time to shine, even if not immediality.
Going to be honest, I expected actually Hiei to fight vs Yusuke, and then I thought it would be Yoki vs him in the finals - or Mokuro.
I also still need to watch a few OVAs.
Be like:
Dragonball, Hunter x Hunter
Rating: 8/10
Watched the first 11 episodes.
Another Isekai (humans gets reborn in another world), what's up with all of them suddenly?).
This time, the person is the definition of what people would consider a IRL looser: No job, no life, not having worked for twenty years.
He is also an utter pervert. Of course he is. We knew this would be the case.
While he is in the body of toddler and infant, he is still that pervert. Which is troublesome, given that he doesn't drop that attitude towards girls that are like 11 years old. Like... what?
Also, expected, he sees women mostly as objects for his lust. He is, and I am not kidding, even talking about that "the breasts of that 11 year old will grow if he works on them".
Given all of the above, you really wonder what kind of persons they are targeting with these tropes. Who are they aiming for!? It even somehow suggests that it is okay to be a perverted, misogynistic sexual harasser (It is not, and if anyone does this even remotely in Real Life they will get into huge trouble)...
This is roughly the same crap that has ruined other animes for me as well, or least made them much worse (The Seven Deadly Sins, No Game No Life).
I subtracted 2 points flat merely for these issues. Heck, given that stuff I am not even sure I can recommend this to anyone.
I think the story overall would be okay, but...spoilers ahead:
The whole arc starting from episode 8 is just so hyper stupid. Like suddenly, without much of story-buildup, the whole anime changes: From the kinda slice-of-life pervert story we suddenly switch into a brutal gore kind-of story where people get brutally salin, including teens or children. Like...wtf and how did this even happen?
That was such a turn of events that just didn't feel consistent to me at all.
The graphics are okay, and I think the voice acting very good.
Black Lagoon
Initial rating: 3/10
Later Rating: 6/10
Rating explanation: Ger dub wasn't nearly as good as the English one. Plus another reason below.
I initially was pretty disappointed, knowing nothing about this anime at all beforehand. I think the animation style could have been so much better, and it also stroke me as boring plotwise. There isn't really a red plot line at all, it is just some episodes put together, with barely having much consequences or continuity. Instead of thinking of a single anime where the plot evolves much think of it of anime movies of a single anime. It is like 3-4 episodes an arc, and then having almost nothing to do or continuing from any before. At same time, I rather put these arcs as stories, which are only relevant within themselves, like in Sin City. And when I say Sin City, the anime is pretty much like that movie/comics; stories about the utmost evil criminals and not caring for what they do. Changing my view to the story-model made me enjoy this much more.
Yet despite that, it felt kinda lackluster to me. I mean, I think they could have totally put more tension into scenes, and more thrilling moments. Having seen anime like Death Note, even the (seemingly) most boring plots without action can come up with excitement, fear and other emotions for the viewer. This anime? I barely cared about what happened with the characters, especially with the stories repeating to quite some degree.
Having watched the final episodes in the OVA, the ending is like...what the hell? Completely random, just like switching from one arc to another was to me. They barely talked about what happened before even, and the ending making sense only half-wise.
It is OK to watch once you accept these arcs as stories, but is far from being an anime that I would recommend for someone not being into anime yet, and I am not sure I'd even recommend it much to fellow weebz.
Ultraman (2019 Anime series, Netflix)
Based on the live action series around the 60s from Japan, without having seen that, I assume it is like others of it's genre.
To the anime: It felt a bit weirdly animated, partly as if there were things recorded IRL and then in post-production changed to anime style. I felt that at some times there was a huge backlog when people were talking, think like open or closing mouths, slowly moving faces, such stuff, or doing things, were a larger time nothing happened each time, think of 1 to some seconds. This made it felt more slow than necessary. This thing got A LOT of flashy lights, and some weird movement scenes that didn't make me feel well. You might want to avoid this anime if you can't take these or are prone to epilepsy.
I actually felt the first 1-3 episodes being extremely action packed, and like the whole anime is, over the top and over exaggerated super powers and actions. But I felt this was much of an issue for me, after the first few episodes it just felt a tad bit repetitive, with nothing new to be seen. The actions scenes were IMHO going on for too long often, when I just asked myself When are they finally over?
I mean, plot-wise there have been some surprises at least, and that allied alien surely looks and sounds badass - With the latter also becoming at least a tad bit annoying to hear when you do all the time, given the voice. The Rina/model arc was pretty boring IMHO, and if I was right about post-production animating, then the actors felt a bit lackluster - or the VAs, if not. Many things in this anime were feeling cheap, and I didn't really care much for the characters, or much what happens with them.
Overall rating wise, I'd put it in the lower middle of it, roughly, like 3/10 to 5/10. I wanted to finish that season only, but I wouldn't be thrilled for when the next will release.
Maybe someone who likes these extreme Japanese Live action series and/or movies and might knew them - or the series this was based on - would like this anime more.
Super-skilled gamer and gambling guy winning matches.
I think the promise has some merit, and there are some moments where that dude just has smirk-faces and goes off - it would be great if this anime would play to his strength as an overly confident guy in a drama, such as in Dr. Stone. Here is the kicker: It isn't playing to this strength.
It also just comes up with totally new concepts at times, and the logic used in the game of around episode 6 just went to absurd stupid. It really got me thinking: We are supposed to believe this? For realsies!?
The main character is a pervert, and we see this overly annoyingly drawn faces and hear loud voices way too often. Not to mention, this anime is cringy at times; It starts with perversion and general ecchi stuff, which would be better left without, but the worst is not only that incest is alluded, but also that the main character's 11 (!) yo sister is alluded to partake in such acts with her brother, or is shown naked. What the firetruck, you serious? (this goes to the creators of this anime/manga). This happens multiple times basically, and I wanted to vomit each single time.
So yeah, it could have much more potential, and play either like Dr. Stone or maybe Death Note or Death Parade, but the biggest drama in this anime is it didn't chose to. instead of being a possible standout like the former mentioned, it just falls into the kind-of-average ecchi anime with not too much going for it. It doesn't help the main character is a full time jerk.
The animation is in itself fine, but I dislike the overly used bloom effects which are just blinding. It isn't as bad as K, though.
Rating: 5/10, maybe a tad bit less even - If it would have omitted and included some things differently, it could have easily been an 8 or higher.
Watchable for many but not all of us, but you will be ashamed while watching this at times, and I did watch it alone even.
The Asterisk War (Netflix)
Genre; Pretty slight ecchi and harem, but mainly action
I think it started somehow interesting, but became repetitive, especially in the tournament. A plot that is barely advancing, of which the tournament takes a large place in, add random weapons each is carrying and you got your pretty average action anime.
The initial plot device of the lost sister doesn't advance much at all, and when you got a 16yo protagonist that is not a pervert, but seemingly seems to see a 13yo naked or her having feelings for him or whatever, that's pretty cringe.
There are also some concepts, such as among special humans are even more special ones, but there is simply no difference in the story line regarding them - why introduce that in the first place then? There are tons of anime that have done that much better, where these even more rare humans are often ousted from society, like the cursed children in Black Bullet.
The fights in this anime often come over as cheap as well as randomly, think being it closely to I am almost to loose, but this anime just randomly puts down a random weapon concept to have me win this fight!
And why is it even named like that, there isn't a war at all in here. :confused:
Honestly, at some point I just didn't care about anything in the anime at all.
Rating: 4/10
Black Butler
Was pretty lackluster, and I don't get the seemingly high ratings: The animations were often dull and noticeable slow, often stay at the same scenes for too long. There were in theory interesting character backgrounds, but they aren't really fleshed out at all. Why create an episode about different skills of each and how they are recruited, when it is simply not important to the plot at all and not coming up again?
The protagonist? What's that? A 14yo boy-brat, for real?
Story elements were popping out of a nowhere suddenly. You could just as well inserted someone farted at the other end of the world and another guy drops dead.
Overdrawn character faces when they are loosing a fuse. Just plain annoying.
But the worst part was that basically none of the characters were likeable. I simply didn't care for the future of any of them, whether they live or die.
Maybe it is just the victim of the things working better as a manga, or a bad anime adaption, IDK. There are other seasons, and at least from a first glance the second looked better with another protagonist, but I pass and not intent to torture myself another time.
Rating: 3/10
