Honestly, this series is really a mixed bag when you look at it as a whole. There were some really great moments and the pretext of the Aincrad arc is purely phenomenal material and world building, with a pretty neat set of plot twists built in. I could spend a lot of time picking out the little points that I was annoyed by or hated, but there are plenty of other reviews that do that with very similar opinions to my own. This Anime will always have a bit of nostalgia for me and its a big part of why I enjoy Isekai as a genre. The series really is worth a watch and there's a good chance you'll have some enjoyable moments, but there are a lot of parts where things are honestly really dumb, riddled with holes, or should have been left for hentai.
If you want to watch what I might consider the "ideal" parts of the series, this is what I enjoyed the most:
The Aincrad Arc: S01 Episodes 1-14
Alicization Arc: S03
War of Underworld Arc: S04
Although I include the Alicization stuff because there were some really good moments, there were also a plethora of extremely poor moments that I only considered acceptable because the animation and soundtrack in these seasons are quite splendid.
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.
This is a really strong Anime with an emphasis on character development that many other (even much more recent) Anime cannot fathom the depth. The show is very bluntly about child abuse, unrealistic pressures, fear of failure, and most importantly, suicidal thoughts and heavy depression. Many have said that the writer/director was heavily depressed while working on the series, and that the show stems from his experiences. You can truly feel the pain and the self-loathing through the repetition of phrases like 'I hate everything' and 'I hate myself.' You can't always hear when someone else is suffering, but this Anime makes their feelings heard.
The series is quite chaotic, but it was still an excellent work of art that really tried to put something special out there for the world to understand. It tried to convey some of the deepest of most complex human emotions, and that is an especially difficult task.
The psychological ending (ep 25-26) was filled with primarily dialogue and it was quite tough to get through, however, it did make a lot of sense for the characters and was important for the coming of age and self-realizations the characters needed to have. But it was just portrayed in such a low-budget way that made it hard to enjoy, even with the context of the 1990s graphics.
For those watching on Netflix, I would recommend watching the series (the episodes on Netflix are the Director's Cuts with extra important bits on the last 4 episodes). Then watch The End of Evangelion afterwards. Personally, I think of EoE as a sort of alternate ending, so be prepared for a very different style of ending than presented in the original series. But still a very important contrasting perspective that accents the series quite nicely.
What an interesting concept for an Anime. I've watched my fair share of food network and I really enjoy watching cooking battles, especially when there is some type of challenge or theme. Put that together with an Anime (add lots of unnecessary moaning, stripping, and sex appeal) and BAM, you've got Food Wars!
This show actually made me want to cook and eat more interesting things just on its own merits and when a show has the power to influence someone like that, you know it must be a good one. It's a shame there was such a heavy emphasis on fan service because otherwise I would recommend this to anyone and everyone. But if the Ecchi isn't a problem for you (its mostly just near nudity except on rare occasions where squid is involved in the dish), then I can easily recommend you watch and enjoy this show.
It could've easily been canceled after the Fourth Plate and still would have been a satisfying ending. The last season was not quite as good, I think it might have to do with the novelty of the show wearing off and the introduction of completely new characters just to be immediately disposed of, but at least the final season does a nice job finally tying off all the loose ends.
First off, figuring out the order in which these episodes should be watched was probably the hardest task for any Anime I've seen, find a chronological list and just stick with it even if things seem off. And that's even after watching things like Steins;Gate which is literally has a different and confusing time travel paradox every other episode.
Kyoto Animation did an excellent job with this one as the animation, sounds, and visual themes all work perfectly to contrast the completely inane occurrences of this show, and I mean inane in the best way. While the story can feel incoherent at times, it really has a remarkably well woven thread throughout the entire show and the character's get fleshed out along the way. Enjoy the crazy ride with this one.
My recommendation for the truly endless eight, watch the sixth one and the last one. Do NOT condemn yourself to watching them all, you will only make yourself miserable or bored of the show unless you do what I did, which is essentially to leave it on as background noise while completely ignoring it.
Then after Season 2 go straight for the movie, Disappearance of Haruhi Suzimiya. It's truly a fitting conclusion for the series and was a nice that had all the niceties of the show wrapped up in one package.
The series had a couple moments where it was really quite good. I think the first two episodes were the ones I enjoyed the most, the setup and then the early interactions with Ben and Leia were wonderful to watch. Now I think the series suffered from three big issues in general:
It had some good potential to be great, but then it just kind of fell flat on the story line and opted for flashy graphics and lightsaber duels to carry the show.
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.
For the quality I expected of this show, I was disappointed.
The set design was cool, but it was no more than your average medieval set design. Forget the fact that it’s a land of magic and mystery, it’s just your average medieval scenery reused from old Disney movies. The set design in LotR was far superior.
I was equally unimpressed by some of the competition designs. An Easter egg hunt was the best you could do? There weren’t even any twists to make it interesting.
Another big issue is that of the characters. Obviously it’s supposed to a reality TV show not just a true fantasy. I can forgive a little bit of the awkwardness at the start as the guests get accustomed to the set. But the lines that the “real actors” have are also delivered poorly in most cases. Which is honestly not the fault of the actors, they simply had shallow character design that made their character arcs obvious from the first sentences they uttered.
The entire show gave me DnD vibes which makes me wonder, why didn’t they get contestants that were more interested in DnD and could roll with the story better. But of course, I’ve seen avid DnD players design more interesting storylines with greater depth character arcs so I can’t blame the contestants for struggling to go with the plot anyways.
It was an interesting show to try and remake, but I don’t think I’ll be recommending this one.
