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Various thoughts on a variety of topics.

Various Thoughts

Various thoughts on a variety of topics.

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  • Category Archives 2019 – Summer
  • Anime Related » 2019 - Summer
  • VINLAND SAGA & Kimetsu no Yaiba

    Posted on February 11, 2021 1:45 pm by Offkorn 7 Comments

    The problem (well, one of the problems) with Vinland Saga is that the protagonist is pretty bad: He starts out bad, becomes merely tolerable, and then ends bad. The show seems to be aware of this and as result shows him as infrequently as possible… which is of course another problem. The best character by far ends up being the protagonist’s sister, and she only appears in like 3 episodes. All the rest feel out of place in one way or another; Askeladd ripped from a Roman epic, Ragnar from an English play, Thorkell from One Piece, Canute from Berserk. None of them feel like they should coexist in the same creation.

    Also based on a manga series, Kimetsu no Yaiba in contrast actually comes across as a self-contained work. The problems here mostly stem from the worldbuilding being poorly thought out, the plot developments being boilerplate battle shounen, and Nezuko’s identity consisting of little more than being brainwashed luggage. Pretty much the only part of it I really enjoyed was the (over)reaction humor since most of the action scenes are polluted by overly obnoxious graphic effects.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8984

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Autumn 2019 - Summer Anime Related and tagged Action Amazon Prime Battle Shounen Comic Adaptation Comic Relief Drama Finished History Hulu Incomplete Source Netflix Partial Adaptation Series Televised Urban Fantasy
  • Sen-Yoku-no-SIGRDRIFA & Machikado Mazoku

    Posted on February 4, 2021 6:12 am by Offkorn Comment

    Senyoku no Sigrdrifa (which has an excessively long subtitle I can’t be bothered to transcribe) is a strange series that I went into expecting something edgy. Instead, it’s more like one of those ‘girls as anthropomorphic weapons’ types of shows that mostly focuses on silliness and/or daily life outings.

    While the drama present at the beginning of the first episode periodically returns over time, ultimately I feel it gets drowned out by the completely inappropriate ecchi content. Resulting in a series that’s far more difficult to watch than it should be based on technical quality alone.

    Machikado Mazoku meanwhile is a school-life magical girl parody that actually manages to handle a comedic poverty theme competently. It’s a solid all-around series with nothing notable to complain about.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8984

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Summer 2020 - Autumn Anime Related and tagged Action Anime Original Comedy Comic Adaptation Drama Ecchi Finished Funimation HiDive Incomplete Source Magical Girl Parody School Life Series Televised Urban Fantasy
  • Joshikousei no Mudazukai & Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume o Minai

    Posted on September 4, 2020 11:59 pm by Offkorn Comment

    A schoolgirl comedy in the vein of Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou (with a main character transplant from Nichijou), Joshikousei no Mudazukai‘s main problem is that a good chunk of its cast end up more annoying than entertaining when they go to extremes (there effectively being only half of a straight man to bounce the insanity off of contributes to that issue). So it’s basically as hit/miss as a random comedy would be and your mileage will definitely vary.

    The school life comedy Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume o Minai meanwhile takes its cues from Bakemonogatari and Haruhi, mixing Bake‘s structure with Haruhi‘s sci-fi theme along with character traits from both. What it lacks in action and flashy visuals it makes up for with consistency and an avoidance of potentially offputting extreme behavior. The movie continuation unfortunately doesn’t share those positives, going deep into heavy drama territory as it does, and honestly I suggest skipping it since Shouko remaining a mystery will likely a produce better result than finding out what’s actually going on.

    Oh, and there’s also Ore o Suki Nano wa Omae Dake ka yo (another school life comedy), which sadly doesn’t have anything at all going for it beyond creepy character design and nakedly artificial character behavior.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8984

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    This entry was posted in 2018 - Autumn 2019 - Spring 2019 - Summer Anime Related and tagged Comedy Comic Adaptation Crunchyroll Drama Dramatic Support Finished HiDive Hulu Incomplete Source Movie Novel Adaptation Romance School Life Science Fiction Series Televised
  • Kanata no Astra: ASTRA LOST IN SPACE & WATASHI, NOURYOKU wa HEIKINCHI dette Itta yo ne!

    Posted on September 2, 2020 2:59 pm by Offkorn Comment

    A bit of a rarity these days, Kanata no Astra happens to be a completed adaptation of a completed work. And though not quite a mixed genre series (the comedy is absolutely the main focus) it treats its dramatic aspects with all due seriousness without cutting any corners or using any cheap tricks. Really the only thing negative I can say about it is that there’s one plot twist too many; the overarching reasoning behind why they found a ship where they did ends up on just the wrong side of unbelievable… particularly when combined with the habitability of the various planets they visit.

    The pseudo-gag comedy Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne! is unfortunately far less well structured. It combines 4th-wall breaking parody, 4th-wall breaking exposition, reaction humor, ecchi humor, serious drama, not-so-serious drama, action of both the sincere and not-so-sincere variety, and (at the very end) battle shounen elements. It is, simply put, a mess. They needed to either drop the dramatic/sincere bits or drop the nanomachine-related commentary and 4th-wall breaks, as the two do not mix well at all. Hell, even just sticking to one or two varieties of comedy might have resulted in something less scattershot.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8984

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Autumn 2019 - Summer Anime Related and tagged Action Comedy Comic Adaptation Crunchyroll Dramatic Support Fantasy Finished Funimation Mixed Media Project Parody Science Fiction Series Televised
  • Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo. & HACHI-NANTTE, Sore wa Nai Deshou!

    Posted on September 1, 2020 7:08 am by Offkorn Comment

    As Kuzu no Honkai is a sex-focused romantic drama with comedic elements, Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo is a sex-focused romantic comedy with dramatic elements. The comedy style here is quite manic, which compliments the various emotional breakdowns surprisingly well. The melodramatic plot developments though… not so much. The club-disbandment, creepy theater troupe leader, and puritanical school officials subplots were all completely unnecessary.

    Hachi-nantte, Sore wa Nai Deshou! could also be considered unnecessary, as it doesn’t really do anything that hasn’t been done before. That said, I think it should get credit for taking the trappings of an overpowered MC harem show and subverting them somewhat. Although the protagonist is strong, he can’t just steamroll his opposition and often finds himself tangled up in political obligations, and though the show is ~technically~ a harem only one of the girls is a love interest (the others are just there for the security the position brings) and there’s only one brief ecchi-related scene (used for comedy).

    I also attempted to watch Kono Oto Tomare! and Hi Score Girl: The club room being occupied by delinquents was too much to deal with in the former, while in the case of the latter Ono’s home situation proved the deal-killer.

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Summer 2020 - Spring Anime Related and tagged Action Comedy Comic Adaptation Coming of Age Crunchyroll Dramatic Support Fantasy Finished HiDive Incomplete Source Novel Adaptation Romance School Life Series Televised
  • Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken & Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka II: FAMILIA MYTH

    Posted on August 31, 2020 8:53 am by Offkorn Comment

    A fairly standard overpowered protagonist show, Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken’s defining feature is that almost everyone’s either extremely nice/reasonable or becomes so after being defeated in some manner (whether it be through force, conversation, or trickery). It’s very much a ‘sit back and enjoy yourself’ kind of production without much in the way of nuance or depth to get bogged down on; even the ecchi elements are practically wholesome when compared to what you normally find in harem series.

    DanMachi’s second season on the other hand is very much not a ‘sit back and enjoy’ type of show, infested as it is with manufactured drama and asshole antagonists. A large number of storytellers get stuck between crafting the start of their story and concluding it, generally either because they get lost/sidetracked along the way or get greedy with early success and want to drag things out as long as possible. This appears to be a case of the latter.

    None of these three arcs advance the various plot threads introduced by the prequel, and each features new antagonists whose only apparent purpose is to be defeated in random ways (likely to never be seen again). Not helping matters is that the action scenes are notably lacking… something. I’m not sure what exactly, just that they don’t match up favorably to earlier ones. Much like this season as a whole.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8984

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    This entry was posted in 2018 - Autumn 2019 - Summer 2019 - Winter 2021 - Summer 2021 - Winter Anime Related and tagged Action Comedy Comic Adaptation Crunchyroll DanMachi Drama Dramatic Support Ecchi Fantasy Funimation Harem Hulu Incomplete Source LN Adaptation Series Televised TenSura
  • Carole & Tuesday & Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator

    Posted on August 30, 2020 7:29 pm by Offkorn Comment

    For the most part, Carole & Tuesday is a variation on the classic A Star is Born sort of story; you have two amateur musicians from vastly different backgrounds connecting to overcome early adversity and make music that moves the masses. The characters are mostly fun, but the core problem here is that much of the music the show features is pretty generic (particularly the songs in the first half or so) and doesn’t match the characters who are supposed to be singing them. Listened to on their own without the visuals some of the songs are surprisingly good, but almost none of them work within the context of the show.

    It also has a number of other things going on as subplots, such as anti-immigration politics and corrupt businessmen, an obsessive stalker, fame-based breakdowns, a conniving manager, parental abandonment, and advanced AI supplanting humanity. All of these end up more engaging than the main story… which is more damning than praiseworthy.

    As for the Index Accelerator spinoff, it appears to take place sometime before Index III and mostly features a bunch of new characters who don’t really have much going for them. Accelerator himself is a pretty annoying/one-note character (albeit not as bad as Touma), so its weird anyone would make a series nominally centered around him to begin with. Another oddity is the rather large amount of situational ecchi; girls wandering around and/or fighting in their underwear is quite common.

    Speaking of ecchi: Don’t watch Plunderer unless you’re fond of sexual-assault level harassment guised as cartoonish comedy.

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Spring 2019 - Summer Anime Related and tagged Action Anime Original Comic Adaptation Comic Relief Drama Ecchi Finished Funimation Music Netflix Partial Adaptation Science Fiction Series Televised Toaru Urban Fantasy
  • Cannon busters & Arifureta SHOKUGYOU de SEKAISAIKYOU

    Posted on August 29, 2020 1:57 pm by Offkorn Comment

    Cannon Busters is a bit of an odd series (which I suppose should be expected since it’s an adaptation of a western comic); there’s a notable contrast between the cartoonish animation and often dark/violent event developments that doesn’t always work. The comedic interplay between the protagonist’s mercenary exasperation and the two robots’ more innocent personalities on the other hand remains consistently entertaining throughout. The action scenes are so-so.

    Its greatest flaw in the end is that it’s unfinished, much like the source material, and the point where it ends does not engender much enthusiasm for a continuation.

    The Arifureta adaptation had a troubled production history, to the point that my expectations going in were rock bottom… which is a good place to be if you want to be pleasantly surprised. Which I was… to an extent. The setup and development here resembles Tate no Yuusha‘s, but the beginning is much too drawn out, the protagonist’s abilities don’t feel in any way natural, and the action scenes heavily feature some pretty awful CGI.

    The reaction and harem-related comedy is intermittently amusing, but the action is so bad and drama so generic that it’s barely worth bothering with even if you don’t mind skipping through large swathes of runtime to seek out the good bits.

    Also a quick note about two series I had a viscerally negative reaction to: Everything about Okaasan Online just screamed ‘turn it off!’ while the 2018 production of GeGeGe no Kitarou gave the impression it was made for elementary/middle schoolers.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8984

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Summer Anime Related and tagged Action Adventure Arifureta Comedy Comic Adaptation Drama Ecchi Fantasy Finished Funimation Harem Incomplete Source LN Adaptation Netflix Paranormal Romance Science Fiction Series Televised
  • Assorted Non-Comedy Anime

    Posted on August 27, 2020 9:43 am by Offkorn Comment

    Fairy gone: I can’t think of a single good reason to keep watching this series beyond the pilot episode; the characters are awful and the fairies are Persona ripoffs.

    Katsute KAMI Datta KEMONO-tachi e: This show does not make a good first impression. While it amazingly enough manages to overcome that handicap by focusing on the corruption of various characters’ personal desires, by the halfway point that effort turns out to be for naught when it goes all-in on the battle shounen angle. The (thankfully rare) bits of comedy are also uniformly terrible.

    Assassins Pride: Questionable beginning aside, this briefly fooled me into thinking it was going to be a fairly standard ‘academy tournament’ or ‘rise of the underdog’ type of story… only to turn into a discordant mess of unrelated ideas instead.

    Granbelm: A magical mecha battle royale series with Madoka-like characters and an early streak of comic relief centered on the protagonist’s airhead façade. The problem is that it starts when the battle has been raging for a year, so instead of exciting early eliminations you have an extended see-sawing stalemate that wears out its welcome before the series is even half over and big dramatic moments that come across as arbitrary. What’s really annoying though is that episodes 10 & 11 (which have an almost completely different theme) are pretty damn good.

    How disappointing. An almost complete wash, I’m wondering if I should just stick to comedies.

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Autumn 2019 - Spring 2019 - Summer Anime Related and tagged Action Anime Original Battle Shounen Comic Adaptation Comic Relief Crunchyroll Drama Dropped Fantasy Finished Funimation HiDive Incomplete Source LN Adaptation Paranormal Romance Series Televised Urban Fantasy
  • Lord El-Melloi II Case Files: {Rail Zeppelin} Grace note & Maou-sama, Retry!

    Posted on August 25, 2020 9:06 am by Offkorn Comment

    The Lord El-Melloi II Case Files series turned out to be a direct sequel to Fate/Zero that ends shortly before the beginning of Fate/Stay Night. Making it a perfect choice to watch between the two. Even better, it features two notable characters from Fate/Apocrypha and Prisma Illya (making it easier to watch those series afterward).

    Content-wise it’s something like a detective mystery series infused with some standard Fate/-style action and occasional comic relief. The first episode is not representative of the series as a whole (the stand-alone episode 0 serves that role far better), to the point that if the backstory revealed within weren’t somewhat necessary I’d suggest skipping it entirely, while the rest of the episodes are split between an early episodic focus and a plot-driven remainder. There’s also a bit of a subfocus on philosophy, which would’ve probably ended up as boring as Zero‘s couch scenes had they not decided to keep the camera moving here. Even the most dialog-heavy sequences always have something to look at.

    Maou-sama, Retry! unfortunately doesn’t compliment anything. It’s nothing but a pale imitation of Overlord with a worse protagonist and more gratuitous ecchi. Just ignore it.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8984

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    This entry was posted in 2018 - Autumn 2019 - Summer Anime Related and tagged Action Adventure Comedy Comic Relief Drama Dropped Ecchi Fantasy Fate/ Finished Funimation Harem Incomplete Source LN Adaptation Mystery Partial Adaptation Urban Fantasy

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