I can tell you that Game of Thrones is phenomenal, visual beautiful, fantastic, exhilarating and action-packed thrilling rollercoaster that in many ways has not been seen yet in a tv show. I could say that and be absolutely right about it, but unless you have been living under a rock without an internet connection for the past 2 years than no doubt you already heard, seen or read for yourself what a masterpiece the books and/or this tv series is.
Game of Thrones is exactly like the title says: A game for the throne. Played by the people who think its their right to claim, conquer or inherit it. They all have different goals and different ways of getting to that point, but their goal is in essence in one way or another the same for all of them: to be recognized and remembered for their deeds. Off course that is not so weird since everyone in real life at some level thinks like that. But the main characters in Game of Thrones are different, either through noble descent, the power and money they have, intelligence or sheer luck they have become a member of one of the noble houses that rule the countries and can decide the fate and lives of hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people within the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos.
The story, setting and characters are all taken from a broad range of European history. Most of what we see of the continent Westeros (castles and tournaments) is taken from High Medieval Western Europe from around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. But the story takes bits and pieces from other time periods as well. For example the wildfire that was used in season 2 in a brilliant strategic move of "The Imp" Tyrion Lannister during the Battle of the Blackwater is in fact Byzantine "Greek fire" which was invented and first used in the 7th century during battles between Muslims and Byzantines. This and other historical events, devices and characters based on real people out of history are all as it seems perfectly interwoven into each other into the fictional world of Game of Thrones by the author of the books George R. R. Martin.
For the actors who play the characters i have nothing but utmost respect. The performance they manage to show episode after episode is definitely what makes this tv show so popular. There is one in particular that without a doubt is one of the more popular stars of this tv show: Peter Dinklage who plays the role of "The Imp" Tyrion Lannister. In the 1st season he was portrayed as nothing more than someone who took advantage of his noble status and money to do whatever he wanted. But in season 2 (and hopefully the next seasons too) he transformed despite his disadvantage of being born as a dwarf (who during medieval times and in this fictional world are considered "lesser" humans) into a brilliant military and political strategist and someone who can very good and enjoys as he so very accurately said himself "play the game".
Game of Thrones is without a doubt the hit tv show of this decade. It started out with a story about medieval times, but slowly with every episode we see the world of the Seven Kingdoms transform into a place where mythical creatures exist, magic and dark powers are used as a weapon against enemies and where the dead are once more walking again.... Winter is coming, and i have no doubt it that it will be as spectacular and story-wise phenomenal as we have have seen in the previous seasons.
An easy watch and pretty entertaining, but it felt very basic for me. It's like it was made for people who have never played video games. It focused on all the obvious culprits and had a pixelated bleep-bloop aesthetic that bears no relation to what games have become. Fair enough, this is focusing on the '80s to early '90s, but there's something almost insulting about doing that. And having the focus be on only America and Japan felt like a missed opportunity (it was called the Sega Mega Drive, you monsters! ;) ).
One thing I did like was the personal stories that cropped up throughout. Although, I don't know why there was so much focus on people who won gaming tournaments, were three necessary? (In fact, eSports as a whole felt completely inappropriate to what the series was about). In particular, the story of the creation of the first console to use cartridges was lovely. The representation of various minorities in gaming, their stories buried in history, was also very welcome.
As someone who grew up as a PC gamer in love with adventure games, I was delighted to see Roberta Williams and her husband were featured, but also sad that there was no dive into King's Quest or how the genre grew and evolved into the '90s.
This is good introduction to the history of gaming, but it only scratches the surface. Mostly it succeeded in making me nostalgic for older games.
Attack on Titan (aka Shingeki no Kyojin in romaji) has proven to be one of the rare shows that sparks the attention from people who don't regulary watch seasonal anime. I mean, just look at the numbers on trakt alone: Two of the other more popular shows that started at the same time, Maou-sama and Gargantia don't even come close (less than a 100 watchers on the last episode). But not only that - even in the anime community itself it gained immense popularity and currently is still in the Top 10 on Myanimelist (kind of the western Facebook of anime). What is to take away from this is certainly that it seems to make for a good entry-level show but it's not one without flaws and I can't frankly understand why it gets that much praise (oh hello SAO!).
I first came into contact with it's manga because it ranked extremly high on Mangaupdates with some of the genre tags I browse. After reading the first 15 or so chapters I deceided to put it on hold. It didn't impress me and the art was everything but pretty (given that it was the authors first series and he didn't draw much before this). So when the show came around I saw potential for improvement given that the art could only get better plus action never suffers from being animated. This also means I had certain expectations and some of the early tension had been lost on me due to knowing some twists.
Now the story itself has plenty of shortcomings but is still entertaining. It starts out like your grimdark show about the struggle of mankind (in this case versus the titans) but it falls into the usual shonen trappings further down the road. I also find most of it's characters kind of stagnant in terms of developments and it's everything but subtle. The source material is still being published and is probably not even at the midpoint of which thr first season maybe adapted half of. This also means there isn't an ending yet. There is plenty of padding going around in the show and they added some filler to end it before the start of a new arc. I don't think the filler was all that bad but the padding put it's toll on it. Some episodes are extremly tedious to the point that nothing at all happened.
One the shows biggest problem for me comes in terms of animation quality. There are good looking scenes and the 3D rendered high-speed slides through the city on their 3DMG always looked great... it's just that it was inconsistent to the max. Quite early you begin to notice copy pasta and the worst possible use of stillframes with narration or dialogue over it. This is done a lot in the industry and it isn't necessarily a bad thing but the way they do it in this is so in your face and frequent you just can't help it. There was some talk about them lacking animators and that they were apparently looking for more but that couldn't have been the only issue. Around the episodes that relied on it the most a new OP hit the show with plenty of quality animation so yeah... The level of detail also decreased towards the end whenever it wasn't a closeup or something in the focus.
I guess this sounds really negative but I still gave the show a 7... it is just frustrating to see this hyped to the heavens when it really is far from perfect. If you're looking for an action show, sure - give it a go. It's just nothing great. I'm sure there will be more coming down the road (there have been spin-off stories already) and I cannot wait to see the train-wreck the live action movie planned for 2014 will be.
R.I.P. Moe titan.
I was recommended by a colleague to watch this show. To put it bluntly I was sceptical - it seemed just like a kids cartoon, and I am in my mid 30s - but I decided to give it a go, mainly because he kept saying "trust me"!
Over the past month I have watched the entire series and must say I was quite impressed. While it definitely is aimed at a younger audience, like all good children's stories it appeals to parents and children alike. If anything, it appeals to adults because it reminds them of what they loved about children's stories as kids.
The first season took a few episodes to get going. It took me a while to get into it and embrace the characters. The early episodes tend to be generally self-contained stories, however towards the end of season 1 the story takes off, and the story become much more serialised. From then on out it is a really enjoyable ride all the way through to the series 3 finale. If anything it gets better from season to season.
The animation is first rate for TV. I have never really watched any anime (or anime-style, in this case) series before so I was definitely going into this green, but I found the quality to be first rate. The characters were also very well written, and the constructed world of element benders was believable within its mythos. I highly recommend this to kids and adults alike. Better still, watch it with your kids.
At the end of the day, they are just telling good stories, and who wouldn't enjoy that?
As a preface, I HATE zombie shows. They[re so formulaic, a waste of time with predictable B horror (a top 3 never genre for me unless it's an obvious spoof). It's fair to say that there's more similarities to this than not despite the amazeballs CGI Armageddon opening that wasted no time in S1E1 (MAJOR points already--never waste my time); however the treatment of the spectrum of the human situation is AMAZING and stands on its own. I learned later it's based off of a video game so even more kudos to the collective talent of the makers of this turning what could have been a mass market FPS adaptation and adding what I know couldn't have been in the gameplay at such an artistic level. I think it was E3-4 with Nick Offerman--that's an Emmy-winner on its own if there's any justice in the world.
Pablo Pascal is hitting nearing GOAT levels in the last few years between GOT (accompanied by Ellie's character as fellow alumna) Mandalorian, and others,, now this. (I'm both a native Texan and have lived in Guadalajara for years, so admitted bias there ;) )
I'm a research biophysicist with a medical school (though I do not practice-just loved real science more, yes you can call me an idjit but it was right for me so I can't help but love the mythological and epidemiological basis and tidbits peppered through the show so far. But in that same context is also the rich nuances of the psychology and understanding of the co-evolution with far more ancient microbial life, and to likewise survive to likewise instinctively fulfill out genetic mandate whatever the cost as well. The "slow" episodes, shouldn't be criticized; timing and pacing is important in writing but if you take the time to let go, that[s the beauty in the simplest things that reminds us we're humans with a special gift of free will with all of our emotions that separate us from the enormity of the frightening mycelia in this apocalyptic wonder we've been treated to weekly,
An amazing show tainted by disappointing deviations from the source material and two absolutely awful last seasons. Bad last seasons will always ruin a show for me if the show is intended to portrait a continuous story with ever evolving characters and plot lines. The ending is as important as the beginning if you are trying to tell me a story. The ending of Game of Thrones was a joke, some of the worst writing I have ever witnessed on TV, the show was ruined and honestly at this point I just want to forget about it. The fans deserved better. George R R Martin deserved better. The people that worked on the show deserved better. It's what you get when a show is made hostage by two horrible writers that are in a hurry to ruin Star Wars next. I honestly wouldn't recommend this show to anyone anymore unless they don't mind getting massively disappointed with the last 20 episodes or so.
If you enjoyed the finale, power to you, but this is my opinion. Game of Thrones is a show I don't intend to watch ever again. Hopefully HBO wont ruin the prequels/spin-offs although I don't think I care anymore.
After reviewing the 8 seasons individually and averaging my personal scores it gets a 7.4 out of 10 from me, it's a shame because the first four seasons were close to being perfect.
I don't read manga much. So, most of my anime reviews are purely based on the animated adaptation.
Being one of the more popular anime in recent years. It uses this popularity to embrace the fact that, while possibly not adapting from the manga completely. The show manages to find its footing and has a level head through the first season.
So for me, the first season is the best and is actually really good. Delving into the concept of change and perspective. It's very interesting how the show develops the audience's understanding of this world. How evil and good aren't defined by what you are, but how you are treated. Obviously being a metaphor for racism in the most extreme way. But it works well. Driving the point home with this great ensemble of characters that you grow to love and hate. Really having a sense of character focus rather than an overall world perspective, keeps it grounded and alive while watching. While it does suffer from the normal anime tropes sometimes, it still feels original in a way and deserves the praise it gets.
The second season I know deviates from the manga almost entirely. But going from season 1 to this isn't jarring at all if you just watch the anime. It fits and feels the same. However, it loses that grounded feeling once it begins to explore the overpowered aspects of ghouls. It lost me a bit, but still found it's home with still focussing on these characters we've been introduced to before. Serving as a gateway to a final arc to the story, it holds the series up even through all its shortcomings. As I found the ending satisfying in of itself.
The third and I presume to be final season started off interesting and likeable. But when Part 2 came around, I basically lost interest and so did the show it seems. Ditching characters that were just there for filler and having no real impact on the protagonist during Part 1. As it reintroduces the other cast we knew and loved. They seemed sour and undeeded in the end. As Ken's transformations I felt were very rushed and held no weight. Making him feel more like a sideshow rather than a leading character in a show. A true disconnect was not felt at Part 1, but actually at Part 2 surprisingly. Ken hasn't seemed to learn from his mistakes, even though that's what the overlining arc was? It just didn't make sense at all and felt so uninspired. A true let down for the series. But, it did have its ups. The animation, while not as stylised and fluid as season 1, still looked damn good. This season went on for too long and tried to build up something that never came to be. It rushes into things that were never seeded. As a result, it has an unsatisfactory viewing experience. Not worth the 3-year wait.
Season 1 Tokyo Ghoul - 8/10
Season 2 Tokyo Ghoul √A - 6/10
Season 3 Tokyo Ghoul:re Part 1 5/10
Season 4 Tokyo Ghoul:re Part 2 - 4/10
Overall - 6/10
