Reviews by Fernando Leonel Alba

Normally I would review a Spanish movie on, well, Spanish, but since I’ve been writing about these surgeon thriller/horror movies in English, I’ll keep doing that.

“Gritos en la noche” was the fourth of its kind that I watch, first in a kind of long line of movies from its director, starring the same actor performing the same character, which I don’t intend to consume more of because I only care about movies with this kind of premise, and it’s thought to be the first Spanish horror movie, so I guess it has some kind of historical value in it, it’s otherwise not good nor very memorable nor really worth a watch, but at least it’s a vast improvement on the previous attempt of making something like “Eyes Without a Face”.

First, it was a return to the gothic aesthetic that was absent in Seddok, and second, it combines the plots from both movies from 1960, and although it also includes silly comedy from the very beginning, it improves both the plot structure and the writing by having the police being active from the beginning, and from having actual witnesses that contribute to the investigation, instead of being comic relief characters, or be completely absent in the story, making the setting to feel artificial and poorly established.

Another interesting thing is how the assistants want to take down the awful doctor for how he mistreats them, thus giving them an agenda instead of being just plot devices.
And another improvement is how the abducted girl and final victim is part of the investigation from the very beginning, as the girlfriend of the police inspector, instead of just a poor damsel in distress, or a plot device that’s used by the police. Oh, and also, the male assistant is used from the beginning, to fool and confuse the officers by making them chase after two completely different men.

Unfortunately those improvements still don’t make it a good movie, not even comparable to the first one “Eyes Without a Face”, because the original understood than simple is better in terms of execution, and there’s no point in adding elements that could make a more complex and better movie, if you don’t use them properly. This film does that, and ends up being another failure instead.

Since the secondary characters aren’t unaware of the crimes for most of the movie and are an active part of the plot, the writing had to come up with some way for the villain to not get caught, and here is the big issue within the plot of the movie. The scientist seems like a magician, somehow able to appear and disappear in a matter of seconds in front of other characters, as does his much less intelligent assistant, apparently, somehow, and that felt like a very cheap way to keep the plot from moving forward on an organic way.

But most importantly, even though its plot was better than every alternative that came afterwards, what “Eyes Without a Face” understood that later movies didn’t, is that it wasn’t the writing what was going to make it work and worth a watch, it was the human drama in it. Over there I could buy the villain’s desire to help his daughter, and she herself was the best character in that movie. Here, I got nothing, no downtime is given to flesh out the cast and no chemistry exist between them even in the few scenes that count as such. When I was watching the scientist doing what he did, and while I was seeing him talk to his daughter, I never felt that one thing was done for the sake of the other, because there’s no decent character interactions between them.

And the secondary characters, despite having an agenda on their own, are either incompetent for the sake of delaying the outcome through plot conveniences, or are left as completely passive characters with nothing to do, and it’s a shame because it ruined possible interesting character dynamics and plot points.

And the resolution was very disappointing and unsatisfactory in terms of both plot and characters, there were sequels that needed to be done, and no character was given enough importance, so the way the movie ends leaves you feeling absolutely nothing.

Despite all its wasted potential for being a proper horror movie and an “Eyes Without a Face” alternative, I still think “Gritos en la noche” is a watchable enough film thanks to its numerous improvements, over the poor attempt that was “Seddok”, and two more later titles that were on the same level or were even worse.

Some months after “Eyes Without a Face” came out, there was this movie, “The Heir of Satan”, which for some reason was changed to something completely different in the English release from what I’ve seen, and it was also edited and badly dubbed, which explains why it has such a low score everywhere.

Although most of the plot is quite the same, the premise this time around has to do with the mad scientist wanting to operate on a stripper after she got disfigured after an accident purely out of scientific interest, before obsessing over her both because of her beauty, and because of his own work. On one hand, that makes him for a bit better protagonist and villain than his French counterpart, on the other hand his selfish motivations are petty compared with those of the character from the previous movie, and the whole thing moved away from thriller or horror, to a sappy drama.

Being the first surgeon thriller after that French movie, this one adds several elements to the formula, first, it shows the accident, which didn’t happen before, it changed the female assistant to make her a villain on her own (and honestly, a disposable character for the sake of the plot), and it introduced the mute assistant that should be there to help the villain, but honestly most of the time he’s just there to be slapped around.

The improvements it went for on its own is giving some sort of scientific explanation and reasoning for what the villain is doing, it must be complete bullshit but at least is there, and aesthetically that also meant that he has all kinds of machines and special effects happening around him, which are pretty good for its time, transformation scenes included. Oh, and the music in this movie doesn’t suck and isn’t misplaced like in “Eyes Without a Murder”. On paper, these elements could have made it a better movie, but they didn’t.

First of all, the script is really weak. Nonsensical science apart, some of the lines are just plain dumb or poorly delivered, if not both, and the acting itself can’t compare with the one from the previous movie, and no, I did not watch the infamous horrible English dub, I watched the original Italian version.

Second, the pacing is very slow, half the movie is spent on setting up the premise and all that talking about science, that is pretty much nonsense anyway, so it’s a waste of time.

Third, the romantic aspect is very poorly integrated into the plot, partly because the main girl herself, who is a terrible character, jumping from one guy to the other whenever the script wants her to, and partly because the couple has close to no shared screentime, let alone any kind of chemistry.

Fourth, from this point forward, these movies thought that mixing some comedy in it would make them better, because who says there can’t be silly jokes on a supposed serious thriller, right?

Fifth, the writing of the plot becomes very trashy on the second half, and even more so in the resolution, ruining a plot twist (although it was already ruined by the cover, if you happen to watch the English version) by making it function at the will of a character in whatever way it suits the plot, and a character with no personality nor agenda whatsoever suddenly became reactive enough to defy the main villain, just for the sake of getting to the ending, which was also very poorly written and directed.

Thus, despite its few additions to the formula and its attempts to make a better movie, what you get is a very slow and poorly written soap opera instead of a thriller, which even comes off as pretentious for trying to sound scientific, and also becomes very trashy during its second half. Overall it’s a way worse alternative to “Eyes Without a Murder”, only mildly important because of its innovations to the formula, but nothing worth spending time on.

Since I want to watch two specific things with kind of similar premises, I decided to first watch the most famous surgeon thriller I know of, “La piel que habito”, which led me to find out about and watch every kind of similar title as well, and since I’ve got some things to say about them, I’m here, starting with the one movie that’s assumed to have started it all.

In terms of production, I guess it’s pretty good for its time, at no point I felt like the production was cheap and low budget, and the backgrounds add a lot to the sort of gothic atmosphere it was going for, the special effects are quite good for its time as well, noticeable in the transformation scenes, the expressionless mask that the main girl uses it’s good, mysterious and a bit creepy as well. The downside come from the characters being very plain looking, and the motions being rather bad, noticeable during the climax of the movie.

The sound effects were good for its time I guess, and everyone performed their role just fine. The music on the other hand was a big issue, mostly absent, and whenever present, it was just… misused. It was also very simple, repetitive and unfitting for the type of story, coming off as immersion breaking.

If you watched at least one of all the later titles influenced by it you know by now what the plot is about, a mad scientist killing young girls to take off their faces and using their skin on the face of his disfigured daughter. The pacing is quite good, balancing in a rather short runtime the plot progression along with enough downtime focused on the drama and characterization. I mean no character has a very distinctive nor complicated personality, or much of a backdrop, but each one is given at least some focus at some point to show their mentality during the whole thing, especially for the girl, who feels remorse for all the deaths caused because of her and has been in pain for so long that just wants to die. Since she is the character with the most focus on the film, the…kind of epic resolution and her actions in specific felt very cathartic. It doesn’t sound like much, but only one of the many movies inspired by it really gave enough attention to its characters, while every other title stopped at being passable shlock.

Every other contemporary movie that tried to copy it tried to add its own spin to the premise and plot structure, but ended up failing in the long run. That’s what makes this film half worth watching, once, even if it’s nothing special. It’s definitely not the credibility of the plot, since what happens it’s not very believable. It may have been quite the title for its time but I still think its rating everywhere is a bit too high, partly because of some movies that came before it, and partly because so many titles followed the same formula afterwards, that now it doesn’t feel special at all.

I mean, among the most famous titles, it influenced some aspects of Halloween and Face/Off, as well as La piel que habito which I mentioned at the beginning of this review, so I guess it has some sort of historical value added to it to give it a try, but it definitely doesn’t hold much rewatch value because of its simplicity.

Como este documental es y trata sobre un caso argentino, esta reseña va en español.

Este documental básicamente es un recuento, a través de los testimonios de los mismos ex criminales, así como de las autoridades encargadas de su arresto y juicio, del más grande asalto y robo a un banco en Argentina, y la dirección puede aportar bastante a veces, sumándole al material de archivo sus propias visualizaciones, a través de maquetas y si no me equivoco también animaciones por computadora, del interior de dicho edificio, y de como los ladrones se fueron desplazando dentro de él, así que en ese sentido vale la pena verlo una vez.

Por lo demás no es un producto muy logrado, ya que al no tener tanto material visual con el que trabajar, los realizadores tuvieron que recurrir a la, a mi entender, peor opción que tenían, la recreación de aquellos momentos, sea por los sujetos reales, o por actores que ni son muy buenos ni se parecen a los hombres que llevaron a cabo el robo.

Además, una parte importante del documental parece una joda, los ex ladrones aprovechan que los están entrevistando para hacerse los piolas frente a cámara y quedar como unos capos, el líder, al que llaman el artista, en especial, es bastante molesto por como actúa y habla por momentos, por como quiere presentar una especie de filosofía e ideología por lo que hizo y así parecer un intelectual profundo e inspirado, y porque al final dice que salieron todos ganando (aunque en cierto punto lo que plantea es entendible).

Básicamente, y es un problema con productos argentinos de variados medios, una gran parte del documental parece hecho a modo de chiste, algo que no se toma en serio, y que en algún punto hasta le llega a tirar flores a unos tipos que en definitiva cometieron un crimen, encima visualmente limitado y teniendo que recurrir a recreaciones pobremente actuadas de los hechos.

Irónicamente, termina siendo mejor y preferible ver la película cómica protagonizada por actores profesionales que salió dos años antes que el documental, porque ahí sabés que vas a ver una versión ficticia, y no una supuesta real y seria, que te termina tomando medio para la chacota.

Como este documental es y trata sobre un caso argentino, esta reseña va en español, más aún después de la bronca que me dio leer a unos yankees boludos (que sorpresa) ponerle un 1/10 en imdb porque no estaba en inglés o porque los subtítulos eran malos, cosas ajenas al producto en sí.

La verdad que no tiene tanto para comentar, el documental empieza de una manera típica, personificando al fotoperiodista a través de archivo y declaraciones de otros, después hace un recuento cumplidor, a través del mismo método, de su asesinato y las circunstancias en que éste ocurrió, para luego escalar al impacto político y social que tuvo el hecho, en algún punto una gota que rebalsó el vaso en un contexto de descontento social para con la corrupción política, policial y empresarial de la época.

La dirección suma unas tomas a modo de simbolismo si se quiere, a su vez reminiscente de memorables y recordadas imágenes de las protestas que ocurrieron en la época luego de aquél hecho, pero por lo demás es bastante estándar y no aporta tanto. Una queja que tengo es que en el intento de mostrar neutralidad, los testimonios están intercalados de manera algo apresurada, en rápidas sucesiones que a veces parecen acortar las respuestas de forma adrede, además de que desde el vamos no había necesidad de hacerlo realmente cuando los dos extremos protagonistas están bien claros y diferenciados por el hecho mismo en sí, no creo que se pueda lograr la presentación pretendida cuando alguien manda a matar a otra persona sólo por hacer su trabajo, sacar una foto.

Fuera de eso, al ser un caso que conocía, no es que el documental me haya parecido muy revelador ni que hiciera el más grande de los aportes, pero bueno, debe ser justamente por esto último que menciono. Sin mucha más crítica, es un buen y cumplidor recuento del hecho y sus distintas aristas, si bien su presentación es algo seca y desinspirada.

I got to know about this documentary just a few months ago thanks to a professor and finally got around to watch it some days ago after I finished Shoah.

It's a bit hard to say something about it because the other review covers it pretty well, but basically what you have here is an alleged case of pedophilia, and the documentary does a very good job in showing multiple different testimonies and perspectives from the accused, the rest of their family, the supposed victims, policemen in charge of the case at the time, judges, lawyers, and more implied, and each one of them intertwined with something said by someone else, whether complimentary or against the previous declaration, widening and improving the coverage of the matter at hand, while also not doing it too fast so it doesn't seem like one answer is cut short in favor of the other.

Another good thing is that the interviewer, whoever that may be, points out and asks for the contradictions present on the answers of the interviewed, or asks about something said by someone else, or present in the documents of the case.

These two factors are important to keep the presentation of such a heavy subject as neutral and unbiased as possible, so it's a major plus.

The whole documentary is made in a way that it's never fully clear if the accused were guilty or not, which along with the previous points, adds in letting the viewers decide on their own, proof of which is the debates over the true behind the case that continues even to this day.

The presentation is pretty good as well, combining the interviews with footage from the time the case took place and even videos from the affected family itself. Even more than that, let me talk about what I consider to be the best two aspects of the directing.

There is a sequence in the beginning when the youngest son is talking about his father as a famous figure, shown through a wide shot, but then as soon as he says something along the lines of "but then him as a husband and wife...had things that I rather not talk about", and the camera zooms directly on his face as he talks, while also cutting away at the right moment to not come off as emotional manipulation.

The other aspect is the name of the documentary itself, which combined with its beginning makes you think that it means that it's going to "show" the family that it's mentioned in the title, but as soon as the conflict presents itself and charges of pedophilia are involved, "capturing" just acquires another meaning, and even makes you rethink the whole sequence I referred to earlier (unless of course you knew about the case beforehand already, of which I didn't). Very good way to introduce the topic and conflict and subvert the initial expectations.

The aspects that aren't good about it is how sometimes videos of the family fooling around even right before the trial are shown, taking away a bit of seriousness of the whole thing. I mean, the family was screwed, it's easy to notice that, but the director could have excluded those bits.

Another bad aspect is the music, deliberately chose to come off as super sad and emotionally manipulative, something which I'm against.

And then, I saw on YouTube somebody pointing out that a major confession done by one of the accused, the older son, is not present in the documentary for the sake of making it seem ambiguous and neutral, despite him confessing everything, and apparently more important evidence was left out as well, which is a shame.

Despite those few but very important negative aspects, it's a very well put together documentary and I'm glad I got to know about it and watch it. It's very worth a watch when you want some real, serious and at best bittersweet content.

I got to know about this documentary seven years ago thanks to a professor and finally got to watch the first hour of it last year, and rewatch it from the beginning some days ago, taking me four days to finish it, because I almost didn't watch anything during one day.

And what can I say that wasn't said already? It's an amazing film on practically every aspect, capturing a huge variety of testimonies of such a horrible topic, noticing and asking for the contradictions of some answers (something very important that not all documentaries do), having a variety of voices from victims to witnesses and perpetrators, and even going to the extent of not using any archive footage and relying entirely on the people that lived through the Holocaust themselves.

Another good detail is how it doesn't focus just on it and includes opinions about the situation of the places it took place in, as well as the relationships between the Jews and everyone else, showing the anti-Semitism present on some of those even at the day of the filming (and of course, way later as well), and also how bad it was even for the non-Jewish people whose towns and villages were occupied and exploited, giving the documentary an even bigger sociological aspect than it already had.

If the content wasn't good enough by itself already, the presentation and directing are AS good as well, no music except for songs or themes sung or played by the people themselves, immersive sound mixing, no archive footage as previously mentioned, visualizing what the testimonies say whenever possible, and following the path of the train to not only cover all the places on which such a thing happened, but to also move to a different aspect and different people with different things to say, as well as giving the viewers the impression of both travelling to the camps themselves, thus making the whole thing more immersive, and also making it seem that the documentary itself is "moving", on the rails, thus using them as a sort of transition from one footage to another.

I can't help but admire this work also just because of all the job that had to be done as well, from investigating, travelling, contacting and hiring translators, making contact and establishing the interviews with the interviewed, doing the interviews themselves, capturing all that footage, and then doing all the editing that had to be done afterwards. The whole process took more than ten years to finish, and it even left out a lot more content that was released later on, and although I didn't watch all that yet, I bet based on descriptions that those other documentaries are also worth a watch, and not just some cashgrabs of barely any worthy extra material, as it happens in other mediums, I know about that pretty well myself, being an anime and old bands fan.

For minuses, there was a testimony of a man dedicated to deliver letters, sometime near the eight hour, of whom I don't think he added much of substance, and sometimes the director tended to zoom on the faces of the people when they seemed to be close to break in tears, which I find emotionally manipulative, and not something ethical to do nor positive for a product.

What more can I say? Despite its challenging nine and a half hours runtime, its obviously not meant to enjoy content, and some minuses, it's an amazing piece of work and in turn excellently presented, and on my mind easily one of the very few close to perfect media I've consumed in my life.

Since I already covered every major Monogatari (anime) part, I figured I could do the same with the manga and make it my last review about the franchise. Comparisons will be made but nothing regarding major plot points, of which I already wrote about, so this review theoretically could work for newcomers as well, though it’s better to read those other reviews before, I think.

Although somewhat praised and still quite popular, the Monogatari manga seems to be seen as an inferior version within at least the western fanbase of the franchise. How do I think it fares as someone outside of it and that didn’t really enjoyed it?

The first big difference that fans aren’t pleased about is the visual style. Certainly, usually you can’t expect to match all the craziness of such an anime with a manga, and although Oh! Great is a good artist, he didn’t do much to fare with the wild directing of its anime counterpart. Not to say that he doesn’t do his own things, like drawing a character between two vignettes, making it seem like they are “jumping” off the manga on certain scenes, or drawing over black paper (I think, at least it looks like that to me) during some dark moments for a more shocking effect, or going for the typical comical gag of having just one character in a page that is otherwise full of dialogue, to mimic some moments from the anime and novel where, well, the characters talk a lot, but otherwise aren’t really saying much. This was done before on different titles, some even by the Monogatari author himself, like Medaka Box, and it’s present here as well.

But still, what Oh! Great goes for obviously can’t compete with the visuals of the anime. Not to say that his art style is bad though, he is still an overall good artist who keeps a permanently consistent artwork and very good special effects, and is usually very good at drawing fighting scenes, which are more prominent and violent here than in the anime counterpart, and he also keeps the same bizarre and dreamy feeling of the backgrounds, although nowhere near as much as the other version. He also does an accurate imitation of the art style of different manga whenever there is a reference, as it happens in the different animated series and movies of the franchise.

The worse aspects of his are his character designs, you can tell he is the artist right away if you ever read something from him, despite all the hairstyles, hair colours and clothes which he uses to make his characters stand out from the others, he tends to repeat faces a lot, and it happens here as well. Not to say that you won’t notice which character is who, but if you are a fan of the character designs of the anime, the difference might be quite big to accept.

Finally, the worst thing about this artist, is the fanservice. If you don’t know a thing about him, let me tell you the two biggest problems of his, he tends to overstuff and overcomplicate his plots and from a certain point take them very seriously despite his silly premises, and yet still fill them with loads and loads of naked minors. So, Monogatari seemed like a match made in heaven for him. There isn’t a single one of my Monogatari reviews where I didn’t bitch about the fanservice, and it is actually worse as a whole in here, more present, more prominent, more explicit, thrown in more inappropriate moments, but at least he keeps it away from the youngest characters for the most part, along with the pedophilic humor, which is something that the manga has in its favor compared with the anime.

As someone who doesn’t pay all that much attention to the visuals and doesn’t consider them as important as other people do, and finds liking or disliking something entirely because of that aspect to be incredibly fake and superficial, I didn’t mind all these changes much. In fact, I preferred the visuals of the manga, as I was never a fan of the antics of the anime, I like the more straightforward but still quite artistic presentation of the manga a lot more, and I especially like not having to pause every few moments to try to read a wall of text representing the inner monologue of a character, taken from the light novel. But I also really wish it toned down the fucking lewdness. As a whole, despite my personal preference, the artsy visuals of the anime franchise are still better than what’s present in here, but I want to make it clear that the visual presentation of the manga is overall still very good, besides all that fucking excessive nudity.

Now we can finally move to what really matters, plot and characters. And if you are a newcomer that doesn’t know the first thing about this franchise, is a harem located in a weird city where supernatural things happen and supernatural creatures and deities appear, mostly at night, having a direct effect on the mentality, and even the looks, of the characters, and the plot structure, much like almost every other harem in existence, has the protagonist helping his potential love or lust interests with their problems and making them fall in love with him for his kindness and stuff, like in a dating sim videogame, that much didn’t change, the premise stays the same.

What Oh! Great changed, is making the overall plot far simpler and more straightforward than the anime counterpart, which is rare for him, as he, like I previously said, tends to overstuff and overcomplicate the plots of his works. I don’t know why this was done this way, but that’s how it is.

The overall basics and important plot points are still there, but several relevant details are modified or even skipped, the reasons for things within the setting are explained differently or even skipped, secondary characters have a much minor role and exploration here, and even entire arcs, both of the plot and the supporting cast, are nowhere to be found, heck, a big part of that secondary cast doesn’t even appear, as the manga focuses almost entirely on Kiyomi Araragi, Tsubasa Hanekawa, Hitagi Senjougahara and Kiss Shot Acerola Orion Heart Under Blade. This way the plot is faster and far more focused, but also loses a lot of the layers, scope and mysterious vibes that played a big part on drawing such a huge fanbase in the first place.

As someone who didn’t like all the pointless talking and slow pacing of the franchise as a whole, I much preferred this far more straightforward version, but it is understandable for the fans of it not to like it as much, as part of what they found appealing in the first place is now either gone or heavily modified.

In specific, Bakemonogatari (arc/volume/part, however you want to call it) is kept practically the same, as a buildup of a season for what’s to come in the future. It has the same ups and downs of the anime, fleshing out every girl but at the cost of not moving the plot. Since this is a manga, one can read it at their own pace, and since it doesn’t have all those inner monologues from the light novels thrown in as walls of text for split seconds like the anime, it is a much easier and more pleasing and tolerable experience than the endless, and a lot of the time pointless, talking of the anime, but that still doesn’t change the fact that most of the arc is still lots of pointless talking that doesn’t let the plot move in the end. There is a reward for toughing through that in the anime franchise, but since most of the secondary girls don’t have their own arcs here, it is all not only pointless, but it also doesn’t lead to something worthwhile in the end, making it an overall inferior version of its anime counterpart in retrospect.

A good thing of this version, however, is how it completely skips the absolutely pointless, useless and disgusting part that was Nisemonogatari. Sure, it presents characters that are relevant in the future, but since they do not appear here, erasing it from the continuity, along with all of its crappiness, was a really good thing.

Instead, the manga goes directly into flashback territory, as it adapts Kizumonogatari, the only part/arc/whatever I enjoyed in the whole franchise, and that’s actually thanks to this version, which I consumed before I watched the anime movie trilogy. Skipping Nisemonogatari but adapting this one makes it perfectly clear that the overall manga focuses on the characters I mentioned earlier, as this arc shows how they got to know each other and form their relationships, as well as how the protagonist got his super powers and got himself into a big mess of an enmity between different super powerful supernatural entities, along with all the cool action that comes along with it.

Compared with the anime, it’s equally or slightly more brutal and explicit about it, but not gruesome or exploitive. The ecchi aspect of it is, again, worse, and somehow even more stupid, perhaps you have seen an infamous memed panel of Araragi walking into the mountains that are the boobs of Hanekawa, yup, stuff like that is present throughout this arc. Another issue, which wasn’t on the previous arc, is how sometimes the author throws very silly comedy between the serious moments, something that doesn’t happen in the other adaptation, even though it does in the, surely coincidentally, worst seasons of the anime.

What’s better in the manga, however, is being more psychological, as it has all the main characters introspecting about their pasts, how they show themselves to others and interact with them, and their flaws, thus being closer to the other parts in that regard, something that was missing from the anime. And also, the exposition is far better in this arc, as it has a flashbackception where Kiss Shot not only tells her past, but also the mangaka chooses to actually show that, instead of having characters just talking about it, as it happens in the anime.

Anyways, just like the movies, this is an arc that explains and actually shows why the characters are the way they are, instead of just being extreme versions of common anime, and harem, stereotypes, and fleshes out each of them while setting up events and character dynamics to come, along with cool and brutal action, thus it’s fine even though at the end of the day it’s still an arc without real stakes because the protagonists are practically immortal and far stronger than their enemies.

After that, the manga follows with a heavily modified version of Nekomonogatari and Second Season, focusing itself entirely on Hanekawa, Araragi and Kiss Shot, showing how the first got to put up an image of a perfect know it all harem girl because of all her familial troubles, in an even darker, as in, more messed up and brutal way than the anime, with some of the darkest scenes and visual metaphors in the manga. Unfortunately that also means that it needlessly takes it to the extreme at times, in a far more violent fashion than needed, as this manga is far gorier and action oriented than its anime counterpart.

Like I said, Second Season is heavily modified, as Araragi basically rejects every secondary, not fleshed out girl and rushes to…well, where the plot needs him, you know if you consumed any of the other two versions. While that is happening, Hanekawa is fighting and accepting her dark and true self, both mentally, and literally, since, as I said, this version is far more action oriented and at times needlessly gory, and don’t forget the fanservice and poorly mixed comedy, there is a lot of that as well. The messages are perhaps delivered more directly than in the anime, and some details are changed (Tsubasa never goes to the Araragis’ house here, is Hitagi’s father the one that tells her to stop running from her problems instead), but as a whole it was a good alternative version of both Neko Kuro and Shiro/Tsubasa Tiger.

Unlike the anime, which would run an entire arc in its entirety before showing what was happening at the same time, here both the aforementioned arc and the second one from Owarimonogatari are shown simultaneously, the manga goes back and forth between Hanekawa and Araragi, and what he was doing regarding Kiss Shot and the other vampire, in a more comical but still very similar fashion, and since over here neither Izuko nor Yozuru are present, Koyomi is the one that makes the deal, thanks to being influenced by Meme, which was a cool detail honestly.

Anyways, this part of the arc shows the beginning of how the setting came to be, everything basically being the result of a tragic, kind of unrequited or perhaps forgotten love, as it was in the anime, and kind of cheesy as a whole, but good in making the characters face their pasts and move on from them. Things are not as well explained nor in a satisfactory way as in the anime, but it was still fine, except for the part where the main antagonist of the arc turns out to be the main antagonist of the whole thing, of which I have a mixed opinion about, him being a proactive antagonist instead of a semi tragic figure that couldn’t do anything to prevent his actions was a nice detail, but it came with the cost of taking away proactivity from other characters, such as Tsubasa, and that’s a bit of a shame.

Still, the connection between the two arcs and the split presentation of the narrative, as well as the messages and themes explored through it make it a decent double arc, with some major changes in its favor, but it is still not as good as the anime version, except for the aspect of being faster and not having all the silly comedy from the beginning.

After that is over and practically the whole plot covered, the manga moves on to the date of the last arc of Bakemonogatari, skipping Hanamonogatari, Tsukimonogatari, and thank fuck also the disgraces of Koyomimonogatari and Zoku Owarimonogatari. As I said, as an alternative version it can weird out longtime fans. There isn’t much to say about this final part, it’s there to give Senjougahara some spotlight which she didn’t have for a good while, and also to give a needed closure for both the characters and the romantic aspect of the plot, as well as the story as a whole. The one off chapters about each secondary girl were a mixed result for me, the ones about Hanekawa, Shinobu and Kanbaru were fine as a closure for the characters, the ones about Hachikuji, the Araragi sisters and Sengoku were disgusting, a failed attempt to rush through the most famous or infamous parts of their anime arcs, and they don’t even address important plot points even when they are mentioned, it would have been better to skip them entirely like the manga was doing before instead, this way the it feels like the manga was initially going to be longer but had to be rushed and compressed for some reason.

My final opinion about the manga is that it’s more casual friendly, as a tighter, faster, simpler and easier to follow version, without all the weird antics in the visuals and directing of the anime, reasons why I preferred it over the other alternative. Despite my personal enjoyment, and the aspects which I found better done here, I also have to admit that Bakemonogatari, as a single arc or season or whatever, was done poorly in retrospect, exactly because it took away the later importance of almost everything that happens in it, as it also happened with several details in world building and characterization for the supporting cast. Fine as an alternative version mostly for newcomers, as long as they can stand big amounts of fanservice, but most likely a disappointment for longtime fans. Inferior than the anime, but still ok as a whole.

The second season adapts the divisive Farmland arc, which mutates the plot from a manly war drama to mostly an introspective slice of life drama in a farm. The change is huge and it’s understandable why many don’t like it, myself included, I found it to be a very dull season for the most part, at most I liked 2 out of 24 episodes, and I don’t really intend to watch anymore from this franchise, since the next arc is infamous as the worst, even among the fans of the manga.

In fact, this season is the reason why I dropped the manga in the first place, first by holding it for three years, and a second and last time as soon as Olmar appeared, screw him, such a disgrace of a character to the franchise.

Despite that, since I already watched other shows about former assassins or soldiers wishing to redo their lives last year such as Jigokuraku, Rurouni Kenshin, and in a sense even Pluto, I thought why not watch this one as well? And so I did.

Aesthetically, the second season is simultaneously better and worse than the first season, which I guess is not much of a surprise with the studio changing. To star with the positives, the character designs and models are as great as they always were, some characteristics of some characters even reflect their names well, Snake fights with a curved blade and the way he moves around did remind me of one, Fox is not only cunning, but also the way his eyes, usually closed, look most of the time made him look like an actual fox. Also, the animation during fights, although not as interestingly directed as the highlights of the previous season, was overall better. Perhaps it’s due to this sequel having less action, but the few fights in it had far better motions, and some even used rotoscoping. But despite that, the artwork was actually worse, even affecting the character models at times, and there was more and more prominent CGI which was even worse that the one used four years earlier, affecting the quality of both the backgrounds and special effects. Oh and there was also more censorship, so I guess this is one title which you expect the Blu-ray releases of. The directing did have some cool moments when the mentality of the characters was the focus but other than that it didn’t impress me nearly as much as during the first arc.

The atmosphere remains unchanged, voice acting and special effects are as great as ever, but the music is still forgettable, although a bit better used and more fitting, since this is overall a far calmer season, and that goes specially for the songs, which I skipped most of the times, since they were just some pop songs I didn’t care about.

Now for the plot. Besides of Thorfinn farming there is also Canute doing his things to become and establish himself as the one and only king of both Denmark and England, and that ended up being the only part of this season which I enjoyed somewhat, seeing him doing horrible things for his goal in the patch he chose, and I still enjoyed like two episodes out of 24. The pacing is considerably slower, since most of the series is watching Thorfinn farming and meeting people, so it takes a while to establish character dynamics and mentalities before you feel that the story is moving forward.

The tone is a lot calmer and there is a lot of one of the worst aspects of the first season, that damn comedy, which is now thrown in even during supposed serious moments, fuck that shit, I was already disliking the series when it was Stardew Valley, and with this I came to dislike it even more. And then there is Olmar, a comic relief type of character at best, since he exists only to be a failure, be mocked, and making you want to drop the franchise, eventually the author does something good with him, but he still remains the worst character in the series so far.

Themes and characterization are otherwise as strong as before if not even better handled. The presentation is not as subtle, since several characters are willing to easily forgive or do favors to the same people that made their lives miserable, and Thorfinn can come off as a bit preachy at times, especially with that super idealistic finale that even made Canute laugh out loud for the ridiculousness of the whole thing, but the exploration of said themes and messages are still good. Unlike the romanticized versions you can find on North American tv and cinema, Vinland Saga isn’t afraid to show war as a horrible thing, innocent lives are lost or ruined because of it, an example of that is the very same Olmar whom I dislike so much. He is essentially what Thorfinn would be like if he had an easier life than Canute, he wanted to become a warrior and show off, but as soon as he was made to kill someone, saw many people died, his family was affected by all the fighting, and was horrified of his own brother, he realized what a fool he was all along, and chose the same lifestyle which Thorfinn came to have during the season.

Look at Thorfinn himself, at the end of the season he was an empty husk of a person, he didn’t even care for his own life, he suffers from PTSD for all the killings he did, and even sees the once so aspired Valhalla of his as a nightmare fuel hell akin to the Sañjiva Naraka in Buddhism. Thus he became a reformed man and a pacifist looking for peace and compassion for both him and everyone around, making that his ultimate goal at the end of the arc, despite learning and accepting that sometimes you don’t have any other option than using violence to defend yourself or someone else.

Look at Canute, when he is not pillaging a village for funding, he is threatening people, killing his own family for political reasons, or becoming crazy for being haunted by his own dead father.

This also goes for the other theme, slavery, treated with a lighthearted tone within other anime such as Shield Hero or Ancient Magus’ Bride, where the slavers are presented as kind and the slaves fall in love with them because of that, so it’s magically fine. Well not in Vinland, slavery is a horrible thing, it destroyed the lives of several characters, it caused the dead of Einar’s family, it ruined Arnheid and Gardar’s lives, it’s a system abused by many of the free workers higher in hierarchy than the slaves, and even a seemingly kind slaver like Ketil, who doesn’t want to resort to violence, can become a beast and take it on others below him when things go sour.

Despite that, Farmland doesn’t have any very simple character, each one has a backdrop, circumstances they go through, and all the important ones have strong developments and/or catharsis, you are not watching Texhnloyze right now, there is hope for some of these characters after all the misery they suffer.

The finale is otherwise not very strong, not only because the story ain’t over, but also because it felt simplistic, easygoing and idealistic considering the events and the connection between the two different plots that led to that. And don’t get me started on all the comedy that was present on the last episode.

The minor issues from the previous season are still present, minus the rule of cool, since this one doesn’t have nearly as much action and as such it lacks all the exaggerated moments the previous one had.

This is a point which truly defines who really cares about the themes and characterization of Vinland Saga, even at the expense of the plot and excitement, since they otherwise remain as good as before, if not even better. Well sorry, I care about the themes and messages but I also care about not wanting to drop something every few episodes, so you can count me out of this franchise forever. Even with my dislike of the season and arc because of its plot, pacing, comedy and presentation, theme exploration and characterization are as strong as ever if not better, thus it’s still a good season for me, even if I don’t think it is as good as the previous one or as it is made out to be by some people. There is one already teased arc left to be adapted, considered the worst by even the biggest fans of the manga, and another one left to be written, by I give up on this franchise, I wish everyone who reads this a good time with the rest of it and a bit late Happy New Year.

Kinda similar stuff

Rurouni Kenshin (similar protagonist, worse in everything else).

Jigokuraku (similar but inferior protagonist, and only in the manga or later anime seasons to come, worse in everything else).

Pluto (Most major characters are like Thorfinn, better in most aspects).

Gin no Saji and Hyakusho Kizoku (Farming slice of life and coming of age comedies written by Hiromu Arakawa, the woman who made Fullmetal Alchemist, they are not as good but there aren’t many farming anime out there).

Farming games like Stardew Valley

Back in 2019 I remember starting two big titles within the medium at the same time. I began watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes and reading Vinland Saga and switch between them two whenever I didn’t find one of them fun, so after some point in the “second season” of LOGH I would focus entirely on the prologue of the manga because of how fun it was, before I dropped it for three years after I reached that divisive Farmland arc.

Anyways, since I clearly liked that first arc of the manga I had to watch the anime, which begins with an extended beginning of the protagonist Thorfinn as a kid thanks to its own original material. Those first three episodes are fairly dull to watch if I’m being honest but help in making clear what type of story you are getting into. Despite being labeled as a simple fighting shounen by some, Vinland Saga is to its core a pacifist coming of age anti-war and anti-slavery story, that’s why the slavers are depicted as cruel as they are in the series, without coming off as the one dimensional assholes you can expect from other series, and that’s why Thorfinn’s family is ruined because of an incident regarding a slave. Likewise, that’s why Thors tells Thorfinn that they have no enemies even if he was a warrior in the past, something that many that were disappointed with its second arc apparently didn’t catch the first time.

Look at Thorfinn himself, he sees Vikings as cool as a child, he wants to become strong, grow to become a warrior and go fight in the war, and his family and whole life is ruined as he keeps on seeking revenge and running from his close ones, he becomes a puppet in a larger scheme of the very same person that took everything away from him, and also a murderer, gets seriously injured while fighting against stronger and more experienced opponents, and yet, since he is a kid and is out for revenge, he doesn’t grow up and learn, he refuses to let go because of that code of honor and Viking spirit he grew to aspire to, even when he admits and call other Vikings madmen as he grows later on.

The other important character is Askeladd, who goes from being a cool and cunning antagonist to the most and best fleshed out character in the whole season. Despite being aware of his hatred for him, he becomes a mentor of sorts for Thorfinn, as he is basically an adult version of him, given that his own life was ruined because of the war, and instead of pursuing revenge like his young impulsive counterpart, he slowly polished himself, up to the point where he could make a profit out of the very same thing he hates the most, and planned a political plot behind his initial simple presentation to strike directly that thing he hated the most in the long run, even giving himself up for it.

There is another relevant character in Canute, but he is not as well handled in this season at least, since he is just a quiet and pampered guy who doesn’t know jack when he appears, and his development into a masterful tactician, politician and even philosopher is cool, but also rushed to the point of not being convincing.

The rest of the cast may not be as important in the plot nor have as many dimensions as these three, but they serve the theme exploration just fine, the Vikings like Thorfell are all crazy, they like war so much and became such warmongers they are basically sociopaths, which is something that, for example, Hellsing Ultimate attempted to show in the past, but did it in a way that felt like it was trying to have a cake and eat it too, since it was presenting those characters as cool while doing it so. Not Vinland, these characters are demented and come off as horrifying…when the directing allows it, but we’ll come back to that later.

Besides the main focus, there is also a succession war going on which the characters either take an active part on their own or get dragged by it, and some of the best and most memorable moments and developments as well as character dynamics in this particular season are related to that specific plot point.

The pacing is good ever since the beginning, since every moment is dedicated to either the theme exploration, the plot progression, or the characterization, and in fact it was actually enriched by the adaptation thanks to its original material. The anime combined the retro approach of adding stuff to the original that could make it better, and still kept the modern pacing, and yet some people complained about it because of some CGI horses or something, can you believe it?

The finale, although obviously not conclusive in the sense that there is a lot of more story to come, is perfect for this one season, and atypical too, since the protagonist ends up having the exact opposite of his goals being accomplished. In a way, it is similar to the ending of the first season of Kaiji, since both protagonists could have stopped ruining their lives further, but because of their own stubbornness and thirst for revenge, they ended up having it worse, look at how much Thorfinn’s life was destroyed at the end of this arc partially because of his own fault, and people say this is just another fighting shounen that glorifies violence.

With all that said, Vinland Saga is not the masterpiece it’s made out to be for different reasons of varied importance.

First of all, it’s not that well animated. The overall artwork is fine, the character designs and models are great, the backgrounds are usually good, but sometimes the action scenes are poorly choreographed or animated, and there is some questionable CGI here and there, especially for water and horses, which damage the otherwise very good special effects. The directing is a mixed bag as well, sometimes an episode can be among the best presented in the medium, sometimes there can be interesting action scenes done with first person perspectives or dynamic camera movements, but other times they look poor and are presented even more poorly, an infamous example was a certain episode with completely different paneling than the manga, which didn’t manage to convey its point as much, which was Thorkell being a horrifying crazy warmonger, and let’s not talk about the scene where he chops down some dudes as he is running, that was seriously pathetically animated and directed.

The audio department has some similar issues though not to the same extent. The voice acting and the sound effects are superb, the sound directing is awesome, especially on that one episode where Canute and Askellad are walking towards the king, really conveying all that tension. The music is otherwise pretty forgettable or misused, and that includes most of the openings and endings as well, which I never understood why they became so popular in the first place. They sort of fit THE RAAAGE of the main character but they otherwise don’t fit the story, setting and time in history that the series take place in that well. The only song I liked was Torches by Aimer, the first ending, since it reflects the saddening tone of the series well, but even then I liked it mostly because I like the artist herself more than anything else.

If you want accuracy on your historical fiction then you will have a problem with this series for a few reasons.

First of all, the events and characters themselves, which were modified for the sake of the story. This is something the mangaka himself admitted to do in some of the early chapters of the manga, and if you happen to read a fansub of it, those always include some notes of their own where they detail the changes in events when they translate historical works.

Then there is of course the fact that this is, DUH, a manga and anime, thus you will have the characters talking and at times acting in ways that don’t fit the time and place of the story, and that can be immersion breaking for some viewers.

Related to that point is the comedy, for some reason most anime and manga like to include that awful comedy even in some of its most serious titles. Yes, it makes them not as tedious to consume but the changes in tone can be so different that they can be immersion breaking for some, myself included, thankfully here is not thrown in during serious moments and thus they don’t result in serious mood whiplashes.

And then there is the rule of cool. Sometimes you would have Thorfiinn jumping a laughable amount of meters in the air to land an attack or aboard a ship or fortress where he continues to do acrobatics and cut people down, or again, you could have Thorkell cutting down people in half for the sake of spectacle, or that one scene where these motherfuckers are running down a mountain, I think, while carrying the boats? Rule of cool can make something more exciting and more enjoyable to watch alright, and manly men doing manly things in manly ways is always fun, especially at a time when the medium is full of pussies, but on an anti-war historical drama, the action scenes can be way too over the top for some people.

But in the end, the most important criticisms are the ones I already talked about, how the story is not over, how Thorfinn doesn’t mature, and how Canute changed completely on one or two episodes, thankfully both characters get a lot more focus on the second season.

Despite those rather minor issues, I consider the prologue of Vinland Saga a great historical and political war drama and the second best anime to come out in the last decade, only behind Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, at least until I watch something better (though I don’t see it happening), and I’m glad something like this got all the attention and positive reception as it deserved for once.

Kinda similar stuff

Vikings (tv series)

The Last Kingdom (tv series, in turned based on The Saxon Stories book series)

The Northman (Movie adaptation of the real story that inspired all revenge plots and this franchise).

Berserk (Similar political plots and protagonists).

Hidamari no Ki (One of the main characters is a warrior that fights against bandits and refuses to change and also faces a bittersweet ending, while the other tries to get him to live a peaceful life, kinda like Thorfinn and Leif).