Series in one sentence:
Yaoi anime parodies yoai animes, and Deviantart, on a budget of 2 cents per episode.
Series in more sentences:
A teenage boy attends a school inhabited by "handsome" boys and men only. While he shows hesitance for starting a same sex relationship with his pursuers, despite what everyone around him says, he often finds himself charmed by the other male students. I'm trying hard to tie a plot to this.
I could not stop laughing over this terrible mess, I loved it. The idea someone spent even a dime on producing this is beautiful.
The episodes are short and the whole thing is obviously meant as a joke, please check this out.
Series in one sentence:
A realistic portrayal of a child lives together with a realistic portrayal of a middle-aged man.
Series in more sentences:
When Daikichi visits his late grandfather's house, he notices an unfamiliar guest at the funeral, and is informed that she is possibly the illegitimate child of said grandfather. As she is only 6 years old, though, the rest of the family is having their doubts and nobody wants to consider being the orphan's caretaker.
Before the suggestion of dumping her at a government facility can be further entertained, Daikichi decides to take her in.
A sweet and simple story that covers normal, everyday problems. Though, "problems" is a big word here.
I adored the characters and the pacing, the show isn't trying to be anything more than the description. There are some moments where you think shit might go down, but it never does.
I think this is the only reason why I didn't gave this series a "good" rating. There are no conflicts, it's just about the life of a man who's learning to be a parent, and this little girl of mysterious origin. I would've liked a heavier plot, but the anime is definitely worth checking out the way it is.
Series in one sentence:
A dumb girl gets an unhealthy crush on an antisocial and abusive boy.
Series in more sentences:
A girl tries to fit in with her new friends in class by lying about having a boyfriend, but when they want to see a photo of him, she takes one of a random person on the street, who happens to attend the same school and is quite popular. When she finds out about her mistake, she arranges a deal with him to play along, but he says only to agree in exchange for her daily service and self-respect; revealing that the most popular guy in school is actually an black-hearted sadist.
Despite this, she soon finds herself charmed by his small acts of kindness, and her persistence manages to turn their fake relationship into a real one. So far that's possible with an emotionless skeptic of love.
It was weird. The characters and story changed after just a few episodes, into nothing I expected. First we have this standard, but enjoyable portrayal of a relationship between an extorted slave and a two-faced master, but then this girl gets a rushed and unquenchable crush on him, and the series continues to focus on these two clumsily dating. I found it a very boring second half of the series.
When looking at the intro bit and this anime's title, you think it's about this girl who can't stop lying and is forced to be this sadist's "dog" because of it. And it is, in the first few episodes, but then it just switches over to these two being in a relationship, and you experience this unrewarding romance that truly should've been left out.
The show made this girl fall in love with this boy way too early. The guy hadn't done anything at that point to earn this kind of unhealthy devotion, while she, on her turn, had done nothing at that point to stand out from all the other squealing teenagers that throw themselves onto him on a daily basis.
The guy is being approached by annoying, loud, obsessed girls all the time, how does the girl even stand out? I remember enough characters asking this, but I don't remember him explaining it. Because, let's be honest, she doesn't stand out.
Some viewers commented it's an accurate portrayal of a sadist and masochist relationship and that's why we're seeing what we're seeing, but that can't be so, as this girl doesn't like to get insulted or ignored. If anything, she is an optimistic idiot who's trying to "change him", which makes this kind a relationship even worse. A masochist likes to get hurt and would not bother to make requests that would benefit themselves. The leading girl does not fit the description.
Even the prince stopped fitting the description of a sadist after a couple of episodes; it's more like his incompetence and unfamiliarity with love causes him to appear antisocial and uncaring. But it's not like he wants to be, if we have to believe his actions in some of the episodes.
I didn't like this change, it doesn't add up with what the series taught us about this character at the start.
The joke with the prince was that everyone at school thought he was a kind-hearted, angel-faced, pure blond, but secretly a devil who enjoys owning people like a pet. Together with wolf girl, he was pulling off a double facade, which opened up alot of comedic opportunities. Wolf girl felt embarrassed to be his slave and do stupid tricks for him, but this was the price she was willing to pay for spreading lies. The relationship was unpleasant for comedic purposes, and was way more entertaining than the more serious-toned bore that followed afterwards. I don't understand why the writers turned this girl into an annoying fangirl for the rest of the anime. Why not keep her tortured, but silly and gullible? The guy could've kept teasing her with fake kindness, but without it making her fall for him and getting all attached.
The prince did not change for the better, either. We see him in a continuously foul mood, but doesn't really show sadistic outbursts anymore. He stopped keeping up appearances at school as well, defeating the point of his original character. Was he not supposed to pretend to be a normal, popular kid? Now he constantly looks and acts devoid of joy and emotion.
I'd rather have a self-aware sadist.
Because these two started dating so quickly, the girl's undying love and the boy's hurtful responses just don't create any touching or funny scenes. I think it would've been better if she stayed his victim of extortion for the majority of the series and she didn't develop feelings for him after he had properly proven himself to be worth it. Punching one dude in the face and announcing her to be his possession is not worthy of receiving unconditional love, and it makes the girl seem extremely desperate and pitiful.
Series in one sentence:
Boy Bulge: The Series.
Series in more sentences:
A young teenage boy is held accountable for his travelling parents' ongoing debt and is punished by being dressed up as a girl for the purpose of selling him to a fetishist. He is saved in time from the perverted collectors by a trio of high school girls, who then become impressed by the young cross-dresser and are willing to pay off the debt, if he agrees to keep on his skirt and join their all-female student council. He agrees to this out of desperation, even though it makes his daily life a Hell and his heroes don't have good intentions themselves.
This might've been worth sitting through if the plot wasn't about raping and sexually embarrassing an underage boy for no other reason than to fulfil some pedophile's fetish. The only reason I managed to watch the whole thing is because every episode is only 4 minutes long.
What a waste for an anime with such nice animation, good voice acting, and good pacing. It truly could've been a great watch, but all the characters in this fictional world are perverts, and I can only imagine what the writer of this objectionable horror is like.
Series in one sentence:
A teenage boy and a feminine merman with the mentality of an onion have an unsubtle crush on each other.
Series in more sentences:
A boy finds a weakened merman in need and decides to have him rest in his bathtub, but his guest is quick to grow accustomed to the pampering he receives and feels no urgency to go back home. Other mythical water creatures soon find out about the "luxurious" bathroom, but the boy shows hospitality and golden patience for these weird creatures and their behaviour.
That something this short managed to waste my time. Every episode is only 3-4 minutes long, of which half a minute is devoted to the overly edgy intro bit. Why they animated that for a show this silly, I'll never know.
But I figured the short running time would make it easier to check this thing out and hopefully find myself entertained, so I sat through every episode, no matter how bored I was.
Because there's so little time available to tell a decent story, there is no decent story. Every episode covers a random topic; it was the kind of nonsense you'd find in a children's cartoon, but with an abundance of homoerotic vibes.
I think the series would've been better if it was an actual series, not a series of shorts. You don't understand why the relationship between these men is what it is, as nothing of substance happens in these episodes.
The humor isn't especially funny, none of the scenes were charming, it's like this anime portrayed a basic idea for an anime, but didn't bother to take it seriously. A bit of a shame.
Series in one sentence:
Pick your favourite love story from a repetitive yoai series, starring the exact same couple every time.
Series in more sentences:
A young man with an interest for proper literature decides to leave his father's business in order to prove his own worth, but ends up becoming an editor for girl comics. When introduced to his new department, he meets up with a face he had long forgotten; his old high school crush, who seems to remember him very well.
While he tries to learn the ropes of his new profession, his blurry past with his first love starts to slowly surface.
There was no need for this to be so unfocused. Every 2 episodes it jumped to some other guy's love story, and it took me a while to realize it starred different characters.
This series has the strange tendency to make every couple the exact same people with the same looks and voices. When you're not acquainted enough with the main characters yet, it's distracting. I mean, sure, I noticed that these people had a different hair colour from each other, but their presentation is awfully similar.
For example, the "man" in the relationship is always a tall, long-faced, serious-eyed, low-voiced character, while the "female" is always this shorter, big-eyed, higher-pitched teenage boy-looking thing.
The troubles presented in these relationships are similar as well. A reoccurring trope the show seemed very fond of is the situation where a guy spots his love interest with a woman, and immediately thinks they're being cheated on. Because apparently there are no homosexuals in this yaoi series, just once-closeted bisexuals with a preference, so women are a continuous threat, though only for the sake of drama and not because they actually are. I think the cheating trope happened 5 times in this very short anime.
It was interesting how it created so many clichés within itself, it looked like I was watching the same episode over and over. Definitely not entertaining, though my main issue was that it took away the value of all characters by doing this.
Why should we care about any of them if they act the same, look the same, and experience the same things? I don't understand why the creators inserted so many side-stories. Nobody has that short of an attention span, I would think, the main plot was good enough to leave out all this filler nonsense for. In fact, it was the only story that interested me, as the others just felt shoehorned in as an attempt to please its lady audience.
The more gays, the better, the internet would say. It was a mess and a waste of time.
Despite the decent main plot, though, it also suffered from repetition. You can make a drinking game out of it; whenever an episode is devoted to our two main leads, take a shot whenever the episode start off with work-related troubles, and halfway or near the end there's a private moment where the guy's boss grabs him by his wrist and forcefully kisses him. Or take a shot whenever this fool blushes in his presence.
Take another shot when he partially answers to his rapist's feelings, but the next day will act like he doesn't love him and nothing happened. Or says they can't be together because they're both men. Despite their past where they already dated. It's a terrible script. It didn't need to be. And you'll be dead because of alcohol poisoning.
It's needlessly complicated. The best episode is the last one, as it's the only one that breaks out of the repetitiveness we've seen in the episodes before it.
Series in one sentence:
A beautiful romance filled with everyday distrust, self-doubt and misunderstandings.
Series in more sentences:
A teenage girl has long given up on the concept of making friends and has accepted her status as a bully target, until the most popular guy in school notices her and is immediately smitten. He strives to become her boyfriend and have a proper relationship with her, but it proves difficult to win the trust of an antisocial and unconfident girl.
It was a good average, though the repetition frustrated me at times.
I adore simple romances, but this one got slightly ruined by the characters' never-ending obliviousness for each other's issues and the long silences during their walks home. The girl's excuse is that she's socially messed up, but I don't understand why the super-social, popular kid acted so distant at times. Wouldn't someone like him talk non-stop and try to get his girlfriend involved with his life every second of the day? Maybe not, when all things considered.
A more important question is probably: why is this boy in love with her? It feels like the girl is too much to handle for any normal person and there's little to like about her. She's distant and not someone you'd take with you if you want to have a good time.
As a character, I like her, but as a love interest for this guy who gets no response whenever he's trying his very best, she's painful to watch.
The distrust made sense at the start; when the girl still has to learn who this 7 feet kid is that just threw himself onto her, but when the super modelling plot starts, things turn extremely sour. They pretty much stop hanging out with each other, no idea why, and neither of them take the initiative to, until this bitter plot is finally saved by their friends butting in. Thank shit for them.
In general, the jealous supermodel student using her job to claim the good-looking boyfriend and have him work for her studio is an excellent conflict. She was a good "villain" and I had no problems with her, but what does bother me is that this episode made this otherwise kind and lovestruck boy look like a dick. He never stopped loving the main character, this is what is claimed by the series, so why did he stop meeting up with her at school? What reason did he have to not talk or text her? Why did he choose to have a routinely dinner date at this model's house, who had an obvious crush on him and even announced this to be so the very first time they met? Is he truly that stupid that he didn't think people would follow them after work and find out about this, or just gossip about their work relationship, and his girlfriend wouldn't get confronted by it? While they're attending the most expositional school in existence, where at least one pair of giggly girls are present in every hallway, spitting out gossip at the right moment for the main character to hear? Really?
One of their friends said it best when she called him out on his failure to inform his own girlfriend he's been having dinner at some other girl's place every time.
I found this level of ignorance not to fit his character, and with the long silences already dominating this fruitless love relationship, it didn't feel like it was going anywhere. If you have nothing to root for, the story falls flat.
Then again, the anime argued the boy is a rather spineless slut who does anything to please a girl.. then.. maybe it does fit his character..?
There were many sweet moments, but misunderstandings kept happening, these lovers kept doubting each other, the girl's lack of response to everything was annoying and deafening, these bits were not entertaining to watch.
Lovely intro song, though.
Series in one sentence:
An adult man kinda befriends and falls in love with a teenage Kikyo from Inuyasha, but not really.
Series in more sentences:
A man in his late 20s is down on his luck after he quit his job because of moral objections with the company, but then gets approached by a stranger who offers him a job as a test subject for his laboratory, involving an age reducing drug.
The man feels cornered enough to agree to play the role of a high school student for a whole year, whilst being monitored by the lab. His presence has a positive effect on everybody he meets; though the problems of his new teenage friends remind him of his past with his old job.
I was quite entertained, though I will say that after I read there won't come a proper second season, just 4 OVA episodes, I think this anime wasted too much time focusing on characters other than the main one. The volleyball plot alone was way too long and the guy hardly made an appearance in that. I didn't care about these other characters and their sudden problems, it didn't make them more interesting. It wasted valuable time that should've been given to the people this show is supposed to star.
The rushed romance plot at the end was rather weird as well. One of the guy friends basically gets talked into liking his best friend, and indeed, suddenly has romantic interest for her, just because the main character threw some simple questions at him. And the series then devotes more time showing off the romantic journey of these two kids than of the ones we actually care about;
The main character and his "love interest" are by far the most interesting elements in the show, and share the best interactions, which is why it's disappointing to have seen so little of them together. While they're lovely in each other's company, they don't hang out enough for me to dub these two friends. Rather acquaintances who only sometimes text each other. This makes the last episode, where they basically struggle to not jump into each other's arms, not make sense to me.
And they're not the only characters with a lacking relationship. Since every 2 episodes seems to skip a month, it doesn't feel like any of these people are really that tight with each other. They act like it when they're given a scene, but every other episode, they don't even speak to each other.
Also, what's with Japan's belief that a person in his 20s is old? The main character won't stop talking about it, as if he's one foot in the grave already. There's hardly even a difference in his appearance when he turns into his 17 year old self. Same thing with his guide.
27 is still young and 10 years is not that long ago, I remember high school vividly. Maybe the main character should've been in his 40s for his concerns to actually qualify as concerns.
Anyway, since I know I'll never read the manga, I'm still eager to see these last few episodes. Hopefully they'll make some things right, though I'd rather have the creators animate more seasons. As it stands now, my grade for the show is just barely "good", while it should not be a challenge to continue this thing and make it a top quality romantic drama.
Nobody will fault a slow first season, as long more seasons follow, which is why it's a sad thought that the TV version of ReLIFE will likely stay incomplete.
Series in one sentence:
Two kids are insanely in love with each other, but they never even kiss.
Series in more sentences:
A toddler is gifted with the power to read minds, but as nobody likes to get confronted with the truth of their own thoughts, she quickly finds the world turned against her and calling her a liar. When even her parents abandon her, she enters a depression that carries over to her new school, years later. There she meets the first real friend she's never had, opening up the door to more friendships.
I'm surprised by how disappointing it turned out to be. It only has 12 episodes, yet it managed to jump the shark around the halfway point. It became less interesting with every episode, it felt like.
The show had a good start. We learn the main character's slightly overdramatic backstory, which sets the mood and teaches us all we need to know about her past and current position. After this flashback scene, we see her getting introduced to her classmates at her new school, who are immediately skeptical of the gloomy-looking newcomer, making it appear like switching schools was a pointless effort.
But then she meets the absent-minded stranger positioned next to her seat, who snaps out of his weird daydream and asks her who she is. Cue the cute intro song.
The relationship between these two was fair, but only when they were left alone and not being cockblocked by all these other characters. Or when the main character cockblocks herself for no reason. It's a shame that this duo adventure was so short-lived, though, as the series would've been better if it was just about them.
What I noticed is that this show wants to give the main character friends way too badly. Right after the boy forced himself upon her, without given an explanation why he even likes her, we're quickly introduced to two other characters. They are the leaders of a psychic club and wish for her to join, which makes enough sense, I suppose. Still a bit convenient to have such a club at this school.
Some time after, the main character makes another extremely loyal friend, and nobody in class causes her trouble anymore, either. That's the best conclusion you can hope for a depressed teenager, but my issue with this is; how can there be people who want to be friends with a confirmed mindreader, when the anime argued nobody wants to? That was the whole point of its lengthy intro, was it not?
The club leaders treat her well, but for some reason the female leader pretends to secretly be this evil, selfish villain who only wants to use the main character's powers to achieve her own goal. I don't get what for. These people are friends, she could've just asked her to help her clear her dead psychic mother's name, instead of getting all shifty and evil-eyed behind the scenes and misdirecting the audience that way. Or whatever it was she tried to do there. How is her goal even "evil"?
It became obvious early on that the series likes to be dramatic for the sake of being dramatic. A good example of this is the continuous "GOMENNASAI, it's my fault that <insert drama> happened..!" that was being thrown around between characters. It was really tiresome, especially as the role of the one crying and the one consoling the other got switched around every time. So, in one episode you'd have one character needlessly blaming themselves for some accident that happened, and the other person telling them it's not their fault, and the next episode it'd be the other way around.
Something else that was strange was the sudden 180 one of the bullies did. She actually was a selfish villain, until she became best friends with the main character, practically overnight. I thought she had a believable reason to be angry with the new kid, as she's been in love with the boy since forever, and it rightfully bothered her that her efforts got ignored by him, while the girl did nothing to win his love. And like the boy himself confessed, he doesn't even know why he started following her in the first place. Who wouldn't get upset over such a shrug in the script.
But the moment these girls become friends, the bitter bully suddenly turns into this emotional, bouncy bodyguard who sees no problem in her new BFF dating her childhood crush. She even wants them to be together. What the shit.
Apparently this psychic girl is such a perfect embodiment of kindness, she also manages to convert a mentally broken school girl-abuser. The worst thing about that episode is that it ends with the police chief basically being like "well whatever, you beat up random children, let's get a meal after this, bud".
It's not the only disturbing thing this show has to offer, as it also introduces a pedophilic, incestuous grandfather. It's one of the most horrible things I witnessed in anime, and I'm thankful his scenes were short. The choice to make this elderly man lust after his granddaughter is so destructive to his otherwise fine personality, why did they ruin this man with these short, disgusting scenes? That priest character should've been the grandfather, he was as caring as he was decent.
But the most insulting moment was when the girl's long absent mother returned. This character was a total bitch who very well knew her daughter was telling the truth, yet she chose to call her a liar anyway and abandoned her after calling her birth a mistake. But the series tries to fix this dead relationship by having this character just break into her daughter's home one night, no proper excuse from her why, giving the girl the opportunity to read her mother's mind/dream while she's asleep on her bed. She then learns her mother didn't want to abandon her, but was just weak-minded, but really sad about it, etc, etc, and that makes abandoning and traumatizing your 5 year old daughter fine, apparently.
I don't know what conclusion disgusted me more, this one or the one with the child abuser.
Despite all this, I kept on watching, hoping at least the romance between the main character and the boy would go anywhere. By reading this sentence, I think you know the answer.
He continuously tried to get close to her, but either she ran away from him, or that villain-gone-good suddenly appeared to be the cockblock wall or punching fist nobody asked for. It was unsettling to see this boy get beaten to a pulp just for imagining the girl he loves in a silly, sexual setting. And after everything he's done for her, and the unsubtle love they shared for each other throughout the series, things don't even end with a kiss. Boo.
The last thing I'll mention is that for a show about a mindreader, not alot of minds were being read. It's not a power she can turn off, so she should hear voices all the time, but she doesn't. Many episodes go by where only 2 or 3 inner voices are heard, and I find that not to be very realistic when surrounded by people all the time.
Also. How can two dark-eyed and dark-haired people birth an orange-eyed and orange-haired girl?
NOTE: Series is still ongoing, at the time of this review I was at episode 7
Series in one sentence:
This was a thing.
Series in more sentences:
A girl with a frighteningly low IQ and an obsessive love for bananas tries every day to swoon her childhood "friend", but fails because of the aforementioned facts.
With her mother also trying to sell her to him, and the ever-growing group of odd friends surrounding her, the boy is starving for intellectual company, but so far has only found it with a dog.
Well. We can at least say this anime succeeded in performing a comedic portrayal of male-on-female violence.
We see it the other way around often enough, because boys apparently have no nervous system and are fine to beat up, but this show taught me that it's not impossible to make a boy uppercutting a young pigtailed girl funny.
The series has an interesting formula, as it's just a bunch of random stories jammed together. Every story is just a few seconds long, so I'd say there's no time to get bored, but enough time for the jokes to land. So far there are jokes; most of it is unfiltered nonsense. I quite like it.
NOTE: Stopped halfway episode 5.
Series in one sentence:
A group of friends show an unrealistic amount of care and patience for an annoyingly stupid psychopath.
Series in more sentences:
A high school boy has been playing an online RPG with a group of faceless friends for a year, but when they decide to meet in real life, he discovers all of them are girls and attend the same school. More importantly, the young lady he "married" inside the game appears not to know the difference between it and reality, and claims him as her husband. The group decides to help her understand the difference by setting up a gaming club at school, where they can live interact to each other's antics.
It started out good enough and I was convinced the show deserved the many 5 star ratings it got from other viewers. The subject certainly interested me, but the series is not so much about gaming as it is about dealing with a total fruitcake who is a drain on society. But as expected in Japanese animation, this anime treats such a character as "cute" and "misunderstood". I've seen the trope countless times.
While the other characters in this group of friends act fine enough, there is one girl who's so far gone, she thinks it's normal to skip school just to play video games. Or to advocate for the murder of anyone who doesn't play games every second of the day and has a normal, healthy life.
These could be traits of an obsessed RPG-er with social and mental issues, but I don't even consider her to be a good portrayal or parody of that type of gamer. She is relatively attractive and far from good at the game she's playing; she plays it like, what she'd call, a normie. With other words, someone who doesn't know what they're doing and are more concerned with dressing up their avatar nicely. It doesn't make sense.
I stopped watching, because I just couldn't take all the "treat her well, she doesn't have many friends" and "she knows she can be dumb sometimes.."-babble throughout the series. This Ako girl is an unpleasant drama queen, and I would've completely ignored it if the series didn't try to convince me she's a misunderstood sweetheart.
I don't even understand what the relationship between her and the guy is supposed to be. He doesn't want to date her in real life, because he once had his heart broken by a girl player he confessed to, who claimed to be an adult man, but what does that have to do with this very real human girl standing before him? Is it just the idea he doesn't want to mix up gaming relationships with real life relationships? What is the logic in that? These kids go to the same school, good luck ignoring each other and then acting buddies behind a computer screen. That's not messed up at all. And the anime proved that not to work.
And then there's the thing that he already confessed to someone to like Ako, which is something I understand even less. He doesn't treat her according to this fact at all. Never mind he doesn't tell Ako this or accepts the relationship this girl eagerly wants, just who in their right mind would even fall for this mess? She's a deranged halfblood-yandere, and everybody keeps catering to her.
We'd have a stronger story if the majority played off in this game world and we wouldn't know whether Ako was a real girl or not till the very end of the series. Have the main guy meet a mousy, acne-ridden girl, and conclude he still loves her, since they've spent episodes building up a relationship online.
It's easy to fall for someone who's pretty, and in addition, to excuse their stupid faux-cutesy behaviour and dub it a "misunderstanding".
Who knows, maybe the show comes around after episode 5, but I lost interest.
NOTE: Skipped the last episode.
Series in one sentence:
Another story about an impossibly sweet, normal boy getting an annoying harem of supernatural girls forced upon him.
Series in more sentences:
An incompetent
angel is given the task to play Earth's Cupid, even though she's never experienced love herself and has adapted a lazy practice of forcing people together she personally deems a cute couple. One day a target misinterprets her visit
and kisses her, which manages to warm her up to the concept of love. She writes her name next
to his in her Death Note rip-off (confirmed) and binds their fates together by doing so, but because she still doesn't understand the rules, she joyfully adds 2 other
girls to the relationship as well.
What
a disgusting anime. If you've watched it already, you might think this
is an exaggerated description to give to a bouncy series like Love Tyrant, but
this is how the show tries to hide the fact it's disgusting.
I don't like incest, it's not romantic.
I don't like student and teacher relationships, it's not charming.
I
don't like obsessed yaoi fangirls, it's disrespectful towards.. well,
in this case everybody, really. Please, let us never give the power of
matchmaking to a yaoi fangirl.
I'll be fair and say that these topics
can be done well, but it needs to be done with seriousness. Being madly
in love with your sibling is a serious problem and an emotional ride for the people involved,
if anything else. A teacher being obsessed over his student is also
something no outsider should or would root for. And no teacher should confess to.
When people with these socially unacceptable issues are surrounded by dimwits who act casual about it, or treat it like a funny gag, it loses the value it already didn't have. I doubt
it that anybody ever laughed at incest, so why did the writers even add an incestuous character? A girl
peeking on
her sister while changing clothes is not funny or charming. In fact, later they add another girl hungry for her sibling. They really felt the need to show us two examples for some reason.
These
romances should be considered a problem, or at least kept a secret, but
the series presents it as something cute. This'll never be cute, you insane warped minds.
Still, the angel is the worst
character. She's this childish bother who already had no reason
getting involved with this boy's life, and then pretty much turns into a
background character the moment the plot makes its start. She's all
about making stupid faces and quirky remarks, while the other characters attempt to continue the story. She's a shameless waste of
space. In any show worth checking out she and the boy would be the only main characters and there'd be an actual focus on their growing love.
One of the girls she added to the "relationship" is this yandere character who attempts to kill the boy pretty much every episode. Would've been funny if she was in any other anime but this. She and her 2 relatives feel out of place; they are insane and have unexplained superpowers. They'd be locked up behind bars in any normal world. I bet you have to read the manga to know what is going on, but I don't wish to know what's going on, Love Tyrant is not worth it.
This anime is a bad trailer with some dubious choices. The yandere girl's incestuous sister makes me
barf, but for some reason the show decided to only give her a backstory and
the most healthy relationship with the main character. It's sad that their rushed story arch is the most interesting thing the show has to offer.
Love Tyrant just reminded me of Monster Musume;
this horrible anime about a boy that has to take in and care for a
growing group of monster girls who all want to marry him, and all are
incredibly annoying. I still wonder how I let myself give that an
average rating. Love Tyrant isn't getting one.
Series in one sentence:
A less funny and less self-aware One Punch Man.
Series in more sentences:
A
young teenager is gifted with immense psychic powers, but prefers to
not use them and wishes to live a normal life. As these powers tend to
take over his body when he becomes too emotional, the unpopular high
school student suppresses his feelings and swallows the comments thrown
at him daily.
While seemingly absent-minded and unimpressed by his
surroundings, he has his heart at the right place and always wishes the
best for everyone.
It
took me 2 episodes to get into it, but I can't say I didn't enjoy the
whole deal. It reminded me of One Punch Man, which makes sense, as it
appears to have been made by the same gentleman.
The similarities
urged me to compare the two shows, and while Mob Psycho is definitely
enjoyable, I still find One Punch Man to be the better One Punch Man.
Lewl.
I would've liked it if Mob Psycho 100 had a better title
was slightly more casual about the dangers presented. It had its funny
moments, but I've seen enough animes with the same types of jokes and
imagery; it's not an overdramatic/comedic masterpiece like its
predecessor. I don't think I can pinpoint what differentiates these shows
from each other exactly, but maybe it's that Mob Psycho's story wants to take its
characters more seriously than One Punch Man bothered to. There's a noticeable conflict within the psychic community about what they should do or feel towards normal humans.
Nearing the end of the season you can see
more of that One Punch Man-silliness bleed into the fighting scenes, but
the rest feels like an actual story with the occasional misplaced joke.
It
wasn't my intention to compare the two shows to each other like this, though,
it's not the kind of review Mob Psycho deserves, but when you watch the
show, it's hard to ignore that its main character is almost a copy of
One Punch Man himself. Just without the urge to become anything other
than normal, and being surprisingly fragile still. I think it looks weird when we see our stone-faced main character in need, often for no
reason but to further the story. He's described to be unusually powerful and when he chooses to engage in battle at the end, he fights his opponents with ease, but then suddenly fails. As if the series told him to "slow down, bitch", so there's still a conflict to carry over to season 2.
The main excuse the series gives for Mob's reluctance to fight is that he wants to protect people from himself by reinacting Ghandi. Even when the people he wants to protect are in lethal danger caused by someone else. Which is just a weird way of doing
things, but alright.
It
would be a shame to pass this one by, though. It really doesn't matter
if you've seen One Punch Man or not, I think it'll please both groups just fine. There aren't that many episodes, so you can watch
it all in a day and reach a fairly quick conclusion, without feeling your time has been wasted.
Besides, it's still the product of a mad genius that the manga and anime industry is lucky to have, there's no such thing as regrets.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
09-01-2023 UPDATE:
A while ago I finished the 3rd season, which, by the looks of it, concludes the series.
It started alright, but was ruined by two boring filler episodes that came right after an emotional death, and this same emotional death was further ruined by a total cop-out at the end of the season.
Speaking of the ending, what a rushed experience. Mob just suddenly loses his mind and enters an internal battle that could've used way more (or actual) foreshadowing throughout the series, and his careless destruction draws in all the other prominent characters, who use the moment to conclude their own story arcs.
Reigen showing up to confess his uselessness was the weirdest decision. What urged him to do this and why did it snap Mob back into reality? It was so random and dissatisfying.
Mob apparently suffered no repercussions for his murderous rampage, either, and people continue to act overly happy around him. Implausible, did not like the sappy ending.
Season 3 was a season I had high hopes for as it began, but it looked like the creators were in a hurry this time.
NOTE: I watched this movie in English
Movie in one sentence:
Like most stories; a boy is too devoted getting back a girl he barely knows.
Movie in more sentences:
Humans and nature got separated after an experiment went wrong 300 years ago, and a young girl that used to live in better times wakes up in this nearly destroyed world. She discovers the forest is now a living being that has given humanity rules they have to obey if they wish to use their resources.
She can't accept the lives of the struggling villagers that took her in, who lack the urge to change, thus she leaves to join the opposition; and helps them with their plans to destroy the forest with a weapon that happened to have been left behind by her long dead scientist father.
One of the many pro-nature animated movies the world has to offer, but I guess that aspect of it was done better than in most other environmental movies. At least, I didn't feel lectured to.
An aspect that was less well done was the supposed romance. The two main characters go from 0 to 100 on the love/friendship scale, and I have no idea what triggered it. After the girl decides to leave, the boy just immediately goes after her, pretty much demanding her to come back "home" and screaming her name like a maniac the entire second half of the movie. I don't understand why, they didn't share that many scenes together in the first half. Definitely no romantic ones.
Overall, I found this movie to be slightly boring, even though I kept watching. There's some great action in it, but it's so short and few, it's not making up for the emptiness of the story and its characters.
Another thing that bothered me was how easily this living forest gave away superpowers to these humans they supposedly distrust. Even if they had a good relationship, it's a foolish practise.
It's clear they don't possess the foresight needed to really know who is deserving or not, as they once gave the "villain" of the movie their blessing, so how can they trust themselves to know who to hand over their gift? Why was it so easy for the boy to convince them to do so? And why do these powers do what they do? Who would tie grey hair and superhuman strength together with forest life? It's cool and everything, but the only thing that refers back to it is when the humans turn into a tree if they overuse their powers and can't control their emotions.
Comic book hero-strength is not what I think of when a forest decides to bless someone, I'll be honest to say.
Besides the chance to turn into a tree, another downside to retrieving these powers is that it turns characters pretentious and dramatic. The male lead went from a playful child to a typical action movie hero the moment his hair went grey; there was nothing to relate to anymore, it was such a shame.
Especially at the end he turned into a wannabe forest-Jesus-hippy, I puked. He should've stayed a tree.
I don't think you'll have major regrets watching this, but there are definitely better movies out that deserve your attention.
NOTE: I watched this series switching through English and Japanese.
Series in one sentence:
God wastes His time granting a psychopathic non-believer intense powers and somehow thinks He's teaching him/her a lesson by doing so.
Series in more sentences:
A heartless businessman gets saved by God right before dying, but as he stays skeptical of His existence, the man gets reincarnated as a cute orphan girl, born into an alternate reality where magic exists and global war has taken over. God hopes to push the rude non-believer into dire situations that'll force him to worship his maker, but this proves quite challenging.
This series was requested to me. It was a good average and average good.
The main problem I had while watching this was the bombardment of strategy explanations, names, terms and titles. It didn't help that I followed some episodes in English and others in Japanese. I found myself often zoning out during these scenes, and everytime something or someone's name was mentioned, I had no idea who they were talking about until the next episode. Afterwards, I had forgotten again.
I hope my inability to focus is to blame for that, but it could very well be because the series simply wants to throw everything at you at once, so they can prepare you for a greater second season. Which is likely to come, if I have to believe the 12th episode.
I'm definitely going to see it when it comes, as this first season gave me a good taste of the story, but left me a bit unsatisfied.
I liked Tanya, but only when she was actually on screen fighting or being a psychopath. I also liked the bits where she was arguing with God, but this intriguing relationship was not in focus all that often; God Himself doesn't appear or speak much. The scenes I craved for the most were lacking, while you'd think they'd dominate the series when you read the general plot.
Tanya was still too likeable most of the time, or acted like a fairly acceptable member of the army. I expected a sneaky backstabber, like she was at the start, going rampage on the power of God at every opportunity, but I guess that doesn't fit her narrative of wanting to properly end the war and live the life of a queen as a revered ex-army major.
This plot, from her side, makes enough sense; as she's a hardcore Atheist who doesn't want to depend on God in any way and tries to work around His plans, despite having been put in a dangerous world.
But the character that is God holds little logic. He argues that Tanya, when she still was a male businessman, needs to know what it's like to suffer. He hopes that forcing her in a bad situation will make her desperate enough to want to abandon her pride and worship Him. In order for Tanya to avoid her reservation in Hell, she either has to become a follower of God or die a natural death, making the war setting hard to achieve the latter and supposedly easy to achieve the first. This is the part that makes enough sense, but what doesn't is that God reincarnates her into a world that inhabits magic, and gives Tanya a high level of the stuff. And if that's not enough, He grants her the ability to become even stronger if she half-heartedly praises His name before shooting someone in the face.
Why? Why would you aid someone like this? How is she suffering, she's pretty much invincible, and You made her that way.
The people in this world that actually believe in God get totally wrecked by her. How does her dishonesty compare to a real prayer? God is a grade A asshole. Making Him quite in-character, I'd say.
Still, this first season qualifies as a nice introduction. I hope to see more Tanya rottenness, large scale attacks, and God in the next.
