Series in one sentence:
The ugliest anime character in existence meets up with a tiger man-version of Inuyasha.
Series in more sentences:
Ushio finds a large beast in his shed sealed by a magic spear, who he was planning to ignore, but when strange creatures show up to attack his visiting friends, he gets coaxed into releasing him from his 500 year imprisonment in exchange for his help.
By claiming the spear, more monsters get drawn to him and he ends up learning about a powerful enemy he is destined to fight. With his new strange "friend", they're set on a journey to train and learn more about the upcoming battle.
It's been some time since I watched an anime longer than 12 episodes, I tend to avoid those unless I know I'll have the time for it, but this one kept me entertained all way through.
The monster, named Tora, is damn fantastic. He stole the show.
The boy, Ushio, is a crybaby bitch who feels way too emotionally involved with strangers' business.
The drama in this anime is overdramatic, distractingly so sometimes, these scenes did not make me cry and did not improve the story. If you have a character that cries every episode, you're not taking your own drama seriously. It doesn't help that Ushio pulls the most stupid faces when he cries as well.
Some of the other characters also act too involved, but it's clear that the excessive crying is one of Ushio's personality traits. So. Alright then.
Other than that, the storytelling was great, I don't remember an episode I considered a waste of time. Some were rushed, like the plot of the friend that started betraying them came the fuck out of nowhere, but you see the intent and for a relatively short anime it's fine.
It's a nice adventure series with good backstories and good Tora, much good Tora. Not flawless, but an average rating would've been unfair.
Movie in one sentence:
A bully wants to force a friendship onto his victim only because, let's get real here, he got bullied over it.
Movie in more sentences:
When a deaf student gets introduced to class, the initially curious children are quick to grow tired of the attention her handicap demands from them, which motivates the class joker to start bullying her for laughs. While no objections were raised at the moment, the boy is used as a scapegoat and gets all the blame when the principal shows up to address the bullying and the expensive damages for her hearing equipment.
His own friends turn against him and the boy grows up lonely, anti-social and suicidal, but sees his chance to make right when he meets up with his old bully victim.
Very atmospheric and lovely animation, but the execution was less exciting than I expected from a plot like this. I really wanted this to be about the deaf girl and the bully, but she was given relatively little screen time. Even when these two went out to do something, the movie didn't use the opportunity to have them properly bond without these awkward silences dominating them, the scenes being cut to a meaningless length, or less interesting characters taking over. I mean, yes, the girl is deaf and doesn't speak much, but they don't even write or hand gesture cool stories to each other. I found the contact distant and basic.
They didn't look like friends to me, but I have the same opinion about most of the people the main character started hanging out with. Steven Universe was the only person who acted like a friend. If you can call a desperate, possessive stalker a friend.
The other "friends" were bland or just very last-minute. That red-haired guy came way out of nowhere; no reason given for why he wanted to be friends with him at all. His presence was useless.
I didn't like how easily the main character allowed his old classmates to return into his life, either. There are these two girls who have proven to be just as foul as they were years ago, pulling the same dirty tricks without hesitance, yet were welcomed back in a second and presented by the movie as legit friends. Especially the greyish blonde girl was a backstabbing wet fish of a character who immediately puts up a crying act when she gets rightly accused of something. Fuck off with that shit. Why didn't the kid send them away? That black-haired girl alone made for awkward company the moment she showed up, who even invited her to the theme park? One thing this hateful bitch said was right, though, and that's that the main character was really boring now.
Seriously, compared to his old self, there's not much going on with him.
I guess that's the point, since he hasn't had much to be excited about, but I wish he at least developed a sense of humor when he started getting new friends. Just some trait that would ensure us we're still dealing with the same kid. His personality is just so bland, he was your standard nice guy.
In any case, not a terrible movie to sit down for, but for a movie about relationships, it didn't make me feel invested.
...
Also, is it normal for Japan to send children with disabilities to regular schools?
Series in one sentence:
A little ditzy kid turns into a muscular chiseled-faced man overnight and still everyone recognizes him as that same kid.
Series in more sentences:
Young Akira gets reunited with an old friend, who asks his help with a demon experiment he and his partner were busy with before he got possessed by one. The experiment becomes a success; and Akira gets taken over by a powerful creature without losing his humanity to it, turning him into an enhanced human being with the capability to transform into a full demon.
But his friend appears to have more plans in mind for the demon race, and it doesn't take long until the whole world is in chaos. Akira decides to fight for justice and tries to protect his loved ones in a world where both demons and humans have lost their minds.
Awful animation and art style, man, some scenes were just painful to watch. But cool intro.
I saw the icon for this at Netflix today, and I had time available, so there you go. When I first read the title I expected this was going to be something goofy, or at least comedic, but it's neither of these things.
Expect some heavy 18+ imagery and concepts, like damn me. I was eating lasagna during this.
The intro is a bit rushed, the relationships portrayed not all that fleshed out, and there's a very heavy focus on sex/sexual urges, but now that I've finished watching the whole thing, I can't say I didn't enjoy the plot.
The way the human race started losing their shit was a bit extreme, I always wonder if people would turn this hopelessly disgusting when met with a doomsday situation, but I guess it was needed to prove a point about humanity and demons?
More importantly, why did Akira trust his friend for so long? I stopped trusting that guy just a few episodes in, but he kept coming back to help him.
Anyway, I liked the conclusion, I didn't expect things to end in such a tragedy. It made the anime a whole lot stronger in my eyes.
Series in one sentence:
A boy with the weirdest bags under his eyes keeps getting surrounded by girls who want his dick.
Series in more sentences:
A talented and motivated magic student is transferred to a prestige school of magic and plans to become a high priest, but when he and his classmates receive their customary predictions for the future, he learns that his fate is to become a "demon lord"; a feared being that'll bring the destruction of the world.
Aw shit, I really had my hopes up this time. The first episode alone was the best introduction to a series I've seen since a very long time, but with every new episode, the story became less focused and more cluttered with characters.
The battle near the end was incredibly confusing. I was unable to follow why these newly introduced characters were doing what they were doing, as they were newly introduced characters.
I still don't know the deal with the red-haired girl, either. The whole part where the main character gave her the hairpin proved pretty pointless and the anime failed to explain to me why she was the clone of two different people. Maybe I was too bored to pay attention, but I'll also admit that the English subtitles didn't always make sense to me.
Many things in the anime proved pointless, though. Most of the screen time was devoted to the annoying red-head and the robot guard, even though the blue-haired chick should've been of bigger importance. She and the boy were somewhat romantically involved and their scenes were way more enjoyable, yet she was hardly in the series. Why was the moronic red-head "the key" at the end, but not the blue-haired girl? Why couldn't the series just be about the two characters it started off with? There was no need for it to become this semi-harem anime story.
By the time the girl makes a proper return, these two get pushed into marriage, while they hardly hung out before this event. Why? Don't know. The plot was very dumb and rushed.
What was also dumb was all the misplaced perversion in this series. Most of it consisted out of female crotch shots, of which some moments were censored and others weren't for some reason, but there's also one part where a character is messing around with a sea cucumber that looks and "acts" in every way like a dick. And another scene had one of the female characters caught in tentacle porn, basically. It was weird. Nowhere else in the series did things become that graphic, so why was valuable running time wasted on this?
The violence was also pretty inconsistent. Near the beginning the main character tortures a bunch of rebel students and it's real damn awesome, but everything else in the anime is so tame in comparison.. It's like this torture scene belongs to a different show, much like the sea cucumber scene.
If you want to have a good time, watch the first 5 episodes. Don't bother with the rest, it'll only get worse.
Series in one sentence:
A boy treats his dying robot girlfriend like an 8 year old cancer child, opposed to getting serious and romantic with her.
Series in more sentences:
A teenage boy gets hired as a staff member in a robot retrieval facility, but quickly falls head over heels for one of the robotic staff members. Who only has a few months left to live.
They're ironically teamed up to collect the robots that'll soon meet their date of expiration as well, and while their relationship starts off rocky, the artificial girl accepts his love confession and they spend their last days together.
I'm sad I didn't love this.
As Plastic Memories begins, you think every episode is going to cover an emotional story about a human and their robot companion being ripped apart from each other, starring our main characters as the collectors, who learn more about the meaning of life and each other as the series progresses, and then hopelessly fall in love. Yes. That would've been great.
But most of the episodes were about this boy looking for help to getting the robot's attention, who didn't grant him any most of the time, and staff members talking about her changed personality and upcoming fate. The sad thing is that despite she being the subject of almost every conversation held inside this company, I still don't know this character.
There was no consistency in her behaviour, you were dealing with a slightly, yet noticeably, different person every episode. Heck, every new scene.
Is she soft-spoken? Is she jealous? Is she uncertain? Is she serious? Is she intelligent? Is she dumb? Is she clumsy? Can't tell you, it all describes her, and at the same time, none of it describes her. To me, she had no personality and only showed off certain traits when it was necessary for the story to have her act this way.
One thing that was consistent about her is that she was the most uninteresting character in the series.
The story made it obvious that she had a 3 year long depression, but what exactly did that boy do to change anything? Was it that cheap carnival keychain he forced into her hand that made her fall for him? The anime also kept arguing they're a good team, but never showed this. It only told us the boy has a positive influence on her mood and working progress, but not once were we shown their supposed friendship grow. We just have to buy it, so that the series can move on and dump these two in a love relationship.
I can't say these two acted like good friends, ever; there's this "tolerated acquaintance"-vibe to their relationship that doesn't quite disappear when they officially start dating. Next to this already disappointing portrayal of two tragic lovers, the robot started adapting this sudden "It's fine I'm dying" mentality. Is that the emotional journey she was supposed to make, to suddenly not show sadness, even though she should care even more now, considering her previous stance on the matter and the changed circumstances? She feared death and heartbreak for the majority of the series, what happened to that? She feared it more than anyone else, moreso than her boyfriend. Is it because she's so happy to have a boyfriend, who she hardly spends personal time with, that she feels fulfilled and stopped caring? That's not very in-character or empathetic towards your partner.
Perhaps she's mirroring the boy's previous behaviour and borrowed that bullshit "smile of sadness"-tactic the anime brought up at one point. But why? This is not the right moment to do this. This doesn't concern a customer you failed to help, but you, and your partner, and the life you'll never have, but you could've pretended to have IF YOU AT LEAST BOTHERED TO SLEEP IN THE SAME BED, WHICH YOU DIDN'T.
In the scene where these two start talking about her approaching death again, the boy is the only one who gets visibly upset, while she takes on the role of the level-headed adult and only gives him an embrace. Even though she was acting like a small child earlier that day. And she was crying in her sleep over fearing to end up being alone. See what I mean with this character and her confusing personality?
And the same pretty much happens when her day of death arrives, he's bawling his eyes out and she doesn't even shed a tear for this poor fuck.
I'll clarify again; this robot was depressed over the idea that having a good time/good memories doesn't matter because she'll be dead eventually (and nobody in the show brings up that human life works the same way, but alright). She was bummed out, though felt like she still had to do her job inside the company, so forced herself through it. It made sense to her not to have fun anymore or bother doing anything else, as it would just make it harder to let go. But now we see the same person just sit there, with a face more dry than the damn Sahara desert in front of her heartbroken lover.
I mean. Maybe she didn't care because the guy and their relationship ended up being pretty lame? Lewl.
As I made clear in the short description at the top of the page, this boy acted like an underpaid Make-A-Wish employee and treated this girl like a child who'll be dying of cancer soon. I found his tone to be really patronizing at times.
The conversations he had with her consisted out of "Oh." and never-ending questions like "Do you like this?", "What do you want to do?", "Did you have a good time?", like Jesus, man. How about a real conversation, not this meaningless dribble?
These two did not act like lovers, which reveals their earlier confession scenes to have been insultingly overglorified. He treated her better when he wasn't yet made aware of her approaching death, it just seemed like he wanted to get with her because she was dying. As if he'd be doing her a favour by dating her.
Nevertheless, some scenes in this anime argued differently. Whenever these two take part in a truly emotional scene, you see and feel the mature love this boy has for this girl. But only then. Any normal day it's like you're watching an older brother having a day out with his baby sister.
These crying scenes make it look like you're watching an entirely different love story with different characters. There must've been a better storyboard artist present that day; these scenes were flawless and heartfelt, though heavily misplaced in this pathetic-ass relationship.
All in all, this anime offers a disappointing romance and a lacking look into the lives of these intelligent robots and their owners. This story could've just as well been about a lethally ill girl spending her days with her last minute boyfriend. There's no reason for this office setting and these robot people to exist if they were of this little importance to the overall story. Perhaps this is where the manga comes in?
Then why even animate a TV-show if you're not going to do it right.
There was one clever thing, though. Normally I skip the intros of anime shows, I hardly ever like them, but I was able to catch the last few seconds every time and I noticed the expression of the robot girl changing. It was basically foreshadowing the episode. I'm surprised I noticed it.
Series in one sentence:
All foxes are lesbian or gender-confused.
Series in more sentences:
A young fox demon gets sent off to work at an all-female fox hotel, sitting on the border of the mortal world and that of the gods. It is a place where strange and magical things happen, and valuable life lessons are learned.
There's some strong storytelling present in this series, which surprised me, as it first appeared like this show was going to be about this ignorant crybaby-fox girl getting into a rushed romance with her "tsundere" co-worker.
The show handles symbolism well and most episodes perfectly tie everything together at the last second. I found episode 4 and 8 to be really good, and the last episode would've been a superb ending, if we were dealing with an anime that wasn't this. Because the problem with Konohana Kitan is that it has no real focus, though pretends it does.
It's already difficult for a show to succeed when the main character is this unbearable anime-waifu cliché. I hated this character. The serious girl who has a crush on her isn't much better, though. She appears to appreciate the main character's overly involved personality, and doesn't mind hanging out with someone who acts like a 6 year old, despite the two supposedly being the same age. That would be unbearable for me.
The main character is the type of person who cries about everything, continuously makes these girly moaning and sighing sounds, and has an overall childish voice and mentality. She's supposed to be "the innocent and cute one", but these kind of characters never stick with me. They're an energy drain on themselves and others, which is why it's strange to see quite alot of fictional characters romanticise such a person.
She sniffles and sobs about the stupidest little things, but when a real tragedy happens that makes even my eyes watery, you get nothing from her. For example, she cried wild, high-pitched tears when her friend got shrunk in size for a day because of a drug she mistakenly took. Are you kidding me.
Speaking of which, the romantic tension between her and this girl is so nonsensical and rushed, I couldn't take it seriously the moment it started. The one between the pink-haired girl and the totally-not-a-boy is way more developed, even though that one also ended without a satisfying conclusion. Many of the storylines were short and ended abruptly after they were given their own episode. The introduction to the pig creature and living puppet is a good example of that, these two characters were pointless to have.
What else is there to say. The few good episodes made it worth not turning off the series when I already started watching, but I don't think they're good enough to start watching.
Series in one sentence:
Get flooded by a large selection of awkward, yet somewhat relatable romance stories.
Series in more sentences:
A bunch of random highschoolers try to either start or survive the relationship with the one they love. As they're all new to the concept, misunderstandings become a part of their daily life.
It was fast-paced, yet some of the less interesting romances got way more attention than others. When I finished the anime, I realized many didn't even get a proper conclusion, which was a bit of a let-down. The story with the nerds could've been its own anime.
Not all the characters were interesting, either, but I know it can be difficult to have such a large selection of characters and make them equally exciting. And I suppose you can argue not all love stories in life are equally exciting.
For a show that just wants to portray different kinds of relationships, it's not a huge problem.
All in all, a good watch, especially thanks to the short running time.
Series in one sentence:
I immediately become lesbian for some girl, just based on how their in-game avatar looks, but then I become straight for multiple men who say something nice to me in a grocery store.
Series in more sentences:
30 year old Moriko quits her stressful job to return to a nostalgic life of playing online RPGs, and is quick to feel charmed by the helpful stranger leading her through her new game of choice. But she's playing a male character and is pretending to be a university student, while her new friend is a female character who appears a bit too enamoured by her and the way she plays along in their digital romance.
When her personal life starts to demand more from her, Moriko discovers her new friend is an old friend from long ago, and is practically living around the corner.
It took me a few episodes to take the story and characters seriously, as the woman's reaction to everything that happens inside the game is extremely exaggerated. As someone who likes to play RPGs, I'm never sure if I'm supposed to relate to that kind of cartoony nonsense.
Alot of these online gaming animes have their characters act this way, I noticed.
I didn't understand the point of Moriko getting a boner over a pink, girly in-game character, but the outdoors scenes are what made me stay for the rest of the series. Moriko was pretty enjoyable when interacting with real life people. This is one of the more "realistic" RPG animes I've seen so far.
The romance plot was decently paced, though I will say that the ending left me unfulfilled. I always find it a bummer when characters go through so much and nobody hugs or kisses at the end of it. The series was very basic and tame in that sense.
Though my biggest complaint is that, despite the show being short and having a good focus in general, time was wasted on unnecessary characters and story lines. For example, the jokey guy Moriko dated for half a second, as for the episode where he joined the game, were events that the story could've done without. The latter bit was funny, but short, and didn't progress the story all that much.
The grocery guy who learned about Moriko's username also added less than expected.
I also don't understand why Moriko is the way she is. She acts like an abused dog, but nowhere in the anime was it made clear that people have been mean to her in the past. There was no reason given for her anti-social behaviour.
She had an overwhelming job, but she was good at it, and that's pretty much it.
It seems to me that the only reason she thinks she's worthless is because she likes to play video games all day and night and doesn't comb her hair, which she personally deems a problem, but when she goes outside, people aren't even unkind to her. It's revealed that men used to think she was pretty when she still showed herself.
What motivated her to give up on real people and real life, exactly?
There are only a few episodes. It's a quick watch with many satisfying moments, but if you don't like shows that feel like the bare bones of something greater, you might as well not check it out.
NOTE: Watched the first 13 episodes.
Series in one sentence:
A teenage orphan is fine with potentially being sold as some monster's sex slave, but is damn lucky not to end up in this situation.
Series in more sentences:
A magically gifted girl with a bad past and nothing to look forward to gets coaxed into selling herself in the hopes of receiving a place she can finally call home.
A large demonic beast is quick to show up and spends millions on her. He reveals his intentions of training her to become a mage, a nearly extinct class. And marrying her.
It was alright. There's a good flow and the characters are pleasant, but still.. alright.
The story itself is great and every episode makes sure to reveal something new, but none of it made me bop up and down in excitement.
Maybe, in a strange way, the two main characters are to thank for that. They are both very calm and serious people; they tend to state their feelings as if they are facts. It's basically Beauty and the Beast, if Beauty and Beast were socially inept and had digested xanax.
It's a slow and untraditional love story, but I'm fine with that, as long there are more episodes planned.
This first season feels like an introduction to these characters, something cute needs to happen fast. Lewl.
