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Human Bug Daigaku is a pretty unconventional series and destined to be a niche title, I think that, in order to enjoy it, you have to fit into one of these categories:

#1 and most important-You don’t mind watching something with straight up awful animation.

From what I understand, this show adapts a webmanga, but not like a webtoon manga, an actual manga that is published on a YouTube channel, and the adaptation tried mimicking the style. If you thought that the recent slideshow adaptations of stuff like the Yakuza Husband comedy was bad, wait till you see this. Credits where it’s due, the studio nailed the ... aesthetic it was going for. But that still does not change the fact that the artwork and character designs are very meh. There’s hardly any actual animation in here, the backgrounds are so-so, the character figures don’t seem to fit with said backgrounds a lot of the time, they barely even move and don’t have that many expressions. They are more like stuck to one or two poses and hardly even see at each other or at what they are supposed to be looking at, and the special effects are also very so-so. As a whole, although the aesthetics of the anime does resemblance the source material, visually is like watching an early indie visual novel, it feels that amateurish and unpolished.

#2-You are into fun facts and trivia.

Although there is a plot that tides everything together, a lot of the time the anime focuses on sharing information about different topics, from exotic foods to methods of survival, miraculous survivals, diseases, historical events, more importantly, stuff regarding crimes. Since the show is about a guy sentenced to death that survives and then gets into a lot of trouble with different criminals and mafias, the series contains a lot of information about the jails in Japan, causes of deaths, mafias around the world, corrupt policemen, stalkers and hackers, and a lot more. Which leads into the next category.

#3-You like some morbid stuff.

Since the protagonist has actual canon plot armor, he survives a lot of stuff that most people wouldn’t. Combine that with what I just wrote on the previous paragraph, and the main topics of the anime end up being different crimes and forms of dying. So, if you are into true crime podcasts or YouTube channels, or used to enjoy “1000 Ways to Die”, or follow Creepy.org on Twitter, or something similar, or all of the above, then this is a show for you.

#4-You like weird or crazy stories.

A lot of the stories feel like stuff that you would read about on Internet, like some Reddit forums for example. So if you are a fan of those things, regardless of whether they are true or not, you might like this.

And now that we cleared up the appeal of the series, let’s move on onto its actual execution.

As for the actual writing, it needs to be said that, although they do cross over with the others, the source material follows different characters with their own storylines in a mostly episodic manner, so the anime combining them into one story deserves a recognition.

The pacing is an issue however, as a lot of screentime is dedicated to the trivia parts, slowing down the progression of the core story. Not only that, but also some episodes feel less necessary than others. As I look back, I like the episodes taking place in México the most, but where they really needed? I think you could have the most important events from those episodes taking place in Venezuela, which is the location of the final course of the plot, while taking off some side characters, and you wouldn’t really miss much.

The credibility of the series is very questionable for different reasons. First, there’s not only all the over the top action adventure bits, but also the insane levels of both and bad luck of the protagonist, as he survives stuff with miraculous rates of surviving.

The anime also uses another weak plot device, which is amnesia. Normally in mysteries, you can still work your way around it by revealing information gradually, and having characters with actual personality. Over here, the amnesia is used as a way for the main character to not remember crucial information. Thus not only the backstory is kept in the dark, but also the protagonist remains unexplored and undeveloped, both things until the series is about to be over. Meaning, it is not used well, and most of the time you are following seemingly random fun facts, with occasional over the top action bits around an insanely plot armored character, instead of the actual plot.

And speaking of the facts it discusses throughout the story, I did a quick fact check about Caracas being the actual most dangerous city in the world, as the anime claims, and what I found was it being placed as the third, behind Tijuana and Acapulco, the second which is present in the show. So, either the two Mexican cities killed hundreds of thousands of people in two years (which to be fair is not impossible), or the makers had it wrong. And that is the only example I bothered to check out, there probably is a lot more stuff that is wrong. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue, but since this anime is tagged as educational, I thought it was worth mentioning out.

The script also has some other minor issues, like why and how the characters end in México, unless they said that they were moving to a facility in another country and I didn’t notice. Even so, as later on it is revealed that the main antagonist was orchestrating everything, it doesn’t seem plausible for the villain to set up different scenarios so quickly, and what was even the point, when he is on a different country and continent.

There’s an explanation actually, but for a series that takes itself seriously, it is very underwhelming. The villain is a one-dimensional sadistic psycho criminal, that’s it.

Not that everything in the script is bad, as it ties several different characters and storylines like I said, and includes a lot of topics through trivia, and does anticipate most important events and characters properly. But it would have been better if the information and plan of the main antagonist wasn’t kept in the dark throughout most of the series, and showed how did Chie escape before the beginning of the story. And also, yes, again, both the story and main character needed to be explored more throughout the show.

There are some good messages and dramatic moments around the important characters, whether if it is worth for them to keep living or not, and the obvious answer being yes, life is worth living and you should keep trying to prolong your path in it, even if inevitably does end in death.

The resolution is strangely built upon but also hard to accept, and that is tied directly with the tone of the series. The characters have such a showdown that is could have been written only by Rian Johnson, yet it is played straight.

The over the top bits are not that different than what you would expect from JoJo or the Indiana Jones franchise, yet here the tone is not comical, there are no supernatural super powers, and the action is interrupted by lots of random information instead of happening in a quick, epic and exciting manner, for you to suspend your disbelief. The resolution is akin to something that happens in Knives Out, the second entry, but again, it is played straight instead of funnily. And also, the dramatic parts are hard to take fully seriously, because of the unserious art style, and all the absurd rest of the script.

The series has meta nods to the original, both with the encounter at the end of the series, which was a nice detail for the fans of the manga, and through an original character in the form of the professor, main narrator and suspected self-insert of the original author.

As far as characterization goes, everyone eventually gets a proper backdrop, but I was still left with the impression that they have very simplistic personalities, despite their eccentric presence. Plus, the information does come way too late in the story. Only the main character actually gets some development about how life is worth living, but since he is a blank passive character for most of the story, it doesn’t feel very impactful.

Finally, the sound is ok as far as sound effects and voice acting go, but the music is pretty good. The opening includes a lot of visual hints to the overall plot as well as nods to the source material, and is an ok jrock song. The ending just has the protagonist running, but the song is a very cool jazz, which would benefit if it was instrumental, as the only lyrics are the name of the anime, but even so it is quite good and catchy.

In conclusion, Human Bug Daigaku is a stand out show as far as the medium goes. Its nonlinear narrative of different storylines, plot points and characters could be compared with the likes of Paranoia Agent, Ghost Hound and Odd Taxi, the mix of action and gourmet could be compared with Golden Kamuy, and the action adventure bits could be compared with JoJo, yet its plot is nothing like any of those. At the same time, there are good things in it, and being able to tell a story, considering its source material, is worthy of praise.

Yet, when I look back to it, I feel like its episodes are more worthy and interesting on their own, instead of as a part of a proper story, kinda like the stuff that I mentioned at the beginning of the review, and I was left with the impression that although each part is kind of decent on its own, the sum of all of them together end up being quite weak. Part of me wants to say it is decent and worth watching, and another part of me does not, so, if I doubt myself whether if something is worth or not, I think it makes sense to choose the latter. But for anyone that wants a break from generic stuff and to watch something truly different, this is a half decent option to kill some time.

Oh, and for the makers, from the country which has mafias around and the highest suicide rates of the planet, to show other countries as dangerous, particularly those from Latin America, based on sources that strangely never include places at war, more likely than not from the country with also mafias, high crime rates and record in mass shootings, that never appears in said rankings, they can go fuck themselves.

Now for some excused scoring

Visuals 3/10

-Artwork 1/2 (nailed the aesthetics but it is very weakly put together)
-Character designs 1/2 (they look like chibis even when they are not, but they are not bad on their own)
-Backgrounds 0/2 (they look like stock images)
-Animation 0/2 (plain pathetic)
-Special effects 1/2 (they are really bad but the main aesthetic was accomplished)

Audio 6/10

-Voice acting 1/2 (Ok)
-Sound effects 2/4 (Ok)
-Music 3/4 (Good)

Story 6/10

-Premise 1/2 (Interesting but it uses bad plot devices)
-Pacing 1/2 (Slow and chaotic)
-Complexity 2/2 (Lots of topics, storylines and characters tied together)
-Credibility 1/2 (Things are anticipated and explained but nothing really makes sense)
-Conclusion 1/2 (Ok and fitting but it is not believable)

Characters 6/10

-Presence 1/2 (Simple)
-Personality 1/2 (Simple)
-Backdrops 2/2 (Everyone has them and most of them are interconnected)
-Development 1/2 (Only the main character has it and it is not very organic)
-Catharsis 1/2 (Everyone has it but it feels just ok or incomplete)

Value 6/10

-Fame 2/3 (Mostly unknown in the West but quite popular in Japan)
-Memorability 4/4 (So unique to the point of becoming unforgettable)
-Rewatchability 0/4 (It relies completely on mystery boxes and there is nothing to revisit in the plot or characters)

Personal enjoyment 4/10

I liked two episodes and the opening and ending, but was bored by the rest.

Recommended stuff

-True crime podcasts and YouTube channels
-Creepy.org on Twitter
-Wikipedia (Or better yet more reliable sources)
-1000 Ways to Die
-The original Indiana Jones trilogy
-Odd Taxi
-JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders
-Knives Out and Glass Onion

Disclaimer: This review discusses the flaws within the biggest plot twists of the series, so yeah it has spoilers in it.

Since Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers is universally considered to be crap, I would instead like to start with its aspects that I half liked or appreciated:

1-The visuals. Although not great in any particular aspect, it was such a joy to watch an anime closer to twenty years ago in its looks. Darker colours, actual changes in lighting and shading according to the scenes, unlike the vast majority of anime nowadays that are bright all the time. Motions and the rest of the special effects ... aren’t amazing, but still pretty good. The backgrounds are done well, it’s just that the whole series takes place in two or three cities, so they end up being somewhat repetitive. The character designs are very limited and generic, like a poor man’s versions of the style of Hiroyuki Imaishi’s anime.

2-The ending song. It’s just a pop song in English but it gives a very pleasing feeling while listening to it, I don’t like the visuals however, as it feels like a self-insert harem situation. The rest of the music is not amazing but still pretty good. And that does not include the infamous opening of this series, which gained certain popularity for starting as a typical jrock intro, while turning into something experimental with completely random visuals and sound midway. I firmly believe that just because something is different it doesn’t mean that it is good, it stands out for sure, but it can still be bad. And in my opinion, the second half of the opening is just annoying noise with nonsensical visuals that do not reflect the series at all, it’s just weird and different for the sake of it. The voice acting is ok as well, but one of the girls literally only says gobo, and the sound effects are very weak for a 2024 anime.

3-The motif behind the magical girls is literally sex, drugs and rock & roll, as one is called Anarchy and is rude and fights with fire and her fists, another is a pervert and masochistic, and another one injects herself to power up and fight, and also to produce illusions. That creates a decent contrast with the typical magical girl aesthetics, as the makers clearly intended. It still wasn’t really used to its full potential in any aspect in their characterization or fighting style, nor did they lead to any theme of any kind.

4-Despite there being an important character like the blue magical girl, it is more like limited to jokes like with Darkness in KonoSuba, there’s no actual perverted content in here. In fact, this series is arguably tamer than even that comedy. There is, however, a lot of violence, especially at the end of the series.

5-There’s a minion antagonist that tries to rebel and pursue her own thing and identity. Not that the series really did something worth mentioning with it, as said character was just in the background the whole time before not even finishing her fight, but there was an attempt there.

6-The sketches from the previews end up being a part of the plot.

The rest of the elements in it were a complete disaster. Starting with the premise, as equally ridiculous as it was in similar anime in the past like Shimoneta (but with ecchi) or Rumble Garanndoll (which was the same but with mechas instead of mahou shoujos).
It was already stupid for Shimoneta to have such premise in the same year that Monster Musume, Prison School, Bikini Warriors and, if I remember correctly, Valkirye Drive Mermaid were airing, and it only became worse with a lot more perverted stuff since there, like Redo of Healer, World End’s Harem, or that reincarnation dog of a zoophilic teen girl owner anime, among others. Yet at least such a stupid premise could lead to a somewhat interesting theme exploration if handled properly, not that it did.

It was extra stupid for the anime about oppressed otakus, at a time where anime is more mainstream and accepted than ever. I did not watch the other series, but this one tries to go for a message about people having the right to enjoy whatever they want, and like, that’s exactly what happens nowadays for the most part. Thus, while watching the anime, I found myself agreeing with the old school otakus that appear on one episode, that also enjoyed their stuff but without embarrassing themselves in public and making everyone around die inside of cringe.

The series could have made a proper point about it, but the side of the argument coming from the protagonist was very naïve and simple, he was repeating the same redundant catchphrase the whole time, without backing anything with proper arguments.

Even if you ignore the shallow messages and premise, the script is a directionless mess. The characters are supposed to be part of a famous revolutionary army, yet almost nobody recognizes them out in the public, they are supposed to be oppressed and in a crisis, yet they fool around and have fun most of the time. The protagonist doubts himself in the very first episode, without the series establishing something about him or the army first, all for the sake of a weak attempt at drama with the fire magical girl, but who could even care? It was the first episode and nothing was established yet.

As it is revealed later on, the antagonists were far stronger and controlling everything the whole time, making the whole show feel pointless and just happening for the sake of sadistic pleasure. It doesn’t even make sense for the main villain to try and stop the protagonists at first, why do that when everything will inevitably play out however the fuck you want it to?

As the series is about to end and the big plot twists are presented, making the whole thing about a butthurt loser manipulating everyone else just for the amusement of himself and another creature that was always around yet nobody asked how, why, or where it came from. Not that the series bothered itself with any of that either, as it didn’t bother to explain it in the least. It appeared, it manipulated the villain, it gave him powers, and then proceeded to do nothing but be amused from the shadows, even at the very end it does fucking nothing.

The series could have been still be saved somewhat if the finale was one of those humanity overcoming everything, even fate or whatever, but no, the whole thing was for nothing. I’m not against endings where the protagonists don’t achieve what they wanted, I would be glad with less idealistic scenarios, in fact, but the way it was done here took every bit of agency and individuality of every character. So by the end not only nothing makes sense, it also was for nothing.

Supposedly, the protagonist kind of ruined the whole thing for the antagonist, but it doesn’t feel like that at all, the characters are trapped within a pre-established scenario without being able to break it and without retaining what little personality they had.

And yes, there is nothing worth to say about the characterization either. The characters stand out a little for one gimmick but that defines their whole characterization, they barely have a backdrop and when they do is something really silly, the three magical girls are amnesiac and have no backdrops whatsoever, and because of the plot twist taking away whatever little individuality they had, they don’t get any development nor catharsis.

So in the end this anime felt like watching someone attempting to do something similar to the titles made by Gainax or Trigger, yet being one of those people that thinks that everything they do is just random nonsense. It only half nailed the aesthetics and presentation, but other than that the whole script and characterization was a complete mess, and everything even turned out to be pointless at the end. A complete waste of time, really.

Henjin no Salad Bowl is simply and essentially Hinamatsuri at home.

This time the premise is not about esper girls but rather an actual fantasy reverse isekai where they fall on our world, and one of them over the male protagonist. Despite the characters using magic, at least the powers have some level of limits and follow some kind of scientific logic, that might be complete bs but it is nice that the author tried to give it a reasoning and keep some sense of groundness regarding the abilities.

From there, the main girl follows the same path as Hina from Hinamatsuri, as she adjusts to the ... new world, lives with the male co-protagonist, kind of forms a father-daughter relationship with him, goes to school and makes some friends, and also starts working alongside him. What isn’t good about her is that her backdrop is like a chuuni fanfic parallel universe version of Japanese history.

Meanwhile her bodyguard becomes homeless and gets herself into shady jobs, so she is like a combination of Anzu and Hitomi, though nowhere near as good.
Those are the reasons why I enjoyed the show, yet at the same time why I don’t consider it worth watching and why I think it’s better to stick to that other series.

First of all, the visuals aren’t that good. There’s nothing straight up bad about them, besides perhaps the CGI, but everything else is quite basic. The artwork, though always solid, is very simple, the character designs are extremely basic and simple, easy to mix with most anime out there, the backgrounds are nice but not that memorable, the motions are just ok, the special effects are overall good, but there’s that occasional crappy CGI.

The audio is fine but nothing special as well, ok voice acting, ok sound effects, ok music, I liked both the opening and ending, feeling like somewhat upbeat jrock songs yet not going for something cute or funny to listen to as I expected.

There are a lot more topics in here, as the protagonists help a girl with her bullying and then the girl befriends her, there are cases of infidelities, and plenty of lawyers and detectives besides the main character that are quite corrupt, while he is kind of a moral figure for the princess. Also, the bodyguard of the female protagonist starts as homeless yet ends up working in a night club, reselling merchandise, joining and abandoning a religious cult, being the model for perverted figurines, becoming a gambling addict, and forming a band that disbands almost as it starts.

Yet nothing of all of that lasts for long to be considered to be looked into enough, let alone properly. Yes, the series is a comedy, but so was Hinamatsuri, but that show knew how to mix absurd comical situations and some serious topics and moments. Instead, this show feels overstuffed with topics that could lead to some interesting theme exploration and character arcs, yet everything is presented in a superficial way and just for laughs, and nothing has enough time on screen before moving to something else.

Partially responsible for that is the narrative of the series, which is strange, as it is composed of several mini stories with their own continuity and showing all the different characters, as if the source material was a 4-koma manga, and yet it is not, it is a light novel. Thus narratively nothing gets enough linear focus before moving to something else.

The pacing is fast, as you could have guessed based on what I just wrote, yet it is perhaps too fast, not only for how things change from one to another, but also because at the middle point of the anime, it feels like the characters reached the point where nothing else is left to do with them.

Which can be associated with how simple the characters are. Unlike Hina, the princess here is so good at everything instantly that she has nothing to learn or accomplish, she learns fast, finds solutions to everything fast, befriends people fast, and becomes the daughter of the male co-protagonist midway, through a relationship that was always funny and wholesome, with no conflict or anything like that.

The other woman is kind of the opposite, as she is very good regarding any physical activity, but is also quite dumb, easy to fool, and constantly messes up, so in her case she learns nothing and does not move forward in any way, but for the opposite reasons as the female protagonist.

There are a lot more secondary characters, all of which are quirky. From a woman that is sexually into huge buildings, a lawyer that looks like a little girl for some reason, a female detective that is an expert at braking up couples, both of them that like the protagonist, and unknowingly try to help each other to win his heart, only to fail miserably. Also the bullied girl that befriends the princess becomes sort of a detective that helps bullied people on her own. There’s a writer, a singer and escort, and the cult leader, which after being helped by the bodyguard they become recurring characters with their own quirks, but not much else.

The humour suffers from being partially referential, and not like in a parody way, and is not subtle in the least, it directly tells you what is referencing. Other than that, it is mostly about absurd situations, sometimes ecchi humour both with nudity and sexual situations or innuendos, which I did enjoy but at times found too much sexualizing of a certain character at some point, and at times a bit of dark humour, so if you like that combination, you might enjoy this.

So in the end, I think this could have been as decent as Hinamatsuri if it was less stuffed with characters and topics, or knew how to narratively handle them better and with some sense of actual character progression, and it also needed some substance and more serious moments. But it didn’t do it so it stands as a meh alternative to it, which is nonetheless enjoyable in its own right and I’m glad I bumped into it casually, when I almost missed it completely.

While I didn’t watch everything I would have liked from any year in the history of the medium, 2018 is easily the worst year in anime history that I remember, based on everything that I watched so far that came out in it. I still have to watch some other titles to see if I’m wrong or not, but until the moment I write this, there’s only one show in it which I gave an above average rating, this one, and even then I only consider it to be just decent.

Initially I didn’t care about it much because I tend to dislike anime comedies, but ... this one had certain good reputation, and I watched so many awful to meh titles from that year so one more wouldn’t hurt.

To my pleasant surprise, a story that begins with an esper (alien?) girl falling over the head of a yakuza didn’t go for the usual over exaggerated humour of the genre, with people screaming all the time and telling you what the joke is supposed to be. It also didn’t include any lazy referential comedy, it let the absurd situations, the properly drawn reaction faces, and the character interactions do their thing, and that is all that it needed.

But what really makes the show appealing and worth watching is not really the comedy, but instead the slice of life part of it. Eventually another girl appears to fight against the main one, and the series also partially focuses on an actual human girl dealing without wanting with parts of the, let’s say, adult world (no, it’s nothing nasty or anything like that). There are some bits about the main yakuza guy as well, and they are funny because how good and silly every mafia guy is, but for the most part, the lives of the other girls are the main point of the series.

There is a fourth girl shown at some points that is training all the time while having a comical “Cast Away” type of situation going on, but it wasn’t expanded much. The ending of the show is nonexistent, it’s completely open for more stuff to come, and it has been six years, and the source material was already finished, yet nothing seems to be on the horizon, man…

The main girl is Hina, who can’t really control her psychic powers and thus lives off the yakuza guy threatening him to make a mess out of his life if he opposes (though she doesn’t really uses them much). Her whole thing is about learning to, well…not do and don’t be like that, though the show is not that successful with her “character arc”, as she doesn’t really change all that much by the end of the series. She gets friends and there’s an evolution of her relationship with the co-protagonist, at least.

Anzu, tasked with defeating Hina, is by far the most interesting and best character in the show, as she becomes a homeless person and learns about working and being part of a community and having a place to consider her home and stuff. It could be said that through her the series explores the situation of homeless people in Japan. But although it is the most serious and best part of the series, the theme is not explored that deep, detailed and well, it just adds the slight drama bits and the little bits of substance that ends up making the show worth watching and not much more.

Finally, there’s Hitomi, who ends up getting swayed around by all the ridiculousness around her, but also ends up getting a job and there is some funny developments around her and somewhat of an evolution of her relationship with her mother, but is played out more for laughs than anything else.

Visually, the series is surprisingly good, especially coming from studio feel., that produces nothing but crappy ecchi shows or average slice of life dramedies with so-so visuals. Here everything from artwork to backgrounds to special effects are very solid, with the simple and generic character designs being the only weak aspects. The actual animation is very good at times, as the series has surprisingly good motions during its short action scenes, that puts lots of fighting shounen to shame, especially the ones from that year. The thing is though, that most of the time the series isn’t like that and is more normal and standard, with the characters being mostly still and stuff.

The audio is decent in every aspect from sound effects, to voice acting, and music, but nothing to write home about.

There isn’t much else to say about it, well scripted and directed comedy, good visuals, serviceable sound, decent characters, and some slice of life bits on the back of everything to give it a little substance and make the series slightly worth watching. That was enough for the terrible year for the medium that was 2018, and I hope the continuation comes out at some point.

After watching two Bang Dream anime and being completely put off by everything about the early episodes of Girls Band Cry and drop it, I tried my luck with the actual title of the girls band/idol-ish subgenre I wanted to watch, which is this. As expected, it is the only one I enjoyed and the only one I thought it was overall decent and worth a watch, but still only so barely.

Despite grouping it into that subgenre, the truth is that the girls here do not actually form a band, but more like an artistic group where just one of the girls writes and sings. ... The others add illustrations, compose the music and make arrangements, and do the video editing and organize the events they take part of, stuff like that. So it is not an anime just about the musical part of a band, but about the whole artistic process that is more and more important nowadays, and I appreciate that approach as somewhat different and fresh.

This series is also topical and covers different themes through its characters, as the artist doubts her abilities because her art is seen as weird or inferior compared to others that makes fan arts of her creations later on.

The singer and co-protagonist of the show was a former idol so through her we can see some shady aspects of the idol industry, such as groups sabotaging others and any possible incident ruining your public image. She’s also full of mommy issues, as a big part of her character arc is how she was used and tossed apart by her mother within the idol industry, and now tries to get back at her while finding her own artistic vision and expression.

The composer has a more typical backdrop of having to live up to the expectations of others and being mocked because of her looks, while feeling like she has nowhere to belong. Changing from playing piano to compose her own themes with her idol she freakily fangirls over could be seen as a form of expression of artistic freedom but it is honestly not looked into that much nor that well. Her kind of perverted and freaky fangirlism over her new friend makes her the less serious and worse character out of the main ones to be honest.

Then there is the editor, who is also a vtuber, so you know there’s another topical thing in there. She’s primarily a tomboy who, like Anon from It’s MyGO!!!!!, came to realize she’s not that special nor cool (from others’ perspective), and was isolated by the rest and mocked by her back by her fake friends. It’s interesting to see how she became a neet that lies about her life and the repercussions that had once that was found out.

Through these characters, and the group becoming an artistic group that gains popularity online, the series also shows online harassment and cyberbullying on social media, so you know that was a good detail to have in there as another addition.

And like I’ve been implying so far, the characters, both as a group and on their own, essentially go through the same character arcs as the ones from the shows I watched before it. Introspecting about their goals, looking for a personal purpose and objective, trying to find a place and group to belong to along with their friends, and as a form of conflict, different artistic visions and clashes between the members for personal reasons later on.

The series also has generally a good pace, as it follows the whole process of the girls while making music and videos, and in turn, they are fleshed out at all times.

I will not call the writing anything amazing however, as it is true that the girls become quite successful quite easily and quite fast, and even when they are harassed and doubt themselves, they don’t have it too hard to face those hardships and controversies and stuff.

Is the themes and character immersion that makes the first half of the show good, more than the actual writing itself, which is still fairly naïve and convenient.

Did I say first half? Is the second half crap and makes the anime not worth watching? Well, not exactly, though it does make it inferior that it could have been.

From episodes 7 to 9 you can notice that the focused is switched to another older idol that has her own struggles, being older and a mother and all. There’s another episode on which the girls are apart doing their own thing and deciding what they want to do with their lives and stuff.

There was still character immersion, so it wasn’t bad, but when you see characters doing things completely different to the main activity of the show, while at the same time introducing another secondary character with just very little screentime, and almost falling into fanservice territory, you can notice that the writing starts to crumble.

Around these episodes, the series decided to have some interactions between the main girls that didn’t mean much to me, but others could see them as romantic. Let me be clear, there’s no development nor payoff to any of them, so it is once again silly yuri bait that would leave you disappointed if you expect something from it.

As episodes 8 and 9 go back to focus on what the show is about, while introducing the main conflict between the main characters, you think that the show is back on track, but unfortunately that is not true at all.

The last three episodes introduce drama, conflicts, cringe and unserious scenes at the most crucial moments of the band, overreactions that are different from the tone thus far, more focus on the vtuber girl with her possible gender dysphoria and not very clear relationship with that woman from episode 6 being barely looked into, more like glossed over, and left ambiguous, and eventually, having a very happy resolution where all the characters that did some very crappy things are forgiven just because and without a proper focus and buildup.

The finale itself isn’t bad, each girl finds what they want to do and everything is resolved, it is just that the last three episodes speedrun through way too much stuff without an organic flow and handling of it to call the resolution good, it’s more like meh.

As for the visuals, I was pleased with them after watching two or three (and a bit of another) anime in CGI, so I liked to see another 2D animated show again. Not that it isn’t anything amazing, as artwork, character designs, motions and effects are all just fine, with perhaps the backgrounds being the best bits. The directing would include several changes in perspectives, as sometimes the girls are filming or watching a video with specific cameras. Also, although it is something present in anime for years by now (Yuru Camp is the first example I can think of this), including phone screens to show the characters talking and going through social media is part of the plot in here, so that was a fine detail.

As for the sound, since there is only one character that sings here, they hired seiyuus this time, so the acting is a lot better than the ones in BanG Dream and Girls Band Cry. No performance stands out that much or is that good, but Rie Takahashi has some of her most unique and most pleasing to hear (thus best as far as performances goes), characters in here, so I wanted to point it out.

The music is just some generic jpop that I don’t like, but is fine for the show and the lyrics reflect the characters well, a pattern that seems to be a part of the subgenre or at least the titles that I’ve been seeing recently. A thing worth pointing out is that the show has four endings, one with two versions, canon songs made by this artistic group, and often the result of all of the work they do throughout the show. So you know, their inclusion is worth mentioning in terms of writing and directing and as part of the plot, and not just as background decorations to end an episode and roll some credits.

Bottom line, I do think that the show is worth a watch, for a one time experience, but more so for being topical, relevant for our times, the themes it includes, and the character immersion. The writing and presentation are otherwise not that good, and the final course of the show is very mediocre if not straight up bad.

It seems that Japan has been taking the girls band/idol-ish subgenre a bit more seriously lately, so I wanted to check out some of those titles, starting with this entry of the vast BanG Dream multimedia franchise and all of their bands.

Word online says that it’s different from other entries by being far more dramatic, but also falling into the exaggerated and overdramatic. Well, my opinion about it is fairly neutral, as it wasn’t what I was expecting in both a good and a bad sense.

From the negative side, the tone wasn’t as serious as I expected it to be and the drama wasn’t as ... good nor as well established as I was expecting, as there is no clear reasoning behind the disbanding of the former band until just a brief hint at the very end of the series. Thus the main conflict isn’t looked into enough in my opinion.

From the positive side, reading about this show online, I expected it to be a lot more of a tearjerker that wants to manipulate your emotions with overdramatic reactions. Although it’s true that the characters tend to manipulate others and be somewhat toxic towards each other, the tone is not overdramatic nor melodramatic.

Not that the plot is that good though, as the story is still fairly simple, the pacing rather slow and the band does progress fairly fast at the end especially considering all the issues it had, thus it is not that believable either. Another issue is that although the characters end up sticking together, it does not seem like they resolved the big issues between them, ending in a kind of a toxic working relationship if anything else. I wonder if that’s how the band was presented in the videogames, and what does it say about the real band that launched from this one lol.

There are also references to other bands from the franchise and cameos of the ones that already had appearances in their own anime series, though I missed them at first because, well, this is the only series I watched from the franchise. I gotta say that every major band and character being nearby or having a direct connection with each other feels like a stretch though.

The resolution is so-so, it is what it is, what you would expect from it, as the band stayed together, nothing special. It also confirmed a sequel series focused on another band from the franchise, and in turn focusing on the girl that broke the previous existing band I guess. They seem to have a gothic theatrical vibe in them, and although a bit pretentious, I did preferred them musically over MyGO!!!!!, and if the tone is like the one in here, I want to check it out when it comes out.

The characters are also ok, they fit into a stereotype but are explored enough to explain their personalities with a half-decent result. I still think that they are very toxic towards each other to stay together, and their backdrop stories are way too simple to excuse any of their reactions, but having flawed characters with more than one dimension to their personalities does make them better than the competition. Other than that, despite their different stories, at the end of the day it all comes down to everyone wanting a place to belong, so the resolution of their character arcs do feel a bit samey and repetitive after a while.

Just for the sake of writing some more both about them and in the review, I appreciate Komori being the shy, quiet and emotionally suppressed character moving from being the token girl to becoming a proactive character that learns to voice her thoughts and standing up to others and getting everyone together. Best girl not only for being the best written character, but also the most mentally sane.

Anon was interesting to follow for how selfish and self-centered she was, yet still tries to be a good person and find her own path alongside the others. She is the second most looked into character, being the co-protagonist and main perspective we follow in the first half of the series and all. Her drama, backdrop and character arc of realizing she is not as amazing and special as she used to think was somewhat interesting to see.

The others are not as good, Taki isn’t as interesting as she seemed to be, her initial rude behaviour changing to a kind of overprotective and maternal attitude around Tomori didn’t feel organic to make her a character that well written.

As for Sayo…well, seeing the typical nice and relaxed girl that wants for everyone to be on good terms and stick together snapping and ending up being the worst and most manipulative and toxic character was kind of awesome at first, but it all resulted in the slowest and most overdramatic episodes in the whole series. Plus down to it, doesn’t Anon already fill her role in the story with being a fake nice girl and all? And her past of feeling lonely and wanting somewhere to belong and stuff does not excuse her being a bitch, the others had that as well and didn’t do any of all that toxic shit. Seems kinda redundant to have this girl around, writing wise I mean, I know she HAS to be in there because she is the bassist.

And Raana…what were they doing with this character man? She is just the token funny kinda random character that’s there just to make the tone a bit more lighthearted when things are becoming too serious or sad. She has no personality nor character arc whatsoever, and she even enters the band just because she wants, and also because she is the best musician of the bunch.

The girls of the other band are just kinda there, coming off as bitches with first world problems than anything else, but some other friends and members they come to find at the end seem nice. There’s nothing else to say about them because they will get their own series next year.

Visually, anime has come a long way to make CGI that doesn’t look like complete trash and make characters with enough facial expressions to not come off as robots, but is still not that good and the motions are a bit stiff. Luckily the backgrounds were very good, so it gets a bit of an extra point for that.

The sound effects and music do their job just fine. I don’t find the themes impressive in the least, especially after listening to them outside of the anime, because I don’t fancy much talking in the middle of a song, and the lyrics come off as first world teen girl problems. But as background music for the anime and used narratively as forms of expression for the characters, they are fine, and that includes the opening and ending. As for the voice acting…I’m not entirely sure but I think the standard for this subgenre is making the bands themselves act, instead of hiring seiyuus that can sing, or better yet hiring seiyuus and replacing them in the musical parts. As a result, whenever the girls aren’t singing, they are very mediocre at best as far as acting goes.

So yeah, there kind of is a story, conflict, dramatic pasts, hardships while forming an indie band from scratch and making it big. That alone, and not becoming a mess all things considered, are enough to consider it a bit more realistic and place it on top of other shows of its kind, which presents the same thing in a very unrealistic and idealized manner. But it is also nowhere near great for any particular reason.

I’d like to add that after this series I went on to watch the other kind of dramatic entry in the franchise, the Roselia movies, so I will cover them shortly. Visuals and sound left the same impressions in me as this title, although I preferred the themes of that other band because MyGO!!!!! has a bit more typical jpop style, while Roselia leans more towards rock with a bit of gothic vibes in them, which I prefer by a lot. I still don’t like that there are many voices singing at the same time, as they feel like pop idol groups to me, and I don’t like them one bit, and the themes themselves aren’t as good on their own as they are for background music (I’m listening to their singles as I write this), but they’re overall fine. With that said, Komori is a far better singer than the one of Roselia, very noticeable on a a capella scene near the end of the first movie, if I remember correctly.

The main issue about these movies is that they’re like two and a half hours long combined. They should either be longer or a proper series, as they are, the first one is very rushed, making events, character interactions and changes, drama, conflicts and the band progressing, to come and go very fast and not being believable and convincing, thus it deserves a below average score. By the second one, all of that was over, and it was shorter and just about the characters introspecting a bit and defining their goals and motivations before they make some new songs and get what they wanted at the end, so it was ok and better. The characters weren’t as interesting as the ones from MyGO!!!!! but they’re fine. So yeah, the first movie was bad, the second one wasn’t and improved the characters, making an overall watchable whole.

I considered the two more serious and dramatic BanG Dream to be watchable and a step up from other similar titles that I could barely stand, if at all, and will try to watch Ave Mujica next year.

This will cover both entries, as I don’t have much to say about each one.

2020 was a very weird year in every way, and regarding anime specifically, it was one of the least hyped years in history. Even the most popular and higher rated titles of that year are pretty much left behind by now, with the exception of Jujutsu Kaisen, the big fighting shounen of the moment, and even that one seems to be pretty criticized nowadays. It’s a shame because I didn’t think it was that bad of a year, and had some decent titles in my opinion, even if they barely managed ... to reach that level.

One of them, if you recall, was Great Pretender, which I don’t know how well it did in Japan, as it didn’t appear in the top 20 lists I saw at the time, and is clearly a west oriented show. But I remember it initially getting review bombed on anime databases by Shingeki no Kyojin fans, because studio WIT wasn’t adapting their manga anymore, as if that was even the decision of the studio in the first place.

It’s funny how that ended up being the reason why many more people began to watch it and rated it accordingly and it ended up being a relatively well rated title across every database.

But enough introduction. The anime itself is a rule of cool type of series of coin artists robbing bigger, worse criminals, and it was pretty good for a while. The energy was there, the tone was appropriate, and the presentation was mostly amazing.

Visually the series had polished artwork with no quality drops, beautiful backgrounds based around real locations around our world, that looked like paintings thanks to the darker colours, combined with darker and warmer lighting and shading effects, good special effects as well, and detailed and energetic motions that the series needed both in tone and action sequences. Plus, some interesting angles in the directing. The negative aspect were the character designs, as every character that wasn’t relatively old had the same facial structure, a froggy ground head ended on a triangular chin pointing down, yeah the series wasn’t the best in that regard.

The audio was kind of amazing as well. The sound effects weren’t as spectacular as I hoped for but they did their job just fine. The music was plain amazing, combining multiple genres and languages with different appropriate moods for different moments, and who could forget using the Freddy Mercury of the song with the same name of the anime as the ending song? Plus the voice acting was very well done and it even included different voice actors from different countries and of course talking in different languages to reflect the changes of countries in the setting of the series. The switches weren’t very smooth of course, but it was a nice detail to have in the show.

The series was separated into four arcs, all of which focused on the main characters. The first one was the best in my opinion, good introduction phase, good in throwing the protagonist into the whole chaotic situation, with a high energy through and through, full of action and high stakes, fleshing a side character with a good personal drama behind him, and subverting expectations a bit at the end. Of course the actual writing wasn’t that good or believable, but for a style over substance type of show, the first arc was great.

From there, the two following arcs would have a much lower energy but with intense and action packed endings, and throughout their duration, they would present a melancholic tone and be focused on the drama of the main characters. Thus they also serve the purpose to flesh out everyone from the main cast, expanding on their personalities, dynamics with the others, and backdrop stories.

It’s interesting to note that the storylines were quite different from each other. The first one was about fooling a drug mafia from LA from within, the second about ruining the rigged air race of a millionaire in Singapore, and the third about fooling a fraudulent art dealer in London, if I remember correctly. This way the series prevented becoming repetitive.

The final arc was about robbing a mafia group in Japan that deals with child trafficking, so the stakes and tone were far higher and more serious than ever. It was also emotionally important for the characters, as two of them, Edamame and Laurent, the most important and best ones I’d say, are personally involved with the group from way back, and even their families are involved. It was also emotionally engaging for the deaths that happen throughout this arc.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the makers decided to ruin the arc completely, and by extension the series as a whole. The tone became a lot lighter, the deaths turned out to be fake, thus ruining the drama, former villains come back as allies for no reason, especially after the protagonists ruined their lives, and the resolution was so over the top and ridiculous even for this anime, that you would expect to see it on something like the worst Mission Impossible entries.

The series is worth watching as a whole in my opinion, as a rule of cool type of action crime drama mini arc type of series, but the finale is really disappointing and as a whole the series is inferior to other famous anime that were compared with it in the past, such as Black Lagoon and Cowboy Bebop. I give it a 6/10.

Four years passed and here’s a sequel and you can notice what I said in the beginning, almost nobody cared about it, maybe also due to the format being unclear at first, expected to be a movie but then revealed to be a four part ova, meaning, another arc.

Even if you did care about it, the only quality that remains from the original is the audiovisuals, no complaint there. Some people didn’t like the design of the main character because of the differences between her lips, but eh, character designs were always the worst part of the visuals of this series anyway.

As for the actual content:

-There was a lot less of it, just an arc that goes by fast, instead of a series.

-The energy was a lot lower, compared to the best parts of the original.

-Similar things happen with the pacing.

-The arc as a whole is not that interesting, the main character is investigated by a mafia group and the antagonist themselves end up being against each other just because of misunderstandings, the whole conflict could be resolved if they just stopped to talk it out for a bit.

-The characters are uninteresting, the protagonist has some personality but also amnesia and no clear objective, she is just dragged around by the weak plot, and just by being alive, she constantly reminds you of how badly the previous final arc and series ended and how one of the best dramas of the original was ruined.

-Another character gets some focus but it’s not done in a way that is interesting. His backstory is nothing compared to the previous ones, he doesn’t share enough scenes with his friend for their dynamic to be enjoyable, he conveniently gets amnesia and gets cured of it, both things in stupid ways, and despite being hyped up, he kind of sucks at everything he does when you think about it.

-The ovas try to build some kind of romance around them but it is very superficial, not believable, not built upon, not engaging in the least.

-It is revealed at the end that every character was doing everything that the older main cast wanted. How? You barely see them on screen to believe such thing.

-As the, I guess expected, reunion, happens, the series ends, possibly with a sequel bait finale so they can milk it some more, though I don’t think that might happen, or at least not soon, how many people even cared about this?

In all, the action and the audiovisual presentation were fun, but it was overall a very unneeded and poorly done sequel that only added salt to the wound of the awful finale of the original series. Another crappy addition that would have been better if it never existed, like, let’s say, Odd Taxi in the Woods, or the Zegapain ADP prequel movie that I also reviewed recently. I give it a 4/10, making the IP mediocre as a whole, but I still consider the original series to be a worthy one time watch, minus the finale, and as long as you ignore its sequel completely.

After watching Abenobashi and Sonny Boy I went on to hunt some other stand out titles and after being bored by Loser Ranger I started this one.

Coincidentally, it is also about traveling to weird places, with references to other stuff, and the setting being the result of the subconscious of a character.

The main difference is that this show is not an isekai, it takes place on a messy version of Japan. Also, this series is not a mystery, the reason for the country being messed up badly is clear from the very first scene of the show, so it’s very straightforward in that regard.

Liking ... this show or not comes down to whether you like wacky stuff or not. I usually don’t, so I didn’t like it, but if you do, chances are that you will.

The actual plot is about a train going from Agano to Ikebukuro prefectures in Japan, in order for 4 girls to find a fifth one so one of them can ask for forgiveness. From there, they go through some of them, all which are one crazier than others.

Unless there’s some cultural motif behind them, each place only has one wacky characteristic about it, making each setting to feel limited, and disjointed from everything else.

In both Abenobashi and Sonny Boy that was excusable because they were literally different worlds. As much as its fanbase call its world building as the best in fictional history, in One Piece, every island seems to be its own thing, disjointed from global events and people from everywhere else. But at least every island is explored and explained on its own, with reasoning behind their ecosystems and even flashbacks to explore the history and lore behind each one of them.

Not here, the only thing connecting the different places is just the rails, and there’s no reasoning behind anything in the setting other than that being what was on the mind of a girl at a specific moment.

There are so many prefectures that there’s not enough time to show all of them in one season. Some take one or two episodes of screentime, so others are skipped in short scenes or not even shown in the slightest at all. The end result is a possibly vast setting feeling not only disjointed and random, but also unimaginative and limited.

Not like the writing is any better, as there are several plot conveniences throughout the series:

-One character knows the truth behind the whole thing but can’t say it because he was mind jacked, yet conveniently can tell the main characters what they need at very specific moments, as if every conflict presents itself on the short time that he can serve the plot.

-They communicate with morse code on the rails, despite the ones from a whole prefecture being literally destroyed early in the story, and thus not connecting with the rest.

-There’s a girl that knows random things about everything, good for the rest of them because they wouldn’t accomplish anything if not for her.

-Several random apparitions and encounters with characters to provide information or save the girls at crucial moments.

-An enemy crow becoming good kind of just because he was around the amnesiac main plot device.

And the episodic stories on each place are more often that not very ridiculous, to the point of making me feel insulted, both for their writing and for the silly tone in them, in what is supposed to be a crucial crisis for Japan.

I kind of appreciate that the makers went out of their way to make the least generic possible comical take on a genre or a specific story in them, so they can’t really even be called parodies, but by themselves they felt very stupid, as if mocking the audience for watching the show.

Also, some episodes had some character immersion, but most didn’t or had very short scenes to count as fleshing out the cast in a meaningful way, not that their backgrounds were any less silly to begin with.

I was expecting for the conclusion to at least come with an anti-escapism message, but it didn’t even have that. The girls just apologize and convince the other to go back with them to have fun.

And the setting doesn’t really go back to how it was before everything is back, which was the second main point of the series, so the conclusion feels only half accomplished. Not that it was going to be that good either, because the second main objective was getting a global reset, like in the poor excuse of a fake ending of Abenobashi.

Not everything about the series is plain awful though, as the characters are actually kind of a surprise. One look at them and you expect them to have typical moe personalities with childish behaviours, mentally way younger than they are supposed to be, and that’s not the case at all.

The protagonist wants to apologize to another girl, knows martial arts and is good at fighting, and seems to be quick at learning things, she can also be quite rude towards others.

There’s a gyaru, and although she’s dumb as expected, she also has some insane senses and can fight when pushed enough, and can be quite perceptive of others.

There’s a typical kind girl that wants the others to behave properly and be on good terms, yet can be very blunt and confront others, and is also revealed to have a dramatic past, if just for a few seconds.

And there’s Akira, the shorter chuuni, geeky girl that knows about a lot of random stuff and keeps saving everyone’s asses, yet is also a scaredy-cat. She is easily the best girl.

The main plot device girl of the show was called Yoka, I think. You do get some flashbacks about her, her hobbies and conflict with the protagonist, which are after all what started the series and main conflict in the first place, but on her own remains an amnesiac quiet girl throughout the whole show. She’s not even punished for some of the things she does in the series.

The others are just plot devices, no reason to talk about them, some of them have a lot of information about the setting and is never explained how or why, and there’s no development nor catharsis for anyone, forget about that.

Visually the series is very solid. The artwork has practically no quality drops, there is a lot of violence and horrifying stuff despite the child friendly presentation, the backgrounds are crazy and well done and they vary on each episode to provide diversity of things to look at, and the motions are expressive and done with a lot of care. Even when the characters are not doing anything, the directing is dynamic enough to use lots of different changes of perspectives and angles to make it more fun to look at. The only issues I find in it is some weak CGI here and there, and the character designs being unnecessarily childish, goofy and generic.

The sound is another surprise, mainly because of the voice acting, which, again, is nothing like the moe high-pitched voices that you would expect looking at the character designs. Really good voices and acting, despite also being one of the goofiest I’ve ever heard. The sound effects are impactful and immersive, both in downtime and action scenes. The music is ok I guess, I didn’t mind about either opening nor ending one bit.

As a whole, I applaud the audiovisual surprises I got with this anime in acting, sound effects, artwork, motions and directing, and slightly less in the writing for the personalities of the main girls. Other than that I find the script quite terrible, so I’d say this is a series not worth getting into in the least, unless you are a real fan of silly and wacky stuff, and don’t mind shows that feel mostly episodic and directionless. If you don’t mind that, this will probably be right up your alley, unless you hate childish stuff.

Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai is hailed as one of the best isekai and anime comedies by the elitist crowd within the anime community, for three reasons:

1-It’s retro, that means older, and thus better.

2-It’s about anti-escapism, a commonly praised theme and message among that part of the community and a reason to consider everything with it as better.

3-It’s made by Gainax, the once upon a time best anime studio.

Well, unfortunately, I gotta say I’m quite dissatisfied with this title all things considered.
Not in terms of visuals though, because, for a 2002 anime, Abenobashi is pretty well animated. It maintains a good artwork and well done ... special effects, and since almost every episode takes place in a different world, the backgrounds are always changing and are interesting to look at. The character designs are fairly typical and derivative but since the series is filled with references, they tend to change art styles every so often, with all of them being integrated organically and well enough, given its comical purpose. The motions range from ok to very good, and the directing is full of energy to make up for when the characters are not actually moving at all.

The soundtrack is also pretty good, although I’m not a fan of the opening and the ending is typical and easy to forget. The background music combines decent to good pieces along with parody versions of well known anime and live action movies, without losing the epicness of the originals. Voice acting is wacky but well done, and sound effects are good but affected because they also imitate older titles and sound mixings.

But still, for most of its duration, the show still feels like an episodic referential comedy that loses its point and direction midway, with no anti-escapism message making up for that.

Yes, they serve a purpose for a couple of scenes and making clear that it’s a result of the protagonist not wanting to face reality, but was a whole season needed for that? I don’t think so. As far as I’m concerned, only episodes 1, 7, 9 and 13 actually move the plot, along with some scenes from the others here and there, while the rest works against it.

What I’m getting at here, is that a movie or a short ova series in the likes of other made by the same studio such as FLCL or the Top wo Nerae! mini franchise would have been more than enough of a duration, and work in its favor.

Plus the actual core behind the plot and setting is no more than a sappy love story around characters that aren’t given enough focus and aren’t very likable on their own. They feel like they couldn’t let go of events that happened way ago in their pasts and that are the ones escaping reality the most and never break that cycle, so the message is lost when it comes to them.

On top of that the whole message is contradicted at the end because, when the protagonist is about to face the reality he so desperately wanted to avoid, he gets a magical wish that nullifies the main conflict that started his escapism. And yes I know that that is not exactly true, I’ve seen the very final scene, but that only makes it worse because the cycle continues and the characters keep escaping reality, so what was the point of anything?

Plus when you think about it, it doesn’t make much sense how every world is subconsciously created by the protagonist, yet he barely has control about them, includes younger versions of people he doesn’t know about, and eventually is revealed that has a weird fixation over his grandmother. So much for the different and well written anime comedy and isekai that is not perverted like the ones that come out now.

The main characters are memorable and have good characterization considering their age and stuff, and the support and secondary ones are eventually fleshed out through flashbacks and exploration of the settings, but since what they learn is undone by the ending, it can’t be said that they have proper development and catharsis, and are thus just ok as a whole.

The series is ok as a parody, as it isn’t lazy about it to tell you the jokes directly like other do, and it does a good job in mixing the jokes even in its audiovisual aspect, the characters are ok on a basic level, and an anti-escapism message is always welcomed, especially for what its subgenre would become. But as a whole I can’t say that the series is that well written in any way and thus I consider it overall mediocre and very well forgotten, perhaps even a bit overrated by retro fans.

This will be one of the short ones, as there isn’t really much to say about this title, and I’m writing this one now mostly for clarifying some things just like I did with The Silent Service.

First, this movie was somewhat infamous and mostly ignored among fans on the different anime databases when it come out because there weren’t any good subs of it available anywhere. Well, that didn’t change as of now, so if you plan of watching it, be sure to actually know Japanese or at least have LOTS AND LOTS of anime watched to be sure that you kind of understand what ... is being said and what isn’t properly subbed.

Second, despite appearing everywhere as a recap movie, it is not. It includes footage from the series through some weird flash forward/seeing the future sequences for whatever reason, but it is actually a prequel about the first missions of the protagonist before the series.

With that cleared out of the way, the movie itself is pretty bad on its own. It has too much boring slice of life that doesn’t serve much purpose and takes up screentime, affecting the pacing, which in turn is sometimes too slow and sometimes too fast and rushed.

The support and secondary cast is shown more here than in the series, but not actually explored in any meaningful way, so what’s the point? They are even simpler than they were in the core show so they come off as weaker versions of themselves as we already knew about them.

Kyo is not affected by what’s happening in any way, neither emotionally nor psychologically, he was a much more troubled, interesting and looked into character in the series.

And the romance of the movie, which was kind of very important in the show, is very short and superficial here. Basically, every character interaction here leaves a lot to be desired.

The animation is better than it was a decade before, obviously, but even with more dynamic and flash battles, it is still not THAT better. The CGI is still weak, the older footage thrown in with a horrible filter in them stands out a lot, negatively, and since they are images from the future, it doesn’t even make sense how much worse they look. Plus the montage is very messy, jumping from one scene to another randomly, without an organic flow between them.

The sound aspect was good I guess.

In all, a very disappointing addition to one of the most underrated anime of all time that doesn’t leave me very optimistic about the upcoming sequel, that even feels out like coming out a bit too early, considering the previous release dates.