Back to joemaamah's Profile joemaamah's Profile

Can Monogatari really be Monogatari without Koyomi-kun? After binging this arc, I would have to say no. So far, the season feels like little more than a mid spin-off.

I don't get the decision to take one of the most boring characters from the franchise, and waste a whole half season on her. While there was some development, it seemed there should have been more to this than the writers actually presented. OK, she can now draw some shikigami. OK, she is less a victim and more a participant. Is she really a better person? Is she a worse person? I'm not feeling either. ... She's still about as swallow as a person as can be. Ononoki-chan, who is a freaking corpse, has more depth, and is better rounded. And the Ougi plot device is back. 😒

Not only was the character writing at issue, so was the narrative. It blundered along constantly. And this 6th ep was so poorly done. 5 minutes of story and 18 minutes of filler epilogue. It was so lazy, as to leave me disdainful. Never thought I'd ever say that about anything Monogatari.

Not everything is a complete travesty though. We get some very nicely rendered artwork, as per the franchise. I think they may have made Segoku and Ononoki a little too cutesy, but that's just my taste. I could have done with a lot less of the completely gratuitous and sophmoric fanservice. The director should have wielded it like a fencing foil, not a battle axe. The animation was not quite up to par with what I have come to expect from the franchine. The hand drawn stuff was fine, but way too many instances of cheaply done 2D and 3D CGI. I've seen a lot worse (looking at you Stampede) but I still found it distracting.

I will give props to the VAs, who help hold this arc up nicely. Both Sengoku and Ononoki were skillfully done. Good use of his cast by the director. Almost enough to make up for the writing and animation flaws.

I'm finding this season kind of off. It's not unwatchable, but I can't help but think this should have been much better. If I was grading, I'd give this 78/100; a C+. But I am used to Monogatari stuff being in the B+ to A- range. This is firmly in the disappointment camp. I can only recommend this to the hard core Monogatari freaks out there.

It's Fairy Tale. It's never had the highest production values. But it's been my favorite shonen. I've seen all the previous seasons. I thought I could take any crap the producers could throw at me. Sadly, that is not the case. I just can't stand this any more, and I'm dropping the series mid-season.

The art work? Nothing exceptional here. About what you can expect from the franchise. What is really like a knife to the heart though, is the poor animation. While the franchise overall has hardly been stellar, this season has been one horrid episode after another. The drivel continued to pile ... up and pile up. Ep 6 was the final straw to break the camel's back. This is the big fight episode? It's no better than Saturday Morning Kid Vid. Yugio looks better.

The characters have only changed by becoming more cringe worthy. What they've done to Erza should be considered criminal. She's become a hanger for the writer's darker fetishes. Natsu's become a comic caractiture, and not in a good way. Lucy's even more 2 dimensional than ever, and is little more than background work. All the other myriad of characters that made Fairy Tale so watchable in the past don't even deserve mentioning.

At first it seemed the plot might go somewhere interesting. There was a seed that could have been expanded upon. But the lazy writers quickly fell back into worn out trophes, formulas and cliches, that were ancient when the franchise first ended many years ago. There's nothing new to even be a little engaging. The same old-same old, puked out to sucker the otakus out of another yen. It's beyond pathetic.

The VAs are about what you might expect from the cast. But the director isn't using them to very great effect, and with the animation issues, I'll be kind and say the direction has been pitiful all season.

It so pains me to see a once proud franchise beaten to it's knees like this, I hope the producers are proud of themselves. If I was grading, this is a total failure 40/100, an E- on the edge of an F. I hope it is 100 years before I ever see another series this bad.

Back in the day, this was a very guilty pleasure. The artwork for the times was about par. While the animation could be a bit sketchy, it wasn't horrible. But that's not why you came here, anyway.

What sets this apart are the main characters, who are completely goofy. Excel is such a bipolar chaotic mess. All hell is going to break loose where ever she goes. Hyatt is such a sweet thing, who is trailed by disaster at every turn. She's constantly taking some kind of beating. Between the two of them, they totally manage to F up everything they get involved in. They're ... LOL funny most of the time, and at least highly amusing all the time.

Plot? We don need no steenking plot. Although there is a gossamere wisp of one involving world domination, which is seriously botched along the way. The voice acting can be a touch grating, especially for Excel, but I am sure she is rendered exactly the way the director wanted.

When I first watched it way back when, it was only 25 episodes. I just rewatched it, and saw the 26th, and MAN was it way over the top. Just be warned, the fan service and gore won't be for everyone.

Is it perfect? Not by a long shot, but I found it one of the most amusing animes of its day. Even with the rewatch recently, this is still a hell of a lot funnier than most of the swill the studios puke into the mass consumption trough today. If I was to grade it, it still ranks as an A- at 90/100. Doing a 3 eps test will quickly determine whether this is the kind of dopey silliness for you or not. It's quite the saga, and well worth giving a chance.

I wanted to give Hayami Saori every chance to continue her absolutely virtuoso performance in this series. But I am getting the impression that even her prestigious talents aren't going to keep this one afloat.

Sure started out well. The first three episodes were cute as hell, and well written to take advantage of the main plot gimmick. But sadly things decended into romcom trope and cliche hell in eps 4-6. The writers completely crushed whatever goodwill they had mustered up to that point.

The artwork is nothing special to start off with, although in the first couple eps, it was cute enough. But in ... eps 4-6 it falls off. But not as badly as the animation. OMG, by ep 6 it was down to Saturday Morning Cartoons bad. Budget cuts definitely slamming this production hard.

I've already raved about Hayami-san. The MMC's VA is pretty good too, and is a good foil for the FMC. Any other characters are meh. I think these two are saving the director from looking completely incompetant.

I wish these characters and voice cast were getting the writing support they deserve. Where this series started out a B+, the grade has slid to an uninspired C+ 78/100. There is nothing phoney about that. If not for Hayami-san, this would be into the D range. But I'll keep watching, because her talent is so amazing.

Has it been 20 years? Wow. When this came out, there was a segment of the communitiy that proposed this was some kind of deep, mystical masterpiece. Previously unmatched in anime history, and unlikely to ever be matched again.

No. Uh-uhn. The only thing more pretentious than the cultists, was the series itself.

The art work was at least different from anything before it. Although on a purely aestethic level, I didn't care for it. The animation has a moment in it, or two, that is above average. But not enough good segments to make a solid impression. The characters hardly seem likeable, and the ... writing whipsaws them back and forth, like they are victims rather than participants. The narrative is not impressive either. It tries to be this deep, esoteric experience, But it ends up just being a confusing, muddled mess. Think end of Evangelion confusing, muddled mess, only worse. In fact this ending might be an order of magnitude worse.

The VAs struck me as kind of sketchy. Sometimes they did OK, but in a lot of scenes I didn't get what they were trying to convey. Like they were stuck in the mud and purposely trying to be meh. The direction was very poor in that regard.

The producers are lucky the Annunaki did not decend from the skies, and bitchslap them for this mess. But I will give them props for at least trying. Back in the day, I'd have graded this about 72/100 for a C-. But I can't imagine time having been good to this. No better than 60/100 for a D- today. There's good reason this series is all but forgotten today.

Who doesn't love a good catgirl? Appartently these producers, because they are portrayed as poorly as possible in this series,

Initially I was attracted to the art work. The characters, and stuff like backgrounds, were done decently enough. That drifted downward though, as more episodes come out. The animation already was sketchy at the beginning. It soon lapsed into kid-vid.

The characters end up meh. I wanted to reach into the screen and slap Kio. Harem MCs aren't known as intellectual towers, but this guy makes Tenchi look like Einstein. The director tries to make the catgirls sexy, but it doesn't work well. The title ... does little more than make them means to provide mounds of fan service. Just having a panty shot doesn't make anything sexy in and of itself. Unless you are a 12 year old.

And that's about the entirely of the plot. What has to happen to provide more T&A? The writers don't even try in the least to hide it.

The acting is meh to poor, depending on the character, The director didn't seem to do anything, but push this out the door as cheaply as possible.

Instead of giving me catscratch fever, this series left me with erectile dysfunction. To break out the gradebook, this is only 35/100 for a total failure. If the art hadn't originally caught my eye, it would be an even worse grade. I made it to ep 6, but had to bail, because I couldn't hack any more. Avoid this at all cost unless you want to get your furry perv on. Even then, prepare for disappointment.

This is a series I love to hate. It was beyond disappointing, and became horrible. It started off fair enough, but as time went on, it was like the producers rubbed my nose in it. I completed the series mainly because, back in those days, anime wasn't as accessible as it is now. I also wanted to see how far off the deep end it could go.

The artwork was sweet and cutesy to the point of cringe. The boys are prettier than Tohru The animation started out mid, but sank quickly, until the last few episodes it was barely above kid-vid. I didn't expect ... much, but it even exceeded my lowered expectations.

The characters are what really kill this series for me. Tohru might be the worst character I can remember in 50 years of watching anime. Her actions and motivations are insufferable, and poorly written. The Souma family at least started out interesting, but eventually they fell victim to the poor writing, too. Way too often I was asking myself, why TF did this character do THAT?

It didn't help that the narrative writitng was no better. The premise seems interesting enough. At first it is amusing. But the writers go to the well too often, and in time the gimmick becomes lame and boring. Tohru got a little development, very little though. Not so much for the Soumas. For the most part they are props for Tohru's fantasies. It didn't help that the middle episodes were really plodding along and became a chore to get through. And the ending was a total bomb. It was so bad as to be unbelievable. Dialog was an issue as well. Poor enough where it was laughable.

I didn't think the main VAs were anything special. Some of the side characters were plain awful in the original English dub. Can't say a whole lot about the direction, as there was so little to work with here. It would be like beating a bunny with a 2x4 to place the blame on the direction.

Didn't need any astrological divination to see this was a total trainwreck. If I was grading, this would get no better than 35/100, a complete failure F. The series is complete Taurus the Bull. A huge, heaping, steamy pile.

Have to admit, I was not convinced by this series at first. This season got off to kind of a slow start and I was not that impressed by the first episode. But I put it in the watchlist for the 3 eps test, and it kept getting better. And better. And better. And better...

Wonderful artwork; the characters are kind of simple in design, but pleasing enough. Delightful color pallette was used. Don't usually mention it, but there is some fine background work. The animation might not be shonen mind-bending, physics defying stuff, but it is rendered professionally, and consistently good. So much better than ... expected for an isekai. I got the impression there was a lot of love put into this by the production crew.

Myne is my #3 character of all-time, after 50+ years of watching anime. She is so well written. Sweet, smart and kind; and in her own way, tough as nails. Don't get in her way when she wants to do something. She's not going to let physical frailties or others' skepticism slow her down. By the end of the season, I was convinced there was nothing she couldn't do, if she put her mind to it. The other characters are treated with love and respect. Most get at least some fleshing out as they assist Myne in making her visions become reality.

I can't express how much I came to love the plot, and the skillful way the writers rolled it out. It just sucked me in, and I got addicted to it. It's not very dramatic. There's no huge action. But the people, places, things and events are so believable for the grand cosmos created, that I had to have more. Every great anime must start with a superlative story, and you get one here, in spades.

One of the huge pluses of this title is some peak voice acting. The entire cast does a bang up job. They seemed to know they were part of something special, so they put their all into every line. So emotionally spot on, I have to give the director a heartfelt Bravo! for a job well done.

If the 1st ep had been better this would have gotten a 10 from me, hands down. Even then, if I were grading, everything else was so superiorly done, this season would still earn an A at 97/100. And when considering the other 2 seasons as an entire work, this is one of only 3 titles I would score a 100% A+. A franchise that ascends to where other animes can only dream of reaching.

I thought I was going to like this after the first episode. It seemed like it might head in a decent direction. But ultimately it descended into a vehicle for mounds of lame fanservice. And those are the best parts. It got so bad I bailed out after 5 eps.

The characters here turn out to be a joke. The MC is a 28 yo woman with huge jugs, so let's dress her up as a high school girl, and let her prance and jiggle around all over. Then there's two kids, a boy and a girl. The guy is just kind of weird and ... doesn't seem to do a whole lot of anything. The girl makes Wednesday Adams look like the life of the party. There was no liking any of the lot.

The writiing was boring as this plodded along. If you removed the edge of hentai elements, there might not have actually been any writing.

The art was OK, at least it had a little style. There was a little hope for the animation at first, but it sank to less than average in a hurry. The VAs were OK but hardly inspired. The direction was simply poor. The production struck me as a hastily slapped together mess. No one really gives a shit. Just get it out the door.

The only real mystery here was, how did I even make it through 5 eps? I probably should have failed it after 3. Grading this, I'd give it no better than 43/100; failing with an E and close to an F. Can't make this disappear fast enough.

I am absolutely convinced that the producers originally intended to end this series after season 2, and it would have been darned near perfect if they had. Instead, greed prodded them forward to produce this mess of a sequel. I could only force myself to make it through half the season before I finally gave up.

The art work remained consistent with previous seasons, but there was definitely a cheapening of the animation. It wasn't brutal, but the first two seasons had the bar so high, there was no way this could compare. It was a major shortcoming especially in eps 4-6.

The characters fell off ... badly, too. There was too much that was either unbelievable, or totally out of character, compared to the previous seasons. Newer characters introduced didn't seem to do much, other than muck up the plot some more. Where AoT 1&2 had always been fairly straight forward, this season the writers tried to get all philosophical and intellectual. It didn't work. It fell on it's face.

The old VAs were a little off. I got the impression they weren't all that interested in this at all. The new characters were pretty much all mid. Between the acting and the animation drop off, can't say I was impressed with the direction at all.

This season was such a gigantic let down after the peakness of the first two seasons. If I was grading, I couldn't give this any better than a less than mid 45/100 for a failing E, seeing as I could only stomach half the season. It was a titanic struggle to try and like this. But in the long run it's too flawed to be able to recommend.