Back to 2x9's Profile 2x9's Profile

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
.
.
.
.
.
.

Let's forget about earthquakes and focus on the highlights of this show.

... Imagine, a gramps yeeting on a moped doing a 360 while shooting people with a bow and arrow.

Imagine digging for yams "7 feet" underground and getting yeeted by a bomb.

Imagine after your family member dies, you start a rap battle amongst your peers.

That's how epic this show was.

---------------------------------

The story follows an ordinary girl and her family in attempt to survive the series of earthquakes that occurred in japan. Throughout their journey, they meet new people that help her survive. Sounds all right so far? Yes. The first episode felt like it had serious intentions and seemed semi-realistic. However, the rest was a disaster.

Instead of a disaster-survival show, it would be better to call it a death-game show. Realism dropped, convenient objects spawn randomly, character intentions/emotions don't lead into the next episodes... etc.

However, overall, it was a fun watch. I was shocked to see some scenes, but they all turned to laughs.

If you liked shows that weren't intended on being a comedy, but became one, then watch this.


Now if you would excuse me, I'm going to become a youtuber and drive an amphibious tank around my neighborhood.

Two scientists find a bug in their robot that can potentially be a hazard to humanity. However, the president of the company doesn't want to retrieve the robots due to the cost of repair and so he instead tries to assassinate the scientists. But the main character, being one of the scientists, escapes and accidentally traps himself into a chamber which froze his body. Ten years later, he wakes up and finds himself in a middle of a war and realized that the world had changed.

The premise sounds tempting and filled with potential. However, the poor writing of this show ruins the show. The ... main character attempts to search for a girl throughout the show, which diverges away from the world that this show set up.

I would like to see less about this girl and more about the world, more robots, and more character development on the side characters.

From the beautiful animation to the 'sparkling' character designs, Houseki no Kuni has been one of the few 3D animated shows that people have reviewed to be a revolution of 3D animation. The visuals were marvelous but the story aided in the show's success.

The quote, "You are perfect the way you are", is perfect for this show. Phos, a bright, cheerful gem, starts off as naive, innocent, and wanting to become "useful" to others. Throughout the story, Phos constantly undergoes changes in his physical and mental state and ultimately becomes one of the strongest fighters amongst the gems. He gains respect from others, but at ... the same time, he loses a part of himself. In the last episode, he looks at his past and wishes that he could go back to the days where he was fooling around, not knowing the secrets of the world.

I really loved the writing in this story and it was thanks to the abounding dynamic characters in the story. Not only Phos, but the majority of the cast had something to give to the story and change with each episode.

Most people back off when they see the cover image of this show. But if you like stories with good writing and tons of character development, you may want to consider watching this show.

Much of this story remains down-to-earth and the girls' journey was realistic. To summarize the show, the main girl had an aspiration of one day following her mother's footsteps to Antarctica. Three other girls are introduced and they all had their own reasons to join in on the journey.

I usually don't like shows where it involves an all-girl cast and focuses on their "friendship", but this is different from the ... norm. If I had to describe this show in one word, it would be "development". Compared to an average show, the four main girls experience tremendous growth in a short amount of time. The tension created by the environment helps to carry out their inner voice as they come to be more open about their own problems they carried. Every episode in this show develops a character's personality and this is why it makes it so compelling to watch.

My eyes teared up as I sat, glued to the screen, unable to take my eyes off of each frame. I wiped my eyes over and over again until I realized that it wasn't my tears that blurred out the screen, but it was the show, intentionally obscuring the backgrounds. Dumbfounded, I thought about how much money they must have paid the artists to pour their heart and soul into these background art, only to be shrouded in an awkward veil of "camera blur". But this technique seems professional so it's fine. The art doesn't' matter as long as it looks "high quality". The story ... is where it matters, right?


Detaching from the feeling of love is extremely hard. It's painful watching this person go through so many hardships, being constantly reminded of the past.

As I unboxed my second batch of tissues, I watched each episode thinking,

"Why did such tragedy have to come? Why must the days of suffering continue, day after day, week after week, trying to prove that there was nothing that could have been done? Wasn't there anything that could change the past?"

In the end, I realized that all these thoughts weren't for the show; But it was for me who had to sit through all 13 episodes and realize that the one spark of hope would betray me. I needed to detach myself from the enticing animation to the fast-paced beauty of the PV because the show will never resemble its value. So why did I sit through the whole show? That is because,

"If a client requests it, I shall watch anything; Representing the 1-800-WeCanCureInsomnia service, I am Violet Evergarden."

This review is solely for the licensing exam arc and particularly for the first part.(No mentioning of second + further parts of the arc. It will contain MAJOR spoilers for the first part)

The first arc of this season, the camp training to the final battle between All Might and All for One, was amazing. The episodes flowed smoothly, many characters had time to be shown growth, and the story overall left an impact in the world with All Might's decision after the battle with All for One. However, the episodes that come after this culmination is a disaster.

In a battle, there are ones that ... want to show off powers and others that actually have meaning; whether it be character growth or moving the plot along. Neither traits were shown in the FIRST part of the licensing exam arc which is why it should be skipped.

This arc felt that it focused on some characters while no one really grew as a person. They showed off their moves and won the battle. That's it. There were 5 main battles: Todoroki, Momo's group, Bakugou's group, Midoriya's group, and Aoyama's group.



[spoiler]For Todoroki, he showed that he can produce fire and ice at the same time but his battle ended in 3-4 minutes with no character growth and had irrelevant filler antagonists. (Only fans of this character cares because he's sooooo cooooool)

For momo's group which felt like the longest battle, the only one who seemed to have fought is momo. Jirou fought but was following momo's orders at the end. The frog and the parasite guy did nothing. Momo could have grown a little with her mindset driven by Midoriya's actions taken in the previous arc, but her battle didn't make much sense. The supreme all girl high school wanted to entrap four yuuei students while their team had approximately eight to ten people. The rules state that in order for one person to pass, they must take down two people. So why entrap the strongest students from the area only to allow two people to pass? (Just because they know yuuei's powers doesn't mean sht. If you know someone's strength and it's strong af, would you run or fight?) Even if they meant to keep trapping other people who would come along, as more people pass, the less support the rest of the girls would get. Trapping isn't really the key to winning this part of the exam. Also when the coolers start to turn on, Momo's idea of not creating a "lighter" because the sprinklers would go off, is stupid. Create an umbrella or yet, just break the sprinklers with your hands so that you don't have to waste your limited "energy". This was one of the WORST excuses in the series.

In the last scene of the battle, the elite school girl traps momo in the room and doesn't run. Instead she decides to get points off of momo. But even if she did win the fight, she would still be short on points to pass the exam and three other yuuei students would be on her tail. In conclusion, the enemy's "smart" leader wasn't so smart after all. (Could I also mention again that the frog and parasite did nothing. Don't they feel bad for relying on others to pass entirely.)

For bakugou's battle, I liked how kaminari was the center of the battle instead of bakugou. However, why was the enemy there in the first place? He had more than 10 people lying around, all who were vulnerable. Couldn't he have passed the exam right away?

Midoriya's battle went alright. Their plan wasn't awful like momo's and it went well. They stayed in the main area (where you should be) and defeated others.

Aoyama's battle could be said that Aoyama grew as a character. He went from a coward to a bit courageous by shooting his beam to attract enemies in order to allow his friends to pass. Sure. But what confused me was when we get a glimpse of his past, we learned how... he was different? His lines states the following: "Papa Maman, Why am I different from everyone else?" "The shape of my dreams" "I always wanted to be equal"

What? What does he mean? As the viewer, I don't understand. Even Iida says this, "Aoyama, I don't know what you want to be equal with, because I don't know what you're measuring yourself up against..."

Perhaps it will be explained later on. But for now, it's an enigma which doesn't make sense. So why not skip this first part of the exam and make it a bit more conclusive?

Shindou was a one shot character that was introduced and used his power to split the class apart. Aside from that, he didn't get a chance to do anything yet. Hopefully he can get a bit more screen time later.

The wind guy is introduced then put to the side. Again, I see no point in having this first part of the exam when you can skip to the next part of the exam from the beginning. If so, the strong wind guy can knock people out IN FRONT OF the class 1A's student to show off his strength. This way, we can see how the class is affected by his supreme strength. (Also to mention that his powers are still not known to any of class 1A's students yet. So why the more not?)

Using this information, if every character (That we are supposed to care) passed this part of the exam, why include it? Their skills can still be shown off in the next part of the exam and the same would have happened, except more. If the next part decides to put in more character growth, we would not only would see their growths but their new and improved powers, which would make the show more compelling.

Lastly, I want to mention the whole first part of the exam from the rule's perspective. A student will get six balls, and have to defeat two students by hitting all three of their targets on their body. The targets have to be exposed at all times. My first problem is that this exam is the least relevant fight to what a true hero has to do in all of MHA. We've seen students have to fight robots, fight other students, and go through obstacle courses quickly. These are events which might occur as a hero but throwing a limited number of balls at people? What relevance has this to do with being a hero?

Going a bit off topic, the author has made a few mistakes in this series. I'm pretty sure he didn't like the hoodie that Midoriya wore so he kept it off on the character all the time. Midoriya has also yelled out "a million percent smash!" which wasn't really a thing. (The author claims that it's Midoriya's spirit which is bs since he never does it again i.e. it was a mistake) But not all author's are perfect and that's fine.

However, when the transforming girl took off her jacket which had the targets on, it perplexed me. Are you allowed to do that? Why doesn't every student who saw her mimic that? All they aren't allowed to do was to hide it underneath their body/clothes so why not take their clothes off and put it somewhere safe? Again, this is probably because the author wanted the comedic moment which actually harmed the premise of the exam.[/spoiler]

Overall, I didn't see any huge character growth but one could say that "this part of the exam was to show off the classes powers" or "the second part is where it gets better". My response to those statements are, why not just skip this entire part and move on to the second part? No relevant character failed the exam yet, no one grew largely as a character, and showing off their new moves in the next part wouldn't be so bad.

Coming from the amazing manga that made me laugh a lot, this anime doesn't reach its full potential.

This season wasn't going to be my favorite and was hoping that Grand Blue could save it all. However, when saw that the studio was Zero-G, I feared it to be a mediocre adaptation.

This studio has only created several shows and it still has yet to create a good one. Grand Blue could have been the adaptation that they were looking for, but they messed up pretty bad.

Starting with the low budget art and animation, the first episode was a letdown. In comedy, animation can ... be used to emphasize hysterical moments like in Nichijou. Lacking movement would create still frames and make the scene less attractive. Separate from the comedy, Grand Blue is about diving. It has the potential to create astounding scenes of the ocean, the marine life or the island, yet it did not surprise us with any beautiful scenery. Even at the moments where the character was in awe of the ocean, the art looked plain and didn't differentiate from its norm.

To add on, I especially do not like the white cloud effects that low-budget anime's use to reduce the amount of background shown for each shot. They could have used filtered-out photos and it would have looked better because of its detail.

Story-wise, it follows the manga well but I've noticed that Chisa, the main heroine, has a slightly different personality from the manga. The anime makes her seem interested in Iori, instead of being indifferent to everything but diving. Anyone else noticed this?



However, the original work still stands strong and people watching this anime can expect a good laugh. If anyone becomes a fan of this series, check out the manga as well. You'll fall off your chair, laughing to tears.

I'm a sucker for good art, especially the "Shinkai filters". Watching the PV, the only reason I wanted to watch this movie was because the studio created Kimi no Nawa.

I started to watch the film and I was bored. Very bored.

The third story was entertaining enough that it didn't manage to distract me thinking, "when is this movie going to be over?" because, for the first 2 part of the film, it did.

Hopefully, many people would agree that the third part of the film was the most entertaining and would wish that it took up the whole film's length.

This was the first show I watched this season and I was stunned.

I'm not a fan of sports anime because it usually leads to competition after competition and it gets repetitive. After the show runs out of ideas, they decided to make characters into superhumans, which isn't what we would want to watch.

But this show isn't all about sport!

The show started off on an unexpected footing where it portrayed Aragaki as a tragic heroine. She currently doesn't have a good relationship with the team members and creates an arrogant image of herself. We meet another character, Ayano, who is a prodigy and the ... person who is responsible for Aragaki's personality. The first episode builds up to these two characters well and sets the tone of the story. The episode focused more on the characters and drama rather than the main character becoming exposed to the sport and starting to flourish their passion for it.

As for the art, it doesn't emphasize the attractive features and shots of the character's body parts (Don't let the PV fool you...). I'm glad the show does this because we have seen too many shows that try to entice the audience with the characters. The art is fitting for the story because it doesn't have the over exaggerated character features and puts the focus more on the story.

For the animation, the preview was gorgeous. Most of those shots are used in the first episode, but more dynamic animations will be present in the upcoming episodes. Sports animes definitely needs eloquent animation to feel the intensity.

However, the third and fourth episodes start to weaken the show. The focus changes from Aragaki to Ayano and new characters that have unrealistic personality comes to the stage.

To conclude, I can't emphasize enough that this anime feels more like a drama with good animation than a sports anime. The first two episodes are great, however, I wasn't as amused for the third and fourth. But hopefully, this show will stand out strong until the end of the season.

------------------------------

I just finished episode six, and it's halfway through the season.
As stated previously before, episode 3 and 4, as well as 5, weren't as good. However, episode 6 came back strong and really delved deep into what it means to be a normal high school sport.

The drama between the characters is done better than most sports anime and the matches are kept realistic.

The only problem that I might have with this show is Hanesaki, as her character and the characters that revolve around her (opponents and family) really don't interest me as much.

I first saw this show on the 'later' tabs and thought that it would be interesting to see a mix between the two famous shows: Anohana and SAO. It potentially had the good story of Anohana and the actions of SAO. I then immediately look over to its original work, the light novel, and it HAD a score of 9, making me feel excited.

Out comes the preview and I was appalled. I didn't expect the artwork to be low budget and it destroyed all my hopes for this show. I also looked at the cover image and it looked like a generic "one of those" ... shows.

The first episode was poorly executed and had an unbelievable premise. The about-to-come romance between the main character and the heroine also confused me. Is the main character, now a high schooler, written in a way to like an elementary schooler? (Not to mention that children don't act like children in this show)

Besides its cringy plot and the horrible art, the characters bemused me. That's when I noticed, the story tried to mimic the Anohana characters one to one. A direct copy, except inferior!

There is the main character, the dead girl, the guy who hates the main character because he liked the dead girl, the girl who will get rejected at the end, the shy girl, and the guy who's not going to get much screen time.


So why did I decide to watch three more episodes? I'm not sure.