Reviews by Fernando Leonel Alba

Note: I will refer to the protagonist as a she, and the co-protagonist as a he.

I don’t know why I never got around to watch this short title, when I wanted to do it for years. Since I recently rewatched and reviewed Aoi Hana, another adaptation of the same mangaka, I decided to do the same with this one, and I have to say, it’s clearly a better title.

Coincidentally (or not), it has a similarly looking visual style, consistent artwork, seemingly purposely unfinished yet beautiful backgrounds, and this time, much more vivid and expressive motions, expressions and body language, making these characters feel more alive than the ones from that other show. It even has the same issues of having way too simple character designs which even look alike to others from the same series, and just like that another title, and many other anime out there, there is a problem with the lighting, making the brightness too high to the point of not being able to see what’s on screen at times, but again, this goes away near the end. It almost feels like the same team was behind both adaptations.

The opening decided to show the classroom with the lyrics on screen for some reason, it’s an ok jpop song but nothing much, it is even quite a bit too energetic for this show. The ending is cute and more fitting. The overall background music is cute and relaxing, it fits the series but good luck remembering it once the show is over. The sound effects are decent as well. The voice acting is a curious case, initially they sound weird for the characters, eventually they adjust to them well, and everyone did a good job in the performances, which are even atypical for their usual tones and acting. The main character has a more mature voice than expected, but the anime seemingly made it on purpose for an in-story point, so it’s ok.

Although it has recurrent elements of a middle school romance, Hourou Musuko is primarily a coming of age drama about transgender people, more precisely, the two protagonists. The premise alone makes it stand out from the get go. Despite that, it’s not like only the main characters matter, the focus is obviously placed on them, but the anime bothers to follow its secondary cast as well, covering their thoughts of the situation, their own insecurities, and the different dynamics between all of them, thus becoming more complex than it seems at first.

The plot structure isn’t very different than any other school show however, as it has the characters doing typical stuff, from a stage play for a festival, to activities on their own clubs, getting together on vacations, then being separated in different classes the next year but still going home together, all that stuff. But at least it bothers to make them relevant to the main plot, as the classes make cross-dressing plays for the protagonists to play the character from the opposite sex, and that’s the reason why they reunite. And even then it flips the expectations by having the roles fall on to some friends of them, thus it fleshes those characters as well, instead of having them only as the supporting cast.

The series focuses primarily on showing the mentality of its two protagonists, biologically male transgender girl Shuuichi, and biologically female transgender boy Sakatsuki, how they feel with their bodies and clothes and about the way everyone else watches them and perceives them. It also covers how first everyone on the group of friends find out and act towards them once they come to know, adding some romantic tension between them, internal differences because of that, some of them being supportive, others trying to be but still not accepting the whole of it or at least not as sincerely as they claim to do, some of them standing on a confusing indecisive position, and some others straight wanting to stay away from them. Not only that but because of the own initiative of the main characters, other implicated characters come to know about them, from relatives, to acquaintances, to love interests, even the whole school, and just with the main group of friends, there are also divided reactions about it.

This makes the characters that don’t accept the main two to be plainly unlikable themselves obviously, but from a writing standpoint this is good, as it shows how transgender people are rejected even by their own families. Despite that, no character is presented as being plain good or bad, they are more confused about the situation because of how unexpected it is, rather than plain despising Shuuichi, even subverting her own expectations, as her father ends up being the supportive one in her family, when she expected him to be the one to be against her the most. Her sister is the most ambiguous, as she cares about her “little brother” in her own kind of tsundere way, but still does not accept Shuuichi being a girl, even calling her a freak and a pervert and more mean things. Despite that, at some point she is very happy for how her own boyfriend is supportive of her sister, so, I’d say she ends up standing on a strange middle ground.

Another ambiguous character is former bully Doi, who used to mock Shuuichi for her feminine traits, yet in present time seems to be supportive of her, and even ends up being the co-writer of the second play and some people even theorized that he likes the protagonist. This is the hardest to read person in the whole show.

The series also bothers to show the differences in prejudice and judgment towards the main two genders, as almost nobody makes a big deal when Sakatsuki comes out as a boy, yet it becomes a big scandal when Shuuichi does the same, but as a girl. So I guess you could say how it portrays patriarchy being oppressive towards men and masculinity in its own particular ways, at least in Japan.

With that said, not everything in the script is very good. There are clearly pacing issues, as the adaptation begins from the 6th volume of the manga, leaving everything from before to be referenced through conversations or quick flashbacks. This is a mixed bag, as the presentation shows instead of telling, and it lets the viewer to figure things on their own, something that I appreciate as a positive when it’s well done and clear, but this way it also leaves the backdrop of the characters and some of their dynamics as background and incomplete information. Well, at least the people behind it did a good job to follow the two main characters as well as giving inner dialogues to the rest of them to flesh them out well, despite not showing their backdrops in their entirety.

That’s not the only clear issue in its pacing, as love confessions, change in seasons, months, and years, breakups and more stuff are shown in quite a hurry, making some events to happen in a more rushed way than what would be optimal. Two episodes even got re-released as specials with extra scenes because of that, flowing better in those alternative versions, but still losing something from the aired version, so I guess the original manga is the only of the three to feel really complete.

Another issue is the ending, which is not a closure in the least, it feels open to make you go read the source, while at the same time it goes for a quite lukewarm and mixed take. Despite the big fuss everyone made about Shuuichi, and some of her classmates mocking her, from one episode to another it seemed like everyone came to accept her, which would be a good but weirdly presented finale, as it feels like something is missing in between. That’s not the only problem with it though, as some of the closest characters to her, and ambiguously even herself, seem to still see Shuuichi as a he at the end.

Well, that, and everyone still refers to Shuuichi as a boy and Sakatsuki as a girl throughout the whole show, nobody uses the proper pronouns for them. So the series ends up having an ambiguous take, but I guess it would be much to expect from a 2011 anime, based on a manga that began in 2002. Despite being a bit critical on the perception of transgender people, it focuses more on showing and exploring them, than explicitly make a statement and take a supportive position about them. This does not take away its importance and value theme wise, but it will probably feel like it didn’t dare to go all the way out there and a bit outdated when consuming it today.

Since I’m an Argentinian cisgender male born in a catholic and LGBT+phobic house, I don’t know how accurate the portray of the struggles of the characters is, much of it felt like they wanted to wear the clothes of the opposite sex, but incorporating their inner thoughts and the perspectives of everyone else took the topic to a grander level. I still have to say, I have my doubts of the credibility of some circumstances within the work as a whole. First is how lucky were the main two to encounter a transgender (and I think also transsexual, but I’m not sure, as it isn’t very clear) woman to talk with them and help them in some way, as well as another girl that sometimes uses a male uniform to encourage them in her own way.

Second, lots of characters seem to be ambiguously conflicted about their own sexualities at some point, at least that’s how it seemed to me with Chiba, who desired to be the Romeo to Shuuichi’s Juliet both in and out of the play, Mako, who at points seem attracted to his friend, and like I said Doi himself, the hardest to understand in the whole series. Having lots of possibly LGBT characters together in a series of its time seems unlikely, it also makes it harder to believe of their ambiguity to take a supportive position of the protagonists, but like I said, as a whole this criticism is not that important because this point is left rather ambiguous.

Third, despite the big fuss made on the last couple of episodes and all the people mocking the main character, nobody strongly opposed the idea to have cross-dressing events in the following festival, and even the people making fun of Shuuichi would come to respect her position as the scriptwriter and director of the second play. Again, something seems to be missing near the end.

Fourth, I have a hard time believing that they would let one student take their classes away from everyone else, in the infirmary no less.

A point I’d like to address is that ten years later, Blue Period was adapted, and a character over there seems to be able to wear whatever they want, I thought it was weirdly accepted there as well, but apparently nowadays the rules in Japanese schools allow that, or so I remember reading two years ago when I began watching and reading those other works. This does not take away the credibility of Hourou Musuko, but it’s important to keep in mind that the situation it displays might be different nowadays.

As for the characters, they have a bit of the same issue as the ones from Aoi Hana, they come off as much more mature as you would expect from their age and this genre, even more so in here because they are younger than the ones from that other series, but at least here they still have some childish traits and more petty conflicts and impulsive reactions to be more believable. The incomplete ending and how different the last episode was from what was shown earlier makes the catharsis to feel lacking, incomplete and incoherent, but there’s a strong development for the two main characters, who come to accept themselves and confront others as the show goes on, even when Shuuichi is far bolder and more straightforward as she seemed at first.

Characters I would like to say a bit more in specific include:

-Chiba, who wants to be supportive of the two protagonists, but because of her own feelings, ends up being quite conservative on her views, resulting in a very conflicted character. She is also “at that age” and comes off as a very rude and bratty bitch of a girl, but interestingly, she also has the self-awareness and self-reflection of being like that, even accepting it when being confronted by others, and is also sincere of disliking herself for not being as kind and open minded as others. Part of the series is also dedicated to how this character comes to terms with herself and others.

-Anna Suehiro, a character without much depth on her own, but a strong contender for one of the best girls and girlfriends in the whole medium. Mature, kind, understanding, and supportive. She seemed a bit too perfect but the series bothered to show some childish and impulsive traits of her, proper to her age, like starting relationships impulsively, and it also shows the limits of how open minded she really is, resulting on two great scenes near the end of the anime, one of them in the specials.

-Characters like Maho and Momo, despite being unlikable themselves on their own, are needed for the sake of the writing, as they represent how transgender people can be rejected even by those close to them, and that not everyone is supportive. At least there are salvageable traits for the first that I already covered earlier, I can’t say the same about the second, she was close minded, a hypocrite, and not even much of a character by herself, as she is only defined for being close to another girl. This character doesn’t add anything to the whole, honestly, her role could have been filled, and better, by anyone else, but at least she doesn’t have much screentime to count as an important flaw.

Despite the issues in its credibility, pacing, ending and own position, I find Hourou Musuko to be one of the most thematic relevant anime out there, even more so considering the time period it came out, and even more so for its source material. Plus, it’s a slice of life where everything feels like it’s moving the plot forward, and it did the good thing of showing multiple different perspectives, to add complexity to a premise that seemed interesting but simple. Not only that but it also had an either very appealing, looked into and fleshed out cast with interesting dynamics, or a well handled one in terms of writing for the case of those characters that aren’t that good on their own, all in just eleven episodes. I don’t think there’s much rewatch value in it, but it is definitely a worth watch for at least one time, as long as you don’t hate on anyone that isn’t cisgender. Now I have to go, there’s a complete story of 123 chapters that I want and have to read as soon as possible to see how all of this truly ends.

HERE IT IS FOLKS, THE LONG AWAITED DONGHUA ADAPTATION OF THE RAVAGES OF TIME, THE HIGHLY ACCLAIMED CULT CLASSIC MANHUA HAILED AS THE BEST WITHIN ITS MEDIUM AND THE BEST VERSION OF THE ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS IN ANIME AND MANGA…

…And it looks like shit. Well not bad exactly, but definitely as average as many other 3D donghua out there. Compared to other 2D action donghua that has gained some fame in recent years like Wu Shan Wu Xing, these visuals will surely be underwhelming. It’s even worse when compared with the action anime that were airing at the same time that this series came out, like Jigokuraku, Kimetsu no Yaiba or Jujutsu Kaisen, to name a few. Heck, Aiyou de Mishi is a non-action 2D donghua that aired at the same time as this and it looked way better. When paired with all those competitors out there, and even with its own source material, which doesn’t look exactly great either but it’s visually still pretty good, this show ranks at the very bottom when it comes to visuals, as it looks like the cinematics from a PS3 videogame.

Everything from its artwork, backgrounds, special effects and not very expressive and quite stiff and similarly looking character models, looks rather fake. Better than anime with bad CGI but certainly way worse than anime with good CGI. The motions during fights are not bad actually, and the choreography of those battles are quite good, but the shaky angles don’t let you see what’s happening in the clearest way either.

Not to say that there aren’t any visually good and interestingly directed moments in it, especially in the last episode, but those are very few in a pile of mediocrity. Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention to that, but The Ravages of Time is a heavy action work, especially in its beginning, and action needs good production and presentation, something that isn’t present here and makes for an important flaw.

As for the sound, the sound effects also range from weak to quite good, resulting in another just mediocre result. The voice acting also comes off as average, although I blame it a little on what the script is like at the beginning of the manhua, not allowing to show much more of the characters other than everyone coming off as a badasss. With that said, still, almost every character sounds very similar to the others within an age the same or close to theirs, with the only exception being the feminine looking characters, that still sound alike as well, thus this aspect is also mediocre. The music in the other hand is quite good and fitting for its series, even the opening and ending, an epic song and a ballad respectively, both with traditional Chinese music vibes. That is also important when dealing with an historical show, and a detail that anime pay less and less attention as time passes it seems (Golden Kamuy, Vinland Saga, Rurouni Kenshin remake, for examples), but this is not the place to talk about that.

Even if you strip it of its dressing, the meat is not the best thing in this series either. What you probably heard or read about The Ravages of Time during all these years is that it is a super detailed and smart look at The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, focusing on highlights and equal time dedicated for every major character, strong characterization for everyone, military strategies and tactics, mind games and very well written sociopolitical and ideological discussions, while still being an overall faithful adaptation, even if it still has its new twists and dimensions for the characters on its own. And the thing is, all of that is present within the manhua, yes, but not so much in the beginning, and even less in the donghua, where the subtitles of the adaptation are simplified and not as detailed as what you can find when you read the source material.

Not to say that the series so far is poorly written, and it has some of that good elements, while also building up and anticipating plot points and character dynamics that will be important later on, but it also suffers strongly from two major issues that remain present during the entirety of the original work, although not as much as what has been shown here. The first one is that, although necessary for the coherent and cohesive whole and for future events, some of its chapters and now also episodes are simply not as interesting nor as packed as others. Not a major problem, but one worth mentioning.

The other bigger issue is how in the beginning, The Ravages of Time is full of something that never goes completely away and that works against it in its intention of portraying a serious and detailed look at these historical events, which is the dick measuring, especially in the beginning. This aspect is present on two forms, with the first one being the excessive amount of rule of cool. Although every character is presented as cool and badass, and has good enough highlights, spotlight and their time to shine, thus seemingly being presented fairly and equally, this also results on way too much spectacle, to the point where the series stops being believable. This is particularly true for the heavily plot armored Huo Liaoyuan, one of the two main characters and protagonists, who is so un-killable he might as well be a supernatural being in a setting where everyone else is an overpowered human, but still feels like a human.

The other form of dick measuring is the many HAHA GOTCHA moments present in the beginning of the story, affecting even the credibility of the many plans within plans and strategies within strategies of the characters, because of both how sometimes they are explained as they happen, instead of before their execution, and for how much the characters are able to see far ahead, somehow even manipulating circumstances they don’t have any control of.

Anyways, here are the important aspects of this particular season:

-The story begins somewhere between the end of the Yellow Turban rebellion and the rise of Dong Zhuo, his coup d’état and tyrannical government.

-This first season doesn’t have an ending, the conclusion of the former point should be shown on a possible continuation.

-Although important, none of the main characters of the novel and other adaptations are the protagonists here. The series is shown primarily from the perspective of Sima Yi, who plans events and manipulate others for the sake of what he thinks is right and to make profits out of the conflict, and Huo Liaoyuan, an assassin and both a friend and underling of the former.

-Some characters are presented differently than in many other adaptations of the same events and novel: Dong Zhuo is not a goofy senile old man or an impulsive and easy to fool madman, Liu Bei is not a saint, as he is willing to do questionable things for what he thinks is the greater good, Zhang Fei and Lu Bu are not just brutes, they are quite smart, the latter is even put on the same level as the main tacticians of the conflict, and Zhao Zilong and Diaochan are just two alternative names of two major characters in this show.

-Although this season only shown them just in name, a big part of the whole story is dedicated to a group of students of Sima Hui and future military advisors that work for the major generals, referred as The Eight Geniuses. The only one highlighted so far was the first, Yuan Fang, an original character working for and related to Yuan Shao.

-An important original character that stands out enough to be worth mentioning on his own is Xiao Meng, an eunuch, assassin, and the best archer out of the whole cast. If the adaptation keeps going on, he will become one of the best cross-dressing and androgynous characters in the whole medium.

-Cao Cao was teased but he did not appear yet, he might in a possible next season.

In conclusion, this first season of the adaptation of one of the most praised manhuas is great in ideas but just decent in execution. The production, presentation, aesthetics and atmosphere range just from mediocre to decent at best, the characters are more imposing and cool than deep or very well written, the core story is good but there is too much silliness for the sake of spectacle in it, and it feels like a setup for future events with no form of conclusion in any way. Even the possible continuation will have many of this issues as well. Worth checking out for being the starting point and a promise for something far bigger and better to possibly come out who knows when, if even, which makes it look like the usual overhype of the fanboys of a fighting shounen that say that it is average or slightly above average in the beginning, yet it becomes much better later on. If you are not willing to go through that for this season and even the hypothetical next one, I suggest checking out the source material if you haven’t, it is very long, very detailed, quite the challenging read, and very anti mainstream in its approach, but very rewarding for those who are patient with it, but only after a while, as it is the seinen and true version of “IT GETS VERY GOOD AFTER 40 CHAPTERS AND ALL OF ITS ALMOST 600 (so far, and still far from over) CHAPTERS ARE IMPORTANT GUYS, I SWEAR”.

Note: There is only one spoiler in this review, but it is a big one. This anime stands out a bit for being quite mature and relaxed with its subject matter, and because of its visuals. It’s otherwise nothing special in terms of plot.

I originally watched this title back in 2017, and just like Amanchu!, which I also revisited this year, I’m glad I rewatched it because I had a different idea in my mind of how the anime actually is.

For example, I remembered Aoi Hana to be just drama, yet there are quite a lot of comical moments in it. Comical, yet not funny, I don’t think anyone will exactly laugh with the light moments in it, since what it got from me was a smile at best. With that said, I rarely laugh when watching anime, so there’s that.

Anyways, this series belongs in the early 00s trend of having yuri anime inside girls only catholic schools, what with their own chapels and stuff, a rich girl, and a tall and petite girl, usually black haired and with brownish/red head respectively, as the main characters, typical stuff.

A trend that was quite the rave back then for its novelty, but was pretty much forgotten by now and kind of infamous even then, because the relationships of the main couples in said anime were often toxic, manipulative, sometimes even abusing.

Aoi Hana stands out from the norm thanks to two things. One, it is not like that, and two, and this is a big spoiler, but I just have to say it, the main characters are not the main couple. The first thing that has to be clarified about this title is that, despite having the main girls together in the posters and opening and ending song, both of which with lyrics from one character speaking directly to the other, the romance does not revolve around them as girlfriends.

In fact, despite being tagged as romance, the series is more of an anti-romance, it belong in the same category as 5 Centimeters per Second in that regard, in the sense that it’s not exactly about the progress or conflicts of any particular relationship, as it is more about people hurt because of unrequited love, so it’s more of a drama than anything else.

Although there are definitely characters in this show that are more questionable than others, no one can be exactly labeled as a plain awful person, they hurt others not out of intention but because they themselves don’t realize how they truly feel and how much they are really affected because of those feelings. So a big part of the show is to explore the backdrops of them and make them grow a little by realizing that.

With that said, only Fumi, the main girl and protagonist of the series, is the one to fully reach that level of catharsis, not even much of a development. And I have to say said conclusion was kind of a mixed bag, her whole conflict was starting out a relationship because of her hurt heart after her unrequited first love, which she remembers at the last moment that it actually wasn’t the first. Despite that, she has the best scene of the whole show as she calls out on someone else’s bullshit. The rest come to a realization but there’s no progress for them besides that, as the anime just ends with a quite open and incomplete ending, making you go to read the manga if you want to know the true finale.

Aside from that, Aoi Hana is not exaggerated and corny nor unrealistic as the romance genre usually is at least in anime, mostly thanks to those sensible characters, who in some cases are in love with the same person yet don’t take it on the other, don’t overreact, and even when they cry about it, the scenes are not presented in an overly dramatic way. No hysterical characters, no yelling, no running after someone, no awkward confessions in front of everyone else. This is not one of those emotionally manipulative tearjerkers.

At the same time, the differences in its execution are more present in its presentation rather than its plot or characters, which at the end of the day are still typical, simple, slow moving and kind of uneventful, nothing that would please or caught the attention of a critical audience or someone that isn’t a super fan of the genre to begin with.

Visually, Aoi Hana has quite a distinctive identity thanks to its polished artwork and beautiful and atypical seemingly hand drawn backgrounds, closer to either paintings or drawings made with crayons at times. The downside is how simple and typical the character figures are, even with some facial repetition here and there, and even more so because as soon as it ended, the adaptation of Sasameki Koto aired, another work from the same mangaka with very similar character designs. Also, given the nature of the show, it is very limited and not very good in terms of movements. An initial issue with the visuals that goes away later on is how bright the anime is in the beginning, something that still happens to this day with some titles for some reason, I don’t know why. There were times that I had to get farther away from the screen to even see what was happening, but fortunately that doesn’t happen from the mid to late point of the series. Oh, and I have to point this out, there is very limited CGI, and yet it was very well integrated within the rest of the elements, a rare case in the medium and overall a rare win in the visual department for J.C. Staff.

The sound is nothing special however, serviceable sound effects, good relaxing and melancholic piano pieces that reflects the overall vibe of the show quite well and yet they are easy to forget. The same thing can be said about the opening and endings, they are fine for what the show is about but nothing to remember unless you hear them regularly. The voice acting is odd, as most of the cast is composed of minor names, with only two or three big voice actresses in it, some of them sound realistic, mature and atypical for the kind of anime this is, some of them, the more comical ones, give the exact opposite impression.

The distinctive visuals, the mature presentation and tone and the sensible characters is what makes Aoi Hana better than most of its counterparts that I’ve read or watched or know of on a critical level, but it’s still a fairly slow paced, simple, kind of uneventful and incomplete show for anyone outside the target audience.

And even within said target audience, the series has the issue of being for a very specific taste, one that likes high school dramas and romances, yet also wants a different and mature presentation, things that rarely go together, as the two genres were always conceived as something to work more on an emotional level and not so much on a critical one. The cheesiness, the petty characters, their emotional breakdowns, the conflicts, the overdramatic reactions and soundtrack that go along with them, all of that is fine for an audience that consumes this type of stories just for a quick easy watch, knowing well that what they watch or read is otherwise not very good in terms of substance and writing. Aoi Hana presents itself as an oddity that gives them the same content with a slower pacing, a much lower energy, teenage characters that act so reasonably to the point of feeling less human as they should for being appealing within the genre, and even for how they would react in real life, and a kind of incomplete ending, given the promotional material, that makes them go to get the manga, which from what I read on comments and reviews, is a bit different, in the sense that does include some exaggerated an even quite nasty scenes, and it still ends with an unsatisfying conclusion. It ranks among the better yuri I have consumed, but it can also result in a very dull and forgettable watch for most people, because of the same aforementioned reasons that give it some level of quality.

Time for Another review of a P.A. Works show that I absolutely despised that was equally beat to death, this time attempting to do a horror series and resulting in one of the most beloved unintentional comedies of all time within the medium, that nowadays is remembered as a better Mayoiga, a title that was almost universally mocked to death and that I didn’t watch because if this is supposed to be the better version, why bother with the other one?

Anyways the studio definitely delivered with the visuals in some regards and didn’t with others. The overall artwork is clean and consistent with no major issues, and as usual for them, the backgrounds are very well made, the rather dark coloring fits the attempted mood and tone well, and the special effects are very good as well. But again the problem is the completely uninspired character designs that seem to have been taken from literally anywhere else, not only that but unlike the last show I covered, this time they don’t even have a distinct hair style or color or accessory to at least stand out from the other characters within the same show, outside of the main girl with an eye patch. It goes for a kind of realistic approach in that regard but the result ended up being completely unmemorable and dull to look at, plus the style of faces it went for went against that idea of realistic looks.

The motions are a bigger issue in the visuals since the characters in this series are seen only in three ways during its whole duration: 1-Completely still and emotionless. 2-Barely moving, and emotionless. And 3-Moving so much and in deformed ways for the sake of being unnerving that instead comes off as a joke. Since the overall aesthetics are quite plain and flat for a horror product, the makers tried going for crazy faces and exaggerated movements as an attempt to scare the audience and the result was, once again, one of the most cherished unintentional comedies within the medium.

The directing is pretty average as well, nothing regarding camera work adds to the atmosphere it tries to build, and the quick cuts the series does to broken dolls, or other things like a particular part of the body of someone about to die, to feel random and, for the third time, unintentionally funny.

Similar things happen with the sound department, the sound effects are good and fitting and the background music is a typical albeit well made horror soundtrack. It’s just that, again, the directing doesn’t use them properly in the least. The volume can randomly go up by a lot for no reason to make the sound effects seem intense, and the tracks turn to something like seem taken out from Silent Hill, and what might be happening on screen when they are used is just the characters walking to some place. In Another series it could have been a little bit scary but for this one, from the premise itself it’s clear that nothing supernatural is coming out at any moment, so it’s all both artificial and fake tension or interrupted by one of the most random death scenes that you’ll watch in the whole medium, making you laugh at best and be irritated, like myself, at worst. Which is a shame because the main theme is actually quite good, but it’s a bit long and repetitive for what it’s worth, and so overused and misused that it loses its effect very fast. I found the opening to be unfitting for the anime and quite crappy even on its own, and I can’t even talk about the ending song because I don’t even remember and I don’t care enough to check it out again for the purpose of this review. Voice acting is standard.

The series was always thought of as the anime equivalent of the Final Destination movie franchise, which people liked in the beginning but ended up hating as it went on, so right out of the bat the comparison warns you to better skip this title. In this case, the reason for all the deaths is a curse from a former dead student that kept ongoing for thirty years, as presented in the show in its first three minutes. This makes anyone from a specific class to die at any moment, meaning, anything bad can happen to anyone at any moment in any way just because the script says so, you already know what the result of that ended up being. Essentially, a butt hurt causes lots of innocent people die even decades after their death. What’s worse is that the main girl knows a lot more than she lets others know, making an otherwise simple resolution for an equally simple show being stretched out for way more duration than needed, especially when you consider that she is the main suspect, being accused just because of her appearance and rumors about her or some shit. And that’s not all, as the growing dementia because of the curse makes any character to change completely for no reason other than just because. A completely normal person can turn into a psychopath murderer the next moment, to kill everyone and soon afterwards die themselves, mostly because of the main plot device of the show, but sometimes because they lost their mind. Except for the two protagonists, every other character can get totally rewritten at any given moment.

Not that it makes much of a difference really, as there are no real characters in the series, considering how weak their presence and personalities are, and how practically nobody has a backdrop, even less so any development and catharsis. Only a few of them are alive at the end of the show, and they remain completely unchanged from all the horrible deaths and killings they witness and survive by a hair. Only the main girl has a pretty dumb backdrop, and is not present in the main series, it was released as an extra episode or ova. Forget about character archetypes, these don’t even reach that level of characterization, they are closer to mannequins which only difference with the dolls shown at some points in the anime is that these ones are kind of alive, as they kind of move and kind of talk. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this might be the worst cast of characters I have seen in my life, both in quantity and quality, as there are a lot and not a single one of them isn’t terrible.

The absolute worst aspect of both writing and characterization is how the curse can make everyone forget the information they gathered and, at the end, the person responsible for it, in what’s essentially the worst excuse for delaying the plot and any kind of character progression whatsoever ever written. Not only that but despite all the deaths and killings going on for thirty years, nobody in the little town the show takes place in does anything about it. Even when is known that only a specific class is cursed, nobody investigates, nor tries to close the class, nor change the numbers of the classes, nor moves the students to other classes, nor close the school, not even tries to alarm others, nor moves on from the town on their own to avoid the possibility of being caught in all this tragedy. By comparison, last year I read Uzumaki, where it also takes a lot of time for people to react, but at least they do at some point, and the setting ends up explaining why no one could do anything, I found it underwhelming as essentially the characters weren’t any better nor had any more of a real option than this cast, but at least they try and there is an explanation, over here there’s absolutely nothing. This is easily among the highest positions on the worst written shows I have seen in my life, dragging on with no excuse just because it has to.

There is only a half positive I can say about this anime, which is that it anticipates at some point who the dead person is, it’s just that it’s quite subtle and easy to miss, since every other second in the show is completely different than how that information was given. And the reason for why it’s only half a positive, it’s because it ends up being a huge plot hole, sice that character was nowhere inside the class during most of the whole show, which was a rule that the series established earlier.

Oh, and I almost forgot, since it doesn’t happen much, but there a few scenes that are meant to be funny and are even more random than any of the deaths. Also, this series somehow managed to have the most unfitting and out of place beach episode of any anime of all time, whether its setting is a school or not

Bottom line, this is an even worse anime than the last one I covered, and I hate it even more than that one, easily one of the worst written and directed products I have seen in my life, with no sense of logic and rationality within the script whatsoever, and with one of the worst, if not the worst cast of characters I have seen in my life. It looks nice but that’s about it. Remembering about it only made me drop its score even lower, I’m afraid, making it earn a place among the worst titles within the medium that I have seen in my life.

I remember when I began watching seasonal anime and this show was hailed as one of the best and most recommended ever. Now it stands in a weird status, as it’s remembered as the best not KyoAni Jun Maeda show after the two huge flops he would make later, yet for the same reason seemingly nobody goes out of their way to recommend it. I’m glad it took me so many years to write about it because if I had done it back when I delved into it, it would have been one my most rage fuelled reviews ever, since this is easily one of my most hated anime of all time. Now that I mellowed considerably I think I can say everything that I found wrong about it properly.

First, if there was something that was almost universally praised back then was the animation and I don’t exactly get why. I mean, to be fair, the artwork is clean with practically not quality drops I guess, the backgrounds are well done, as it’s usually the case with P.A. Works, and it’s true that it has among the best uses of lighting and shading you can find on any anime of its time and that would only age for the better as time passed. I don’t know why but many seasonals nowadays can’t reach even that level of more than a decade ago in that department. The body language when the characters do something that’s supposed to be funny is quite good as well. Even with all that said, when you compare it with some of the shows and movies that were coming out in its year or even the one before it, can you really say this is among the best animated? Because I sure can’t.

The series has this weird black dust, clouds creatures, things that appear sometimes out of nowhere and those look really bad and outdated by now, heck, they already looked weak for the time this anime came out, and let me tell you that when the characters fight against them the motions are not very good either, heck they aren’t really that good at any fight at all. Even when the characters fight among themselves they mostly stand or sit still and shoot their guns and that’s it. Only one of them who has some kind of energy blades moves around well. Plus the special effects during fights aren’t very good either, certainly not as good as what it’s done with the backgrounds. Also, although the body language is good in the comical moments as I said, thanks to the repetition of the jokes, and the overuse of sped up movements, even that can become repetitive and boring to look at pretty fast.

Aside from that you have the character designs which are easily one of the most uninspired that I have seen in my life, in anime at least. This is an usual problem with P.A. Works, they change their style with every new show they make and although that way their series don’t feel visually rehashed and repetitive, it’s what makes them lack a visual identity on their own, it’s easy to mistake any of their products with something done by anyone else. In this case, outside of the coloring of their hairs that makes them look like everyone has wigs, there’s not much issue with the character figures themselves, as they are always consistent unless they are purposely deformed for comedic effect, it’s just that every one of them feels like an uninspired KyoAni reject or straight up clone. The only one I can make an exception for is a dude known as TK who would have never be done by that studio, but the rest? It’s not that they look generic, it’s that they straight up make you think that you are watching something else. Visually, this anime really feels like it was done this way just to cash in on the fame of Kyoto Animation and other Jun Maeda recent shows and movies at the time, I mean just look at the dates.

The music was also quite praised at the time and I don’t think this aspect is outstanding either, just like I don’t find any particular tearjerker anime to have an amazing soundtrack, it’s all slow and sad piano pieces and simple and generic equally slow and sad jpop songs for both background music and opening and ending. The only reason why they are remembered is for the details outside the composition. In case of the intro is for how out of place it feels with its almost melancholic tone even though the series is half tryhard funny and half overdramatic, and its unusually still images and naming of the characters that made it look more like the opening for an early 2000s visual novel instead of one for an original television series. In case of the ending is for how less characters appear with the passing episodes, as they keep dying in series, which is actually a good detail. As for the insert songs, it’s not for the singing or instrumentals themselves, but because they are used for the scenes when someone dies.

The sound effects are pretty good and the voice acting normal, average.                                                                                  Now on to the real problems with the series which are plot and characters, you know, what should be the most important aspects of any show, even more so to be labeled as amazing.

To start, the premise is only half interesting when you read that it’s about people on the afterlife but then it stops being so because it takes place in a high school. Not only it comes off as uninspired as the character designs, it also only works in a meta sense to be relatable for a teenage audience, it otherwise brings so many issues in its logic because aside from an occasional teacher, only teens are ever seen in this setting, what about everyone else? Kids, adults, old people? Where do they go when they die? Not there, apparently. With better or worse results, similar products like Haibane Renmei and What Dreams May Come explain the internal logic of their settings with a little something called world building. Not Angel Beats, it’s a series that takes place on a school just because, the show never explains why, and when it’s about to end and seemingly going to do so as the main characters face the apparent main antagonist, he doesn’t know either, the place existed before him, so the world of this anime remains unexplored all the way through.

The series tries to establish a rule by saying that if the characters don’t do something at the school other than studying and getting good grades, they’ll disappear, but even then it’s only an excuse for typical school anime situations and nothing else. What about all the other quiet and still students? Why don’t we see them doing something to avoid disappearing or at least see those go away? Because they are background unimportant characters, that’s why. World consistency is not important apparently.

What’s usually said to defend this show, is that it was meant to be twice longer, but that’s only an explanation for how bad it is at best, if the team behind its production knew that, they should have rewrite the script to be more focused and not spend as much time with typical school comedy as it does. There is also extended media from it that supposedly explains the missing details, but that doesn’t affect the lack of planning and quality of the series.

Another issue is how there are no rules for the world whatsoever, anything can happen at any moment to have something happening and any random thing for the characters to do at some point, just as an excuse for something to face in any episode, just to fill space and time, being other students or monsters. Plus whatever damage is made to the setting have no impact whatsoever, and characters can heal wounds or respawn quickly, they also can make guns or other weapons appear out of nowhere.

Anyways, the real way for the characters to pass away and reincarnate is to remember their lives and deaths, meaning, that until that happens they don’t have any backdrop, and when their pasts are revealed, they disappear, thus the series becomes formulaic, repetitive and predictable. You just know that when someone is getting focus, is going to die, and when they do, sad piano and an insert song is going to kick in to manipulate your emotions and try to make you cry for a character that up until that point was nothing more than a generic character archetype. It’s even worse when it’s revealed that some of them knew the others from before, because if they were able to remember the rest earlier, the show would be over much faster. This only aids to make you notice that all the school comedy bits were a waste of time. Hell, not even all the characters that the series presents at the beginning get to reveal their backdrops to the audience, some of them just pass away out of screen.

And there are even more problems with this element which is that, with almost no probability whatsoever, some of them get to reunite after their reincarnation, which on top of being astronomically convenient, ruins the supposed emotional departures, even the last scene, which by the way was a huge plot hole, as it’s revealed that one of the first main characters known to have appeared in the setting somehow died after the protagonist who was the latest to spawn there.

Just for the sake of overkill, I could also say how the series tries to build a romantic dynamic with some of them but without meaningful nor distinct interactions whatsoever, even less because they can’t know much about their partners otherwise that’d mean their deaths.

There’s nothing good I can say about this anime, the sound department, the visuals, and the premise are uninspired, the plot and setting make no sense, the pacing is atrocious, both the jokes and emotional moments are presented in a way that becomes formulaic, repetitive and predictable, the directing is manipulative, the characters are archetypes with close to no dynamics among them almost to the end, its legacy has been practically ruined, and as a whole, despite being an original show, it feels like a rehashed and derivative project made on the fly to cash in some popular products from its time. It’s no longer among the top worst anime I have seen as it was back when I watched it, as I’ve consumed much worse since then unfortunately, but it remains one of my most hated ones and perhaps the one I consider to be the most overpraised and overrated.

This ova is dumb as fuck, and I know that’s a strong and harsh way to begin a review but I find no other nor more appropriate way to sum it up. The premise has a woman paying a private investigator to find her criminal husband to see him one last time, it’s sentimental but also kind of cheesy from the get go. At least the pacing is not bad, since even though the protagonist is seemingly fooling around, he is getting close to people related to his target and gathering information about him, that way he also comes to learn stuff about him, and since every character he encounters is related to the man he is searching, both that guy and everyone else gets fleshed out at the same time by revealing more about their shared backdrops each time. The movie it’s mostly about that, there isn’t much plot in it aside from showing the lives of the criminal and his acquaintances.

Visually the anime is good for a single minor production from its time, character designs are simple and generic, the artwork suffer from some quality drops, and motions are simple and not very good. Backgrounds and special effects, however, elevate the overall visuals. The sound is very forgettable and unnoticeable, weak sound effects, weak music, very average voice acting.

The main problem of this title is presenting a fake grey morality, it tries to judge the horrible actions of the man everyone is searching from a moral standpoint, and what they do with him at the end feels satisfactory because both his wife and friend take a big part on it, but it also tries its hardest to justify every single thing he does. Exploring a character to understand his motivations is one thing, justifying the horrible things he does is another completely different. Not only that but the conflict could have been resolved much sooner if every single person here didn’t act so stupidly and illogically. Also the anime becomes idiotically melodramatic at the end by attempting to present a situation as complex when it’s not, it’s very simple as the outcome comes to prove. Finally, the closure it tries to give to its story and bad guy was so corny and out of place, the movie tries to say that he found forgiveness, redemption and a sweet, touching and emotional reunion but it fucking isn’t possible to buy it, he was a horrible person through and through and his train of thoughts was completely irrational and only gave an even worse impression of him, he didn’t deserve any happy ending, and certainly not one where he happily reunites with his first victim.

This is supposed to be the adaptation of just one case, the 170th, of a long manga, in turn spin-off of an ever going way bigger manga franchise, which is why there is no context given about the protagonist nor any of his coworkers, plus, if this is its level of quality, then there’s no reason to delve into it. Despite being a short watch, it is still a waste of time.

Why do I do this? I recently covered Ghost Hound, a title I found very hard to review, and here I am writing about Paranoia Agent, an anime that I find even harder to talk about. Sigh

Mousou Dairinin is a series that works way more on a conceptual level than at its execution, and it’s also the definition of a series for an acquired taste, as its writing is not very good for the hardest to please most critical viewers, and its narrative is almost unapproachable for a casual audience that just wants to have a good time. Also, being a work with Satoshi Kon in it raises the expectation high in terms of directing and atmosphere, and only one of them is truly achieved in this series. It doesn’t help that this is a show that’s best to watch after you already watched all the movies from the director first to get used to his style for a single, rather short entry before jumping to a full series.

Let’s start with the easiest part which is the animation as a whole, easily one of the best you’ll find in any anime series, not a single quality drop as far as I’m concerned, very well made backgrounds, expressive and detailed motions, great special effects, great use of lighting and shading, great changes from brighter to darker colors whenever needed, and at times different art styles are well integrated within the series both visually and narratively. Plus it has the usual exceptional directing that can be expected from Satoshi Kon, just as he did with his movies before this series, he really captured how distorted the characters perceive reality by either messing up the visuals completely with added first person perspectives, or with a quick succession of scenes transitioning into one another. The only complaint I have here are the designs, which feel derivative from any other work from the director, they are not bad, I appreciate how realistic and varied the character figures are, but they definitely give the idea of being rehashed from somewhere else.

The sound is good but not amazing, and that’s the exact same thing that can be said about each part of the whole department. Voice acting? Good but not among the best you’ll find in the medium. Sound effects? Same thing. Music? Same thing, again, especially coming from Susumu Hirasawa. The opening is weirdly catchy, as it should, the visuals give you the idea that every character is uncontrollably laughing while losing their minds, thus it transmits the idea of paranoia quite well, and the song sounds uncomfortably upbeat for its super weird lyrics, for what’s being displayed on screen, and for the show it’s used for. The ending is simple and repetitive yet it also gives you the feeling of something that’s cute and relaxing at first approach, yet it hides something sinister underneath, while every important character peacefully sleeps around the main mascot of both the series and the world it takes place in, very fitting with the overall feel and themes of the anime, I’d say. With that said, there is a very well made sound mixing in here, especially during the darker and more intense and suspenseful moments, too bad the whole show isn’t like that.

But what is it about? A kid with a bat hitting people in the head, changing his targets on every episode. What feels like a simple episodic series at first, ends up being an interconnected psychological thriller, as every victim is related to a previous one, and there are two police detectives interrogating them and searching for clues to get to the bottom of the mystery and incidents. That’s not all, as every character gets an episode dedicated to showcase their lives and all the mental pressure they go through and the dark secrets they are hiding. Even though some are more important to the answer to the mystery than others, this approach makes every single one of them serviceable as plot devices and fleshed out on a basic level. There’s more though, as every character has technology and gossips/rumors making their lives harder on one way or another, which along with their subsequently more fragile psychological stability, ends up making them have suicidal thoughts, as means to escape from reality and the difficulties they face on a daily basis.

And that’s basically the core idea behind the show, to explore Japan's mentally stressed and overwhelmed, overworked and suicidal society, and how lies and fake news propagate with ease and can ruin lives or at least makes them harder. It also shows how said society deals with that through escapism, through both its use of technology and consumerism, of the cute main mascot from and within the show, as well as just ending it all as a mean to avoid dealing with the struggles and responsibilities one might have. Something very important to talk about for the time it came out at the beginning of the 21st century, that’s perhaps even more relevant now.

I’d like to show this with a quick description of several episodes, without spoilers:

-Episode 1. The first woman and first victim, one of the most important characters in the show, designer of the main mascot from and within the series, hated by her coworkers and pressured to come out with an equally or even more successful successor to the pink dog she popularized. Being the first person to be attacked, she is questioned a lot about the incident and even suspected of making up the whole story, both on her work, by the detectives, and on social media.

-Episode 2. The first kid and third victim, a narcissistic piece of shit suspected and rumored of being the teen with the bat, falsely accused of being a bully and later on being bullied himself, through a photo of him that’s shared on the cell phones of everyone at his school.

-Episode 3. The second woman and fifth victim, private tutor of the previous kid, a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder, and a prostitute at night. Both personalities try to overcome the other and talk to each other through her phone. This is the best and most Satoshi Kon episode on this Satoshi Kon series.

-Episode 4. The second man and sixth victim, a policeman extorted to work for the mafia to protect his family, under an alias of sorts, he uses a weird mask and stuff, and his personality changes a lot while doing it so. This is quite of a subversive episode of sorts, as the outcome wasn’t like the usual of the previous episodes, and the series dares to take a path that is seemingly going to end the plot in less than half the duration of the show, an interesting but risky move. Also there doesn’t seem to be any implication of technology here.

-Episode 5. I could bet this was one of the most hated and frustrating episodes to watch as it was airing, since the tone is completely different from the rest of the show, thus it comes off as extremely bizarre in an already uncommon series. It is about a kid who sees the whole world as Dragon Quest, while also a parody of sorts of said franchise. Nothing else can be said about it without spoiling a big part of the anime.

-Episode 6. The first girl and seventh victim, who communicates with her father through her cellphone, and she learns that he uses cameras to spy on her. It is directly linked with the fourth episode and adds the technological aspect that said episode was missing. It also flips the whole case up until this point.

-Episode 7. One of the detectives is starting to be affected and becomes paranoiac himself, as he keeps listening to the testimonies and searching for clues on his own, he starts hallucinating because of the static of all the radios he uses for that.

-Episode 10. The fourth man and eight victim, out of the ones shown on screen, as at this point the conflict reaches a much bigger scale than what it’s actually shown on screen. This asshole keeps fucking up the anime of the mascot and blaming everyone else, the connections with technology are many to name, but is the one that has the most distorted view of reality, he does so many horrible things that are shown as quick flashbacks as he is falling asleep while driving. Probably narcoleptic. The episode is also a somewhat self-satire of anime production.

-Episodes 11 to 13. Yeah no, as if I were to talk about the episodes that give the answers and closure to the whole show, as well as a catharsis for some characters.

As you may notice, I didn’t talk about episodes 8 and 9, and that’s where the first problem of this anime lies, since those episodes felt like filler. The first has three online suicide friends, something that apparently exists in Japan and the Dark Web. It makes you think that it’s going to be important but it’s mostly comical in a twisted way and it tries to fool the audience that the criminal is a paranormal force, it’s not, it’s something even crazier. The second is just some women telling some made up stories about the kid with the bat, it’s meant to show the level of gossiping and paranoia up until that point but the rest of the episodes do the same with much better execution and results. These two could easily be skipped without losing much, the characters don’t even appear in the opening and ending like the rest of them, and it makes it feel like the series has an issue in its pacing and amount of episodes.

The second issue is how the anti-suicide and anti-escapism message and answer for the mystery are directly told to the audience with no subtlety, different from the works of the director so far, I’m guessing because he wasn’t on charge of the script.

The third problem lies on the message itself, which is very simplistic and will feel misguided to most western viewers, of which I’m one of. As was discussed on several episodic discussions of this series that I’ve read on different sites, particularly on its eight episode, it’s important to understand that suicide is seen in a different way on the Japanese society and culture. Whereas in the West is commonly thought of as an act of selfishness and cowardice that should be avoided and persuaded from, over there it’s conceived as a way to pay for all the failures in your life, that nobody else should be sticking their noses in, so it’s the not very different but also the ultimate way of handling them, by giving your life on a last failure, basically.

And since Paranoia Agent is a Japanese series made by Japanese people, its message and criticism are not directed towards the problem itself, but the individual, as expected. Let me explain, the anime shows many different harsh scenarios and situations of many different people, and instead of seeing it as a collective problem, it still keeps the blame on every individual, it’s weird that it sees many different sources for what’s a common issue, while somewhat connecting every singular conflict, yet it ultimately concludes and decides that the problem is within each person as an isolated case. This means that the message of the show ends up being: “yeah, we know there are many issues within our society, you might suffer from some of them yourself, but you just have to tough it up and face them”, which is not exactly bad, but it isn’t very different from telling a depressed person to just cheer up or an addict to just stop consuming whatever they are addicted to, it’s a good but very simplistic and reductionist and not very empathetic message. It exposes a problem but it does not offer a very critical response to said issue, though I guess it’s expected for its era and I guess it would probably be presented differently nowadays.

The fourth issue are the characters, which although greatly used narratively as great plot devices that are even fleshed out on a basic level, all they have is a backdrop story, no one is very memorable nor have much personality outside their mental issues, and no one has a development, also only the most important ones have something that can be considered a catharsis, and even then one of them just seemed to have become totally delusional and repeats the cycle of another character, whose actions are completely incomprehensible, in a seemingly circular manner. The rest are shown again at one point in the series, thus you get to see what happened to them, but since the events in-between are missing, you don’t get to see how they ended like that, making their struggles and their respective solutions easier and simpler than they were previously presented.

The fifth problem is that it’s meant to be an allegorical series, instead of seeing it as something that it’s actually happening. There’s nothing strictly bad with using symbolisms, especially when they actually mean something instead of being just cool or artsy visuals, but this way the writing comes off as totally unrealistic and nonsensical if seen in a literal manner, almost supernatural or fantastical in a setting that’s otherwise perfectly normal and mundane. Also, this way some of its biggest events come off as uneventful and easily fixable, those storms that take place in the show? Don’t worry, they don’t actually happen and everything is back to normal in the end.

It’s even harder to accept because of the way the series is presented, reality is often twisted as a result of someone’s state of mind in the works of Satoshi Kon, but in almost every one of those, the characters are limited to a small set, often even just one of them, In Perfect Blue, it’s because of the protagonist slowly losing her sanity because of the fear and the pressure, her famous persona and the different image of her that she shows publicly giving her an identity crisis. In Millennium Actress, it comes in the form of the fading and blurry memories of a senile old woman who was also an actress, so her recollections of her life mix in her head with the movies and roles she played. In Tokyo Godfathers, the main homeless trio lies to themselves and others when they talk about how their lives turned that way, and how responsible they are for that. Paranoia Agent plays out in a similar way, but with a much bigger scope and an approach and reasoning that doesn’t feel as close, human and personal as his previous works, as it also partially makes the struggles to be quite external instead of entirely or mostly internal. Unfortunately he would do something similar with his last work Paprika, as dreams and reality blur with each other, only to be solved with an asspulled power up and everything going back to normal like nothing happened.

Bottom line, Paranoia Agent presents some of the best concepts and themes ever in anime with neat visuals and directing, serviceable atmosphere and a great use of interconnected plot devices to deliver an ok although weirdly presented and delivered message, but the writing and characterization are almost an afterthought for that, in a series that feels slow and very hard to digest and accept. I consider it to be worse than Tokyo Godfathers but better than Paprika. Worthy as a complementary one time watch to Satoshi Kon’s previous movies, but not much else.

Similar and better works

-Satoshi Kon’s previous filmography (including Magnetic Rose)
-Boogiepop wa Warawanai, in plot structure and some themes
-Shinreigari, in plot structure and some of its topics
-Odd Taxi, in plot structure and main character arc

This will cover both versions

There was a short lived period/phase in my life at the beginning of 2014 where I would read a bunch of yuri manga altogether, Citrus which I dropped, this one that I never finished, Netsuzou Trap, one of the worst, most toxic pieces of shit I’ve read in my life that took me years to finish, and Girl Friends, the only one I loved at the time. It never went completely away though, as I would watch a title from the genre from time to time. So anyways, I wanted to kind of reread and finish this one now, nine years later, since now I have a very different criteria than I used to back then.

There isn’t really much plot to talk about besides what’s already given in the premise, a girl stops time when she feels pressured and finds out some other can move alongside her while everyone else remains stopped. This plot device is weird, since it actually happens in its story, yet it’s not meant to be seen as that being literally the case. Stopping time is just a metaphor for the protagonist running away to her own secluded world whenever she has to socialize, which is why it’s never explained how she got that power, even though the reason why she ends up losing them is implied in story.

Anyways once the setup is established, the two girls just fool around in their school, and later on become a couple, while the main character does everything the other girl wants. And that’s when the manga begins to feel weird, as one of the girls is seemingly being used by the other just for her convenience and amusement, something which thankfully would later on be addressed and subverted, actually. And that would lead to an actual confession near the end which was presented in a very corny and nonsensical way, but honestly the whole story is like that.

The real meat here are the main characters which although simplistic at first, have some kind of background stories and internal monologues to explain why they are the way they are, and how necessary it becomes for them to change, as they are both secluded within themselves with a very twisted view of the rest of the world, that’s when they sincere with each other and have their expected confession and learn to show themselves for who they truly are and not run away from the things that bother them. Unfortunately neither their backdrops nor inner thoughts are very big of a deal, and their catharsis made it seem that all they needed was to have someone to love to solve all of their problems, but it was an ok catharsis for both of them, even if they never faced any real consequence for whatever they did prior and thus the conclusion doesn’t feel that impactful.

There isn’t much to say about the art either, it’s just your typical average shoujoish look and presentation.

The anime adaptation tried to cram the whole manga in just an hour and it failed, the visuals remain as equally average, even more so if possible, with an equally very standard directing, and the sound department goes completely unnoticed, except for the ending which the seiyuus sing in unison, it was quite cute.

The main issue with the adaptation is that it shortened both all of their interactions and their backdrops and even their inner monologues, thus you don’t get to see much of the girls together nor understand what troubles each one of them, something easy to notice even if you are an anime only, which prevents the conclusion from feeling genuine. It tried to incorporate its own things by having them question themselves a little about dreams and time in an attempt to seem deeper, but no added line really says anything meaningful, and those dialogues are very short anyways. There’s also an original scene where the protagonist blushes for having a typical anime “indirect kiss” with a random girl, and really, what was the point in adding that? At least it changed the confession scene by changing two things which I found an improvement, the first was not having anybody else when that happens, whereas the whole school was present in the manga, adding to the cheesiness, and the other was cutting off the line of a friend of the love interest, since that girl badmouthed her at a previous point and thus it didn’t make any sense for her to encourage her friend at the end.

In conclusion, a perfectly average quick read with barely any plot which in turn feels unimportant and quite nonsensical and corny, but there is at least enough character immersion and a good albeit simplistic message in it. The anime movie stripped the first thing away from the plot, thus it prevented it from carry the second with the same strength, which was already not much in the original, thus it’s a poorly made adaptation, despite its minor improvements.

Manga 5/10
Anime 4/10

Although rare, Masaaki Yuasa has some misses among his works, and Kemonozume is one of them. It was the only important show of his left for me to watch and I was surprised with how bad it was, considering he made it between Mind Game and Kaiba.

The premise isn’t very captivating, it’s Romeo and Juliet with human swordsmen and monsters, that’s it, and I couldn’t even buy the way it’s presented, I don’t believe in love at first sight, attraction? Sure, but love? Nah, which is why I never bought it in fiction either. It’s even harder to accept it in here because the two main characters just find the other in the beach and the next day they are already fucking, and that’s what the relationship between them is mostly about, having sex. Other than that, other forms of interaction between them are quite short or cut off by an action scene, no letting the viewer to really buy or be invested by this relationship. It’s even worse when you consider that the main character was a diligent man dedicated to his duty his whole life and left it all because of a woman he just met. It’s even worse when you consider that the main couple left their families and even betrayed their species as a whole for someone they didn’t even really know about for just a few days at most.

At least the show bothers to show some internal problems between the main couple later on, but even those are resolved in shitty ways. The dude cheats on her and when is found out we have the two women insulting each other with a harem or straight up hentai doujinshi level of dialogue.

And it’s not just them really. Almost every male character in this show is driven by sex, they become traitors because they want to have sex, and are even fooled and killed off because of their lust. Meanwhile every woman in this series is limited to a source of problems and just…a bitch, they are all bitches.

The only exception I found are the father and step mother of the protagonist, because although their relationship is a bit silly as well, there is a buildup and consequences because of it, and was thus easier to buy and more interesting to watch.

Leaving that aside, the setting doesn’t really make sense when you think about it, how can the world be almost the same as ours when monsters have been around it forever? And how can they stay mostly hidden and underground? Some of them do try to remain unnoticed but some just kill off humans constantly to feast on them whenever they want, they should be commonly known by everyone and society as a whole should be completely different as it’s presented.

And let’s not even waste much time in talking about the villain, he was so goofy and overpowered and even pretentious near the end of the show, and the way he was taken down was so stupid, he threw whatever little bit of sense and logic was left in the script out the window.

Also, as much as Kemonozume wants to present itself as a tragedy because of all the deaths in it, the tone is mostly silly, feeling more like a comedy than anything else, that monkey that would later on become a regular in Yuasa’s works and even own studio was the absolute worst aspect in the series.

The resolution was completely open and unsatisfactory, it can only counts as a conclusion for the action and main couple but it still does not mean anything for the rest of the world and not even assures what the main couple is going to be like going forward, who says they won’t have the exact same issues they had throughout the show just because they took down the big baddie?

The only saving grace I found in the script is everything revolving the character Kazuma, although also wanting to bone a girl throughout the whole show, he was the most proactive and conflicted character in the whole series. Also diligent, always in the shadow of his brother, wanting to prove himself the whole time, with an identity crisis and mental and physical deterioration as he finds out more about himself and how different he is from what he thought his whole life. He also tries to modernize the swordsmen with technology and way of functioning and funding, so Kemonozume at least follows all the issues he and the Kifuuken as a whole goes through with that, too bad he is incapable of anything at the end because the script had to have him being completely fooled by an overpowered antagonist and the main character being the one to solve everything. Except he doesn’t because as I said, he only cares about a monster pussy and once he assures that, he just sends everything else to fuck off.

Visually the series looks like what you would expect something from Yuasa to look like, except very very sloppy and low budget. Yes, it’s done deliberately to look that way, but that still doesn’t mean it’s a good job. The characters constantly look like deformed doodles, the backgrounds look mostly unfinished, the motions are usually weak, the whole artwork seems cheap, the coloring is rather unpolished and goes psychedelic at times for no reason, and sometimes traced live action footage is used for some reason. Which is a shame because thanks to the rare but powerful very few very well animated bits in the series, and the usual great directing you can expect from Yuasa, you can tell that they could have presented a visually quirky but still neat show. Other than that, there’s nothing here that wasn’t done way better both before and after in the other main series and movies from the director.

As for the sound, it’s only ok as well. The voice acting is ok, the sound effects and music are also just ok, nothing much to say here, the ending was the best part of it. I’m not very fond of the opening, you can find way better jazzy openings out there, this one is musically uninspired, the vocals suck, and half the lyrics are the title of the song being repeated over and over. It ends up being catchy if you don’t skip it while you are watching the show, but it’s still a pretty bad song all things considered.

As a whole, it was a big disappointment coming from Masaaki Yuasa, the script is stupid, almost all the characters are beasts in heat regardless of their species or gender, and visually it looks like the makers weren’t even trying most of the time. Kazuma elevates the whole show to be above Crybaby, and it’s definitely way better than JAPAN STINKS, but it’s still, like, the worst Yuasa Yuasa show, you know what I mean? He only directed Crybaby, and was only a co-director in Japan Sinks 2020, over here he had control of many aspects in the show, and practically none of all of them worked well. It feels more like a demo of what his filmography and directing for Crybaby would be like moving forward, only worthy to check out for someone who want to complete everything from the director, and nothing else.

Disclaimer: Although I don’t think I include any spoilers that would ruin the experience, I do talk about the aspects of the show that usually confuse viewers the most, by describing several of it plot points in perhaps more details than a first time watcher would want. For a short opinion, it is not the easiest watch and it has a lot of issues particularly near the end, but it is a worth watching show as long as you are in the proper mood for it.

Shinreigari: Ghost Hound is one of the most ambitious anime I have watched in my life, not for being very hard to understand or follow, it certainly isn’t, but for covering and tying multiple plot points, topics, themes and several character arcs together. That’s also what makes it one of the hardest anime to review I have come across so far.

The first two things to clarify about it is that although you will see the horror and psychological tags in it, and even though it appears on every recommended horror anime list or video, it is not a scary show. It has ghosts as the title implies, and sometimes they appear out of nowhere, as well as an intense atmosphere, but if you go into it expecting the level of craziness from Mononoke, the jumpscares and creepy visuals from the first season of Yami Shibai, or the dark visuals and creepiness that sometimes anime like Boogiepop Phantom and even Serial Experiments Lain have, you won’t find them here.

And also, although it is not a complicated anime to follow in its structure, theme exploration, narrative or dialogues, it is still quite complex in scope, plotlines and presentation, this is not a series you just go into casually expecting to have a good time as soon as you begin watching it, you don’t just sit and watch this show, it requires you to pay attention to all of its different elements, topics and characters, with sometimes heavy exposition of different things and terms, while it also reveals certain details and character dynamics slowly and through its visuals instead of its dialogues, it shows instead of telling crucial plot points at times. This is why some have a hard time with it or don’t like it much in the end, while they also think that several plot points were left uncovered, forgotten or without answers. That’s why I think it might have been quite the challenging watch when it was airing weekly and why it’s better to watch it now that it’s fully complete and you can dedicate all your time to watch it from beginning to end, without watching much or anything else at the same time.

That is also why it stands between a niche and cult classic status for an acquired taste, it is not deep nor complicated nor thought provoking enough for the hardest to please most critical elitists, nor entertaining nor digestible nor easy enough to watch for the more casual viewers, even more so with the current era of anime, way different from the one when this title came out.

Which is a shame because, at least partially, thematically it is a series that would caught more attention nowadays because it deals with mental health, something that is very relevant right now, and what makes this show stands out the most. It is a very rare topic to cover within the medium, and that is also what makes it a bit of a valuable title. But presentation wise, if Ghost Hound were to air nowadays, it would go mostly unnoticed for its slow pace and mostly serious tone. Also, since it is a show aired from 2007 to 2008, I would imagine that part of the real life information and investigations it uses might be outdated in the way it is presented.

Anyways, the show follows three main characters, the polite and rather shy and quiet protagonist Tarou Komori (it’s always this type of protagonists in this type of anime for some reason), the also quiet but hot tempered and rude Makoto Oogami, a distant relative of the former, as far as I understood, and the also rude but seemingly more relaxed, extrovert and more noisy Masayuki Nakajima. These three have initially a rather weird relationship, as the first two are distant and indifferent towards each other, but the third one ends up getting them closer by annoying them by questioning them about a certain tragic and mysterious incident from eleven years before the series begins, and almost forcing them to go with him to the place directly responsible of or linked to their biggest traumas. This, is what ended up making them friends, soon after one of them threatens to kill another.

The three of them had experienced a direct link with death, either as a witness and almost victim of it, or as an indirect (or direct, depending on how you look at it) responsible for it, which is what left said big traumas on them and what would be the reason why they develop out of body experiences and later on gain super powers within the Spirit Realm, an element within the show. Despite this aspect being something close to beliefs and spiritualism, the series also incorporates real experiments, treatments, studies, terms and explanations from psychology, psychiatry and neurology both within the episodes and in the post ending song teasers of the following episodes, as appendixes, despite being a television show, to explain how those incidents had a direct impact on their mental health.

Heck, as the show goes on and moves more from one element to the other, and incorporates more topics and scientific fields, those appendixes even incorporate physics and physical and chemical reactions, so the series ends up expanding to more scientific branches as well.

Shinreigari doesn’t stop there, as it also showcases the family drama each of the three main characters have, from having lost members, whose deaths also left more relatives traumatized, to dysfunctional familial relationships, to divorces, affairs, to labor and economical struggles, what they want to do or not in the future, even with one of them rejecting being the successor head of an influential religious cult. And it’s not that these elements are shown just to flesh out the main cast, they are all related to the main mystery of the plot, and they also end up integrating more side characters, making those more relevant and interconnected than they initially seemed to be. Choosing a rather small town as the main setting was a real good move in terms of writing, otherwise all these connections and relations would come off as a bit too convenient.

Anyways all these different connections, relationships, personal drama and tragic backstories is what definitely make the main trio of characters to be memorable and fleshed out, making up for their rather simple personalities and not very strong developments and catharsis. They open up, they face their biggest fears, they gain abilities, they find out more about their tragic pasts and all the deaths in them, they grow more confident and end up confronting more people, they achieve something at the end, it’s just that it doesn’t feel very impactful for them nor properly presented in series. I will come back to this later.

Other relevant characters worth mentioning include Taro’s counselor and therapist Atsushi Hirata and neurologist and part-time doctor Reika Outori, who also works at Bio-Tech with Masayuki’s father. As plot devices, they function as mouth pieces for the heaviest information, but also have objectives on their own. He initially rejects all the supernatural events happening in the show as different kinds of mental stress, but as they begin to take over and be noticeable to everyone, ends up having his own spiritual occurrences and professional and personal views challenged. She wants to find out what they are really doing at Bio-Tech, but not much else can be said about her because everything about this woman is a spoiler.

Then there is Takahito Komagusu, a lecturer at an university and head of a shrine, used to be close to Makoto’s parents and knows stuff about the Spirit Realm. He also has some interesting things to say about global warming, though his views would feel outdated watching the anime now. Honestly this dude doesn’t have much to add to the show besides information, so more important than him, is his daughter Miyako, a rather serious and mature girl who has the ability to see ghosts and practices exorcisms along with her father, and is also possessed by spirits from time to time. That’s what leads other people to be afraid of her or see her as the dead people that possess her, which is why a big part of her character is she reaffirming that she is her, not anyone else. At some point she is possessed by a certain God being mentioned in classic Japanese literature, from what I gathered, so that’s another field integrated in the plot through it.

There are more side characters with their own problems and objectives, but otherwise don’t have much of a character arc to offer to the show, they are plot devices more than anything else. I could talk about what they do but that would make me spoil a lot of things.

But how does everything and everyone comes together within the plot? It’s hard to explain without spoiling the whole show, I’ll try my best off my memory, I apologize beforehand for any details I might remember wrongly.

Several characters are behind or partially responsible for the kidnapping eleven years before the beginning of the series and the deaths, traumas and more consequences it led to. This ends up allowing a certain religious cult with important political connections to grow in influence and power under the radar, and it also leads to a dam project being cancelled. In present time, Bio-Tech is in charge of a project/program to create artificial bodies of sorts with no actual lives, but because of a sabotage and the strong spirits present in this town and the spiritual energy of its different cultists and priestesses, they do end up being alive, and their spirits, being initially rejected by natural spirits, almost cause a natural disaster by the end of the show. The dude sabotaging the project to sell the information to competitors (I think), throws the bodies to the dam, which is what contaminates the fields, and that’s why Tarou’s family struggles to produce sake. A fake writer who works for the government is investigating everything.

See? Everything comes together.

As for the visuals, being produced by Production I.G, initially the series looks quite good, though that there are some quality drops here and there, and the backgrounds and special effects are really good. The character designs by Mariko Oka are reminiscent of Jigoku Shoujo but not to the point of feeling rehashed, plus there is a lot of variety in body types, faces, even heights, something which ends up playing part of the plot near its end. Unfortunately, being the kind of show it is, there isn’t much to talk about the motions, and as the show goes on, everything starts to feel a bit sloppier than in the beginning, quality drops are more obvious, characters go off model, some of the spirits look quite ridiculous and not serious for the type of show this is, stuff like that. A very good example are the spiritual forms of the main characters, which look and sound like babies made of bubbles with huge heads and visible baby butts, and their evolved forms aren’t much better either. At least the directing is pretty good, using first person perspectives during the out of body experiences, or aligning the movements and sound effects during certain scenes, like a clock clicking just as someone moves a finger, or as the eyes of a character keep opening and closing, stuff like that.

Speaking of that, legendary anime sound director Youta Tsuruoka is the real star from the production team behind this show, even though it’s filled with big names within the industry. Shinreigari has easily one of the best and most immersive atmospheres in the medium, and it’s thanks to its great sound effects, uses of distortion, what I can only describe as spooky ghost noises, sudden silences, among many other things. Too bad this has less presence in the final episodes, as the anime loses a bit of its creepy ambiance for a more lighthearted one. The music is also quite good but not on the same level, as it is not used much because the sound effects are, thankfully, prioritized. The opening is a pretty cool jazz song and the ending is a melancholic and beautiful ballad, sung from the perspective of Miyako, if I understood the lyrics correctly. As for the voice acting, the characters talk with a certain accent, and since I’m not Japanese I can’t tell how good or bad it is, to my ears, the voices sound fitting and the performances atypical, mature and well done, except for the voice you hear the most, and thus most important. Oh poor boy Tarou, to be voiced by a very green Kensho Ono, not once did this man deliver a single line with a convincing emotion that any scene required, unfortunately he brought everyone else down.

But even though Ghost Hound does a good job in connecting so many different plot points and characters, it still isn’t a remarkable series in terms of writing for several reasons.

-The pacing is slow, and I don’t mean that in the general sense, used for when something it’s unexciting and unengaging. Several episodes are dedicated to explain certain details or terms, while the plot doesn’t move much.

-The main trio gains super powers that allows to literally kill their problems, and as the show goes on, said abilities even start working or not however it conveniently suits the plot and/or characters at the moment. Plus, only one of them has a clear reason for why his powers are the way they are. With the other two, you’ll have to explain them yourself based on minor hints.

-There’s a ghost inside Tarou’s head helping him at crucial moments, and it’s never clearly answered nor explained who that was, at best you can make your own headcanon based on vague assumptions.

-Characters give away crucial information with extreme ease to either people that more likely don’t know the beginning of what they are talking about, or to clearly suspicious others.

-Besides Tarou’s dad, who’s completely absent from the plot and themes, and perhaps Miyako’s dad, every other parent just plains sucks or is poorly handled. Makoto’s dad? Quite the ambiguous character. His mom? Impossible to feel empathy towards her, she did everything wrong and even went through and back from amnesia in just one episode (ROFL), at most I felt good for the kid, but her? Just no, terrible character. Miyako’s mom? The absolute worst. Tarou’s mom? Her problem was resolved out of screen. Masayuki’s mom? Barely even a plot device, I don’t even remember hearing her voice. His dad? He never pays for everything he does or is responsible for throughout the show, the way he goes back to his family and they act like a happy family with no issues at the end was one of the most stupid things in it.

-There is a project/program to create life, and only two people are in charge of it? And they are not even properly monitored? One of them even betrays the lab at some point. Just, no.

-Resolutions are simple and easy, especially in the last episode, which was so unfittingly silly, happy and cheesy, on top of rushed and convenient, that it felt like the series was planned to go for a little longer but had to finish sooner than expected for some reason, thus it ended up leaving a bad taste and impression.

-Related to the previous point, the antagonists in this series are some of the worst ever and you don’t even see what happens with them in the final episode.

-There is supposed to be a catharsis for everyone, but it doesn’t feel that way, the way the characters reach a conclusion for what they wanted answers for or achieve their objectives just…feels incomplete, they just kind of go: “You know what? Forget it, it’s not that big of a deal”.

As a whole, Shinreigari: Ghost Hound is one of the most ambitious and interesting anime I have ever watched in my life, covering many different themes, topics, ideas, scientific fields and branches, beliefs, several plot points and character arcs together in a way that felt overall well done, with overall good visuals and some of the best sound designs and atmospheres ever in anime. Unfortunately it loses steam as it goes on, and the writing, resolutions and character arcs have a very bad conclusion, leaving some very poor final impressions and after taste, which is why it doesn’t have a very strong rewatch value for me. It was still a worthy watch, almost to the end.