M*A*S*H has been in and out of my world since I was a kid and my parents watched reruns when they came on the local TV networks. I'm starting on a real watch-through (only a few episodes in yet) and it's really exciting to think about going from start to finish with this, especially now that I've seen the original film.
(Updated Jan 15, 2017, to fix trakt picking up the *s in the title as italics.)
There are some interesting facts in this show. Too bad they're dramatically overshadowed by the hyper-sensationalized narration that attempts to make the average viewer deathly afraid of anything technological.
Oh, and most of these aren't disasters of engineering at all. The vast, VAST majority of incidents this series scrutinizes are either natural disasters that no amount of engineering could prevent or protect against; or human failures of the people responsible for maintaining the systems that were engineered to perform well within tolerances. I'm sorry, but equipment that goes 16 years without inspection, or human errors at the controls, do not qualify as engineering problems.
Skip this.
I'm not normally one to complain about slow pacing, but it's warranted in this case. This story could have been told in half the time. Not that it's anything to write home about. There's some potentially interesting backstory that gets no screen time whatsoever. The only interesting part is about ten minutes in the third episode when we spend some real, quality time with the Overlords.
Granted, I haven't read the source material. But given that this miniseries' contemporaries include The Expanse, I know that good sci-fi can still be put on TV in the mid-2010s. This just…isn't it.
It took me (checks MAL) 486 days to force myself through this series. I have not watched the OVA. I don't need an extra 11 minutes† to know that I don't care for this show. Allegedly it still has yet to be either renewed or cancelled, but I hope that Studio 3Hz will move on and leave this behind. It really shows that production values alone cannot make an anime good. The writing in Sora no Method just isn't there, and no amount of moe can hide that.
Up next from Studio 3Hz is Dimension W, which will hopefully be better. (Yes, I'm way behind on anime.)
† - The OVA shows as 25 minutes because no metadata source that Trakt pulls in allows overriding episode duration. It's set at the show level, and that's what you get, period. It's too bad.
The setup is a high school concert band that wants to get to nationals…and there are maybe two pieces of music in the entire show? This was not good. The whole thing is focused around mysteries that the main characters get distracted by when they're supposed to be making music. They're not even interesting mysteries. Every one is the same: Stump the two self-appointed detectives until some deus ex machina reveal lets them solve it. Character development is mostly nonexistent.
I'd award an extra point for having a queer MC, but the show never actually does anything with that fact after establishing a love polygon in episode 1 (which persists for the rest of the series, unmentioned except for a couple throwaway comic bits).
Convinced to spend an hour watching this absolute pile of crap by literally my oldest friend. Am now questioning whether she's really a friend. But oh, did we laugh at this. It's SO BAD.
@LuckyNumber78, it's your turn.
By strict average of my episode ratings, I should give this show a 7. But there were too many things that bothered me about the production quality, the writing, and directorial decisions to give it quite that high a score. 6 will do.
At least by the end, they stopped flashing us Meagan Good's cleavage at every opportunity.
By way of averaging my episode scores, this show should get a perfect 7.0, but I can't quite give it that. There's a long slump in the middle where the writing kinda goes to shit and nothing really interesting happens. I can take that kind of thing from a show if the characters are interesting or likable, but that's not particularly true of this cast.
I refuse to round my mean episode score of 4.91 up to a 5. This wasn't even "Meh". The few good episodes were completely buried by the worse-than-shit-tier writing of the rest.
Strictly speaking I should give this a 6 (episode ratings average out to 5.5 exactly)…but nah. It's too "Meh" to get anything higher.
General progression of episode quality is:
The pacing is shit. The writing is shit. Characters are mostly underdeveloped, and nobody gets enough time for us, the audience, to actually start caring about them (except maybe Maihime). I kind of care about Asuha, but only because she's somehow the most likable character out of the entire squad.
Aside from episode-specific problems I called out in comments on those episodes, there were many more that were too obvious or too frequent to bother writing about every time. Some of these issues made their way onto my grand list of series flaws. The first entry was actually the writing, but I couldn't hold it in long enough and so it's above here. As for the rest… here goes.
I could go on, but I've already spent more time turning my notes into semi-complete sentences than this series deserves. Just skip it; you'll miss absolutely nothing. I honestly wonder how I pushed myself to keep going through all the crap to get to that one good episode…which was then followed by several more crappy episodes. It would have been better if I'd just grabbed the ClariS ED singles from some random J-Pop music ripping group and called it a day.
I feel ambivalent about rounding this show's raw average of 8.6 up to a 9, but really…all that keeps me from giving the series a 10 is the Bermuda Triangle nonsense and the somewhat weak writing at the very end. The rest of the show is very strong, and it deserves the 9.
9.5/10 (if only trakt supported that)
By rights, I should give this season an 8 (my per-episode ratings average out to 8.41). But I enjoyed it a lot more than that. I don't feel like a 10 is completely justified, since I did have a few bones to pick with the narrative, but a 9 is a bit shy of what the show deserves.
Given the "SEE YOU NEXT LEVEL" tag at the end of the season, I can only speculate that a second season is planned (or at least, pitched). I would gladly watch more of this.
Arithmetic mean of my scores for the season: 8.2727…
What I think the show as a whole deserves: 9.8
10 it is. What a stunningly beautiful series.
I would happily welcome a second season, but I highly doubt that will happen. The story is finished.
Average rating across episodes (season 1): 6.5
Subjective rating based on enjoyment: 3
5 it is, then. Had its good parts, but was far too bloody overall and didn't give any characters any depth. Not even the protagonist, really. Tried to be another Madoka, but fell far short.
Episode rating average (season 1): 7.333…
Enjoyment: 9
Yield: 8.1666…, rounded to 8
Penalty: -1 point for over the top, out of place fanservice
Not completely solid, and not quite up to the expectations I had for it at the start of the season, but still a good show worth watching. Alternate history is always enjoyable, though I question some of the writing choices (like the slice-of-life episode in the middle that did nothing for the overall plot, or having Bergmann and Izetta both be still alive despite heavily implying that both died).
I would probably watch a second season of this, but I'd hope it had less fanservice and more solid writing (with fewer "coincidences").
Episode rating average: 7.0
How did that happen? I don't know. But I do know that character development was too little too late for me to bump up the score any, so I'll stick with 7.
Episode rating average: 7.333…
The show feels kinda slow for most of the season, like more should be happening. For the pacing, I'm knocking the score down a point. Would be more, but the ending ties it up nicely enough to make up for some of the slowness.
There are some great moments in this show, but they're buried in so much boring crap that it's a chore to watch.
Rating average: 7.46153846
I see great strides here from the studio that inflicted Sora no Method on the world. There are echoes of the same writing problems—the story's pretty convoluted, and you'll be lost easily if you miss any details—but less pronounced than the previous series. (Dimension W, I can't speak to…it's still on my watchlist.)
Flip Flappers has a lot to recommend it, even if it's only for the visuals. Papika will worm her way into your heart if you let your guard down even a little, and you'll get to visit a number of fantastical worlds with Ichimichi Mao's voice to guide you and Cocona along. While I don't know if I would call it "Superb" (a Trakt 9) or even "Great" (8), it's definitely a solid "Good" (7) plus—if Trakt allowed half-points I'd be giving this a 7.5.
Based on season 1 (average episode rating: 6.83333333) I'm giving this a 6. It's pretty generic, but there are a couple stand-out episodes that make it a bit better than "meh" IMO.
Not sure if that tag on the last episode is a plea for season 2 or just a gag…
5/10
I don't care what my average episode rating was (not that I was rating episodes waaaaaaaay back when I started watching this show…three years ago). Captain Earth is just meh.
The pacing is screwy. Almost every episode has at least one head-scratcher. There's wasted potential all over the place. But instead of using its potential, the show screwed around with teen angst and spent a ton of time showing mechs "expanding" in an overly complicated space-based linear assembly line…because what we need in mecha anime is definitely mechs that don't make sense.
Feels like I can't write a review without tripping over plot holes every five words. I said it in a single-episode comment, but I'll say it again in general: the environment in this show is far too accommodating to the protagonists. Everything always works out just so and they succeed at fixing whatever the problem of the week is. There's always a new prototype Impacter that's not done being tested yet but is available for Teppei or whoever to launch at a moment's notice and use to save the day. I guess you might like (parts of) this show if you're a fan of deus ex machina writing, since there are an awful lot of cases where the perfect gadget (or Akari's hacking skills) just so happen to address the problem at hand.
And again, pacing… ugh. This show spends so much time on nonsense, slice-of-life filler that barely even advances the plot. There are tons of long, dialogue-heavy expository scenes that, well… if you know about screenwriting, you know about "show, don't tell". This show tells. A lot.
So yeah. Meh.
On the plus side, MAL says it took me precisely 1111 days to watch this show, so that's cool I guess.
I'd hesitate to call this a "bad" anime. It does have some genuinely funny moments, and the characters are very smoothly animated (some of them, at least—rumor has it Sagiri had her own key animator, separate from the other characters). But this show is not good, by any stretch of the imagination. (OK, I'm also just a sucker for ClariS theme songs. You'd think Qualidea Code would have taught me not to blindly follow every show ClariS grace with a song, but I guess you'd be wrong.)
The majority of the visual content is fanservice. The characters and their "dreams" are just puppets to set up situations to produce said fanservice. There's no plot to speak of, just a static premise. I guess Sagiri develops a bit as a character, if you can call her one (she's a big blob of moe kawaii imouto tropes, at best, I'd say), but nobody else does. And I am 100% serious about that "puppet" comment—it often seems like the characters are literally saying whatever is necessary to set up the fanservice du jour, regardless of how it relates to (or contradicts) their previously stated goals.
Am I foolish for wanting character development—or believable characters—from a show with "ero" in the title? Probably. But I know the author of this story can do characters. One need only look at Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai to know that. (The dead giveaway? The main cast of Oreimo characters have a cameo in this show.) As ridiculous as Kirino and Kyousuke's relationship was, there was measurable development (regardless of the bullshit ending to S2). It also helps that that show had something to say about otaku culture.
Eromanga-sensei is just pandering. I don't even like most of these tropes…
I enjoyed this show for what it is. It's perfect for throwing something on while eating lunch or the like—entertaining without requiring too much focused attention. In return, you get scattered rewards in the form of really nice character development, some A+ jokes, and a good feeling when things inevitably turn out fine in the end.
Honestly, I'd rank this among Disney's better sitcoms.
This space reserved for when I finish the other two seasons. Season 1 review originally posted here now lives at https://trakt.tv/comments/137937 on the Season 1 entry.
Average rating based on all episodes: 7.9
This show deserves that and more. It's great in all kinds of little ways. I actually tried to watch the show as slowly as possible to prolong the experience. That there was only one season is such a shame!
Looking back at my ratings, there was only one episode out of the ten that didn't quite live up to expectations. Achieving 90% "Good" or better episodes is an achievement for any show, no matter its genre or country of origin.
The big thing with Time Taxi (also known as Great Selection Taxi in English, or Suteki na Sentaxi in Japanese) is that the individual episodes aren't necessarily meant to be memorable on their own. They all contribute to the experience of the show as a whole, building on what's come before to enhance (or twist) the overall effect.
Eda-san's incremental attempts to "enhance" the time-slip experience are hilarious. They get more and more ridiculous as the season progresses, and it's all because he's driving the latest Sentaxi model that eliminated the time-slip noise from the previous generations.
I also really liked how we gradually got to know more about the other characters that hang around at Café Choice. The show didn't try to introduce everyone right at the beginning. We found out who was who at the appropriate moments.
Fair warning for certain viewers: There's a considerable amount of "fourth wall" obliteration. If you dislike characters talking directly to the audience, this show will annoy you. Personally, I think breaking the fourth wall is great when done appropriately, and it is so done here. A tongue-in-cheek comedy like this (which it is—a 「ドラマ」or "drama" in Japanese television terms is a type of program, not a story genre) is perfect for that sort of aside.
(Cross-posted from season 1 for visibility, since additional seasons aren't likely to happen.)
Well, since I didn't rate anywhere near enough episodes of this show to do a proper average, I'll gut-feeling it.
Leverage, I award you a solid 9/10 rating.
It's not for the writing. There's lots of corn and cheese, and plenty of plot holes big enough to fly the Spruce Goose through, but the characters are so, so worth it.
No member of the core cast is annoying—already a feat, compared to many long-running ensemble-cast shows. Every single one of the five makes you appreciate their presence. Even when they're pulling off the most bullshit heists, the interpersonal relationships hold the script together and deflect the viewer's attention from whatever plot armor the writers used.
If anything, the one wish I have is that we'd gotten to know Eliot better. Well, and that he hadn't wound up the odd one out, relationship-wise, since four of the five were paired up by the finale (Parker and Hardison are so adorable). Nate's backstory plays a pretty big role in the big-picture arc of the show, and we find out plenty about almost everyone over the five seasons. But I'm left with the feeling that Eliot kind of got the short straw, somehow.
How does this qualify as E/I programming???
It's so easy to calculate an average over a mere five episodes, but here I am, having lazily used Chrome's address bar anyway.
From an average episode rating of 8.2, I wholeheartedly bump this show to a 9/10. It's well deserved by the latter four episodes. The most Star Trek thing about this miniseries is that the "pilot" (not really) pales in comparison to the quality of what follows.
The biggest shortcoming of the whole production is Shatner's decision to sort of interview himself for his own feature episode. Sure, he used clips of other captains asking him questions to fill in some of the time, but a lot of 1x01 is contained in Bill's first-person voiceover. It doesn't serve his story the same way as it does the other four actors, and it's unfortunate just how underwhelming that makes the opener. In a perfect world, someone the likes of Gene Roddenberry would have been able to interview Shatner for his segment, but our world is far removed from that ideal.
For any future viewers who might look here before watching any of the show: None of the segments reference each other; they're all self-contained. Because of that, I can advise you to start with William Shatner (as one normally would), to get the abnormal episode out of the way first—then decide the order of the rest based on your preference. It might be best to start with your "least favorite" captain of the remaining four, if you choose to take this advice. If not, you'll still have a great ride watching in the intended order.
(Note: Cross-posted in the comments for both Season 1 and the series as a whole, for visibility, since they are essentially the same thing.)
It's a shame that this show was cancelled mid-season. It really started to hit its stride in the latter part of season two, in the episodes that FOX never aired.
I can't quite average all of my episode ratings, because I skipped a few at the beginning. But I think it's safe to give the show as a whole the same rating its seasons earned: 8/10.
Sure, along the way there were a few duds, but so many of these episodes are just superb and not to be missed.
