(Average+) Leo

Movie in one sentence:
Dr. Phil if he were a reptile. So Dr. Phil.

Movie in more sentences:
An old classroom reptile thinks his life is coming to an end and regrets not having done anything of note during it. He hopes to use one of the students to escape and enjoy the rest of his time out in the wild, but learns she's struggling under her insecurities and settles on helping her instead.

No student is without grief, distracting Leo from his initial plans and ending up becoming their therapist, but when the disliked substitute teacher learns he's the sole reason she's getting credit for the children improving, she figures she has to get rid of him and dumps him in the wild he always craved for.

Regretting the decision and the children missing their friend, the class goes out to find him before it's too late.

A praised movie, but really, only because it came out together with the failed 100 year celebration project from Disney, called Wish, because Leo really isn't that great.
Animals in it talk, no explanation given, some jokes are good, but none made me snicker, scenes and interactions are rushed, and the overall plot not one you'd deem entertaining. Or at the very least, not one I'd give to a cartoon animal. Even though it wasn't done badly.

Not until Leo leaves the classroom do things get a bit interesting, but when you think you're going to get some good life advice from this lizard, the movie cuts these home meetings short and just claims Leo has been helping the entire classroom for who knows many weeks. Alright, but how about showing us that? His scenes with the children aren't even that long, you could've done that, easily.
But then again, would that make for an interesting movie plot. Maybe for an educational TV-series for kids, but we already have Sesame Street, so.

More distractingly, Leo is a musical and the songs are horrible. The singers tried their best, but many of the tracks sound like multiple melodies smushed together and the lyrics are average dribble. Did not like it.
Adam Sandler also made the strange decision of giving the main character, Leo himself, this stupid parody of an old person's voice. It's remarkably weird, because he's supposed to be a genuine character with genuine intentions. Why make fun of him? The voice became tolerable later on, though it certainly did not change my opinion on it.

To say I regret watching it would be going too far, but it also didn't enrich me. Leo has no rewatch value.

(Average+) Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song

Series in one sentence:
Hatsune Miku wants everyone to not die, just so she has an audience.

Series in more sentences:
A simple theme park robot is one day hacked by foreign software, who claims to come from the future and in need of her assistance stopping the war between humans and AI, expected to happen in 100 years.
Though not built for the task, Vivy is able to turn her directive of "making everyone happy with her singing" into the desire to protect and joins the strange robot, Matsumoto, on this quest of sabotaging their own kind's evolution.

An interesting story, many dramatic turns, not even the ending feels like much of an accomplishment, but I would've liked the series more if it weren't for all these characters and their confusing reasoning for why they did what they did.

None of the "changes" that Vivy and her partner make in the timeline are much of changes at all, yet square Wheatley calls it a day every time, whereafter he bails on Vivy for literal years until she's needed again. They are given no time to build a relationship, which is fair, they're robots, but we the viewers are not robots. I didn't like these massive time skips much. Wheatley won't even retreat inside her head to haunt her like he did at the start, he just erases himself from existence.
This cube is an absolute failure, he's not even able to figure out why the future refuses to change in any significant way. Maybe because you didn't do anything?

It's also shown that time travel can be done quite casually, no idea how, and so, what stops the villain from time travelling themselves and breaking Vivy in half on her day of birth?
I'm also not sure how the cure for stopping the robots is valid after travelling back in time to a point before that cure was given, because this cure is basically (or should be) the villain having added a string of code to all rampaging AI that allows them to pick up on the "cure", done so after the villain spoke with Vivy. Not a string of code applied to Vivy. There are many plot holes like these in the series.

..Square Wheatley also sounded alot like Kurosensei from Assassination Classroom, I could've sworn it was the same voice actor, but only spiritually, I suppose. He also talked way too fast, I struggled a fair bit reading the subtitles at certain times, which matters, because he spews out important information.

(Average) The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent

Series in one sentence:
"I got so distracted by all that talk about herbs and alchemy that I forgot to ask about the monster attacks.." ~Sei, perfectly summarizing this fucking anime's problem.

Series in more sentences:
An overworked office worker is suddenly transported to a different world, in need of a holy saviour. She spawns alongside another girl, who is believed to be their saint and thus welcomed by the prince, while the older and less charming Sei is assumed to be an accidental summon.

With no way to return home, Sei is forced to find a purpose for herself and settles on becoming a potion maker, satiating her interest in herbs. Whilst learning the ropes, people begin to think a mistake has been made, since her magical abilities far exceeds that of the girl under the prince's smothering care.

Stop talking. Stop talking about herbs. Stop talking about fucking herbs, you unbearably boring show. For what reason is this such an inexplicable borefest! Where are the monsters! Where's the drama! Someone die, please!

The ingredients for a cool story are there, but Saint's Magic rarely cares to get to the point. Instead, it shows you Sei going on and on about her lame interests and how to improve her skills for her lame interests. Get comfortable, because your stupid ass is going to listen to every word of it. Hope you weren't expecting, you know, an actual adventure in this isekai series that speaks of monster attacks.

Sei spends her days happily performing her yawn-inducing hobby that accidentally exposes how strong her magic abilities are. Her love for herbs and alchemy felt so random. The only thing you learn about her before she gets summoned is that she was overworked and lived by herself. How does someone like her even have the time to be involved with a hobby like that, or know how to cook using herbs? The overworked don't cook, they are microwave artists.

Sei is an excruciatingly boring character in all terms; personality, interests, and physical design. The latter is more or less on purpose, but then, couldn't you at least work on her personality?
Most episodes don't further the story in any meaningful way, and those that do, only have about a minute of actual development.

Stop fucking making healing potions all day, go out there and fight monsters, which you were summoned to do! Shit!

In one episode she complains about the food, making you think she landed in a world were spices and such don't exist or are not considered as a food condiment, but then she goes on a date with her bland blond boyfriend an episode later, and the shish kebab they buy in some random village is apparently "oishī" like every anime character shouts out when they eat anything at all.. so then, what is it? Is this an old-timey world where its food does not compare to the overprocessed snacks of today, or does this kitchen at this ROYAL PALACE not know how to cook? Some random village fool is better than trained chefs, appointed by the king, really? Sad.

The series tries to get better further on, episode 7 finally shook me awake and features the other saint. This girl is everything I hoped Sei would be.
Aira is confused, cries over having lost her old life, and at the very least somewhat questions her surroundings and its people. She doesn't just settle on doing some random hobby, smiling away as if she hasn't been kidnapped.
The prince promises to look for a way to get her back home, giving her a good reason to get her spirits up, in fact, this guy has more of a story arc than any of the male characters Sei interacts with.

And then the episode ends. Back to the sleeping medicine that is Sei's story. And don't worry, Aira's superior story receives the most anticlimactic end, so no reason to get too upset.
They do no one right in this series.

There are only a few battles Sei takes part in and they're all slow and boring. Every other battle is fought off-screen, whereafter the soldiers return, gravely wounded, because not even highly trained soldiers who were born and raised in this world can take on these uninspired monsters plaguing them without losing a hand.

Sei doesn't do anything of true importance the entire series long. She makes potions all day that are supposedly very good, but then, why do men still return beaten up from battle? Doesn't sound like her craftsmanship makes any real difference.

The ending would've been alot more impactful if it were the entire country that got destroyed in battle, and if Sei and the captain had shared more scenes together that didn't consist out of her bolting it out of embarrassment. These two really didn't hang out that much throughout the story.

There's no resolve for Aira, who once expressed wanting to leave and instead assumed the position of Hogwarts student, the prince who looked after her and had the most intriguing story despite his few minutes of screentime got completely erased from the story, and the friends Sei started off with also make no prominent return.
This was a non-adventure. The most empty isekai I've seen, and I've seen aplenty empty isekais.

(Average+) The Misfit of Demon King Academy

Series in one sentence:
A super powerful and unbeatable god somehow fails to earn the world's grovelling respect, just because he wasn't born rich.

Series in more sentences:
Tired of fighting with each other, Voldigoad the demon king and Kanon the hero agree to force a period of peace upon the world by separating the races with magic -requiring the demon king's death.
Voldigoad is reborn 2000 years later and wishes to see the fruit of his sacrifice, but instead, discovers history seems to have rewritten itself and someone else is claimed to be the notorious demon king, while no one knows his name. A strange power dynamic also seems to have been set, where pureblooded demons are put under higher regard than anyone else.

It's alright, but the majority of scenes are just a ramble of words that barely explain anything. The most fun moments were the fights where Voldigoad just murders people for the lulz, but his resurrection ability makes it so that there are no stakes in the story. Nothing truly matters, because you know this man will win every endeavour, with his friends waiting at the end of the road, no matter how many blades they get shoved inside their stomach.

The only thing in terms of suspense the anime offers is its drama, which is bad, because it requires you to care about these characters you've only known for one episode.

The villain is comically consumed by hatred, and his backstory hardly shows anything, yet you're expected to sympathize with him as he dies. No thanks.
The end battle itself was also boring. It should've ended after Voldigoad killed himself again, but of course, he had to come back 5 seconds later with another confusingly worded explanation as to how even.

Also, this is one of those series where it claims different races exist, but the vast majority of them look human, or rather, the humans look equally weird and fantastical as the demons. It makes it hard to understand why these groups are fighting at all, and they all use powerful magic as if that's normal, making the reason for their war even more confusing. Chillin' in my 30's had the same problem.

(Good) My Home Hero

Series in one sentence:
Just wear a hat.

Series in more sentences:
A concerned father ends up killing his daughter's violent and trashy boyfriend, but as he's the son of a powerful mob boss, he finds himself in an inescapable situation where he has to lie his way out of being their suspect.

The set-up is a bit lazy. The anime just tells you that the guy loves his family, opposed to being shown this, and you have this otherwise normal girl somehow getting involved with this undeniable piece of shit. But, when that lacklustre intro was done with, I had a great time. This man's wife is a bad bitch.

I didn't care much for the end fight, though. The mob boss presents himself as a strong and intimidating man, but he's a weakling, and his love for his son was basically talked into him. He wasn't an active parent when it mattered, the boy was already a late teenager by the time he finally started caring, and still, he did nothing for him as a parent. He only did the boy favours as a mob boss. I suppose that's on purpose, but if the two never had a bond to begin with, why should I care.

Anyway, yes, this was a fine watch.

(Average+) Sugar Apple Fairy Tale

NOTE: Stopped watching after episode 2 of season 2.

Series in one sentence:
A girl and a fairy fall in love, but only for 3 seconds per episode.

Series in more sentences:
After the death of her mother, Anne vows to follow in her footsteps and even surpass her by becoming a master sugar artisan. She plans to attend the upcoming competition for that much wanted medal, but can't travel the long and dangerous road without a bodyguard.
In a world where fairies are casually enslaved and made to assist humans, she settles on hiring a warrior fairy to escort her.

Though the stoic Challe makes for difficult company, she recognizes the kindness in him and the two agree to keep travelling together when she loses and is forced to extend her journey to success.

Rushed and unexciting story.

I don't like Anne. Her whole personality revolves around making sugar statues, and it's just not interesting to watch someone obsess about a matter that has no real consequences if she were to fail at it. Her mother is already dead, and wanting to symbolically send her soul off to Heaven only after having acquired some job title is not a conflict. I don't care. No one should care. And Anne herself doesn't care, because after all the whining and crying, she doesn't get the medal and then concludes it doesn't matter, as there's always next year.
What the hoot? Well, thanks for that, Sugar Apple Pie Fairly OddParents. Tell me nothing matters without telling me nothing matters.

Anne's mother should've been deadly ill or something. If Anne started this quest to status to save her mother or make her proud before dying, that would've made sense.

The warrior fairy is your typical eyes-closed-and-leaning-against-the-wall character. The speed in which he fell for Anne was really sudden, and every episode is basically the same deal; where the guy hardly speaks, and then a somewhat romantic scene with him and Anne randomly transpires for a few seconds. That's all he was good for. And for getting compliments about his appearance from other characters, even though the series is filled with human men who'd qualify as "beautiful" fairies if you stuck elven ears onto them.
There's a small fairy friend Anne travels with as well, and as is the case with all small variants, he is loud and annoying. Only the human-sized ones have any grace. How convenient for romance.

The heel turn antagonist was funny at the start. Psychopathically random is a good way to describe it. I didn't think Anne was especially nice to him, she downplayed his feelings for her constantly, so really, I thought "Lewl, good on you, weird little boy" as he rode off in his carriage, but he overstayed his welcome immediately.
After going on about wanting to marry Anne and acting so sweet, the sudden poisonous vitriol he exudes the rest of the series felt odd. Why did you want to marry her in the first place if you hate her? Was that an act, and if so, for what purpose?
He should've been a non-murderous rival from the start, it would've made the rest of his story arc make sense, because as of now, I don't even understand why Anne allows him to approach her. Why is this boy not in jail? He tried to get you eaten alive by wolves, fool.

Near the end of the season, the story suddenly reveals that the practise of sugar creation is a gendered profession. That's the conflict now, hope you like it.
Not once was this mentioned in the rest of the series, feels like lazy last-minute drama, but one that would've worked if that were the anime's main conflict since episode 1.
The reason women aren't welcome is because of some Adam and Eve rendition where the woman fell in love with a fairy, though it apparently just concerns a king and queen in a time period where all of humanity already exists.
..So, having that said, why is this one queen deemed the spokeswoman of all women..? I guess we can argue the same thing about the character that is Eve, but really.
This backstory also made me wonder what the point of all the fairy hatred even is. They never seemed to be a threat to the humans and I don't feel like the anime gave a good reason why this war and fairy slave trade came to be. The human king used to be the fairy king's slave, except not really, they were good friends..? Okey? The only "proper" reason people give in the show is basically "Because God said we are cool and fairies are not".

There's so much more they could've done with this. It's said that any living creature that stares down an object may birth a fairy, but I don't think it makes sense for human-like beings to emerge because a deer looked at a berry. Humanity needs a reason for their hatred, so why not change the story that only humans can create fairies, and when that happens, their life span is halved and their lose their soul to that fairy, rendering them unable to enter Heaven? That sounds like a fair reason to dislike the fairy race, or perhaps kill them as an attempt to get your soul back. Or maybe the slave trade emerged because fairies got guilted into serving the humans for existing.
Anything is better than "humans just be evil".

I wasn't planning on watching season 2, because I didn't expect it to give me anything worth my time, but I was presented an interesting cliffhanger. It hinges on the supposedly romantic relationship between Anne and Challe, though, which isn't developed at all. Like I said, every episode only spends a few seconds on it. It's also strange to know they've supposedly travelled together for a year, and their relationship hadn't already developed past to what it was on day 3 of knowing each other.

So then, why should I care that the guy sold his dick so Anne could win an objectively useless award in order to get an arbitrary job title for something she can practise and sell without?
Well, because if anything, I was curious if the anime was going to up the antics and present a real conflict worth following.

And of course it didn't.

Challe gives himself to a young lady who's madly in love with him, but very conveniently hasn't "disgraced his honour" in the days she's locked the man up inside her bedroom. They only kissed once, hugged, and she wanted her head caressed by him as she fell asleep. And listen, I'm kinda happy that this didn't turn into a molestation horror story, but it's very much what my pessimistic mind expected from this show. Season 2 barely started, and Challe has basically already been saved. Riveting.

I'm not watching more of this. I'm sure it'll be fine for some people, but I can't pretend to care for Anne's plight, nor this romance that looks like a list of bullet points getting crossed off.

(Average) Liar, Liar

NOTE: Stopped watching after episode 3.

Series in one sentence:
Come to a fake school where everyone fucks around and no one studies.

Series in more sentences:
Hiroto visits an island with special academies to find a lost childhood friend, but accidentally meets and beats one of the most revered students in a school-approved competition.
In order not to embarrass her, his head master suggests he pretends to be a prestige student himself, pushing him into a life of always having to battle and perform against other students.

An easy premise, but bad choices all around.

It throws this boring, short-lived mystery at you and doesn't even let the boy fight his own battles. His work is done for him every time by this hacker team his school master assigned to him. Why can't he figure it out himself or just be one of those stupidly lucky main characters? This is the least interesting route they could've taken this anime.
It's not like any of these games have anything to do with intelligence, anyway. In fact, they're a waste of time, why are they allowed and deemed important? What does racing and stare contests have to do with education?
The special abilities students can enable are always random shit they pull out of their ass whenever it's convenient. None of the competitions I've seen were exciting because of this alone.

Things got laughably overdramatic in episode 3, and of course, the two girls he just met are already in love with him. Man, I'm just not in the mood for it.

(Average+) My Happy Marriage

NOTE: Stopped watching after episode 7.

Series in one sentence:
Japanese Cinderella.

Series in more sentences:
Miyo is a young girl born in a prestige, supernatural family, but when her father discovers she doesn't have powers, all attention and respect is shifted to her prodigy of a stepsister.
She becomes a servant in her own home and grows up to become shy, obedient, and skittish.

When her father receives an offer to give away one of his daughters to a notoriously rude lord, he chooses to rid himself of Miyo, but said lord is not as cruel as believed and shows empathy for Miyo's past. Meanwhile, another family has their eyes set on her.

Slow pacing, yet a rushed story. The plot is alright on paper, but the lord and his servant are way too quick to feel enamoured by Miyo, though the anime more or less explains that's because all other candidates were unapologetic gold diggers.
The magic aspect of it all feels like an afterthought as well. It tries to bring it back as episode 7 crawls closer, but I still didn't see the importance of these ghost whisperers and wizards, especially when the world itself is portrayed to be normal. With a rather confusing mix of modern and feudal elements.
Never even saw the supposedly superior stepsister use her powers, and magic is only brought up when characters want to establish how prestige a family is. Very nice and all, but you can be prestige without the ability to cast firaga.

The main character is one of those anime archetypes I don't like: inaudibly mousy. She talks a fair bit, but always with this extremely whispery voice, which I imagine would make it nearly impossible to make out for anyone who understands Japanese and doesn't have subtitles.
Then there's the subject of her celebrated bloodline -a reveal that confuses matters. Miyo is apparently the descendant of a powerful family most don't even believe exists, so then, why does her family mistreat her? It shouldn't matter she doesn't have powers herself, she has the blood of a wanted legendary family, she should be worshipped regardless.

It also confused me that Miyo wouldn't even contemplate choosing her best friend as her husband. This guy was her only friend and cheered her up for all those dreary years. Does the lord really win the love game here? They've interacted way less in comparison. Looks like appearance and money do matter.
The best friend is given a miserable ending with a miserable wife, even though he's done everything in his power to help Miyo. He's not even given the chance to confess and get that weight off his heart. In a different anime, he would've been the main character and love interest.
Maybe it would've been better if he were left out of the story.

That the stepmother and stepsister didn't get their faces punched in by the lord was also surprising. Very sexist, lol. You're free to destroy a bitch if they torture your loved one, it doesn't matter what's between their legs. I have spoken.

Anyway, I stopped watching, because episodes are still in production and I don't see this turning into anything I'd care to see. It's full of drama and romance potential, but none of it exciting.

(Average+) Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion

Series in one sentence:
My Next Life as a Background Character: All Routes Lead to Doom!

Series in more sentences:
A girl is murdered and wakes up inside the body of a fictional character from a book she's read, destined to die at the hands of her fiance. Wanting to evade her fate, she blackmails the powerful and prestige male lead into acting as her new fiance, but their relationship grows more sincere over time.

With Raeliana now taking the place of the true female lead, Beatrice, it changes many things about the original story, and Beatrice herself is nowhere to be seen.

Started off alright, but I don't recall any of the episodes leaving me particularly satisfied to have seen it. There is this tame atmosphere going on, hard to explain. Perhaps calling the script and events "subdued" is the right description.

My main issue with the show is that there wasn't really an issue. Raeliana wants to get out of a marriage, because she knows this guy will try to kill her, but there are a million ways to resolve that. Raeliana takes the most dangerous route of blackmailing a powerful person with sensitive information, putting her at risk of getting killed by this duke. Which, quite honestly, should've happened right as she dared to open her mouth.
Go ahead and try to threaten royalty inside their own office, I can assure you your ass will be "going on a trip of self-discovery in Africa". Your clueless family will never see you again. What was she thinking?
And her plan will also end up embarrassing both her and duke Noah; because it requires them to publicly announce their union, then suddenly break up a few months later, basically turning the both of them into "damaged goods". I imagine that matters for people of their standing. What excuse were they planning on giving to the public?

I felt nothing for the romantic scenes. Noah could be rather rude to her outside of these moments, so you're not rooting for them, and Raeliana wouldn't stop inner monologuing about how fake their relationship is, whilst chewing him out whenever he actually tried to act the part of her fiance.

Beatrice makes an extremely late appearance, and I'm not sure what they're planning on doing with her, but I'm also unsure if I care for it. I think the anime would've been better if Raeliana had to deal with her since day one, because absolutely nothing's standing in her way of, well, anything.

(Average+) Mashle: Magic and Muscles

Series in one sentence:
One-Punch Saiki Mob goes to Hogwarts.

Series in more sentences:
Mash is a young man, abandoned since birth for possessing no magic in a world where one's status is determined by it. Out of future precaution, his foster father forces him to physically train himself every day and not venture out into the open where people may discover the truth about him.

But when the police finds his whereabouts, the captain wishes to make a deal; and Mash is tasked to attend magic school, earn high enough grades to earn the title of "Divine Visionary", and hand over all the wealth that comes with it.

The amount of stuff this show takes from the Harry Potter series is distracting at times, and Mash himself is a mix of other well-known overpowered anime characters, but I very much liked him and the general plot.

His friends, not so much. I didn't feel like they added anything and they would come and go at random times. Often, they were flat-out annoying. The episodes that focused on them were a bore.

The series itself started off nicely, but I couldn't really get myself to care as it progressed. I'd watch another season if it includes a whole lot more Mash, he's the only fun thing in this show. I liked his gimmick of how he turned into a psychopathic murderer at seemingly random times. You keep forgetting, since he's so monotone and otherwise harmless, then you fight him, and he talks about burying you alive because you might snitch on him. That is funny.

But, this just doesn't share the humor, excitement, and charming side characters of One-Punch Man, Mob Psycho, The Disastrous Life of Saiki K., or Harry Potter.
It attempts to, it really does.

(Good) My Clueless First Friend

Series in one sentence:
Little boy has an extra chromosome. Encrusted with gold.

Series in more sentences:
Nishimura has always been bullied for her dreary look, but when the new kid in class takes her nickname "The Grim Reaper" seriously, he becomes determined to befriend her and witness her supposed powers.

I liked this alot, it was a fun, though repetitive friendship. Nishimura often mutters how Takada shouldn't get involved with her, despite the guy having made clear since day one not to care, and you can do that for 2 episodes, but after that, it's time to get the picture and stop dictating how others should feel about you.
And then there's Takada himself. This guy fucks. His intrigue for getting cursed was strange and he didn't really come up with any other powers for his Grim Reaper interpretation, but he was enjoying himself and his unbreakable optimism was funny.

I did wonder early on: would people realistically speaking be fine with getting lovingly called something they're also vindictively called on a daily basis? The show addresses the question, and I suppose it's not bad to take a bad word and turn it into something silly or positive, but still.
I remember back in junior high, there was this troubled kid who called me "dragon fucker", because I'd draw dragons in class and often wore a necklace with one on it. Now, if some other guy came up to me, with stars in his eyes, and said "YOU FORNICATE WITH DRAGONS?! OMG, ARE YOU THEIR QUEEN, HOW DID YOU TAME THEM, SHOW ME YOUR OFFSPRING!", I'd worry more about his mental health than that of the one bullying me.

It wouldn't charm me, but I suppose "dragon fucker" is less easy to twist into something cool than "Grim Reaper".

Nishimura's classmates were awfully one-dimensional. They insulted her for the sake of insulting her, and I expected a more sensible reason for it. She has a penetrating stare, so she's The Grim Reaper? Alright, but what else?
Hino isn't looking that "attractive" either and has a tank top fetish, yet no one is making his life hard over it. His existence also raises the question where he was before Takada showed up. Why didn't he befriend Nishimura first, he clearly doesn't care about her bad reputation. The same can be said about Hino's childhood friend, who obviously doesn't enjoy the bullying Nishimura endures, so then, where was she when it mattered?
Her love story with Hino was also pointless. She rarely approached him. Just come up with a different reason for her and Nishimura to bond as friends if it's going to be like this.

As for the rating, I wondered. The series is cute, but it didn't feel like any of the episodes established anything new. Takada blindly adores Nishimura, that is the joke every time, and even when they realize to be in love with each other, they're not sure what they're feeling, since they're blissfully ignorant children. But well, I've given high ratings to lesser shows, so "Good" it is.

..Also, I couldn't have been the only one left confused by the bit where Nishimura had pigtails in. She had pigtails in the swimming episode that came way before it, so why everyone pretended she did something new, I can't guess.

(Average+) Barbie

Movie in one sentence:
It's only alright when women have absolute power.

Movie in more sentences:
In a perfect, pink world, where Barbie and Ken dolls live out their immortal lives, one Barbie suddenly experiences human emotions and a body that's losing its plastic perfection.

Understanding that this is likely caused by her demoralized human owner, she visits the real world to find this child and cheer her up. Her less popular and self-proclaimed boyfriend, Ken, comes along with her and feels inspired by the real world -a reality where men actually have value- and takes all he's learned back to the other shunned Ken dolls in Barbieland.

I was looking forward to this movie and went to the theaters for it. The trailers made it look like it was going to be campy nonsense, the likes of White Chicks, but I was unpleasantly surprised by what it ended up being.

About 10% is campy nonsense, I laughed, but the musical scenes really dragged and the rest of the movie was this exaggerated "patriarchy vs women" preach-fest. It portrayed the real world as this anxiety Hell for women (and women only), where men unabashedly catcall and assault them without getting scolded by bystanders. Like, really? In today's age? In America? And a woman gets arrested for defending herself after getting her ass slapped? All very unlikely situations, just like Ken not receiving a single homophobic remark for basically wearing the same attire as her.
"Toxic masculinity" is very selective in its toxicity, it seems like. Or perhaps Ken did the right thing by taking on a positive attitude and moving on, instead of getting depressed and teary-eyed the moment people made eye contact with him. The pervert touching Barbie deserved to get socked, but again, would any man today actually do that, let alone in public? Accompanied by whom people would likely assume is her boyfriend?

I suppose the idea in this particular scene was that Barbie had turned so far human -or rather, into her human owner- that she understood what was going on and felt uncomfortable by it.. but.. I would've preferred if the movie hadn't taken this route. Her acting like a downer isn't funny and is a wasteful use of the Barbie property. Couldn't she and Ken explore the world as their innocently clueless doll selves? The movie lost its comedic edge rather quickly and felt needlessly mean at times.

In a strange way, it attempted to uplift women by describing how much of a victim we are. And the more I think about it, the more it disgusts me. Stop telling me how hard my life is, shit man..! I live in a first world country, just like you!
Having that said, I didn't recognize myself in the pessimistic utterings of the female characters. Western feminists have the least to complain about, yet shout the loudest out of all feminists in the world, and I'm getting a bit tired of hearing about it in our entertainment.
The unsubtle pro-woman storyline is hard to take seriously when male dolls are introduced who're comically dumb and treated as subhuman by absolutely everyone. The end of the movie doesn't even introduce a proper compromise, but instead jokes that maybe one day the Kens will have the same position as women have in the real world, which is a ridiculous remark, because the one true thing that holds women back from achieving high positions is ourselves. How many more years will we blame the dicked ones?

The Barbies are patronizing, admittedly funny narcissists who rule Barbieland, while the real victims in the movie are the Kens. I could not pretend to be sad for the girls when they got dethroned, and honestly, how can anyone look at them as the heroes of the story, worthy of getting their power back?
Ken's pain far exceeds Barbie's, because that woman has only ever known comfort and blissful ignorance. None of the Kens even have a house to live in, and despite the disrespect they've suffered, they continued to jump out of their seats to help out any Barbie who pretended to be in need of assistance, which the movie portrayed as a bad thing. It called their generosity and love for them as their desire to have the women be helpless, which I found a severely uncharitable position.
Why is it fine for the Barbies to be at the top and infantilize the Kens, but when the Kens want a taste of it, they're painted as the villains? They've lived their entire lives as emotionally neglected props and simply wanted to be needed for once.
Them making the Barbies play their beer bringers was rude, but I took it as short-lived "revenge", since these men clearly want them as their girlfriend, not enslave them.

The movie didn't care to explain its supernatural elements, either. How can dolls come to life, how does Mattel know about it, what's the logic behind the method of crossing the border, why is the ghost of Barbie's creator living in a room of Mattel's headquarters, how is Barbie able to become a real human being, etc., etc.? It explained nothing.

The overall story was a mess, and while there were some good jokes and I really liked the Kens, there's nothing in here that motivates me to watch this ever again.