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Nov 12, 2025
Not nearly as hardcore as I was led to believe by the masses, to its detriment. Overall I found Goblin Slayer S1 to be a competent, if unremarkable stroll through D&D inspired fantasy anime. There is some violence, hints at a little more, but nothing crazy. Story, at its best, is very simple and (again) competent if unexciting.
The characters don't have time to be more than perhaps 2-note. I did appreciate our protagonist's logic and dedication at being really good at a specific thing and, to borrow a phrase, knowing his role. Hopefully this can improve with the addition of more episodes.
What holds this
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back for me personally is there isn't too much going on. Over the course of this handful of episodes the gang go on a couple adventures, some are 2 or 3 parters, but there was never much of an overarching narrative either on the character or story side. It very much feels like a prologue chapter (which maybe it is...?). I'd have felt pretty disappointed if I had watched this new and had no follow up to chase it with.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 19, 2025
Immediately off the bat, I think there is a lot of visual appeal. The character designs, colours, animations are all very good. If you go in blind, as I did, the story setup is quite interesting as well. Main character ends up in a parallel world mashup and so it’s quite a weird situation for the main character and viewer. Very few characters ever react in the way you expect them to and it’s fun to put together what each factions ‘deal’ is. While the story drive is not initially as driven as something like Macross, where you know what the goal is for all
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the characters at any point in the story, Orguss takes a more leisurely pace in my opinion. That being said, there's a reveal about 12 episodes in which makes things very interesting all over again and the show largely maintains the momentum until the end.
I would say the biggest issue with the show is the inconsistent characterization, and the consistency of episode to episode finer point details. At times, it felt like two different writing teams were working on it and had different ideas on where the characters were at a certain point in time. Most of the time this is not an issue, however every once in a while, there's a really weird episode that just feels 'off' in its pacing and execution. Maybe a different staff leading the production for an episode? It gives a disjointed feel and trips up the good momentum the show builds up.
It also reeks havoc on the main character’s personality more than once. He'll get very introspective and thoughtful about his responsibilities to the people around him, and then the next episode he is overly manic or depressive with little reasoning.
The ending was more than a little baffling to me. It seems to be a happy ending, though I really did not understand how these conclusions were reached and it was all over in less than a minute. An extended epilogue would have been worth it’s weight in gold, but they didn’t even play over the final end credits. There were a ton of unresolved plot points left to hang there.
Overall, I liked this show. I was going to give it a 7; it’s strengths are greater than the sum of it’s flaws, but dissatisfaction with the quality of the ending specifically makes me lean more towards 6. A fun show with interesting ideas and nice character designs, but ultimately not up to snuff in the story department and doomed to wilt in the shadow of it’s sister show Macross.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 16, 2025
Perhaps contrary to the popular opinion, I enjoyed this more than the first series.
Journey to the Legend Cup is a little more like a sports/tournament anime than Mystery of the Disk Stone, and as such it able to draw a lot more from its source material games where training and raising your monster to fight in tournaments to be the best there ever was is one of the main goals. The premise revolves around saving the soul of Holly's father, the key to doing that being a piece of the Legend Cup's Trophy. To participate in the Legend Cup you need to have won several
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other regional tourneys. Genki gets to flex his Monster Rancher skills to turn Mocchi into a lean, mean, Mocchi-ho machine. It's like the games mixed with some character drama from the first series! Excellent.
The show had a great and pretty emotional start which gives Holly, Mocchi and Genki a little more room to think than anything in the first series. After that the show largely sets into its rhythm of training, participating in a tournament, journeying to the next location where a few things happening along the way. Rinse repeat. It's pretty neat and well done; they wrapped it up right as they were starting to overdue the formula.
There is an antagonistic force in the form of remnant Warumon who weren't purified from the end of the last series. I'd say they weren't really needed in a story like this - they could have gotten by with just the challenge posed by the championship monsters, but the implementation is pretty good. It's basically an avanue to introduce monster of the week stuff (which is actually a welcomed element in a creature-feature show like this). The comedic elements in Legend Cup were also more sophisticated than previous series, and the antagonists actually bring a fair amount of that to the table.
My main letdowns were that I had hoped to see more of Venus/Pixie (she only shows up for one episode, probably due to cost...), and I think the final battle at the end could have had a few familiar faces show up to help (like Venus...) ... But these aren't massively big deals in the grand scheme of what I feel the show accomplished.
So personally overall, I found a lot to love. Several story points from the first show are resolved, older characters return for another go to show how they've changed since Mu's defeat, and its got a really satisfying ending which put a smile on my face and fond memories of the whole experience in my heart.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 14, 2025
There's nothing here to really dislike - it's just that this work never goes as far as it could have with anything if it had picked a lane and went balls to the wall with it - whether it was action, philosophical morality, mecha, or fanservice.
Character designs, animation, and voice acting are all pretty good. The setting is reasonably interesting, insofar as much as we learn about it. The best parts about about Appleseed are really the promotional artwork, and I found the antagonist very non-standard and sympathetic in motivations. He will be remembered.
I think this is worth seeing at least once, expecially if
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you are a fan of things like Bubblegum Crisis, Venus War, Crusher Joe, Riding Bean... Those all came to mind while watching, but they are all better in their totallities than this pretty but quick flick.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 2, 2025
Sitting in between the likes of Digimon and Pokemon, Monster Farm/Rancher has always been the a member of the after school monster trilogy.
It's really an okay show - the premise is pretty familiar, the characters don't really change too much over the course, and there are probably more episodes than were needed. I wish more care had been devoted to expanding the story more naturally - instead you usually get an info dump episode every once in a while, and the ending was pretty ham-fisted and convenient.
I'd love to have had it a little more like Digimon where the characters had personal problems and
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fears to work though over the course of the show, but the ones with the most baggage - Holly, Rygar, & Pixie never get to really explore it and grow. I also wish more attention was given to the state of the world - the searchers very rarely end up in towns or different countries - its mostly wilderness.
That being said, there are things to like. The monster and character designs are all pretty good, music is often great in that 90s video game style, and there were some great voice actors I recognized (this was my first time watching it in Japanese, but the English dub is extremely solid too).
You'll get the most out of this show if you are familiar with the games, particularly Monster Rancher 1 & 2 on the Playstation. A lot of the music and sound effects come from the games, and many an episode existed just to showcase the various monsters.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 17, 2025
Coming right off of Adventure Tri, I did have high hopes for Last Evolution Kizuna, but ultimately I was underwhelmed by its reuse of previous plot elements along with its introduction of one of the most ridiculous new additions of its own.
The animation is pretty striking. They went with a lighter and more subtle art style. I think I still preferred Tri, however this was a nice change too.
I really appreciated the continued evolution of the world of the Adventure Universe. Regular people are familiar with Digimon, the Chosen team are minor celebrities and work to keep unruly Digimon who cross over in-check
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(don't worry about the property damage), Portals to the Digital World seem to be re-stabilized, and Koshiro has even created new forms of digivices that double as smartphones. Very smart indeed.
Taichi seems to have forgotten what he wanted to do with his life, for some reason. This strikes me as odd considering his teacher gave his life to save him and inspired him on the path of international deplomacy by the end of Tri, which I felt was quite powerful. At least Agumon was not portrayed as a dummy in this one (one of my problems with Tri).
Sora wanting to stay out of things is quite out of character for her. She has long been portrayed as "the mom" of the group. She's up in people's business, wants everyone to be good, and won't hesitate to fight in order to keep the people important to her safe if danger is afoot. But here we get a little episode saying she just wants to be regular and arrange her flowers, while her friends and comrades risk their lives for the sake of everyone else...
Other characters get their moments - Yamato and Koshiro stand out as pretty consistent with their forward trajectory whereas Taichi seems to regress from time to time for plot purposes.
On the downsides for this story, overall it felt very derivitive of Our War Games. I will give it credit for a decently interesting my story plot that was happening for the middle section of the movie, but it ultimately came back around to an Our War Games final confrontation, only with a downer ending. That leads me to...
The count-down to Digimon partnership ending is my biggest problem with this movie, in total honesty. At best its a contrived platitude that does not fit with the setting. At worst, it introduces serious logical issues with the rules of the Adventure Universe. Suddenly, the bond between partners can be broken? They can be forcibly separated? Why? Because of who? Which system controls this?
Gennai comes literally out of nowhere just to confirm for the movie's sake that, yeah, that happens when you run out of potential (what?), before leaving it on a hanging 'buuuuut.....'. We don't see Gennai again, so this was his only purpose. Man, I miss old man Gennai. Young Gennai is nothing but bad news.
We know from the Epilogue of 02 that Agumon and Taichi are reunited, so I don't know what the point of introducing this was, and why it only affected Taichi & Yamato, meanwhile Jo has had the disposition of a 40 yr old since he was a kid, Oikawa received his partner as a full adult in 02), and we know because of the next movie about the 02 cast that Hikari and Takeru were not affected either. The whole thing seems like a misguided plot point message about growing up that does not make sense in the breath of the rest of the series logic.
So ultimately... I just don't know about this one. Maybe better off forgotten?
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 17, 2025
This was put forward as a send-off for the 02 cast. The problem is that this movie is not about the 02 cast - it's about the brand new characters Lui & Ukkomon whom the 02 cast ran into completely by chance. None of 02's cast get personal arcs or meaningful developments (which is something at least Last Evolution Kizuna had). It was nice at least to see Daisuke, Takeru, & Hikari working in the jobs they'd end up with by the time the 02 epilogue rolls around, but I have to say it was pretty slim pickings overall.
Animations and music were well done,
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on par with other modern entries in the series.
Lui and Ukkomon have a pretty tender story that was a little interesting, but we get too little information on who or what Ukkomon is related to, nor where it fits in relation to Homeostasis or Yggdrasill. Megumi Ogata and Rie Kugimiya give great performances.
Retconning origins of Chosen Children and the relationship with their partners is something I take a very dim view of. Digimon adventure was very specific on the origins of the original team's Digimon and how they were made in a lab specifically for each child. Tri introduced many more elements that built off questions from the first two series and left room to build or expand - I don't think Ukkomon was it.
The fighting in this movie is quite contrived - really the problem was solved by talking, which is fine, but then they had to fight a bunch of tentacles because Ukkomon couldn't just stop, despite seemingly have the power to do everything else it wanted to do.
I gave it a pass here, but there was also no explanation on how they are able to Jogress - in 02 it is explicitly stated by Gennai that Jogress Evolution was being powered by Tailmon's holy ring, which is why he waited until the end of the series to return it, stating that Jogress would not be needed anymore now that the Digital World had been cleansed of the dark powers that inhibited evolution in that series. (I haven't seen Return of Diabolomon, so forgive me if that movie introduced reasoning for this).
Finally, the dissolution of digivices. How do you come back from this? They weren't just symbolic proof of a bond between human and Digimon as this movie tries to put forth - they are direct interface points with Digimon and the Digital World. They were just getting even more interesting as Koshiro was making adjustments to them. Well, good luck to Koshiro if he needs to download or restore data in the future, get in touch or be informed of new Chosen partners in the future for is database network, etc. etc. Kizuna was bad enough for introducing a ridiculous countdown clock for partnerships ending, but now I guess that's off the board. (Maybe that's for the better actually.) Still, I really don't know how you come back from this. Digivices have been an integral, load-bearing piece of the setting for the Adventure Universe and now without them... Where are we going? How will Digimon evolve? The animation sequences alone are in total limbo now. I suppose a determined writer could find a way, but they've sure made it difficult for themselves.
The cast have all entered adulthood now, there are plenty more possible stories to tell, the casts of both 01 and 02 are beloved - seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot right as they get to new story possibilities. I do hope there's more from the Adventure universe. I want some of those teases and threads from Adventure Tri to get picked up.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 9, 2025
I struggled to get through this one, honestly. While I love the premise, the execution struggles to rise above mediocrity. Not surprisingly the final arc is interesting, getting there was quite the chore. The plot plods along at a leisurely pace and it was a little hard to get excited episode to episode.
Character designs are pretty NPC-looking, even for the main characters. The mecha overall is pretty well designed, though I never warmed up to the titular Galient. Animations and encounters lack intensity and emotional content. Very often things could feel ploddy or boring. The music was also extremely forgettable outside the OP/ED themes.
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It tries to set itself as a serial series (like Giant Gorg) but the places it chooses to end episodes are so strange and narratively off putting most of the time.
Overall, cannot see myself ever wishing to go back and rewatch this one. This series did have three OVAs (two condense the plot of the show into two parts - haven't watched them, but maybe it would feel better edited down). The third OVA is a reimaginging of the series story - I would recommend checking that one out. It fixed a lot of my problems with the series, it's only flaw is it's only an hour and change, so not enough time to really dig into things. Execution-wise it blows the series out of the park.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 3, 2025
Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought the English re-edit of this move as part of Digimon The Movie would have made the content of this movie MORE understandable.
The art design is stellar and the animation top notch. Where this loses me completely are in the music and the story.
Throughout the movie we are treated to a bizarre mix of jazz Noir and very offbeat country music. This isn't a bad thing in concept but in execution. The music never changes to match the feeling or content of the scene. It drones on without a care. It would be a little impressive if
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it wasn't so damaging to the experience. I think the only movie specific song that works is the end credits.
As for the story, I'll just say we never actually get any idea what the root cause of the conflict is in this. In the Digimon Movie, they at least linked it into a computer virus who refused to die, but in this original version we get nothing of the sort. It's clear /something/ was the cause...
The movie plods along at a sleepy pace, and other than Wallace, none of the characters even know where they're going or what they're going to do. It's very strange an unfulfilling, contrasting with now nice it looks. Overall, this is a far cry from Our War Games.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jan 20, 2025
I started out with quite high hopes for this anime. I have a great passion for Japanese history - particularly for the Sengoku period, have enjoyed many of Kawamori's projects, and indeed my favorite anime, Vision of Escaflowne seemed to share a lot of DNA with Nobunaga the Fool. Unfortunately my hopes were not ultimately upheld due to pacing and a lack of character drive and presence.
It feels like the show needed much more time to let things breathe and move naturally. Things happen too fast, and important elements are frequently glossed over - things like why is this army attacking/retreating, did they just
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kill this enemy General or not? Especially by the end, I was feeling like a lot of stuff was half-baked.
Similarly - and most importantly in a mecha drama - character relationships are not given the time they need to grow and become meaningful. By the end we were making some pretty big jumps and I was rolling my eyes waiting for it to wrap things.
I will say, the setting is a very enjoyable mix of history and fantasy. If you are familiar with sengoku history you'll be able to appreciate how they've adapted it and how they've deviated from historical record and how the presence of these other historical characters throw a wrench into things (even if most are ultimately rather milquetoast).
The designs are nice, both character and mecha, though the animations can be hit or miss. Sometimes it's great and kinetic, sometimes it's really hard to follow and things just seem to reach an endpoint with missing steps inbetween.
Music is quite good when it kicks in.
Overall I daresay it would've been a good contender for a 50-episode show - I wouldn't say no if they decided to do a 50 ep remake, if such a thing existed in the anime industry anymore. Alas.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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