Well Ave Mujica is here and compared to the prequel I’ve got to say that I appreciate how it is more straightforward, directly showing more about the main character and where she comes from instead of trying to be half mysterious as MyGO!!!!! was in its beginning. I still can’t excuse her personality and how she deals with things, but I can at least understand why and how she does the things she does.

In comparison to the previous entries I watched, the tone here is far more serious, being almost entirely focused on that mood and without mixing it with comedy as much as its prequel, and I actually think that the themes it was going for were very interesting. Right off the bat, Ave Mujica attempts to deal with the world of girl pop bands in Japan, and how their members have to hide a good part of their private lives, and in general how there can be different artistic visions amongst their members.

But there are also discussions between them about their different goals, whether it is more important to pursue what you want to do out of your art or what the audience wants out of you, as well as if it’s better to follow a performance in a prepared way or be spontaneous, both for the sake of spectacle, and so you can make it big quickly.

Besides that, there is the character Nyamu, who wants to become successful as quick as possible but gets perplexed at the actual talent of Mutsumi, so she wants to improve herself and ends up rejecting those opportunities. That other girl tries to keep up with her famous persona and the expectations others have about her, from her fans to the band, and is worried about doing the proper thing for her group and standing out for herself and not as someone from a famous family of artists. She gets mentally pressured to the point of developing a split personality and faking the public persona that was always expected out of her, with even full episodes of psychological immersion included.

Unfortunately, good intentions mean nothing without good execution and I can’t exactly say that there’s one in here, as events happen in rather quick succession and somewhat quirky ways to feel as serious and well explored as the writing and tone clearly intended, and as organic as needed for them to seem properly written.

The series takes off right from the ending of the previous one, and I have to say that for a band that refuses to use their connections, they sure form, get famous and get to have a big concert very fast. Unlike the toxic MyGO!!!!! though, you can see problems within this band right away, as half the members don’t have any connection and some of them disagree with the supposed leader on what to do. It could have been interesting to see how the protagonist deals with other characters being as proactive as her, instead of people that just do what she wants, and I expected her to have a character arc revolved around her realizing that she just plain sucks as a leader, and friend.

But just like with every other plot point in here, things happen very fast, with most of them getting no more than one episode or even half of one of runtime before moving to something else, so the handling of them end up being treated rather superficially and leaving a lot to be desired.

Even when something gets a more appropriate runtime dedicated to it, like that one girl having a mental breakdown, the writing of it can come off as corny and melodramatic, as serious theme exploration gets replaced with generic teenage drama and tearjerker moments. Yes, it’s a show about teen girls but that doesn’t excuse stuffing it up with themes and topics that aren’t going to be properly explored.

And for how proactive the characters seemed to be, eventually the MyGO!!!!! girls have to step in to help them with their problems and move the show forward, so the series end up being dependent of its prequel and its main group of the previous one, despite being released as their own things.

The teen drama also even replaces the music as the main focus of the series, and if you have read my other reviews about pop idols/bands shows, and even Hibike! Euphonium, you know how I dislike when that happens. I will at least admit that stuff that happens in the anime excuse the interruption of the performances and their replacement with enough downtime for the characters to deal with their personal issues, but I still found it disappointing that the teen drama took over the main point of the show completely. By comparison, MyGO!!!!! also had a lot of that, but the music was never sidelined as hard as in here.

At least in here the characters are straightforward, but somehow even more toxic than their predecessors were, and I wish their whole conflict wasn’t about generic teen drama where they yell and cry on screen to each other for classic emotional manipulation full of tearjerker moments, and simple by-the-numbers resolutions.

It’s hard to write about the rest of the characters because the vast majority of the show is about they overcoming their problems, thus doing so would result on heavy amounts of spoilers. I will at least say that Uika has yuribait moments that would make KyoAni proud, and a cheesy telenovela worthy backdrop story that’s not even shown but told. I know that I sound like a broken record, but again, they didn’t get enough focus and when they did it felt way too rushed and over the top, partially for coming up too late in the story. And Umiri is just there to be the professional one of the team and really nothing more. She is revealed to be the token funny girl, which was a surprise, but nothing of real substance behind, she is given a backstory that’s supposed to be sad but she doesn’t seem to care about it, so why would I? And her emotional breakdown later on wasn’t the least convincing.

The audio aspect in this anime ends up being disappointing because, although I prefer this band’s theatrical gothic rockpop music over the jpop made by MyGO!!!!! and the gothic jpop of Roselia, there are just a few full performances, only one up until the 10th episode in fact, and you can hear that song on the opening. Aside from that there’s the ending and I liked both but it’s a shame that there is such a shortage of songs from a music anime, especially one with such a cool aesthetic. The voice acting is still weak, even when some of the Ave Mujica members have actual experienced seiyuus behind them and there’s one song on one episode that purposely sounds like shit because the girl singing it can’t stop crying on stage and screen. The reason for that is that other characters, including the returning MyGO!!!!! cast, still sound inexperienced and not natural or not with enough nuance behind their delivery. The sound effects are there, whatever.

Same thing with the visuals, they didn’t change at all from the previous series, they are ok-ish, the CGI can look very plastic at times, but eh, it is what it is.

As a whole this was the most interesting out of the three BanG Dream entries I followed because it was the most ambitious, and I appreciate the early slight improvements over the writing and characterization compared to the previous show. Unfortunately, the execution and the pacing became a lot worse as the series went on, and ended up leaving a lot to be desired from what it could have been, ending in the same old meh result for a third time, leaving me with no real interest to follow another one.

Disclaimer: Consider the possibility of this review containing minor spoilers.

Chi. Chikyuu no Undou ni Tsuite, or Orb: About the Movements of the Earth, as it came to be known in English, is the dark horse anime from last and this year, coming out without any hype behind and being one of the best and most praised, despite remaining relatively niche.

To start with, it is important to say that it is one of the most serious anime in years. It has a little bit of comedy and action in it but they are so briefly in the show, especially the former, that they might as well not count. It easily enters into that list of anti-anime or non-anime shows for people that is not into the medium much because of the typical idea they have about it.

With that said, Orb is clearly not a show meant for a mainstream appeal, status and audience, it is a serious, heavy on dialogues and slow burn type of a series for an acquired taste. Every arc starts in a just ok way and it takes its time in presenting characters, their beliefs and ideologies, setting, and plot points that change over several time skips in the anime. Once it gets to the points it tries to come across and the payoffs for each new part, the complete whole is something to be recognized and appreciated.

Another backlash that the anime might have is prioritizing concepts and themes in its story over character appeal. Not to say that the characters are bad, but they are not exactly memorable and it is clear that the main focus of the show is on something else.

And of course there always will be criticisms about the historical accuracy of an historical show. I can not speak for that but apparently the anime has been clarified to be a sort of alternative history type of series and setting, so that aspect can be excused up to some point.

Other minor issues are how some lines can come off as corny for some, and that there are some inferior episodes and scenes for how unbelievable and exaggerated they can be, with the bridge scene from the fifth episode being the lowest point of the anime. Other not very believable aspects include, for example, two characters being scholars that normally would not have been.

Despite those points, this is a legitimately worth watching anime, and of course not just because it has a serious tone. First of all, some of its dialogues can be semi philosophical and very good, as characters discuss their perspectives on how to live a life, whether a Heaven or not exists, if the accepted cosmovision fits the perfect universe created by God or not; if Heaven is perfect and pure and Earth is impure and rotten, or they are complementaries making a complete whole; whether or not it is worth sacrificing your life for a cause and idea, how knowledge and information can transcend time and entire lives, the importance, passion and appeal behind books and writing in itself, if the church has become a dogma that defies God’s message, if one truly is ready to search for and face the truth even if it contradicts one’s knowledge, and many more topics that get entire episodes dedicated to them, and not just through dialogues.

The themes are also explored through the plot itself and the character arcs, the cast can get their entire lives shaken and even put at risk for coming across certain knowledge, proceed to question everything they knew up until that point, change their whole perspectives of life, and even come to sacrifice themselves in order to protect what they believe or know about and prolong through time the results they get.

As can be deduced from the previous paragraph, Orb is also an anime with actual stakes, as it does not hesitate to kill off important characters on situations they can not logically survive, so no plot armor in it.

Also, there are not that many scenes of astronomy in it, but the few of them that exist are done well enough to explain the logic and studies of the characters and how they come to find about and develop the idea of heliocentrism.

And contrary to what could be believed, Orb is not anti-religion, it is anti-dogma, as most of the important characters are against the church not for being non-believers, but rather for standing against the church tainting God’s teachings and the world itself as an extension. And even though it shows cruel acts and scenes, the anime is properly dark and never becomes cartoonish in any way. It achieves that by keeping the sides somewhat grey, not every priest is bad, even some inquisitors mean well and question their doing, and not every heretic is a passionate intellectual either, some even go on a rampage killing believers just because.

Another thing to point out about the writing is how it plays out the card of ironic twist of fate. A dead character can remain influential decades afterwards, the main antagonist that wants to preserve the status quo and protect his close ones loses everything and even is one of the reasons for that himself, somebody might doom a relative while trying to save them, an elitist with a superiority complex ends up in the need of relying on others, a girl belittled and looked down by everyone ends up being a leader, and more such cases.

The characters are not exactly memorable, I couldn’t name any of them without looking them up, don’t have the most elaborate personalities, and don’t get much development. They are still quite good thanks to proper fleshing, well founded personalities, solid backstories for everyone, changes of perspective thanks to the ironic writing, and they leave the story with a feeling of catharsis. Just for the sake of being a bit more specific:

-Rafal, an orphan guy living life doing what is expected of him to have it easy, desperately gives in to his passion and does the most illogical thing.

-Oczy, a former fighter and I guess assassin for hire or something, with not expectations in life, ends up putting his own life on the line for heliocentrism even against a far stronger enemy. He also starts working as an assistant or even a servant of sorts, yet yearns for learning and ends up being the most important character for preserving the theory. His whole world got turned all over the more he got involved and found a purpose along the way. What I did not understand is that he seemed to have an academic past, as shown on flashbacks, yet did not know how to read and write? I guess I am missing something about him.

-Badeni, for both a main character and a priest, he sure is not considered to be a good person. Selfish, arrogant, classicist, elitist, has a superiority complex that makes he sees himself as some sort of chosen one by God to achieve big things and not needed anyone else for nothing. His whole character arc is realizing the exact opposite, as he ends up being the stepping stone he so did not want to become.

-Jolenta, a scholar girl scammed and belittled by everyone, although just for a few episodes, with no hope of being allowed doing anything, and with a close connection to the main antagonist. Ends up being a teacher and even a heretic leader after a time skip. Her character arc is one of the best, most ironic, bittersweet and cathartic aspects in the whole show.

-Draka, the last protagonist of the series, a proactive girl that wants to defy the status quo of her community by making them compete with each other, and an ambitious person with a case of early stage capitalism. It is interesting to see how determined and quick thinking she is in trying to survive and make a profit, yet ends up developing an emotional understanding of another character that no one else did.

-Nowak, the main antagonist of the show and one of the best in years in the medium. Strong, good fighter, cruel, intimidating, smart, observer, sharp, wanting to protect his family in his vision and fighting against the revolutionary ideas that might trip the world itself, while preferring not to hurt people themselves. Even at his worst, oldest and most depressed state on the last arc, he is still the biggest threat. His conclusion on the story might be the biggest payback on the whole series and yet incredibly cathartic and it sure felt satisfactory to watch.

-Albert Brudzewski. The only actual person of the show, a man conflicted about whether or not pursue knowledge thanks to the polarizing views he was educated with and the character the last two episodes are focused on as he comes with a position on his own.

The ending of the series leaves you rather indifferent, the themes and dialogues in it are fine, the catharsis for the last important character is there, but it feels weirdly tacked on in the story. It is rather confusing, as it is unsure whether or not it deleted the whole plot up until that point or if it treated it as a what if scenario or not, the timeline became a bit convoluted and ambiguous, to the point that many believe the series pulled off as troll alternative timelines type of twist.

As for the production, the series looks good, with ever-solid artwork, backgrounds, and actual dark scenes in a retro style. The character designs and figures are good and stand out by being not generic nor repetitive, but are also a bit simple. The animation is good for the few and brief fight scenes, but the series can be very static for the rest of the show. The special effects are overall good but there is some weak CGI here and there.

The sound effects and music are good but they do not excel, the BGM can be immersive but also quite repetitive. The opening and endings have this odd relaxed feeling to them that fit well with the slow feel of the show but I am not entirely sure if they go well with the content and setting in it. At least on their own they are fine, are well directed, and feature visual changes in them reflecting the changes across the different arcs of the series. The voice acting is serious, mature, the voices fit every character perfectly, but the performances lack a bit of nuance for them to really shine, the cast did nothing wrong, it is just what they have to work with.

As a whole, I maintain what I wrote about it at the beginning of the review, Orb is definitely one of the most worth watching anime shows from last year, and the beginning of this one. But I must also say that the ending left me a bit disappointed, and for a while made me think that it was as bad as the one from Dededede. Finales are hard to write, even more so if you are Japanese it seems.

This anime is an odd one as it is worth a one-time watch for combining multiple different genres, but not exactly because the combination of them is all that great, nor because each one of them is handled all that well individually either.

First, it is a comedy, with most jokes revolving around how the protagonist is unable to adapt to a common everyday life, and some minor ones about his non-sister trolling men. The first type suffers from no other character reacting to the situation in a way that comes off as funny, but rather having some “ah, I see” with a straight face type of reactions.

It is refreshing to have an anime which humor doesn’t revolve around characters yelling and exaggerating over the most minor things, but unless you are a fan of deadpan comedy, I don’t think these would work on you. Comedy rarely makes me laugh, and when the jokes and delivery themselves don’t even feel like trying to make me to, what can I consider them other than mediocre?

The second type comes off as very silly and dragged on to work on me, although I will admit that I found the battle of flirts between the non-sister and that one guy somewhat amusing, and even got a chuckle out of me.

The Fable is also a slice of life type of series but the premise itself prevents it from being a properly made common life type of story, how can you have a slice of life when that life is fabricated, out of the ordinary stuff keeps happening in it, and the main character doesn’t quite nail it? It is certainly an uncommon type of series for the genre that might work for people that are not usually pleased with it, but I don’t see how fans of it would fancy this one much.

The series is also a thriller, and for the most part it succeeds at presenting the most intense circumstances with suspense, as they involve normal people on risky situations with some rather high stakes. The problem is that the show is also a rule of cool action type of one, and that clashes with the other intentions, as most problems are resolved thanks to the protagonist being awesome.

That’s its main issue as a rule of cool type of action series as well. Every properly made work of that subgenre that I’ve seen on anime or live action succeeds primarily thanks to at least one of three main factors: creativity, great spectacle and antagonists that are close to the protagonists in levels of challenge and cool factor. None of these are all that present in the Fable, or at least not with that much success.

The situations the main characters have to deal with are presented in ways meant to be cool, but are also more like thrilling than anything else, while also rather typical for its genre and approached on a pretended semi-realistic way, thus their creativity is rather low.

The spectacle is easily the weakest aspect in this anime thanks to rather mediocre production values. The directing itself is fine, especially when it comes to saving the action scenes with their so-so animation, but the visuals themselves leave a lot to be desired for a work like this. I can give a compliment to the anime for looking actually dark when it is supposed to, which is a rare thing nowadays, but the artwork is simplistic, the character designs simple and their figures go off model often, the backgrounds rather unimpressive, the animation mostly static and with so-so motions on action scenes as previously mentioned, and the special effects aren’t all that good either, and they even feature some rather mediocre CGI.

The audio on the other hand is fine. I don’t like a single song among the two openings and endings of this anime, but the background music itself isn’t bad. The sound effects do their job fine and the voice acting is ok.

Like I hinted at previously, nothing so far poses that much of a challenge to the protagonist. There are a bunch of antagonists and secondary characters with their own agency and schemes, and several opponents on each arc, in turn completely outclassed by the ones of the following arcs, making you think that maybe now the main guy will face a proper threat, but no. When the climax of an arc comes, the protagonist resolves everything by being super awesome and far superior to anyone else around him.

What the anime ends up working most as ends up being the drama, surprisingly, as there are several really serious and mostly real and plausible situations in it, suffered mostly by women, and the series never tries to mix in some comedy in during those moments.

In a general sense, the writing takes its time at presenting the different characters and scenarios and properly excusing grouping them all together. Although rather slow paced and frankly boring to watch in my opinion, once you finish each arc you come to appreciate a proper structure of a well-established build up followed by a far better payoff, making a rather decent whole.

Another good aspect is having several characters with their own agency trying to outclass each other, despite everything being resolved by the super awesome protagonist, as well as enough downtime to present the mentality of all of them. There are several scenes where the cast discuss their ideas about the values of lives and deaths, types of people, different eras with different values and ways to act, working attitudes changing over time and generations, and more stuff.

I won’t say it’s amazing or anything, especially because I watched About the Movements of the Earth after this anime, but it is the most depth and substance and look into the cast that you will find it, so I think that’s worth the mention, despite how weird and twisted some of their ideologies might be. The weakest aspect of the story is of course feeling like mini arcs with no connection with one another, and the lack of an overall ending.

As far as characterization goes, it is easy to dismiss it as being divided between typical good people, mostly women, and typical assholes gagsters and assassins, mostly men, but on a closer inspection, not all yakuzas nor all gangsters are straight up bad, and not all common people are exactly good. In fact an everyday guy is the worst of them all, because at least the criminals themselves recognized that they are scum, while that one dude acts in denial and victimization.

What’s to appreciate is how every relevant character has their backdrop story explored, and although I can’t really say that there’s development, the resolutions feel satisfactory in how everyone gets what they deserve. The good guys get some proper peace and a renewed chance at life at the end in a cathartic way, and the wrongdoers get what’s coming to them, not in a sadistic “haha take that asshole” way for the pleasure of the audience, but rather through outcomes that feel bittersweet.

In the middle of all of that is the protagonist, who is the only one getting some slight change by becoming more humanized thanks to his newfound everyday life and companions. Too bad he is really serious and dry and rather boring to follow from beginning to end for me to consider him developed or interesting. Honestly is it mostly the same with everyone else, but least they are proactive, while he is mostly reactive and uninterested by mostly everything.

Like I said, I wouldn’t say this anime is exactly great, and I certainly didn’t enjoy it, and it has issues both on each one of its genres and as a whole in my opinion, but the combination of all of them and its odd approach to them, with some quality content and satisfactory conclusions here and there, make it a worthy one time watch for me, especially if you are looking for something somewhat different and retro feeling.

This anime got a lot of shit because of its visuals but honestly, a big part of it feels undeserved. Ok it’s true that there was undeniably a big drop in quality from the first episode to the following ones, and it was made worse because of the anime being in development hell for years and sacrificing even color to supposedly look good, but besides some infamous scenes, the visuals weren’t all that bad. They retained the same grotesque and bizarre look from the source material and nailed a unique aesthetic within the medium. But at the end of the day it’s true that the overall level is just fine and nowhere near as good as it seemed at first.

The atmosphere was overall ok despite the audio aspect not being that strong either. The music was ok but not exactly memorable, the sound effects ranged from good to meh, and the voice acting was fine for what the show was going for but not great for the same reason. Is it supposed to sound insane and scary but honestly to me it sounded more like over the top and kinda ridiculous, despite every character having a properly selected and performed voice.

What matters most to me is the plot, which wasn’t all that different from the original, thus there’s not much real reason to rate the adaptation much lower than the manga. The anime took all the initial ministories and had them happening at the same time, instead of one after another. This change made the whole seem more organic on one hand, but certainly took away individual importance from each one, and it diminished the impact of the ironic twist of fate type of ending that each one of them has.

But down to it, people always seemed to care more about the grotesque and bizarre situations occurring in Uzumaki, and not so much about the writing, otherwise it wouldn’t make any sense not to point out how every person on that damned town seems to carry on with their everyday lives despite all the bizarre stuff that keeps happening. Another was made fun of for years for the same reason, why not this one? Well, to be fair, Uzumaki never had accidentally hilarious situations in it, but still, it suffers from having extremely passive characters reacting in unnatural ways to what happens around them, instead of trying to do something or leave. Not to mention the main character survives so many situations she shouldn’t that it comes off as plot armor, all for nothing in the end.

To its credit, eventually the characters do react and try to do something, as well as leave, and the setting is more or less explained, but it comes at the cost of making them even more helpless plot devices unable to do anything in the grand scheme of things. Combine that with the looped ending, which I don’t remember being the same in the original, and they come off as even more disposable than they already were.

So at the end of the day, this is a work you consume more for the bizarre situations and grotesque visuals than the story and characters, so as long as you don’t mind the drop in quality, you should be fine with it. The writing is and always was rather poor, as the plot never really made much sense, and the cast was always made of disposable plot devices with forgettable personalities and zero immersion and fleshing.

“As far as I know, there is still more stuff to be adapted, as the novels kept going (and keep going, I think?), but seeing how this entry had a fitting ending with no loose ends, I don’t think that seeing more is really necessary, and I’m not the only one it seems, seeing that nothing else of it was released for five years now.”

This is something that I wrote on my last Monogatari anime review, published on September last year, and then on December I finished and reviewed the manga. Meaning, I called this continuation to existence and every Monogatari fan out there owe it to me.

Jokes aside, this is a hard entry to judge, as it adapts two novels and one of them consists of lots of mini stories in an anthology-like manner. Yet the series does a good job in building and maintaining a continuity between them, and they also build themselves from previous events and character interactions, so it’s fine.

For half of the show the focus switches from Koyomi to the girls, which is good for giving them spotlight and continuing to flesh them out.

The first story about Tsukihi is mostly silly and about pretending, but it is also interesting for what it means, and to see Ononoki trying to keep doing her mission. Another nice detail is how the episode forms a sort of narrative loop with something so silly as eating ice cream. But the best things is how it uses previous events and apparitions in it, and how it builds up the following events with Ononoki and Nadeko.

There are questionable things in its writing, which Ononoki tries to excuse as not being much as she fucking up but rather all result of Tsukihi’s apparition. That could be considered bad or genius writing depending of how picky or casual you are, for me it was just ok.

The bad part is how Ononoki can’t notice the most logical things throughout the episode, and is another character the one that has to resolve the problem appearing out of nowhere. Also amnesia and a comical loop.

After that it comes an arc about Nadeko where they try to solve an issue looking for an easy way out, and it backfires, so there’s the good message in there. It also serves to flesh out her by having her both metaphorically and literally confronting and coming to terms with her past self, in different variants, and struggling as an artist and being pressured by her parents and time, now as a teenager.

And the best part is how she had to solve the problem almost completely by herself, and how there wasn’t any perverted content in it, and even the slightly more explicit stuff that you could count as such served the narrative, so it’s not fanservice. Overall I consider it to be one of the best arcs I’ve seen from the franchise.

Time seems to be an important topic in the “Off” part of the season, almost as it telling that a certain time is already off and it moved to a new one, or that characters are running out of time.

Not trying to overthink it, but visually the directing regularly matches an object or Ononoki spinning around more than usual while talking about trying to take advantage of time, with following shots of clocks running, so that brought the thought to my mind.

Speaking of visuals, this entry keeps the usual standard of the franchise, which is of course very high. The new designs for the characters are nice, the special effects with little CGI and the backgrounds are still trippy and dynamic to look at. The occasional changes in style are there although not as prominent. The occasional texts are no longer passages from the light novels and are not as long nor as quick, so they are easier to see and read. And the directing has something happening all the time to make up for the occasional lack of motion, which is in fact less than in previous installments, despite having less stuff happening in it.

What’s new is the lack of fanservice, perhaps because the entry isn’t a harem but since I always bitch about the ecchi, I was very pleased with this change. Also, since Nadeko is an important character, lots of moments implement sheets and manga as part of the visuals, and bookshelves used for stairs-like transitions, very creative. There is also some occasional live action footage for the backgrounds as well.

The sound remains the same, good sound effects, very good voice acting, the soundtrack didn’t impress me, the visuals and the lyrics of the ending are good but the song is a very happy pop tune of which I’m not fan of, and the background music sounds like synthwave. Not that I’m complaining, I like to listen to the genre from time to time, but it is still as unremarkable as the soundtrack of the franchise always was for me. The opening is a reference/update of that famous Nadeko opening that most people seem to like, so it was fine for what the arc goes for thematically.

The next arc is the short origin story of Kiss Shot, showing how some of her traits came to be, such as her name, way of speaking and laughing, and how she became a vampire. The story itself is like a classic dark fairy tale, and it perfectly represents the idea of how naming conventions determine so many characteristics of the supernatural creatures in this world and franchise.

At the same time, despite having a serious tone, the conflict feels very first world problem to me, and the characters don’t seem to take it that seriously for me to care. Plus when you think about it, it makes it seem like Kiss Shot never showed her real personality in the franchise in retrospect, but at least gave more meaning to some of her speech patterns during silly moments. Speaking of silly moments, that’s what the logic of the characters and the naming conventions in the arc were like to me.

Oh, and it builds upon previously shown information in Zoku Owarimonogatari, which I didn’t bother to review because I found very little to say about it besides it being a what if fanservice story that is even practically erased by the end of it so what’s the point?

Overall I found it to be a very unnecessary and mediocre arc that didn’t add nothing of interest. At least visually it was pretty great. It suffers from lacking motion but makes up for it with painting like illustrations, gothic aesthetics reminiscent of Castlevania or Shinbo’s earlier works like Le Portrait de Petit Cosette, a special short intro that was like a shadow play with even set pieces simulating an actual theater, though I think the whole thing was made in CGI, but still looked very cool.

Heck, even the scenes were separated in acts like in an actual play. And although there was no opening, the music was pretty immersive, except for the ending which remained the same as before and didn’t really fit one bit.

The next arc goes back to present time yet builds up right from the end of the previous one as it has Suicide Master meddling in Japan and being part of several attacks towards girls from the Naoetsu school.

In this arc Koyomi goes back to being the protagonist and the whole thing is once again played out as a mystery of sorts, plus it builds up good reasons for having several characters being involved in the conflict and having a specific role in it.

Unlike the previous arcs, the tone goes back to being somewhat humorous as it was the case with previous entries, but at least there is still absence of fanservice, so I don’t complain.

Even the aesthetics are closer to what the franchise has shown before the rest of this entry, both in visual presentation and music. But I have to praise the opening for going back to the ones you would expect from one about Shinobu, and for that jazzy theme. She always gets the best openings it seems.

What I don’t fancy much, was the conclusion. For such a big deal that the reunion between the two vampires seemed to be, it felt lacking to me, even when I understand their laughs now.

Also although the reasoning of the main characters to find out the villain seemed fine, I don’t think there was enough information or build up to how she got to know about them, and the villain herself was just an edgy, nihilistic, suicidal teenager that got defeated with one hit before not really feeling that she actually learned her lesson. Overall it was a fine arc but with a bit of a lacking resolution.

As a whole I found it to be an ok addition to the franchise, mostly for the aesthetics, the lack of fanservice, the girls being looked into without Araragi around, and for the Nadeko arc. But I want to be clear, if that arc wasn’t here, I would have considered the season to be overall mediocre.

I initially started this anime because part of its premise reminded me of Hourou Musuko, a 2011 coming of age and romance anime about two transgender protagonists. But as it turns out the main character in here later on does not see themselves as either a boy or a girl, so I guess we’re talking about a non-gender conforming non-binary protagonist here instead.

I mean this anime still shares some things with that one, such as the main character dressing with feminine clothes half the time and being initially rejected by most people around, and having a supportive parent while the other does not accept them, but they have nothing in common beyond that and their approach are vastly different.

The romance part of the anime is peculiar, as the protagonist is part of a sort of a love triangle with both a boy and a girl, having the male character being conflicted by his feelings and afraid of being homo or at least bisexual, and of being seen as a creep, both by his friend and society. The female character has no issue with the main character’s identity but her feelings end up being different from what it’s initially shown.

Thus despite being a romance, the approach in here seems like an anti-genre sort of thing, as the characters go in and out of relationships without actually being in love with the others and instead being afraid of losing their bonds, and desperately want affection that was neglected to them at some point in their lives.

So, it’s the anime like KareKano? Which took the premise of a high school romance between two seemingly perfect characters to explore their real selves and their psyche behind them? Not really, hardly, as the series is mostly comical and leaves its themes in the background for the sake of focusing on something else, and when it does focus on them, it feels like a surface level of exploration.

KareKano was a comedy as well but it knew when and how to separate its humor from its psychological introspection, while this show only has the character feeling kinda sad yet doesn’t miss the chance to throw some jokes every few minutes.

Aside of the messy tone, another issue is that, despite its peculiar love triangle and themes it wants to explore, the execution still comes down to awkward teenagers being unable to resolve most things just by talking them out, which is why the resolutions of every conflict there is end up being very easygoing:

-The main character is bullied lightly only in the past on another school, and rejected just at the beginning of the story, they quickly become popular and supported by everyone in the school.

-Ryuji and Makoto’s relationship and conflicts get two episodes tops of focus. Exactly because there isn’t much content to explore about that, at least not in this anime.

-Related to that, characters faking their feelings does not lead to any interesting change in dynamics or a major conflict between them, as they are still around the others and keep accepting each other no problem.

-Aoi’s loneliness does get some focus throughout several episodes, but that can and is in fact resolved simply by having the other two mains around. And the most important part of that aspect, the absence of her mother, gets resolved extremely easily and in an easygoing and very lighthearted way by the end of the series.

-Want to talk about the thing between Makoto and their mother? It gets completely sidelined until the very end of the series, it is looked deeper only when the show is about to end, and just like with Aoi, for how big it seemed to be, the resolution leaves a lot to be desired.

Plus the adaptation isn’t even complete as there is a movie coming out next year to adapt the final bunch of chapters of the source material.

Apparently, the anime covered the whole source material by rushing through all of its content in just one season, so that could be part of the problem, but that does not change the end result of the adaptation.

I can’t even say that the aesthetics are remarkable in any particular way, the backgrounds and artwork are good, the special effects and character designs are one of the same you can find anywhere else. The main issue is the chibi art style the series goes for half the time, which negatively affects everything else.

Just like with Human Bug Daigaku, which I reviewed recently, I appreciate how this show properly captured the main aesthetic of its source material, but by itself it kind of sucks. For the comical moments, the style feels tryhard, and when it is used in between more serious scenes, it ruins the mood completely.

And that goes for the sound as well. The main character having a clear male voice is a nice touch, but everyone else sounds very typical, except for Aoi, who has a weirdly raspy or something like that voice and sounds unnatural a lot of the times to me. The opening and ending are cute and fitting but the rest of the music, as well as the sound effects, are mostly unremarkable.

So, if you’re up for a romance series with a somewhat unusual love triangle with some LGBTQ+ themes thrown in there, and with an attempt at exploring some more serious stuff to make it dramatic enough to feel like something might happens, while still having wholesome resolutions for you to not feel bad while watching it, this is your show. If otherwise you want an actual serious and more complex look into any of its themes, I think you should try somewhere else.

Recommended stuff

Products about the identities of LGBTQ+ and how they are seen by people around them:

-Hourou Musuko

-Yo nena, yo princesa (Argentine movie about the first legally recognized transgender girl in the country).

Romcom series about characters afraid to reveal their true selves:

-Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou
-Horimiya

Last year, there was an alternative history royal palace political drama, which took me by surprise with its characters and world building.

No it wasn’t Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, which I dropped because it seemed too semi-episodic and lighthearted to match my expectations of it, nor was Koukyuu no Karasu either, as I did not watch that one yet, and it is usually referred as the worse Kusuriya, imagine that.

It was Oooku, which although it had a not very good first episode, and relied more on its setting, plot elements and characters than an actually good story, it was overall pretty good.

This year I heard about this anime expecting something similar, and just like with Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, the tone seemed very lighthearted and made me drop the show, but only for its first three episodes.

After that it becomes exactly what I wanted, and even better than Oooku, even if I enjoyed that other show more. Basically, the world building here is as good, but it is not established by flashbacks but rather actual plot progression, and there is a lot more story in here.

What makes Yatagarasu good is all the political schemes in it, and how every character act about them, both as perpetrators or affected people. And the best thing is how the initially seemingly unrelated plot elements such as the succession and choosing a bride, end up making a coherent and tightly tied whole.

Despite being low on action and having lots of talking, the show does have tension and suspense as expected from a political show such as this. Schemes, betrayals, negotiations, alliances, murders, assassination and coup d’état attempts, everything needed is here and is presented with a proper pacing to have the plot moving forward at every moment.

On execution, the series builds up and anticipates practically everything so nothing comes off as a copout, though perhaps it needed to show a bit more the line of the thoughts of the characters for the resolutions to feel resolved in a completely satisfying way.

Speaking of characters, it is not that the series lacks in characterization either. They seem to be archetypes at first but everyone ends up having a different personality and hidden dark secrets and objectives than it seemed at first. They have different tasks imposed on them by the different palaces and other authorities, almost all of them have their backdrop stories revealed, and are subverted in one way or another, feel the psychological pressure of what’s happening, and most get a catharsis and end up helping in the second arc.

Said arc raises the stakes even higher by having the political conflict affecting not only the royal palace but the setting as a whole, as the crow people get brutally attacked by monkey monsters, and the political relationships with the underground is about to crumble. It even introduces a big twist in the setting to the point that the show can’t be labeled as historical anymore, as it turns it into a Yomi no Tsugai kind of situation.

Possible negative aspects include how no one really develops, as most of them are already adults and established when the series begins so they don’t go under any major change, and several times their backstories are told more than shown. And I have to say that I wished to see what actually happened to the antagonists, which is not really shown, or at least not completely.

Oh and the mastermind and actual villain of the second arc isn’t really revealed until the end of the show, making that character lack both presence and fleshing, which the rest did have, coming as off as lacking compared to everyone else.

Then there is Yukiya the co-protagonist, who despite being shown as having a lot of potential, ends up constantly lacking in his role in the story. I mean, for him to not know a lot of stuff makes sense, as he wasn’t initially inside the palace, and that way he provides the author the perfect excuse for having the rest of the cast explaining stuff to him for the audience to know about.

But other than that, he mostly messes up, his line of thinking to keep up with the schemes and what the others expect of him to do are not fully shown properly, he kind of changes perspectives, as he decides to be loyal to the Kin’u and protect his land at the end of the show, but he doesn’t go through much change in his personality to fully feel like he developed in any significant way as of yet.

And of course the show is not complete yet, there is more story to be covered on sequels, yet I won’t really count that as a big flaw, as the ending of the series felt like an appropriate point to stop it until more comes out.

Oh and the presentation is on par with the writing as well. The character designs are simple, there isn’t much motion to lose your head over, but the rest from the artwork, the backgrounds, and the special effects are very well done. Especially the latter knew how to show different times of the day with changes in illumination, which modern anime in general lack. That gave the show a more thrilling mood, which it needed at times, and reminded me a bit of some retro times in the medium.

The sound effects are very well done and immersive and the music is really good except for the generic and upbeat opening which seem to belong in another series. The ending on the other hand sounds like a classic Japanese song combined with some strings, which gave it a very epic and grandiose feel more fitting for this anime. I was even surprised by the voice acting, because the seiyuus are all different from the ones I thought they were, thus most of them brought an atypical performance.

Bottom line, the setting is interesting, the world building is well done, the story and plot progress properly and more seriously and with higher stakes that it seemed at the beginning, the characters are a lot richer than they initially seemed to be, and the presentation is on par with everything else. Out of all the royal palaces political dramas in anime I’ve watched so far, this one is the best for me as of yet, and now I want more of it just like I am waiting for more Oooku. One of the best and more underwatched shows of the year in my opinion.

Disclaimer: This might contain some spoilers

Dededede is a stand out title as far as anime goes, as there aren’t that many about alien invasions and the ones you can find are nothing like it. The closest thing to it that I can think of is Figure 17, as it also combines slice of life with sci-fi, and yet it’s very different to this series.

Of course, if you step out of the medium, the show is no longer original really, Arrival, Contact, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien Nation, District 9, and more, are there to be compared to it, but for an anime, it’s a rather fresh premise.

It also stands out as a work from Inio Asano. His usual post-Solanin cynical and critical worldview is there but Dededede doesn’t suffer from the same issues as most of his other titles.

It has violent content but doesn’t overdo it with the edge to the point of becoming torture porn and it is dramatic but the characters don’t cry about their problems all the time, which are common complaints about Punpun.

Said characters share the same worldview as their author but are not know it all psychos that yell their lungs out to the whole world as in Hikari no Machi.

It has questionable romantic content but doesn’t include weird fetishes, as I came to know about Girl on the Shore.

The non-mundane elements are properly introduced and anticipated, unlike in Subarashii Sekai, and although it has timeskips, its narrative is nowhere near as non-linear and convoluted as it was in Nijigahara Holograph.

Unfortunately, it also lacks the psychological aspect of some of his previous works. There is some exploration of how messed up a lonely girl neglected by her parents and bullied by most of her class can become, alright, but the series still can’t be labeled within the genre. As most things are spelled out, the show doesn’t have the same introspection and inner monologues that were the most praised thing about Punpun and the best aspect in Solanin.

Despite that, it is not as if the characters are unexplored. Dededede is half a slice of life show and thus it follows its cast more than enough to flesh them out properly. The series does a good job in showing a kind of numerous cast, their interests, their families, their romances, the connection between all of them, and also for once it shows high school girls and builds a friendship with teen quirks without moe aspects nor yuri bait (not that much at least).

Is their actual teen behaviour and personalities that makes them stand out and be memorable. And yet, they have their own quirks, Kadode having childish crushes and yet being a bit pervy, also being a fan of the kind of dark parody of Doraemon that exists within this manga, which in turn is partially responsible of her dark past, and there is also some substance due to her complicated family situation.

Ontan presents herself as silly and childish saying nonsense all around all the time yet also has a dark past, and even two personalities or consciences of sorts, and it is clear that despite all her goofiness, she does care about the serious situation at hand, and that her weird behaviour is just a façade to avoid facing the big issue and her responsibilities.

The secondary cast is fine as well but not as looked into or as interesting as far as characterization goes. Rin is into yaoi but that’s it, the teacher is just sad because of a break up and is possibly pedophilic, Hiroshi is a good and interesting guy that cares for his sister and Kadode but remains in the background, Makoto stands out mostly for cross-dressing, Kiho works just as a plot device, Ai has a lot of stuff to deal with but is only looked into for one episode.

The most interesting characters besides the main ones end up being the supporting cast that, even though they don’t have the most elaborate characterization, are the ones that actually move the plot forward and are the plot devices to explore the themes and different perspectives. Thus you have Kohiruimaki (fuck his name btw) and Futaba being the exact opposite positions regarding the aliens.

He is paranoid about them, plus also depressed, and only feeds himself with information that confirms his bias, and becomes an alien hunter of sorts, especially after losing someone dear to him. She on the other hand, wanting to know the truth before judging, and after a somewhat shocking experience, becomes an activist in favor of coexistence and communication with the aliens, for they are beings equal to humans and thus deserve human rights.

And there’s also Hikari Sumaru, PR of a certain company developing technology for the government and military to fight off the aliens, and the freelance journalist Miura, that tries to expose the whole thing.

Oh, and how could I forget Keita, an actual alien that tries to befriend humans, sees the good in them, and tries to prevent the escalation of the whole thing.

The thing is that all of that happens mostly in the background, leaving the viewer watching the main girls doing silly stuff on the school. Thus the plot, although is not slow nor is left as an afterthought, might feel boring and undeveloped for a while for some, even more so if they are not fans of slice of life stories.

The people responsible for the anime must have thought something like that too, seeing how they sped up the pacing by cutting off content from the manga, and rearranged events and scenes to come earlier and in different order so they could have more exciting things happening on the background or as flashbacks.

Perfect examples of this are half the flashbacks of the protagonists shown earlier, differently, and in just one episode, when they amount to at least two volumes of the manga, and the infamous episode 0.

I don’t know how it was received in Japan, but at least the opinion online about it on anime databases and sites wasn’t very good, as it shows stuff from some of the last chapters from the manga, in a media res flash forward way in order to make it seem that more exciting things are coming, and possibly ruining the element of surprise for some I guess.

Plus the episode itself wasn’t that good, it had too much action without a proper introduction of the characters first, and the information provided made it to be full of exposition, thus coming off as boring for some.

And the thing is that there wasn’t really a good reason to do this, the world building from the beginning of the manga is good, the plot is still happening in the background, the final showdown is built upon throughout the whole series, so why did they feel like they needed to anticipate stuff is beyond my comprehension.

And it is not as if there wasn’t any reason for the slice of life portion to have more focus than the alien invasion, as it is part of the themes. Here you have these girls unaware of the crisis or refusing to acknowledge it and playing dumb to keep living a normal, simple and more or less happy life for the little time it has left.

There are also background characters that, whenever new information about the aliens or human victims come out, they keep looking elsewhere, acting as if nothing happened, or choosing to ignore the situation through consumerism, of a dark Doraemon parody, gacha games, or pop idol bands.

There are even people living on contaminated places faking being sick so the government gives them a pension, heck even places where tragedies happened are used as tourist attractions so the whole slice of life part is actually a social critique from the author.

The pop idol bands in turn get into scandals, used to get the full attention of coverage of the news and thus distract the public from the scandals and actions of the technological companies and the government, so it is criticizing the mass media as well.

As it is also a criticism on both the Japanese government and self-defense forces, and later on the super powers, the United States, China, partially France on the source material but the anime changed that for some reason.

So here you have the alien situation going on, and the government pass them as dangerous enemies even though they are not exactly hostile, there is a lot of discussion between the different parties regarding what to do, not really that much about the aliens themselves, but with other countries instead.

Meanwhile the government builds up this image of a public enemy, and exploits their technology and uses it as a source of energy, while taxes the people to build a huge spaceship reserved only for the elite, with the Prime Minister being just a scapegoat for the politicians that actually move the strings.

And as for the United States, they interfere in other countries’ problems, through militaristic intervention of course, and they make things worse in the long run and even elevate the whole thing to a war. Does that remind you of something?

I don’t know if the Primer Minister is a satire of Abe, but on the other hand President Padron is very clearly a satire of Trump on the manga but the anime changed his hair colour so it is not as obvious, and he is even more of a puppet than the Japanese.

Whether if this vision is accurate or not is up to discussion and debate, and exceeds the objective and purpose of this review, but for the political criticism that the author was going for, it was well presented in-story, even more if you happen to dislike the international politics of the States and how they constantly meddle with other countries.
And since the self-defense forces kill the non-hostile aliens, even the children, and people celebrate the killings, all the while the lives of people get ruined because of the battles, and even one soldier gets traumatized by the whole thing, you can even count the show as a critique on militarism. And since this character has a change of perspective here, he is better than the one dimensional bad guys from District 9.

And of course, as it is always the case for stories with this premise, you can see is a metaphor for discrimination against immigrants, and in this particular series, since the aliens claim to be the original habitants of the planet, as occupation and ethnic cleansing, and I am sure that will remind you of things that actually has happened and are happening right now.

Another thing about this show is that it is one of those “humans are the real monsters/bad guys” of the story, which is a fine premise but a bit overdone these days in my opinion. Thankfully this series showed that the aliens WERE actually planning an invasion, slave the humans, and they even form a suicidal resistance, so the conflict isn’t one sided with clear victimized and demonized sides of it as it happens a lot of the times.

It seemed that the author was going to ruin all of his good stuff with the inclusion with an ever problematic plot device that is time travel/different timelines/parallel worlds, in a Madoka Magica like fashion, but for a while it was underplayed and used just for fleshing out the cast through flashbacks, and even presented the possibility of the whole conflict being the result of one of the main characters escaping reality, so it seemed like it was going to be good.

And as you can always expect from Asano from a point, what followed was what was anticipated throughout the whole story, shit gets real and a lot of characters start dying one after another and everything goes to shit, in a horrifying sequence that will likely remind you of Barefoot Gen, Akira, Godzilla, or even Watchmen, or any other nuclear explosion allegory you can think of.

That was the highlight of the story as far as I am concerned, and I really wanted to see what the author was going to do with it, and what I got was one of the most disappointing finales I have seen recently. Turns out he goes for a coward’s easy way out of the conflict, and it is not even one of the main characters that “finishes” the story, it was a secondary character with barely any focus throughout the whole show that did it.

Thus the story and the themes you followed for the whole show don’t get a real conclusion, the characters have a catharsis but it feels shallow, hollow, even unreal, and one you don’t care about, the supporting cast gets forgotten with no resolution whatsoever as if they were never there, despite being the ones actually moving the plot the whole time, and you are left wondering what the point of the last mini arc and time skip even was. So yeah, it was truly really undoubtedly bad.

Visually, the series goes for character designs that strike as childish and reminiscent of the ‘60s and ‘70s, as you would expect from a show that partially parodies Doraemon, but because of so-so animation, and inconsistent character models, they didn’t translate that well to the adaptation, and even took a bit of seriousness from it.

The actual animation isn’t that good either to be honest. The artwork, backgrounds and special effects for everything that isn’t smoke, which is always done with CGI these days for whatever reason, are otherwise very good.

So yeah the visuals are overall very good, it’s just that could have been better, and are not as good as the ones from the manga, which to be fair was kind of impossible, as the manga is one of the best looking I have seen in my life.

What was a neat detail, however, was showing the backdrop of the main characters with a 4:3 resolution, to differentiate it from the current events, simple but very effective trick.

As for the sound, the effects are very good and immersive, the voice acting is kind of atypical for anime, very fitting for the show, but it lacks impact somewhat, and the music is pretty good. The opening and endings don’t sound like much, but they reflect the innocence or fake ignorance of the main characters well, especially with those lyrics.

Oh, and other aspects that could be said about the anime that were kind of an issue were the poor marketing it had, since it is an alternative version of the movies, with actual footage that isn’t in them, and Crunchyroll messed up the subtitles as they infamously tend to do with the liberties they take and how they did not translate any text on screen, for at least 7 episodes. I don’t think these things are that much of an issue, but I thought it was worth mentioning them for some people.

As a whole, I thought of Dededede as a great critique on society, militarism, politics, mass media, consumerism and war, and a very interesting slice of life series and mix of two very different genres. I was going to rate the manga with an 8 out of 10, and since the anime is a bit more messy with its pacing and explanations than the source material, I was going to give it a 7 out of 10, but because of the really bad ending that renders practically every important aspect basically pointless, I had to go with the latter for each one. Meaning, I consider both versions to be worth consuming for at least one time, but not as good as they could have been if the author didn’t chicken out at the end.

Como trata sobre un producto argentino, esta reseña va en español.

Vicenta es un documental sobre un embarazo producto de una violación intrafamiliar, sufrida por una chica con retraso madurativo, ocurrido en el año 2006. Pero debido a la importante falta de material de archivo, y a la negativa de participar del mismo por parte de la madre de la víctima, y protagonista de la historia, visualmente todas las personas están representadas por muñecos hechos con plastilina. Además de inusual, es una buena técnica para no utilizar actores como otro documental que critiqué hace unos meses.

Sin embargo, no es claymotion, ésta no es una película animada, los personajes no se mueven, y tampoco mueven la boca. El color oscuro con que fueron hechos tanto ellos como los fondos, sumado a la limitada pero triste y bien implementada música, le dan al filme el tono dramático, pesado y crudo que busca y necesita.

En sí, además de mostrar como el caso impacta la vida de la familia afectada, también incluye todas las trabas legales y distintas perspectivas que la familia tuvo que atravesar para poder hacer cumplir los derechos de la víctima, incluso a escala internacional, por lo que el conflicto tiene una escala mucho mayor y de carácter más social de lo que parecía en un inicio, además de una resolución inesperada para quienes no conozcan el caso.

La realización y lanzamiento de la filmación no es casual, no por nada salió un mes antes de aprobada la ley de despenalización del aborto en Argentina, y por eso mismo también incluye el involucramiento de movimientos sociales en favor de eso, junto a la resolución misma del caso a través de material de archivo televisivo.

El problema que tiene la película es la narrativa por la que opta. Imagino que parte tiene que ver porque las y los involucrados no habrán querido ser parte del proyecto, y también por cuestiones presupuestarias, pero el caso es que al no haber mucho archivo, las personas reales no construyen el relato por sí mismas como uno esperaría de un documental. Y las plastilinas, al no moverse y no hablar, tampoco tienen voces ni actrices o actores, en su lugar son reemplazados por una sola narradora.

Ésta no solo nos da información y nos cuenta TODO lo que pasa, lo que por sí solo es una muestra de floja exposición, sino que también nos cuenta TODO lo que los personajes hacen, lo que dicen y hasta lo que piensan. Gran parte de la narración nisiquiera está dirigida al público, sino más en bien en segunda persona, le habla directamente a la protagonista, y esto hace que todos los personajes parezcan más pasivos de lo que realmente son, a la vez que nos mantiene a la audiencia notablemente distanciada de la historia que se está contando.

También por esto mismo la cinta es aburrida, pero debido al caso que representa y al tono que establece, esto último no me parece una crítica importante, ya que no creo que Vicenta deba ni quiera entretener.

Y es que parte de la información que nos da la narradora ya es mostrada a través de noticieros, por lo que no era necesaria incluirla dos veces, y pienso que aunque los personajes no muevan la boca, se los podía hacer hablar o transmitir sus pensamientos a través de voz en off o algo similar.

En conclusión, es una buena cinta docudrama de denuncia de un caso real y a la vez de denuncia de una falla del sistema y del Estado argentinos en materia de garante de derechos en un momento dado, pero la narrativa por la que optó afecta notablemente a su conexión con el público, y por eso mismo también al impacto emocional que buscaba lograr.

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

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

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

#2-You are into fun facts and trivia.

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

#3-You like some morbid stuff.

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

#4-You like weird or crazy stories.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now for some excused scoring

Visuals 3/10

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

Audio 6/10

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

Story 6/10

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

Characters 6/10

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

Value 6/10
-Fame 2/3 (Mostly unknown in the West but quite popular in Japan)
-Memorability 4/4 (So unique to the point of becoming unforgettable)
-Rewatchability 0/4 (It relies completely on mystery boxes and there is nothing to revisit in the plot or characters)

Personal enjoyment 4/10

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

Recommended stuff

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