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Jan 28, 2025
This really feels like it has a 'Director' problem. Would be such a waste if this ends up being an average show when it has all the tools it needs: Beautiful and high quality art and animation for the imaginary visuals, Good VAs for the in-story storytelling, and lots of characters to spare some time for. Unfortunately, so far, the only thing this show has to offer are those things that came from having a big production budget, and none of the things that comes from effort and care for the story-- In short, mostly aesthetics, not much substance.
4 episodes in and the story is
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still stuck focusing on one thing: the confidence-building phase of the protagonist, Hana. The pigtailed blonde's antagonistic motivation is itching to be told, the competition which would likely have lots of good reading performances with quality visuals would be exciting to see, the other newbies and the OG broadcasting club might have more to offer...
... and here's the show, consistently boring us on the way to those stuff.
A good director could slip a thing or two- planting and teasing story seeds ahead- not just to set things up early but also to mix things up during a stale chapter.
But this show, so far, has been focusing on one same boring thing for few episodes now, tackling only one singular topic for each.
At this point, I would have rather they lessened some of the Animation and Art budget and invested some of it on whichever story department is lacking. But it's too late now. We're now halfway through the cour and the work for the remaining episodes are likely done at this point. Unless this show starts establishing something in the next 2 or 3 episodes, it'll be nothing more than just an expensive visual treat.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 23, 2025
This feels like a very rushed and lazily laid out beginning of a JRPG video game, hastily getting a player to the gameplay before they start feeling like ditching it.
They gave the MC, Ein, way too excessive abilities right out of the bat, skipped some fights where he gained new abilities, rushed boss fights, and, most damagingly, hastily surrounded him with so many characters in very uninteresting way:
1) They lazily got rid of the concern of him being separated from Yuri and Ursula by making them effortlessly able get to him through Anime bullshizery methods
2) They greatly undermined Ein's meeting with the guy who sacrificed
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him to the wolves.
3) They met 2 new characters in a very quick "chance meeting" scene, which then led to...
4) A very rushed and forced 'Harem' situation.
It's one thing to be a generic, low-quality, non-substance show that's entertaining due to how bad it is. But it's a whole 'nother level of low to be a bad Anime and just blaze through everything in an attempt to bait the audience before they start leaving, planting way too much too early without proper pacing.
Such a shame since I was being entertained by Ursula and Ein's banter. But now that the story- which wasn't much of one in the first place- is all over the place, it's just becoming more of a guilty pleasure watching this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 21, 2025
It will not be a good idea going into this thinking it'll be some kind of a Sketch-based Rom-Com-- it has the premise of one but not the execution. So far, this is simply a 'Romance' with a comical approach, a redundant one at that.
The Female MC's character shtick works for this shows' gimmick as the setup for the joke: Mona (FMC), someone who's so used to being adored by everyone since birth, gets ticked off when Medaka (the MMC) wouldn't fall for her charms. So, she makes it a point to make him fall for her charms by pulling some cute and/or sexy stuff
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on him every chance she gets.
On the other hand, Medaka's role is to produce the punchline for whatever antics Mona initiates. His shtick is that he actually gets charmed by Mona, BUT, he's fighting the urge of "temptation" due to his religious belief.
On paper, that seems good enough to make a series of situational comedy. But the problem is, Medaka's reasoning for not being charmed by Mona is quite limiting for the gags since it's basically just him 'Not wanting to react'.
Instead of something that could result in a misinterpretation, or could reflect the joke in a weird comical way, all we get from his shtick is him trying his darndest not to show any facial reaction to Mona, then looking annoyed or looking away afterwards, with the punchline simply being that Mona looked stupid for her antics thinking her charms didn't work on Medaka, when it did.
With all that being said, all these things will only be an issue if this is deemed as a Sketch-based Rom-Com.
If this is looked at as simply a comical Romance though, well... it's still quite lacking in that department.
They're gonna need a lot more involvement from side-characters to make it work or else, be it as Romance or as Comedy, this is just going to be a very redundant show. Here's hoping it finds its footing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 20, 2025
Anime really seems to love making possessive, obsessive, manipulative tendencies likeable, doesn't it?
If this is not being presented as "Comedy", this would just simply be a glorified romanticization of kidnapping, with a forcefully applied 'Stockholm Syndrome'.
If there's a girl who's forced into a life she didn't want and future marriage she didn't choose for herself, you'd think that the man who she is forced to marry, who seem to really like her a lot for her free spirit nature, would be the very first person to help her get that freedom, right?
Well, in this story, the prince likes the FMC so much that he would
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be so persistent in making her marry him, promising to make her happy and giving her everything she wants... by forcefully taking the freedom she's been wanting to regain for a looong while, which make her veeery happy, imprisoning her in the royal mansion himself until she submits.
So basically, this guy refuses to court her properly by convincing her that he can give her that free life she wants, and instead just forces himself to her, limiting her options to either learn to love him... or just simply be forced to marry him.
And considering her family is quite supportive of all this, we can throw slavery into this as well, with her basically being sold to a royal family at a very young age.
There's a limit to what counts as a humorous Anime take on a realistically problematic situations and behaviors, and this one ain't it.
As much as I want to laugh at the little comical escape the princess does, I just can't see it as 'funny' when every time she gets caught, she reacts more like an actual prisoner who desperately begs to be freed than a comical character whose plans just got thwarted for the hundredth time.
Overall, this is just a 'Cat and Mouse' Rom-Com with a premise so horrible you won't feel like laughing.
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In an attempt to end this with a little positivity, I'd say that much younger audiences would likely not notice those aforementioned premise issues and just simply enjoy it as a cute Rom-Com show ("Ignorance is bliss" as the saying goes). Production quality is also pretty good.
I also appreciated the dynamic of the FMC with her brother and her servant. Their little banters provided some fun, for what it's worth.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Dec 27, 2024
(Only 3 episodes in.)
This should've been either a 'Short' with only 10-minute episodes or had more than 2 bits/chapters per episode. Instead, it's tackles one whole thing for 24 minutes, which gets really boring due to the comic strip format.
The long form story telling approach isn't working well with this barely animated Anime. While it has a fairly good story concept, the show seems to deem itself weird when it doesn't come off as such; It's just a usual rom-com student-teacher situation with an Otaku theme. They do the typical shouty, screamy, rowdy act but often feels unnecessary or forced. And since it's a normal
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Anime episode length, it feels like the "comedy" are so drawn out, especially when it's stuck in one topic.
Way of the House Husband is one of the standards when it comes to this format of show. That show had comical bits out of exaggerating ridiculous little stuff but made it funny. This show on the other hand treated some of its not-so-funny topics as the funniest things in the world by having the characters laugh and scream so hard about everything.
As a non-reader, having the feeling of wanting to read this in Manga form instead of watching this Anime form says a lot to me.
And as a comedy fan, I'm quite dismayed that watching 3 episodes of this felt like a pity watch, especially when the main characters and the simple story itself are fairly appreciable anyways-- it's just not as 'wacky' as the show seems to think itself to be.
I'm gonna put it on-hold for now but, if I could get to reading it instead... I would do that instead.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 23, 2024
5.5/10 - Watchable for the few fun parts, fairly appealing characters, and the OP theme. But imo, nothing to lose missing out on this, and not much to gain for doing so.
(Don't feel like making a format for this.)
As fairly funny as it has been, and as fairly appealing the characters maybe, this entire show just felt like it was about nothing at all. None of the story stuff were really interesting. And when it comes to Krai's 'want-to-retire' situation, they didn't really do a good job with that neither.
Krai went from being someone who couldn't careless and be bothered about anything but always ends
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up in very fortunate lucky situations anyway, to just another harem dude who knows what he got and takes advantage of it. The other characters lost any potential to be interesting as they become nothing more than one-dimensional characters who are obsessed on Krai's "greatness".
The gimmick being poorly executed pisses me off since a big reason to watch this show is to watch him get pulled into problematic situations due to his misconceived "greatness" as he tries his darndest to get out of it, only to end up being lucky and getting the obstacle dealt with unintentionally. But by the latter part of the show, he's basically pretty much self-aware of everything, and it just becomes about the shenanigans of a dude who takes advantage of his "fake" status to get what he wants. It becomes much less interesting without the obliviousness and unintentional solutions of the protag.
Sitri could've been an interesting character after the cult stuff but was then relegated to being just another obsessed waifu of Krai.
There wasn't even a low-tier mini-boss for them to deal with to end the season; the rivals that they built up near the end just became a laughingstock for nothing-- elevating no character and not adding anything to the story even just for the last arc of the season.
My only takeaway from this show is the OP theme, which reminds me of the good ol' grand energetic OP themes of the past. It hypes me up every time even though there's nothing about the show that I look forward to.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 15, 2024
2.5-jigen no Ririsa - 6.5/10 "Cosplay-focused at first, became generic harem and 'Power of Friendship' drama by the end."
This show promised a story about Cosplay and it did just that. It was also quite a fun show to watch, comedy-wise, with its generic but well-timed comical bits. And while I found the story/character arcs being hit-and-miss, the entire show still managed to entertain me for 24 episodes-- mostly for the comical aspect.
STORY: 6/10
The story was fairly interesting, managing to stay on track with the Cosplay Culture concept. The cosplaying struggles they faced did feel like an insight into the life of newbie cosplayers. And adding
...
to that, having some side-quests like their Otaku Club situation made it feel like the MCs have some obstacles to overcome before they could focus on their main goals. Unfortunately, most of the main story arcs they went through felt like it was downgraded to "Easy Mode", with it simply being resolve in a not-so-interesting ways. Also, while almost every arc had some senseful issues for the MCs to deal with, it often gets resolved through the "Power of Friendship". It becomes less about the attitude of the FMC as a cosplayer, and more about her personal attitude in general, which, for me, made those story chapters feel less interesting by the end.
CHARACTERS: 7/10
Entertainment-wise, both the MMC (Okumura) and FMC (Ririsa) were quite fun to watch as a couple of eccentric hardcore Otakus: Okumura being the genuinely overly proud Otaku and feels no ounce of shame for it, and Lillia being an airhead who seemingly trained under the "Gray Fullbuster Stripping School"-. Although, they still ended up being quite generic by the end of the season-- Okumura being the typical "Dense" senpai who doesn't see the overflowing "Nectar Juice" of the waifus that he causes, and Ririsa being a typical very nice, innocent, and pure girl that sees no evil in anyone, not even ghosts (seriously, she tried to catch ghosts like they're Pokemons).
The love rival, Mikari, didn't really feel like one, not until the final chapter of the season. Why was that you ask? Because she was barely in the show, seemingly forgotten. It didn't help that the very first rival that the Ririsa faced (Nagomi) was basically a leveled-up version of her: A cosplayer, sees Ririsa as a rival, and eventually fell for Okumura as well. If Nagomi stayed around a lot, they would've felt redundant, and Mikari would've likely been the odd one out with her mostly only getting involved in the story through her interest in Okumura. At most, she adds something by being the "normal" character that provides the 'confused' reactions to the Otaku Club's Otaku shenanigans.
Nonoa was quite an interesting character at first-- her 'communication disorder' worked for both the initial comedy parts and the latter serious parts of her character arc. Unfortunately, she was a victim of the aforementioned "Power of Friendship" effect, with her becoming a typical 'cute awkward little sister' to the group as soon as she started hanging out with them. It would've made sense for her to still slightly have problems communicating seeing as she just overcame a trauma, and it would've also given her a lot of comical materials as well. But all that personality trait went out the window as she turned into just another character we've seen a thousand times before.
Aria felt like a filler arc character with her not really being interested in cosplay or otaku culture in anyway, but instead only decided to do cosplay as it helps her accomplish her goal. But the thing is, she does accomplish that goal. And with that, she's basically in the same situation as Mikari with both of them kinda being in it for the fun friendship ride. On the positive side, she does somewhat play the role of representing the audience with her being a non-Otaku that's interested to get into the fun of that. And for what it's worth, she is up by one "Heart Event" with Okumura over the two main waifus (or three if we include Nagomi).
Mayuri has a 'Dommie-Mommie energy"... need a say more? Yes. I will say more. She's the resident "guidance" to these young Otaku group, who is also an Otaku herself. She provides the mature wisdom to them, but while also not able to provide the MCs all the answers they need since she's not that much older than them anyway. She's just more experienced than them, but it doesn't mean that she's seen it all, which is a good thing as it leaves the MCs a lot more things to figure out on their own.
ART & MUSIC: 5/10
Since my standards for Anime art are still based on the post and pre 2010s, this was fine for me, personally. Although, for today's standards, I'd say this is far from being good enough, especially when it comes to the body parts, i.e. the disproportioned drawing of hands, fingers, cleavage, and lats. Not to mention, 2 of the 4 main female character's cosplay design (Mikari's and Aria's) not really having that "Main Character" energy as the other half (Ririsa's and Nonoa's).
Music-wise, I'm personally not a fan of the genre of the music they used for this Anime but, I think it was fairly fitting for this Anime genre. All the music used does sound generic Anime idol pop though, imo.
The VAs, imo, is what made it easy for me to enjoy. It's nothing too impressive but, each VA fitted the characters so well that it made them easily distinguishable from one another, even with the lack of unique manner of speaking cliche for each of them.
OVERALL: 6.5/10
It was a fairly entertaining, easy to binge-watch show that relies on characters, comical bits, and of course... the Ecchi. The cosplay aspect is definitely there and not just a bait gimmick. The comedy, depending on how much you appreciate the 'friendly banter' and character-based running gags, could either be a reason to enjoy this, or get turned off and drop this show. And while it's tagged as "Ecchi", I'd say this one is definitely on the tame side of it, even during the mandatory Beach episode.
I wouldn't recommend this for the drama since most of the serious parts of the story either felt like the characters are self-pitying, over-complicating, the arcs being a bit tamed to avoid being too dark, or worse, over-staying it's welcome, i.e. a character going on and on when the point has already been made. Not to mention that the resolution tends to be disappointingly lazy.
Overall, I'd say there's nothing to lose by missing out on this show, but it could also be quite an entertaining watch for anyone looking for a basic comedy of mostly friendly banters and character shtick, with a lightweight drama.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 20, 2024
[I scream Parry at Everything]
Straight to the point, DON'T expect anything much from the "Parry" gimmick-- It's been loosely and often inaccurately used by this show: Ordinary [Slash]? [PARRY!!!] Ordinary [Tackle]? [PARRY!!!] Inactive machines? [PARRY!!!] [Brain attempting to make some logic and sense?]... [PARRYYY!!!] In short, if you're gonna watch this Anime expecting some 'One Punch Man' level of execution for its gimmick, then go PARRY!!! yourselves away from this.
With that being said, it does have one fairly executed gimmick that made the show fun enough to watch: Misinterpretations.
We usually see Misinterpretation bits in comedies- i.e. Komi Can't Communicate, Handa-kun, and the aforementioned One Punch
...
Man- where one character does something for one reason, only for other characters to interpret it to be for a completely different purpose. It's usually intended to be funny, but for this show, I can't really say it was exactly a gag since 1) It usually doesn't come off as funny, and most importantly, 2) It's basically the only reason that the journey of Noor (the Main Character) even began, and kept on going in the first place. Whatever it was, it surely gave the story a bit of fun silliness, which made it more watchable than it should have been.
Story (5/10):
It's the cliche powerless-protag-becomes-powerful-in-an-unusual-way shenanigans, with some High Fantasy world war and politics.
Characters (5/10):
Aside from Noor and Lynne, no other character has shown anything of note yet to standout-- aside from milady Ines who standout from her outstanding striking beauty alone! (I thirst. Pardon me.) But even those two MCs don't have much personality in them aside from being a couple of oblivious individuals that tends to misinterpret very clear statements and intentions-- bad for character, good for the LOLz.
Art, Animation, and Sound (5/10):
Fine character designs. Mediocre animation. Decent Voice Acting. Typical anime OP/ED.
Overall (6/10. It Parries Boredom)
There isn't really much to take away from this. It's "Okay" at best- but, it's so much more watchable than what its title and synopsis made it seem to be. I'd say it was the humorous approach to the 'Misinterpretation' gimmick that gave it some uniqueness and a bit of fun. Also, the director seem to have the skill to make a low-budget Anime look presentable by doing some scenes with 'extra' touches on it (i.e. NPCs passing by the camera while the main characters are having conversations, Lynne's face being cut at the bottom of the screen to emphasize her small stature for cuteness purposes, and other stuff like that) without requiring fancy-looking stuff or trying too hard. Maybe the sequel would get a higher budget and do better? We'll see.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 4, 2024
To anyone who dislikes the "It gets good later on" kind of show, this might not be for you. But for anyone who has enough patience to watch half of the show before deciding whether it is for them or not, this might be worth a try.
I say that because in my opinion, the show only became interesting when it's telling the backstories of the main characters, and that only started during the 6th episode.
The 2 MCs have not been interesting so far. Kaname has been doing nothing but forced and redundant "comical" bits for the most part, which now became so tired and irritating.
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But his character did get a development relating to his Amnesia before the season ended so, that at least gave him a little pump of interest. Kiyomine on the other hand still doesn't have any personality other than being obsessed and teasing a BL with Kaname.
They did utilize the other character, Toudou, for the baseball and serious aspects of the show, seemingly presenting him as the most mature and leader-like among the crew. His character arc was the first part of the story that made the show interesting for me.
Chihaya also had his character arc spot before the season ended. It wasn't too strong and was more of a first hurdle for him to overcome, but the point of the backstory was quite helpful to give him a motivation going forward.
Yamada the POV character has become less of an irritating embodiment of a narrator and finally started taking part during the baseball games and some of the character events. That's an improvement from when he was still mostly like a ghost that speaks from time to time.
The "2D" gamer dude... I don't think we got much from him yet-- his introduction episode was fairly fun though, to be fair.
Frankly, if this had bad animation, I would've dropped it already. But since it's visually pleasing, it wasn't hard to keep watching, which is why I managed to see its much more interesting latter half. With that being said, I do see a bit of possibility that this could turn into an interesting Baseball-themed Anime when the MCs finally get into some competition/tournament arcs. They've already setup some rival characters to look forward to, and some challenges for the characters to overcome. The only problem would be if the 2 MCs, Kaname and Kiyomine, remain stuck with a romantic angle even during serious arcs. IMO, if they don't get any more motivation other than them wanting to play with each other's "balls", then the writer(s) might as well focus on the other characters as the main ones.
TL;DR: You want some Baseball action in Anime? You got it!.... during the last 3 episodes, that is. (I'm not counting the practice match against Teitoku-- that was more of a plot setup.). If you don't mind going through some character-building that would PROBABLY lead somewhere then it might be worth checking out. Otherwise, just watch the Major series.
WARNING: Toudou's older sister is flaming hot!!!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 3, 2024
Watching this series felt like playing a quality RPG game with a Novel Sci-fi story then it turns into Flappy Bird by the end.
This is one of those series that could've used more episodes to fully utilize and better lay out the many tools it has. Unfortunately, they crammed it all up into a 1-cour run. It was a big picture with lots of characters and substance in it when it was being painted, then that picture got crumpled and whatever remains to be seen from its crumpled state is what was shown to us by the end.
I'd at least hope that someday, in some
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way, shape, or form, this gets a remake. Henshin, Sci-Fi, existential-crisis story, it has a pretty interesting mix of ideas. And it WAS pretty interesting in the Anime for the most part. Just a shame it had to force everything it set up into the latter 4 episodes.
Positives:
- The 2 MCs' chemistry
- OP, ED, and the BGM (Crimson Lightning)
- Variety of characters
- VA
- Henshin Designs
Negatives:
- The last 4 episodes effectively rendering all the 'Positives' wasted.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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