This is the Sword Art Online I've always wanted!
In many ways, you can tell that the manga's author and the team who worked on the anime are real enthusiasts, and they're people who love playing video games.
First of all, the very fact of alternating between Sunraku's "slice of life" and seeing him play games other than the one this show is titled after, sets this anime apart from all the others (I know SAO does it a bit, but it's very minimal and very different from this series).
What's more, when Sunraku immerses itself in the world of Shangri-La Frontier, it instinctively reminds me of my first video game moments (mainly RPGs), everything is there, whether it's character selection, not following the main plot and going at your own pace, encountering insurmountable bosses right from the start (hello Dark Souls), having instant PVP right from the start of the game, etc..... There's still plenty of evidence that they've put their heart and soul into making this anime, and that they've mastered their subject.
What's great is that, on top of all this, they've even incorporated innovative mechanics that I'd love to see in our modern video games. For example: the fact that the more you use a weapon, the more likely it is to evolve with characteristics specific to the way you play (I'm surprised such a mechanic doesn't exist yet), the simple fact of having unique scenarios and bosses, and so on....
Each episode is a true masterpiece to watch (the real ones know about the episodes 11 and 18 :wink:), it's surely obvious but the music and animation are breathtaking.
In short, for those who have always dreamed of seeing an anime that makes you feel like you're playing a video game, and who also dream of what the future of video games might look like, this is one of the best of its kind.
Frieren is a veritable ode to travel and the passing of time.
From the very first episode, the quality of the writing, music, characterization, drawing and animation is breathtaking. And fortunately for us, it continues and intensifies right to the end.
What moves me most about this anime is the theme it tackles, the passage of time. For an elf who lives for millennia, the few hundred years of her companions are just a fragment of the life she will have. So it's natural for her not to get too attached to anyone, since from her point of view, they'll grow old and die too quickly anyway.
The reason this resonates with me is that it reminds us of the importance of living life to the full and, above all, that even if we only know someone for a few weeks or a month, the moments we share with that person will add to our life story, however short it may be.
For me, Fieren now stands alongside with Mushoku Tensei and Re:Zero, all three of which are fantasy anime with very human themes.
I recommend this anime to anyone who wants to travel through time with Frieren.
What a crazy episode! One week is too long to wait.
Ragna Crimson is a truly exceptional anime.
I have been looking forward to this anime adaptation for the past 6 years now.
So far, I'm not disappointed. At first glance, the visual style seems quite different from that of the Webtoon, but after re-reading the first few pages of the Webtoon, I realize that the style is actually quite similar.
I find it quite clever to have adapted a short sequence from the Ants arc as an introduction, and also to have shown a little of the future characters. This plunges us straight into the lore and story of Solo Leveling, without having to wait several episodes to get there (as is the case in the Webtoon).
So far, the fights are very well animated (which usually means they've put some budget into them, and are trying to adapt it well).
The music sounds good but nothing outstanding, so I'll wait for the next episodes to determine the quality of the music.
In any case, I thought it was a superb first episode, they adapted the Webtoon style very well to transpose it to the visual format.
I'm very glad the anime wasn't censored.
I hope that future episodes will continue in this direction until the end of the first season.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the webtoon and still aren't convinced, wait until you watch the next episode, which will get you into the spirit of the show. You'll get real goose bumps, believe me.
A very original first episode, I can't wait to discover the rest.
Watching Zom 100 brings back our childhood dreams.
The music, the animation, the character design, the colorimetry, the story - everything was magnificent.
The message the anime is trying to spread (at least from what I understand) is that no matter what your family, professional or social situation is, never give up on your dreams and live your life to its fullest, because you only have one life, and it would be a shame to spend it depressed.
The only downside, which probably made many people give up on the series, was the delay in releasing the episodes and, above all, the fact that a Live Action movie was released on Netflix at the same time as the anime series.
Even though the movie has a different ending (especially since it combines two arcs into one), I still found myself spoiled on several characters and denouments. It's a shame, but it doesn't diminish the quality of the anime series (the movie was good too, I'm not saying it wasn't, but the anime has a better charm).
I'm looking forward to season 2.
Dark Gathering is without a doubt one of the most impressive horror anime I've ever seen.
This anime, which has the vibe of Pokemon but with horror and the aesthetic of When They Cry! (another anime that's on my favorites list), is superbly well thought out.
In a world where it's normal for spirits to exist, it manages to both surprise us and keep us on a leash to find out what happens next.
Unlike Mieruko-Chan, which was mainly written for its comedy, Dark Gathering also has its laugh-out-loud moments (like in the last episode, when Yayoi tells Eiko that there's nothing to fear from the corpse hanging at the entrance, he's harmless), but above all its more serious moments, when the atmosphere changes completely and we find ourselves in a real horror anime, where since real death can really happen, we start to fear for our protagonists and even for ourselves.
I hope with all my heart that we'll get a season 2.
Well, I've seen a lot, but even for me, morally, it's my limit.
Going out with the daughter and the mother at the same time, and hinting about sex with the mother while the daughter is next door, it's just getting uncomfortable. The worst thing is she doesn't show any reluctance to let him go out with her mother, on the contrary she encourages it.
But apart from that, I really enjoyed the anime, it was very funny and there were lots of references to pop culture or older anime.
The part with the chief rabbit singing while forging was absolutely magnificent and enchanting.
And having a system where weapons evolve according to past battles was something to think about, I'm surprised that such a system doesn't yet exist in modern RPG games.
For me, it's from this episode onwards that we feel most clearly that Takemichi has the soul to lead the Toman gang.
For those who haven't yet seen the whole show, go and watch it first and then come back to my review.
It would be such a shame to be spoiled.
Those who know me will know that I'm particularly fond of time-travel stories, and this series is no exception.
If the 3 seasons can be summed up in a few words, they are:
- Season 1 - Time travel
- Season 2 - Time travel between two universes
- Season 3 - Time travel in the multiverse (Tri-verse)
It must have been an immense amount of work to write this story, to place each object meticulously in the sets, the make-up on each character in each version to both recognize and differentiate them, the acting of each actor who immortalizes perfectly the gestures and postures of their doubles, this series is a true masterpiece.
But that said...
There is no doubt that this version of time traveltold by its creator is not physically possible.
Whether by the simple fact of the beginning of the loop:
Jonas could never have lived and done what he did without his double Johnas from the future, the rest of the characters likewise, etc...
And by its ending: how can a moment that repeats itself ad infinitum can change in the middle of a loop?
The first way to explain this change is to have an interaction outside of the loop (in the manner of Schrodinger's cat, as explained in the series), but this raises several additional questions: the simple fact that this person has entered this Pandora's box leads to the creation of a new timeline, and even if this were the case, how would he or she have known what was happening in the loop? so this is just not a possible scenario.
The second way (the one given by the series), is that at some point in the loop, someone had an emotional and logical change in their way of thinking and decided to change things. How would she have known what was happening outside the loop? If her change had taken place, why wouldn't it simply have created a new universe? As mentioned in the series, every event in the loop has to happen and can't be changed, so how is it that this Claudia managed to change that?
And how the hell did this guy lose his eye/arm?
So many questions remain unanswered...
But that doesn't matter, it doesn't diminish the masterpiece of writing that this series is.
I would have liked to have an ending (with an extra episode or two) where when Jonas and Martha arrive in the third universe in front of the car, the accident happens because of them. That would have explained the start and end of the loop, and with one more episode we could have seen what happens in that third universe to explain how it all began.
For me, that would have been a more logical ending.
Before concluding, I'd like to say that there have been a lot of annoying and uncomfortable things that have happened in the series (such as the priest being both the grandfather and the husband of the mute girl), but the worst thing is the hateful character of Hannah who is everyone's genealogical source, it's disgusting to know that.
But this fact alone proves that it's physically impossible, since if we take the mute daughter as an example: if we assume that a person receives half the genes of her parents, she could never have been the exact same person as her grandmother (herself), since she couldn't have had the same genome.
To conclude, this series is one of the best in the time travel theme (for me, the two anime Steins;Gate and Higurashi: When They Cry remain the two best in this field). It must have been a real headache to conceptualize and produce it.
For those who had the courage to read my review till the end, and for those who only read the conclusion, I highly recommend to watch this series!
Wow, it was so intense and satisfying!
Wow, what a crazy episode! The fights were so intense and so well animated.
Here we are... the last episode of this cultish anime has just been released and there's so much to say...
If you haven't watched the last episode of this show yet, watch it now and then come back and read my review, I'm going to spoil.
First of all, SNK is for me one of the anime that brought me into this universe, I grew up and matured with SNK.
Now that this series is officially over, it leaves me with both a sense of accomplishment and a strange feeling, one that leaves me on the edge of my seat, since I'd have liked to have seen a little more philosophical dialogue between the characters (for example I would have liked to know what Eren said to Mikasa at the very end) and more explanation from Eren on where the titans' powers come from (I may have misunderstood but I don't think it's explained why this "Alien" came to help and give Ymir his powers).
This ending is logical. It's not intended to provide solutions to humanity's endless quarrels. Eren knew very well that this was not going to be the case, but he wanted at least his friends and his people to be able to live without suffering, and this ending is exactly what it should be. Eren suffered enormously to achieve this, he had to take on the role of humanity's murderer, sacrificing his own people in the process, so that after killing so much he couldn't live in the world he would have built for them either, but in the end he succeeded in creating it for his people and for his friends.
I'll remember this anime for the rest of my life. It brought me so much.
We can now officially say that this anime is part of history with a capital H and that it is, and I hope will remain cult.
Thank you to everyone involved in creating this masterpiece.
Here we are... the last episode of this cultish anime has just been released and there's so much to say...
If you haven't watched the last episode of this show yet, watch it now and then come back and read my review, I'm going to spoil.
First of all, SNK is for me one of the anime that brought me into this universe, I grew up and matured with SNK.
Now that this series is officially over, it leaves me with both a sense of accomplishment and a strange feeling, one that leaves me on the edge of my seat, since I'd have liked to have seen a little more philosophical dialogue between the characters (for example I would have liked to know what Eren said to Mikasa at the very end) and more explanation from Eren on where the titans' powers come from (I may have misunderstood but I don't think it's explained why this "Alien" came to help and give Ymir his powers).
This ending is logical. It's not intended to provide solutions to humanity's endless quarrels. Eren knew very well that this was not going to be the case, but he wanted at least his friends and his people to be able to live without suffering, and this ending is exactly what it should be. Eren suffered enormously to achieve this, he had to take on the role of humanity's murderer, sacrificing his own people in the process, so that after killing so much he couldn't live in the world he would have built for them either, but in the end he succeeded in creating it for his people and for his friends.
I'll remember this anime for the rest of my life. It brought me so much.
We can now officially say that this anime is part of history with a capital H and that it is, and I hope will remain cult.
Thank you to everyone involved in creating this masterpiece.
This first episode was outstanding! Can't wait to see the rest.
This Donghua (Chinese Anime) is breathtaking!
I would even call it a masterpiece.
But what's it all about?
Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang are good friends who run a photography business. But it's not a business like any other: one has the ability to travel in time through a frozen instant (a photography), and the other has the ability to canalize him into the body of the person who's inside the picture (yes, it sounds complicated, but it's not). With their respective powers, they accept missions from customers who come into the store. Each mission is different from the other, each bringing its own share of emotions and twists.
But there's one rule when traveling through time: they're not allowed to change the past, only contemplate it.
That sums up season 1.
Now, season 2 brings an even darker tone to the story, no more client missions, now a real detective game against the clock (in every sense of the word) against an individual who also has powers and is using them for malicious purposes.
What's great about this show is that the theme of time travel is treated in a mature and deep way. There are rules imposed, whether you like them or not, and whether the situation is hard to live with or hard to watch, you have to endure and focus on what's happening in the present.
The big plus of this series is the complicity between the two protagonists and its evolution over the course of the story and the seasons.
The visuals and music are magnificent! And wow! the season 2 opening is a real artistic masterpiece.
And that's for all these reasons that I highly recommend watching Link Click.
This episode was very emotional and sweet! It brings a perfect conclusion to this arc.
Can't wait to see what happens next!
What an exceptional episode!
From the connection of all the elements of the previous season and its OVA to Rudeus' false reunion with his childhood friend. And once again, not only did Rudeus not recognize Sylphiette (Fitz), he mistook her for a man again!
I invite you to watch and listen to the ending (even if it, unfortunately, contains a small spoiler), the nostalgic love this ending tells brought a tear to my eyes!
Wow, what an episode! Even though I knew who would survive and who wouldn't, I didn't expect this. It's the first time I don't have the words to describe how I feel. Which is something really positive, this episode was extraordinary.
What a masterpiece! Hoshi No Ko is now one of my top 10 anime masterpieces.
As someone who has lived this millennium up close, I can say that the industry shown to us in this anime is quite close to what I've seen and experienced.
Whether it's the way actors, directors and editors are perceived in the industry. The constant demand to be perfect at all times, even when you've spent an entire day/week (and even months) on a set. The danger of the Internet and the prohibition of the right to make mistakes. And much, much more...
The first episode of the first season was a real bombshell and single-handedly launched the hype around this anime. I was afraid that, having set the bar so high, subsequent episodes wouldn't live up to it, but I was sorely mistaken. It's true that the tone and atmosphere have totally changed since episode 2, but I think this first season managed to be top-notch right to the end.
On top of that, the opening and closing music are just incredible, and totally in accordance with the theme of the anime. YOASOBI has outdone themselves with this anime. The Seiyuu are always top-notch. The visuals are beautiful, in short... a masterpiece.
I can't wait for the next season.
I enjoyed watching this anime, especially the last few episodes which touched me, but I have to say that this anime doesn't make any sense.
Even if we understand some things towards the end, there are still so many unanswered questions like: Who are Anima and Animus? Why do Anima and Animus have powers? Why did they do all this? Why did Animus agree to play Anima's game? and so many others...
I really feel that there's a lot of missing information and that the story has been rushed.
It's a real shame because the characters are interesting and the story carries us through to the end, but the lack of logic and meaning made the whole thing a bit bland for me.
But despite this, I still enjoyed the show, and I think the ending is worthwhile, even if I still have a lot of unanswered questions.
If last season's theme was revenge, this season's is clearly acceptance. Not only of ourselves but also of the world around us.
Vinland Saga is a great anime, and I think the themes it deals with are extremely important.
Violence is not and should never be the answer.
Thank you Vinland Saga and especially to this masterful season for making us understand that.
What a remarkable end to this season! Ufotable has really turned a corner with this last episode. It's the first time I've felt the characters' emotions so well staged and animated. Once again, I cried like a baby.
Wow! This first episode (of an hour and a half) is a masterpiece!
I cried all the tears in my body, it's been a long time since that happened to me and I'm not someone who gets emotional easily.
I can't wait to see what happens next.
If the next episodes are on the same level, this anime could be one of the best of this season.
Wow, what an intense episode!
And the chunin exam begins!
This episode reminds me a lot about Steins;Gate Zero.
WTF happened in this episode?
The story and the visuals have no sense.
Definitely, animes based on time travel always make me feel excited.
Summer Time Rendering (or simply, Time Shadow), is an anime that easily fits in my list of animes that I warmly recommend.
From the very first episode until the last one (25th), the anime manages to take us by emotions.
Time Shadow is indeed a mix of Stein's Gate (the time travel and the mystery), Re;Zero (for Shinpei's power), Anohana (for the relationship between the characters and the topic of mourning), and even Higurashi When They Cry! (for the atmosphere that everything is happening in a small Japanese village and the powers of Shinpei naturally)
On top of that, the music of this anime is really excellent.
The op looks like a mix between the one of Stein's Gate (Fatima from Stein's Gate Zero) and the one of Higurashi When They Cry Gou! (I believe what you said) As for the ending, it's one of the best. It manages to transmit to us the emotions of joy and sadness of the events that take place during the whole show.
To conclude, if you like anime with slice-of-life, mystery, and time travel themes, don't miss this anime!
