This is THE anime that we've all been waiting and yearning for. Many of us hardcore Mushoku Tensei fans have been waiting years upon years for an anime adaptation to finally hit, and HIT it has. I was a little skeptical with a brand new studio undertaking this, but all the previews had looked great so I was cautiously optimistic. The source material is my absolute favorite isekai series (which says a lot) and the light/web novel will always hold a special place in my fandom. So how were the first two episodes so far (first has aired officially and the first two were previewed beforehand)?
AMAZING. I really don't know if it's just because the source material is that good, but this has been a SPOT ON adaptation so far. Right when I heard "Gintoki" as the NEET narrator, I knew shit was gonna be good. The sense of humor and pervertedness of Rudy is really well incorporated throughout the first two episodes, and makes this more than just a "another OP isekai". But even with that sense of humor, the anime has taken great depths to give solid (but not overwhelming) background info on the characters and highlighting particularly serious moments. This was especially evident in the second episode where the handling of Rudy's "fall into NEETness" and past trauma was interweaved perfectly into his current situation and setting.
I can't wait for the rest of the anime to air. It seems that a second cour has already been green-lighted so let's hope this can turn into one of those long-running anime series. If they can make it to the school arcs, I'll have lived a complete life...
Sword Art Online (Season 1) - 7/10
Despite what many users and critics would have you believe, I advise anyone interested by the prospect of the series give it a chance before writing it off entirely. In fact, I was planning on doing just that after reading a few of the reviews posted by members on here. I started watching anime on a fan level at the very start of this past Fall 2013 season, and like many was dragged in by the momentum of Attack on Titan. A coworker tried to get me to watch SAO and I kinda feigned interest and said I'd get around to it. I had already made up my mind not to watch the series because of the criticism it's received. A few months later (or last week for me) a few friends attempted to get me to watch the show, and so I started. And watched some more. I downed the entire first season in a week, and I can honestly admit happily that I enjoyed it much more than I hated it. It seems as though there are two types of people who review here: the guys who think everything is awesome, and the guys that'll nitpick each episode for inconsistencies. It seems the more popular a show gets the more it needs to be scrutinized. If this were merely some underground fan favorite I doubt people would take it as seriously. I'm going to try and be the in-between guy who chooses to stay unbiased, and will review the series for all it's merits and all it's downfalls, and I'll stay away from determining whether it's worth the praise it receives or not. That being said this first season was FAR from perfect, but I've yet to watch a perfect television series. And seriously, at the end of the day, this is a cartoon. If you've yet to see the season, spoilers follow.
Part 1: Aincrad Saga
The year is 2022. Ten thousand individuals login to the just released VRMMORPG (virtual reality massively multiplayer online role playing game) Sword Art Online, and then the worst possible scenario for anyone with a fear of virtual reality becomes their new reality: they can no longer logout. Nor can they remove their Nervegear helmets, or else the system will kill them. And worse yet, if they die in the game, they die in reality. Their goal is to reach the 100th floor and after defeating the endgame boss, they can all be set free. 2 years later and 40% of the players have lost their virtual and literal lives.
I will admit that I am an avid fan of MMO's and love the idea of just leveling up your character, getting him stronger and stronger ad infinitum. There was a time where I was more than addicted to World of Warcraft. Had a character that had a play time of over two months! But SAO is a very different beast. The approach of having 100 floors was interesting and new. It felt like a classic game with 100 stages, but stuffed into a futuristic MMO. But I had two problems with this setup. 1) The show never explained how big each floor was. You just assumed each floor had special stuff only located there, like towns and forests, and lakes... And 2) they skipped so much of the game within the first few episodes of the show. This was particularly upsetting to me, because I'm all about the linear storytelling going on from battle to battle. I eat up all that filler stuff. Instead they skipped from the boss of the first floor to two years later when they're on floor 74... What?! I understand the purpose of this however, and that's because the story they wanted to tell took place primarily at that last month that SAO was still active. I feel they really could've delved deeper into the lore of the world instead of focusing so much on character woes. This saga should have lasted the entire 25 episode run so as to iron out certain potential plot holes and encourage character development with some of the tertiary characters. Another strange case about this MMO is the lack of character class. An RPG without magic?!?
I'm surprised that so many were upset by the love story that blossomed between Kirito and Asuna. It felt extremely natural and I felt they spent an appropriate amount of time on their tale. It didn't fall short for me. Much of what they as characters were experiencing by the second year was surprisingly relatable. Although the primary objective was to free themselves from Aincrad, they had become so accustomed to living in this world that they considered it more real than reality itself. It's only natural then to find yourself in love with another that you party with on a daily basis. I found their relationship occasionally very touching to be honest, and was fully invested. I wasn't a huge fan however of their "daughter" Yui. That was a plot point I just could not stand.
I was constantly amazed at Kirito's blatantly overpowered stats. I was sure that it would become old soon, but the more it was showcased the more I digged it. The mysterious way in which he was given the special ability to dual wield... Excellent. Knowing in retrospect that it was actually just the GM granting him special rights simply to spice things up a bit and have a bit of fun is amusing, and a satisfying reason in my opinion. From the beginning I didn't consider the GM a villain, because it didn't seem as if he had much of a motive other than the fact that he could just do it. It struck me more so as the work of an eccentric visionary, who's bored and lonely. When Kirito lost that duel, due to what appeared to be a glitch or hack in the system, I thought for sure it must be the GM or someone in cahoots with him. I'm surprised it took so long to realize it.
That last battle was interesting to say the very least. I can understand why many didn't care for it. The way I see it is that these guys are stuck in this virtual world for two years, getting brain-fed data constantly. After that long you'd expect there to begin to be strange anomalies when the game interferes with heightened levels of emotions. Yes, "the power of love" strikes again, but I think it's more than that. I think it's the will to beat the system, and nobody had more will than Kirito. I'm surprised this was one of the first moments where glitches were realized on screen. You'd expect them to be just slightly more commonplace. And as to why they weren't dead at the end... Well the GM congratulated them on jointly beating the game. Enough said really.
Part 2: Fairy Dance Saga
An RPG with magic!!! Finally. But now it's full of fairies... Interesting. The premise of the second half of the season begins with Kirito waking up, but somehow Asuna didn't. We find out that somewhere near 300 players from SAO didn't make it out for whatever reason. And worse yet, some creepy dude wants to marry Asuna while she's in a coma! Kirito soon finds out there is a new VRMMORPG called Alfheim out and he gets a tip that Asuna is trapped inside this world. He goes in, gets the unknowing help of his busty step-sister, and attempts a rescue mission.
As an MMO, Alfheim feels far more organic than Sword Art Online did. Perhaps it was the ability to log off. Perhaps it was the racial choices and magic capabilities. I'm not sure. But because it felt more organic didn't necessarily mean the show benefitted from it. Where my issue with the first half of the season was that they sped through over a year and a half of story, this second half of the season takes place in, what, 3 days? The tone becomes drastically different, and in many ways it feels like a completely different show. This threw me off balance quite a bit. I liked the idea, but not the execution and I'm sure others felt the same. If this is the true source of people hating the series then I can't argue with you there. It angered me too. But I didn't let it affect my view of the overall arc too much.
The stakes are far different in this half of the series. In the first half the big issues were not being able to log out, and if you die you die. But in this half you CAN log out AND you get to respawn. You just lose all your gear (or something?). This wasn't fully explained, or maybe I missed it. Instead the real stake only existed for Kirito and Asuna. She was trapped by some horny maniac, and he was determined to save her before she got married off. Because the story didn't have enough breathing room it all felt more unrealistic despite the more realistic game. Again, this could have been fleshed out far better over a full season.
One thing I really did like was that Kirito's stats carried over into this game from SAO. Basically he was the best before he even began. Makes sense he'd be far stronger than the strongest player in this game due to the fact that Alfheim had only been going strong for about a year. And you know what, despite not liking Yui's character in the first half of the season, she was ridiculously cute throughout the second half. Seriously. She slept in his pocket.
The second half of the series, although inherently not as violent, had far more fan service, and weird sexual stuff all around. I don't consider Sugu's strange love for her adoptive brother to be incestual, but it's definitely... strange. Regardless, although the subject matter was out there, it felt organic and natural, and the resolution with the real world confrontation was probably the most emotional scene the anime offered. You couldn't help but feel bad for her. And yet she still aided him in his flight to victory. (See what I did there?)
The rape scene was particularly unsettling, and I didn't care for a second of it. I hope that's what the creators of the series intended because that's how it came across for me personally, and hopefully for other viewers. It was disgusting. But that's when the original GM intervened, becoming the god in the machine, allowing Kirito admin access, and the ability to beat the system. Perhaps I'm a sap, but I'm not used to watching stuff with happy endings. The season was given a nice ending.
Part 3: Sword Art Online Extra Edition & beyond
I won't get too caught up in the Extra Edition synopsis, because there's not all that much to it seeing as how it's mostly a synopsis of the entire first season with swimsuits in-between clips. But if it tells me anything, it's that the first and second half of the season were two very different storiess, with many differing strengths and weaknesses. It may not be a popular opinion, but I do believe it would be a far stronger series if the two arcs were each given a full 25 episode season. I'm sure that would lead to criticism of filler episodes, but if it would make the series a stronger one in the long run, I'm all for it. And it wouldn't feel like such a weird switch right there in the middle of the story.
I was very confused with the resolution of the world seed. Essentially everyone has access to this world seed, so everyone can make their own world with their own rules? I don't see how that's a good thing, seeing as how the first two worlds were run by madmen. And there was an interesting tease to the future of the series. But hopefully they explain better in season 2, which was snazzily introduced earlier yesterday. The Phantom Bullet saga eh? I hope this one gets a full run of episodes as well. Space out the story a little bit. In conclusion. It's a flawed series, but it's by no means unwatchable or bad.
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?
Yeah, I love this series. I've always been a fan of Key anyway and I remember being so stoked when I heard about this new project. For what it's worth this ranks in my top 3 Key works (along with Clannad and Rewrite, the latter of which sadly doesn't have an anime adaption(yet...?))
If you've seen other Key works like Clannad, Kanon or Air, you probably already know that they tend to enjoy mixing comedy with tragedy, often whiplashing you between the two very quickly. Whilst these elements are certainly present in Angel Beats, and whilst the pasts of some of these characters are still pretty horrible and tragic, I don't think the series generally wallows in it as much as other Key works perhaps did.
The series has a nice mix of action, comedy, music and drama and it works really well. It also has TONNES of characters (A trait it shares with Little Busters I guess) which sadly, due to the series only being 13 episodes long, don't all have time to be developed to their full. Still, they are all a fun and silly bunch generally, and watching their antics is very enjoyable indeed.
Finally some good news for anyone who wanted more. Key have finally announced that an Angel Beats Visual Novel will be released in 2014. By the looks of it, it will be released in separate chapters (or beats), but hopefully this will give people a chance to learn more about the characters that didn't get much screen time in the anime (well, assuming it ever gets translated :D)
http://key.visualarts.gr.jp/angelbeats/index.html
As someone not overly fond of anime, I found Rising of the Shield Hero to be a total mess that somehow kept me watching. I'd need a full novel to air my gripes with the show, but I'll try to keep it short.
Starting out as a pretty standard Isekai, the course of the anime is upset by an early misadventure, making our hero pretty unwelcome in the world he was summoned to save.
I've only come to be familiar with the Isekai genre, in which the characters, often Japanese teens, end up in a video game type world with an absurd level of strength relative to the average person, but RotSH fits the mold very well.
From the very beginning, our heroes are barely surprised to be summoned in another world. One has a bow, another a sword, a spear or a shield. "Yeah we've seen that in MMORPGs, move along" they say, despite apparently not being aware of what a tank is. The show goes on a whole story arc insisting on the importance of the lives of NPCs, despite having a literal health bar shown on screen.
The characters are cliche to such an extent it can become amusing, they are completely oblivious to the bad intentions of people around them. Most of the cast is completely one-dimensional, those accompanying our hero in particular have almost no agency and behave in a comically irrational way that sometimes border on deranged. The backstories of the secondary cast come out of nowhere and just serve as confirmation that they strictly conform to the cliche archetype they're meant to represent.
Despite that, and much more (passive protagonist, unengaging story, poorly defined world), the anime does attempt to embark on a more elaborate story than a standard Isekai and depicts more complicated interactions between characters, even if it fails at doing so. If you're just an occasional watcher of anime, I wouldn't recommend Rising of the Shield Hero, but some anime aficionados might be interested in its nonstandard story and dark themes.
Ted Lasso is feel-good TV perhaps at its absolute best. It gives us a titular character who is so off-putting to everyone just from his relentless positivity, spirit, and heart at the beginning, but slowly is able to win over every single person around him and inspire all those around him to strive to be the best versions of themselves through the same resilient positive spirit achieved by leniency on others. The writing throughout this entire show has just been top notch, with characters that are fully understood and character arcs that are incredibly satisfying. By season 2 Ted is even given much more depth and we see the struggling parts of him, fully fleshing out his character as someone we can both related to and aspire to be. The comedy is also seriously fantastic right from the beginning. Jason Sudeikis is just so hilarious and in a world full of darkly comedic shows these days, Ted Lasso is a breath of fresh air that proves feel-good comedy can be just as good if not better as long as it's done right. The first season was a certified knockout and probably one of my favorite seasons of TV ever, and while the second two didn't quite live up to that, they stood out in their own ways and ultimately the show ended on a perfectly bittersweet note that exemplified the central themes of the show in the best way. If you want genuine laughs, emotion, and incredibly lovable characters with stellar writing (which why wouldn't you), then this show is for you.
9.3 // Excellent
It started off as a somewhat interesting concept. But then I quickly found out why Rimuru is considered the "most likeable protagonist" by so many people. Quite frankly, Rimuru is so incredibly overpowered throughout the series that he cannot possibly lose and that creates zero tension in any of the fights. Secondly, the character will make friends with literally anything he sees. And is probably the most uninteresting and supposedly "perfect" character that I've seen. Rimuru is so "likeable" to the point that it makes me hate the character. With a mundane backstory and not a single flaw or conflicting emotion, watching Rimuru make "choices" is the equivalent of watching paint dry -- it's incredibly obvious what the outcome is.
The show had (emphasis on had) a couple of redeeming qualities. They introduced a character with a level of moderate depth and intrigue. If this show was literally just about the life of Shizue then I might have found some enjoyment from her expoits. But then of course, they had to kill off the most interesting character in the attempt to make Rimuru appear with some amount of emotional depth.
But this is all really just regarding the first arc of the first season, in the second arc, they completely sidetrack the entire story to go on a quest to save some orphans -- because that's the right thing to do?
Really, the animation is alright and there sure a lot of "cute anime girls" with enough fan service to distract the average viewer from the lack of substantial plot.
But alas, I am still going to waste my time by watching season 2 because apparently, people have said that it got more interesting.
What started off as a really good Isekai Anime with minimal Cliché, slowly gained some flaws and a couple times went a little too hard down the path of Loli, so much that it essentially sidetracked the series. However, by the end of the season I found myself enjoying the show quite a bit. I think there's a lot left unexplained and unexplored with the first season so I'm glad that the show won't be stopping here.
Being the largest Isekai franchise out there, it's hard not to try and compare this to Sword Art Online. And all-in-all, I'd say this series is messy but still no where near as shallow and convoluted that SAO got at certain times in the series. It is all too easy for these types of shows to get swept up in the balance between "gotta grind more" and "woah just got overpowered out of nowhere". For example, the sudden rage shield introduction seemed poorly executed and the "curses" sudden appearance has also gone rather unexplained.
I'm not familiar with the Manga, but I hope this show takes the opportunity given with season 2 and really sets itself apart from the mistakes of past Isekai animes. The first 5 episodes were a rock solid introduction which is something I can't say about most Anime.
To sum up, Raphtalia is really cute and needs some more cool attack moves, but please keep the story rolling instead of diving head first into a Loli harem with insanely OP cute power.
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
