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- BirthdaySep 1997
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Jan 7, 2021
People often like to dramatize how they feel about any given show for the sake of being theatrical, but I'm telling the truth when I say that the Great Pretender is one the best, and most dissapointing anime I've seen.
It's visually stunning, with a great soundtrack and an appealing premise. And for the first half of the series everything is smooth sailing. It's nothing mind blowing, but the presentation and banter between the cast keeps things light and fast paced. Each arc focuses on one of the main characters and their backstory in an intelligent and well put together way.
Except the last arc. Which is
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a complete trainwreck narratively, morally and themetically. Aside from the deceptive way that the story is edited to come out with a twist that makes you scratch your head, everything leading up to that final moment is a disaster. I'll spare you the spoilers, but the show lets the audience down with a flimsy final act that says nothing and doesn't advance the characters in a meaningful way.
That is to say, the Great Pretender is a show of two halves. The first is everything you could want, the second asks you to leave your brain at the door - because engaging critically even slightly with the events that unfold and their implications (and lack thereof) on the characters, will only upset you. The fact that the bad part of the show is longer than any other induvidual arc is an extra kick in the teeth.
The main character, Edamura, gets the short end of the stick in terms of development. While the other characters have development that starts and ends within their own arcs, Edamura's resolution never arrives even though the series pretends that it has. This is thanks to a messy back half. Edamura never has a moment where he gets one over on Laurent, who for all intents and purposes is his main rival. And the most important revalations that are aimed at him are concealed from the character, meaning we never see his reaction to them.
With all that said, it's still an above average production. I would reccomend it to people, but my feelings on the final arc are a serious detriment to the whole package.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Apr 29, 2020
Tower of God isn’t very good.
Words of blasphemy to it’s legion of loyal fans, but that’s the way I feel after five episodes of this much anticipated adaptation. Promises of future glory and storytelling fall noticeably short with its simplistic premise and short-handed worldbuilding, that serves to convenience rather than develop.
Tower of God is the story of Bam – a young man who is rescued by a girl named Rachel, who enters the titular Tower of God so that she can see the stars, presumably because they both live in an underground society. Bam follows her in the hopes of being reunited.
To properly enunciate what
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I think of ToG, we need to dissect one of it’s key selling points as presented in these first few episodes, the worldbuilding. This is the standout feature that any fan will point to as the tipping point from being just another web comic to something else entirely. In my opinion it falls woefully short for a handful of reasons.
The tower itself is not a location. This sounds contradictory to its presentation and existence as an actual place – but the tower is not a real place. It is a loosely connected series of airport duty free shops and Mario Party minigames disguised as a place. Our main crew teleports uneventfully from one floor to the next.
This level of video game abstraction exists to convenience. Every character has a point and click video game inventory that stores their weapons (unless they don’t use it for whatever reason.) They have floating orbs that tell them the time remaining in whatever challenge they undertake. This extends to elements of the story that haven’t been adapted yet.
The tower is seemingly infinitely large, affording the author complete free reign over what should be inside of it. While a promising exercise in creativity, it also means that these elements do not need to meld together. Normal humans make up the majority of the cast, or humans with extra arms, or humans with green skin etc.
There is little rhyme or reason, nor cultural practices displayed that differentiate these characters – in fact, many of them dress like they just got out of bed and didn’t have time to get changed. There is no need for cause and effect because on a meta-narrative level – none of these worlds are connected to each other. Only the rules of the tower are important, which makes for incredibly dry viewing as we are deluged with simplistic rules about how to beat the in-so-far idiotic challenges and advance.
The characters are flat. Bam is a fundamental problem within the narrative because he is a blank slate – free of desires or wants that can define him or his behaviour. Bam displays the barest minimum of effort yet still manages to fluke his way through multiple challenges, is granted a staggeringly powerful weapon for no real reason, and generally serves as a deflating presence in a story that seems to be trying to display some kind of manic energy.
But you know, five episodes.
The action animation is decent. The show’s presentation overall is hit and miss for me, with flat colouring that is highly saturated standing in contrast to the moody first episode. The action is not enough to carry my interest through more of the series.
I also object to the characterisation of the opening as “super-hot fire,” I can objectively prove that is in fact, not fire at all.
Overall, Tower of God is a slightly below average action series that I’m not willing to endure fifty something episodes of to get to the “good stuff,” that may or may not being waiting further down the line.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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May 28, 2019
This was probably the kind of sequel that Unicorn deserves. Personally, I actually enjoyed this more than Unicorn, but that's because enduring Unicorn is like watching paint dry, paint that retcons several important story elements of the universe with an incredbly silly central conflict. NT strives to improve on the formula by not having a central conflict instead.
Much like my review, this film is a mess. By the virture of it being mercifully shorter than Unicorn, I enjoy it a bit more. It still suffers from nearly every problem that it's predecessor does. Lame characters, thin narrative, and too much super robot nonsense. I know
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the franchise isn't afraid to dip into the supernatural once in a while, but NT officially jumps the shark into science-fantasy territory, as the powers of newtypes are expanded once again to include time travel. Nearly every battle in NT is resolved by people shooting mind lasers at each other. The conflict in this film is absolutely impossible to care about as a result.
The "story" of this movie is as follows, three children are credited with saving a town after they have a vision of the incoming colony drop that begins the war in UC 0079. Decades later, a mysterious golden gundam is inflicting havoc on zeon and federation ships. In search of the secrets behind the psycho-frame system, both the federation, zeon and private companies begin moving to capture it for themselves. The three children find themselves interwoven with this mysterious machine, as it links to their past together.
About halfway through the film, this plot is thrown out of the window. Eventually, everybody has a big fight and the film kind of ends without an actual conclusion.
The main antagonist is a generic crazy man who looks like he walked out of a Tokyo Ghoul cosplay event. He's also yet another attempt to clone char, becuase NT is a distilled parody of everything people hate about modern UC. For some reason he completely derails the plot near the end and takes over the entire movie. He sucks. He really sucks.
The protagonist is a strong contender with Seabook for blandest Gundam protag in history. He has no personality, barely has any scenes to himself, and generally just goes along with whatever people tell him to do. I won't hold it against the film that he's not the main focus, becuase there is something that resembles an attempt to make an ensamble cast here, it just fails at it. Most of the characters aren't on screen long enough to leave much of an impact.
The writing in this movie is completely wretched. From the moment that the film makes it's first bird allegory you know you're in for a bad time. Discussions about god, heaven, and how being a bird isn't possible for a human being follow. If this sounds like something that would make you want to bash your own head in, please heed my advice and avoid watching this. The film also likes going through the same flashback over and over again, which feels like padding.
This film is not good. I really hope that somebody puts this poor, abused timeline out of it's misery before any more of these get made.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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May 21, 2019
I can't say I was expecting much going into Isekai Quartet, other than a way to waste a few minutes of my time every week. But even by those low expectations Isekai Quartet is sorely lacking in just about every area.
Despite having a cast of eccentric characters, Isekai Quartet spends much of it's time attempting to avoid having them interact. Frequently characters will stick next to characters from their own show, which makes sense from a real social dynamic perspective, but is an awful idea when your key selling point is having these characters meet each other. As a result, Isekai Quartet is dreadfully unfunny.
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Large portions of the already short running time are dedicated to characters "enjoying" a mundane high school scenario.
How a show involving Tanya, Kazuma and his band of goons, and the rest from Overlord and Re:zero manages to be dull is a complete mystery to me. Instead of magic battles and other weirdness, you have episodes dedicated to... Rem and Subaru walking to school. These characters all have strong personalities that, if in the hands of a good writer, could be an entertaining combination. But the show kneecaps itself right from the start by insisting that they follow a set of rules that seem designed to ensure that as little fun happens as possible.
Despite having a 9 minute runtime, the pace is glacial. Slowburn anime would be green with envy at just how little happens in each one of these nuggets of torture. When the show finally attempts to throw a joke your way (usually via the Konosuba crew) you can't help but get the feeling of having been there done that. And when the Konosuba gang aren't present, it feels like the show is winding up to a punchline that never comes (usually because the episode ends before it gets to the point.) Unless making you watch a bad show is the punchline.
Art? What art? I mean I wasn't expecting any sakuga, but the limitations of using this art style become clear very quickly.
I can't even reccomend this to people who like all four shows involved. And there's really not much else to say considering that comedy is the primary purpose of smashing them together. Avoid.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Dec 22, 2017
This show is a disaster. This isn't something I say lightly. On a basic level Dies Irae is a complete and utter failure on almost every possible level. And knowing that (at the time of this review) there are still web exclusive episodes left is a harrowing thought.
I have not read the visual novel, in fact I was dared to watch this show, having not read it. As somebody who hasn't read the VN Dies Irae is baffling. Characters teleport around, change powers and appearances, and have momentary appearances in the show for seconds before randomly becoming important later. Of course, this is because much
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of the VN content has been cut out, this is an adaptation of the final route. (Although strangely there is anime original content too.)
Even still, Dies Irae's "plot" manages to be simultaneously simple and overly complex, with lots of extra, needless characters with unknown motivations. Even a cursory flashback isn't afforded to those who aren't already intimately familiar. And with good VN adaptations out there, it isn't good enough these days.
But even looking beyond my own ignorance of the source material, this anime is a mess. The animation quality ranges from mid-budget 2005 harem show to local YouTube animator getting his hands on a CGI program. Characters are consistent in them being completely off model, the CGI is laughable and jarring, and the show can't even afford some frames for the fight scenes. For an action show there is a severe lack of action.
The characters are very rarely explained, the vast majority of the important backstory for them being cut from the show in favour of more CGI skeletons. The main character is incredibly boring, and his friends and allies even more so. The enemy side shows a little more personality, but there's so many of them that you'll quickly forget names and faces. They rotate out every other episode meaning none of them have much impact and even fewer do anything of significance to the narrative.
Any momentary enjoyment that you might feel from the over dramatic presentation and bad German will quickly be removed as the show bores you to death with long episodes consisting entirely of exposition, that fail to actually explain anything. Be warned, the chuuni appeal does not last for long.
The sound sucks, with some really phoned in voice performances from everybody involved.
Avoid this dud.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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May 27, 2017
This is an absolute slog of a manga to read. Toyko Ghoul:re tosses out every major character that we grew to know over the previous story and complicates things with another dash of vague narrative and some very off-model characters.
We're introduced to a new cast of characters, including Ken, who is now working with the ghoul hunters in a specially created squad. What then follows is 32 (up to where I got) chapters of boring filler, with Ken playing Scooby-Doo with various ghoul characters. The new cast members are not fleshed out enough to carry this story any further than the initial premise. If anything
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these chapters feel like they should be one arc, not half the entire manga.
Bit characters from the first are introduced but seemingly do nothing, some having their designs changed completely to ensure that you forget who they are. Once again furthering the confusion by adding additional characters who you may remember to an already over-crowded cast.
The author seems to have taken the vague exposition of the final chapter of the first story and applied it to everything here. You will become very, very lost as characters talk over each other about subjects that you are not savvy to. Some characters become off-model to further infuriate you.
But that vague narrative style is being applied to a very simple story, Tokyo Ghoul:re simultaneously manages to be too dense and too thin, it's not worth the effort to figure out what some of these characters are doing and you'll find yourself becoming very, very frustrated over how little of significance is occurring. After smashing through the first in a few days, I rapidly ran out of steam trying to get through re.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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May 14, 2017
This show is amazing. It's an utter catastrophe in nearly every aspect of it's production and execution. This is "The Room" of anime
Watch as a young child transforms into a superhero and callously kills many, many innocent people. Particular highlights include watching a man shoot himself after pretending to be mentally ill, another old man being driven to suicide by evil aliens who leave nooses around him, our hero crashing his spaceship into a plane and essentially killing hundreds of people, an episode where somebody is forced to be an arsonist, and who could forget the episode where Ken kills his sister's crush (who is
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also an alien) and lies to her saying he transferred to another school.
And the crown jewel, Ken ejecting a man out of his spaceship into an alien ship destroying both in a mangling of the heroic sacrifice.
Watch this show, or at least watch the episodes "Dynamite in the Brain," "The Mental Clinic of Terror," "A Murderer Record’s Melody of Terror," and "A Mysterious Beautiful Boy." They're all available on YouTube.
They're only five minutes long, but you'll remember it for much longer.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 27, 2017
For all of it's interesting character designs and potential, Zvezda can't seem to translate it into something watchable. The premise is an immediate attention grabber, a comedic story about a organization out for world domination from the perspective of one of it's low level grunts. Unfortunately A-1 seem to have stopped at the premise and character designs, forgoing writing an interesting narrative.
On several occasions I was left with the feeling that I'd missed an episode or two, plot points are introduced and dropped fast with little explanation. Some story beats completely miss the mark, and the level of narrative convenience on display is unmatched
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by any piece of media I've ever watched. Things happen in Bouryaku no Zvezda which is the nicest thing you can say about it's plot, but it's unlikely to explain why.
There is little to no consequence to anything that happens during these 12 episodes. Many of the characters do not get their time in the sun, instead the show assumes that we know them already by introducing characters from their past and forcing us to fill in the blanks. In one particularly insulting instance, the climatic episode of the series is a hot spring episode. The characters return from their vacation to discover that the final act of the story has started without them present. Why?
Of course the character designs are interesting, but you'll be given very little reason to care about many of them. It's impressive that in a show with such an out-there cast they still find time to have anime requisite filler in a 12 episode show. What's the opposite of "tightly paced?" Zvezda is exactly that.
The animation is fine enough, and the voice acting and soundtrack is a particular highlight for me. But otherwise this is a show with very, very little to offer the viewer. In fact it doesn't seem to have much to offer to itself. With a bit of effort with it's narrative this might have been a highlight of the season, instead it's easily forgettable and in some cases obnoxious to remember.
Zvezda isn't interested enough to have a coherent story, return the favour and avoid this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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